Charlie Wear’s Notes

Todd Hunter’s recent interview with Christianity Today, entitled Accidental Anglican, has stirred up a bit of conversation on the interwebs! I hadn’t read the interview before I saw Keith Gile’s response on Facebook. I was a little surprised that Keith, who by the way is a great fan of Todd’s, was as upset about a couple of comments that Todd made in the interview:

“When you left the Vineyard leadership, you connected to the early emerging church movement. What did you learn?

I linked to the emergent thing because I loved these young Christians who were trying to figure out church and what it means to be a follower of Jesus in this new era. We coached church planters all over the world who were trying to create communities of faith that made sense to their postmodern, post-Christendom friends.

Now you can’t broad-brush the emergent movement. But I saw two big problems in the emergent world.

First, the emergents are so sensitive to issues of community, relationship, egalitarianism, and being non-utilitarian in their relationships, that evangelism has simply become a synonym for manipulation—a foul ball, relationally. If you and I were work colleagues and I built a relationship in which I could influence your journey toward Christ, that would be considered wrong in these circles. I cannot be friends with you if I intend to lead you to Christ.

Second, after 10 or 12 years of the emerging church, you have to ask where anything has been built. Evangelism has been so muted and the normal building of structures and processes hasn’t moved forward because there’s no positive, godly imagination for doing either evangelism or leadership. Such things are by definition utilitarian, and so they were made especially difficult.”

You really need to read Keith’s entire post to get a complete grasp of his exception to Todd’s observations. However, let me try and reduce them to just a couple of sentences. One, Giles’ agrees with the premise that friendship for the sake of evangelism is manipulation. Two, Giles’ disagrees with the need for leadership as merely a precursor for the continued preservation of the clergy-laity division. And Three, Buildings and Processes should not be the end product of our kingdom activities.

Let me interject my standard confession: I am a baby boomer (like Todd Hunter). I am also a lawyer and a former real estate developer, so I tend to think in a linear process. This is probably why Todd’s comments did not spark the same reaction in me that they did in Keith Giles. You see, if I have one complaint with the emerging church it is that it seems that in reaction to the excesses of standard evangelical evangelism, there doesn’t seem to be much evangelism happening. The other observation that I would make is that the emerging church conversation hasn’t produced sustainable networks of communities of faith.

I know for sure that Todd wasn’t talking about building cathedrals, but like a typical baby boomer, he expects there to be some kind of leadership emerging. It’s true, it could be that so much of what is happening is grass roots and below the radar that the outlines can’t be discerned.

Thinking about this I saw two disconnects. One was generational, the disconnect between baby boomers and the emerging generations in terms of style and approach. The other was in the area of spiritual gifts. Todd Hunter is an evangelist, with a large dose of the apostolic. He is at the root of a great deal of church planting that happened in the Vineyard. If the Vineyard movement in the US is healthiest in the Midwest, then Todd Hunter is at the core of it. For years he has been on a mission to reach young people through church planting. It is not surprising that given the opportunity and the resources to plant 200 churches to do just that, that he would jump at it, vestments and all. While the emerging church conversation has certainly has emphasized the prophetic, teaching and pastoral gifts, the apostolic and the evangelistic have been the overlooked gifts.

In any case, I extend my blessing toward the accidental Anglican, Bishop Todd Hunter, as he continues his journey responding to God’s calling on his life. And I also look forward to what God will do with the emerging church conversation in the years to come.

I have had rabbits on my mind for the past week or so. This past winter we have had a large influx of rabbits all around our home. It would not be unusual to leave the house at 7 a.m. and find 1 or 2 dozen rabbits grazing on our lawns. For this reason, and because of dry weather this past year, the lawn is so dead and so gone I have been thinking about getting rid of it. The entire property is also well fertilized! But this isn’t the reason I have been thinking about rabbits.

I am a refugee from “normal” church. Since I closed the church I pastored in Moreno Valley in 1998, I have found it impossible to stick with attendance at a “regular” church. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I am still a follower of Jesus, even if I am not a “member” of a church. It seems as though for the past decade I have been on a journey of trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus outside of the boundaries of a “traditional” church.

It turns out, I am not alone. Research indicates that there are millions of people in the U.S. just like me, who for whatever reason, have left the confines of the “regular” church and have been wandering in the wilderness. An old saying goes, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” As a student of church growth for the past twenty years, and a practitioner of traditional church life on a significant level for at least ten years of that, I was ready for Tony and Felity Dale and George Barna’s recent book, The Rabbit and the Elephant: Why Small is the New Big for Today’s Church.

The Dales’, with the able assistance of George Barna, have created a handbook for church life that may appeal to the millions of church dropouts like myself. With the emphasis on the non-hierarchial, non-institutional and Spirit-led community of believers, I know I found myself hungry for this kind of church life.

It is possible that I am projecting my hopes and dreams of recapturing the kind of community I experienced several years ago as a small band of people ministered to skateboarders simply because this is what God “told us to do.” I have often said that this ministry experience was the best of my life, no politics, no division, just a focus on what the Spirit was saying and asking us to do. We were experiencing “simple” church and we didn’t even know it. With The Rabbit and the Elephant I now have a theology and a practical guide that has helped me fit all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Now I am left with something to do, start a simple church. That should keep me busy while I am waiting for my lawn to grow back and the rabbits to reappear.

There was a time period when I could not get enough material to read on the subject of church planting and church growth. I think it is fair to say that in the early 90s I read just about every book in print on the subject. I also attended conferences and seminars and listened to audio tapes by the hour. That probably would have made a lot of sense if I had been a professional “minister” at the time. However, I was not. I was a sole practitioner attorney making a living helping injured workers process their claims.

