CN | Being Jesus' Contrast Community in a Consumer Culture

Why We Love Jesus' Church Part 4: Can You Really Plant Sacred Roots with People for the glory of God and the good of the city? Jesus Answers, "I am the Vine, you are the branches together; follow My lead."

Here are the first three posts in the series Why We Love Jesus' Church:

God Wants Us to Be Transformed in His Community

Jesus Offers More Than Open Basements, Bad Marriages

Jesus Calls Us to Embody His Righteousness & Justice Together 

This series of posts is based on my own discovery of learning that in God's faithfulness to help me grow to become more like Jesus, He has somehow graciously ignited in me and fanned into flame a love for His Church. I can honestly say that His transformative work, slow as I can too often make it, has been interconnected with how much He has taught me to love, serve, and be faithful to His bride. The post below features excerpts and ideas from Jon Tyson's Sacred Roots: Why the Church Still Matters. You can read more about his church, Trinity Grace, on this post. Also, for more on this subject, check out Dr. Michael Goheen's reflections on the Biblical story and how it helps us consider more about what it means to be a contrast community in a consumer culture.

       

Jesus' Church Gets to Plant Sacred Roots with People and Places 

The growth of the church is arguably the most remarkable sociological movement in history. In A.D. 40 there were roughly one thousand Christians in the Roman Empire, but by A.D. 350 almost 30 million. Fifty-three percent of the population had converted to the Christian faith. Sociologist Rodney Stark has spent much of his career researching how this explosive growth happened. In The Triumph of Christianity, he writes of Jesus: "He was a teacher and miracle worker who spent nearly all of His brief ministry in the tiny and obscure province of Galilee, often preaching to outdoor gatherings. A few listeners took up His invitation to follow Him, and a dozen or so became His devoted disciples, but when He was executed by the Romans His followers probably numbered no more than several hundred. How was it possible for this obscure Jewish sect to become the largest religion in the world?"

When you see who Jesus chose to found His church, it seems even more implausible. The disciples were untrained men who failed as often as they thrived. Peter kept returning to fishing (John 21:1-7). James and John wanted to call down fire on the very people Jesus came to save (Luke 9:51-55). Thomas doubted (John 20:24-28), and Judas betrayed (Matthew 26:21-25). They were selfish, contentious, and they abandoned Jesus at His moment of greatest need (Matthew 26:56). Yet from these humble roots, empowered by the Holy Spirit Jesus promised, the early church grew to become not only the largest but the most influential community in the Roman Empire (Acts 1:8). Christ-followers were often deeply misunderstood, persecuted, and some became martyrs (Matthew 5:11-12). Yet they loved and they served and they prayed and they blessed, and slowly, over hundreds of years, they overcame an empire.

They loved and served, prayed and blessed, all the while being deeply misunderstood and persecuted for the sake of Jesus and His church. In Christ, they believed Him when He said, “It is better to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). This helps us understand our current mindset and culture as we ask the question, "What in our lives today hasn't been converted to a form of consumable entertainment?" From housewives to handymen, pregnancy to porn, blockbusters to blogs, we are subconsciously training ourselves through the media we digest to expect things to be "amazing." So much of what we decide to participate in has to earn and keep our attention on our terms at all times. This has the double effect of making us increasingly passive in relation to what we could serve, while at the same time making us increasingly critical about the life we experience. Doesn't this also subconsciously or consciously leak into how we engage with Jesus' church? Why do we expect brilliance and intentionality from the church, but often allow and accept passivity and inconsistency in our own spirituality? Even when what is offered is the dynamic and unexpected Good News of Jesus and His Kingdom, why do we settle to live safe and expected lives in response instead? Are we striving after spiritual "encounters" or “entertainments” for escape when we want them, only to fail to actively pay attention to what God is actually doing in us and around us in the normal everyday moments of life?

If we settle for a "church as consumable,” we will continue to be formed into critics, limiting the church's ability to challenge us to be more like Jesus. But what if the church isn't meant to be another consumer encounter, but instead a people among we choose to be encouraged and challenged by as we seek Jesus’ way of life? What if it is through being committed to His church together that Jesus helps us explore the mess and the grief and the joy and the sorrow of life, along the way learning His redeeming and refining love in the midst of suffering and joy, pain and comfort?

Jesus’ Church for God and for the World, or the Church for the Individual?

Jesus' call to discipleship was scandalous. It was a call to die, to take up our cross (Mark 8:34-36); a call to self-denial trusting His Word and His Spirit. And it was a call to community, to put other's needs before our own desires, and to steward personal resources as a source of blessing for others and hope for the world. It wasn't a call to find ourselves, but to lose ourselves in Him and to learn to lay down our lives for others. Most of Jesus' invitations were not simply personal invitations to individual salvation; they were personal invitations to communal salvation – and shared responsibility as a result. For example, Jesus makes this clear when He said in John 13:34-35: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another."

