Passionate Posts from a Passionate Person
Posted by Mark Stephan
I’ve been pondering for awhile now what is the difference between a small/home group and a missional community. I know that my group really isn’t a missional community, but was trying to figure out how to explain to those in my group what is the difference.
Here’s a good article that desribes it.
Posted by Mark Stephan
One of my friends replied to this posting via email. I thought it was so good, I wanted to paste it here.
Please read, "Authentic Community is against our Culture" first. Then read this response.
Enjoy,
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I think that generally, at least these days, perhaps in other days as well, the "church" generally reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the surrounding larger culture:
- American culture in general is miserable at hospitality and community. [I’m still sorry/sad I wasn’t able to receive you and Erdal better when you came through here. I’ve really just been in survival mode for a little while.] Christian American culture scores perhaps one percentage point better than non-Christian American culture, but still deep in "failure" territory.
- Arabs are great at hospitality and community (at least on a superficial level). Muslim Arabs do far better at this than Christian Americans. However, Arab culture has its own weaknesses; such as rampant pride, distrust, and dependence on forceful, iron-fisted leaders to hold people together in the midst of it all. And yep, that spills over into the church just as much as independence, and lust for "freedom" and "rights" does in the American church. Now, to give the Americans a mark of credit, although I might take issue with several trends in the American evangelical pastorate, I would have to say that relative to Arabs American pastors are quite humble and responsive to their sheep.
- Chinese culture is obsessed with prosperity, longevity, "luck" and "fortune". Chinese also give full authority to a person with "certified credentials" (such as a degree), and aren’t very likely to question what such a person says or examine validity of truth claims for themselves. All of this flows tragically through most of the Chinese "church", with very fertile ground for the prosperity anti-gospel, and quick, ready willingness to follow (secular or clergy) leaders into immorality rather than stand up for righteousness and "rock the boat". In favor of the Chinese, they are much more interdependent in helping each other out than the Americans, and much more meek than the Arabs, generally.
So, in summary, I think the main thing that I’m trying to say is that in general what I’ve seen is simply that "Christian culture" is a near replica, with slight modifications, of the surrounding culture that it is in. In other words, "becoming a Christian" doesn’t change people all that radically. I conjecture that the main reason for that is that most of those "becoming Christians" (i.e. those who "say the sinner’s prayer", "start going to church", etc.) are in fact not born-again, counted-the-cost, true-gospel believing, disciples of Christ. In other words, they are lost.
The consequence of having churches full of lost people are twofold. The first is obvious, the second is a bit less obvious but equally, if not more, important. First, of course, lost people will not manifest the Spirit-filled, new life in Christ. Yes, our psychological sermonizing and plethora of "programs" (inspired by the self-help section of your local pagan bookstore, since that is all that makes sense to the lost people who are fueling these programs, lost people cannot understand spiritual truth) might result in slight superficial alterations to people’s lives, but not the deep down fruit borne from a resurrected spiritual union with Christ.
Second though, and here is the real stinger, is that the inundation of lost souls in the church (both into congregation and leadership) results in a "lowering of the bar" for the genuine born-again disciples. Let’s say we have a hypothetical true Christian, let’s call him "MS". Say that MS goes around amongst America "Christians" saying, "Hey, what’s the deal? Acts 2:42-47 is simply not happening here! We seem leagues and leagues away from genuine Christian community!" What’s going to happen? Well, one thing is that it is likely is that MS will be in contact with certain lost souls who are in good standing in the "church" because they "prayed the sinner’s prayer" at some point, and have been attending church regularly and perhaps even going to weekly Bible studies. Perhaps some of these lost souls MS will be in contact with are even deacons, elders, and pastors. They will say, "Oh now MS, that sounds incredibly legalistic to me. What about the gospel of grace that says we are not saved by our works? If you say that genuine Christian community has to look like Acts 2:42-47, then you are essentially saying that the vast majority of people in our churches are not Christians, or at least they are not acting like true Christians. You wouldn’t dare say such things about your brothers and sister in Christ, would you?"
Moreover, likely even some genuine, born-again, disciples, who through a combination of lack of discernment, fear of man, succumbing to peer pressure, and even an unfortunate misapplication of genuine God-given humility, have been indoctrinated and assimilated into the suffocating heavy wet blanket of the pseudo-Christian culture all around them. And these true (though misguided) genuine Christians will come and challenge MS with the same message as the lost "Christians" did, that he needs to back off lest he risk turning to a "legalistic gospel of works" and thereby condemning many of his "brothers and sisters in Christ" (many of whom, in fact, are actually not his brothers and sisters and in fact already stand condemned before the Lord).
In the end (in our hypothetical scenario) MS caves in to the pressure. And guess what? Satan has once again succeeded in lowering the bar to such an extent that being a Christian in America doesn’t really imply that anything will be manifestly different in your life than that of the surrounding pagan world. Satan has succeeded in keeping his lost souls in the bondage of false assurance (until that day comes when they say "Lord, Lord…" and the Lord says, "I never knew you"), and Satan has also succeeded in placing a lampstand to quench the Spirit in those in whom the Spirit is genuinely working.
