Prescriptive/Unprecriptive? Or is there Another Question?
In our discussion of the CGGC Mission Statement to “establish churches on the New Testament plan” the issue of what the New Testament prescribes has been raised.
The question, as I understand it, is:
In our place and time are we required to do everything that early Christians did or do we have freedom to adapt to our culture so that only what is directly commanded by Scripture is required of us?
This question is as old as the Reformation. Zwingli’s and Luther’s differences trace essentially to the fact that they answered this question differently. In breaking away from Rome, Zwingli was radical. He argued that anything that was of Rome that is not rooted in the New Testament must be abandoned. Luther was far more moderate. He believed that Protestants can maintain many traditions from Rome and that only what defies a direct New Testament command is forbidden. (Zwingli found himself deeply conflicted when some of his associates took a more radical view of what must be abandoned and became the first Anabaptists. Zwingli ultimately executed them.)
If we take the CGGC Mission Statement seriously, it may be that we struggle through the prescriptive/unprescriptive question ourselves. If we do, we will have a lot of company.
But, if we do, I think we will be asking the wrong question. I think that the prescriptive/unprescriptive question was wrong 500 years ago. I think it always will be the wrong question.
Recently, I viewed, for about the dozenth time, Reggie McNeal’s video “It’s AD 30 All Over Again,” which is available on line. On the video, McNeal makes this assertion:
In many places of the world (today) there is a Pentecost every single hour.
McNeal seems not to be exaggerating. People are flooding into the body of Christ in China and India and Indonesia and Africa and Central and South America in numbers that are historic and harken the spread of Jesus-following in the days before Constantine. McNeal describes what’s going on as a movement of the Spirit—and I can’t argue with that. Who can?
But, McNeal also says,
Everywhere the Western Church has put its footprint…the church is struggling…You and I are on the backwaters of the Christians movement on planet earth.
He’s correct. In Europe and North America Christianity is losing the culture. The church in the West is anemic at best compared to the church nearly everywhere else in the world.
And, with McNeal, I believe our problem is spiritual. The Spirit is not empowering the western church. And, He is empowering the church elsewhere.
That’s precisely why I think the question of what is prescriptive and what is unprescriptive in the New Testament is the wrong question. That question leads us to an answer that has no spiritual meaning.
A better question is: What does the Spirit bless?
I have begun no longer to wonder what we should do in our ministry because it is directly commanded in the New Testament. I now only ask myself:
“How can I live in a way that connects me to the powerful intimacy with the Holy Spirit evidenced in the New Testament—and is present in other places in the world at this moment?”
We don’t need to be parsing verbs to discern what is and what is not a New Testament command. We need to begin to “parse” the interaction between human beings and the Holy Spirit in the Word and in our world. We need to seek Him.
It was with that mindset that I began a journey that led me to the Eight Characteristics that I set down in the other thread. I try no longer to think in terms debated in the Reformation. It is a nonissue for me if Zwingli or Luther was correct about how much freedom we have in tweaking the Roman Catholic religion of 1516.
I want the Spirit. I want His power. I want His blessing to flow through me into the hearts of people who don’t have Him.
And, so I ask a different question.
To me, the New Testament plan has nothing to do with where believers meet. It has to do with how believers meet the Spirit.
posted by bill Sloat at 5:40 AM
26 Comments:
I don't think you have to choose between one of these questions and the other. Certainly the question you are asking here is the far more important, and it is the one, in the last few years, our church leadership has taken up again with vigor, because what matters is people encountering and being changed by the LIVING God.
However, when people start to make fresh lists of how the church should live out being the church (as you did with your core values post), and those lists are specific (as yours was), the question of prescriptive versus descriptive may be what saves our bacon from legislating something to the entire church which God has not legislated.
So I guess I am saying that I don't really see these as questions which are pitted against each other.
Bill, thank you for this post. I appreciate your reference to the explosive growth of the Church elsewhere (i.e. NOT in the West). However, does McNeal acknowledge how the Roman Catholic Church is growing as well? EVERY denomination is growing in Africa, for example, and Presbyterians are nearly a quarter the population of South Korea. So the archaic and medieval forms of the Western Church aren't so dead as we'd like to think ... at least elsewhere. I don't agree with McNeal's generalization that the Western footprint leads inexorably to stagnation. (There wouldn't BE such growth if it weren't for the thousands of Western missionaries who served and often died.)
Again, I want to point out the apostolic nature of our missions in India and Bangladesh, both of which are growing far more rapidly than any of our U.S. Regions (especially India, where Samir Singha is Director). Why is this? Because the Spirit is moving in those areas and the Church is ready (and able) to respond.
