Bill Dahl and Reggie

Bill Dahl – I devoured the book and ranked it #3 in my BEST Books of 2011. This is a book that moves the earth beneath your feet, rewires the arteries in your heart, and causes one to reconsider what you think you know about discipleship. In my opinion, this is a terribly important book….frightfully important. Thus, I have taken ample care and time in considering the weave for the context of the questions below for David to respond to.

David Kinnaman

David Kinnaman is President of the Barna Group – unequivocally a significant, ongoing source of reliable social research about Christians, Christianity and the Church in the U.S.. David has designed and analyzed a wide range of projects for a variety of churches, parachurch organizations and for-profit clients. As a spokesperson for the firm’s research, he is frequently quoted in major media outlets. He also speaks and writes about new models of church experience, the profile of young leaders, and generational changes. In 2007, Kinnaman released his first book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity…and Why It Matters.

Here we go:

1.      How are you and your family doing?

We are doing well. Everyone is excited about the holidays. My wife and kids are serious elves: decorating, baking, ornamenting, lighting things. My mom keeps calling from Arizona trying to find out what day we will arrive. I love December. It’s my wedding anniversary and my birthday…. And, oh yeah, Christmas. Thanks for asking.

2.      Context: Allow me to construct the context for my question — Rick Warren has written: “God wants you to be in regular, close fellowship with other believers so you can develop the skill of loving. Love cannot be learned in isolation. You have to be around people – irritating, imperfect, frustrating people.” He states that we learn three things through fellowship: a. Life without love is really worthless b) Love lasts forever (leaves a legacy) c) We will be evaluated on our love — It is not enough just to say relationships are important; we must prove it by investing time in them. Words alone are worthless. Relationships take time and effort, and the best way to spell love is “T-I-M-E.”(The Purpose Driven Life – Zondervan – pp. 124-127). Question: In terms of the research that is the basis for “You Lost Me…Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…And Rethinking Faith” – can you illuminate a few parallels between the above from Pastor Warren and what your research reveals as laid out in your book?

I think this is a perceptive question. Our research leads me to conclude that many of us try to shortcut our way to building a faith legacy with the next generation. But it really does require more of a commitment to give of ourselves to the teens and young people around us. Most of the young adults we interviewed said they did not have a trusted adult friend at their church while they were growing up. In other words, in many cases we do not take the time to really become friends with young people.

And youth ministers, even at their best, should not put be expected to befriend all the students that come through youth group. It is not a youth pastor’s job to become “friends” with everyone. It has to be a church wide, intergenerational commitment to make friendships with young people — really loving them — a priority.

3.      Context: In his book, A Whole New Mind – Moving From The Information Age to the Conceptual Age, (2005 – Riverhead/Penguin USA), author Daniel H. Pink writes: “The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind — computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBA’s who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people — artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers — will now reap society’s richest rewards and share it’s greatest joys.” Question: You write on page 15, “As a faith community we need a whole new mind (emphasis is mine) to see that the way we develop young people’s faith – the way we have been teaching them to engage the world as disciples of Christ—is inadequate for the issues concerns and sensibilities of the world we ask them to change for God.” In Romans Chapter 12:1-2, Paul exhorts the church to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” — What is the parallel between your use of the term “a whole new mind” and the same phrase used by Daniel Pink and the Apostle Paul – as it relates to the “dropout” problem your book so succinctly describes?

Again, great question! Daniel Pink’s book was a big inspiration to me. This shift from right-brain to left-brain thinking is descriptive of the growing gap between the generations. Today’s younger Christians are not just sort of different than previous generations. They are very different, and the shift to right-brained aptitudes — things you mention above — are very much part of younger adults’ profile. In fact, the church is losing many of the kinds of people Pink identifies. Look at the list again — the kinds of people Pink says will reap society’s rewards. These are also the kinds of people struggling with their experience of Christianity. That’s a recipe for disaster, to have the culture shapers most disillusioned by the Christian faith.

Then, you raised the question of scriptural connections. One of the key biblical references for me was Isaiah 43:19 (Behold, I am about to do a brand-new thing… do you not perceive it?). Also, Jesus’ description of new wineskins relates to the subject at hand. God is always doing “new” things. But we are more comfortable in our ruts. And the next generation is paying the price for our lack of inspired thinking.

4.      Context: You state the following in your book: “We are at a critical point in the life of the North American church; the Christian community must rethink our efforts to make disciples. Many of the assumptions on which we have built our work with young people are rooted in the modern, mechanistic and mass-production paradigms. Some (though not all) ministries have taken cues from the assembly line, doing everything possible to streamline the manufacture of shiny new Jesus-followers, fresh from the factory floor. But disciples cannot be mass produced. Disciples are handmade, one relationship at a time.” (pp.12-13). In his book, Out of Our Minds – Learning To Be Creative,” Sir Ken Robinson writes: “We all live our lives guided by ideas to which we are devoted but which may no longer be true or relevant. We are hypnotized or enthralled by them. To move forward we have to shake free of them.” (p. 7). Question: What are several “ideas” identified through your research that the current factories of “disciple-making” must “shake free of” or unlearn – to reverse the dropout trend?

We need to unlearn the idea that the more people who attend our group, the more disciples we are making. We need to caution ourselves in the most strident possible way that our Twitter and Facebook following is not a discipleship headcount.

Think of it this way: we know that parents of young children and prospective college students seek classrooms with favorable student-to-teacher ratios. No one chooses classrooms that have more students. We generally desire the most intimate of instructional settings. But we somehow have bought into the notion that the bigger our ministries, the more people we are making an impact on.

That’s just not the model Jesus used. I think we need to relearn mentoring, and better yet, rethink apprenticeship. We desperately need to find new models of mentoring and apprenticeship in order to properly develop the faith of today’s youth and young adults. In fact, we need this kind of intimacy in our faith development more than ever, regardless of our age.

5.      Context: You write: “When the Christian faith is no longer autopilot for the broader culture, Christians who are comfortably in two worlds can orient the Christian community toward faithfulness in a new setting.” (p.86). For more clarification for readers of this interview, you are drawing a parallel between what you define as “current-day exiles” and a close study of how God has used “exiles” in the Bible. In Author Steven Johnson’s work, Where Good Ideas Come From – The Natural History of Innovation, (Riverhead Books/The Penguin Group 2010), he states: we are often better served by connecting ideas than we are by protecting them. Like the free market itself, the case for restricting the flow of innovation has long been buttressed by appeals to the “natural “ order of things. But the truth is, when one looks at innovation in nature and in culture, environments that build walls around good ideas tend to be less innovative in the long run than more open-ended environments. Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders. They want to complete each other as much as they want to compete.” P.22 (emphasis is mine). Question: How might communities of believers begin to “tear down the walls” that suffocate many good ideas, particularly those who can be identified as “exiles” – Christians who are comfortably in two worlds can orient the Christian community toward faithfulness in a new setting.”

The world is flat, as Thomas Friedman has persuasively written. And this is not more true than with the next generation. Their media (largely the Internet and video gaming) is bidirectional and interactive. The expect to participate and to dialogue. They want to mix it up. The globe feels like it’s shrinking and more accessible to them. Most churches and faith communities are not comfortable with this new participatory future.

This is part of the reason why there is such suspicion toward authority. They have come to expect more give and take. We can be threatened by this and shut down. Or we can see the tremendous opportunity for the Gospel. I think the generation must be confronted with the false hope of their narcissism. But they can also find the Christian community willing to engage them with truth and dialogue and participation. Jesus trusted his Church to a messed-up bunch of men after just three years of participatory ministry. That’s more trust than we typically show toward the next generation of leaders and influencers.

6.      Context: In their book, “Surveying The Religious Landscape – Trends in U.S. Beliefs,” George Gallup Jr. and D. Michael Lindsay wrote: “Spirituality in America may be three thousand miles wide, but it  remains only three inches deep” (1999 – Morehouse Publishing). You write in You Lost Me in  2011 regarding young adults: “The Christianity they believe is an inch deep….Thus, the Christianity some churches pass on is a mile wide. Put the two together and you get a generation of young believers whose faith is an inch deep and a mile wide — too shallow to survive and too broad to make a difference”(pp.114-115). Which is followed by your thesis that “the Christian church in the U.S. has a shallow faith problem” — and – “we have a shallow faith problem among all adults” (p.120 – emphasis is yours).Question: As a leader of a community of believers, where does one start with addressing this, seemingly enduring “depth” issue?

