I find some refreshing, challenging and insightful thinking in this book that comes from somewhere other then the emergent/evangelicalism ‘conversation.’

Is the Church broken (and not just the Episcopal Church?)……

Not sure how you drew the reformed/arminian conclusion, but it may be pretty doggone perceptive, as I used to be more of an arminian ilk, but now am more of a reformed ilk. Not sure if that’s related to my shift from “delegate” to “instrument”, although I kinda have to wonder about that, as teaching and direction from my pastor (definitely an Arminian) are largely what brought this about.

But regardless, I attend a church that is living proof that Calvinists and Arminians can play together, so don’t worry about this devolving into a C vs A argument. ;-) Besides, my reformed-ness is about me, not others.

Your statements only get a bit straw-man-ish at the end (starting with “Now assuming…”; I agree with most of what you are saying. I’m not abdicating my responsibility to obey, but my responsibility for the outcome. The opinion that man is responsible for the outcome is (IMHO) untrue, yet widely taught (at least implicitly) in Christian circles — or at least in the circles that I used to spin in.

At the risk of bringing up the A/C question again, some of the questions you raise in that paragraph, or their correlaries, are given in criticism of conformed thinking. The one that I hear most often is “If election is absolutely true, then why evangelize?” Not sure what the “official” Calvinist answer is to that, but mine is “I don’t know for sure, but God told me to, and that’s plenty for me.” ;-)

You said:

In the end, proper stewardship and submitted instrumentality blend and who could tell the two apart?

I see your point. But still, while being willing to admit that it may be a weakness in my mentality, I can’t wrap my brain around it being quite that gray. Hence my distinction between delegate and instrument.

One more thing: ossify? lassitude? I’m just thankful that Firefox has a search directly to dictionary.com ;-)

Grace,
Brendt

The biblical case can be made for both, I think. We are at once stewards who have been charged with the honor of being God’s instruments. Christ’s parable of the talents highlights our responsibility as stewards. Paul talks about our stewardship of our bodies as God’s instruments–which are not our own, but God’s paid with a price. Paul also describes in Philippians 2 how we are to have the mind of Christ–obviously, an element of decision-making and stewardship is involved here–and the result is the awareness that it is God who enables us to will and to act according to his purpose. And Romans 12 highlights our responsibility to be transformed so that we may know God’s will. Throughout the NT we see patterns of delegated stewardship–our duties and responsibilities–alongside God’s sovereignty and our role as his hands and feet: instruments. Christ said he only did and said that which he saw the Father doing and saying. It’s our job to discern what the Father is about so that we can align our behavior to his.

Even in your model of instrumentality over delegation, you still have been delegated at least one thing: the choice to submit as an instrument. We cannot escape that which has truly been delegated to us: our will to choose. By his soverign grace, God provides the ability to choose, to be sure, but even when he makes it possible to overcome your sinfulness so that you can be a proper instrument, you still must make the choice.

In the end, proper stewardship and submitted instrumentality blend and who could tell the two apart?

Now, assuming we have been delegated nothing, that we have no role to play in making proper choices and taking proper action, assuming that under the proper conditions we become mere conduits for God’s will, and perhaps little more than divinely controlled puppets, then what’s the point of the discussion? The church, then, is exactly as it should be. Nothing more, nothing less. Whatever evangelism happens is exactly what should happen. No more, no less. Whatever neglect we give to the Word is exactly what God desires. Whatever doctrinal excess or lassitude inflicts the church is exactly the balance God wants.

We would merely be along for the ride.

Perhaps I’ve set up a straw man and I’m railing against conclusions you wouldn’t support. But this is what I see as the logical outcome of pitting instrumentality against stewardship/delegation.

Regards,

Rich.
BlogRodent

Rich.

To be honest, I didn’t see how that statement fit in the context of the rest of the paragraph anyway, so I wasn’t aware that I was taking it out of context. Here’s the paragraph in context:

The fact is that man is entrusted with the gift of the Gospel. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. And, that is incredible. Ultimately, it is up to me…to us as individuals fully endowed with radically diverse personalities. God has given us the ability and responsibility to use our personalities, intellects, emotions, and characteristics to share the Gospel in ways that best fits us as individuals and our audience at any given time.

I agree whole-heartedly with all of the non-italicized statements. But I do not agree with the conclusion (italicized). And I even agree with most of the statements in the other two paragraphs in your most recent response.

But to say that “it is up to me” reminds me of the “delegate” vs “instrument” argument. I wrote about this extensively here as it relates to the marital relationship, but it applies to this as well. I would encourage you to read the whole thing, but here is the salient portion (I was describing different viewpoints and how I had arrived at the one cited here):

4) Those who do believe in God’s intervention in our lives, see Him as the ultimate Provider and Protector, and see the husband as nothing more than God’s instrument to provide and protect the wife.

