Hemorrhaging Faith Windows Rethinking Millennial Discipleship

HEMORRHAGING FAITH WINDOWS – RETHINKING MILLENNIAL DISCIPLESHIP

HEMORRHAGING FAITH WINDOW #1 – RETHINKING COMMUNITY – The essence of four types of churches

CHURCH AS CLAN OR CLUB – easy boy offering safety in world that is viewed harshly COMFORTABLE MEMBERS

·  Congenial community, like a family…but hard to join

·  Insiders its warm and caring but to outsiders its cold and standoffish

·  People are warm and caring, known by name which is a good thing

·  Problem is purpose has been displaced - Purpose…is comfort and satisfaction of insiders

CHURCH AS CHARASMATIC LEADER AND FOLLOWERS – guided missile “misguided” VISION SET BY LEADER

·  Tend to be quite visible with leader on television or billboards

·  A movement under command with a charismatic leader in complete control

·  Tend towards boom to bust cycles…if leader dies or suffers a reversal of fortunes

·  Purpose is not changed lives but meeting the needs of the leader

CHURCH AS COMPANY OR CORPORATION – factory which molds its members PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES

·  Purpose of having changed lives

·  Has tangible goals and predetermined outcomes - they have a plan and work the plan

·  Often impressive ministries – housing the homeless, booming Sunday schools, meals on wheels

·  Sometimes so busy doing God’s work they forget to experience God

·  Ministries can take on a life of their own and become sacred cows

CHURCH AS INCARNATIONAL COMMUNITY – aspen grove NURTURING OF INDIVIDUALS WHO BRING THEIR GIFTS

·  Goals are more diffuse, intangible, open ended

·  Not opposite of the other three but incorporates aspects of each type (a sense of caring like a clan, a sense of direction like a leader and follower, purposeful action like a corporation)…but none of these features is predominant so it overtakes the others

·  The purpose is changed lives…a community of transformation

·  Goals and actions are more open because one never knows precisely where God will lead or what changes Holy Spirit will bring about

·  Instead of counting numbers as a corporation an incarnational community will tell stories of changed lives

·  This church is an organic growing system - tended like a garden

·  There is a magical element that we cannot manipulate but we can bring the right ingredients and when we do so something happens. Lives change! The transformation is what God does and we can’t predict it

The purpose of the church (why we are here) is to transform people and is more important than vision (where we are going). The church is about growing people of faith, helping them live in God’s kingdom as proclaimed and embodied by Jesus. The church is incarnational community supporting and sustaining the lives of disciples.

Source: Hadaway, C. Kirk. Behold I Do A New Thing: Transforming Communities of Faith (The Pilgrims Press: Cleveland 2001).

REFLECTION QUESTION

What will it take for our church to become like an aspen grove?

HEMORRHAGING FAITH WINDOW #2 – RETHINKING JESUS AND CHRISTIAN MATURITY

The Christian scene in the world today, can be summed up in three words “Growth without depth.” Church members have tenure but not maturity. There is a huge problem with lack of godliness and integrity. Sociology of religion analysts speak of a "moralistic therapeutic deism" (MTD) that has replacing biblical Christianity across our culture. MTD can be summarized as: God exists and wants us to be nice to each other, happy and successful. This God is a rather wimpy life guard on the cosmic beach who is at our beckon call if we happen to get in trouble in the waves. Otherwise, we simply get to play in the sand however we so desire. American cultural analyst Ron Dreher helps explain how the North American church got such an anemic religion. "If by 'Christianity' we mean the philosophical and cultural framework setting the broad terms for engagement in American public life, Christianity is dead, and we Christians have killed it. We have allowed our children to be catechized by the culture and have produced an anesthetizing religion suited for little more than being a chaplaincy to the liberal individualist order."

