In my first full-time church as a pastor, I was approached by one of our young teens. “I really like your preaching,” he said. “You’re not like most preachers. How do you manage to make things so simple and easy to understand?”
Frankly, I was taken back by his words. Taken back because I was not some master instructor, gifted at taking difficult teaching and reducing it to easily understandable lessons. I was just someone who loved studying the Bible and explaining it, as best I could to others. I’m not sure I could teach any other way. Even as a seminary professor in practical theology, my classes and lectures were simple. And they weren’t simple by design; they were simple because I’m simple.
There is, however, one area of my teaching ministry that I have had to consciously work at through the years, and that is the willingness to be transparent and authentic in communicating with my listeners. It’s something many of you have complimented me on, and I’m grateful. In fact, I take a certain amount of pride (good pride, I hope, healthy pride) in it. It continues to come more and more naturally to me, especially without the responsibility of guiding a congregation. I don’t know if that makes sense, but there are times, circumstances, and places where we can be too transparent. This, by the way, is still true in both my current posts and podcasts. I definitely draw the line on what I am willing to openly share. As an old friend of mine recently emailed me to say about one of my podcasts, “You did a lot more than (drink beer) and hang from street signs!”
Anyway, I’ve been wrestling with sharing something with you and wondering if it is too transparent and too easily misunderstood. But after laying on my back for over a period of twenty-four hours, unable to open my eyes because of the worst case of vertigo you could possibly imagine, I’ve decided to go for it. I’ve decided to be very open about what I believe is my future ministry.
One of the reasons I’ve decided to do this is because, after a lot of prayer (a lot!), I believe it is something that will help others in their calling from God in these days of spiritual vertigo so rampant in the church. (By the way, if you have not read my previous two articles, you are missing some context here, so I encourage you to check them out - “Vertigo” and “Navigating the Church Maze.”)
Pastors are blessed in their ability to “work” long after what most folks consider retirement age. Those who are gifted at preaching and teaching, and have some people skills, can continue making a good income long after others lose their ability to make money. It’s a great deal, and for those like me, who love preaching and teaching, it enjoyable, profitable, and definitely increases the standard of living in retirement years.
And I’ll be honest with you; there is a part of me that would love to catch that wave and ride it through retirement!
But there’s a problem. In order to follow that path, I need to continue to be a solid and integral part of the institutional church. In my case, that church is the Baptist church, specifically, Southern Baptist Churches. Honestly, in many ways, that’s not so hard for me to do. I am a Baptist by conscience, by choice, and by conviction.
The problem is, I’m no longer a company man. My allegiance is to God’s kingdom. And God’s kingdom is not Baptist or Methodist or Lutheran or Presbyterian or Church of God or any other tribe or tradition. Not that these tribes or camps are bad. They’re not. On the contrary, there are great riches to be found in each of these groups. I love Richard Foster’s book, Streams of Living Water. The subtitle of the book says it all: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith. I highly recommend it.
Is there a calling and place in these various camps for men and women seeking to serve Christ and His Kingdom? Absolutely. But at the same time, each of these Christian groups possesses the power and potential to limit our understanding and vision of God’s kingdom and God’s purpose in Christ Jesus. Allegiance to the camp replaces allegiance to the kingdom. And when this happens, the kingdom is made subservient to the camp rather than the camp to the kingdom.
But there is an even greater and more troubling problem. All of these camps become kingdoms in and of themselves. And without realizing it, their focus shifts from kingdom priorities to camp priorities. Doctrines and dogma, buildings and budgets, influence, and upward mobility, become the end-all, the driving force and visible expression of their identity and purpose. Those on the inside - faithful members of the individual camps - don’t see it, but for those on the outside, it is the fly in the ointment.
Worst of all, many of these “outsiders” grew up in the church. A significant number of them made a decision to follow Jesus during their church years. But as they matured, they became increasingly aware of major inconsistencies between the teachings and emphasis of their churches and the life and ministry of Jesus. The result was - in a rewording of a phrase from the countercultural movement of the 1960’s - they turned off, tuned out, and dropped out.
For years, I was one of the “insiders” who simply did not recognize this. Now, I not only clearly see it, but I’m deeply distressed by it. Jesus grieved greatly over the religious camps in his day that strained out gnats while swallowing camels. He recognized that they had erected barriers that shut people out of God’s kingdom. Converts were trained to become, in our Lord’s words, “twice the sons of hell” as those who pursued and converted them. Many Bible scholars believe that Jesus was eventually banned from teaching in most, if not all, synagogues. And it was the camps, the tribes that made up institutional Judaism in Christ’s day that were so threatened by him they wielded their immense political influence and had him crucified.
And yet, even after his death and resurrection, our Lord’s followers were committed to the religious institutions and structures of their religion, Judaism. They attended synagogue, worshiped in the temple, and observed all the rituals and practices of Judaism. But as these institutional religious structures became more and more hostile to the person and teachings of Jesus, his followers were left with no other choice but to break with them.
The fact is the earliest and most divisive controversy in the fledging church was between those who were committed to the camp - the institution, teachings, and practices of Judaism - and those who recognized the conflict between these things and the way of Christ. This gave rise to what came to be known as The Way, the first description distinguishing disciples of Jesus from the religion of Judaism.
It was the apostle Paul’s refusal to accept religious teachings and practices that were barriers preventing people from entering into the Christ-life that led to a decisive break from Judaism. And let’s never forget that Judaism was the religion of Jesus and the faith that pointed people to the Messiah.
Many Bible scholars believe it was Paul who wrote the New Testament letter to the Hebrews. I’m not so sure about that, but whoever wrote that letter was a Jewish Christian who understood that the religious camp that promised the Messiah and from which the Messiah had come was becoming increasingly hostile to those who were committed to Jesus.
“Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore,” is the conclusion of the author of Hebrews to the growing disillusionment with and persecution by the religion that had given the world the promised Messiah.
As I reflect on the history of the church, I see this same need to break with the camp, to leave the institutions that have lost their way and have replaced the call of Jesus with conformity to doctrine, tradition, even worldly politics; I am convinced that this is precisely where much of the church in our day finds itself.
In my last post, I promised to share some ways that we can join with Jesus outside the camp. I’m ready to do that now, but I think it best to save those thoughts for my next post. If you’ve made it to the end of this one, then I suspect you are someone who recognizes, like me, the problem and who, because of your commitment to Christ, is in a desperate search for an answer.
I can’t promise to provide that answer. The present-day church vertigo makes it hard to navigate the way forward. What I can promise is to share my struggles and search with you. Together - and it must be together, for there is no such thing as isolated Christianity - we can blaze a trail for others to follow in the days to come.
In Christ,
Dan
Check out my podcasts from Church on the Edge and my books on Kindle.