Performance: Its not a dirty word

Recently there were two things going through my mind (yes, only two!). One was the conference I had recently been to where I had to yet again negotiate and explain the way the musicians were behaving on stage, some believing that we have drifted into the realm of performance etc. The other thing that was going through my head was the U2 concert that I was watching on TV.

Let me reflect firstly on U2. The question I wanted to know was “why were these people at the concert?”. It was not to listen to the music, as they could download this on iTunes. It was not to see the “U2 show”, as I was watching that for free in my living room. So why spend the $X hundred dollars for a few hours of entertainment? It would appear that there is something about the concert experience that works. I want to say that that experience is ‘church’.

That is to say that the U2 Concert is church (keep reading, I am not a heretic…yet). The word that we use to translate to church is ekklesia. Simply it means to “call to assembly”, hence the crowd or mob in Acts 19:32 is described as an ekklesia. U2 is a group gathered together, but it is not a Christian church, it is a U2 church. It is gathered by U2 for U2. A Christian church is gathered by Jesus for Jesus. The centre of U2 church is the music with some monologues from Bono. The centre of the Christian church is the Word with some music in teaching, expressing, praising and encouraging as well as some other experiences such as prayer.

My point is that both are churches, but both are different. Performance is at the centre of U2 church. But where does that leave performance in the Christian church?

Allow me to turn to the supreme authority on the English language (what’s the icon for tongue in cheek?) dictionary.com

Performance:
1. a musical, dramatic, or other entertainment presented before an audience.
2. the act of performing a ceremony, play, piece of music, etc.
3. the execution or accomplishment of work, acts, feats, etc.
4. a particular action, deed, or proceeding.
5. an action or proceeding of an unusual or spectacular kind: His temper tantrum was quite a performance.
6. the act of performing.
7. the manner in which or the efficiency with which something reacts or fulfills its intended purpose.
8. Linguistics. the actual use of language in real situations, which may or may not fully reflect a speaker's competence, being subject to such nonlinguistic factors as inattention, distraction, memory lapses, fatigue, or emotional state.

But let me begin with the idea of “Performance is the execution of action.”

Let us apply this to preaching. Is preaching performance? If it is the execution of an action, yes. Though when we think of performance many of us have more than just the execution, there is a premeditation in the way that action is executed as well as that it is executed. Again can we see this as preaching? How many of us have practiced our sermons, even in front of a mirror? How many of us should be practicing, keeping in mind that some 80% of communication is non-verbal?!

In this sense music leading is performance, as any other part of church is. The real question is “Is music leading and playing merely helping the congregation technically or are there other dimensions to the leading, like modeling passion, etc.?”

Again if we apply the same principles to preaching I would say many of us would say there is more than just reciting the words on the page. How we say them means something (would love to debate this below, if anyone is up for it). How we sing is as important as what we sing.

Of course there are places we can go in terms of performance of music that can be just plain wrong.

Firstly, if the ‘performance’ is not honest. Applying this to the passion of musicians, if the muso is not passionate about what he or she is playing or singing about then it should not be put on. This is just a lie.

As a side point I think this is one of the places we are uncomfortable when it comes to the use of the word ‘performance’. When I perform as an actor, it is my character, not me that is performing. I.e. if my character is married on stage, it does not mean that I am married in reality. There is a longer debate to be had about whether I am morally responsible for my characters actions: i.e. if I kill another character night after night on stage, have I as a performer committed murder? All this being said, musicians are not actors and what we see on stage we expect to be the person. When we find out that performers personas and personal lives do not match then we have disappointment (Brittany was not a virgin??). This is even more serious for preachers (do I need mention Jimmy Baker?) and Christian musicians.

