Frank wrote the original version of the book back in 2003. He aims to challenge most of the practices of regular American Protestant and Pentecostal worship, claiming that they are postbiblical, postapostolic and mostly influenced by pagan culture. Joining him for the January 2008 edition is George Barna, following up his critique of the Protestant obsession with Sunday morning worship in Revolution.

I agree with the need for critiques of what have become standard church practices: the church building with the concept of “sacred space”, pastor’s chair, stained glass windows, Gothic cathedrals, steeples, pulpits and pews, the Sunday morning order of worship, altar call, written liturgy, choir anthems, the concept of a contemporary sermon, the concept of clergy and laity, contemporary ordination, title of pastor, special standards of clothing for church attenders, special special clothing for celebrants, tithing, clergy salaries, collection plates, ushers, infant baptism, sprinkling rather than immersion, baptism separated from conversion, the sinner’s prayer, use of the term “Personal savior”, the condensation of the Lord’s supper.

While the critique provided by Frank and George is in many cases over simplified, the point is clear. Nearly all 21st century church practices are human inventions, developed in the years since the writing of the Scriptures we claim to be based on.

Frank often says that he is no armchair theologian. He time and time again refers us to the practice followed in the fellowships he has been connected with, in which members spontaneously choose songs, share insights and concerns, and pray for one another.Frank’s focus reminds me of The Open Church, published by James Rutz back in 1992.

Critiquing the Critique

My concerns about the style and content of Pagan Christianity?

1. The use of the term “Pagan” to perjoratively label attempts at contextualizing religious practice in contemporary settings, be it 2nd century or 21st century. This seems to be a continuation of the “Us and Them” concept of “Gentile” - anything that doesn’t come out of the New Testament simple church setting. Sure, many practices have their origin in Greek and Roman settings. The same could be said for the models of gathering and worship experienced by Christians in New Testament times.

2. What appears to be an assumption that all-member ministry should happen mostly when we meet together. I share the concerns that the larger our gatherings get, the smaller ratio of meaningful participation. However we rely far too much on the one to two hours in which most churches, large or small, formal or informal. Who really cares how we choose songs, or whether our Bible studies are led by a leader or free flow? I can’t imagine Jesus quizzing us on these things at the end of time.

3. The constant harking back to a New Testament model of church gathering. Unlike the authors, I am reluctant to make broad generalisations about the way the hundreds of Christian fellowships in the first century met and gathered. There appears to have been a generous variety in the forms of worship, teaching, witness and serving from place to place. There were communities who would have brought with them the expectations of the Jewish synagogue. And there were communities who came from a Greek non-Jewish perspective who would have brought other expectations. Frank and George dismiss connections with synagogue worship, claiming that the early Christians had an approach to gathering that was totally unique to the culture, and that synagogue worship was a human invention. Is there any other kind of invention?

4. The common Protestant treatment of the early church (before the Reformation) as belonging to the Roman Catholic church, as if it was to be feared and distrusted. For one, I don’t believe the early church was as uniform in its practice as we sometimes think. And two, the lessons learned over the first 1500 years are part of my heritage as a Protestant.

5. The suspicion of anything that wasn’t in the scriptures comes across as simplistic and naive. Some of the practices named in the book as damaging to the healthy functioning of Christian community are indeed so. But I would say that each of these practices was at some point a creative engagement with contemporary society. Our problem is not so much an engagement with “non-Biblical” environments, it’s more the rigidity with which we have clung to the traditions that have formed.

Now I’ve finished the book, it’s time to lay my hands on the sequel, Reimagining Christianity. See more from Frank Viola at Present Testimony Ministry, Frank Viola’s blog, The Barna Group, Pagan Christianity, and Reimagining Christianity.

This video follows the journey of a filmmaker—an “everyperson”—who is on a journey of discovery. It’s done in music video style, largely with scenes and visual metaphors cut to match the pre-existing soundtrack.

The audience has a “behind-the-scenes” view of a film being assembled—and part of the visual strength is the sheer number of assets that the filmmaker has collected—countless images, interviews, journeys, and travels.