That is such a challenging question. I think we need to first appreciate the rich faith legacy we have in this country. The fact that more than 7 out of 10 Americans call themselves a Christian is a remarkable fact and a reason for hope. Most of us want to think of ourselves as believers!

Of course, our faith leaves much to be desired. And I guess it comes down to two simple insights we might learn from Jesus: (1) being willing to tell the culture the truth (you wicked and perverse generation), but (2) working out the spiritual depth problem in your own life first. I think part of the reason we struggle is that we are so busy worrying about other churches, other Christians that we fail to keep growing ourselves. Matthew 6:33 says we should, ourselves, seek first the kingdom.

I wonder if we spent more time pursuing the Father ourselves — and modeling that for the next generation — if we wouldn’t be better off. I have a deep faith today, such as it is, because of what I saw modeled in my parents and grandparents lives. Not because they spent so much time worrying about the problems in the world.

One more thought on this: I hope our research and writing (like in unChristian and You Lost Me) helps point people to addressing gaps in their own life first, before it causes them to hand-wring about everyone else’s problems. Research is strange that way, because it can be abused when it simply creates this overwhelming sense of hopelessness.

The shallow faith problem in America is daunting. But it’s not really our problem to solve. It’s God’s. We can only work out our own feeble faith with fear and trembling.

7.      Context: Dr. Billy Graham has written: “numbers by themselves are never a true indication of what God accomplishes.” (Just As I am – The Autobiography of Billy Graham pp.133-134 1997 HarperSanFrancisco & Zondervan). You suggest in You Lost Me, “What if, instead of measuring our success by the numbers we changed our metrics…that the hallmark of mature Christianity is a willingness to invest in a young person for a period of two to four years, teaching him or her the fine art of following Christ” (p.128). QUESTION: In terms of the “depth issue” referred to in question # 6 above, how do we go about “measuring” whether one is “qualified” to invest in the mentoring of a young person? What might “qualified” look like? Might one look for “qualified personnel” amongst those “outside” an established church community?

Lots of stuff here and a whole book could be written on this. Of course, I think the idea of measurement is important. And I agree with Billy Graham. I would say it this way: we have to be careful not to measure what is important to man and miss what is important to God.

I find it interesting that what is important to God is very difficult to measure: a broken and contrite heart. But these are not impossible to find. I think we should be searching for teachability, eager pliability to learn and grow, willingness to apologize, people who are able to think about themselves in the third person, through the power of the Holy Spirit. We should be looking for these characteristics in both mentors and their apprentices. Jesus was the Son of God, yet he had this readiness to learn from his father.

I guess this means the most important leadership quality is pliable, ready, willing souls.

8.      Question: What tools are currently readily available to measure “spiritual growth and transformation” in young adults (or adults for that matter), that you might be aware of?

The best tool should come from our own clarity about what we are trying to create in young people. We need to first start with the hard work of being very clear and concrete in what we think counts before God. And then we should develop some process to “notice” those things in the lives of young adults.

You might think of creating five questions before and after a sermon series that measure the key outcomes – both knowledge and attitudes. Then use the same questions at the end of the sermon series to see if your teaching had any effect.

9.      Context: a central thesis of You Lost Me is every story matters. This thesis assumes several things a) somebody cares b) somebody is willing to listen c) there is a huge “relational” component to capturing the essence of this opportunity. You also suggest moving away from “experts” to another mode of relationship development within the Christian community. Question: What might that look like?

I think that the Christian community does care about the lives of individuals. That’s what got most pastors into this line of work. Most of the influencers in ministry (paid or volunteer) want to see transformation in the lives of people.

The relational opportunity is huge, but it is the hard part. I think we have the interest, just not always the capacity to love people the way we should. Part of the key to this might be the next generation. They are highly relational. They want to get out there and engage the world. They want to be involved and invested in the lives of others. I think helping them to understand the relational opportunity and to become God’s listeners and healers is a huge way that God could use young adults in his Church today.

10.  Context: I stumbled onto a guy named John Medina and his book entitled Brain Rules – 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School. John is a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant (I have no clue what that actually means other than he’s a lot smarter than I am). He’s also an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. In his spare time, (the guy doesn’t really have any does he?), John is the Director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. (Makes my brain ache just thinking about all of the above). Medina writes: “Researchers have shown that some regions of the adult brain stay as malleable as a baby’s brain, so we can grow new connections, strengthen existing connections, and even create new neurons, allowing all of us to be lifelong learners” (p.271). In You Lost Me, you suggest, the media perpetuates “the damaging misperception that older people do not have much of value to offer the younger generations, thereby increasing generational fragmentation in our cultural imagination” (emphasis is mine – p. 118). Question: How might we invigorate the truth of “lifelong learning” as a biblical principle that might serve to accelerate diminishing the destructive nature of this deception, within Christian communities?

The church is the one place on earth where the generations come together without any ulterior motives. Really, this is the picture of the Body of Christ — not just our giftedness, but our intergenerational potential.

Being intergenerational is hard work. It takes intentionality. Being a good basketball player helps if you’re tall and can jump, but it also takes will power and practice. The book includes a lot of practical intergenerational examples. But it takes leaders prioritizing the interdependence of generations and making it happen in their ministries. It’s not easy. But it certainly can be done through human intention and God’s blessing.

David, I realize this book was incredibly difficult to write…and is the culmination of years of work and sacrifice…and would not be possible without the collaboration, input and support of many, many others. Yet, the reality of biblical truth spoken so boldly – and its implications – (through You Lost Me) typically requires us to question what we think we know – and how we behave – both as individuals, organizations and social institutions. We would like to thank you for your display of courage…and pray…that minds, hearts and behavior shall be changed – for His glory.

Thank you!

Bill Dahl

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George Barna

George Barna is a native New Yorker. He has filled executive roles in politics, marketing, advertising, media, research and ministry. He founded the Barna Research Group (now The Barna Group) in 1984 and helped it become the nation’s leading marketing research firm focused on the intersection of faith and culture. The company has served several hundred parachurch ministries and thousands of Christian churches throughout the country. It has also supplied research to numerous corporations and non-profit organizations, as well as to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army.

To date, Barna has written 48 books, mostly addressing leadership, trends, church health and spiritual development. They include best-sellers such as Revolution, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, The Frog in the Kettle, and The Power of Vision. His most recent book is Revolutionary Parenting. Several of his books have received national awards. He has had more than 100 articles published in periodicals and writes a bi-weekly research report (The Barna Update) accessed by more than a million people each year, through his firm’s website (www.barna.org). His work is frequently cited as an authoritative source by the media. He has been hailed as “the most quoted person in the Christian Church today” and has been named by various media as one of the nation’s most influential Christian leaders.

He is a popular speaker at ministry conferences around the world and has taught at Pepperdine and Biola Universities and several seminaries. Barna served as a pastor of a large, multi-ethnic church and has been involved in several church start-ups.

After graduating summa cum laude from Boston College, Barna earned two Master’s degrees from Rutgers University. At Rutgers, he was awarded the Eagleton Fellowship. He also received a doctorate from Dallas Baptist University. He lives with his wife (Nancy) and their three daughters (Samantha, Corban, Christine) in southern California. He enjoys reading novels, watching movies, playing guitar, and relaxing on the beach.

Barna’s most recent book is FUTURECAST: What Today’s Trends Mean For Tomorrow’s World

Here’s the interview:

1. How are you and your family? Any major strategic initiatives on the horizon for 2012 in your professional life?

A: Life is good, God is better. Like many families, we have our ups and downs. Our children all have health issues, so that produces various forms of stress and hardship but we do our best to work and pray through that. If nothing else, those challenges keep us looking to God for strength and wisdom – which is an underappreciated gift in itself! Generally, though, we’re fine. When you have the opportunity to travel to countries where people are challenged in so many ways, where they lack the opportunities and blessings we take for granted, it puts things into perspective. We can whine about the high cost of health care and other daily challenges, but we are blessed to live in a country where great medical care, among other things, is available.