Secondly, if what is being done by the musician does not glorify God. I would encourage all musicians to have John 3:30 as their creed (look it up!) or consider this story from Frank Gaebelein (author of The Christian, the arts and truth):

“A distinguished artist had completed a canvas of the Last Supper. All was done with great skill, and the chalice in particular had been portrayed most beautifully. As one after another of the artist’s friends looked at the painting, they said “what a beautiful cup!” Then the artist realized that he had diverted attention from the Lord. Taking his brush, he painted out the gorgeous chalice and substituted for it a more quietly beautiful but far less obtrusive one. So should it be with music in worship.”

At the end of the day we do not want church to be U2 church but Christian church, however, I think that musos can serve us well by being more than merely technical leaders and help us sing from our souls as well as our heads.

Organic Church

I have found a 'friend'!

For some time I have been advocating and teaching that there are a number of dimensions to the idea of church: visible and invisible, universal and local, etc. The dimension that is new is "organic or relational verses organizational".

The idea here is that there are two ways of looking at a church. One is the organisation: who is in charge, who leads, who is accountable to what, etc. The other is relational: who influences who, who is connected to who. I have been suggesting for some time that the organic church needs to determine the organizational aspect of church.

Now I have found a 'friend'! I have been reading through Organic Church by Neil Cole. This is a book that has a lot of theological holes through it, but is also very stimulating in his assertions and questions. On pages 125-26 he uses two illustrations that make my point very well.

The first is the difference between an endoskeleton and exoskeleton. An exoskeleton is on the outside of an organism, it will always hinder the growth of the skeleton as the organism grows into it. An endoskeleton is on the inside of the organism and helps and supports the organism as it grows. The structure is there to support the organic nature of the body. When the structure determines the relationships then the church will be destined to be hindered in its growth.

The second is the difference between pipes and water. When we enjoy the water out of our taps we say 'nice water' not 'nice pipes'. Again the structure is there for what is important.

The trick is working out how to make structures work for the organic nature of church. I think the best way as I have observed other churches is from time to time to blow them up and start again. Usually this will cause pain and anxiety, as it rightly should, but it also cause excitement and creativity and these can be great things for God's kingdom. It will also stop people from being too attached to their structures, something I am sure all of us in ministry are prone to!!

In his book Confessions of a Reformissional Rev. (p141 ff) Mark Driscoll points out that churches usually go through four phases:

1. The Creative Phase: the dream stage
2. The Management Phase: the reality stage
3. The Defensive Justification Phase: the failure stage
4. The Blaming Phase: the death stage

His point is that unless a church is forced to go from phase 2 to phase 1 again it will go on to phases 3 and 4. So he put a 'jackhammer' to his church to stop this from happening. Not a bad idea.

Anyone else had personal experience in this?

Just how arrogant IS the Religion of Consumerism?

My wife and I have been agonising over the whole issue Halloween. That was until I watched an expert on Halloween (is that a real job?) being interviewed about it and was asked about "where did Halloween come from?" his answer included some fruitloop ideas about reaching the netherworld, but then my ears pricked up when he mentioned historically it came from a Christian celebration of "All Saints" (not the TV show - all the people who had died for the faith. This would make sense since today is also "Reformation Day".

So here is the question: if Halloween is really about celebrating those who died in the faith or even the pagan celebration of reaching the nether world, where did "trick or treat" come from???

I have a suspicion that it is the same place that brought Santa into centre stage at Christmas, the Easter bunny and his chocolates for Easter and now pictures of ghosts and witches and lollies for Halloween: Consumerism.

Since reading Brian Rosner's work on greed, I am more and more convinced that consumerism is a religion in its own right: with it is temples (shopping centres), priests (marketers), and religious celebrations (sales). But I have just realized how syncrenistic it is. It does not seek to oppose Christianity, just subsume it: Let's not get rid of the Christian days of celebration, let's just change to focus to something that well....people have to buy!!

Brothers and sisters, we must be careful. I fear it is only a matter of time before we start going to church that is sponsered by big Corporations!

