Deconstructing The Great Commission – Part Two

‘To be a witness means to offer your own faith experience and to make your doubts and hopes, failures and successes, loneliness and woundedness, available to others as a context in which they can struggle with their own humanness and quest for meaning.’   --Henry Nouwen (Spiritual Direction)

I didn’t get a lot of response to my previous post Deconstructing The Great Commission  but here’s some rambling in response to one of the comments:

Ken Bussell pointed out that the verses associated with The Great Commission don’t say anything about “sharing the gospel” – instead the verses speak of making disciples and teaching them to obey Jesus’ commandments.  Thinking about that and taking into account what Jesus said and taught I start to get the sense that The Great Commission is not so much about converting people to a particular belief system but much more about teaching a way of life.  Of course it is easier to tell people what to believe than to show them how to live.  Living life is a lot messier – it often seems to pull the legs out from under absolute statements that belief systems are typically built on.  I notice that people were always trying to pin Jesus down about what they should believe about all sorts of things, but Jesus didn’t seem that concerned with absolute statements that could be spouted off.  In fact, it seemed that he went out of his way to show that life would more often than not turn those statements on their head.  Just when someone thought they were being obedient Jesus would demonstrate that their form of obedience violated the very essence of what he was all about.

I guess at this point I would say that I am getting a picture that living out The Great Commission is much more alive and fluid than traditional teaching conveys. 

Deconstructing The Great Commission

 

As many of you know I’ve been doing a lot of deconstructing of Christianity over the last few years – examining what I’ve been taught, what I believed about God, Jesus, and scripture, and what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. 

Let me tell you…it is a very, very, very long process – especially for someone with no formal theological training.  Not only is it a long process but at times it is a very uncomfortable process – living with the questions, the doubts, the “not knowing” – dealing with people who proclaim you are going to hell, saying you shouldn’t call yourself a Christian and assigning all sorts of negative labels to you.  At times I want to give up, but I don’t – not because I am this great person who is pushing themselves through this process, determined not to give up, committed to persevering (blah blah blah) but more because it is what is happening to me.  I am trying to follow Jesus and as I live my life these “things” keep coming up – it’s sort of like “shit happens”.  So, here I am today with another “thing” that I am trying to understand – and it has to do with “The Great Commission.”

I was taught that every Christian is commanded by Jesus to be a witness for him and that means telling others about the gospel (i.e. how he died on the cross to pay for our sins and how believing in him can save you from going to hell) and that our ultimate goal is to convert as many as possible and win the world for Christ – this was called “The Great Commission.”

When I first began to deconstruct this teaching I focused on “the gospel” – I deconstructed what I had been taught and began to try to understand what scripture had to say about “the gospel” (what was the good news?) – I eventually came to a different understanding from what I had been taught all my life but that is not what I want to talk about today.  Today I want to ask some different questions.  I want to ask:

“Is the Great Commission a promise or a commandment?”  “Was Jesus really speaking to all Christians or just to the apostles?” “What was the goal of the instruction that Jesus gave to the apostles?”  “What about all those things that Jesus said would happen – casting out demons, picking up snakes with their hands, speaking in new tongues, healing the sick?” “Are these passages relevant for me today?”

You see, when I read the first chapter of Acts it sounds to me that the only commandment Jesus gave was the one to wait in Jerusalem until something special happened (the Day of Pentecost).  When I read Acts 1:8 it doesn’t sound like a command as much as a promise.  It sounds like Jesus is explaining what will happen after the Holy Spirit comes upon them.

And when I read Matthew 28:16-20 and Mark 16:15-20 in context it sounds like this is a contextually limited instruction given only to the apostles and that there is a political aspect to the instruction that has to do with the Roman Empire.  I also sense that the purpose was much narrower than what I’ve been taught and that there may have been some  immediate urgency to make something happen before something else happened.