As for strategic initiatives, this year we launched the Maximum Faith Project, which focuses on my research concerning how God transforms people’s lives. I think it’s perhaps the most significant research I’ve ever done. 2012 will entail more emphasis on getting that information in people’s hands to facilitate more people experiencing all that God has in mind for them.

2. “Changing one life at a time” is a theme of your book. Yet, mass-production of disciples seems to be the dominant model in North America. How do leaders facilitate this change in their respective community of believers?

A: In some ways the mass-production model is another reflection of the American Church accommodating the culture. Americans are fed – and blindly accept – the notion that success is based on bigger, better, faster. I think a more biblical understanding of success is about deeper, simpler, truer. So perhaps the shift in our disciple-making strategy needs to start with how we define success. In a church setting, success is not about higher attendance, bigger budgets, expanded programs, hiring additional staff, or building out more square footage. Jesus didn’t die for any of those things. He died for us to invite Him to completely transform our lives, moving from sinners infatuated with the ways of the world to forgiven followers of Christ who live only to honor and obey God and pursue His agenda.

Metrics are a critical part of this discussion. Most churches measure some outcomes, but often they are irrelevant outcomes. What we measure is important because you get what you measure. If you measure attendance you’re going to focus on becoming a megachurch. If you focus on budget, you’ll emphasize tithing and budgeting. If you measure program availability, you’ll be focused on the breadth of offerings, sufficient staffing, adequate attendance in each program, and the like. We won’t actually begin to approximate the biblical Church until we begin measuring indicators of transformation. The best way to do that is to evaluate the increase in the fruit emanating from people’s lives.

The central message from Maximum Faith addresses this challenge. That research shows that there is a ten-stop journey God moves through with us. The purpose of the journey is to enable us to become lovers of God and other people. Life, in that sense, is all about our relationships. So how do we change the current programmatic emphasis in churches? Redefine success and facilitate behavior and experiences around what’s important. We have to place less emphasis upon irrelevant measures and instead focus on the things that represent irrefutable evidence that God is at work in a person’s life. To get there we need to focus on coaching individuals in how to grow from one stop on the journey to the next, rather than simply winning the attendance award and graduating from another program. The bottom line is about who we are becoming rather than what we have achieved or what we know. The goal is holiness, Christ-likeness, wholeness – not churchliness or wall-to-wall religious activity.

3. In the early part of the book Futurecast, you speak about the new degree of uncertainty and the deterioration in hope and optimism (in the U.S.) – These conditions typically cause human beings to go into survival mode…the foxhole posture – vs. embracing new forms of behavior that focus on the needs of others (“your desire and ability to bless people” p.25). “The inconsistency between how people see themselves and how they behave” p.12) has become more pronounced. What can leaders do to make people aware of this “disconnect” and initiate change to bridge the gap?

A: Our behaviors reflect our beliefs. Four out of five adults call themselves as Christian, yet less than one out of five identify first and foremost as Christian in their mind and heart. Two out of three adults claim to be spiritual, yet barely one out of ten says their faith is the most important component in their life. For the millions of Americans for whom being a Christian is a statement of religious preference rather than the essence of their identity, despair and pessimism is a reasonable perspective. In that frame of mind, this world matters more than anything, and their own performance on this planet is of paramount importance to shaping their identity, their well-being, and their hope. A devoted follower of Jesus, however, lives for His purposes and sees this life within a bigger frame of reference. Such an individual understands the imperfections of this world and our lives, and instead places their hope in the eternal future with God.

Leaders have the opportunity to help people shift their life emphasis from accomplishments in this life to investments in the life that will occur after they die. This speaks to how individuals define purpose and success in life. Most Americans, including born again individuals, do not possess a biblical worldview so they behave in ways that suggest what we experience here on earth is the sum total of reality, with a helping of fire insurance thrown in for safety. Helping people to adjust their frame of reference is critical.

Developing a biblical worldview is more critical now than it has been at any time since we’ve been alive. With secular perspectives becoming more pervasive, even within the church body, making such a worldview practical and integrated into the fabric of their being is crucial. That requires a substantial change in how most families, schools, churches and Christian organizations teach people and help them remain accountable for the things they say they believe. It’s also vital that we do this more effectively among children, since that’s when our worldview forms and it’s difficult to change after it has been formed and embraced.

4. Much of the research you cite involves the issue of the “belief in opposites.” It appeared to me that this is the source of where the “hypocrisy” label hung on Christians comes from? Can you elaborate?

A: A lot of the confusion I describe in Futurecast is not so much new as it is now more widespread and touches a broader range of life dimensions. Examples of the confusion and resulting contradictions abound. For instance, people maintain that marriage is important yet they have become accepting of cohabitation and divorce. Most Americans claim they are deeply concerned about the moral decline in the US, yet their own moral values are slipping. People bemoan the loss of the common good yet they pursue personal advantage and benefit whenever possible. Born again Christians say that they have been saved by Jesus yet a large percentage also says there are ways to eternal salvation apart from Jesus. Tens of millions of adults still pursue knowledge but only trust experience. It is increasingly common for people to demand respect, yet they act with incivility toward others. People extol the virtues of tolerance, but harbor islands of intolerance in their life. Most adults emphasize the importance of good parenting but treat their opportunity to invest consistently in their children as a secondary responsibility. You get the drift.

So, yes, some of this may be the source of people calling Christians hypocrites, but really it’s a problem endemic to almost every segment of our population. I don’t think we can attribute this deficiency to any single factor. It occurs in response to a number of cultural and personal transitions, such as the dismissal of moral absolutes, the demise of trust in leaders, people’s unwillingness to live within moral and civil boundaries, and the acceptance of religious pluralism. People in America are distracted by countless options and overwhelmed by information, resulting in nonsensical, individualistic responses to the circumstances they face. Without the moral standards that have traditionally been in place, everything is up for grabs.

5. You have, for many years, used certain measurement devices to evaluate the degree, and typology of a “Christian” in North America/U.S. These measurements have been fully disclosed by you and typically are associated with the definition of what has been heretofore referred to a “biblical worldview.” I have a question related to this. On page 124 you write: “There must be a connection between claiming the name of Jesus Christ and one’s lifestyle and choices.” One thing I see missing in today’s social research measuring tools as applied to the area of Christian faith, are tools that measure one’s transformation – from the standpoint of the individual respondent – as well as – from someone else (a spouse, friend, co-worker, neighbor etc). The measurements would be unequivocally biblical…an increase in the last year in your ability to love, to forgive, to tolerate, to behave compassionately, to invest your time in the care of elders, the sick or the disadvantaged etc. Can you comment on your perception of the value of these types of measurements? Is it possible to measure a biblical worldview through new measurements of a biblical lifestyle?

A: I think what such measurements would reflect is more than possession of a biblical worldview, and more so one’s progress in the process of transformation. I agree that we need a completely different set of metrics. If you study what Jesus examined in His interactions with people, He showed less interest in their beliefs than their behavior. Why? Because behavior is the proof of what you believe. Satan may say one thing but his actions demonstrate what he really believes in right or significant. Satan knows the right answers but behaves in contrast to what he often leads people to believe. He may whisper particular lies to us but his actions give him away.

It’s the same with us. Your worldview is important because you do what you believe. Your behavior, not your statement of faith, is what gives you away. And that’s why Jesus said He wanted to see the fruit.

So as I look at how things are evaluated in churches and individual lives, I think the measures we tend to rely upon reflect what we think of as success or significance in this life. Churches emphasize attendance, money, programs, staffing, and square footage. Jesus didn’t die for any of those. As individuals we tend to measure physical comfort, interpersonal acceptance, financial security, happiness, stellar health, and image. Jesus didn’t die for any of that, either. The problem is that you get what you measure. That being the case, it’s no wonder America is infatuated with megachurches, big homes, popularity, and the like. Those kinds of outcomes simply reflect what we contend is important.

Through the Maximum Faith research I realized that at each stop of the transformational journey, you are a noticeably different person than you were at prior stops. The only way to know, though, is by the fruit you produce. I have been encouraging people to pay attention to what they produce because you cannot produce stop 7 fruit if you’re currently living at stop 3. You cannot produce stop 9 fruit if you’re still at stop 2. The fruit you produce relates closely to how much you have cooperated with God in allowing Him to transform you.