On the other hand there are places this could work. We could have Virgin youth groups, Communion brought to you by Jamie Oliver, Ikea pulpits (though it would take the preacher 20 min to assemble before he could preach), The doctrine of Adam's sin: brought to you by Apple.

I am sure there are others...anyone have ideas?

Why Jesus is NOT a good teacher

I come across a lot of people who will describe Jesus as a 'good teacher' meaning he is merely so and nothing else. I have started to ask these people 'how well do you know his teaching?' to which they give very vague answers. I would like to ask them 'if he is such a good teacher, why don't you follow his teaching or at least know it?'. If you look at Jesus' teaching you will see that he is not a good teacher at all. Here are three reasons why:

Firstly, Jesus spent a lot of his time preaching in parables. The reason for this is not to make things clear to people, but rather the opposite, to make things unclear to people.

“When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
so that, “ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’’”” (Mark 4:10-12 NIV)

One really needs to ask what sort of teacher makes things unclear to the general public, but selects a few people to give his 'secret teaching'. The answer is a biased teacher who has favorites! If Jesus is merely a teacher there are some moral questions he needs to answer and the good in the 'good teacher' should be questioned.

Secondly, we see that within this select group we see a complete failure of the students to understand what is going on:

• Peter is referred to as Satan for not understanding Jesus' mission of going to the cross (e.g. Mark 8:33). And the rest of the disciples are not much better (e.g. Luke 18:34)
  
• Despite the fact that Jesus repeated mentioned that he had to rise from the dead, the disciples are completely surprised when he does (e.g. John 20:9).
  
• They do not understand the significance of what Jesus is doing in his miracles and what they say about him (e.g. Matt 16:9)
• When he spends an extended amount of time with them the night before he is about die, they still don't get what is going on (e.g. John 16:18)

After spending several years with uni students I know that it is not always the teacher's fault if the students do not understand what is going on. But when all the students do not get it, there are some questions that need to be asked. If Jesus is a good teacher then he should be able to communicate what is going on to his students in a way they can understand.

Finally, there the interaction with the man who actually calls Jesus a 'good teacher'.

“As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” (Mark 10:17-18 NIV)

Here is the logic of the 'good teacher':

1. No-one is good by God alone.
2. If I am a good teacher, I therefore must also be God incarnate
3. If I am not God incarnate, I therefore must be a bad or at least incompetent teacher, so why are you bothering me?

Hence if you follow the teaching of the 'good teacher' then you have a ego manic (not a good teacher) or at least a guy who thinks he is God and if he is wrong is delusional (also not a good teacher in case you missed that one).

The point I am making is simple. You can only think that Jesus is merely a good teacher if you have not actually read his teaching and probably have no idea what he is on about. If you have read his teaching you are confronted by a man who claims he is God and is focused on his work on the cross. I happen to think he is a very good teacher, which means I also think he is God who has saved me from my sin.

Guilt: Not being so guilty about hell

"I hate it when Christians talk about hell. They shouldn't make people feel guilty"

I have heard Christians and non-Christians make this statement and there is something about it that I resonate with. But as a Bible teaching seeking to focus on Jesus, it is very hard not to talk about hell. He had a lot to say about it!

But then I realised the other day while watching TV that I am not the only one who will utilize guilt. While watching TV over a 24 period (I wasn't watching it for 24 hours!!) here is what I was made to feel:

• I am a bad father for not having the safest car on the market, which apparently is a Mercedes S Class.
• I am a bad husband for not arranging life insurance to pay for my funeral.
• I am a bad person for not supporting the starving in Africa.
• I am a bad father again for drinking beer in front of my kids and not making a Bridgestone tyre swing for them.

I am glad I am not a smoker or I would be hammered!!!

I am not against the advertising world for using guilt for these products. I think it is entirely appropriate. They are the kinds of things that I should at least aspire to get right. Indeed one only needs to think of the AIDS ads with the grim reaper going bowling to see how effective they can be.

