Dallas Willard has as one of his final chapters in The Great Omission one entitled "Jesus the Logician." Not a common concept of Jesus, especially in our world. People both inside and outside the church have a hard time seeing Jesus as a logical thinker on par with Aristotle or Kant. Those outside the church see the caricatures like the "angry Christians" of recent posts at Texas In Africa, or mine below and think of Jesus as a simpleton or buffoon. But those inside the church walls in recent years have been somewhat anti-intellectual in seeing Jesus as a thinker or philosopher as well.
Jesus didn't develop his logic in a theoretical or philosphical sense like an Aristotle; rather his logic was at the deeper more practical level. It was geared toward encouraging life-changing "eureka" moments in his listeners. "That is, he does not try to make everything so explicit that the conclusion is forced down the throat of the hearer. Rather, he presents matters in such a way that those who wish to know can find their way to, can come to, the appropriate conclusion as something they have discovered" (The Great Omission, p. 183).
Perhaps this affects my big issues with Evangelical evangelism and the modern church's strategies for sharing the gospel--it tries to logically argue to force the right conclusion. It focuses on the point-of-sale transaction. We try to lead people in our discussions, instead of allowing the person and the Spirit to connect in their own "eureka" moment. Honestly, I think that people come to faith in Jesus in spite of us much of the time.
Jesus never took this approach. He never shied away from conflict or truth, but he spoke in such a way that made space for people to have their own "eureka" moments.
"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."
Monday, March 05, 2007
Saturday, March 03, 2007
The Great Matthew Quigley
"Said I didn't have a use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it."
Matthew Quigly, Quigley Down Under
I had an interesting conversation this week with a friend who is a Missions Pastor, meaning that he is the leader of our church's evangelistic efforts. It was a great conversation (involved 18 points with Mr. Green) where we were getting to know each other and finding out about how God's story has played out in each of our lives.
Now those of you who know me know that I sometimes rail against "evangelism" as it is often defined and done in the modern evangelical church. The theology that says the gospel is primarily about the forgiveness of sins in order to get into heaven when you die can lead to practices that work to manipulate a decision to get those sins forgiven, and this becomes known as evangelism. That's an overstatement, I'm sure, especially in my friend's case, as he didn't fully disagree with what I said. But not always. Evangelism, the sharing of the good news, has often degenerated into proselytization, the converting of a person from one club into another. I don't think that this is good, and told my friend as much. For me, evangelism is about sharing the good news that Jesus has liberated us from our sins AND our sin--the individual acts that are wrong AND the habitual tendency to want to be our own gods and write our own stories for life, irrespective of the One True God's wishes and plans.
Later my friend asked me if I was sitting with someone who asked me what they needed to know about this God of mine, what would I say? Great question!
Like many things in life, it reminded me of a movie, Quigley Down Under. It's a great flick with Tom Selleck as Matthew Quigley, and probably my favorite bad-guy actor, Alan Rickman (excellent in the villian role in this movie, Robin Hood and Die Hard) as Elliott Marsten. This cowboy movie set in Australia is the king of one-liners, and I won't go into them all here. But the climactic scene in the movie is at the very end, when Marsten wants to draw down with Quigley in a gunfight. Quigley's favorite weapon is a long rifle, and earlier when Marsten talks about Col. Colt's revolver, Quigley says he never had much use for one. So when he outdraws Marsten and shoots him, Marsten looks quizzically up at Quigley as he bleeds all over the desert, and Tom Selleck deadpans the line I quote above.
It would be a mistake to think that because I don't have any use for evangelism (in the consumeristic, modern, conservative, evangelical use of the term) that I don't know how to "use" it. The good news is the good news, and it is absolutely worth telling in every way possible, including using words.
Matthew Quigly, Quigley Down Under
I had an interesting conversation this week with a friend who is a Missions Pastor, meaning that he is the leader of our church's evangelistic efforts. It was a great conversation (involved 18 points with Mr. Green) where we were getting to know each other and finding out about how God's story has played out in each of our lives.