So I think the kinds of measures that examine beliefs and knowledge are helpful insofar as they help us understand what underlies behavior. Religious knowledge for the sake of knowledge is rather meaningless, perhaps even counterproductive.

6. You make the statement (p.183): “Loyalty as a cultural value has seen its best days come and go.” Wow! What are the implications of that observation as it relates to creating and maintaining a life dedicated to Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior?

A: In some ways, the product of that reality upon our spiritual condition is already visible. People no longer believe it is necessary to belong to a church or group of believers for an extended period of time. Denominationalism is dead. Families are being divided and reformed with regularity. People feel comfortable with the notion that there are multiple gods. A majority contends that all of the major faiths teach the same basic principles.

A true relationship with Jesus Christ demands that you make a permanent and singular commitment that will not waver or change based on circumstances or emotions. When people live in a culture that celebrates freedom, independence, change, experimentation, randomness, and emotions rather than commitment, responsibility, stability, consistency, and logic, it is almost inevitable that their inclination would be to view all relationships as utilitarian, maintaining them only as long as they feel they are getting sufficient benefit and having to expend minimal energy and resources to keep it going. That’s not how a relationship with the God of all creation works.

Having said all of that it’s important to recognize that there is a bit of a counterbalance that provides a ray of hope. America’s ongoing love affair with postmodern thought and behavior does place a greater emphasis upon experiences and relationships, so while people are less likely to buckle down and really study the scriptures or church history, they are at least more open to the notion of developing a relationship with the living God, and having an array of encounters and shared moments with God.

7. Can you elaborate on what your research shows about the rise in the American consumption of media (in ALL its forms) and the ability of one to “read” books or “study” material — or pray regularly/extensively – that is a critical component of “lifelong learning” — and a fundamental element of growing in Christ?

A: We are an entertainment-obsessed, distraction-loving, attention-challenged nation. We read an average of one-third of any book we start before discarding it in favor of some new option that has caught our ear or eye. The media have now trained us to “analyze” reality on the basis of sound bites and video clips. Instead of examining pages of newsprint or magazines, we now examine 140 characters on a mobile phone screen. USA Today was chastised as journalism lite when it began; today it is the norm. Newspapers are going under in favor of simpler, quicker, easier sources of information. News is what the Kardashians had for dinner. Amazingly, the content drawn from talk radio exchanges and from the late-night talk show monologues have become the primary news sources for millions of people.

All of this has resulted in a growing tendency for people to feel adequately versed in a topic once they grasp a few themes or dominant concepts. Memorization is looked down upon in society as a simplistic, empty-headed learning tool. Students often believe that the object of studying a subject is simply to pass a test or write a paper. The idea of “learning” is being redefined.

On the other hand, educational institutions that are tracking with these changes are discovering that it is possible for peoples’ interest to be sparked and maintained if the new learning tools can be properly used. I don’t think we’re entering an era in which people will be heavily inclined to use traditional study guides or attention traditional classroom-style learning options. However, Americans remain a somewhat inquisitive bunch, so if we can harness some of the new tools and use them responsibly, it is reasonable to expect that the current state of biblical illiteracy may not get worse. Will we rapidly transition to identifying and intelligently using the new tools of the trade? That remains a big “if.”

8. What are the two most troubling trends you are most concerned with, as identified in Futurecast?

A: People’s disinterest in and failure to diligently pursue transformation on God’s terms. The rejection and abandonment of absolute moral and spiritual truth.

9. It seemed to me that your two most recent books, Futurecast and Maximum Faith – play off of one another…that perhaps Maximum Faith is a response to the realities revealed in Futurecast. Can you comment on this?

A: I do think they help interpret each other. Futurecast provides the cultural context for why understanding God’s transformation process described in Maximum Faith is so critical – and why so few people are willing to go through the fullness of that process. On their face, the books seem very dissimilar, but there is a useful interplay between them.

In the past I’ve often heard people complain that my presentations about current trends caused them to feel discouraged – that the data presented were too pessimistic. My typical response is that accurate trend data is neither optimistic nor pessimistic; they are realistic, and it is your response to those realities that provides a sense or hope or despair. I think Futurecast fits snuggly within that framework. The book contains some harsh and startling views on the present and future. But what makes those views hopeful or hopeless is the nature of your trust in God, your commitment to changing those conditions, and the depth of your belief that God can do miraculous and mighty things through you and others.

At the same time, I think the portrait of society painted in Futurecast is made more bearable by the process of transformation described in Maximum Faith, which reminds us that we start changing the world by cooperating with God in His transformation of us, first. Knowing the nature of the journey, what the stops along the way require, and what to look for as evidence that God is at work in our lives and that we are working effectively with Him, provides enormous help and hope. It starts by understanding that you are not responsible for changing everything of dubious value or character that’s described in Futurecast; you only have to get your life right with God and give Him total access to your mind, heart, body, and spirit. When you do so, then He is able to affect the world through you, one life at a time, as He chooses, on His schedule and utilizing His resources. And suddenly things are no longer overwhelming, there is great hope for the future, and perhaps even a sense of excitement and anticipation.

Thank you George. Our blessings to you and yours for 2012.

Bill Dahl and Reggie

Bill Dahl is a freelance writer and award winning photographer. He is the Author, Creator and Editor of The Porpoise Diving Life (dot com). He is a commentator on faith and culture in America. He is published in numerous professional publications, journals, magazines, e-zines, websites, newspapers and newsletters.

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One.Life by Scot McKnight

Yes, in some ways this book fills in what was missing in the gospel and Christian life that I embraced as a young adult. I don’t want to summarize the whole book because it won’t do it justice, but I’d say the big missing elements were: (1) an embracive understanding of what it means to embrace Jesus. He was embraced in my tradition too much as Savior-from-sin and not much more. The more I read the Gospels and the New Testament the more I am convinced that just doesn’t describe anything recognizable in what Jesus or the apostles taught. (2) Jesus’ vision was for a new and radical community – one marked by justice, love, peace, wisdom and holiness. Too often the first three of those terms are seen as what we do in society (social justice) but it seems so powerful to me that Jesus saw that as the way his followers were to live amongst themselves, and thus create communities – churches is what we call them now – that were just and loving and peaceful and wise and holy.  (3) The big thing missing for me was community; the gospel was about me and God (bad grammar but you get the point). But Jesus’ vision was about a community and he invites me (and you and you and you and you) to join and enter in on what God is doing in this world. Finally, (4) Jesus’ visions the Christian life in ways I never heard: it wasn’t just about pious practices, like Bible reading and praying, but about bigger and better things that take our pious practices and put them into community (of faith) service.

2) If readers could only read two chapters in your book, what would they be and why do you feel they are the most important?

Frank, why do you do me like this? It’s like asking me to choose one of my two children! OK, I’ll bite. I loved writing chp 3: The Imagined Life and chp 14 The Cross Life and Resurrection Life. But I liked them all – and think I have a few suggestive points to make about heaven and hell in that chp.

3) There are many books on “discipleship” today . . . the subject is getting resurrected once again among believers. How is your book different from the other books being written on discipleship today?

Discipleship too often is about pious practices or about programs or about spiritual formation. This book sets discipleship into the context Jesus gave it: kingdom living. In other words, a disciple is someone committed to what Jesus was committed to. How many discipleship programs are shaped by the Lord’s Prayer? That is, by pursuing God’s holy name, God’s kingdom, God’s will, daily bread for all of us, forgiveness and forgivingness, and being led away from what will destroy the kingdom? Not many. Why? Because we are using programs we’ve created instead of the vision Jesus gave us.

So, let me boil this into one expression: Our discipleship programs need to be reframed into vision programs, kingdom vision programs.

4) You discuss the issue of hell in the book. Give us a sketch of your view of hell and eternal punishment.

Frank, this is just too hard; too hard because it requires so much sensitivity to talk about these topics. I want to believe in the hell Jesus believed in, and he believed in a judgment that was fiery and that was destructive and that was horrific and that was real and that was final. But too many use hell as a hammer and not as a warning by someone who has the best alternative possible: kingdom of God.