Could Jesus’ instructions to the apostles serve the purpose of creating communities that would “be” the “new creation” among all the nations and these communities would be the witness of Jesus because of the way they functioned?  Was there an urgency to do this before the destruction of Jerusalem – was that the reason for all those special signs?

I sense that there is a past, present and future wrapped up in these passages.  I believe that there is something in these passages that is relevant for me today but that it is different than what I have known up to this point. 

I have more questions and thoughts but I want to stop here for now.

I could use some help thinking these things through and so I am inviting you to come here and have a conversation that I can listen in on.  I am interested in all feedback but please be courteous.  (And not to be rude, but I already know the traditional teaching very well and feel that it is incomplete in some ways and embellished in others – I am looking for some new perspectives and insights that might help me to explore my questions.  Oh – and I am better with “not knowing” than trying to simplistically explain away my questions.) 

Does Your Religion Objectify Humanity?

I can’t be a part of a religion that will objectify humanity as a target – as somebody who is just there to be reached. – Samir Selmanovic

Samir Selmanovic, author of “It’s Really All About God” offers a new way to embrace each other’s religious traditions while maintaining our own. Watch this compelling video by Samir:

Check out the book here.

A Piece Of The Puzzle Is Missing

 

 

I rarely go to church these days.  It all started about three years ago when several things happened within a short period of time.  Between dealing with some real life situations that made me begin to question a lot of what the Evangelical Christian Church typically taught and moving to a new community, I stopped going to church. 

It didn’t happen all at once.  At first I slowed down on the things I participated in.  I had taught Bible Studies for years and I stopped teaching mainly because of the questions and doubts I was dealing with.  I also scaled back on a lot of participation in other areas.  If the program wasn’t missional in nature or for the purpose of creating community I eliminated it from my roster (there were a few exceptions, but not many).  Then we moved to a new community and although we visited churches for almost two years (several for 2 or 3 months) I never got connected.  So, for the last year I have attended church very rarely.

This is unusual for me because I was one of those people that went to church “every time the doors were opened” and volunteered/served a LOT.  It seemed that when I started to scale back on some of the things I volunteered for I discovered that many (to be honest, it was probably most) of my relationships at church fizzled out – which led me to think that the relationships were sort of superficial and based more on activities than actual relating.  That was sad.

I miss the way things used to be and yet the way things used to be doesn’t work for me anymore.

The closest anything came to working for me in the last couple of years was a small group (about 10 ppl) that met every other week.  We did some service projects together, some fun things, read books and discussed them, studied scripture and prayed together, and talked with one another about our lives, faith, families, hobbies, relationships – really everything and anything.  But after a couple of years the group stopped meeting because two or three of the couples broke off from the group for various reasons.  This group had grown out of a Sunday morning Bible class from the church we had attended for years.  We continued to drive the 50 mile roundtrip every other week to meet with the group just because it was such a good fit for my husband and I, but living as far away as we did we didn’t want to start trying out other small groups at that church.  We haven’t found anything similar in the community where we now live.

There are still a few churches that I am interested in visiting but it seems that the ones that I am drawn to don’t have any teens at all and I would like my teenage son to have some peers to connect with.

It’s an odd time.  I mourn for what I have lost even though what I lost is still there.  I’ve changed and that means I don’t fit in anymore.  It’s sad.

At the same time I enjoy sleeping in a little on Sundays (which I hadn’t done since I was in my twenties) and having both Saturday and Sunday to run errands, clean house, do the laundry – it seems to make the whole weekend more leisurely.  I like the extra time that our family has together during the week when we used to be all going in a lot of different directions due to all the church activities we were involved with.  But…I feel like a piece of the puzzle is missing.

Can anyone else relate?

Is Professional Ministry A Help Or A Hindrance To The Church?

There’s a good post and discussion going on over at Baptimergent  regarding professional ministry.  You can find the post here.  Here’s my response: 

I’ll start out with a couple of disclaimers – I am not and have never been in full time paid ministry and I do not believe that it is “wrong” for pastors to be paid a salary.

