Dual Fidelity

Evangelicals are called to a dual fidelity: faithfulness to the gospel word and faithfulness to the gospel community. The gospel word creates the gospel community; the gospel community displays and declares the gospel word.

In the contemporary scene, people and movements tend towards polarization on this issue. It's often those who are solid on the gospel word who are flabby on gospel community. Likewise, those who elevate community tend to downplay the word.

But there are dangers facing those of us who want to be true to that dual fidelity. As we move towards the nurture and development of vibrant and attractive gospel communities, we must avoid certain pitfalls to prevent us from damaging a truly good thing.

In a series of short blogs, I'll highlight some of these pitfalls. The aim is not to scare us away from gospel community, but to make it even sweeter when we get into it.

Pitfall #1

The Gospel Saves... Not Community

In the first chapter of Romans, Paul gives a summary of the gospel (Rom. 1:3-4), which he then later (Rom. 1:16) describes as the power of God for the salvation of those who believe. The gospel that saves is the proclamation that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, is the risen Lord of the world. It is a summons to the whole world to submit to him.

Every time Paul preached Christ crucified and risen, he did so confidently and expectantly because he knew that was the means by which God saved his people.

If the gospel saves because it is God's ordained method of rescuing the lost, then:

• You and I don't
• Methods and personalities don't
• Structures and systems don't

Inquiring Minds...

Our danger comes not through actively rejecting the gospel, but in terms of our assumptions being demonstrated by our practice. What we can't do is let our focus on community (as important as that is) lull us into thinking that all we need to do is expose people to it, and hey presto, they're with us.

That might happen of course, but it won't mean they're Christians. According to Peter, it is our corporate life that invites people to ask for the reason for the hope that we have (1 Pe.3:15). There has to be something inexplicable about our gospel community that causes people to inquire. We then have the opportunity to speak the gospel word, for it is through that, and that alone, that God saves.

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One of the most frequently asked questions we get about household church is, “What about children and young people?” People seem to think that small church is incapable of dealing with this peculiar breed of non-adults. I have to admit to being rather unimpressed with the question, because it assumes that larger churches have got ministry to children and young people nailed.

Church as Extended Family

The evidence suggests otherwise. When it comes to young people, churches are hemorrhaging faster than a hemophiliac in a tattoo parlour. One of the benefits of a model of church as extended family is that it sees children as integral, and keeps them that way throughout adolescence. There is no “bells, whistles, and bright lights” show to entertain them. There is just an ordinary, not very sexy, diverse gospel community of people loving one another and relating to one another. The kids are loved and the young people are discipled. They have people around them who care for them, take an interest in them, bear with them, face up to them, pick them up, and welcome them back when they’ve screwed up.

Of course, you can add to this anything you want in terms of peer groups and big gatherings, but if this isn’t the core of what you do with kids and young people, then don’t be surprised when they lose interest because no matter how sexy your meetings, you can’t begin to compete with the sizzle in the world outside.

Resurgence Literature:

Re:Lit is a ministry of Resurgence. There you will find a growing line of books to help guide the resurgence of the new reformed. Find out more.

I have a confession to make. I was rather pleased recently when someone wrote to me and told me how impressed he was with my theological ability. He even called me a theologian. I think it was that which really massaged my ego. But isn’t that odd? We’ve turned the task of theology over to academia, and created a title for a select group of people to wear like a badge of honour: Look at me, I’m a theologian!

But if evangelical theology is the truth about God in Christ, then all Christians are theologians in every sense that matters.

Theology Is for Life

We’ve compounded the problem by seeing theology as the articulation of abstract and often difficult intellectual concepts. But the only theology worthy of the name is applied theology: theology that is worked out at street level in the messiness of life. Election is not a doctrine to be discussed only by professionals in the comfort of a study, but by a group of believers so that they are humbled and thrilled by God’s choice. Total depravity isn’t just something to be argued over in a lecture room, but faced up to by a group of saved sinners as they cry out to the Holy Spirit to open blind eyes. Calvin was right in a number of things, not least when he said, “Doctrine is an affair, not of the tongue, but of life.”

Recommended Books:

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"Therapeutic community" is a phrase in vogue in the areas of mental illness and addiction. Groups are formed in which patients or clients live together for an extended period and take responsibility for each other. It sounds suspiciously like church to me.

The Church: The Ideal Therapeutic Community

When we become Christians, we become members of God's household, but we all bring with us our baggage and brokenness. It might not always look like that in many of our churches, but that's only because of the facades we erect to hide the truth. So given that we're all broken, sanctification is about grace putting us back together again as we grow more like Jesus. This is best done in community, which means that church as the community of the Holy Spirit is the ideal therapeutic community.

