Breaking out of Your Christian Ghetto

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Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of a ghetto.

I have a friend who—God bless him—has given most of his life to minister to the inner city poor. Too long ago, he and I would occasionally, late at night, walk the streets of his new neighborhood to talk with people.

As two terminally white, bearded guys over 6′ 4″, we sorta stuck out. Because this was the “ghetto.” And all the stereotypes were in play.

Except they weren’t.

On one particular walk, my friend abruptly pulled up and turned around. When I asked why, he surprised me with his answer. “Down that street is Appalachian territory,” he whispered and motioned. “No one goes in there.”

Different ghetto, different hostility.

Ghetto is a word in transition. In the past, it simply meant a part of a city that was dominated by one ethnic group or one way of living. Harlem in New York City always comes to mind, but one could easily argue that Wall Street is its own ghetto, albeit a wealthy one. In the case of the word ghetto, over time, a poverty aspect crept into the meaning, but it hasn’t always been there.

In Christianity, we have built our own ghettos. We call them denominations. Or we add theological labels such as Reformed, Charismatic, Arminian, or Anabaptist. Because labels. Can’t be a good Christian without ’em, right?

Whatever our slant on our Christian ghettos, the same etymological transition is at work: a slide into poverty.

Except in the Christian case, the poverty is in the diversity of ideas. Or on the exclusionary focuses of the faith. Eventually, everyone within that ghetto winds up poorer theologically and relationally. In most cases, they don’t even see it happening.

I see in the modern American Church an increasing tendency to stop at the end of the sidewalk and say, “No one goes in there.” Whoever or whatever lurks there, we’re too afraid to deal with him/her/it.

One of the most insidious examples of this occurs in certain Christian communities often seen online. You probably know them. Certain individuals within a certain group run certain websites that espouse certain theologies. When one of those individuals writes a book, others within that group write the glowing reviews and recommendations. After a while, you see all the same names recommending each other’s books and sites and dissing every book, site, or individual that comes from outside that certain group.

I believe such incestuous, prejudiced thinking and doing borders on dangerous. It creates its own form of unteachability, an imperviousness to greater growth. People trapped within that ghetto never hear any different ideas. If anything, foreign ideas are rejected out of hand. It becomes scary group-think. And naturally, over time, poverty sets in.

Jesus said that we must become like children to enter the Kingdom. Perhaps a children’s book can teach us something about ghettos.

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, our kind, gentle, young hero gains admittance to a strange, off-limits ghetto: Willy Wonka’s candy plant. Once inside, Charlie finds the factory’s owner to be absolutely unhinged and perhaps even dangerous. The secluded factory bursts with nonsensical devices a rational person cannot envision. The invitees meet a bizarre tribe that lives in the factory. The tour participants witness things the ordinary person cannot understand and would likely reject for their oddity.

The problem with this and for everyone in the novel: As strange and scary as he and his factory are, Willy Wonka makes the world’s best candy.

Willy Wonka, HomeboyAt the story’s conclusion, Wonka gives his factory to Charlie. And it’s not simply because the boy is the last one standing on the tour but because of Charlie’s humble, gentle, others-centered spirit. Wonka realizes the boy has something he lacks. In the same way, Charlie not only inherits the candy plant, but he also must realize that to continue to make it great, it must retain its weirdness, and he must move beyond being just a destitute, simple boy to embrace some of Wonka’s madness. For the world to become a more wonderful place, both Wonka and Charlie must break out of their ghettos.

Like the Wonka factory, the Christian world has locations within it where too few go and thus never discover a place of genuine, if unusual, excellence. We are impoverished for our trepidation, for our clinging to our own ghetto, for being unwilling to see and explore. Our fear prevents us from becoming all that God would make us.

I think of the foreign-to-the-West thinking of Asian Christian Watchman Nee, who brings a unique Chinese perspective to the Church. Some would warn you not to read him, if only because he doesn’t read like your typical white theologian of any “respectable” bent.

Or Rod Dreher, who writes about ideas that seem liberal but are actually hallmark conservative, and from an Orthodox tradition.

Plenty of other ghetto-breakers exist.

I offer this:

If you’re a Nazarene, read a book by a Pentecostal.

If you’re Reformed, hang out at a few Wesleyan websites—and not just to slam people.

If you’re a Presbyterian, consider what the Medieval mystics wrote about union with Christ.

If you’re a white, American Christian, discover what black, African Christians think about the Faith.

Consider the possibility that everything you know comes solely from your ghetto—and that the Christian world is a much, much bigger place than you realize.

Weird and unfamiliar don’t automatically equal wrong. Sometimes, they form the sidewalk that takes you and me out of our comfortable ghetto to a place filled with utterly foreign wonders.

Sure, quicksand or tigers may lurk down that path, but you’re an adult. Be discerning. Test everything all the time.The presence of threats doesn’t negate what wonders might be discovered. If anything, wonders look threatening to the inexperienced.