Even though I do not think it is wrong for pastors to be paid a salary I do not think that it is the best way for the church to operate. I think that it causes the church to have to be managed like a business, the congregation to have an unhealthy dependence on the paid staff of a church and tends to silent prophetic proclamation. I know many wonderful people who earn their living by being on staff at churches but I think the system needs to be dismantled.

Many of the comments I hear  talk about “all the things” that a pastor has to do. IMO all of those things should be shared by those who are members of the community. The problem is that the present system causes the members of the community to believe that the pastor should be doing those things because he is paid and the pastor to believe that he should be doing all those things because he is being compensated. Perhaps one reason most Christian’s are unaware of what spiritual gifts are bestowed upon them is because the system we have created implies that “the working body” of the church is made up of a few people who are on staff.

I know they are far and few between, but, there are groups of Christians meeting in the world without a paid staff and where the work of ministry is done by everyone in the group. So …  it is possible to do it differently.

In addition, it appears to me that a lot of “the things that have to be done” in churches today are things that have to be done to keep “the system” running and “the system” seems to resemble a country club a lot of times with all of it’s internal programs and activities.

I am always hearing that there is a problem these days getting college aged and young adults to attend/get involved in a local church but they aren’t the only ones. Many middle aged and older adults, like myself, who have devoted most of their lives to “the church” are leaving the church (if not physically, then emotionally) because it has become more of a hindrance than a help in our spiritual journey.

I Love Stories

I love stories, real and imaginary.  I collect them.  I find them in books, coffee shops, blogs, libraries, work, newspapers, grocery stores, schools, neighborhoods, magazines, social gatherings etc – the sources are endless.  Some are typed up and stored on my pc, some are on pieces of paper tucked in a box that sits on a shelf in my closet, some are in books that stand side by side in my bookshelf and others are just memories stored in my head.  I’ve noticed that the stories that I am most compelled to hang on to one way or the other are stories that not only move me but also teach me.  Sometimes what I learn are things I already knew but somehow the story makes them come alive for me.    So – it is in that spirit that I want to share a story I ran across the other day.

If you have young children you may already be aware of the story.  It is a children’s book that I think was published in 2003 by a man named Douglas Wood.  The name of the book is “The Old Turtle and The Broken Truth.”  This is one of those stories that is loved by all ages.  I encourage you to try to get your hands on a copy of the book as it is beautifully illustrated by Jon J. Muth.  Here’s a summary of the story.  (The lesson is obvious.)

The story is a parable that takes place in a “far away land, somehow not so very far” in “a land where every stone was a teacher and every breeze a language.”

One day a “truth” falls from the sky and breaks.  A piece of the truth falls to the ground and is found by Crow. The stone appeals to him because it is so shiny. But after a while, Crow begins to think that there is something not quite right with the truth he found; he feels it is “broken” and he wants to try to find one that is “whole.”  Fox, Coyote, Raccoon, Butterfly and Bear, are also attracted to the broken truth by its shininess and sweetness. But, one by one, they reject it, for the same reason Crow rejected it – they sense it is “broken”.

Later a human finds the broken truth, and reads the words that are written on it. “You Are Loved,” says the stone, and the person feels good just holding it. He takes it back to his people and they all treasure it. In time, they begin to fear other groups of people who are different from them and who do not share their truth, which they have proclaimed is “The Truth.” They also lose interest in the land and are no longer able to learn from the stones or hear the languages of the breezes.

Over time other groups of people learn about “The Truth” and wish to possess it for themselves. Wars break out, causing the land and all the people to suffer. The animals ask Old Turtle, their wise and ancient leader, to reason with the people and tell them the truth they’re fighting over is broken. But she refuses, saying the people are not ready for this message and that they will not listen to her.

