As you are planning for Holy Week and for Good Friday, or even for an Easter Vigil, this PowerPoint presentation – which I posted last year – might be helpful.

• A silent presentation of the Passion of Christ Jesus (English and Spanish)

It’s bilingual, but should be easily edited if you have PowerPoint (and if you don’t, and would like it edited, let me know) to make it appropriate for your church situation.

In His Peace,
Tom

I am bummed.

I had one great last post all ready to urge people to reject the teachings of Frank Viola and George Barna.  I had commentary on their use of proof-texting to defend their entire book.  I even had given them a clever “celebrity couple” name.  And I was chomping at the bit to finish, polish and send it.

Then God the Holy Spirit convicted me.  That post will never be sent.

In the face of the onslaught of what I am calling the “New Stalinism”: attacks from the ridiculously far left (Bill Maher, Hitchens, Pullman, Dawkins and the like), I had to take a good, long look at my way of dealing with extremism within the Body of Christ.  Is it right for me to respond to divisive comments with (possibly more divisive) counter-attacks?

I had to conclude: nope.

The radical atheist movement, which would like to see the Body of Christ disappear from the face of the earth, are too unified in their one, simple piece of religious dogma – “God is not” – for us to afford to be divided.  And, when my efforts to counter division in the Church become ugly attacks on the very sources of division, the New Stalinists become even more powerful.

Fact is, Christ has one Bride, the Church.  She is a conflicted gal, to be sure.  She is simultaneously convinced of the efficacy and sufficiency of the Cross and the need for meritorious works; the surety of God’s sovereign choice and the freedom of the individual; the priesthood of all believers and the importance of the clergy; embracing at times Rome and at times the Reformation; holding icons in one hand and casting them away with the other…

Some of us speak of salvation as “when you die and go to heaven” while others think of the “living in the hope of the resurrection” – two very different aspects of the same hope.  We wrestle with incompatible thoughts, such as definitions of the Church and views of the “end times”.  The Bride is one, yet she often doesn’t know it.

What good is it, then, for me to respond to division with more contentious argument?  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss, or even argue.  But I feel that one must watch the tone of such interactions.

I am at fault.  When Frank and George argued there was no place in the Church for pastors, choirs, orderly worship and the like, I responded with the attitude that there was no room in the Church for such opinions.  Of course there is!  I may think they are wrong, but their thoughts are welcome.

Radical Atheist (a)theology is so simple that even the most diametrically opposed atheists are unified in their basic belief that God and religion taint everything and have no value.  We can’t be the blazing light that will burn up such ignorant darkness if we are distracted by infighting.

So, as a penance, I am willing not to be contentious any longer.  When I disagree, I will – with God’s help – disagree in the most, well… agreeable of ways, welcoming my brothers and sisters into dialogue with, as one of the Epistles says, “gentleness and respect”.

These words from Battlestar Galactica, are quite fitting:

So say we all.

Pagan Christianity doesn’t stop with church buildings and orderly worship.  Since much of this book nauseates me so, I’m going to hurry up a bit, so I can be done with it and – hopefully having convinced a few people to spend their money on better things – get on to more encouraging posts.

What can I say?  I’m a completist.

(Edit: I tried to be brief, but I just have so much to get off my chest about this book!  I was going to try and devote one post to four chapters, but I couldn’t; sorry!)

The sermon.  Here’s the deal: they argue that Paul and Peter and all the apostles’ preaching was not the same as your pastor’s Sunday morning sermon.  They were apostolic workers.  They came, they preached, they empowered the Church, and they left.  What happens on Sunday is derived from “pagan” philosophers who peddled their thoughts and their great whit and wisdom for a buck (PC, pp.89-91).  When pagan philosophers began to get converted to Christ, they just kept using the same oratory skills they had learned, and began using them for the work of Christ.  They became expert teachers who now had captive audiences on Sunday morning.

Green Flag: I will agree with them that the sermon can often be a struggle for me, personally.  I often want to raise my hand, ask for clarification, put in a different take on a passage than that of the preacher, shout, “Preach it!” etc.  Admittedly, the modern setting for the sermon is not conducive to this.  I would love to see a change there; for the pastor to… ask questions (non-rhetorical!), give opportunity for parishioner questions, and take time to discuss the passage at the end.  Robert Webber, in Blended Worship, describes second century worship practices, which would often involve a reading of scripture, followed by the congregation: “The people then stand to comment on what they experienced in the story, together creating their own sermon.” (35).  Granted, I don’t think that our 1-hour-service-mega-churches can do this (and I have my own views on mega-churches), but most smaller congregations, church plants which are under 200-members (my idea of a large church), could easily make their sermons more interactive.  Heck, even the Puritans had this practice!

