What Is Our Place in the Body of Christ?

Imagine for a moment that Disciples of Christ have discovered a new sense of purpose rooted in serving and supporting other Christians.

We wake up one morning and realize that we don’t really enjoy competing for the dwindling number of existing church members in our local communities . . . even if some of them are members of that weird church across town.

We are weary of being the denomination of last resort. “Hey, Disciples of Christ don’t require you to believe or to do anything beyond Baptism. We can get our weekly dose of whatever we need and leave the rest behind.”

Lately our own people admit to feeling spiritually restless. They want something more from their religious life than keeping the congregation running on fumes.

Our hope in a vision coming from a small group of people who make their living going to meetings has cooled a bit and we are becoming more adept at looking for what Christ is doing locally.

We have observed that when Jesus does something big in our home town, the effort requires the investment of more Christians than attend our worship services . . . or the Methodists or the Baptists (combined).

A review of our denominational history suggests that we were originally all about reclaiming the oneness of the Body of Christ and with 33,000 known Christian denominations, sects, and cults; we have our work cut out for us.

But oneness in what? A coalition of denominations that welcomes all comers? Wasn’t CUIC supposed to accomplish that? (It hasn’t.)

Churches in our community decide to raise money so that Cindy can have that liver transplant that her family cannot afford. They work with civic clubs to organize after school programs for kids whose parents have to work minimum wage jobs. Whenever those missions get going, or need to begin, the one ingredient that is essential is someone (or a group of leaders) to help get very different people working well together.

Why is it that so often those community project organizers are Disciples of Christ? It is not as if we have a lock on that kind of work but it does fit so well our DNA.

So, what if we got far more intentional about calling and equipping new saints – not only for the more common, congregational missions, but also for the missions that local communities of Christians will do together?

What if our worship services made room for celebrating what Christ is actually doing locally (as well as globally)?

If our Sunday Schools and Bible studies included a weekly focus on how we could better support the folk who actually do the work of these community missions, might they be more vital and dynamic?

How about those beloved symbols of summer – the Vacation Bible School and the annual youth mission trip? Imagine if instead of offering competing programs we committed to help local Christians to organize and carry out one program with excellence for all the local youth (or at least most of them)?

And if you have a better idea about how Disciples can become clear about God’s preferred role for our denomination within the larger Body of Christ, what’s keeping you from sharing that with the rest of us?

Bill Rose-Heim

Three Trends?

Congregational visits can inspire songs of great joy and deep laments – even in the same visit. This month has been no exception.

It might be helpful to share with you some of what we have seen and heard recently in your congregations:

• A team of volunteers stripped the bark from a huge fallen tree (casualty of the ice storms last winter) and recreated the “tree” for VBS in the middle of the fellowship hall along with a working waterfall – just to make the experience more profound for participants.
• “Thanks for volunteering to help. You don’t need to prepare. The kids don’t want to be there anyway. Just go be with them for 20 minutes and send them on to the next activity.”
• Her graduation picture is propped on a table in front of the sanctuary. The members of this small, graying, rural congregation are filling in for absent parents to support another fledgling about to fly.
• “Our fellowship hall and sanctuary are available for an emergency relief shelter.”
• A congregation cashes in a long-held certificate of deposit (proceeds from memorials and bequests) to pay the utilities. Giving per household is about what it was 20 years ago. The number of households is down 50%.
• “We had fifty adults helping and teaching eighty eight kids for VBS. The Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor taught one of the classes and led the whole inter-denominational group of kids in one of the best prayers those kids ever prayed!”

There are more stories to tell and we will tell more of them in time.

Some themes are beginning to emerge. We’ll just identify three here.

First, there is a core group in every congregation who still believe that the message and mission of Jesus is as important to happiness as breathing. That is hopeful news.

It is also true that many congregations are getting very comfortable just coasting on the momentum of prior generations of Christ-followers. The culture has so infected their faith that it is almost impossible to distinguish between the gospel they believe in and the American Dream.