Finally, a young girl, who is distraught because of all the wars and suffering, decides that something must be done, so she travels all alone to the “great hill in the very center of the world” where she meets Old Turtle, and asks her if things could ever change. Old Turtle, realizing this is a human ready to listen, tells the girl that things were not always like this and that there are many beautiful truths all around us and within us—the “small and lovely truths of life” which humans have lost the ability to recognize. And so with the Old Turtle’s help and guidance, the girl learns to hear the language of the breezes. Old Turtle tells the girl that the broken truth will only be mended when one person meets another person different from his or herself, and in that person sees and hears his or herself. Every person is important, according to Old Turtle, and “the world was made for each of us.”

Before she departs, Old Turtle gives the girl a gift, which she has been saving for the right person. The girl accepts it, but isn’t sure what to do with it. When she returns to her people, the girl tries to share the lessons she has learned with them and to show them the language of the breezes, but they don’t believe her and they refuse to listen. The girl is frustrated until she sees Crow flying around the high tower where the cherished broken truth is kept. As she looks up at the tower she realizes the significance of Old Turtle’s gift and climbs up to the broken truth to discover that the broken bit of stone received from Old Turtle fits against the broken truth and forms a heart shaped rock which reads, “You Are Loved—And So Are They.”

Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven? Part 2

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doczork/533629985/

 

 

 

Wow – I know I don’t have very many people reading my blog but I thought someone would comment on my last post – but I am new to blogging and still learning so I am going to assume I took the wrong approach and I will try again…

 

As a Christian one of the things I have been thinking about during the last couple of years is the Christian belief that salvation is through faith in Christ alone and only those who have faith in Christ will be saved and have eternal life in heaven.  Everyone else (with maybe some exceptions, like infants/children or mentally challenged persons) will go to hell and be eternally punished.

 

Now let me throw a couple of things in here at the beginning so we don’t get too sidetracked.  I am opposed to the idea that the main reason to become a follower of Jesus Christ is to get a ticket to heaven and think that is a whole discussion in itself.  Also, I am aware there is a whole discussion to be had about understanding what heaven and hell are and believe there are a lot of different ideas worth hearing.  But, I am thinking I cannot be the only person who is struggling with the idea that anyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ is going to hell.  Don’t misunderstand and think I need you to convince me or need you to come here and “witness” to me.  I do have faith in Christ alone and I am a committed follower of Jesus Christ.  I am wrestling with the idea that people who don’t believe in Christ are going to have to endure some sort of eternal punishment.

 

Here are some of my thoughts:

 

Why would God limit salvation?  If Christ’s death on the cross was sufficient and paid the price for all then why aren’t all granted eternal life? I understand knowing Jesus has a lot of benefits but I don’t understand that not knowing Jesus would limit the effectiveness of his work on the cross.

 

One answer I get regarding my question about limited salvation is that I shouldn’t ask why God isn’t doing more but I should consider we don’t deserve to be saved and we should just be thankful and amazed God would offer a way for anyone to be saved.  In other words:  “Why would/should God save anyone at all?

 

But, that answer (or question) doesn’t help me.  I believe with all my heart God loves all of his creation and I don’t think love has much to do with deserving.  When I love I don’t say: “I am going to or not going to do this or that for this person because they deserve or don’t deserve it.”  When I love I do loving and good things because I love.  I can’t imagine that God loves the way I believe he does and at the same time believe he has an attitude that says “they don’t deserve it but I will offer one narrow way for them to be saved”.  I don’t think God has that attitude and I believe he even calls us away from such an attitude.

