Bill Easums Observations

I just finished writing a book titled “Preaching for Transformation.” I used Acts as the text, especially Acts 1:8 where the apostles (“Apostles” means “the sent ones” in Greek) were told they would be Jesus’ witness throughout the world when the Holy Spirit came upon them.God had a plan for the Apostles.  Let’s call it “Plan A.”

Plan A was for the Apostles to spread out and take the message of Jesus to the world.  But instead after the Holy Spirit came, they did what most churches are doing today – they hunkered down inside the comfort of their own four walls and began working on their organization (see Acts 6), never leaving Jerusalem. Plan A failed, but God always seems to have Plan B in the wings.

Plan B is seen in Acts 8:1 where it says a “great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles (“the sent ones”) were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”  What “the sent ones” were not willing to do did not square with what God wanted.  I hope you see the sarcasm here. It’s like Luke hit the Apostles upside the head (remember, “Apostles” means “the sent ones” in Greek) and said ”You dummies. You can’t ignore God!” 

You see, God always intended for the Church to be on the move rather than hunkered down. God always intended for the message to be viral rather than tethered to a location.  God always meant for the church to be reaching out rather than reaching in.

Maybe it’s time to take notice and once again become the “sent ones” before God activates Plan B again. Or perhaps Plan B is already set in motion?  Have you noticed how many churches are dying? Sort of like the Jerusalem church.  It was dead and gone within 70 years, and before that Paul was collecting money for the Jerusalem church from the new churches birthed out of the Antioch Church.

You and I are here today because of the Church of Antioch. So why don’t we hear much about that church today? We hear a lot about Acts 2:42 where the life of the Jerusalem church is spelled out, but that text is before Luke tells us how ingrown the Jerusalem church became.  I have a hard time figuring out why so many churches want to embrace the four practices of Acts 2:42. Sure they are good practices, but all of them are focused inward.  None of them are reflections of Acts 1:8 where Jesus gave them his mandate for mission.  It took a desaster for the Apostles to leave Jerusalem and take up the mission Jesus had clearly laid on them.  Are we doing the same today?

Look at Acts 11:20 – “Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.”  That’s what Acts 1:8 is all about- telling people about Jesus.

So which church would you rather your churchbe like- ingrown Jerusalem or externally focused Antioch?  About 85% of established churches in the West need to decide before it’s toooooooo late.

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

Before you read this post, please burn into your brain that I was one of the first authors to shoot a warning shot across the bow of the institutional church by questioning its effectiveness and its validity. In 1993, I wrote the book Dancing with Dinosaurs in which I said the present form of institutional Christianity were coming to an end, BUT I didn’t throw the baby (institutional church) out with the bath water, even though, for the most part the form of church I began preaching in is in its last days.

Having said that, I must admit there is a lot of great conversation going on today about new forms of church. I’m enjoying most of it.  HOWEVER, I have a problem with most of it. Most of the critics of the institutional church aren’t playing fair.  When downplaying the validity of the institutional church they always use the worst examples of the institutional Christianity they can find, and when talking about their understanding of what the church should be they always use the examples from the best part of their “new church.”

Another thing that bugs me is those who say the megachurch is part of the problem and cites that it only reaches a small segment of the population and that its presence hasn’t made any difference in the morals of the people it serves or the number of Christians. No one bothers to wonder how bad things might be if there weren’t any megachurches and everything Christian was left up to the emerging churches.

No, I think it’s fair to criticize the institutional church; I just don’t think most of the criticism is fair. If you took the critics at face value you would think that all Christians do in the institutional church is sit in a pew, watching the professionals do all the ministry, never talking about their faith in public, avoiding any God-talk, never trying to live as Jesus lived… and oh, I could go on and on.

But I think it’s time to get fair with the institutional church. Sure it has its warts, but so do all of the new forms of church being written about. I could list them but I won’t since I think any form of church in which two or three follows of Jesus gather to give honor to God and to transform society is a valid church no matter how many warts.

So, maybe it’s time to play fair. No one with any Christian sense wants a church where everyone sits in a pew, watching the professionals do ministry, never talking about their faith in public, avoiding any God-talk, never trying to live as Jesus lived…… No real Christian thinks that’s Christianity. I know. There are a lot of church members who think that way. But just because they don’t understand the meaning of Christianity doesn’t mean the institutional church is all bad.