Now those of you who know me know that I sometimes rail against "evangelism" as it is often defined and done in the modern evangelical church. The theology that says the gospel is primarily about the forgiveness of sins in order to get into heaven when you die can lead to practices that work to manipulate a decision to get those sins forgiven, and this becomes known as evangelism. That's an overstatement, I'm sure, especially in my friend's case, as he didn't fully disagree with what I said. But not always. Evangelism, the sharing of the good news, has often degenerated into proselytization, the converting of a person from one club into another. I don't think that this is good, and told my friend as much. For me, evangelism is about sharing the good news that Jesus has liberated us from our sins AND our sin--the individual acts that are wrong AND the habitual tendency to want to be our own gods and write our own stories for life, irrespective of the One True God's wishes and plans.
Later my friend asked me if I was sitting with someone who asked me what they needed to know about this God of mine, what would I say? Great question!
Like many things in life, it reminded me of a movie, Quigley Down Under. It's a great flick with Tom Selleck as Matthew Quigley, and probably my favorite bad-guy actor, Alan Rickman (excellent in the villian role in this movie, Robin Hood and Die Hard) as Elliott Marsten. This cowboy movie set in Australia is the king of one-liners, and I won't go into them all here. But the climactic scene in the movie is at the very end, when Marsten wants to draw down with Quigley in a gunfight. Quigley's favorite weapon is a long rifle, and earlier when Marsten talks about Col. Colt's revolver, Quigley says he never had much use for one. So when he outdraws Marsten and shoots him, Marsten looks quizzically up at Quigley as he bleeds all over the desert, and Tom Selleck deadpans the line I quote above.
It would be a mistake to think that because I don't have any use for evangelism (in the consumeristic, modern, conservative, evangelical use of the term) that I don't know how to "use" it. The good news is the good news, and it is absolutely worth telling in every way possible, including using words.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Christ the Teacher
What has happened to make evangelicalism a shell of its former glory? Dallas Willard points to one main reason as the loss of the identity of Jesus as our Teacher.
Salvation by grace through faith is one of the great truths that emerged in the Protestant Reformation. But grace is so misunderstood; we tend to think of grace as the opposite of effort. If effort is involved, then it was not grace.
But this just isn't true. Effort isn't the opposite of grace, earning is. In fact, grace stimulates a ton of effort. Willard cites the great missionaries of the 19th century as examples. But people today misunderstand grace as no effort.
A second factor he mentions is one of the results of the modernist/fundamentalist debates. "Jesus as Teacher" sometimes became liberal modernist code-speak for Jesus is only human. So fundamentalists rejected the phrase. Unfortunately that also meant they eventually rejected the truth--that Jesus is our Master Teacher, and we are to be his disciples or apprentices in how to live life. Evangelicalism by and large no longer teaches that we are to be disciples of Jesus as Christians. Most churches even allow for someone to be a Christian without being a disciple.
Jesus came to do more than help us manage our sin, obtain forgiveness, and escape hell. He came to teach us how to live.
Salvation by grace through faith is one of the great truths that emerged in the Protestant Reformation. But grace is so misunderstood; we tend to think of grace as the opposite of effort. If effort is involved, then it was not grace.
But this just isn't true. Effort isn't the opposite of grace, earning is. In fact, grace stimulates a ton of effort. Willard cites the great missionaries of the 19th century as examples. But people today misunderstand grace as no effort.
A second factor he mentions is one of the results of the modernist/fundamentalist debates. "Jesus as Teacher" sometimes became liberal modernist code-speak for Jesus is only human. So fundamentalists rejected the phrase. Unfortunately that also meant they eventually rejected the truth--that Jesus is our Master Teacher, and we are to be his disciples or apprentices in how to live life. Evangelicalism by and large no longer teaches that we are to be disciples of Jesus as Christians. Most churches even allow for someone to be a Christian without being a disciple.
Jesus came to do more than help us manage our sin, obtain forgiveness, and escape hell. He came to teach us how to live.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Becoming Self Aware
My wife really gives me a hard time on my book selection. We both love to read (and we're really glad that our kids have the same love!), but the choices are extremely different. She's into John Grisham and the Mitford series, I like John Wesley and A New Kind of Christian series. She likes the deep plots and fictional characters, I prefer the deep thoughts challenging my character.
So it's not unusual for me to be reading something that makes me more self-aware of my junk. It just doesn't normally come from a book about personal organization.