Now, this may seem like semantics at first blush, but delegate and instrument are miles apart. If you are God’s delegate, the responsibility lies with you. If you are God’s instrument, the responsibility lies with Him.

Perhaps you view Christians as delegates, rather than instruments. I just can’t get that to jive with my understanding of God and man.

You quoted me a bit out of context on the last one. If I read that “ultimately up to me” line seperate from its context, I could not possibly agree with myself. Please don’t put me into a discussion saying something I did not say. What I did say was:

****The fact is that man is entrusted with the gift of the Gospel. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. And, that is incredible. Ultimately, it is up to me…to us as individuals fully endowed with radically diverse personalities. God has given us the ability and responsibility to use our personalities, intellects, emotions, and characteristics to share the Gospel in ways that best fits us as individuals and our audience at any given time.****

God does not NEED us but, He has chosen to use us as His mouthpiece on the earth. People are dependent on you and me both to communicate the Gospel to them. I happen to believe strongly that the way we carry ourselves impacts or fails to impact people for the cause of Christ. I hardly think that is a self-centered/ man-centered approach. I believe it would actually be a Matthew 28 approach.

If I fail to be responsive to the prompting and move of the Holy Spirit, then I fail to fullfill my role in the “jointly fitted together” church, a relationally-structured church. Now, for all my hang-ups with religiosity, I have to come to the conclusion that our call to take dominion of the earth, to go and “make disciples,” and our call to be good stewards would lead us to hone our leadership and organizational skills to the point that we are intentionally making disciples and cultivating the God-given harvest that comes our way. What is possibly wrong with that?

The more I think about this, the less I have to say about it. I’ve enjoyed the conversation, but I think my contribution value is declining. I’ll just address a couple of points that were directed at me.

Travis said:

I think you are presenting an overly idealistic approach.

Quite possibly so. But after 35 years of realism, I decided that not having a will to live wasn’t worth it. Bottom line: This is all about God. I can’t see how any human aspiring to be like Jesus isn’t going to be idealistic (or commit suicide).

Travis said:

Ultimately, it is up to me

If any part of God’s plan is up to me, we’re in deep.

Because of Rich, I had to look up “ossify”. ;-)

Rich asked:

But where would you suggest we focus to diagnose what’s wrong, if declining numbers are not symptomatic?

If a gunshot victim is crying because of the pain, his runny nose would be a symptom. But it’s not necessarily where the doctor should focus his attention. The American church has tried focusing on the numbers (i.e the runny nose), and the result is colossal failure (either because the numbers declined, or the numbers were the only thing that grew). I’ll admit — I don’t know where the focus should be — but history has proven where it shouldn’t be.

To paraphrase Matthew 6:34, “Sufficient unto the day are the numbers thereof.”

The weekend, for me, turned into a rather passionate on-line debate, of sort, positioned in the comments section of another man’s blog. My response to his opinion somehow immediately attracted two other contenders, while the fellow, himself, didn’t participate until somewhere down the road. Addressing statistics that indicate church attendance, in this country, yet continues to decline, we discussed whether “structure” played any part in being a solution or the main reason for the problem in the first place. At no time did anyone get nasty. No inappropriate language or insensitive references to the other guy’s lack of intelligence. It did seem to get a bit “heated” during the course of it, but that’s hard to tell. Too easy to read unintended emotion into what the other guy puts to print. At any rate, I was content to abbreviate my third donation to the conversation, thinking perhaps it going where I didn’t want to go. As it turned out, no broken egos and I may have picked up another friend to visit………..

My original statement concerning the issue voiced my opinion that “We have taken the Gospel and turned it into a book. We have taken the Great Commission and made it “take the Church” instead of take the Gospel”. Indeed, it seems to me… [view]

I certainly do not have the focus to address everything you raised in your response. Perhaps, I can share some of my conflicts with knowing, being, and doing later. But, like I said, it is a conflict that I have and not a well formed perspective mostly stemming from frustration with the marginalization of the effect of relational witness on formation. In the end, it doesn’t matter. It is a marginal theory that plays itself out in our seminaries.

Concerning this all and as a final, parting thought, I will say that structure is not the answer. Yet it very well could be a significant cause for our decline. Structure in the terms of the orignial proposition of a misguided organizational priority. That premise still remains. Until we sideline all competing focuses, like wild-eyed missionary wannabes, salivating over a harvest to be had, we will continue in our present downward spiral away from the harvest and into our comfortable dens of Christian sub-culture and godless social gatherings.

Personally, I am not going to wait to figure it all out. That is for someone else to do. What I will do is continue to throw myself into the lives of people and make it as hard for them to go to hell as possible. Any competing activity or trait must support that effort or be sidelined. I pray that my love for God and man is what compels me.

As I grow as a pastor, businessman, husband, and any other pursuit in which I am involved, I will do my best to structure my pursuits and people under my care in the best way possible to give them permission to do the same. I want to be able to present myself as Paul did when he said “follow me as I follow I Christ.”