5) You talk about the new heaven and new earth near the end of the book. What’s your view on the second coming of Christ? Do you believe as N.T. Wright seems to, that all the texts where Jesus refers to about His coming in the Gospels refer to what happened in 70 A.D., and thus we must look to Paul to learn about Christ’s coming at the end of the age? Or do you take another view?

I’m a partial preterist. I think most of what Jesus talked about in the future, what we would call his eschatology, is about what was to occur in one way or another in 70AD. But, he saw the Next Event (70AD) in God’s program to be the Final Event, and in this he was like all other prophets in Israel. They spoke of the next big event as the end event because they wanted their listeners/readers to see it as having ultimacy. Jesus wasn’t mistaken, but was instead limited in what he knew of the future – and our Lord says that very thing in Mark 13 when he said he didn’t know the hour or day on which these things would occur, he just knew what would happen.

6) In connection with the above, where do you stand on what will happen at His return? Both before, during, and afterwards.

The contemporaries of Jesus were dead wrong when the First Advent occurred, and I assume we’ll be wrong in what will happen at the Second Advent. So, I’ll keep quiet because I don’t know. What I do know is that it will be glorious and all eyes will turn to Jesus and the World will become what God wants for this world.

7) What was the most difficult part of the book for you to write and why?

The Heaven and Hell chp. Why? Because the topic is so volatile and there are so many bad, bad ideas about both – heaven isn’t ethereal and hell isn’t fire. It’s all about God’s presence and our presence in God’s presence, or (tragically) utter absence in God’s all-consuming Presence. Those are not easy ideas to communicate, especially when some people seem to want God to torture people forever – believing too much in what Dante wrote in the Inferno.

Who is your target audience and what do you hope to see changed in them (specifically) after they finish reading One.Life?

I wrote this book for a stage in the journey, not an age group. It is for those who need to hear that the summons to discipleship is for them. That discipleship Is not an option. Some people need a kick in the “Old Testament” and that’s what this book might do. Others need to hear the resolve Jesus expected of them, and this book can do that. Others need to hear all over again – as if for the first time – that covenant relation with God is not some casual “I’ll sign up for that too” program. Instead,it is an all-consuming summons to give our OneLife to Jesus Christ.

9) You talk a lot about the kingdom of God in the book. What’s your best definition of the kingdom, and can you explain how that definition becomes practical in the lives of every believer?

Frank, people get mushy on this one, so here it is: The kingdom is the society in which God’s will is done. You simply can’t say “kingdom” in the 1^st Century and not think of a King, and a Land, and a citizenship and a Law that governs the citizens. You can’t get by with thinking it is nothing more than the personal experience of God as my king. The word “kingdom” has to refer to society. It’s the society around Jesus living as Jesus wants it to live.

10) Justice is a recurring topic throughout the book. There’s a lot of high-abstract talk about justice today in certain Christian circles (mostly a re-packaging of liberation theology from years past). If a Christian wanted to “do justice” in her or his city right now, what are some very practical, “do-able” ways they can be doing justice in your opinion?

There is only one way to do Jesus’ vision of Justice: living the kingdom vision with one another as a church of local believers. Justice is not what we do in society and holiness what we do in the church. Justice is behavior and conditions that conform to God’s will as taught by Jesus, and it is begins in the local church.

11) If you would, give us a listing of all of your other books with a one or two-sentence summary of the main points they make.

Frank, my bibliography is too long.  Here is a listing of some recent books:

The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (an explanation of discipleship through the lens of the Jewish Shema)

A Community called Atonement (an expansive understanding of the various metaphors of atonement in the Bible)

The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (a sketch of how to read the Bible as Story and an explanation of women in ministry that affirms and expands what women need to be doing in the church today)

Fasting: The Ancient Practices (what the Bible says about fasting; it’s not about denying food in order to get but a denial of food as a response to grievous situations)

The Real Mary (an attempt to offer a Protestant, Bible-shaped view of Mary)

Order One.Life at a discount

Book Review: “A Community Called Atonement” by Scot Mcknight

Recent:

Rethinking the Love of Christ

A Unique and Amazing Look at Jesus Christ

David Ruis: I Would Give Anything For Love

A Book Every Church Should Own: Health & Wellness

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Growing God's Kingdom

Neil Cole is the Executive Director and a founder of Church Multiplication Associates Neil has been in pastoral ministry for fifteen years and is an experienced church planter, author and consultant. Neil is also a founding leader of the Awakening Chapels and of Organic Church planting movements. His most recent book is entitled, Organic Church, Growing Faith Where Life Happens. I recently interviewed Neil in a restaurant near his home in Long Beach, California.

Next-Wave: So what is the Organic Church?

NC: Some people call it simple church, with the planting of the seed of the Kingdom in soil where there is lost-ness, allowing transformed lives to be the momentum for building God’s church.

Next-Wave: What are the practical implications of Organic Church planting for Christians who have grown up in the “regular church?

NC: Instead of putting on a show and expecting everyone to come to us, the Organic Church takes the Kingdom to places where there are lost people and lives the Kingdom life among them and doesn’t shy away from the gospel of the Kingdom. The lives that are drawn to Christ through that experience become the new church in that environment. As a result, they are immediately on board with walking with Christ and obeying him in the Great Commission and they become a catalyst for change in others and a chain reaction can occur. I think that whenever you see a church planting movement, that’s at the heart.

Next-Wave: In one sense this book is the story of your journey starting a church planting movement. You write about a pretty spectacular failure where you invested $100,000 in a church plant that lasted about a year. How did you discover the Organic Church as a means of church planting?

NC: It was that experience that helped a lot! We realized that we couldn’t buy a church. You could do everything right and still fail. We needed to get back to the Bible and learn about what Jesus said answering the question, “How does the Kingdom start?” I mean it seems like, “Duh!”, church planting according to Christ. We went back to studying the Gospels and the Book of Acts and asking the question, “How does God start and build his church?”  Can you actually start a church without slick glossy brochures and direct mail advertising? What does it mean to plant God’s seed into the soil and see it grow? How can we see the church be truly reproductive, just like all living things?

Next-Wave: Is it really as natural as it sounds in your book? Or do you have to be very intentional in being evangelistic and spreading the gospel through your new converts?

NC: My personal experience is that it is very natural and you don’t have to push, beat or try to motivate people to evangelize when you plant the seed and their lives are changed. You simply immediately plug them into a discipleship path that involves the apostolic mission from the beginning. They just take to it. People who were in another kind of church environment might not be evangelistic at all. But in the Organic Church environment they are leading their friends to Christ because they don’t know anything else.

Next-Wave: In Organic Church you talk about replicating DNA. The D stands for “Divine Truth.” With postmodern people truth is relative, how does “Divine Truth” go over?

NC: In an evangelistic context we wouldn’t approach someone and start talking about “DNA.” It just wouldn’t be helpful. We would just live the “DNA.” Typically in a postmodern context I don’t want to introduce people to propositional truth, I want to introduce them to the person of truth, Jesus, and let him deal with the propositional.

Next-Wave: “D” stands for “Divine Truth” what do the “N” and the “A” of the Organic Church represent?

NC: The “N” is nurturing relationships. Each new follower is adopted into a spiritual family, a brotherhood, based on a love relationship with our Father and his son Jesus. That’s the “one-anothers.” The “A” is apostolic mission. Even the Nicene Creed says the church is holy and apostolic. It’s meant to be sent. It’s more like Jesus said, “The Father has sent me, so send I you.” So apostolic means that the church is a “sent” agency not a “sending agency.” We are ourselves going on mission.

Most churches in the West set up shop in a location and they tell the world to come to them, that’s not being apostolic. So we want to be decentralized. We don’t want to be bound to a location. We want to be planting the seeds of the Kingdom among the lost people. We are sent.

Next-Wave: Church growth practitioners might evaluate “success” using attendance, giving, size of the building or the number of parking spaces. The emerging church, in general, shies away from that kind of evaluation. Is there room for evaluation in the Organic Church?

NC: Fruit inspection is not a bad thing. However, we need to be asking the right questions. The numbers of people can be deceptive. You can have many people and not be fruitful. You might just be putting on a better show than the guy around the corner. What we are looking for is fruitfulness.