Bill, I can agree with you when you focus on being filled with the Spirit and blessing others. I want that, too. Perhaps it's not the remnants of medieval christendom that are to blame, however, but plain ol' disobedience and legalism.
I think changing the question might be the right approach.
I think shifting to a focus on the Holy Spirit is probably helpful. (I think Word and Spirit must be always thought of together).
I don't know if it's that the Spirit blesses certain types of gatherings so much as that the Spirit blesses people who are broken of themselves and hungry to hear the Word and be directed by the Spirit. My thought is that God blesses people (especially multiple people gathered) like that, whether they are in the healthiest gathering forms logistically.
People associate the movement of the Spirit with places and times that the Spirit has moved in the past. In homes, in big churches, in our little country church, at VBS...whatever. Maybe God was never blessing one type of ministry so much as He was and is blessing people who will do and change anything and everything to hear his voice and obey his every word and make him known.
We will seek God and find Him when we seek Him with all of our hearts. And He will guide us into fruitful gatherings and ministry with hearts broken with His grace and for the lost people he desires to bring home.
bill,
excuse me if i've missed a few things, as i'm trying to catch up with the conversation. but i do think you've got some historical inaccuracy if you think that the prescriptive/descriptive question was only raised in the 16th century. isn't that the issue with the judaizers of paul's day, and the whole reason the "council of jerusalem" in Acts 15 was convened?
fran,
agreed, we need to ask the question to avoid legalism, and conversely to avoid licentiousness; knowing what isn't required, and also knowing what is. Micah 6:8 comes to mind.
ben and dan,
i love how you get at the heart of the issue, not merely the externals. i think we're agreed that the externals matter, but that is only as a function of expression of one's heart, whether their is true love of God, contrition, repentance, etc.
Fran,
...when people start to make fresh lists of how the church should live out being the church...
Yikes!
"Should" is a word you will get from me only by accident.
That's not what I intended to say and it's not what I said.
I merely described conclusions reached by a group of people I hang with regarding some characteristics of congregations established on the 'New Testament plan.' I was reporting the current bottom line in an interesting conversation that I am involved in. I wasn't preaching and I wasn't posting Eight Theses.
Let me be clear:
All I intended to do is report. Report conclusions reached by a group of people (all active in the CGGC) who decided to take seriously the assertion that we establish churches on the New Testament plan.
(Curiously to me, the journey began with the decision that everything modeled is prescriptive--as I believe Winebrenner did by 1830. But, that journey eventually evolved into a pursuit of the question, "What does the Spirit bless?")
I'd love it if others would take the same journey. I'd love to have conversation with others who radically take the Mission Statement at face value.
If any of you have...
Ben,
I don't agree with McNeal's generalization that the Western footprint leads inexorably to stagnation.
It's hard to quote Reggie because it sometimes takes him two minutes to get from the beginning to the end of a sentence. Sometimes he speaks longer than that and doesn't complete a sentence. I do encourage you to view the video.
In any case, McNeal didn't say that the Western footprint leads inexorably to stagnation. He said that, at this point in history, everywhere the Western Church has its footprint that the church is 'struggling,'--not stagnating.
As far as the problem being remnants of medieval Christendom being to blame, don't mix my threads and please don't make Reggie McNeal accountable for things that I say in other conversations on this blog. That wouldn't be fair to either of us.
It would be fair to say that Reggie agrees with Frost and Hirsch's definition of Christendom, one characteristic of which is that it leads to internal focus. It would be fair, I think, to say that Reggie advocates a 'go to them' missionality and that he thinks that that mindset is not natural within Christendom. But please don't make him a proponent of the CGGC Mission Statement or of the "New Testament plan.
I am pretty certain that Reggie doesn't even know that we have a Mission Statement and I have significant doubts that he's a big John Winebrenner fan.
Y'all,
I just want to go on record to point out that characteristic number one is NOT that they meet in homes.
That they might or might not have met in homes was far from the point.
Sorry, I haven't been keeping up real well lately so someone may have already said this. But I'm not a big fan of the whole "establishing churches on the NT Plan." One, because I don't know what that means (as seems obvious from discussion on this blog); and two, because I think it's somewhat putting the cart before the horse.
I think we've become too focused on establishing churches, to the neglect of making disciples (whether we're talking about church planting, mission/vision statements, or whatever).