Whatever your Christian ghetto might be, break out of it! You’ll be surprised what you might learn about yourself and about the Lord from someone who doesn’t look or think like you.

Thoughts on Ed Stetzer’s “3 Things Churches Love That Kill Outreach”

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Ooutreach by outstretched handOver at Outreach Magazine online, Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, notes three things churches do or believe that inhibit their ability to do outreach. Obviously, outreach is one of the major tasks for the Church, so knowing how NOT to do it is a big deal. As they say in the biz, “Read the whole thing.”

For the purposes of discussion, here are the three Stetzer items:

1. Too many churches love past culture more than their current context.
2. Too many churches love their comfort more than their mission.
3. Too many churches love their traditions more than their children.

Let me begin by laying some groundwork for my thoughts.

For the past 35 years or so, the Church in America has been on a tear to reconstruct itself. In that time, we have seen major initiatives within most churches and denominations to adopt seeker-sensitive practices, to move toward church growth models, and to become more culturally relevant.

Considering the state of the Church in America today, one must be forced to admit that almost all those initiatives have failed miserably to produce more or better disciples. I’m not sure we can find any Christian leader who thinks the Church, as a whole in America, is better off, by nearly any measure, than it was before this experimentation began. Biblical knowledge, conformity to Christian doctrine, evangelism, retaining our youth, community—those initiatives mentioned above failed to produce desired outcomes in any of those areas.

I want to focus on one aspect of those initiatives especially, since it pertains to the core of Stetzer’s comments: the Church meeting as outreach tool.

When you have dominant seeker-sensitive churches confessing that their model failed entirely to make disciples, have we put too much confidence in our switch from “church for believers” to “church for unbelievers”?

I think that outcomes show us the answer is yes. Not only did turning our church meetings into a nursery for non-Christians NOT gain us the outcomes we desired for them, but we sacrificed our ability to make deeper, stronger disciples of the people we already have who already believe.

“Church meeting as outreach tool” backfired. We moved away from sending Christians out of the church to make disciples out in the world before we bring them into the church, and it cost us dearly.

What we do in our meetings must be for the edification of those who already believe. Changing that to cater to nonbelievers has been a stunningly bad decision that must be reversed if the Church is to start rebuilding itself.

My concern with the Stetzer piece is that it’s trapped in the amber of the 1980s, promoting a ministry philosophy that over 35 years has proved largely incapable of creating disciples, which is the primary mission of the Church.

Moving on…

Stetzer’s points #1 and #3 above are essentially the same, just tweaked for different age emphases. I’ll address them together.

Stetzer writes:

“It’s remarkable, and I’ve said it many times: If the 1950s came back, many churches are ready. (Or the 1600s, or the boomer ’80s, depending on your denomination, I guess.)

“There is nothing wrong with the fifties, except we don’t live there anymore. We must love those who live here, now, not yearn for the way things used to be. The cultural sensibilities of the fifties are long past in most of the United States. The values and norms of our current context are drastically different and continue to change.”

Let me counter with this Scripture:

“To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children who sit in the market place and call to one another, and they say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.'”
–Luke 7:31-32

The modern American Church has tried desperately in the last 35 years to show itself culturally relevant and hip. Pastors drop references to The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad in their sermons. Churches have small groups based on cultural affinities such as video gaming or hip hop music. In fact, whatever is cool in culture is what drives our youth ministry. If society talks about a cultural issue, we talk about it too. Heck, like a dog, we wallow in it and then say to society, “Look how up we are on the stuff you like!”

Again, what has this gotten us when it comes to making disciples? Nothing.

Stetzer’s main beef is with tradition. I think that’s an old argument left over from 35 years ago. It’s not the point.

Going back to that Luke passage, the Church is missing that point when it focuses on being counter-tradition. What it should be is counterculture.

More than ever, I believe the fix for what ails the American Church is not culture but counterculture. I strongly believe that many people today are desperate to get away from contemporary culture and back to a slower, more personal, more meaningful place that does not shift daily at the whims of style leaders and their thought leader cohorts. That word authenticity keeps rearing its head.

In fact, I have come to wonder if the solution for the Church is to instead examine culture and then head 180 degrees in the other direction.

That mentality may also ask that we examine tradition and see if it is, in fact, already 180 degrees. If so, then rather than throwing it out because we are counter-tradition, we instead consider embracing it when it’s counterculture.

Stetzer derides being stuck in the 1950s, but I think it’s not just the elderly who are nostalgic. Young people are growing sick of modern culture too. They’re looking for counterculture, but what they’re finding instead in our churches is cultural concession. The world piped, and the American Church danced. For the last 35 years or so, that has benefited no one.

As for Stetzer’s #2…

While I agree that the mission of the Church must, in many ways, conflict with comfort, cultural concession is tiring. I may be speaking solely for myself, but when I come to church on Sunday, the last thing I want is trendiness and the very cultural crap I’m forced to wade through daily. When the Church looks just like the world, no option for a “set-apart place” exists.