Script: Greg Ferguson @ 2008 Greg Ferguson
Original Score: Jay McNeill @ 2008 suitcasemusic. All Rights Reserved
Produced by Dave Schwarz Video @ 2008 Willow Creek Association

The video can be purchased on a DVD from Willow Creek Association.

Worship and Mission

It’s not about making worship more exciting. It’s more about connecting worship with an all-week lifestyle of mission. In the past I’ve been involved in introducing new technologies for worship, including the visuals Fuzz talks about. But I strongly relate to the questions Fuzz raises here.

The Work of the People

Does your theology come from a system or from Jesus?

I picked Tony up from the Brisbane airport on Wednesday morning and dropped him back there on Friday afternoon. We turned up together to a gathering of Baptist church planters, a couple of ecumenical gatherings in Brisbane, and a Uniting Church conversation on the Gold Coast. I got to hear four versions of the Emergent Village schtick, which Tony kindly varied each time for the sake of keeping my interest up.

Here’s a few of my impressions on the Emerging Church, which I wrote for Ashmore Uniting Church newsletter this weekend…

Freedom to Explore Questions

One of the most common questions I’ve heard people ask Tony is, “How would you know if you’ve become unorthodox?” That’s because a number of authors from the Emerging Church movement have challenged readers to reconsider what we mean by the Christian gospel? Is it all about God dealing with our sin? Or are there other ways to describe the good news of the kingdom of God? And what are our blind spots when it comes to the way we run our church?

Wells rather than Fences

One of the hallmarks of the emerging church movement is a tendency to be relaxed about who’s in and who’s out of activities run on behalf of the church. People are invited to connect with Christian community who may not consider themselves as followers of Christ. People are accepted as friends of Jesus rather than assessed on correct doctrine or behaviour. It’s a bit like the difference between keeping animals behind fences and attracting them to watering spots. Of course, as one of the Baptists pointed out, that concept has been around for a while and is not monopolized by the Emergent movement.

Relationships Count

Tony talked about the role we have as ambassadors of the good news of reconciliation. As Christians we tend to associate with people who agree with us. The easiest way to keep the peace is to choose a pre-determined set of beliefs and try and stick to those. When we start to get to know each other more we find that there’s a lot more variety in the way people think and act. And as a result we have a lot to learn about being honest and respectful with one another. I liked Tony’s response to a question about “testing the spirits”, in which he talked about assuming the best about God’s action in other people, as a way to avoid blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Generations in Conversation

While there’s a higher number of Gen X leaders involved in the ‘emerging church’ movement, it’s become clear that people of any age are interested in exploring different ways of being church. The Emergent Village connection grew out of the Gen X leaders called together by the Leadership Network in the USA. The initial hope was that these young emerging leaders would show us how to attract the next generation. Conversations made it clear however that generational distinctives are dwarfed by the more significant changes that come under the “Postmodern Turn”. So while it’s a group of Gen Xers who bring the generational values of cynicism about authority and a search for authenticity over excellence to their conversation, there are many older and younger people who share their journey.

Solomon’s Porch

A number of people found it helpful to explore what ‘emerging church’ might look like in reality in one of the communities associated with the Emergent movement. We looked at Solomon’s Porch, exploring the connection between relational theology, liturgy and couches. I suspect some were quite pleased to find the occasional flaw in the methodology. These “Emergents” are human after all.

Personal Reflection

Tony and I quickly became fellow travelers, sharing the challenges of transition. We spent time chasing a missing suitcase (see photo above), left by the flight attendant on the tarmac in Sydney. We went to the gym together, spent time walking the beach, and shared a few meals. In that time, I observed humility and honesty along with a passion for exploring truth. I picked up a few new phrases and words, like “ontological superiority” (our obsession with clergy), and discursive (Tony’s tendency to keep talking when asked questions). Tony’s a provocateur (look that one up) who gets people thinking. Good on ya mate!

See Tony’s blog at tonyj.net for his reflections on his tour of Australia, and check out his latest book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.

Tony is the author of many books, including Postmodern Youth Ministry, The Sacred Way, Soul Shaper, focusing on spiritual practices and everyday life. His most recent book, The New Christians, provides an introduction to the Emerging Church movement in the United States.

We’ll be discussing with Tony how Christianity is changing, the spiritual practices that are necessary for the journey, and how we might follow Jesus into our villages and suburbs for mission today.