As a side note, can you imagine pitching that one: "Well there is a grim reaper and he is bowling but the pins are people, we were going to go with playing darts...but well....it was pretty messy."

But back to my issue: the point is when we talk about hell - something that is more important and has bigger implications (forever is a pretty long time) then we need to talk about what's at stake and not feel guilty about it.

Why does everyone else get to do it and we don't??

Training Gen Z

The great evangelist D. L. Moody returned hometo his wife from an evening of preaching the Gospel.

"How did it go?" she inquired.

"2 1/2 converts" he replied.

She pondered on the unusal reply for a moment and then worked it out. "Oh, so how old was the child?"

"No, two children and one adult" She gave him a quizzical look. "The adult's life is nearly half over, but the children have their whole life ahead of them to serve Jesus" he explained.

That little anecdote changed the way I saw children's ministry. Especially the children's ministry I am involved with, namely with my kids.

So my 5 year old son, Calvin, and I instituted a new tradition called "Phenology Time" (should be Theology Time, but he mispronounced it once and it has stuck!). We spend about a hour or so on a Friday afternoon doing something together about the Bible. This is on top of our daily reading the Bible and praying. Part of this is that I thought I should be training him because he is my son, part of this is that I did not have a ministry apprentice at uni this year and train people because...that's what I do.

We have done a poster of the time line of the Bible, made a prayer diary for him to pray through, done a lego picture story of Esther and are currently working on a video of one of his favorite Christian songs.

Anyway the reason I mention this is that it is starting to pay off. He has been giving me feedback on my talks for a little while now. "You should say this next time you talk about Jesus...". Some of his feedback is more helpful than some adults!

But the big highlight was this week when he announced at dinner that he would like to be baptized.

"Do you know what that means, little mate?" (my name for him)

"Yep, it is what friends with Jesus do."

"Right, but you know there is nothing special about the water don't you?"

"Yep, it is about making promises and praying. But I, dunno, I just like the idea of the water."

I wish some of my friends in ministry had as clear view of the sacraments as a 5 year old!!

Has the Game Changed?

The new theological lines

In the old days (when I was growing up) there were basically four Christian camps you could be in. These were largely determined by the Wesleyan quadrilateral of authority.

If the Bible was the source of your authority then you were evangelical and you were concerned on getting truth right and seeing people become Christian.

If tradition was your source of your authority then you were Catholic or High Church and you were concerned with making sure we kept doing what were doing 50 years ago.

If rationalism was your authority then you were liberal and you were concerned with making sure Christianity was in touch with culture, mainly through social action.

And if experience was your authority then you were charismatic and you were concerned with getting the latest experience: tongues, blessings, the latest CD or cool hair cut.

But now the lines have changed. However, many of us are still playing as if the are not. It is like we were playing rugby and don’t understand why there are now 4 vertical sticks, not two and there is no offside (The game changed from rugby to AFL if you are missing it!).

While we used to have charismatic, evangelical, liberal and high church clearly marked out we cannot work in these categories any more. Let me offer three illustrations, there are more but I am a preacher so there must be three points!

Firstly, Gen Y, as it is known, has made social action more important and more importantly cool. The globalisation of society and meant that Gen Y is more connected to the rest of the world in a way that previous generations are not. (Interestingly, this has lead to a downturn in nationalism but I am not sure what to make of that.) As such globalisation has meant that people are more concerned about “Making Poverty History”, “Live 8”, and the whole Bono thing! Social action no longer for the lefty, out there, vegetarian anymore as it was for Gen X; it is for anyone who is cool! This has made its way into our churches with the growth of Compassion, churches making sure they are ‘green’, etc. This means that evangelicals are now seeing an increasing role of social action in their community, not replacing evangelism, but sitting comfortably with it. Hillsong likewise used to be clearly in the charismatic camp, but now is doing much more in terms of social action.