For instance we don’t care if our churches live a year, twenty years, or a hundred years. We care that while they live, they give birth. We may start a church that lasts a year, but while it lives, it births two daughter churches. That is a success. We think that if every church reproduces in that way, then the Kingdom of God will continue and grow.

But if we think that every church has to last forever, we will try to do everything we can to keep it alive artificially, and that’s not good. We find fruitfulness most often in the small, not the large. Growing larger does not seem to be the key. Massive attendance is not the key. Even counting churches has been something that I have to do, but I don’t enjoy doing. And I don’t do it very well.

Next-Wave: Is that because it is easy to count quantity but harder to measure quality?

NC: That’s a key part of it. Each Organic Church has its own life cycle. They are born, they live, they give birth, and they die. Sometimes, all of that can happen in a year. If your job is to count all the churches and you’ve got thousands of them in different stages of the life cycle, it becomes nearly impossible to keep track. Sometimes they will be born, give birth, they’ll die, and then they will get re-born again, the same church will start meeting again six months later. How do I count that? It’s just too messy to count accurately. But, people we are accountable to want us to count, so we do the best we can.

Next-Wave: Evangelism is kind of a “bad word” in the emerging church, and yet your book is full of stories of people coming to Christ through conversion and being released to living out the Great Commission, almost immediately. How is it that the Organic Church seems to be evangelistic at its core and yet the emerging church doesn’t seem to want to talk about evangelism very much?

NC: I can’t speak for all of the people in the emerging church. I know they do talk a lot about being missional in the emerging church. I don’t think you can be close to the heart of Jesus and not be seeking and saving those who are lost. That’s His heart and that’s what it’s all about. If we try to relevant to our culture and yet, don’t try to transform the culture with the power of the gospel we’ve missed something.

That doesn’t mean that we get in a person’s face. We don’t stand up on tables and start preaching to people in coffeehouses or bars. But at some point you have to bring up Jesus with people and not back down from that. It’s why Jesus came, it’s how our lives were changed, and he said, “Freely you have received, freely give.” We have to have a generous heart to give the Kingdom to others. To skip that would be selfish. It would not be Christ-like.

Next-Wave: What are the implications of the Organic Church for professional clergy, seminary-trained pastors?

NC: For people who choose Christianity as a career, it is very threatening. I don’t think the Kingdom of God was ever meant to be a career. For those who have that calling, that primal urge to be a part of the Kingdom, to be part of transforming lives it can mean freedom. It can bring them back to what they always wanted to be a part of. But it may still cost them a profession. There are people in the Organic Church movement who get their support from doing ministry. But I think it should come after you have been doing ministry, not before. It should be based on proven-ness, not potential. And I think you should do it whether or you are paid or not.

Next-Wave: There isn’t much in the book about the economics of the Organic Church. Can you elaborate on that subject?

NC: Yeah, that’s the sequel, “Son of Organic Church.” You can’t have church without generosity, without finances. Jesus spoke so much about money. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

But, unfortunately, much of the way we do finances in the church is patterned after an Old Testament model, whether we want to accept that premise or not. The Temple and the Priesthood needed support. So God established a tithing system, a form of taxation, to support those institutions. The New Testament doesn’t have that.

In the New Testament, the principle is generous, cheerful giving. Not to support any institution, but to help people in need, to release people for ministry, but not necessarily a career.

The only people supported full-time in the New Testament are the apostles and the widows who have no family to support. Paul and Barnabas chose not to accept that support. The full time job description for the widows was to pray for the churches. I wonder what would happen if we started staffing our churches that way?

The New Testament does say to give honor, and double honor, to those who teach and rule well as elders. Honor is where we get the word honorarium. It is not a full-time salary and benefits and a book allowance. It is being generous to help them out.

I’m not against people being supported, but I think we need to learn to live by faith before we become dependent on salaries. Jesus sent the twelve out and he said to them, “Do not take an extra purse, extra money or a credit card with you, go and live the Kingdom life and you will be supported by the people you are reaching out to. Go by faith.” Later he pulled them together and said, “Remember when I sent you out and I told you not to bring any money?” They said, “Yes.” “Did you lack anything?” They said, “No.” He said, “Now I want you take some money with you.”

I heard Dallas Willard talking about this once, asking the question, “Why did He tell them not to take money, and then on another occasion tell them to take money.” Here’s what he said, “You are not ready to handle a purse until you know how to go without one.”

If we could get our leaders to learn to live by faith not by finances, then finances in the church would be a breeze. But the moment you make your decisions based on the need for security, dependence on organizational support, those kinds of things, then you are already making decisions based on the wrong things. You are not living by faith. I think we need to make changes in this area.

Next-Wave: George Barna has recently written a book called Revolution, Finding Vibrant Faith Beyond the Walls of the Sanctuary. He theorizes and predicts that there will be a growing number of people who are leaving “normal” churches in order to strengthen their faith. What do you see as the implications of this trend?

NC: I think that George would consider us Revolutionaries. And I think we would fit that description. I think he is right. He has known for years through his statistical studies what is happening in the church. He noticed an alarming trend that church attendance was dropping off. At first he thought it was people falling away. But he actually found that those leaving were actually “falling” into a firmer commitment to Christ than ever before. Some people were actually finding that they could live out their Christian life with greater devotion away from the church.

That trend is going to cause a lot of problems and I think there will be a backlash. I think that the more people try to hold on to what they think they possess, they are going to lose it. Unless church pastors are willing to be generous and open their hands they will find that pretty soon they won’t have anything left.

Next-Wave: Do you have any words of encouragement about the Organic Church for those in the emerging church?

NC: I think we are making a shift from the day of the ordained to the day of the ordinary. A day when common Christians are empowered to do extraordinary things for God and they are no longer going to wait for their pastors to say, “Go.”

I think the layers and layers of decision-makers between God’s people and God will be removed, so that God can have direct communication with His people without any filters, without any middlemen to interpret. When we reach that state we will see massive global implications.

I think God is setting us up that way. Some of the trends that are happening today are global in scale. They are not just regional or national, but all across the world people are saying and discovering these things. That has never happened in history, except maybe in the first century. We are on the verge of seeing something akin to the Book of Acts happening in our day, if we are faithful to God’s voice.

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[This article first appeared in the Apr08 issue of Next-Wave. You can click here to browse the other articles in that issue: http://www.the-next-wave.info/archives/issue112/index.cfm.html ]

This month we’re featuring two different interactions with Brian McLaren and his recent book Everything Must Change, this one and one by David Fitch, the author of The Great Giveaway. Enjoy!

Brian, I have 3 concerns from your book that linger:

The apparent absence of the CHURCH as God’s primary instrument in accomplishing his mission on earth – and the gaping hole in your book where the example of equality and justice in the early church of Acts 2-4 should have been, in my humble opinion. [i read recently that the love feast happened daily in homes and the poor could always find a meal with the believers - a justice element in the lords supper that has gone by the wayside]

Great point. Because I decided to limit my focus to Jesus, I didn’t bring in a lot of stuff from Acts and the Epistles that I could have (except one chapter to show that Paul is part of the revolution, so to speak, not a traitor to it as so many think) … Limiting my focus to Jesus kept me from bringing in much about the church per se, or from church history – or from the Old Testament, for that matter – each of which could be a book in itself. A church history written from this perspective would be powerful – kind of a 21st century re-write of Broadbent’s “The Pilgrim Church” (which I’ll bet you’ve read, but if not, it’s worth finding in a used book shop or seminary library).

One of the things that I hope the book does (by understatement, perhaps?) is help people think of “church” in broader ways. For example, I don’t think that the church per se is going to intentionally solve economic problems in Africa. But churches will inspire entrepreneurs and activists and politicians and health care workers and community organizers and film-makers, etc., to work together in ways that will bring more and more healing. In this way, “church work” is building up the church, but “the work of the church” is doing kingdom work in our daily lives and jobs, from business to art to government to education to agriculture to whatever.

. . . however, you have already written a great book (the church on the other side) where you affirm your faith in the body of Christ and you also are choosing to speak to the church in your Deep Shift tour which tells me you actually DO see the primacy of the church . . .