 

Then there are people who quote scriptures to me.  For instance, I might be told John 3:16 is the answer.  But when I hear John 3:16 I don’t hear anything about those who do not believe in Jesus.  Or I might hear John 14:6 in which Jesus says he is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him.  Again, I don’t hear Jesus saying if someone doesn’t believe they will be eternally punished.  That verse may make me believe Jesus (who he is and what he did) provides access to God – access which would not be there otherwise, but it doesn’t make me believe

someone must do something in order to gain that access.  Analogies are always lacking but just to give you an idea of how I am thinking consider that unless I turn on the light switch my child (who can’t reach the light switch) will not have access to light in the room he/she is in.  The child does not have to do anything – they don’t have to ask, they don’t have to believe (in me, or electricity, or the light switch, or anything).  I have a way to make the light accessible to my child and think it is a good thing and so I do what is necessary to make it accessible and  “ta da” they have light.  I know the analogy can be torn apart but I am not using it to convince you, just to help you understand my thoughts.  I am wondering why it is unbelievable (according to scripture) that what Jesus “did” took care of the “thing” which

was separating humanity from God and now no one will ever live eternally separated from God.

 

In addition to all of that there are scriptures like 1 Timothy 4:10 (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.  This scripture seems to come right out and say Jesus is the savior of “all”.

 

I could go on but I would really like to hear your thoughts and beliefs (or even any of your own questions you wrestle with).

Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/john/4776861/

 

Before you proceed let me encourage you not to get upset or feel you have to convince anyone of anything here - the idea is to explain your beliefs/thoughts/questions and to listen to the explanation of someone who sees things differently than you do and engage with each other in a kind manner.  Now – proceed reading…

When you read the following words:

 Christianity, Jesus, God, Salvation, Heaven, Hell 

which one of the following questions resonates more with you? 

Why would God limit salvation?  

                            Or 

Why would God save anyone at all? 

Now – in connection with the question you would most likely ask,

how do you explain/understand the following verses? 

1 Timothy 4:10 (New International Version)

¹⁰(and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

John 3:16 (New International Version)

 ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,^[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 14:6 (New International Version)

 ⁶Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Best “Be Like Jesus” List

John Smulo posted this two years ago on his blog and reposted it recently.  It is the best “be like Jesus” list I have come across.  Every link is worth checking out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/archiemcphee/533874090/

1. Get baptized by the craziest guy in town.

2. Say and do things that are guaranteed to make religious people want to kill you. Repeat again, and again, and again, and again, and again and don’t stop unless forced.

3. Do amazing things for people and ask them to not tell anyone.

4. Hang out with the most despised, marginalized, looked down upon, and shunned people you can find.

5. When possible, forgive and restore people, even if they betrayed you.

6. Live in a way that provokes gossip.

7. Win the most grace competition.

8. Keep the party going.

9. Serve people (note: nose plugs may be required).

10. If you’re sad cry.

11. Empower people to do the extraordinary.

12. Act like a rock star in a hotel temple.

13. Radically simplify theology.

14.Break human-made religious laws. Repeat consistently.

15.Prioritize the most important over the important.

16. Let women with questionable backgrounds pay your bills.

If you would like to copy this and put it anywhere feel free.

Get Over It!!!!

 

 

I listen to Kidd Kraddick on 106.1 every morning while I am driving to my office.

Kidd and his sidekicks (Kellie, JC, Al and Shannon) are very entertaining and do lots of fun and hilarious bits.  One of my favorite bits is “Get Over It”.

The way it works is that people email or call in about what they want other people to get over.  For instance:

 “To my boyfriend’s ex:  When you text someone 14 times and don’t get any replies you are texting with yourself.  GET OVER IT!”

 “My voicemail is full because it makes me feel important – GET OVER IT!”

 “To everyone with McCain/Palin stickers still on their car – Obama won – GET OVER IT!”

 “To the person at work that manages the office supplies:  Yes, I need another can of Air Duster – I don’t like crumbs in my keyboard and it’s only $4 a can – GET OVER IT!”

 I like the bit so much that I thought it would be fun to add it to my blog – possibly on a monthly basis and ask you what you want to tell someone to get over.

 Here’s one from me:

 Just because someone disagrees with you about a particular interpretation of scripture does NOT mean that they are not a Christian – “GET OVER IT”

 Now, go ahead and try it – it’s very therapeutic….