How does this compare to our approach to His church today? Consider the top two reasons people attend a church service: to be closer to God (43%) and to learn more about God (32%). While neither of those are bad reasons, they are self-focused reasons that assume we can be closer to God and learn more about Him on our own. The top two reasons people don't attend a church service are also revealing: I find God elsewhere (40%) and church is not relevant to me personally (35%). When radical individualism overshadows the faith Jesus has called us to, we will only process Jesus' teachings and wrestle with Jesus' call to discipleship as individuals. But according to Jesus Himself, such an individualistic vision of discipleship misses the full experience of faithfully following Him. If we always put our needs first, we have positioned ourselves as the master and Jesus as the servant. When we use expressions like, "I didn't like the worship songs," or "I didn't get anything out of that sermon," we reveal how we approach church as an event to consume on our terms. 

Jesus' call is more than how He works in our: 

(1) public (ex. How can the church help me reach my potential? vs. How can I serve the church so she can reach her potential?),

(2) private (ex. How can the church help me find a comfortable community that I want? vs. How can I commit myself to a messy community the world needs?), and 

(3) personal (ex. How does the Bible make sense to me and my life? vs. How does the Bible connect me to Jesus, His church of the past, and the global church today that reveals the Way, the Truth, and the Life that is the same, yesterday, today, and forever?), 

but often passive, individual lives. Jesus calls us to be connected to His body, actively contributing to His mission with His disciples.

Is the Church the Project of "Self," or the People of God as Active Agents of Grace?

How do we put our roots into Jesus’ call that takes us out of the small story of Project Self into a masterpiece of redemption? Jesus reminds us the church is more daring, subversive, transformative, and provocative than we have often numbed ourselves to believe – that we are not destined to be passive spectators but active agents of grace and redemption in the middle of the brokenness of the world.

We need to move beyond the three common levels of life:

(1) public (ex. What do I do with my career? vs. How can my career serve my neighbors and the world?), 

(2) private (ex. What do I do with my social life? vs. How can I shape my weekly rhythms to create space for God and others to ask things of me and I can be able to respond?), or 

(3) personal (ex. What do I do with my feelings? vs. What people and situations is Jesus using to help me trust Him more and love people where they are?),

society has conditioned us to, and instead respond to Jesus' call to a profoundly deeper level of life: 

(4) the purposeful call to deny ourselves for the sake of Jesus and His communal discipleship and mission with His church.

| 1 | Jesus' Call to "Devotion Over Dabbling" Shapes His Church that Still Matters

In Acts 2:42-47, the previously fickle followers of Jesus who were transformed by His Spirit were described as devoted in focusing on the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, prayer, giving, and sharing their lives with those in need. We too are called to live on the Spirit-empowered side of the cross, where we turn away from the confines of building up our own kingdoms to a self-denying, countercultural community of discipleship and mission for His Kingdom. The word devotion modifies everything else we see in Acts 2:42-47 and beyond. The intensity and intentionality of the lives of the church members set them apart. Faith was not an addition to life, but a reframing of life itself.

In Multiplying Missional Leaders, Mike Breen shares that when we let the world shape our vision and desire, we commonly end up investing our resources in the following order of priority: (1) financial, (2) physical, (3) intellectual, (4) relational, and then (5) spiritual. But God calls us to seek first His kingdom and trust that all we need in life will be provided by Him. In following Jesus' lead, He helps us reverse our often default order to a life of devotion in which we prioritize our lives in a countercultural way: (1) spiritual, (2) relational, (3) intellectual, (4) physical, and then (5) financial. Jesus' church is called to be devoted to the radical spiritual pursuit of God, walking with Him and delighting in His presence. In Him, we create time to steward relational energy to bear one another's burdens. We sharpen our intellectual understanding so we can use our skills to serve one another in practical ways – cleaning, moving, celebrating, fixing, and working. We make sure we get enough physical energy and rest, eating and exercising to steward our bodies as the place where God's presence dwells, so we can be fully present to what is happening in the lives of those around us. And we seek to steward what we have financially, practicing generosity, not letting the desire for more choke out the work God wants to do in our lives. Spending our capital in this order – spiritual, relational, intellectual, physical, and then financial – is a tangible way of practicing devotion – of loving God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. A church filled with people like this, who are not just living for themselves but spending themselves on behalf of one another, is Jesus’ church of people who have emotional energy to listen without distraction, time to walk others through the mess of addiction or divorce, commitment to invest in teenagers trying to make sense out of faith and life, and margin to savor and celebrate the things that are often lost in the frenzy of modern life.

