JON HARRIS BLOG

Signposts #23 - A Meditation

Signposts #22 - Doing it by the book?

Three interesting facts about the way the New Testament writers speak about 'church':

• The Church met mainly in homes, not in the religious buildings (synagogues, Temple)
• The Church gathered every day, not once a week
• The Church was not referred to by a congregational name, but simply by reference to its geographical location - normally a city/region (eg 'the church in Philippi') or occasionally 'the church that meets in so-and-so's home'

Tonight, a friend showed me his copy of Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna, which I believe covers this in detail. Provocative title, I know. One goal of the book is to distinguish truth from tradition, and chapter 1 asks a superb, if uncomfortable, question: 'Have we really been doing it by the book?'

Signposts #21 - The Bride of Christ

Okay so this post marks the end of this series, for now at least. I have really enjoyed letting a few thoughts tumble out and writing a bit more regularly. Thanks to all who have tracked with this.

And there is so much left unsaid! Most notably, the signpost which is the Kingdom of God, references to which in the gospels outnumber references to church by about a gazillion-to-one. A whole new series, or series of series, is needed to even start unpacking that.

But back to now ... I saved the very best until last.

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Picture the scene: A bride is getting ready for her wedding day. She has never experienced a day like this one before, and the sense of anticipation and excitement is immense. Today she will marry the Man she loves, the one person in the world who makes sense of her life and with whom she knows she is complete. Today the adventures of courtship are ended, subsumed entirely within a new and far higher calling which makes her heart tremble as she pauses to consider it. Today, she moves with him - from glory, to glory. Today is the most important, most joyous and most exhilarating day of her entire life. Today, today, today ... she will finally be joined to her companion, the only person whom she has come to realise is her perfect complement. It is the day of days, the time of all times, the love of all loves.

Somewhere across town, her bridegroom rises from his place. He too is ready, watching and waiting for her arrival. He longs to see the beauty in her eyes, to hear the sweetness of her voice, to feel the touch of her hand. Even to ponder the possibility of the next few hours is overwhelming to him, and he must turn aside to gather himself, so captivated is he by the knowledge that they will at last be together.

My friends, this is what church should feel like.

The portrait we are given in Revelation is of the most spectacular romance between Christ and his Church. It is this moment towards which the whole canvass of Scripture and history points through countless individual sketches. (Dare I say it, the glorious consummation of this romance will be better than sex. It is the invention of the one who invented passion and intimacy, after all - the one whose very name is Love.) The colours in the portrait are diverse, reflecting the light and shade of all the heroes of faith, their doubts as well as their destiny, their faults as well as their faith. Joy and love are intermingled in raised oils, with bold and delicate strokes in equal measure, producing an exquisite painting of such startling beauty, clarity and truth that it causes each admirer draw breath on first glance, and rewards further attention with new treasures each time.

Revelation 19:

"Hallelujah!
    For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
    and his bride has made herself ready."

This is what Church should be like.

It is our future - yet it is also the in-breaking reality of now.

It is most assuredly our tomorrow - but it can also be our today.

This is who we are!

And, far more importantly, this is who Christ is!

Signposts #20 - The idolatry of performance

I have been wrestling a bit with this next entry for the last week or so. If it is a little rough-edged, well I am sorry, and I am always happy to engage in conversation in the comments.

In a way this whole series has been like that, an experiment in giving expression to thoughts and ideas on the whole subject of Church. A first draft, an unpolished stone, but an attempt to grapple with some really important and deep deep questions.

I had a dream recently in two parts. Both parts were in a congregational church building setting. In the first half, there was clearly idolatry going on, but curiously no-one seemed to mind. Things, people, events just carried on around this.

In the second half of the dream, there were children making their way through a stage door to give some kind of performance to the congregation. It seemed like an innocent enough activity, maybe a soirée evening or something like that.

The more I think about this dream, the more I feel uneasy. The phrase 'the idolatry of performance' has come to accompany the dream and I feel it is right to share this publicly in the context of asking the question "What does church really mean to us?"

What does church really mean to us?

