Justin has an article in the last CA entitled, "Is THAT a CHURCH?"
It's brief, concise, thoughtful and well done. And, in the way of the Calvinist, it contains five points--this time describing what is true of, as Justin says, "any church."
The article is very provocative. It has spurred a lot of thought in my mind. I'll make some comments later. For now, here are the Five Points of Meierism, describing, in his phrase, "what makes a church a church:"
1. It is a group of believers who gather together for worship to honor and glorify the God revealed to us through the Bible.
2. They gather together for teaching and edification from God's word, to experience transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit for God's glory.
3. They gather together for the ordinances. . ..
4. They strive to be a foretaste of God's Kingdom on earth for their community and everyone they have contact with to help others experience God's love and glory.
5. They partner with Jesus, on His mission, to multiply disciples, leaders, and churches for the furtherance of the Kingdom and for the glory of God.
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One comment to begin:
This article is a line cast into the deep and treacherous Sea of CGGC to Talk is to Walk-ism. If there is no repentance of that dreadful sin, the line will catch nothing and we will continue to lose touch with our world.
I'd appreciate your thoughts about what Justin has written and what it might mean to the CGGC culture.
Five Point Meierism and WE BELIEVE and the CGGC 2013 Statement of Faith
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important aspects of Justin's definition of what makes a church a church within the CGGC world is the question of how what Justin says about the church corresponds to the authoritative CGGC faith documents to which all of us should be submitting.
Because of that, I've read over WE BELIEVE on the church:
http://www.cggc.org/about/what-we-believe/about-the-church/
and, what the 2013 Statement of Faith says about the church:
http://www.cggc.org/about/statement-of-faith/
Here's my take:
WB is so bland on the church that very little that can be said about the church can stand at odds with it.
The SoF is more pointed and, it seems to me, Justin may very well have had an important role in writing it. It certainly permits Meierism.
And, I will go further and say that it endorses Meierism.
Several thoughts:
1. This consistency is a rarity in the CGGC. We should applaud it.
2. My sense, then, is that this consistency is itself an issue in the CGGC. My guess is that Meierism is not actually functioning in the great majority of CGGC congregations. Therefore, based on Justin, churches who don't practice it are NOT really churches.
In fact, based on my days on the ERC commission that addressed the issue of renewal, many of the congregations don't practice any of the five points of Meierism AND that many of our "pastors" don't accept Meierism as truth.
3. Two characteristics of the CGGC brand come into play here. One is the Talk-ism that is, in my opinion, our most profound sin. The other is that in the CGGC we choose "Mellow Relationships over Truth."
If the CGGC embraces Meierism, what is its leadership to do about the vast majority of CGGC pastors and people who neither practice Meierism nor, even, believe in it?
There is great potential for repentance coming out of the publication of the FIVE POINTS OF MEIERISM, but there will have to be a sea change in the collective CGGC heart for it to take place.
I can't see that happening.
A Comment on Micro Issues and a Comment on Macro Issues
ReplyDelete--------------------------------
Micro, i.e., small picture observation:
What Justin has written is important more for what it doesn't than what it does say.
Here are three things Justin does not say "makes a church a church:"
1. Leadership or service by a PASTOR.
2. The PREACHING of a SERMON.
3. Worshiping on SUNDAY.
In terms of what CGGCers actually do, pastoral leadership, the preaching of sermons and gathering to "worship" on Sunday, are all huuuuge deals.
Macro, or big-picture, i.e., pertaining to the whole CGGC culture:
As I pointed out a long time ago on walt's forum, the people of the CGGC, from top to bottom, are guilty of the Judges 21:25 sin:
"Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
This, I believe, derives from characteristic 9 of my Characteristics of the CGGC Brand: Cynicism.
There is virtually no mutual submission among the people of the CGGC. If it is inconvenient or we disagree, we scoff at what others among us do and we all do precisely what we darn well please.