Red Flags:

1. Okay, the pagans became Christians and began using their skills and gifts for God’s kindgom.  Hmmmm… how is this bad?
2. The Greeks understood the style that was used by the philosophers; it was a language they could understand.  Therefore, it would be a way of communicating the Gospel effectively.
3. Feedback and discussion are often, but not always, warranted.  Sometimes we receive and process what is given; I don’t recall Jesus asking for commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.
4. They argue that the preacher is the star, and that everyone else is the “silent pew warmer” (PC, 98).  That makes me wonder what narrow slice of the Church he has been in in the past few years.  In the past ten years, my experiences with the Church have been with pastors whose sermons were designed to train us to follow Christ and to know how to know Him better thru His words.  I don’t feel like I have been spoon-fed.  Furthermore, the Sunday sermon is less than 1/168 of the week; that leaves the rest of the week for maturing Christians to spend gathering in homes and taking the example of the pastors and their sermons and feeding one another on the Word of Truth.

That said, while sermons can be unhealthy – if they are the only source of teaching and training in the Word available (and if that is the case with your church, you need to start a freaking community group in your home!) – they are often good training.  And, while there is no prescription for a single pastor to give a weekly teaching, there is absolutely no Biblical argument against it, as long as it is designed as part of a balanced spiritual diet, one that frees the rest of the body to encourage and build up one another.  Viola and Barna only know of one tiny slice of the Church, and yet they use that tiny slice to generalize life in the entire Body.

A few last words on Chapter 2 of PC. Then, I promise, I will be less… yeah, I guess “wordy” is the correct term!… in the rest of the posts.

I think that Viola and Barna are teetering on the edge of (or have jumped headlong into) a legalism that could really go to further splitting the Church.  This book could be a whole lot more constructive and useful, were it not written in such combative, adversarial language.  This book’s tone doesn’t invite discussion – it squashes it.

A better book for looking at the need for getting the Body of Christ out of the sanctuary to take part in home-based worship is The Second Reformation by William A. Beckham.  While not a perfect book (I’ve only read one perfect Book!) it has a great sense for the balance of whole-Church formal worship and home-based fellowship; he refers to churches that only meet in one as a “one-winged church”; the “two-winged church” sees the need for recognizing the majesty of God in formal gatherings as the local Body of Christ in public settings, and also the need (and deep desire of Christians everywhere) to really share life with a small, consistently caring home-based fellowship.

Acts 2:46 shows that the early house-church fellowships would gather together in public places very regularly, and then disperse to respective homes.  The Bible refers to the balance of “the temple” and “house to house”.  There is precedent for a balance of large and small gatherings.

The thing that’s really important to recall, however, is that the Bible never says, “Follow these laws about how to gather; wear these clothes and meet with this many people; oh, and don’t you dare meet in public too often!”  There are principles to take note of: we are all His temple; we are a priesthood of believers; we are to meet together, and everyone has something to offer.  But there are no hard and fast rules about how that is to be carried out.

As you might have guessed if you read my previous post, I don’t think Viola and Barna’s chapter (in Pagan Christianity?) on church architecture is without its problems.  Here are a few (in my mind) glaring issues:

1. Frank and George seem to denigrate the visual arts in worship (though they do not think it worth devoting a chapter to).  Their basic argument seems to be that it originated with honoring dead saints.  Two problems with that: a) what’s wrong with honoring those who have gone before us?  Honoring that “great cloud of witnesses” is far from idolatry; b) the origin of the first Christian worship art is irrelevant – the question is, how do we use the arts in our worship?  Art can be used in so many edifying and God-honoring ways!
2. In addition to many things that the Constantinian era brought from Roman culture into the new church buildings, “The Roman custom of beginning a service with processional music was adopted… Choirs were developed and brought into the Christian Church.” (25) etc. etc. etc.  All I could say to this was what Barna himself said in the introduction to the book, “we cannot avoid bringing our culture into the church”.  I have yet to see how processionals and choirs, regardless of their origins, detract from the worship of the Church.  As a former raging Petra fan (okay – I’m still a ragin Petra fan!), I’ve seen God take, redeem and use many things from the “world” for His glory!  To paraphrase Larry Norman, “Why should the devil get all the good choirs and processionals?”  Viola and Barna – as I will opine in my posts about Chapter 3 – are woefully unconvincing in their arguments that formal worship is unedifying to the Body of Christ.
3. [The Gothic cathedrals] relied heavily on the teachings of the … Greek philosopher Plato.  Plato taught that sound, color, and light have lofty mystical meanings.  They can induce moods and help bring one closer to the ‘Eternal Good’.  The Gothic designers took Plato’s teachings and set them to brick and stone.” The authors argue that the influence of a “pagan philosopher” is somehow negative and manipulative; that the use of color, awe and beauty somehow puts parishioners in the wrong frame of mind.  I would argue that art and beauty, being an inherent part of our being created in God’s creative image, belong in the Church, whether in a Gothic cathedral or an apartment living room!
4. To continue from #3, “So with its use of light, color and excessive height, the Gothic cathedral fostered a sense of mystery, transcendance and awe… borrowed from Plato and passed off as Christian.” (29)  Two thoughts: a) Is a sense of awe really so bad in the presence of God?  b) On a personal note, I recall my Chrysalis walk – a youth retreat in the tradition of the Catholic Cursillo.  I spent a three-day weekend at Greene St. United Methodist Church in Piqua, Ohio (the most beautiful, majestic church building in all of Ohio, as far as I’m concerned).  The sanctuary was big, old and beautiful.  The back of the balcony, if I recall correctly, was adorned with a large mural depicting a Bible story.  The sense of awe I had in that place had a lasting impact on me, but not in the way that the authors warn; the smells, the echos, the cold stone mixed with warm company – these set the stage for a life-changing event in my life.  The sense of awe prepared me to receive what God had for me.  I don’t see that as a negative.
5. “The main message of Gothic architecture is: ‘God is transcendant and unreachable – so be awed at His majesty.’  But such a message defies the message of the Gospel…” (30) Since when?  Emmanuel, God-with-us, the intimate Lover of our souls, is awesome and majestic.  He is the most wonderful of paradoxes!  If Viola has lost touch with God’s transcendance, then I fear for him.  And, by the way, I’ve been in some rather majestic cathedrals, and many of those times I have felt closer to God than ever; somehow acknowledging his transcendance brings us closer to Him!

They go on and on… through the evolution of the church building… some of their arguments are compelling (see yesterday’s post), and some are ridiculous (they compare the steeple to the Tower of Babel).  But the crux of the argument is: the church building is a barrier to ministry and must be done away with!

I’d say, no, they are a tool and need to be taken off the pedestal we have set up for them.  Is the church-building-versus-home-church argument really a matter of either-or?  Or is it possibly one of both-and?  In my last post, I recommended a few ways we could use our buildings in new ways, such as various parishes sharing buildings.  Of course, many who read this chapter of the book (such as church plants, and my own tradition of the Anglican Mission in America, many of whom lost their buildings as they left the fold of ECUSA) will find the question moot; they are already doing the first-century-church practice of renting spaces and meeting in homes!

I may have another post in me on this topic…

In Chapter 2 of Pagan Christianity (hereafter, PC), Viola and Barna take on both the history and value of the traditional church building. I’m going to go over some of the highlights of this chapter.

How I’d like to handle these chapters is to list what I call “Green Flags” (things that really ring true), “Red Flags” (things that don’t ring true or seem illogical) and neutral, interesting points (such as interesting facts, “so what?” statements and books cited that I just may want on my Christmas list – often from writers Viola doesn’t seem to like!).  If I get really wordy (like this post) I will divide Green and Red into two posts over two days.  Today: the Green Flags!

Green Flags:

1. “The New Testament always reserves the word church (ekklesia) for the people of God.  It never uses this word to refer to a building of any sort.” (14)  Amen to that!  The Church is the people of God.  No argument there.
2. “Meeting in homes was a conscious choice of the early Christians.” (15)  And it is a conscious choice of the organic fellowship groups we’ve been involved with for the past nine years!  Of course, this leads to a bit of a Red Flag (see below)!
3. “These homes [where the Church met] were never called temples.” (15)  Jesus is the Temple.  Amen and amen.
4. [Basilicas, the first dedicated "church" buildings, promoted by Constantine] were wonderful for seating passive and docile crowds to watch a performance.  This was one of the reasons why Constantine chose the basilica model.” (22)  This is one of the greatest arguments against church buildings as they stand today: creating the weekly “show” that has emerged in so many congregations (“The concert and the pep talk”, as I have mentioned).  While I will later argue (in the next post) that being a mere recipient is sometimes a good and godly thing, I think that this criticism of church buildings is quite legit; it calls to mind Robert Webber’s advice that we as a Church need to remove the terminology of “stage”, “audience” and “performance” from our worship vocabularies (Planning Blended Worship – sorry!  I couldn’t find the exact page yet!).
5. “… a loss of intimacy and open participation…” (25)  For the solution to this, I will refer you to the Red Flags below; however, I agree that intimacy and open participation need to be restored, and the BCB (big church building) doesn’t really lend itself to this!
6. After describing the long evolution of the church building sanctuary, the authors describe the pulpit, which “elevates the clergy to a position of prominence… it puts the preacher at center ’stage’ – separating and replacing him high above God’s people.” (34) This criticism resonates with me; as my friend/pastor Alan would say (ironically, in this case), “That’ll preach!”  I think that sanctuary designers are enslaved by certain preconceptions: elevated stage, rows of pews (or folding chairs), everything facing in one, boring direction toward the pulpit.  Why can’t we mix things up a bit?
7. “Every building we encounter… explicitly shows us what the church is and how it functions… it teaches what is important and what is not.” (37-8)  I think that to fool people into thinking that the pretty buildings on the corner are “the Church” is to rob many of what could be an invitation, to “close the doors of heaven” on many who would come over for dinner a decade before setting foot in a church narthex.  You’ll see below that I do not totally agree with a completely negative assessment of the church building, but I do intensely agree that we need to change the image that the word “church” places in people’s minds.  “[Certain] Social locations can teach good and godly people very bad lessons and choke their lives together.” (38)
8. (The BIG Green Flag) “Most contemporary Christians mistakenly view the church building as a necessary part of worship… [but] real estate owned by institutional churches today is worth over $230 billion.  Church building debt, service, and maintenance consumes about 18 percent of the $50 to $60 billion tithed to churches annually.” (41, emphasis mine)  The authors argue that a house church can use “more than 95 percent of its shared money for delivering … ministry, mission and outreach to the world.” (41)  I just kept nodding and nodding during this portion!  Owning a church building, versus the early-church habit of converting homes or renting buildings for worship and fellowship, is so often just a waste!

Okay… before going on to the Red Flags tomorrow, (believe it or not, I have mental room for some…) I will offer a few final thoughts about the merits of this chapter:

I have begun chanting (much to the irritation of a few friends), “The Church around the world need never, ever build another church building!”  Now, before you get all mad and tell me all the reasons why this is a horrible thing to say, let me suggest something: some churches are so large and could so easily share their space with smaller parishes and congregations!  What if your local megachurch (I’ll pick on Calvary Church in Charlotte, NC, for example) offered three or four smaller churches (plants, aging congregations) a very modest rent to use their space?  What if a lot of their weekday activities (Bible studies, ESL classes, knitting circles, choir practice, youth group etc.) were transfered to other locations such as parks or homes so that smaller congregations could hold their weekly services (any given day of the week or rotating churches on a given Sunday) in their sanctuary?  What if a 30-member parish met in the fellowship hall while a 90-member congregation met at the same time in the prayer-chapel?  Oh, and all that rent can help the megachurches honor God by aiding in paying off those ridiculous mortgages that waste God’s money.

I’ve been part of three churches that shared buildings.  I hear it’s rather common in other countries.  It forces congregations to acknowledge each other and to cooperate.  That can’t be a bad thing!

While we’re at it, what if we did some major redecoration, like putting the pews in a circle around the pulpit so people could see each other?  Or, like many liturgical churches, why don’t we put the pulpit off to the side?  Many churches never plan on buying a building, and I think they are happier for it!

These are just a few ideas.  I’m sure a creative Body of Christ can come up with some major great ideas!  I’d love to hear them.  Here’s my one rule: please don’t comment just to say, “Church buildings are evil!  Burn ‘em all!”  Let’s dialogue on creative, constructive things to do with the buildings already in our possession.

I’ve been reading Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner. She’s a convert from Judaism to Christianity, and a real brain. But, to boot, in this extremely open and honest memoir, she’s really got her heart on her sleeve. She shares about her journey through Orthodox Judaism to the Christian faith (in the Episcopal tradition), her failures and regrets along the way, her continual stumblings as she walks and grows, her struggles and even a few triumphs.

I’d recommend this book to everyone on planet earth.

Now, while, by my (extremely slow) standards, I have been racing through this book, I find that I have never, after several tries, been able to make it through a John Piper book. “Why?” I ask myself.

I’ve decided that theology comes best when it’s personal. Girl Meets God is jammed full with the theological and philosophical. In the midst of the threads of story-lines from Lauren’s slightly tragic/slightly joyous life, you find her teaching – teaching about how one converts to Judaism, teaching about the theology of the Resurrection, teaching about the sacraments of Communion and Confession, teaching about how Ruth relates to the Jew and the Christian and how the Jewish festival of Pentecost relates to the Christian celebration of the same name on the same day in history. It’s a theologically and historically rich little book.