One last question.  Do you really believe in a country based on institutions and driven by a concert mentality Christianity can survive without some form of institution?

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

Leadership Network is doing a blog tour for the new book, A Multi-Site Church Road Trip, by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird.  I have been asked to participate in the bloggers.  I was asked to submit a question to which the three would respond.

Here is my question to Geoff, Greg, and Warren.

“What have you found to be the single most essential and common trait of multi-site pastors?”

Their response:

“Lead pastors of multi-site churches are best characterized by their entrepreneurial leadership and passion for leading people into relationship with Christ.  Their innovative bent is strong on vision and accompanied by the willingness to surround themselves with a team that is given appropriate authority and responsibility to lead staff and the congregation toward execution of that vision.  In some ways this profile is no different than that of the senior pastor of any healthy church.   The uniqueness seems to be in an innate capacity to see potential for leveraging the strengths of the church they serve into other settings – a different geographic or demographic arena.”

I invite your comments and/or questions here on this blog. The authors will be monitoring my blog.

For further dialog, see more Q&A at the authors’ blog www.multisiteroadtrip.com or contact them via Twitter: @geoffsurratt, @gregligon or @warrenbird. To order Multi-Site Church Roadtrip, click here http://bit.ly/7pmFZQ, and to order Multi-Site Church Revolution, click here http://bit.ly/5q5AaD.

I was just getting ready to do a blog on the comparison of heresy in the first few centuries to that of today since today is so much like the 1st century, when I received a post from one of the members (Anne) of our Advanced Leadership Forum asking if our group had seen the recent The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Entitled “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” the report points out that many Americans are now choosing to “blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs. USA Today had the same info on the front page last Friday.

Anne asked the question: do we need to relax the faith in order to reach these people? Here is my response.

The key to what I’m about to say lies in my belief that the 21st century is more like the 1st century than the 20th century.  And the key to this likeness is the existence of rampant blended forms of polytheism. Both centuries can be defined as the age of polytheism. When Paul spoke at Mars Hill he had to pass through literally dozens of altars to various gods of the time. He even found one dedicated to the unknown god which became his jumping off point for his message that day.

But if you’ve been watching Ophra you saw all of this coming.  Ophra is one of the biggest promoters of blended polytheism on the planet today.  She mixes and matches all forms of religion and faiths.  And she thinks she is doing good for people- helping them find a faith that works for them by taking a little here and a little there and mixing it all together.

Oh, I know. She has done lots of good.  But so did the witches in the medieval times. But they were heretics. Anyone who believes in any form of the occult is a heretic according to the Scriptures.  And that leads us to the heart of this post- Mashed up polytheism always leads to heresy.

Any quick reading of the New Testament or study of early Christian history shows that one of the main issues they dealt with was heresy.  For instance: many of Paul’s writings were denouncing heretical acts or philosophies; many of the early writings outside the Bible were attempts to refute growing heresies such as the Gnosticism, Marcionism, Montaism , and the list goes on: and all of the historic four councils prior to the fifth century were about the heresies growing up around who was Jesus and what did he actually do and what is his relationship to God and us.

So back to Anne’s question about how to deal with all of this. It’s a good question and one that should be front and center in today’s jungle (and you are correct Anne, it is a jungle- see our new book Doing Ministry in Hard Times). If the 21^st century is more like the 1^st century than the 20^th century, and if heresy abounds today as it did then, we have just one recourse- to fight it with everything we have. We must not capitulate by watering down the Gospel or holding back on what we believe because we are afraid to hurt someone’s feelings. To water down the faith in the hope of reaching someone for Christ only results in a weak faith and a weak convert. Instead we should become more firm in what we believe. We shouldn’t be swayed by the argument that culture has more to do with how you interpret the Gospel than the Gospel itself.  Timeless truth never changes.

We should also quit falling victim to the propaganda today that because of the many centuries that have gone by we should reinterpret the Scriptures to fit our times- another form of heresy. The Scriptures don’t need defending or reinterpreting. That’s one of the reasons I have been in so much dialogue with the Emergents.