Here's, as an example, how I predict this will work out in my ERC part of the CGGC world:
The people tasked with leading renewal, some of whom are my friends, will not take seriously anything that Justin, an important person in GC leadership believes and which the GC staff has permitted to be printed in The CHURCH ADVOCATE. They will not, for a moment, consider changing what they do because of it.
Out of the narcissism that we all practice as a denominational value, they will go on un-edified by what Justin and the GC leadership have published and they will not repent of anything they are currently doing.
They, like all of us, will do what CGGCers have been doing for all of the time I've been in the CGGC, though I think more in the last few years than ever: They will simply do what is right in their own eyes--which, as far as I can tell, is failing to bring about renewal.
(I would love to be proved wrong in this prediction, which is based in common sense. This is not a prophecy.)
Do you understand what this means?
Based on the fruit we produce, there really is no community in the CGGC.
We simply serve ourselves and do what we want to do. This is true on the highest peak of the most majestic CGGC mountain. And, it is as true among the most humbled and powerless among us.
But where Justin (the author of this article) as well as the landslide majority that agree with him (including me) differ with you is that we don't see the 3 things you listed as major obstacles to the goals of the article.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is a chasm not likely to be bridged.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteI don't know what Justin thinks about those three things as being obstacles. He, of course, is welcome to comment here.
I do think that it is noteworthy that he defines what makes a church a church without reference to pastors, preaching, sermons or the Sunday morning show.
As far as those things being MAJOR OBSTACLES, I'm not certain that even I would go that far.
They certainly are not biblical. But they can be overcome and repented of.
Faith is proof of that.
Dan M's "Majority-ism" and Justin's Meierism
ReplyDeleteIn a post on this thread yesterday Dan Masshardt suggested, accurately I agree, that the " landslide majority" (presumably in the CGGC but, perhaps within all of Evangelical Christendomism) differ with my take on what makes a church a church.
And, certainly, Dan is correct--in either case.
Previously in this thread, I asserted that the vast majority of CGGC, um, "pastors" and congregations do not believe in the five points of Meierism and they certainly don't practice Meierism obediently.
I take Dan M to mean that the " landslide majority" of CGGCers agree with Justin in not agreeing with me. I don't think he's suggesting that Five Point Meierism is conventional wisdom and standard practice among the CGGC clergy and congregations. (Dan, please correct me if I am taking you incorrectly.)
I have now read and reread Justin's CA article at least a dozen times. And, as I've said, it has provoked a lot of thinking in my mind.
Having said that, with every reading one particular thought comes back to me over and over and over and over again:
The CGGC must begin a humble conversation in the Spirit based on the question, "What makes a church a church?
In feedback I received from ERC sessions, I picked up on unquestionable anger--no, RAGE, from some--regarding what, my word: they believe ERC leaders are attempting to "FOIST" on them having to do with the answer to the question what makes a church a church?
My prophetic orientation to think in terms of the future tells me that there is a time bomb ticking underground in the ERC at least, and perhaps across the whole CGGC.
The material set to explode is, in part, some unofficial form of Meierism and the material that will trigger it is the haughtiness of leaders who seem to believe that they can dictate to large numbers in our "church" what they must believe about what church is and what churches do.
My friends, brothers and sisters, the King is the only leader in His Kingdom!
CGGC leaders need to stop thinking of themselves as leaders and to adopt the attitude that Jesus taught must characterize those who would be great in His Kingdom and those who would be first among His disciples:
They need to begin to behave as servants and slaves--and to stop thinking that they have the authority of leaders. They need to allow the King to rule the Kingdom.
They need to commission a conversation over what makes a church a church and two realities must characterized that conversation:
1. Everyone in the CGGC must be invited to participate as equals, as was the case in Acts 15, and,
2. The human in positions of authority in the Eldership need to enter that conversation as servants and slaves of the body, not leaders of the institutional CGGC.
What Justin Meier has written could begin a new day in the CGGC in which, as Amos penned, "justice roll(s) on like a river, (and) righteousness like a never-failing stream!"
But, as those who sit on thrones atop the CGGC mountains behave these days, that cannot happen.