• Is church somewhere that we ignore sin and idolatry and carry on regardless?
• Or are we just blind to sin - unable to see it in the first place?
• Is church a performance that a few put on for the many?
• Why on earth do we sit in rows like an audience? I don't see that in Scripture. We are family.
• Are our pastors/leaders under pressure to 'perform', knowing that if they don't please people, they will be out of a job or not get a big enough offering to pay their salary? Can that really be right?
• Where are the people who will speak radically into the status quo?
• Where are those who will speak the truth in love?
• What does all this mean for our children growing up with this understanding of church? Will they equate church with being the bride of Christ or with an event, a performance, something extra to and disconnected from the rest of life?

Provocative questions. And (you know this already if you've been following this series) I am emphatically not writing off the church in the congregational setting - I have received an amazing foundation through faithful people in those contexts.

Most of all as I ponder and reflect I feel a deep sorrow and deep unease for what is lacking in our more formalised structures of church.

Entertainment and performance are neutral arenas and ones God wants to redeem, along with every area of life. But church is not meant to be a performance, we are not meant to wear masks to cover who we are or our sin. No, church is who we are, a place to be together as the people God has made us to be, to be 'naked' and vulnerable since we are ALL sinners saved by grace.

Furthermore it is a place where we are all children - not CEOs, leaders, people of reputation - but children of God. The King does not ask us to perform. He asks us to come as we are, to receive and treasure his love, the delight he feels when we freely enjoy his presence.

Somehow we twisted this, turned it inside out and upside down, and it became warped into the curious experience that many of us now unconsciously think of as 'Church'. Lord have mercy on us.

I feel more emotional writing this post than any one so far in this series. We have fallen so far short of God's best as His people, His bride, His Church. We have fallen so far we cannot remember 'the height from which [we] have fallen' (Rev 2:5).

How did we turn church into such a performance? Why did we all just stand back and let it happen? How can we re-educate our minds and hearts and spirits to know the truth about church? For it is the truth that sets us free.

This is my prayer: that the One who alone is able to do restore his body, his people, his bride - that He will do it.

Signposts #19 - The 'A' word

Q: "But who are you accountable to?"

This is probably the question I have been asked the most since not being involved in a church-in-a-congregational-setting. In some ways it's a hard one to answer. In fact, I don't have a full answer to give yet (sorry) but I do have a few thoughts.

If you are easily offended, stop right here and pray for grace, as this blog entry will be provocative.

Of course the best answer to the question is "Jesus". (Every kid in Sunday School knows Jesus is the answer, right?!) But seriously, Jesus Christ is the person to whom we must all one day give an account. And his response to our account is, ultimately, the only response that really matters.

But I don't normally answer like that, because sadly many are cynical and will think that my answer is just a cop out.

Q: "I meant in your local church and community. Who are you accountable to there?"

But hold on a minute! My answer really is Jesus!! If you cannot hear that answer, the suggestion perhaps is that my accountability to Jesus Christ above all else is either insufficient or a fraud. But what if I really meant it? What if I do (failingly and falteringly) try to live in the fear of the Lord?

Q: "Ok I hear your point. But what about leadership and covering?"

See above...

But you may like to add 'angels' under the sub-heading of 'covering'.

- - -

I hope that everything else I have written in this series makes it clear I am in no way trying to be facetious. What I am trying to do is make the case for a higher view of Christ and of his Church.

Jesus Christ is my ultimate accountability check. He is also my daily and ever-present reality. The friend who loves me enough to stop me in my tracks by saying 'No excuses, Jon' when I am flirting with sin. Why shouldn't accountability be seen firstly in these terms?

Accountability is first in the vertical dimension of relationships, and only then in the horizontal. When we get it all back to front by putting the horizontal first, we get a warped view of our accountability to God, drawn from the arena of fallen human relationships. God becomes the teacher who always criticised our homework, the boss who manipulated our goodwill, or the parent whose temper was like a tinderbox. But God the righteous Judge is actually our perfect heavenly Father.

Flying underneath the question about accountability is often, I suspect, a concoction of emotions. One of those is emotions is fear. We all like to have structure, predictability and hierarchy. I suspect that many people who quiz those who are 'not in church' are actually afraid for those people that they might fall away. In my (limited) experience, it's not hard to discern fear on the part of the questioner most of the time. Now some 'out of church' folks do fall away, absolutely; but I am not sure it is more than those who are technically 'in church' - they fall away just as much, it seems.