The Gap Uniting Church, Brisbane, Wednesday October 1, 7 - 9 pm.

Ashmore Uniting Church, Gold Coast, Thursday October 2, 7 - 9 pm.

$20 donation to cover costs.

It’s interesting that a church organisation needs to provide this kind of training every year. However, from my experience, it’s vital that we have strategies for dealing with abusive behaviour rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, or throwing our hands up in despair and putting up with it.

A lot of the principles we have developed as an organisation (The Uniting Church in Australia) are based on this passage from Matthew 18: 15-20, in which Jesus gives very practical instructions for confrontation and reconciliation.

If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.

“I tell you the truth, whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.

“I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”

So how is my behaviour being affected by Jesus’ words?

First, I’ve learnt that confronting someone for the first time, no matter how petty, is best done in the context of a private conversation, in which amends can be made and face can be saved. The fear of public humiliation makes it very difficult to achieve any change in behaviour without lasting shame and resentment.

I still remember as an eleven year old on a school camp being hauled over the coals in front of 60 of my peers for leaving a half eaten sandwich in my drawer. Oh, the shame, the shame, of being made a public example without any means of making things better!

However it’s no easy thing to confront a bully face to face when you suspect that your words will be ignored or set against you in return. I’ve learnt that agreeing to meet together in a neutral space makes a huge difference. In retrospect, I’ve also learned that it could be helpful to have a tape recorder ready at a moment’s notice!

I went through mediation with a colleague some years ago, as we discovered we were undermining each other. We clearly needed to sort things out if we were both going to be effective in our roles. We found someone who was skilled enough in mediation. In fact, two people. One to document and one to facilitate. As painful as it was, I highly value that morning when the two of us shared our stories, our experiences and values, and sought to find ways to understand the best way to work with each other.

Sometimes, more serious interventions are needed. I think of Edwin Friedman’s fable, The Friendly Forest. A tiger approaches the residents of a forest about coming to live with them. They are mostly quite excited - they’ve never had a tiger before. The lamb is not so sure. However they form a covenant in which the tiger must accept all the other residents of the forest. The lamb discovers however that despite not being eaten, the tiger is engaging in threatening behaviour that becomes unbearable for her. She tells the other residents that she must now leave. Some of her friends in the forest wonder what she’s doing to provoke the tiger. Others say she needs to just accept that tigers are by nature threatening and get used to it.

The lamb thought there was something wrong with the notion that an agreement is equal when the invasive creature agrees to be less invasive and the invaded one agrees to tolerate some invasiveness.
One of the animals, not concerned about being politically correct, suggests that there is only one way for a lamb and a tiger to coexist in the forest. Cage the tiger.

There is a time for corporate confrontation, in which unacceptable behaviour is named, along with consequences.

So how do we treat pagans and corrupt tax collectors? How did Jesus treat them? I suspect that it might involve starting all over again.

A few words of explanation. For some reason New Zealanders tend to have a flattened short ‘i’, which Australians hear as the short ‘u’. So fish and chips in New Zealand tones is heard in Australia as fush and chups. Likewise the short ‘a’ is flattened so that ’sweet as’ is heard in Australia as ’sweet ez’. The use of the words ‘bro’ and ‘eh’ is a strong part of New Zealand Maori English. Here the blue whale speaks Maori English with a Scottish accent, no accident as many in the South Island are from Scottish descent.

Transcript

Oh oh no. Oh no. I’m beached bro. I’m beached as.
Hey bro. Oh hey bro
What are you doing bro?
Dude I’m beached as
Oh shit you’re beached as!
Tell me something I don’t know
Bro you’re heaps beached eh!
So beached. Beached as!
Want a chip bro?
As in a chup?
Yeah a chip.
A potato chup?
This one a chip. A chup.
I would bro but I don’t eat chups.
Well that’s shit.
I only eat plankton
Plinktun?
Can’t chew bro
Just try a chip bro
Ah well I can’t chew.
Just try a chip bro.
You don’t understand, I might look big, but I can’t chew. I only have plankton.
That’s pretty deceptive.
I know it’s very misleading. Do you have any plankton?
I’ll go and check over here.
Do you happen to have a bucket or a hose bro? I need to get wet ASAP.
Are you pretty parched?
I’m parched as and I’m beached bro.
You’re beached as!
I know…

People Behind the Scenes

The video was put together by Jarod Green from Bean Productions, written and performed by Antony McFarlane and Nick Boshier. There’s an online store producing all the goods that go with the video.