Yes. I was deeply impacted a few years ago by Alan Roxburgh at one of our events (you may have been there?) when he said, the church is like a person who gets invited to a party and only talks about himself. I’ve been thinking that we get into a syndrome of trying to save our lives denominationally, etc, which makes us lose them … when instead, our churches need to lose our lives, pour ourselves out for the sake of the world, become more interested in joining God in caring for the world than in getting God to join us in caring for ourselves, that sort of thing. But of course, at heart I’ll always be a pastor, and in the end, none of this matters unless it’s embedded in local churches of whatever form. My next book will lean back in that direction – it’s on spiritual formation and disciplines, etc.

The apparent absence of HOPE in your view of future things. Maybe I missed it but you don’t seem to acknowledge hope in the afterlife, resurrection of the dead, etc in your book and i had to guess whether you had walked away from these foundational orthodox doctrines or you were focusing exclusively on the immanence of the gospel in today’s world for effect.

Again, I set a pretty specific goal for myself in this book: to explore global crises and what the message of Jesus says to those crises. I did address life after death in Secret Message of Jesus, chapter 20. So I haven’t walked away from hope in the afterlife, etc. If anything, I see more than ever how hope in the afterlife is necessary to keep us going when progress in this life seems slow or nonexistent.

BTW – have you read Andrew Perriman’s books “The Coming of the Son of Man” or “Re:Mission”? He’s opened up a lot of new questions for me regarding eschatology. I’d love to know what you think of his work if you’ve had time to look at it. He takes NT Wright’s stuff and extends it a step farther, I think. Jay Gary’s work (he has a great website) also has been forcing me to rethink my eschatology along similar lines.

Yeah – I was with Andrew Perriman a few months ago in Amsterdam and I really like his books AND the questions he brings to the text. Similar questions as Wright, ie, “What were the disciples THINKING when Jesus said that?

Hey Brian, in your book you seem to embrace a non-spiritual understanding of structures and powers. The Africans would generally hold to the presence of angels and demons behind things, a supernatural view of structures as well as natural. Philip Jenkins seems to land on the western side also on this issue. I don’t think one could claim to represent African theology without addressing that issue.

I’ve talked with lots of Africans about this. It’s really complex. I’ve had a couple of personal experiences with “dark powers,” so I certainly don’t write them off. But I also think that the language used in Africa (and in a lot of Pentecostalism elsewhere) thinks it grasps these unseen realities more than it really does. So I probably lean more toward Walter Wink than either John Spong or Benny Hinn … these forces are real, deadly real. But I think that the language of devils, etc., which I think may have been borrowed by the Jews from the Zoroastrians during the exile, is no more precise than our language of waves and particles in trying to grasp light … which is truly real but which eludes our ability to define very well. So I wouldn’t call my understanding “non-spiritual.” It’s just that I think the spirituality of evil is non-dualistic, meaning it gets embodied in people and organizations etc., in their “spirit” … but I would be the first to say I have a lot to learn on this. Sometime when we’re together, I’ll tell you about some of the fascinating conversations I’ve had with Africans … from common people to theologians – on the subject of demons and tribal cosmology in general.

Fair enough. And I know that you appreciated “Colossians Remixed”. And finally . . . Number 3. An uncritical appraisal of the liberation theology movement from Latin America – there are libraries full of writings on this. I am sure you have read the criticisms (David Bosch in ‘Transforming Mission’ is good) and have your own but your book appears almost giddy and accepting without reservation -

Wow, this is really interesting … I honestly can’t imagine why you’d say this. I quote Leonardo Boff several times – but I don’t think I quote any other liberation theologians (maybe Jon Sobrino, whom I’ve tried to read in Spanish, but didn’t succeed very well!), and I think I agree with David Bosch 100% – on just about everything! (BTW – I got to know his beautiful widow in Praetoria. She’s planning to join us in Rwanda in May – maybe you could come? Let me know if you think you could swing it – it’s May 20-27)

Boff is neither Marxist nor violent by any stretch of the imagination … I think you could say he got into trouble with the pope not for his economics but for being too Protestant in advocating the priesthood of all believers! Maybe you saw something I don’t remember writing. Can you give me a specific where you think I am giddy about liberation theologians? Also, which are you critical of, and what ideas of theirs? It’s commonly said in Evangelical settings in the US that liberation theologians are Marxists, advocating violent revolution, etc., but it’s interesting: in Latin America or Africa, I’ve never heard anyone say anything like this – I think they abandoned that thinking in the 80′s or maybe even the 70′s. Everyone I met in Latin America would consider anyone advocating violence as crazy … I did quote Rene Padilla’s good insight about Marxism. He said that in Latin America, people say Capitalism is very good at production but bad at distribution. Marxism is good at distribution but terrible at production – which means the best they can do is distribute poverty evenly! The hope, clearly, is with finding ways to make capitalism more humane, compassionate, collaborative and sustainable – at least, that’s how I see it.

Ahhhh. Forgive me for misjudging. I really like Padilla’s thinking. I must have just reacted badly and assumed things that were not accurate.
Brian, your view on the last things has a few of us guessing. How does your eschatological position compare with . . say . . an evangelical post-millenial view? And do you believe in life after death?

Just to be super clear … YES! I believe in life after death! I find it hard to line up my views with conventional pre, post, or amillenial views because I think they are all based on an assumption I don’t share, i.e. that the book of Revelation is intended to tell us how the world will end. This view presupposes a deterministic view of history, which I don’t share. I suppose I’m more Wesleyan and Anabaptist in this regard than Calvinist. Anyway, I talk about this in detail in SMJ, and refer to it briefly in EMC – I believe the Book of Revelation is an example of Jewish Apocalyptic which, although it may be concerned with the end of the age, is not really talking about the end of the world at all. In this, I follow NT Wright’s general line of thought, so if I’m off the ranch, so is he. I see Biblical prophecy in terms of warnings and promises, which are different from prognostications. If I had to put a name on my eschatology, I suppose I would call it “Participatory” – meaning that God invites us to participate in God’s ongoing work in the world, leading to the ultimate victory of all that is good and the ultimate defeat of evil. Beyond that, there are a lot of eschatological details I was much surer about twenty years ago when I read the Bible less and popular end-times books more!

You seem to be calling the American church to a new level of repentance, one that is deeper and more connected with structures. How has the response been?

My loyal critics are by and large ignoring this book (so far), or if they pay attention to it – this is very sad to me – they generally ignore everything about poverty, war, and environmental destruction, and focus on doctrinal issues they disagree with me about. Sheesh. I can only hope that someone they agree with theologically will get them thinking more seriously about global crises. Apart from these loyal critics, though, response is really encouraging. People are telling me they are coming to faith or back to faith through the book … and they are feeling more confident to call themselves followers of Jesus when Jesus is presented not just as a fire escape and savior from the world, but as a liberating king and savior of the world. I am also hearing privately from some “big names” who can’t afford to associate with me publicly because of all the nastiness in the American religious world, but who are thankful for the book and affirming of its message.

I’m really grateful that you wrote, Andrew, and I hope we can go go-karting or something equally fun and good together before too long. I always meet people for whom you and your website are an oasis in the desert and a source of hope … I really appreciate your friendship. Warmly, in Christ – Brian

Go-Karting again would be great. Here is a photo of us and our wives at the 2002 Go-Kart race in Prague. Thanks for your helpful responses to my crass questions. Look forward to our next chat. Glad to be your friend, Andrew.

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Missional Renaissance

Why did you write this book?  There is a lot being written about missional these days.

You are right—missional is the buzz word!  Of course, that’s always scary in that once everything becomes “missional” it hardly has any punch left.  I have been watching this and wanted to accomplish three things:

I wanted to give a working characterization of the term that people can come around that captures its DNA, a way of talking about it that can frame conversations.

Secondly, I wanted to clarify three significant shifts that are critical for churches and church leaders to make who want to engage the missional movement.  This helps church leaders who have current congregational leadership make some compass settings and begin to move in the right direction.

Thirdly, I wanted to provide leaders with some scorecard implications for celebrating the rich dimensions of the missional church.  The current scorecard really just celebrates the program church emphases.

So, how do you define missional?

For me, the missional church is “the people of God partnering with him in his redemptive mission in the world.”  All those phrases are important.  Seeing the church as “the people of God” is seeing church as a who, not a what.  This is critical, because it allows for a much greater bandwidth of expression for the church that has a much more incarnational dimension.

