The Theology That Matters

I attended George Fox University, and Corban College……..

and then there was……..

Lane Community College.

Quite the contrast, and if you have ever lived in Eugene you will know what I am talking about. They say Portland is the brain, Salem is the heart, and Eugene is the lower intestine. I went from George Fox to Lane C.C. I realized then and there that all my theology was fake. It was simply a structure in my mind. My life had little impact on the world, and the world was having big impact on me. I felt like the guy being ground and pound in a UFC bout. Why?

I realized everything I was taught only worked around “churched” people. I then realized the theology that matters is not the theology we profess, but the theology we practice. Don’t take that as me saying a Christian doesn’t need to know how to share the gospel, but rather no one is going to listen to you if they do not see your theology fleshed out. No one will want to be discipled by you if your life is categorical.

John Stott has said, 
“Our static, inflexible, self-centered structures are “heretical structures” because they embody a heretical doctrine of the church. If our structure has become an end in itself, not a means of saving the world, it is a heretical structure."

What does gospel-centered community look like? It might look like this.

• seeing church as an identity instead of a responsibility to be juggled alongside other commitments.
• celebrating ordinary life as the context in which the word of God is proclaimed with “God talk” as a normal feature of everyday conversation.
• Running fewer holy huddles and more time sharing our lives with unbelievers.
• Starting new congregations instead of trying to grow one huge one.
• preparing Bible-talks and sermons with other people instead of always studying alone at a desk.
• Having churches that are messy instead of churches that pretend to be “dialed”

Missional Madness

Missional has become a buzzword in Christianity.  It often times is a "junk drawer word" used to describe whatever way, you think the church is sucking and needs to be better.  But no one seems to know what it actually means to be "missional".  The following are three interpretations of the word "missional" that people tend to exit off the "missional highway".

Exit 1= It means missionary, which means contextualization.  In other words, we just need to learn the culture and communicate well in the culture--this means "missional".

Exit 2= Mission.  We need to be focused on the mission of conversion and transformation.  What good is it to give some one a cup of cold water without the message of reconciliation. This means "missional".

Exit 3=Missio Dei, Kingdom.  Social justice is what "missional" means.  We need to take care of the poor and needy.

What i find interesting is that every book I read on the church exits the highway off one of these exits based on their eschatology (view of the end times).  It seems to me that all three of these aspects are in fact what it looks like for the church to hold the keys of the kingdom.  The church is not the kingdom, but is God's instrument to live in the now and not yet kingdom.  Jesus is coming back, but he has also already been here.  He inaugurated his kingdom, but it is now, and not yet.  I have been convicted in realizing I love the idea of being a missionary about the mission, but have had a reserved heart towards the kingdom.  I do not believe we will create a utopia, and then Jesus will say, "great job, now I will come rule my kingdom".  Psalm 2 is clear in that Jesus will come back with a "can of stomp" before perfect peace is ushered in.  Peter also tells us that the times are going to get worse, not better.  I think because of this understanding of the kingdom being now, and not yet, we fail to care about the now.
I think we need to repent of our throwing around a word that often times has no meaning to us whatsoever.