Don’t get me wrong, Satan does not ultimately succeed. Christ IS building the Church He always intended to build for Himself and the gates of Hell WILL NOT prevail against it. But the Church that CHRIST (not man) is building consists of the FEW (note: the relatively FEW even amongst those who profess Him as "Lord, Lord"!) who enter through the narrow gate and follow the hard way.
Love you bro,
Zach H.
Posted by Mark Stephan
Christian Community, Small Groups, Missional Community, etc… Everyone seems to be about community. But really how are we to do it? I spent 7 years in Turkey and recently have come back to the US. Now I’m having to rebuild community which has had to be one of the hardest things for me to deal with in reentry. Of course there were the things that Turkey did to me that messed me up, that’s to be expected. But also it’s the things about America that I’m really having a problem understanding, and I suspect, Americans are having trouble understanding about me. I have had really odd feelings of loneliness in the midst of a lot of people. This is a tell-tale sign of lack of authentic community. While I thought my Christian community in Istanbul was weak, I find it even harder now that I am back into the states to deveop authentic relationships that go beyond schedules and appointments and meetings.
Now relationships are two ways, and ultimately we all need to find out what is it about us that makes building community difficult.
Two things I have deduced.
- Unsaved Turks are closer to the model of Act 2:42-47 than saved Americans. (As a generality of course, there are always exceptions.)
- That while I found things in the culture of Turks that needed to change to make fertile soil for the gospel to start, so are there things in the American culture that need to change to make us fertile soil for the gospel to make us into what it wants us to be.
While in Turkey other obstacles (such as hedonism etc..) kept Turks from believing in the gospel, it doesn’t help that the missionaries were hard pressed to really show authentic community similar to Acts 2:42-47. because of this inability to be community, the Turks really don’t see a reason to convert because if they did, they would be giving up an authetic (albeit unspiritual and shallow) community of their family and friends and replacing it for a much smaller and much weaker community of the so called ‘believers’. Community is important to the Turks, and they know what it ‘is’, and what it ‘isn’t’. Though the depth of it may be in question, they at least have it. The problem with Americans is that we have no clue what it ‘is’. This is not a problem of ignorance, but rather our culture simply has been formed to go against the comcept of any community. Much like the Turks cannot trully understand forgiveness as it is foreign to their culture, we cannot understand community. We are a country that values independance and self reliance. It is the protestant work ethic gone mad.
So the problems I’m having is part of my reentry reverse-culture shock. I am so used now to Turkish community, the closeness, the lack of distant boundaries, the constant intrusions (a.k.a. divine appointments ) that now that I’m back here in the states, it’s incredibly lonely.
Here is a list of values that a Turks and Americans have about community:
Turks:
- Visit without advance notice
- Stop by frequently
- Invite you over all the time
- Always immediately drop everything for an invitation
- Are always very friendly (even though this is superficial it’s still friendly)
- Their relationships take a lot more work, but that’s how you show relationship. ( i.e. if you don’t talk to them every few days they think you’re mad at them)
- Stay and Stay and Stay sometimes for days.
- Turks always have time and are able to go out of their way. They value being available.
Americans:
- Rarely visit without continued harassment, and then they schedule it weeks in advance often canceling.
- Don’t stop by once and certainly not more than once. That would be ‘intrusive’. Christians may have a once a week bible study, but Lord forbid they actually hang out more than that.
- Invitations are for Weddings, thats about it. Few hold dinner parties anymore, movie nights, just hang-out time, etc…
- Americans don’t ever do anything spontaneously.
- Americans simply are not friendly until they have had a long chance to get to know you, then they are ‘friendly’.
- ‘Neediness’ n American relationships is seen as a large negative, and avoided at all costs. Independence is a value, not mutual dependance.
- An American is always measuring the subtle clues from others on when to leave. They do not want to out-stay their welcome, and do not want others to out stay their welcome.
- Americans value being busy and think it makes them seem important if they act busy and feel busy. They don’t want to seem lazy, so they train themselves to feel busy, whether or not they really are.
Some of you may say that these are good things about Americans, but really think if they are ‘God’ things about Americans. Is this how Jesus behaved? Your culture has brain-washed you, and we as a culture need to repent of this.
Back here in the states it’s actually rather hard to recreate a community for myself. I invite others to my home all the time, invite them to be in community, hang out, do activities, but rarely does it happen. Very rarely do people ever visit my home even though several times a week I invite people to come. They often say it’s too far or some lame excuse like that, but come on, it’s really not too far from anyone. What they are really say it’s too far for the value they put on it.
Even my neighbors who are believers as portrayed by their bumper stickers, I’ve invited to come over, talk, bible study, etc…. have never shown up after months of invitations.
While sharing the gospel and seeing a Turk become a Christian is very hard and rare, seeing a Christian American being a real, active, ‘follower of Christ’ is also hard. Acts 2:42-47 is what a community of people who are true ‘Followers of Christ’ looks like. Yes, I know Churches are working hard to change this (small groups, missional communities, etc…), but really it’s our job as individual believers to see Christ change us, not the church, and be a community as a whole no longer individuals, but a body of Christ. Ultimately, we need to ask ourselves are we a Christian, or are we a ‘follower of Jesus Christ’?
Read the comments below, and also the response, "Authentic Communit is against our Culture" written by Zach H.