One of our main checks has to be Scripture. Interestingly, an NIV word search for 'accountable' brings up eight Bible references, seven of which are explicitly and directly concerned with being accountable to God. The eighth relates to the political structure of Babylon, so possibly not the best example for kingdom-minded believers to follow in their relationships! I am not building a whole theology on that one word search, but it is interesting to note.

Here's another thought. The accountability question is often directed at 'followers' by 'leaders'. Now I have no problem with that - except the imbalance of it. Surely leaders should be accountable to their followers too? Surely we are all accountable to each other? I have a sneaky feeling that the question "Are you accountable?" could often be translated "Why don't you do what we tell you?" Control can be a very powerful undercurrent in an ungodly way.

Having exposed some of those things, let me write something positive in connection with this subject. In the church, the family of God, we are called to love one another, respect and honour each other, train/rebuke/correct one another at certain times, and give a good testimony in our lives that Jesus is Lord. There is also a place for godly, humble, discerning leadership - I absolutely affirm that. Furthermore it is incredibly important that we are all in deep fellowship with Spirit-filled believers who are working out the Word of God in every aspect of their daily lives. I am certainly not justifying abuse or isolationism or false religion in any way by mavericks who just go and do their own thing.

But accountability... I'm just not quite convinced that that is the best word to frame these kinds of discussions. There is something better, I'm sure.

And I'm shooting for something higher than ticking this box in someone else's list of how we should follow Jesus Christ.

Signposts #18 - Who is in your church?

Last night I met up with two new friends in East London and their even newer little bundle of life. It's amazing how when there is a connection in the Spirit, you can fellowship so deeply with people you have literally just met.

(I believe Paul had a phrase for that: 'the fellowship of the holy Spirit'. There's a whole blog entry or book to be written exploring what he meant by that phrase, compared to how we have often limited it to a benediction/blessing at the end of a church service. I need to enjoy this fellowship with other believers often, and directly with the Lord every day. Could I truly live without this deep fellowship that is only available in God? Short answer: No.)

These friends of mine are having a tough time with their church. Their new church leaders seem neither to 'get' them, nor the inner city culture in which they (the new leaders) have landed. Listening to this couple's stories of being misrepresented, misheard and misunderstood was heartbreaking.

I encouraged them to rethink who their church really is. The way I see it, somebody's 'church' is not the institution or congregation they belong to. It is the people God has put around us in life-giving relationship. (See also: #15.) That may just be a handful of people - but it is those handpicked by the Lord, who will walk with us deeply.

For my friends, one or two of their key relationships were inside what they considered their local church, and others were outside it. I encouraged them to pray that God would reveal exactly who these people are for them and to prioritise those relationships.

More radically perhaps, I also suggested that they be open to see God's provision in their relationships with non-believers. Many people can be vehicles of God's grace and his life to us before they even know him as Saviour and King. Why would God only speak and act through Christians?

So, who is in your church - the one God is building in and around you? Who are the living stones beyond the institution you are (or maybe aren't) a part of? Ask the Father to shine his light and reveal their names, then focus on those relationships first.

Signposts #17 - The doctrine of original goodness

I was talking with my friend (and former boss) Andy Matheson the other day and he reminded me of a phrase I love: 'doctrine of original goodness'.

The idea is simple. We cannot understand the devastating consequences of sin until we understand that everything and everyone God created was first of all good (or very good, in fact).

As Andy puts it 'Genesis 1 must come before Genesis 3'.

This 'doctrine' is the central pillar to Andy Matheson's forthcoming (as yet untitled) book on mission to the urban poor.

This is nothing new - just a renewal of a biblical emphasis which we have lost. And this side of both the fall and the cross, we have the restoration of God's original goodness in the world and the church.

A high view of Creation and People? Absolutely.

A final comment: discussing with Andy helped me to realise just how much I take good doctrine for granted. (Not that I have everything nailed down - far from it.) For me, this central tenet of faith that creation is good is completely obvious. However, Andy reminded me that many people after sitting through years of sermons on sin find it incredibly hard to retrain their minds, and consequently live with low self-esteem and a despondent lack of hope regarding the redemption of creation.

