Charlie Wear’s Notes

Francis Chan’s excellent animated short, The Big Red Tractor, as shown at Verge 2010 via Steve McCoy, Reformissionary.

The Big Red Tractor from Jacob Lewis on Vimeo.

Hi, my name is Charlie, and I am a recovering pharisee. No, I was not a “member of a Jewish sect that flourished during the 1st century b.c. and 1st century a.d. and that differed from the Sadducees chiefly in its strict observance of religious ceremonies and practices, adherence to oral laws and traditions, and belief in an afterlife and the coming of a Messiah.” (Dictionary.com) I am using the other definition of pharisee: “a sanctimonious, self-righteous, or hypocritical person.”

At the ripe old age of 60 I have finally figured out what was and is wrong with me and understand why I have such a hard time with “normal” church. How did I become a pharisee? Was I born that way? Well, in a sense, yes. From the time I was a little baby I was an attender and then a member of a denominational church. Of the many denominations I have been exposed to in my adult life, I can tell you that the denomination of my youth was by far the most legalistic. Our list of do’s and don’t’s was extensive. Membership was exclusive and salvific, and this was just fine with me, what else did I know?

I am sure I heard about Jesus and grace and all of that stuff when I was growing up, but not in any relational sense. This all worked well for me. I was a member, and an active one. Yes, I struggled with managing my “holiness (sin).” That produced the requisite guilt cycle. All was well until my first marriage failed and the church kicked me out. Now, I will have to admit, this wasn’t as bad as being publicly whipped, humiliated, falsely accused, and executed. But it still felt pretty bad. I used to be in, part of the remnant faithful. Now I was out.

If my condition wasn’t so addictive I probably could have recovered pretty easily. But the need to be right and in, may as well have been burned into my DNA and my brain chemistry. I imagine that it is something like the way an alcoholic who is sober feels. He’s not drinking, but the urge burns in his bones.

I was raised that if you love God you will be part of “His” church. Eventually I wasn’t in a church anymore. I wasn’t happy with that condition so I was pleasantly lured back into church when a denominational pastor who preached a more “grace-full” theology started a local church. And this time I was not only in, I was in it up to my eyeballs! Worship leader, church council member and eventually full-time executive pastor were the roles I cycled through in a five year period. Boy, did I enjoy it! Imagine my surprise when a rapid turn of events found me once again on the outside and embarking on a stint as a pastor in another religious movement. This wasn’t quite as bad as the first time I was kicked out of church but it was a bit jarring!

And then I found a group of people, my congregation, with an entirely different set of do’s and don’t’s. I lasted three years at that endeavor and came out the other end this side of a psychiatric unit, but nonetheless scarred. You see, my condition loves being right. It loves being the one with the answers. It loves being the up-front decisive person. It loves being thought of as a righteous person. Of course, there is the downside. I know who I really am and what I am really like inside. Others don’t think I am always right. Frequently there are those that don’t like my answers or decisions. This is always quite disappointing.

It’s been over ten years since that experience. By the way, my second marriage failed and I have married again! during this last ten years I have not been able to “join” another “normal” church. I have been trying hard during this time to figure out what is wrong with me! The way I usually express it is in terms of what is wrong with the churches I don’t want to join. I just figured out this week what the problem is. Recovering alcoholics can’t hang out in bars! Recovering pharisees can’t join a church! It brings out the worst in them.

Don’t get me wrong. This does not mean I am opposed to joining a “normal” church. I think I am just not strong enough yet. In the meantime I remain committed to following Jesus and continue to try to discover what that means. I’ll keep looking for a “recovery” group for folks like me. If you hear of one, let me know.

“I think we underestimate the power and importance of loving one another. Consistent love for other Christians is key to a healthy spiritual life because loving fellowship is God’s prescribed environment for growth. This kind of love is based on commitment to God Himself. To be committed to God is to be committed to His community, the Church. This is not a commitment to the theory of the Church, but to an actual body of other fallible, imperfect people.

Many of us treat church life like immature adolescents. From other Christians we want thrills, constant exhilaration and to have our needs met. When Christian brothers and sisters fall short of our expectations, when they are boring and imperfect and fail to meet our needs for strokes, we pout, turn away and isolate ourselves from them. Jesus calls us to mature commitment of love for His people—the very people in our fellowship.”

—John Wimber, p. 188-119, Everyone Gets to Play, Ampelon Publishing, 2008

I just finished reading Susan Isaacs excellent book, Angry Conversations with God. I laughed. I cried. I was moved. This book is so insightful about the mess we humans make of our relationship with God.

Here’s a particularly insightful excerpt:

“Be careful to whom you bare your grief, especially if it’s someone churchy, like Martha. Because the Marthas of the world can’t leave a question unanswered, a problem unsolved, or a sorrow unhealed, they have to fix it. An no matter how long you’ve been a Christian (I’d been one all my life), Martha will know a Bible verse you haven’t heard (or haven’t heard the right way), or she’ll have a book or a sermon tape or a worship CD designed to answer your questions, silence your doubts, muzzle your grief, and make Martha feel better.”

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.

I’m very proud of her…

Don’t tell anyone but I really like the TV series, Heroes. Of all the heroes, however, I think my favorite is Hiro Nakamora (don’t know if I spelled that right). He’s the Japanese guy who can bend time and space and is a mean samarai sword fighter. I think he is currently without his powers in the series’ timeline, but he still follows his “Hero” philosophy.

I have had a few heroes during my life. Of course, the problem with having people for heroes is that they are people. One of my heroes was John Wimber. Of course, it was helpful that I did not personally know John. I only knew him through his writing, recordings, videos and live preaching. Unfortunately I have been acquainted with a number of people who knew John in his “life-size” version. My interactions with them sort of caused John to become a little less of a hero in my eyes. He’s still up there, but I know a little too much about him, I think.