This situation is extremely serious because it renders followers impotent, and because it is displeasing to God. We dare to say this because the apostles whose letters we find in the New Testament rebuke their readers for their immaturity and urge them to grow up. Consider, for example, Paul’s critique of the Corinthian church: Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere human beings? 1 Cor. 3:1-3)

What is Christian maturity? Well, the apostles call it “maturity in Christ,” that is having a mature relationship with Christ. Paul’s most common way of defining Christians is to say that they are men and women “in Christ,” meaning not inside Christ as when our clothes are in a wardrobe, but rather as the branches are “in” the vine and our limbs are in the body, that is united to Christ. So then to be “in Christ” is to be personally, vitally, organically related to him. In this sense to be mature is to have a relationship with Christ in which we worship, trust, love and obey him. In Colossians 1:28 Paul states, “We proclaim Christ...so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” It is only logical. If Christian maturity is maturity in our relationship to Christ, in which we worship, trust and obey him, then the clearer our vision of Christ, the more convinced we become that he is worthy of our commitment. We are pygmy Christians because we have a pygmy Christ. The truth is there are many Jesuses on offer in the world’s religious supermarkets, and many are false Christs, distorted Christs, caricatures of the authentic Jesus.

So if we want to develop truly Christian maturity, we need above all a fresh and true vision of Jesus Christ – not the least his absolute supremacy, which Paul sets out in Colossians 1:15-20. Here is a loose paraphrase. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God (verse 15) so that whoever has seen him has seen the Father. He is the creation’s Lord and Head (verse 16) for through him the universe was created. All things were created through him as agent and for him as head. Their unity and coherence are found in him. Also (verse 18) he is the head of the body, the church. For God was pleased (verses 19-20) both to have all the fullness dwell in Christ and also to reconcile all things to himself through Christ, making peace through the blood of his cross. This is the apostles masterful portrait of Jesus Christ. Where should we be but on our faces before him? Away with our petty, puny, pygmy Jesuses! Away with our Jesus clowns and pop stars! Away too with our political Messiahs and revolutionaries! For these are caricatures. If this is how we think of him, then no wonder our immatury persists.

Source: Stott, John. Radical Discipleship: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling. (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove Ill. 2010) and DENISON FORUM Seven Ways To Be Optimistic In A Dark Culture, February 19, 2015 (online)

REFLECTION QUESTION

What it my view of Jesus and how is this view linked to my own Christian maturity?

HEMORRHAGING FAITH #3 - RETHINKING SIX WORDS THAT SUMMARIZE 21st CENTURY MILLENNIALS

by Robert Wuthnow, After The Baby Boomers (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 2007)

·  Uncertainty...a situation in which something is not known

·  blurred adjective

·  circumstantial adjective

·  conflicted adjective

·  debatable adjective

·  definite maybe noun

·  dodgy adjective (NOT RELIABLE)

·  fuzzy adjective (NOT CLEAR)

·  sputter verb (ACTIVITY)

·  tentative/tenuous adjective

·  there's no knowing idiom

·  touch-and-go adjective

·  uncertain/unclear adjective

·  Diversity... the fact of many different types of people being included in something

·  assortment noun

·  chequered adjective (GOOD AND BAD)

·  choice noun (VARIETY)

·  medley noun (MIXTURE)

·  melting pot noun

·  miscellany noun (MIXTURE)

·  mishmash noun

·  of every stripe/of all stripes idiom

·  patchwork noun

·  plurality noun (DIFFERENT)

·  potpourri/ragbag noun

·  Fluidity... the quality of being likely to change repeatedly and unexpectedly

·  butterfly noun (PERSON)

·  changeable/capricious adjective

·  elasticity noun

·  fickle/flighty adjective

·  inconsistent adjective (CHANGING)

·  inflammable adjective (VIOLENCE)

·  kaleidoscopic adjective

·  patchy adjective

·  shifting/variable adjective

·  turbulent adjective (SITUATION/TIME)

·  yo-yo adjective

·  zigzag noun and/or verb (CHANGE)

·  Searching...intending to find the hidden truth of something

·  analytical/arbitrate adjective

·  assess/vet verb

·  inquiry noun (PROCESS)

·  interpretive adjective

·  investigate/judge verb

·  kite-flying noun

·  measure verb (JUDGE)

·  probe noun

·  sift verb (EXAMINE)

·  sit in judgment on/over idiom

·  size up phrasal verb

·  take stock idiom

·  the acid test noun

·  Tinkering...to make small changes to something, especially in an attempt to repair or improve it

·  correction noun (CHANGE)

·  fiddle (about/around) with phrasal verb

·  fine-tune verb

·  fix up/clean up phrasal verb (REPAIR)

·  I tell a lie idiom

·  patch verb (PIECE OF MATERIAL)

·  recondition/reconstruct/revise verb

·  refine/remedy verb

·  refinement noun (CHANGE)

·  sort verb (DEAL WITH)

·  troubleshooting noun

·  tune verb (ENGINE)

·  under repair idiom

Understanding “Spiritual Tinkerers”

·  A tinkerer is an amateur who puts life together from whatever skills, ideas, resources are easily at hand.