Signposts #16 - The Perfect Pastor

I came across this insightful comment about church leadership by David Readett over the weekend:

Leaders had to be all singing all dancing masters of everything demonstrate all the spiritual gifts and fulfil all the ministries. After all they were mature leaders. Churches therefore spent [their] time looking for Peter Perfect, the Alex Ferguson of the pastoral league who they could pay to do the business, if they fail then get someone else who was better, or alternatively see it as their mission in life to sort you out like some religious police force. Failing that leave the church and join another.

Isn't this so true and doesn't it make you so sad...?

David has himself spent 30 years in leadership in pentecostal/charismatic contexts, but I think this kind of experience is perpetuated throughout the Body of Christ.

Questions:

1. To what extent does this fit your experience of church (or not)?
2. Could it be that those of us who 'sit and receive' have as much responsibility for the overwork of our pastors/leaders as the leaders themselves who 'stand and teach'?
3. How can we help to remedy this situation? Are there steps I can take today?
4. How does 1 Cor 14:26 speak to this?
5. Have we taken on the world's leadership values (from the Premier League or business for example) rather than kingdom leadership values? What are those values?
6. To what extent does the culture of celebrity - so strong here in Britain - infect our attitudes to our leaders, to both exalt and then vilify them?

Signposts #15 - Go where the life is!

A lot of people are surprised to hear that I haven't been 'going to church' regularly for about 3 years.

However I think these same folks are even more surprised (though they may not say it) that I am still passionate for God despite not going to services.

An important caveat here: I have as many struggles, niggles, things to overcome as the next person in my own walk with God - so no claims to Christian perfection!! - but I am if anything more excited to follow Jesus as the years go by. As the Delirious? song goes:

There was a time as a little boy
When I said I'd follow you
But the years have caused the flame
To burn much stronger now

[emphasis mine]

The years should make the flame burn stronger, not burn less or ... burnout.

So how do we do it? How do we keep the life of God flowing?

It's actually quite simple: we need to go (or be) where the life is. (I am especially grateful to those in Plumbline for walking out this concept.) This is not just going to a place, ministry or church - though that may be part of it. I'm thinking more broadly: do whatever leads to life in your own life, make time to meet people who produce life in your own life, search after the life of God all around you in your home, work and family environments. Wherever you spot a glowing ember, learn how to fan into flame that gift which is from God.

To switch the metaphor, we are each like a garden with a river running through it. We have the Spirit of Jesus, the life of God flowing in/from/through/to us. This is why Christians have an unfair advantage in everything. The life of God is in you! But we need to treasure that life, do whatever is necessary to seek to increase the flow of that life, and live our whole lives within that life.

This is how we the Church can be both 'red hot' and 'refreshing' for God even when our supporting structures have been laid down or taken away.

Signposts #14 - Following the ancient paths

Three vignettes and a few interconnected arboreal thoughts.

1. Close to where I live there is some pretty ancient woodland. A friend of mine said recently that when she goes walking there - and she has walked there for decades - there is always one short stretch where she absolutely feels like dancing cartwheels every time. She is not a believer... yet. (Oh how we need a theology of the land - and have completely ignored it for decades.) Pretty sure there must be angels on that stretch. We used to have a monastic community in Ruislip-Northwood, and this particular path runs between the two towns, so if you do have a theology of the land, the story makes perfect sense.

2. Yesterday my good friend Simon and I found ourselves close to Whipsnade Tree Cathedral. It's a plantation of trees in Bedfordshire set out with a nave, south/north transepts and so on. For interest, you can apply to hold services there, and I heard of someone who saw this venue in the Spirit before ever visiting it... and eventually celebrated her wedding there too. Could there be a better symbol that all of creation points to its Creator God, I wonder? That the Church can be Church anywhere?

3. I went running this morning in woodland (my knees have been really hurting all day, which reminds me of Heb 12:12-13). At one point, also in woodland, several trees had been cut down, but the path was still clearly visible. In a time when the familiar things (whether churches or institutions or reputations or other 'fail-safe' certainties) are being cut down, we need to be a people who continue to 'follow the ancient paths'. I am not sure how to define these 'ancient paths' ... anyone else want to suggest some examples? What does that phrase mean to you?

This is what the LORD says:
"Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, 'We will not walk in it.' "
Jeremiah 6:16