Our leaders need to repent and begin to serve and enslave themselves to Jesus and their CGGC brothers and sisters.
Woe to them and us if they don't!
An Answer to the "what makes a church a church" question based in the teachings and life of Jesus
ReplyDeleteNearly all that I read and hear about the church these days is rooted in a way of thinking about the church that is possesses a crucial and serious theological flaw:
It entirely ignores what Jesus said about the church and how He lived among the people who were repenting of sin and who believed in Him.
While I consider what Justin has given the CGGC in his article, "Is THAT a CHURCH?' to be valuable and provocative in the most constructive way, I must say that, even Justin ignores the Gospels in his five point definition of a church.
I believe that if we are to be truly Christian in being the church we need to repent to pretending away the inconvenient truths regarding Jesus and the church and to actually BEGIN with what Jesus said and did regarding the church.
A huge flaw that, I believe, even Justin participates in an understanding of what a church is, biblically, by studying the Epistles of Paul but by using a lens consisting of three components. His lens gives a flawed image.
Justin's lens consists of:
1. Emperor Constantine's fusing of the Christian movement and the secular culture,
2..The Middle Ages' Roman Catholic church's Popes' creation of Christianity as an institution, and,
3. The very slight tweaking of what the Popes' institutional view of the church put into effect by the Protestant Reformers--mostly the Calvinists and the Reformed theological tradition.
Using that lens, Justin, and most Evangelicals, very simply pervert Jesus' teachings about the church.
In order for Christians to be genuinely Christian about the church, they must begin with what Jesus taught and modeled about life among the community of those who are repenting and who believe the Gospel.
To do so, will, these days, be a radical act.
To begin to refocus our thinking about the church, I offer these first few observations about the church as Jesus conceived of it.
1. Jesus talked a lot about God's kingdom, but very rarely about the church. We should be more concerned about His Kingdom.
2. Jesus taught the making of disciples and about who a disciple is and what disciples do but rarely about disciples being part of the church.
3. In fact, Jesus almost never talked about the church. The Greek word for church, ekklesia, appears only three times in the Gospels in only two verses. It appears only in Matthew and not once in Mark, Luke or John. From that, it seems reasonable to conclude that the church was not nearly as important to the advancement of the Kingdom as most today think.
4. When Jesus did talk about church He never talked about what makes A church. He only spoke of THE church and MY church. Jesus never actually referenced a local flock--which is how Justin and nearly all evangelicals talk about the church.
5. Jesus taught that the church would be built on Peter and the message Peter received from the Father: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." This, is, essentially, the core of the Gospel. It may be most tragic that Justin doesn't define a church in terms of what it believes and the message it proclaims. For Jesus, the truth and the message is key. It is what He builds His church upon, and,
6. Jesus taught that the church will be the setting in which disciples discipline each other in reference to sin. To give Justin his due, he does mention teaching and edification and, certainly, they are important, However, if, in the end, sin goes unaddressed among disciples, there can be no discipleship.
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These six observations merely hit on highlights. It is important to face the reality that, among evangelicals, these six realities are rarely considered and, often, entirely ignored.
We must repent and become genuinely Christ-focused in our understanding of what makes (the) church (the) church.
INTOLERANCE IN FIVE POINT MEIERISM
ReplyDeleteNote:I am neither a member of the Shepherd Mafia nor a fan of it. In fact, I believe that the Pastor-as-Priest, Shepherd-Dominated-Leadership-Culture may be the greatest threat to the future of Jesus-Following in the Western Culture. Therefore, when I find intolerance in Meierism, I see it as one of its positive features.
There is a strongly prophetic tone in Justin Meier's CA article, Is THAT a CHURCH? That tone is set by the sentence that sets up Justin's five point answer to the question that is the title of the article.
Justin asks and answers a strong question. He says,
"So what makes a church a church? I think there are 5 aspects of any church,"
What Justin is saying there is that he has a strong and definite opinion of what makes a church a church. Implied in the stating of his opinion is that, as he sees it, a gathering of people in which these five aspects are not present is not, well, a church.