Secondly, we see popular evangelicals having charismatic experiences. Mark Driscoll is the most popular of these with his own “charismatic with a seat belt” label. Though others are similar. I have still not worked out where to put Louis Giglio, even though he will be in Sydney next month with the Passion event (Oct 21, Ent Cent). He preaches an evangelical message but when I have spoken to his staff appears to have a charismatic approach to making decisions about where he goes and what he does.

Thirdly, new players on the scene don’t seem to fit anywhere. What do we make of the New Perspective, Emerging, Emergent churches? Is Tom Wright an evangelical? If he is not then what do we call him? Emergent churches appear to want to borrow from everyone: mysticism from the high church, interaction with culture from liberalism, experience mainly of community from the charismatics and something with the Bible from evangelicals. Though they do this with varying degrees of success, it makes them very hard to label!

If the game has changed, how do we play? Here are some suggestions:

1. Be aware that the lines have shifted. I am concerned, as I mentioned before that we have not acknowledged that the game has changed at least a little. We are therefore quick to label people who seem to hold a characteristic of another camp. I fear this is leading to the wrong fights. I am not against fights, just against ones that don't have to be fought. Rather than having the fight over evangelical v charismatic (both of whom we do not know exist anymore), we might need to have the fight between evangelical cessationists and evangelical non-cessationists.

2. It would be nice to say we should ignore labels altogether, and assess everyone on their own merits. But frankly this is not realistic. There are too many people to do this and we need to be able to identify who we need to be wary of and who we should warn others to be wary of. We probably need to come up with a new set of labels: New Calvinists, Emergent, Attractional Megachurch, etc. But someone smarter than me needs to do that!

3. Be careful of using words in derogatory ways. Doing social action does not make someone a liberal anymore, anymore than having an unusual experience makes them charismatic. For example, I am no longer sure of what to make of people raising their hands when they are singing, though 10 years ago they were clearly charismatic. Again, I am no longer sure how to 'label' Hillsong, though some of the things they do are good (did he just say that? I think he did, blogging must be making him soft!).

4. The Wesleyan quadrilateral is not something we should throw out. But it does need some modification. The question is what is at the heart of what you are doing? I believe evangelicals may have some experiences, do social action, etc. But what is driving them? The Gospel. Why? Because their final authority is the Bible. I suspect this means that Louis Giglio would be regarded in the old labels as charismatic. He wants to give people an experience that will change them in the Passion events. That being said, I guess I have to put KCC in the same basket!

Any thoughts on how the game has changed?

Christ and Culture and Complexity

I have been trying to write a Bible study assessing the "missional v attractional church debate" going around and found some big problems.

Firstly, the purpose of the church is not clearly articulated in the New Testament. It is assumed, but there is never any statement that the church should be seeking to evangelise to the world as a church. (Though I think it should, but that is a longer point). The point here is that unless you have a clear doctrine of church you cannot work out what the relationship should be.

Secondly, is that the relationship between the church and the world is fairly complex. This has been illustrated by Carson in Christ and Culture Revisited, where he assesses Neibhur and others who have tried to develop models of considering the relationship. While this is a dense book, and largely assuming a US audience it is worth persevering. Here are some of the models that have me thinking:

There is of course the idea that the church can transform the world and it is here to do so. While this can be taken to its nth degree in the social gospel advocated by Gustavo Gutierrez it can also be taken in smaller degrees. For instance the church can seek to change the world to be a little more like heaven, while acknowledging it will never quite succeed (see Phillip Jensen’s talks on the Resurrection from Matthias Media for an example of this).

Abraham Kupyer has a different approach and that is that it is not the church, but Christians who seek to change the world and makes a distinction between them. Hence while he sought to establish Christian schools and Christian universities they were not church institutions. This keeps the purpose and the identity of the church unique. My question here is do Christians need to address the world as a church from time to time? For example the Australian government will soon review the laws on R rated computer games being available in Australia. While I am planning on getting my Christian friends to lobby against this, should I also ask the Christian leaders of denominations to do so as well as representatives of the church?