One of my heroes is a guy named Steve Sjogren. Even though I have gotten to know him a little more up close and personal in the last few years, and he is more life-size than he was before, believe me, I have a great deal of admiration for him. Against great odds he started a church really small and grew it really big by making kindness a necessary part of his DNA and the DNA of his church. After suffering a seriously disabling medical accident he has come back to continue to make contributions in spreading the kindness of God around the world.

I have other heroes, some who are nearby and some who are further away, some who are younger and some who are older, some who are acquaintances and friends, some who are my family and some who are strangers. I remember one of the most heroic things my father ever did. He cared for his mother as she lay bedridden by a debilitating illness over her last months. I really admire him for that. 

I guess that being a little more seasoned can cause a person to understand that all humanity is flawed. It is when we struggle against our flaws and persevere in attempting to go above our “normal” humanity that our true “heroism” emerges. One of my mentors used to say “I want to grow up before I grow old.” I think part of the meaning of that statement is learning to accept ourselves, flaws and all, as much as we are willing to accept others.

Still, we really like it when our heroes are larger than life, don’t we?

I was raised in church. Every week my Mom would get me dressed in my little suit and take me to the Cradle Roll, or The Primary, or The Juniors. It was a small church and our classes were small. We had bible races, where we would look up the verse the teacher called out as quickly as we could. I was a star in the bible race. We would sing songs. The universal, Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, For the Bible Tells Me So. We used hand motions and said, “This is the Church, This is the Steeple, Open the Doors and See All the People.”

Church was great. If you lived by the rules, then you were “in,” part of the “remnant,” assured of a place in heaven. Unfortunately, when I was pushing thirty, the church of my youth and I had a parting of the ways. For about ten years I wandered in the wilderness, until a creative pastor started a church designed to reach out to people like me, “back-slidden” baby boomers. The church he started was creative and contemporary and gracious, and the next thing you know, I was “all up in it,” leading worship, serving as a small group leader, on the church council and eventually executive pastor.

This Is The Church

As a youngster growing up I was taught that being a member of the church, serving in the church, attending church, giving tithe to the church, were the minimum prerequisites for salvation. Being kicked out of the church was a very bad thing, for now your “membership” and therefore your standing with God was in jeopardy. When I was kicked out, because of my divorce with my first wife, it was a devastating blow to my sense of who I was. I was no longer a member of The Church, welcome to attend services and serve the congregation.

It was such a relief when Pastor Dan, the founder of that new church plant, said that we could all be members, even if we had been divorced. Now I could be a part of The Church again.

This is the Steeple

Years later I watched John Wimber’s video testimony (I’m a Fool for Christ, Who’s Fool are you?) as he described his first visit to “church.” It was hilarious. In addition to describing his experience, I thought that John was trying to say that “church” was strange. It seemed to me that John was trying to say that the Vineyard was a different kind of church, and I think he wanted it to be. I think John was trying to say that if we can get outside of our stained-glass sanctuaries and meet people halfway with contemporary music and a supernaturally natural approach to ministry that a new generation could be reached.

Something about the lack of a steeple made the Vineyard very attractive to my baby boomer consciousness and it was only a few years after my first exposure to Wimber and his teachings that I accidentally became a Vineyard pastor for a few years. Now, nearly 15 years later, I am learning a new reality.

See All The People

As a former pastor who closed his church about ten years ago, I have experienced another ten years in the “churchless” wilderness. I am not saying that I have not visited a number of churches, looking for one that would feel like home, because I have. I have struggled mightily to overcome the notion that was ingrained in my childish psyche that if I was not a “member” of a church I was not part of God’s family. I have tried to understand there might be a difference between “following Jesus” and being a “church member.” I am still struggling with these questions.

These days I am thinking about “the people,” not only those like myself who have been a part of “church” and are no longer a part of it, but also those who have never been a part of church, and don’t know or care about ever being a part of it.

The Apostle Paul said, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:14,15, The Message)

I believe we need a new understanding of “church,” one that is not limited by the number of fingers that show when we open our hands. We need to “see all the people,” those inside church walls, yes, but also those outside of the church’s walls. We need to get outside our man-made boxes and limitations and see what God sees, not church buildings or steeples, but people.

We need to take the message of the apostle Peter to heart and become “living stones that are being used to build a spiritual house.” (1Peter 2:5, Contemporary English Version) This new spiritual house needs to overcome the bad reputation that we have given Jesus. The reputation that he and his followers are judgmental and, in some cases, hateful. We need to “Live such good lives among [those around us] that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1Peter 2:12 NIV)

Whether we are emerging, or missional, transformational, incarnational, ancient-future, neo-monastic, or liturgical, it seems that we need to make a commitment to “seeing all the people” in the way that God sees them and loving them in the way that God loves them. Now that is a spiritual house I would like to be a part of.

Bob Hyatt has an excellent post about the Death of Preaching. There is a lot to think about there.
When I was preaching on a regular basis (for about three years, 1995-1998) I had a different take on the problems with preaching. I think I did a fairly competent job, but I didn’t see much fruit from the activity. If I preached on morality, then immorality abounded. If I preached on stewardship and serving, then volunteers quit and giving went down.
If you think about it, the act of preaching is pretty unique in today’s methods of “information-sharing.” Where else do you go, other than a political rally, where it is your intention to sit and listen to one person speak? I know it happens in school assemblies where attendance is required, but where else?
So, I guess I am not so worried about the death of preaching. There is a possibility that with the death of preaching we might see the rise of something that might have greater impact in the lives of congregations and individual believers.