Honestly, therefore most CGGC congregations are not, in his mind, a church
Good for you, Justin. Call it as you see it! Certainly, Jesus did that among the Pharisees of His own day!
It's time that someone in the CGGC says something that is strong and definite and, then, not stammer about it or apologize for it!
Thank you Justin.
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Now, having thanked Justin, I must also say that, according to Justin, the group(s) with which I gather is/are not a church. And, because of that, I believe that one of us--perhaps both of us--needs to repent and turn from our erroneous ways.
Justin and I need to be in conversation at the very least.
Also, recently, Dave Williams, who resides as far up on the ERC mountaintop as Justin does on the GC mountain, has stated to me a thoughtful and eloquent defense of what he calls the traditional church. As I understand it, many of the congregations that Dave would classify as traditional are not characterized by all five aspects of Meierism
I've said that Justin has written provocatively in the most positive way. And I still believe that.
What concerns me is that no useful conversation of positive action will come out of the article Justin has written.
This is the way of the Popish Mafia that runs the CGGC. As a result, we often talk a wonderful talk but we don't change the way we walk--nor do we walk in unity.
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FYI: At Faith, taken in the most strict interpretation, we actually DO not a single one of the Five Points of Meierism, though we get close to point two.
And, I see no need to change what we do in order to comport ourselves with Meierism.
What will happen in the CGGC as far as walk is concerned regarding the conversation Justin might possibly have begun?
My guess, unless there is a crumbling of the Mafia?
Not a thing!
His Kingdom vs Our Church/His Church
ReplyDeleteThe other day Justin posted this Reggie McNeal quote on Facebook: "God's preoccupation is with His Kingdom, not our church."
The quote has, to this point, generated some interesting comments.
One line of discussion has been over Reggie's choice of the pronoun "our" to go with the noun church.
I, of course, have no idea what Reggie was intending to convey by contrasting HIS Kingdom with OUR church, but I will say this:
Virtually all I hear and read about the church today is OUR church stuff--not HIS church stuff.
HIS church can only be what we know about church from what Jesus modeled and taught and from how early followers carried out what Jesus said and did.
I've touched on this earlier in this thread.
Jesus did teach about the church and we know, from the Gospel of Matthew, what HIS church is and what it is all about.
In our age, dominated by Jasperism, we essentially ignore what Jesus said about the church and most Evangelicals replace what He modeled about living in community with a version of OUR church rooted in the actions of Emperor Constantine, the Medieval Popes along with with some tweaking from sisteenth century Protestants mostly from the Reformed tradition with a little of seventeenth century Baptist thinking sprinkled in the Protestant tweaking.
A few thoughts about His church (again):
1. The most telling truth about His church is its unimportance compared to God's Kingdom. Jesus came into the world, from the beginning of His ministry, announcing the coming of God's kingdom. In three of the four Gospels the church is not mentioned at all--and, in Matthew, where He is quoted mentioning the church, the church is given almost no mention.
His church is very nearly an afterthought in the ways of the God's Kingdom.
2. According to Jesus, His church is a gathering built (Grk: oikodomeó) on Peter and his statement, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," i.e., the gospel.
3. His church is a community which exists for the disciplining of disciples regarding sin.
4. (I believe most radically in this Age of Jasperism,) His church is present every time disciples gather in His Name so that when even only two are together in His Name His church is present.
Everything else we think and say about the church is of OUR church, not HIS!
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There is so much about what Justin says and does that I believe is of the Lord and points us, in the CGGC, to the work that God has for us to do in the future.
However, I have to be as clear about this as possible:
The Five Points of Meierism all have to do with OUR church, not the church of Jesus.
Please let us begin a conversation about what makes a church a church.
Please let us use what Justin has written as a way to begin the conversation.
But, please, let us also be willing to repent of OUR Church-ism so that we can begin and end what we say and do regarding church with what Jesus said and did.