I first read David Allen's "Getting Things Done" a couple of years ago (I have an Aggie friend who calls it the "Git'er Done" book), and I absolutely love the system. Yes, I recommend it, but that's not what struck me yesterday. David published a follow-up called "Ready For Anything", just a collection of thoughts on the system. He was discussing why some people don't really want to get everything they have to do out of their heads and into their system, and wrote this gem:
"If we maintain confusion and amorphousness, we can pretend that we could be smart, powerful, and purposely effective--but never have to prove it to ourselves. 'Oh, I could express much more of my magnificence, creativity, brilliance, and dynamism, but because my importance has me so burdened with the responsibilities it must bear, I just can't demonstrate it at the moment.' What crafty games we can play with ourselves!"
Wow. How many times have I let my own feelings of self-importance get in the way of actually rolling up my sleeves and doing something? When have I looked at a task that Jesus would have done and thought that I was too magnificent, too brilliant, to be wasting my time on something like that?
Ouch!
So it's not unusual for me to be reading something that makes me more self-aware of my junk. It just doesn't normally come from a book about personal organization.
I first read David Allen's "Getting Things Done" a couple of years ago (I have an Aggie friend who calls it the "Git'er Done" book), and I absolutely love the system. Yes, I recommend it, but that's not what struck me yesterday. David published a follow-up called "Ready For Anything", just a collection of thoughts on the system. He was discussing why some people don't really want to get everything they have to do out of their heads and into their system, and wrote this gem:
"If we maintain confusion and amorphousness, we can pretend that we could be smart, powerful, and purposely effective--but never have to prove it to ourselves. 'Oh, I could express much more of my magnificence, creativity, brilliance, and dynamism, but because my importance has me so burdened with the responsibilities it must bear, I just can't demonstrate it at the moment.' What crafty games we can play with ourselves!"
Wow. How many times have I let my own feelings of self-importance get in the way of actually rolling up my sleeves and doing something? When have I looked at a task that Jesus would have done and thought that I was too magnificent, too brilliant, to be wasting my time on something like that?
Ouch!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The First Day of Lent - Ash Wednesday
I confess.
I have no idea what to do for Lent. Growing up Baptist has left me ignorant about the Christian calendar in general and about Lent in particular. Probably some other things too. I've been reading Thomas Merton's "No Man is an Island" in my morning devotional, and I almost feel guilty for reading a Roman Catholic priest's writings. Okay, not really. I haven't felt guilty since 1989, but I feel like I'm supposed to feel guilty, a Baptist reading a Catholic priest for devotional thoughts.
I have read a few things--Lentin readings, calendars, stations of the cross. I am growing in my knowledge enough to see that the caricatures of Lent, like giving up chocolate for 40 days, don't do it justice.
I want to hunger and thirst for righteousness.
I want to seek God's kingdom above all things.
I want to want to know the Passion of Christ. (not a misprint; I'm not sure I want to, so I want to want to.)
God, reveal yourself to me during my Baptist Lent.
I have no idea what to do for Lent. Growing up Baptist has left me ignorant about the Christian calendar in general and about Lent in particular. Probably some other things too. I've been reading Thomas Merton's "No Man is an Island" in my morning devotional, and I almost feel guilty for reading a Roman Catholic priest's writings. Okay, not really. I haven't felt guilty since 1989, but I feel like I'm supposed to feel guilty, a Baptist reading a Catholic priest for devotional thoughts.
I have read a few things--Lentin readings, calendars, stations of the cross. I am growing in my knowledge enough to see that the caricatures of Lent, like giving up chocolate for 40 days, don't do it justice.
I want to hunger and thirst for righteousness.
I want to seek God's kingdom above all things.
I want to want to know the Passion of Christ. (not a misprint; I'm not sure I want to, so I want to want to.)
God, reveal yourself to me during my Baptist Lent.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
More about Church
If you haven't read my two posts "My Ecclesiology" from October 9th and "What is the Church?" from October 13th to get a little background.
So to pick up where we left off, the Church really is this place where a community of people commit to live together under the rule of God. This rule of God is like a virus that infects their pattern of living, changes their purpose in living, and gives them new reasons for living. Where we have often gone wrong today is that over a long period of time--in some cases centuries--we have taken the outward expressions of that rule of God and systematized them. By this I mean that instead of focusing on developing inward spiritual life as individuals and simultaneously living that life in our relationships with each other, we start with what we think the end should look like in the sense of some sort of church structure/organization and then we try to engineer the people into that structure. And it never works!
Today's churches, even the really good ones, tend to first create or assume certain structures. These structures can be based on theology, denominationalism, heirarchy, or whatever, but they most often in our 21st century western society come about because they outline the power structure of the church.