What does this look like in the day-to-day? An example would be a family with Trinity Grace that has passionately committed themselves to being disciples of Jesus in the context of New York City. He works in finance, she is a teacher, and they have small children they care for amid the demands of their careers. This description could apply to many families in cities today, but one quality makes this family stand apart: they're always available. No matter what's on their plate, they're always offering to serve, give, and love. I once pulled them aside and asked how they managed to do this when everyone else seemed so overwhelmed. His reply was: "I told my boss what my priorities are, and how many hours a week I'm willing to work. I told him I was only going to give so much to my job so I could live out what is important to me in the other areas of my life." His boss told him he was committing career suicide and that he would never rise above middle management. "That is a price I am very willing to pay," my friend said.

Academic Noam Chomsky once famously said the vision of modern life is an individual alone in a room, looking at a screen. We know we are created for more than this. God's heart is that we might shift from dabbling in church to devoting ourselves to His kingdom in such a way that the we and the world are jarred out of our idolatry by the intensity of His love for us and communal passion for His lost children. In a world of passive distraction, passionate devotion and intentionality gains attention. Jesus’ church can shake the imagination of an empire once again.

| 2 | Jesus' Call to "Permanence and Proximity Over Transience and Preference" Shapes His Church that Still Matters

What would it look like to take the reality of “place” seriously, to model the kingdom of God long enough so people get a tangible sense of what it truly is? So often we come, we take, and we leave. How often do we do this when we visit churches, or leave one to try another? In relation to Jesus’ church in previous times in history, churches actually practiced transfer of membership. When someone moved to a new place, the last community would vouch for their character and faith. This weaved the threads of faith into the fabric of mobile lives so that faithfulness to Jesus and His church revealed someone's discipleship. Reality is that strong relationships take time to form. To love our family means we do not leave our family. To love our neighbor means we have to know our neighbor. One of the definitive ways the church has shaken the world has been with their response and commitment to the places they lived. 

For example, in the Roman Empire, like in current areas around the world today, there were often places of crime, disease, and death. Fires would break out and destroy communities, but the real fear in Rome was of plagues. When a plague hit a city, it could devastate up to half of the population. Dionysius, writing sometime around A.D. 260 at the height of a great epidemic, wrote: “Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty … heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead. … (Others) behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape.” Imagine that a deadly virus broke out in your church and the places you live. Would most people flee as far away as they could? But Jesus’ church takes His call seriously even in such a scenario. For those in Rome, believing they had eternal life and that Jesus’ command to lay down our lives for one another was to be taken literally, they stayed to care for those around them. This had a profound effect on the world. Roman historian Eusebius, a church leader of the time, describes the way these acts of love impacted their generation. “(The Christians) deeds were on everyone’s lips, and they glorified the God of the Christians. Such actions convinced them that they alone were pious and truly reverent to God.”

To move toward rootedness in our discipleship with Trinity Grace, we have reclaimed the idea of the “parish.” We define a parish as a geographic area or group of people to whom we have spiritual responsibility. We are called to care for communities – modeling the sacrificial love of Jesus in a particular context or with a particular people. Many in our church community have started to take this call seriously. They have stepped into problem areas in the community, acting as chaplains and police liaisons. They’ve forged relationships with local business owners, joined the PTA, launched community associations, opened arts programs, and led initiatives to restore public parks. And they have done all this in Jesus’ name, with humility and love, as servants of the community. As a result, we have seen the beginning of a shift. We have seen cynics’ hearts soften, atheists begin to doubt their doubt, and lonely people find a home in a community where they experience healing and acceptance. And one life at a time, Jesus is becoming a topic of conversation in the places where we live. We want our communities to be thrilled Christians live in the neighborhood. We want the kingdom of God to come into our parishes as it is in heaven. The only way the church will learn to thrive and bear fruit in a given context is if we commit to planting sacred roots, deep roots.

How do we reveal Jesus’ kingdom intentionality as He calls us to arrange our lives in such a way that we remove obstacles and pattern our habits so we can be tangibly present in each other’s stories? First Thessalonians 2:8 puts it like this: “Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” Though our culture values autonomy and treats privacy as a foundational necessity for society, the hunger for true community continues to grow. Nearly one in five adults admit to being lonely. Even our broken families have not killed our desire for family, but reconfigured it. We seek belonging and acceptance from urban tribes that flow in and out of our lives. Think about TV shows like HBO’s Girls and Entourage, and the network TV shows Community and Modern Family – all narratives of ordinary people searching for a place to belong. We long to be known and loved, challenged and encouraged.