But when I read Piper, I feel that – where Lauren Winner has sat me down to show me this cool thing she learned about God or religion – Piper comes to me, whips out his entire collection of Calvin’s writings, and slaps me in the face with them, saying, “I’m sorry; I’m doing this because I love you.” He’s heavy-handed, and harsh and sorely lacking in nuance.

Why am I writing this? What’s it got to do with worship? Plenty, I think.

I call both Piper and Winner my siblings in Christ. I think they both have truth to tell, and probably are doing it well in their own special way. I’ve heard Piper, and I think he’s a mighty fine preacher-man, and a godly defender of the Faith.

I think I am not so much commenting on Piper or Winner, on Girl Meets God or What Jesus Demands from the World (even the title gives me a headache). I am commenting on me. On my growth, my evolution, as a believer in Christ.

I think we go through stages as we grow. Our spiritual body hungers for different types of nutrients as we grow. Sometimes it is heavy theological stuff (though, for me, I think I’ll probably go in more for Robert Webber or Dallas Willard than for Piper when my spiritual body does crave good solid heaping platefuls of theology) and sometimes it’s story – even if the story has a deeply theological current running through it. We need different things for our growth (as little kids need more milk, and so do our grannies, than we thirtysomethings) and so God gives our soul different cravings.

As I grow – and grow heavily more Anglican, more liturgical, more early-church obsessed and ecumenical (in an early-church, pre-schism sort of way), I find that what I desire is story, and long times of prayer (guided by the prayer book), and relationship, both with Christ and His Bride.

So, when it’s time for me to pick up the tomes again, when grad school finally calls, I’m sure my body, heavily nourished with story and liturgy and all those good, good things, will begin to crave other things.

But I’m probably gonna be ready to duck when Piper tries to smack me again; and I’ll sit him down so he can tell me a story.

Today, at church, singing was uncharacteristically solemn for the second Sunday in Easter.

Stuff’s been going on with Pablo and Christy, the leaders. God’s been working on them.

Today, Pablo shared from several passages, discussing the idea that our “reasonable service” is to do whatever unto Jesus. Our worship continues beyond the church doors on Sunday morning.

Nothing new, but don’t we just need to keep hearing that truth over and over again?

So, Amen, Pablo.

I’ve got a few thoughts on this topic. A couple of vignettes:

1. I discovered what could be a great resource (if I were still at my church in the states!): Worshipteam.com. Its purpose is to take the administrative burden off worship leaders so that they can concentrate on artistic and spiritual preparation. So far, so good. But then, they said, “And, since music is the most important part of worship…”

I think my eyes bugged out of my head. Music is important, and it helps, but only as it works with the Word and Sacraments to prepare our hearts to be used of God. Music is a tool of worship, not worship in and of itself. I have been to several times of “singing before the Lord” that were anything but worship; I’ve also been witness to some powerful worship in which there was not a single note of music played.

2. Some of my best worshiping I “do” is at about 6 a.m., my time to wash the dishes. I ponder a verse from the psalms, enter into a time of silence before God, and wash the dishes. I let the sound of the running water, the psalm verse, the peace of the new day usher me into the Father’s presence in a special way.

Music can be worship. So can scrubbing dirty dishes.

Old news. I need to hear it, again and again.

Amen.

I am on a unity kick. This is not new for me, nor is it an original thought. But there it is: unity kick.

The good – and frightening – thing is, I think it’s never going away.

Just like my love for guacamole (all thanks tom my buddy Kerri who makes the best in the world) and my belief that old Petra is better than new Petra (there, I’ve dated myself), here to stay is my belief that unity in the body of Christ is, perhaps, one of the most-neglected essentials of the faith. I said the E word, and I’ll say it again: Essential.

As the first of what will be a series of thoughts (read, if you like: ramblings) I want to start with the Expert Himself. Jesus actually took a great deal of time praying for this one thing in John’s account:

17:20 “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, 17:21 that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. 17:22 The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one – 17:23 I in them and you in me – that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me. (NET – emphasis mine)

Nope, He didn’t pray that we’d all have the exact right view on baptism, communion, free-will or predestination. He didn’t pray that they would believe in objective facts about the faith or be convinced that we have a handle on absolute truth. He didn’t pray that we would all like the same kinda music.

He prayed that we would all be one.

Why? Oh, no big reason: only so that the world would believe in Jesus.

[Ranting and raving here has been censored by my own sense of decorum. No need to make too many enemies!]. Folks (and I will get into more detail in a future post): it’s Easter. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Or, as they say in another liturgy: We have died with Christ, we live with Christ, we will reign with Christ. Lay off each other.

Please.

More soon.

By the way, the NET Bible can be found at www.bible.org.