I recently found a new writer I like: Frank Viola. Viola is in the emerging church movement, but from a different perspective than some others. Here's a great article where he answers a question about how he differs from another of my favorites, Brian McLaren.
http://www.ptmin.org/february2007.htm
So to pick up where we left off, the Church really is this place where a community of people commit to live together under the rule of God. This rule of God is like a virus that infects their pattern of living, changes their purpose in living, and gives them new reasons for living. Where we have often gone wrong today is that over a long period of time--in some cases centuries--we have taken the outward expressions of that rule of God and systematized them. By this I mean that instead of focusing on developing inward spiritual life as individuals and simultaneously living that life in our relationships with each other, we start with what we think the end should look like in the sense of some sort of church structure/organization and then we try to engineer the people into that structure. And it never works!
Today's churches, even the really good ones, tend to first create or assume certain structures. These structures can be based on theology, denominationalism, heirarchy, or whatever, but they most often in our 21st century western society come about because they outline the power structure of the church.
I recently found a new writer I like: Frank Viola. Viola is in the emerging church movement, but from a different perspective than some others. Here's a great article where he answers a question about how he differs from another of my favorites, Brian McLaren.
http://www.ptmin.org/february2007.htm
To End All Wars
I watched yesterday "To End All Wars", a movie a friend recommended. It may well make it onto my all-time fave list, although I may not ever want to see it again.
It is the story of several WWII POWs captured by the Japanese and forced to build a railroad through the Southeast Asian jungles. The story is told from the point of view of Ernest (Ernie) Gordon (played superbly by Ciaran McMenamin, who also narrates), a young lieutenant with the Scottish Argyles, which sounds similar to our American Green Berets. The unit is captured by the Japanese and taken to a pow camp. One pow already there is seen in a makeshift church. Dusty is played by Mark Strong and makes an incredible portrait of a Jesus-follower, although I'm not quite sure that the name of Jesus was ever mentioned. Dusty quotes Jesus on several occasions, and eventually befriends and mentors young Ernie. Ernie had always wanted to teach, and at Dusty and several other pow's encouragement, starts Jungle University, teaching Platonic philosophy and a number of other things to the men there. At first it is done in secret, but eventually the Japanese guards are so impressed with the gospel transformation in the men and their ethics, their work, their sacrifice, that they allow the classes to happen in public.
The anti-hero character contrasts greatly with the teachings of Jesus transforming these men through Dusty and Ernie's characters. Major Ian Campbell (Robert Carlyle) watched his captors murder his colonel, and he wants revenge. He is constantly battling Ernie and Dusty on the meaning of justice, with several great references to Jesus' sacrifice. Ian is recruiting men to his cause throughout the movie, but many defect from him to Ernie because of the love, the mercy, the hope, found in those men.
The night of the graduation ceremony of Jungle U. Ian and his small band kill 2 guards and try to take over the camp. They are caught and stopped, and the next day Ian watches his men be shot to death. The Japanese officer who killed his colonel is about to behead him with a sword, when Dusty comes forward and offers himself to suffer in Ian's place. We are left to debate whether he does this for the Japanese man's sake or Ian's sake or both, but regardless, the Japanese accept his offer and he is crucified while Ian goes free.
If this was the typical Christian propaganda flick, Ian would have at this point converted to Christ on his knees and spent the rest of his life preaching on some street corner somewhere. But the reality of the mix of redemption and sin, mercy and judgment, is palpitable in this movie. Ian is unmoved, in fact, even more enraged. For Ian, mercy will forever be for cowards.
Ian is contrasted by Lt. Jim "Yanker" Reardon (Kiefer Sutherland). Yanker is a blatant capitalist, manipulating everyone and everything he can to make money in the camp. He works all the relationships, guards, pow's, locals, and more to ply his trade. One night Ian rats him out to the Japanese and he's caught. The captors string him out along the ground in sun and rain for days. He is broken through the experience, and profoundly changed. At one point later in the movie he even sacrifices himself to save the camp from being punished, becoming paralyzed in the process.
I don't know that I have ever seen a better portrayal of the messiness of mercy and redemption mixed with the sin of the world. I will warn you that the movie is a graphic presentation of war and violence, but in contrast with the mercy and hope found by those who follow the teachings of Jesus, it is incredibly truthful and artistic. And redemptive.