Brokenness and Self-Worship

Sadly, this is often another situation in which we are keen to outsource. Anything too complicated (like depression) or too weird (like psychosis), and we're on the phone to the local therapist before you can say "Freud was a basket case." The gospel tells us that our brokenness is an expression of our broken relationship with God. This is the essence of sin, and sin is insanity. However we express our brokenness, in some way it is because of our refusal to worship God and our obsession with self-worship. You're not going to hear that at the local Mayo Clinic.

The Gospel Makes Us Sane

But a word of warning. Seeing church as a therapeutic community doesn't mean that it's an exercise in self-indulgence; a context where we all huddle together and wallow in our condition. The gospel is that which, by the power of the Holy Spirit, makes us sane and heals our brokenness so that we live for Christ as our healing commends him and his grace to others.

Death By Love:

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus' work in these twelve letters of counsel to individuals. Find out more.

I know saying this isn’t going to win me any friends, but someone has to tell the king he’s naked. Is it not a quiet madness for churches to largely outsource their discipleship (to parachurch agencies) and training (to theological colleges)? The best context for both discipleship and training is the people of God on mission (a.k.a. church).

Parachurch vs. Local Church

Take discipleship as a case in point. It’s in the context of church that we are going to learn best what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus. Parachurch agencies do a lot of good, but they tend to draw people who share a special interest and who want similar things. By contrast, a local church is usually comprised of people from a range of backgrounds, at very different stages of development and with competing interests.

It’s a fact of life that it’s far harder to get on with people like that than it is with people who have more in common. But those are precisely the people I need to make me more like Jesus. It is precisely when the church is a ragbag collection of people who aren’t like each other that “great grace” is essential, and that grace is what turns converts into disciples.

The primary context for training should also be the church in situ. I find it strange that this assertion should be so contentious when the weight of the biblical evidence is behind it. Timothy was trained in gospel ministry as he went about doing gospel ministry. Paul took him under his wing, mentored and tutored him, sent him off into various situations, and talked him through whatever problems he had to deal with. The task of training is equipping people to be better gospel ministers, and an apprenticeship model in situ is the vehicle best suited for that task.

I hope I’m not being insensitive with this question, but what is the obsession with dead languages? In fact, I reckon it has almost become a hallmark of contemporary, cutting-edge, hardcore gospel movements that we make up new words from languages that no one speaks.

Gospel Communities

Let me explain. The idea of missional communities has become trendy. This enables larger churches to devolve the routine stuff of church life to smaller groups throughout the week while retaining a central teaching session, usually on a Sunday. But why call them “missional” when we have a perfectly good word at our disposal in “gospel”? Gospel communities is exactly what they are: communities that are all about the gospel because they are formed by the gospel and exist for the gospel.

Using a word like gospel also helps us in our evangelism. If non-Christians want to know what a gospel community is, you can take them straight to Mark 1:15-20, where Jesus preached the gospel and formed a community around it. Alternatively, you have Acts 2, where Peter preached the gospel concerning Christ crucified and risen, and a community was formed around that. If the same non-Christians want to know what a missional community is, where will you take them then? A dictionary!

Death By Love:

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus' work in these twelve letters of counsel to individuals. Find out more.

Is your church doing mission for its own glory or God’s? Want a cunning test to help you answer? Check out how much energy and passion (evidenced by money, prayer, interest) is invested in situations in other parts of the world for which you will get no credit. If it is not proportional to what is invested at home, then serious questions should be asked. If our passion is God’s honor and the fame of the Lord Jesus then we won’t be satisfied until the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab.2:14; Is. 11:9).

This will mean we get involved in planting churches all over the place and supporting other churches to plant churches, even when we don’t get a mention. It will mean sacrificially giving away our best people so that unreached areas of the world will be reached for Christ. World mission isn’t the preserve of the mission agencies; it’s the privilege and responsibility of every local congregation of believers (a.k.a. church).

Vintage Church:

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If you ever want to make other Christians feel guilty, get them to listen to a talk on evangelism. For the majority of us, evangelism is a bit like base jumping—sounds like a great idea, but most of us don’t actually have the guts for it. Whilst it might be true that only a relatively few people are gifted evangelists, all of us can make a significant contribution to the evangelism process. What we need to do is change evangelism from “me doing the gospel thing with my mates” to “us doing the gospel thing with my (soon to be our) mates.” It’s a simple transition, but it makes a world of difference.

Make Evangelism Communal

In that context, I then introduce my friend who’s not a Christian to my brothers and sisters (a.k.a. church). My friend gets to see us hang out, laugh and cry, forgive and serve. He sees the gospel in action and he hears the gospel as we apply it to one another. Evangelism is going on all the time, and all I’ve done is bring my friend into a context where he’s going to be exposed to the gospel. Evangelism done this way changes it from being a big scary monster that makes us want to run and hide into a cute little puppy that we all want to hug.