I like what Hirsch said in The Forgotten Ways, "We want to lower the bar of how church is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple. Their rationale was that if the experience of church was simple enough that just about anyone can do it, and is made up of people who have taken up their cross and follow Jesus at any cost, the result will be a movement that empowers the common Christian to do the uncommon works of God" (p. 104).
dan,
i generally like what you've said. i want to challenge the people of God to stop being "consumer Christians" and really follow Him; to really find their utmost joy and highest treasure in Him, and neglect whatever doesn't lead them to Him. i challenge myself to do the same.
one thing that i think must be balanced in this is that the Bible does lay out with a fair amount of clarity that there needs to be at least some structure to the church, with servant-leaders in authority to build-up and protect the church as she grows and spreads, and members of local mini-Bodies to submit to their leadership and wisdom.
don't get me wrong: i'm all for the priesthood of all believers. i just want to be Biblical about it, following the whole counsel of God in as far as i am capable.
H,
...I'm not a big fan of the whole "establishing churches on the NT Plan."
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your honesty.
Dan,
I think you hit the nail on the head about discipleship, and I might add that where the church is exploding, it is through discipleship not camp meeting revivals. If we could figure out discipleship, we could begin to multiply.
It still seems to me that you have to narrow down what discipleship means in order to lead people through it. And I suspect not everybody has to narrow down to the exact same things.
Anyway, I agree.
Let's also not forget that the New Testament plan is one aspect of the mission statement, not the entirety of it. It is stated as the means, not the end.
That doesn't change the fact that it's still a prominent part that is listed but not widely understood or agreed upon.
Can't we all agree with the mission of discipleship?
Dan H... I totally agree with regard to being to hung up on establishing churches in general. The life is not in new churches, the life is in God. Bob Roberts pointed out a few years ago that in the places where the church is multiplying they are talking about Jesus, not church planting. When the western church places its hope in the establishment of new churches, we are trying to save our lives in a way that will not save us. (All this from me, a guy who loves to see new churches birthed:-)
But when the mission statement (and Bill, and us) talk about establishing the church on the NT plan, I think the idea is that when we do establish churches, we should establish them in a way that is authentic the the mission and values expressed in the New Testament, and with this I agree. I actually like that we use that phrase (the New Testament Plan), because it seems many groups today are not thinking in such terms, but then we are using the term without filling it with any content. If only we knew what we meant when we said it!
Brian,
It still seems to me that you have to narrow down what discipleship means in order to lead people through it.
Amen!
And, nearly 20 years after we invented the slogan, "More and Better Disciples" we still don't know what a disciple is.
Disgusting.
M,
Can't we all agree with the mission of discipleship?
No.
We don't agree about what a disciple is. Brian's made that point several times now. How can we agree on what we haven't agreed on?
Unless, of course, you accept the definition that a disciple is someone who puts his/her rear end on a seat on a regular basis in a so-called worship service.
You know? "More and Better Disciples: 35,000 in Worship by 2000?"
No one, other than extreme shepherds believe that discipleship can be defined as gathering in a flock.
Fran,
I actually like that we use that phrase (the New Testament Plan), because it seems many groups today are not thinking in such terms, but then we are using the term without filling it with any content. If only we knew what we meant when we said it!
Amen!
A disciple is one who follows Jesus and obeys everything he has commanded.
M,
A disciple is one who follows Jesus and obeys everything he has commanded.
Two comments:
First, I'm working on a definition in my own mind. Yours is not it.
Second, don't you think that, after 180 years, the CGGC should have a definition that all of us clergy men and women could hang our hats on? IOW: Should I really need to be using Dan Masshardt, as humble a servant as he is, as my authority on what a disciple is?
Here is one of the most helpful pieces on what a disciple is that I've come across. From Ray Vander Laan.
http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=2753
His "Think Hebrew" article is very good too.
bill,
"No one, other than extreme shepherds believe that discipleship can be defined as gathering in a flock."
now i know that statement has a lot of connotation to it for you, but think on this a moment:
"I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me...and I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd." ~John 10:14-16
and "Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad." ~John 11:52
love you, bro.
Love you too, walt.
How 'bout this one:
I am the...truth.
bill,
i like it. you know me, i'm all about being honest, of the Truth. but how is that quote relevant to this? i must be missing something.
The more we interact here, the more I miss interacting face to face.
Bill, your final statement about meeting the Holy Spirit is I believe the crux of the matter. THANK YOU.
Steve,
Knowing how central the Holy Spirit is to your theology of the Church, I suspected that you would agree.
dan m.,
agreed.
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