Some questions:
It is the story of several WWII POWs captured by the Japanese and forced to build a railroad through the Southeast Asian jungles. The story is told from the point of view of Ernest (Ernie) Gordon (played superbly by Ciaran McMenamin, who also narrates), a young lieutenant with the Scottish Argyles, which sounds similar to our American Green Berets. The unit is captured by the Japanese and taken to a pow camp. One pow already there is seen in a makeshift church. Dusty is played by Mark Strong and makes an incredible portrait of a Jesus-follower, although I'm not quite sure that the name of Jesus was ever mentioned. Dusty quotes Jesus on several occasions, and eventually befriends and mentors young Ernie. Ernie had always wanted to teach, and at Dusty and several other pow's encouragement, starts Jungle University, teaching Platonic philosophy and a number of other things to the men there. At first it is done in secret, but eventually the Japanese guards are so impressed with the gospel transformation in the men and their ethics, their work, their sacrifice, that they allow the classes to happen in public.
The anti-hero character contrasts greatly with the teachings of Jesus transforming these men through Dusty and Ernie's characters. Major Ian Campbell (Robert Carlyle) watched his captors murder his colonel, and he wants revenge. He is constantly battling Ernie and Dusty on the meaning of justice, with several great references to Jesus' sacrifice. Ian is recruiting men to his cause throughout the movie, but many defect from him to Ernie because of the love, the mercy, the hope, found in those men.
The night of the graduation ceremony of Jungle U. Ian and his small band kill 2 guards and try to take over the camp. They are caught and stopped, and the next day Ian watches his men be shot to death. The Japanese officer who killed his colonel is about to behead him with a sword, when Dusty comes forward and offers himself to suffer in Ian's place. We are left to debate whether he does this for the Japanese man's sake or Ian's sake or both, but regardless, the Japanese accept his offer and he is crucified while Ian goes free.
If this was the typical Christian propaganda flick, Ian would have at this point converted to Christ on his knees and spent the rest of his life preaching on some street corner somewhere. But the reality of the mix of redemption and sin, mercy and judgment, is palpitable in this movie. Ian is unmoved, in fact, even more enraged. For Ian, mercy will forever be for cowards.
Ian is contrasted by Lt. Jim "Yanker" Reardon (Kiefer Sutherland). Yanker is a blatant capitalist, manipulating everyone and everything he can to make money in the camp. He works all the relationships, guards, pow's, locals, and more to ply his trade. One night Ian rats him out to the Japanese and he's caught. The captors string him out along the ground in sun and rain for days. He is broken through the experience, and profoundly changed. At one point later in the movie he even sacrifices himself to save the camp from being punished, becoming paralyzed in the process.
I don't know that I have ever seen a better portrayal of the messiness of mercy and redemption mixed with the sin of the world. I will warn you that the movie is a graphic presentation of war and violence, but in contrast with the mercy and hope found by those who follow the teachings of Jesus, it is incredibly truthful and artistic. And redemptive.
Some questions:
- Are we supposed to really follow the teachings of Jesus like turning the other cheek and loving our enemies?
- If so, how do they apply in times of war?
- Someone recently forwarded me an email stating that the goal of Islam is to rule the world, and that "The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes . All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win . Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win . The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them." How does following Jesus' teachings fit into this idea?
Keep the dialogue going...
Monday, January 01, 2007
Happy New Year!
Hey, I hope that your new year is starting off in just the right way, as a follower of the Way of Jesus in this changing world in which we live. Over the Christmas break I read a few books, one of which was Tom Friedmann's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." Friedmann wrote this book in 1999 and 2000, and since it deals with globalization, you'd think it was a little out of date in a post 9-11 world. But it is definitely not! (Friedmann has also written "The Earth is Flat" in 2005, and it is also a great book. I don't know of anyone who has a better grasp on how the world is changing than Friedmann, regardless of whether you agree with his positions or solutions.
"The Lexus and the Olive Tree" posits that globalism has replaced the Cold War as the dominant philosophy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It is a different worldview, with different relationships and values than in the Cold War era. That Cold War time featured 2 dominant world powers (the US and the USSR) who balanced each other out. The rest of the world more or less picked a side and hung out with one of the big boys. But now, there is only one superpower (the US), and the real "hero" that most of the world wants to be associated with is what Friedmann calls "the Herd", the financial decision-makers of the world. Everything has become for many people about entering the global market and competing in a global world. He uses the desire for a Lexus to represent this philosophy.