Having a few days of work has been a bit of a bonus though. I’ve had a chance to wade through past posts at The Inspiration Room Daily, the new incarnation of Duncan’s TV Ad Land.

I’m going through each post and standardizing style and layout. Youtube videos look so much better with the WP Youtube plugin. Earlier I made the mistake of setting out headings within my posts with the h2 tag. That’s was OK with the template at the time, but with the installation of Bobv3 I’ve been caught out. So I’ve been updating to h3 in every one of the 2600 posts. Groan! While I’ve been at it I’ve been removing all evidence of eminimall coding (I was not impressed by their move to cheap and nasty advertising deals). And to top it off, I’ve had the task of changing images to their new directory addresses on theinspirationroom.com/daily. I’ve taken the opportunity to weed out small images, replacing them with one bordered image at the top of each post.

All the hard work is worth it however. To create an imprint in the search engines I have to make The Inspiration Room Daily distinct, different to the posts found at Duncan’s TV. I have automatic redirection working, using .htaccess coding, but I need to increase the new blog’s page ranking from 0 to the 5 I had before.

I’ve registered The Inspiration Room Daily with Technorati, Google Sitemaps, Google Analytics. The MyBlogLog and Sitemeter stats were able to be retained - keeping the same profile but changing the URL. However setting up the RSS feeds at Feedburner requires subscribers to change their feed readers.

I’ve just started offering TIR Daily rss feeds by daily email. Seems to be working OK judging by the number of people subscribing.

If you have Duncan’s TV or Pacific Highlander listed on your site, it would be really helpful if you update the link to theinspirationroom.com/daily or postkiwi.com. I’m getting ready for an email to all my contacts, explaining the changes.

In the meantime, it’s a menu of jelly, icecream, yoghurt, mashed banana, soup and smoothies. It’s not too bad.

I managed to find my workplace very quickly. Type in 48 Bayliss Street, Auchenflower and you’ll be out on the street looking at the house my employers converted into an office. I took a look at my home and saw that indeed my son’s car was parked outside. An orange cone narrowed down the time during in which the photograph was taken.

Tony has a background in youth ministry, Christian spirituality, postmodernism and the emerging church and will be picking up some of these themes. Tony’s approach will be focused on conversation rather than lecturing. See more on his blog, tonyj.net.

See my posts on Tony’s most recent book, The New Christians, his On The Road video series, and on Left/Right polarisation in the USA church.

Here’s the program in its basic form. I’ll add details regarding times and places as they are finalized in the next week or so.

Wednesday October 1

• Lunch & afternoon conversation, Sunshine Coast
  (contact Steve Turner, 0412 459 429)
• Dinner & evening conversation, Brisbane
  (contact me 0439 828 718)

Thursday October 2

• Dinner & evening conversation, Gold Coast
  (contact me 0439 828 718)

Friday October 3

• Lunch & afternoon conversation with youth leaders, Brisbane
  Focus on spiritual practices and youth ministry
  (contact Michael Jeffrey, 0417 644 642)

Books by Tony Jones

• Postmodern Youth Ministry (Youth Specialties/Zondervan, 2001)
• Soul Shaper (Youth Specialties/Zondervan, 2003)
• Read, Think, Pray, Live (NavPress, 2003)
• Pray (NavPress, 2003)
• The Sacred Way (Zondervan, 2005)
• Divine Intervention: Encountering God Through the Ancient Practice of Lectio Divina (Th1nk Books, 2006)
• Introduction to The Most Difficult Journey You’ll Ever Make: The Pilgrim’s Progress: a Modernized Christian Classic (Paraclete Press, 2006)
• Introduction to You Converted Me: The Confessions of St. Augustine (Paraclete Press, 2006)
• Introduction and commentary on Brother Lawrence Practicing the Presence of God (Paraclete Press, 2007)
• Co-editor of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (Baker Books, 2007)
• The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (Jossey Bass, 2008)