But, man, was I ever loving learning about this whole other field that I had never heard of until 1989. One recording that I listened to over and over was John Wimber (one of the foremost practitioners of church growth and church planting) and Bob Fulton (John’s brother-in-law and partner in ministry) talking about the difference between starters, organizers and maintainers.

This particular understanding of the differences between pioneers and settlers, starters and organizers rang true with my own personal experience. You see, when life settles into a maintenance mode, things aren’t getting a whole lot better, nor are they getting a whole lot worse; same old, same old; I seem to get into a massive funk and begin to focus all of my energies on breaking out of what feels to me like a horrible rut.

If you have followed my adventures since about 2006, when I “quit a good job in the city, working for the man every night and day” and moved my family cross-country to Florida, then you know that if I can’t find a good crisis to fight my way out of, I will, no doubt create one.

These days on the “ministry” front, and since my adventure in Florida, I don’t have a lot of excitement. One highlight for me came last month when I went to the first day of the Origins/Catalyst West conference in Irvine. I got to meet and spend some time with Dan Kimball, a frequent Next-Wave contributor over the years, a cutting emerging church practitioner (Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz) and author, and one of the founders of the Origins Network. It was great spending some time with him and getting to hear his heart for “reclaiming” evangelism. I also got to hear Erwin McManus speak in person for the first time, and he was great, inspirational, insightful and funny.

I was there because Kimball, McManus and Pastor Dave Gibbons of New Song Church in Irvine were launching a new network called Origins. You see, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to be nearby for the launch of something new. In the aftermath of that day I fell into a discussion about the involvement of women in leadership over at Jonathan Brink’s blog. Over the years a complaint arises from time to time that there are not enough women contributing to Next-Wave. So I made a concerted effort to get some material from women. Didn’t really get very far except to get some enthusiastic emails from some women who said they would send me some material.

We are ten years in on the Next-Wave journey, and for me it feels a little bit like maintenance. I am looking for the next big thing, that is part of my personality and, I think, part of my calling. Of course, for editor Scott Bane, his involvement is in the “starting” phase, so I think that helps to keep things fresh for me.

I really can’t get very excited about “joining” an existing church. It feels so much like going back to where I have already been. However, if some young person wanted to start a “missional” church in my city, I would be there with bells on. In my day job I am caught up in starting and building a law practice for the second time in my career, and that has its excitement for sure.

When things are in maintenance mode, for me, it feels like the wilderness. But show me some smoking shrubbery and I am Johnny-on-the-spot. (Oblique reference to Moses, you got it, right?) I am trying to avoid praying a dangerous prayer: “Lord, send me on an adventure, for the sake of your kingdom.” That is one of those prayers that God always answers, with some very surprising results!

I’ll admit it, I have a thirst for the exotic, at least when it comes to spiritual things. I’ve always had an inquisitive mind. Now, I have a very thirsty spirit. I was greatly intrigued when friends and acquaintances began to talk about the "Lakeland Outpouring." I’ve lived through a couple of these outpourings in the past, although I avoided being chewed up and spit out by them.

One of my friends experienced an almost complete remission of MS symptoms as a result of "Lakeland-inspired" prayer. While I found Todd Bentley’s shouts of "Bam" to be excessively theatric, her remission of symptoms is a good thing.

As a student of all things church for nearly twenty years now, I am most interested in how Christianity transfers from generation to generation. It seems there is a grasping, and a releasing that occurs with each generation.

Baby boomers are getting to the place where they should at least be thinking about releasing. However, it seems that they are hanging on to the leadership reins with as much vigor as their predecessors. In fact, a recent example is the Hour of Power ministry and Robert Schuller I and II (although this is more like a builder v. boomer struggle). Apparently, in this instance the 82 yr. old elder Schuller was not happy with the direction Robert II was taking the Hour of Power. He had a different idea. When they couldn’t reconcile their visions, the younger got displaced.

These inter-generational and transitional leadship situations sure can get messy. Here is one of the primary rules that should be followed in every instance: If you are the founding pastor and you are "turning over the ministry" to another leader, graciously and kindly MOVE AWAY. Don’t entertain the complaints of those who don’t like your successor. Don’t be tempted to come back in and save the ministry. Let the next generation of leadership make it on their own two feet, at least their failure will be their own.

Uh, what does this have to do with the exotic? Well I have been talking with a friend who is starting a church for some months now. We were both involved in a recent church plant that imploded after three months, or so, of public church services. When most people think about starting a church all of the conversation centers around starting a "church service." The second area of discussion is usually about target audience. Somewhere fifth or sixth on the list we might start talking about "discipleship."

My friend has been very careful to focus on the first step for any leader, calling. Then he has listened carefully to the Holy Spirit about how and when and where to get started. We have both wished in our heart of hearts to be part of something where egos were set aside, people were fully-devoted followers of Jesus, and a community is formed to impact a city with an emphasis of calling Christians to what I have heard called "deep discipleship."

Over the months as we have talked and listened to the Spirit and theorized, I fear my thirst for the exotic may have taken our conversations  in a direction that leads more directly to some kind of missionary-monastery than a church. Most people are not going to join or be part of a monastery. They mostly want their mission field to be their own family. It is too big a step to call people to "run a mission, a yard from the gates of hell."

Lately my friend has been thinking he should start a church service. When he mentioned it to me the other day, I only paused a little bit (the exotic ministry thoughts whirling through my brain), and then agreed, this is probably a Holy Spirit inspiration. I look forward to seeing how God will work these thoughts out in the weeks and months to come.