But there are also those who still want their own culture, their own language, their own way of life. They resent the way that the Herd makes homogeneity more valuable than uniqueness and tradition. They still want their olive tree.
Is there a world where you can have both the Lexus and the olive tree?
"The Lexus and the Olive Tree" posits that globalism has replaced the Cold War as the dominant philosophy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It is a different worldview, with different relationships and values than in the Cold War era. That Cold War time featured 2 dominant world powers (the US and the USSR) who balanced each other out. The rest of the world more or less picked a side and hung out with one of the big boys. But now, there is only one superpower (the US), and the real "hero" that most of the world wants to be associated with is what Friedmann calls "the Herd", the financial decision-makers of the world. Everything has become for many people about entering the global market and competing in a global world. He uses the desire for a Lexus to represent this philosophy.
But there are also those who still want their own culture, their own language, their own way of life. They resent the way that the Herd makes homogeneity more valuable than uniqueness and tradition. They still want their olive tree.
Is there a world where you can have both the Lexus and the olive tree?
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Even More about the Church...
Wow, has it been almost two months since my last post??? If anyone is still reading, I'm sorry about that. My boss resigned a few weeks back, and life has been hectic ever since. No excuse, but maybe you understand...
At the risk of really getting myself in trouble (even with myself) let me post a paper that I wrote for one of our professors. He is a history guy, and sees the history of the Church as a series of reforms since Constantine's ruining of the church in the 4th century (I like this approach). He asked a few people to write their thoughts on the next needed reform. So here you go. Critique away!
The Next Reform?
Arnie Adkison
The church’s next needed reform (at least in the Western communities that I am familiar with) can be summed up with the words deconstruction and desystemization. The church should be a community of believers living together in close proximity to others and to their neighbors, but instead we have become large organizations formed around accomplishing certain purposes. Many of these purposes are good and godly things, like worship, evangelism, Bible study, etc. However, these things are not ends unto themselves, but actions that a community of Christians should practice in the normal flows and contexts of life, not in engineered events in private facilities. What does this deconstruction and desystemization look like?
At the risk of really getting myself in trouble (even with myself) let me post a paper that I wrote for one of our professors. He is a history guy, and sees the history of the Church as a series of reforms since Constantine's ruining of the church in the 4th century (I like this approach). He asked a few people to write their thoughts on the next needed reform. So here you go. Critique away!
The Next Reform?
Arnie Adkison
The church’s next needed reform (at least in the Western communities that I am familiar with) can be summed up with the words deconstruction and desystemization. The church should be a community of believers living together in close proximity to others and to their neighbors, but instead we have become large organizations formed around accomplishing certain purposes. Many of these purposes are good and godly things, like worship, evangelism, Bible study, etc. However, these things are not ends unto themselves, but actions that a community of Christians should practice in the normal flows and contexts of life, not in engineered events in private facilities. What does this deconstruction and desystemization look like?
- The church should begin divesting itself of owning property and move the center of activity back into homes and neighborhoods. In our isolation-of-the-individual culture where people build McMansion castles that protect them from the bad elements in society but also insulate them from real relationships, churches need to become mobile communities that meet in close proximity to all kinds of people so that we can focus on building relationships of love with each other and our neighbors. Our busy programs fill our church buildings with activity but do not accomplish the building of very many real communities of love and faith in our society.
- Totally eliminate the dichotomy between so-called clergy and laity, restoring the true principle of the priesthood of every believer. Some have called the Reformation a 2/3 reform, because it restored sola scriptura and salvation by grace, but did not complete the necessary reform of returning the church to a community of equal followers of the Way. Every believer has a role to play in the church community, and they must not be allowed to not fulfill that role. Small neighborhood communities allow for everyone to participate in worship, evangelism, Bible study, etc.
- Create (re-create, really) a new theological education model for educating not just potential leaders but all followers of the Way. If all believers are responsible in the new communities, then all believers are required to enter into a process of apprenticeship to learn both theology and practice of the Way.
The true New Testament local church needs to deconstruct the buildings and unsystematize the programs that have become the focus of the past few centuries since the Protestant Reformation and return to communities living and functioning as the body of Christ in the midst of neighborhoods around the world.
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