Folks, we are entering a time when, like the first century, it will call for everything Christians have to withstand the onslaught that is about to come our way. Every day we lose a little more of our right to exist. It’s slow, like the frog in the kettle; we lose it little more of our right to exist in the eyes of the Western world. If we believe the 21^st century is more like the 1^st century than the 20^th century, then we also believe that persecution of Christianity will be on the rise the farther we go into the 21^st century.

If you need help processing what I just wrote, remember 9/ll.  And if that doesn’t do it read an article on Huffinton Post by Frank Schaeffer, a New York Times best-selling author, posted an article on Huffington Post on June 10th entitled: “Understanding Domestic Terror USA — It’s About the Twisted Theology Stupid!” This article literally names evangelical Christianity as the primary source of domestic terrorism in the United States and that calls on the Secret Service and the FBI to investigate and “infiltrate” pro-life and evangelical Christian groups. The statements that Schaeffer makes about evangelical Christians in that article are absolutely chilling.  In fact, there are reminiscent of the types of statement the Nazis would make about groups they sought to demonize in the 1930s.

When you start seeing a respected, New York Times best-selling author make statements like these on one of the largest political websites on the Internet, then you know the rampant persecution of Christians is just around the corner. Basically Schaeffer stopped just short of advocating rounding up all evangelical Christians and shipping them off to concentration camps.

No folks. Now is the time to be more firm than ever in what we believe. This means we should have little to no tolerance to heresy in our congregations (Now that should hit a nerve). It means that some people need to find Jesus or quit playing church. They are doing more harm to Christianity than the nut balls who call Christians terrorists. In the first century they kicked these folks out of the church. Should we do less?

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the growing use of the word “Missional” to describe the church. I’ve seen so many definitions of the word that it makes my head spin. Still I offer you another definition in the hopes of simplifying the issue.

A missional church is a baptized community of people called to live out the Christ and the Kingdom of God at church, home, work, and play. Rather than focusing on itself and its needs, the missional church focuses on engaging the world with the Gospel and being a sign that the reign of God is present, transforming the world.

Okay. Being missional is both a culture and an attitude. At the heart of this culture is a deep seated love for both Christ and the world. At the heart of this attitude is a passionate love for those who are not yet in love with Christ.The world rather than the church is the heart beat of this culture and attitude. 

So what are the implications of being missional?

1. Instead of nominating people to serve in some official capacity within the church people are commissioned to live out Christ at home, work, and play based on their giftedness.
2.  The surrounding secular community is the focus of ministry rather than the programs within the church.
3. Instead of a “build it and they will come” attitude the church understands it is a “we must disciple people where they are.”
4. Mission and evangelism committees don’t exist because everything and everyone in the church is involved in missionary and evangelistic activity.
5. Leadership is focused on making disciples instead of doing programs.
6. The prime directive of the church is to transform society not to insure that the institutional church is fed.
7. God is understood to be a missionary God who invites all people into His fellowship and sends out that fellowship to engage the world.
8. Missional churches are always asking “What is God up to in our city, and how can we be a part of it?
9. What structure a church has follows God’s mission rather than some predetermined form. 
10. Leadership is more collaborative than authoritative (does not mean the leader doesn’t lead).
11. Leaders function more as spiritual midwives, helping others birth their God-given gift, than as authoritative figures (let your imagination run wild on this one.

Okay, what would you add to this list to help those who don’t get it, get it?

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

There seems to be a movement under foot to discourage people from wishing one another a Merry Christmas. “We don’t want to offend anyone so let’s water it down and just say ‘Happy Holidays’.”  Hmmmmm.  Something’s wrong with this picture.

To wish someone a Merry Christmas is the same as  proclaiming the “good news of great joy that will be for all people.” Christmas is Good News! It is a reminder of the birth of Jesus. It’s the prelude story to our salvation. Why should we water down such good news?

In stead of watering down our holiday greetings to include everyone, I think we should be more aggressive in saying “have a Merry Christ-mas.” Let’s put the accent where it belongs.

Now if you’ve read any of my stuff you know I’m not advocating arrogance. One of my favorite questions to ask is “How is one a rabid Christian without coming off looking like a bigot?” I’m simply saying Christians should be a witness to their faith.  And we should be allowed to have a special holiday to celebrate our faith. Everyone else does and they don’t water it down with “Happy Holidays.”

So go on – wish me a Merry Christ-mas- I dare you.

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com