·  Not necessarily a negative trait, tinkers are resourceful. If they need help from experts they seek it out.

·  Their approach to life is practical. They get things done...by improvising via an idea from there, a skill from here and a contact from somewhere else. Life, for them, is about finding makeshift solutions.

·  Dealing with people is also a matter of tinkering. Tinkerers become a unique mix of the people they come in contact with, always choosing with whom to associate and how much to be influenced.

·  Spirituality is also pieced together with material at hand, making do with what they can. The spiritual tinkerer is a rummager with possibilities arriving with all available information including exposure to different cultures and religions utilizing a veritable scrap heap of exposures to become their unique self.

REFLECTION QUESTION

What ministry implications flow out of an understanding of Canadian millennials as uncertain, diverse, fluid, searching, “spiritual tinkerers” if our goal is their transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ?

HEMORRHAGING FAITH WINDOW #4 – RETHINKING PARENTING

UNDERSTANDING HOW PARENTS AND CHILDREN ATTACH

Nature never intended children to be parented by just anybody. It takes a special kind of relationship for a child to be receptive to being parented.

“THE SECRET OF PARENTING IS NOT IN WHAT A PARENT DOES BUT IN WHO THE PARENT IS TO THE CHILD. When a child SEEKS contact and closeness with us, we become enabled as a nurturer, a comforter, a guide, a model, a teacher or a coach. When a child is actively attaching to us, we become her home base from which to venture forth her retreat to fall back to, her fountainhead of inspiration. All the parenting skills in the world cannot compensate for a lack of attachment relationship. All the love in the world cannot get through without the psychological umbilical cord created by the child’s attachment.”

Attachment is the force of attraction pulling two bodies toward each other.

Children were meant to revolve around their parents and other adults responsible for them. Parents become for them a compass point, a point of orientation. When children start revolving around each other, instead of their parents, everything changes. They become lost, and it is enough for them to just be with each other, even if they are completely off the map.

Six ways of attaching

1.  senses—nearness, physical proximity, being together

2.  sameness – seeking to be like the one we are attaching to

3.  belonging – to be close to someone is to claim it as one’s own (includes being on the same side and being faithful)

4.  significance – feeling like we matter to somebody -- to be dear to someone is to ensure connection

5.  feeling – we find closeness through feeling of warmth and affection—emotion is always involved in attachment – children know if they are in our hearts

6.  being known – to feel close to someone is to be known by them!! (parent oriented children love to share their secrets with their parents)

If children are peer-attached instead of parent-attached, they will never mature. Their growth is stunted in significant ways, one of them being that parental nurturance cannot get through.

Source: Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate. Hold on to your Kids: Why Parents Matter More Than Peers. (Random House, 2005).

Reflection Question

According to attachment theory research who has the transformative power in relationships – parents, other adults or peers? What role ought churches to play? What needs to happen for them to play this role?

HEMORRHAGING FAITH APPENDIX #1 -- RETHINKING CHURCH: PURSUING THE DREAM OF AN ORGANIC CHRISTIANITY

Where do we discover the DNA of the church? By looking into God Himself. God is social or relational. God is the community of the Father, Son, and Spirit. The church is an organic extension of the triune God. The DNA of the church is marked by the very traits that we find in Him. Mutual love, mutual fellowship, mutual dependence, mutual honour, mutual submission, mutual dwelling, and authentic community. We are what we are only in relationship with one another.

Look again at the triune God. Notice what’s absent. There’s an absence of command-style leadership. There’s an absence of hierarchical structures. There’s an absence of passive spectatorship. There’s an absence of one-upmanship. And there’s an absence of religious rituals and programs.