At the other end of the scale we see Darryl G. Hart and Frederica Mathewes-Green. They argue that “we have about as much chance of influencing culture as we do of changing the weather”. What we need to do is rather seeking to help people change things, help people weather the inevitable storms. Hence the church and Christians have no place in seeking to transform culture. I believe this is what Driscoll can accuse people of the church merely being a parasite on culture. We are not contributing and we have so much to contribute! On marriage, relationships, work, and especially on the subject of rest in a stressed out world. Further it makes the assumption that just because it cannot be done does not mean it should not be attempted (see my previous post).

My final approach is my own and it works like this: a couple of equations. By contextualisation I mean not just understanding the world, but actually getting our hands dirty and being involved in it. Jesus did! By confrontation I mean the inevitable confrontation that takes place when people talk about Jesus as his lordship confronts people who should be under it.


Contextualisation - Confrontation = Liberalism
The church is merely another part of the world, it has no relevance to the world because it is only a part of it.

Confrontation – Contextualisation = Alienation
The church confronting the world with the Gospel without being a part of the culture it is in means that it will be ignored by the culture and therefore alienated from the society. I am sometimes asked why the church is not persecuted more and wonder if the reason is that we have been alienated instead.

Contextualisation + Confrontation = Persecution
If you are a part of the world and yet confront it with the Gospel then there will be some conflict that takes place. I have put persecution here as the result. But this is only because it makes my equation look cool! There is another possibility as articulated by Carson:

"The complexity will mandate our service, without insisting that things turn out a certain way: we learn to trust and obey and leave the results to God, for we learn both from Scripture and history that sometimes faithfulness leads to awakening and reformation, sometimes to persecution and violence, and sometimes to both." Christ and Culture. Pp227-228

Still have not worked it out yet other than, it is really complex. Or in the words of Diver Dan of Sea Change (one of my heroes) “Hmmm…tricky!”

Success v Glory

I have been struck by the difference between seeking glory for God and seeking success. Most, including I, often put the two together. The more numbers in a ministry the more glory it brings to God. But watching the movie 300 I was challenged by this.

For those that missed it, 300 is about the battle of Thermopylae in 480BC. Where 3,300 Greeks held off the Persian army of 80,000 for three days. (The numbers on both sides were exaggerated for the movie - that's what makes it a cool movie!).

In the movie, there is a scene where a Greek scouting party sees the Persian army that it will take on later that day. There are 300 Spartans and a few other Greeks including Arcadians. There are 1 million Persians. In the scouting party an Arcadian and a Spartan react differently to the situation at hand. The Arcadian sees the army and says "There can be no victory here". There is no chance of success. And he was right, after 3 days the Greeks were slaughtered.

But, the Spartan smiles. He sees a chance not of success but glory for Sparta and himself. For him success is not the same as glory. Glory is about showing how great someone or something is. While the Greeks were slaughtered, they did so at the cost of around 20,000 Persians!

I think we often mistake the two in serving God. We do not have to be successful. What we have to do is show how great God is. Sometimes that will mean walking into a situation that we have no hope of success, because it is the right thing and that's what God's people do. We bring glory to God!

Confessions of a Reluctant Blogger

I have to admit that I have avoided the whole blogger thing. I have not read many, I have written on fewer and thus far refused to join the trend. So what changed?

Firstly, I need to write. This is not some self indulgent, I need to express myself thing. It is that I need to write stuff down to work out what I think. I might as well do this in a place where people can tell me I am right or wrong.

Secondly, people have said I should. And I am a sheep and do what people tell me to! No really, people have said "you should write that down" when I have said things, and since I have a memory like a gold fish I thought "Hmmm....maybe I should....now if only I could remember what I just said, and who you are, and who I am that should work well!"

Thirdly, there does seem to be a change in what people read, how they read it and all that sort of stuff. And if that is the case then I should get involved. I guess....