There is a noticeable upsurge of local, ecumenical activity – much of it generated by lay folk. We cannot help but wonder if we are in the early phases of a very pragmatic course correction in North American Christianity – to unify the Body of Christ around local mission.

What do you see?

Grace and peace,

Bill R-H

Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing!

When farmers are faced with rising fuel prices, fickle markets, higher rental fees and costs for everything that needs to be planted, driven or applied, it is easy to forget that your original intention was to feed your neighbors

When budget challenges and lower worship attendance seem to set the tone for congregational life in NW Missouri, it is easy to forget that the primary reason we are part of the Church is to make new disciples of Jesus.

These days, making disciples may be the last thing we want to do. Why? Even many Christians are no longer be as sure about who Jesus is and what the Gospel means to a thousand generations not yet born.

Thus we pose a question and invite your response.

What is it about your experience of Jesus that your community cannot do without?

Without a clear and compelling answer to that question, it may be that our religious life is little more than a quaint carryover from a time when more disciples could give such a compelling answer that it made you want to become a disciple of Jesus, too.

How Well Do We Support the Saints?

When the 30,000 member Willow Creek Community Church admits publicly that it is not meeting the needs of some of its long-term faithful, it merits the attention of those who enjoy their annual leadership and training conferences.

Frankly, I find their candor refreshing in a wider church culture that likes to pretend everything is just great in the Body of Christ.

After a rigorous survey of its members, WCCC staff identified some indications that challenged an assumption that new Christians were effective, enthusiastic evangelists. In fact, they found, the opposite was more likely; those who identified themselves as “Close to Christ” or “Christ-centered” were doing the heavy lifting for evangelism. Among those more developed members, enough rated themselves as “stalled” or “dissatisfied” with their spiritual growth to make staff return to prayer closets and staff conversations with greater urgency.

Judging from conversations with folk in NW Area congregations, I suspect that we do a better job of protecting and feeding the flock than we do building up those recognized as true shepherds, evangelists, prophets, teachers, and apostles among our people. (Eph. 4:11-12)

We count too much on current structures and systems to sustain congregational life, and, sometimes we overlook what really gets results.

We Christians have nothing unique to offer if not Jesus. Our people can get excellent training from a variety of secular agencies to become more compassionate, brutally truthful, educated, enthusiastic, change agents. What universities, government agencies, and private firms are not specially called and formed to give is an awareness of God’s intention to reconcile the whole world as revealed through Jesus Christ. Has popular church culture produced more loyal consumers and producers of popular culture than disciples of Jesus? And if it has, what are we doing to make sure that those among us who strive to be “close to Christ” or even “Christ-centered” are being sufficiently supported to serve?

Leadership Model of Ephesians 4:11-12

Have you noticed the switch from traditional spoke or solid wheel rims to five-spoke models made with super alloys? They provide needed strength while reducing the amount of material. They are engineered so that the minimum number of spokes provides the maximum strength needed to fulfill the function of the wheel – to facilitate motion.

Grind or torch off one or more of the new alloy spokes and the integrity of both the wheel and its usefulness is compromised (if not altogether destroyed). Only an idiot would do such a thing, right?

One can successfully argue that there are many models for congregational leadership in the Christian Testament. Most models call for teams of peer colleagues and one in particular was apparently a model Paul respected. Ephesians 4:11-12 refers to a five-spoke missional leadership wheel that included an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd, and a teacher.

Apostles are all about expanding the reach of the gospel.

Prophets advocate for God’s will to be known and carried out.

Evangelists look for potential disciples of Jesus and invite commitment.

Shepherds are all about the care and protection of local disciples.

Teachers make divine mystery more accessible and encourage wisdom.

Together, they make a formidable, balanced team. The current North American Protestant congregation in the rural Midwest, however, tends to favor a model which asks of its hireling clergy a balance of all five gifts. Larger churches are expected to have a staff with all five gifts. Many congregations have sawn off evangelism and prophecy and most apostolic work in favor of more self-serving teaching and shepherding.