What would love look like if the church showed up in people's lives multiple times per week in small but profound ways: meals cooked, prayers prayed, songs sung, Scriptures studied, games played, parties thrown, tears shed, reconciliation practiced, resources given? What if we stopped attending community groups, and instead became groups of communities who engaged with each other and communities together? What if our homes stopped being the places we hid from the world but havens to which the world comes for healing? We will have to wrestle with difficult situations that will impede on aspects of our lives, and I believe the church is called to wrestle deeply with these issues. One way to do this is to process our life choices through a communal lens, one that takes into consideration the effect of our choices – not just on our families but on our church and community. Imagine how beautiful and powerful the church would become in Christ if we were not known for “where we went to church,” but how we are the church and who we are the church with; if we did not judge church by the excellence of its programs but by the excellence of our lives by how much we have been transformed to give more, serve more, and love more. As church father Tertullian said in his Apology, “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another.’”

| 3 | Jesus' Call to "Faithful Practices, Not Just Personal Beliefs" Shapes His Church that Still Matters

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22). What if Jesus’ church understood again that faith is not merely some things to believe in, but a growing lifestyle defined by distinct practices Jesus knew would require faith in Him to do? At the end of the day, how we live and what we do for Him and others is what we really believe.

When I was sixteen years old, I left high school to become an apprentice butcher. I signed a legal document indenturing myself to four years of training. My apprenticeship began with everything everyone else didn’t want to do: cleaning scraps, scrubbing equipment, making sausages, and unloading trucks. I began to learn about the tools of the trade: the sharpness of a knife, the power of a saw, and the spices in the recipes for seasoned meats. I was given simple tasks under close direction. I wasn’t allowed to move on to a new area of learning until I had internalized the previous skill, which sometimes took a matter of hours and sometimes months. I also attended a technical college. I took classes on agriculture, management, hygiene, business, and supply chains. But for every couple of weeks in class, I spent six months under the mentorship of practicing butchers. My exams were not simply written tests – the primary test was whether or not I could do the work of butchering. Over the course of time, lesson by lesson, mentor by mentor, and through the integration of knowledge, character, experience, and skill, I finally became a butcher.

I still benefit from those years of apprenticeship, which taught me the true importance of putting my skills and knowledge to work. After all, a person with a knowledge of meat who cannot actually prepare and serve it is not a butcher but a food critic. In similar contrast, when we look at the ministry of Jesus, we see Him apprenticing His disciples to live by faith because of what He said and did, not just teaching them to remember what He said. To take on the way of Jesus wasn’t simply to take on His worldview; it was to take on His lifestyle – to learn how to think, love, act, relate, practice, embody, and model the kingdom of God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave a clear picture of the faith-full practices He wanted His disciples to live out: kindness over condemnation; forgiveness over vengeance; purity and faithfulness in our sexuality; turning the other cheek to those who hurt us; loving, praying for, and blessing our enemies; fasting for more of God (not for more attention of people); giving generously when no one knows or sees; seeking God's kingdom and not material riches; seeking God radically through persistent prayer; and building our life on observing Jesus' words and practices and following His lead by obeying Him. We are called to love the outcast, challenge hypocrisy, lay down our lives for one another, celebrate the good and the true and the beautiful, and give generously – all while seeking God and finding Him in mysterious and miraculous ways. And then, when the challenges and trials of life come, we will be deeply rooted in God's love, and His grace will enable us to walk with perseverance and joy. God's heart is for His church to become a place that equips people for kingdom learning and living.

Jesus modeled all of the above for us and calls all of us to join Him. He didn't dabble with love but devoted Himself to His disciples. He washed their feet and restored them after they failed. He died for their (and our) sins, and then rose again on their behalf. He came to us to secure a place for us. He takes His kingdom and this earth seriously. He has been preparing a place for us, and one day the beautiful city will come to earth, and we will dwell with Him forever. Jesus also arranged His life so He was in intimate proximity to His disciples. He did daily life with them, loving them, teaching them, and training them. And through His Spirit, He is not just with us, but in us, the hope of glory (see Colossians 1:17-28). He also put His love into practice – healing the sick, confronting hypocrisy, welcoming the outcast, embracing the leper, and ultimately giving His life in love. 

This is why and how, when we respond to the call of Jesus to deny ourselves for the sake of a communal discipleship and mission, the church looks less like the world and more like Jesus.

Next post: CN | Jesus Wants the Gospel Seen as Beautiful Through His Church

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