Yet people are desperately searching for such a place. In a world governed by clocks, where are they to find the comfort of timelessness? In a world filled with 15-minutes of fame, where can they find the comfort of lasting meaning? They are NOT finding those essentials in a church that operates like a cultural haven, yet that kind of comfort is a necessary balm. We desperately need that kind of comfort if we’re to be refreshed to go out into the world and be countercultural.

Do you want effective outreach in your church? Here’s what I suggest:

1. Make the church for the Church. The seeker-sensitive model failed. Bring back the model that intends for Sundays to be the time when maturing believers are fed meat, not milk. Make it a safe place to practice spiritual gifts and to do the mature things a mature Church fellowship should do without fear that some unbelieving visitor will be weirded out or offended.

2. Remember that outreach means to reach out. The mission field exists beyond the four walls of the church building. Equip people to evangelize out there. Lead the lost to Christ out there, then bring them into the church.

3. Be countercultural. Instead of doing whatever the world is doing, ask if the opposite is the better, more lasting way and closer to the heart of God. You may be surprised how many people are looking to escape culture rather than to embrace it.

We’ve had 35 or more of failed outreach ideas. Time to stop doing what doesn’t work and get back to what people really need.

A Faith of One: Why the Church Must Teach to the Individual

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Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' NeighborhoodFred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fame told a story about his seminary days.

Rogers and a group of his friends took a road trip to hear a famous minister preach. To their brutal disappointment, the minister was on vacation that Sunday and a visiting speaker would preach.

The replacement droned on, and Rogers grew furious. It was one of the most boring, pointless messages he had ever heard, and he cursed his bad timing.

Then he looked at the woman seated next to him. She was crying her eyes out, hanging on the speaker’s every word.

The incident proved a profound lesson for the young Rogers, who understood that no matter how badly that speaker missed connecting with him, someone other than him needed to hear those words. It was a truth he never forgot, incorporating that experience into the philosophy of his classic TV show.

If you’ve been a reader of Cerulean Sanctum long enough, you’re familiar with my rant about spiritual gifts. To sum up: I think leaders in a local church must make it their priority to assist in helping congregants identify and use their spiritual gifts. Our failure to do this on an individual basis is one reason why our churches fail in their missions. God put those people in that church with those gifts for a reason. Not employing their gifts properly hurts everyone.

It’s the truth of the Body of Christ: different people, different gifts, and different purposes within the Body.

It’s not just differences in giftings and uses, either. As Mister Rogers noted, people will react individually to different messages and different types of learning.

My degree is in Christian Education from Wheaton College in Illinois. Later, the major was renamed Spiritual Formation. Now it’s called Christian Formation and Ministry. They ought to cut to the chase and call it Making Disciples.

Just as God gives each person a special role in the Body of Christ, so He also equips us differently and by different means. No one-size-fits-all approach to making disciples exists because we all form spiritually in unique ways. I know people who came to faith through reading St. Augustine’s Confessions. I can’t imagine a more dry path, but then, it’s not entirely about me. My own conversion was quickened in part from an intimate and personal message delivered to a small group followed by time alone. That may work for some but not for others.

My college learning on this topic focused more on how Jesus taught, but even He didn’t use one means. He drew his disciples through miracles, discussion, confrontation, paradox, and friendship. He taught them by stories, Scripture, His example, and through their own personal experiences. He knew each person and reached out to each with what best grew each. And he addressed the failings of each individually such as Peter’s reinstatement and Thomas’ need to see and feel.

I don’t believe most churches take the individual into account. Spiritual growth is seen as a blanket endeavor, with blanket approaches, and blanket goals.

The problem here is that in going for blanket growth, we miss one of the most important aspects of that growth: connecting with each other one-to-one.

It takes time alone with another to find out how he or she ticks. Knowing how best to grow someone means observing that person and adjusting how we work with that individual. Parents do this naturally with their children, yet we forget personal distinctions when we approach making disciples of people outside our own households.

God asks that we individualize the way we make disciples, because in doing so, we build a connection to another life. We are forced to slow down, to observe, and to show genuine care for that one person made not only in the image of God but also made in His uniqueness and depth. It is one reason why Jesus had to go away and send the Spirit, because one person cannot reach everyone at the level needed for maturing growth.

A church with a one-size-fits-all approach to making disciples is likely also a church that doesn’t have time to get to know people. The result? A church with a stunted community. Likewise, if the interpersonal relationships within a church are shallow, the making of disciples will be also.

The individual, with all his or her quirks and distinctions, matters to God. An education and discipleship program that does not take the unique gifts, talents, and needs of each person into account cannot be effective. Such a customized approach is time-consuming and costly, but it’s God’s intention. Our balking at the cost is our failure to see with God’s eyes.

In short, the only way to counteract the anemic nature of Christianity in the West is to prioritize the needs of the one to nurture a many that can truly reach all of the world for Jesus.