In the Spring, 2008 edition of the Leadership Journal, Alan Hirsch suggests that the five-fold leadership team might be best understood as a team of leaders of five teams; apostolic, prophetic, evangelism, shepherding, and teaching.

Do read the article. It offers insight and hope at a time when current congregational leadership models are limping along.

None of us are so naïve as to believe that an ideal leadership model will descend from “on high.” What will work in the years to come will have to be prayerfully discerned locally, vigorously tried, ruthlessly evaluated and modified and attempted again and often. Additionally, new or re-visited models will have to have integrity with the biblical witness.

What models of leadership are proving helpful where you serve?

Who Are You, Disciples of Christ?

Have you looked recently at the new identity statement for the Disciples of Christ: http://www.disciples.org/21cvt/docidentity.html? I encourage you to check it out because at some point we will be asked to commit ourselves to it. (After all, of what purpose is a statement of identity if we are not willing to be fully identified with it?)

Maybe it's just me, but I was hoping for more . . . momentum. I wanted a statement shouted back from a speeding bus loaded with workers chugging water and Mountain Dew headed for the mission field. When I read the current statement I have visions of polite conversations in church parlors and board rooms or the tap-tap-tapping of a keyboard and mugs of Chai Latte and Organic Sumatra-Peru Blend.

It is probably a good thing that I have not been charged with writing the Disciples Statement of Identity because it would look something more like this:

We are going into the neighborhood to serve those who serve with Christ until the mission is completed.

I probably would resist the temptation to add more words to an identity statement. Any shouting from a speeding bus is done in phrases - not paragraphs.

If pressed, Id' have to explain that those who serve also help to unite those they serve and that, to me, has always been the polar star of this expression of Christianity.

No one denomination is going to be strong enough to be effectively counter-cultural. The Great Commission, the Great Commandment, and the Good Confession were all given to the whole Body and not to its franchises (which, sadly, is what too many in this culture bring to mind when you mention the word, denomination). The missions of Burger King, McDonalds, Hardees and Wendy's are certainly about satisfying hunger here and now but they are not about ending world hunger forever (a God-sized mission). There is little doubt, however, that if all the brain power and resources and networks of every major food chain and supplier could be marshaled to a much bigger, single goal, the end result would be far more miraculous than most missional efforts to date. Is it stretching the truth to make a similar case for the whole Church about the Great Commission and the Great Commandment?

The current Disciples Mission Statement appears to have been roundly affirmed - almost unanimously - by those who have left their comments. Interesting, considering that Reformation is in our DNA.

And, as you can imagine, my intent is not so much to debate the merits of the Statement of Identiy but to encourage all of us to answer a question that Jesus may be asking the disciples of today; "Who do people say that you are?"

Let's hear from you!

Bill Rose-Heim

What Does God Say To You?

The following is the key question for the retreat March 15 & 16 with Alan Roxburgh and 22 NW Area leaders at Conception Abbey:


"How would God have us reconfigure, retool, and transform at our core to become more than a denominational middle judicatory; a truly helpful team of servants who broker equipping relationships with congregation leadership teams of any or no denomination who want to become mission-driven, disciple-making, transforming communities, serving with Jesus in their zip codes?"

Please reflect prayerfully and let us know what God says to you.
B R-H

What's Going On?

What is "missional" church about anyway?

Let's start with what it's NOT:

• Not another program
• Not a denominational initiative
• Not an option
  

What missional church IS:

• Centered in the local community
• Congregationally led
• Focused on serving with Jesus (as opposed to for Him)
• Mostly carried out by well equipped lay people outside the church campus

This is how we intend to focus our best energy and resources.

This is a good place to share your reflections, your successes, your trials, your testimonies of transformation.

Let the journey begin!
BR-H