The phrase “partnering with God” means that it is God’s mission, not ours.  And his mission is older than the church.  It is also larger than the church.  This is a challenge for people who have spent their lives in a church-centric universe.  The church has a unique role in the mission of God, but we are not the point.  The church does not have a mission; the mission has a church.  God has decided to create a people who can partner with him in reflecting his heart of blessing to the world.  This is the deal he cuts with Abraham, a covenant that the church steps into.

The mission of God is “redemptive,” meaning that it addresses the whole spectrum of human existence.  Everything that was lost in the Fall is being restored in the mission of God.  Spiritual, physical, emotional, environmental, economic wholeness are all issues for the church because they are issues for God.

The scope of the mission is “in the world,” always beyond God’s people.  This is what Jesus affirmed to Nicodemus.  The whole world is God’s purview of ministry.  To shrinkwrap his concerns down to building the church does not reflect biblical thinking.

In your book, you talk about “three shifts.”  What are the three shifts you say are called for by this understanding of the missional church?

The first one is one that most people think about when they think of missional–the move from an internal focus to an external focus of ministry.  Many people, however, think that missional is some community engagement so they run out and do a weekend of service and claim they are missional; or, they see missional as a set of activity rather than a way of being church in the world.  This shift raises the question, “what business are we in—the church business or the kingdom business?”

The second shift is the shift from being program-driven to being a people-development culture.  We often think of how churches as a collection of the programs we have developed.  This perspective really pegs us to an activism and consumerism that is deadly to life.  This question raises the question, “what product are we producing?”  For many churches the answer is programs; the missional church is concerned about producing followers of Jesus who are enjoying the abundant life he promised and pointing others to it.

The third shift is the shift from church-based leadership to kingdom-based leadership.  The former
is institutional; the latter is leadership of a movement.  The former is confined to church activity; the latter is leadership that is deployed across all domains of culture.  The question here is, “what is our scorecard?” or “what will we celebrate?”  Leaders make those choices, and missional leaders have the courage to ask “how are people doing?” or “how is our community doing?” when they think about the ministry of the church.

Let’s talk about that scorecard?  What does it look like for the missional church?

I use a resource reallocation model when working with churches on this issue.  I think that leaders have a common set of resources they work with: prayer, people, time, money, facilities, technology.  I make lots of suggestions in the book on how our scorecard would shift in each of these resource areas as we make each shift.  Some people resist the notion of a scorecard, but what I’m after is helping people begin to celebrate different actions and behaviors that reflect what it means to be the people of God.

What is the role of the traditional church in the missional movement?

Missional is not a methodology.  I work with churches of all stripes and tribes who are tacking toward missional—new churches, liturgical congregations steeped in tradition, large and small congregations, urban and rural.  Missional is a way of seeing and being wherever we are.  Any existing church can join in.

Why do you call this a missional “renaissance?”

The Renaissance occurred when a confluence of cultural trends created a new world and a new way of thinking.  It is impossible to think post-Renaissance like you did pre-Renaissance.  Once you move from a Ptolemaic view of the universe to a Copernican universe, for example, you never think of the universe the same way.  The same thing is underway today.  We will not think about the church the same way after the missional renaissance.

What forces are fomenting this renaissance?

I think the rise of the altruism economy, the emergence of people’s capacity to chart their own development paths, and the phenomenon of the God-intoxicated culture all set up a different conversation that invites the church out into the cultural milieu with the missional expression.

What role do you see children and “children’s ministry” playing within the missional church?

This is a great question that gets at the heart of missional—people development.  Missional ministries help families take spiritual formation as a matter of preeminent concern.  Missional children’s and student ministries are helping their kids incorporate the loving-your-neighbor thing as a centerpiece of their efforts, seeing people growing through service, not growing into service.  At the same time they help families and parents have more intentional God-conversations at home.  One church I know both has their kids stuffing backpacks for food-challenged kids and going home from church with follow-up questions for their parents.

You write: “Worship is seen as the extension of normal routines, not something that is a discontinuity with the rest of the week.”  Can you tell our readers a bit more about converting daily routines into worship?

I think that in more incarnational ministries the stories we tell in worship are about God showing up and showing off all week as we play our role of being the blessing people of God.  Our celebration is more current so it is not primarily a historical lesson about a God who showed up in the Bible and in history.  Additionally, when we begin to see service as worship, and not just focusing on cranking out worship services, we allow many more people to find their own lives as part of that.  In the attractional model, we invite people to observe a few people do what they are good at; in the missional approach we celebrate more of the spectrum of life pursuits of the participants.

How much “success” have you seen in terms of getting traditional/conventional churches to embrace the mentality of the missional community?

I am very encouraged at this point.  My writing comes out of my experience with these churches and church leaders.  The questions have shifted over the past few years.  It used to be “what are you saying?”  Now the questions are “how do we do that?”  This is a work that God is pulling off.  It signals real progress.  My suggestion for “traditional” church leaders is to look at themselves as viral agents for the kingdom.  Create venues where the people of God can act like the people of God; expose them to the virus, then when they become virulently infectious, expose them to others who are susceptible to the virus.  Your job is to foster a pandemic.  I think it’s happening!

Reggie McNeal enjoys helping people, leaders, and Christian organizations pursue more intentional lives. He currently serves as the Missional Leadership Specialist for Leadership Network of Dallas, TX. Reggie’s past experience involves over a decade as a denominational executive and leadership development coach. He also served in local congregational leadership for over twenty years, including being the founding pastor of a new church. Reggie has lectured or taught as adjunct faculty for multiple seminaries, including Fuller Theological (Pasadena, CA), Southwestern Baptist (Ft. Worth, TX), Golden Gate Baptist (San Francisco, CA), Trinity Divinity School (Deerfield, IL), and Columbia International (Columbia, SC). In addition, he has served as a consultant to local church, denomination, and para-church leadership teams, as well as seminar developer and presenter for thousands of church leaders across North America. He has also resourced the United States Army Chief of Chaplains Office, Air Force chaplains, and the Air Force Education and Training Command. Reggie’s work also extends to the business sector, including The Gallup Organization.

Reggie has contributed to numerous denominational publications and church leadership journals, including Leadership and Net Results. His books include Revolution in Leadership (Abingdon Press, 1998), A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders (Jossey-Bass, 2000), The Present Future (Jossey-Bass, 2003), Practicing Greatness (Jossey-Bass, 2006), and Get A Life! (Broadman & Holman, release date Spring 2007).

Reggie’s education includes a B.A. degree from the University of South Carolina and the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees both from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Reggie and his wife Cathy, have two daughters, Jessica and Susanna, and make their home in Columbia, South Carolina. reggie.mcneal@leadnet.org

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Scot McKnight is Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University and a prolific author, having penned more than ten books. His most recent book is The Jesus Creed.  Scot recently began interacting with emerging church folks via his blog after discovering his own resonances with the movement.

What originally precipitated your interest in the emerging church conversation?
It all began when Brian McLaren came to NPU [North Park University] and my colleagues, Ginny Olson and Jim Dekker, encouraged me to go hear him. I did, and ended up sitting next to him. I listened in, thought he had some interesting things to say, and began to work on the ideas. I read A New Kind of Christian with Kris, and then she read the second volume (I didn’t). Then I read Generous Orthodoxy.

Then DA Carson’s book [Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church] was announced and I figured I ought to do more intense work on what was going on.

Here’s what I found: many of the concerns with Evangelicalism and many of the theological interests and shapings of the way of Jesus I hear about among the Emerging movement (I still hesitate to call it “church” and think it is more than conversation – but who am I to decide that one?) are concerns and shapings I’ve had for a long time. For me it was “Now here’s a group that is saying things I also believe and do.”

Whom have you personally met in the movement (either f2f or in significant online interaction)?
Doug Pagitt was the first leader I sat down with; I found him intensely stimulated and stimulating. He had a big vision; he had firm ideas but knew how to converse. I’ve been in touch with Brian McLaren and with Tony Jones. And plenty of bloggers. I’ve read a shelf of books on the movement, and some of the writers are so disarming I feel I know them.

TSK [Tall Skinny Kiwi – Andrew Jones] has been helpful to me; his blog puts me in touch with many others. TSK reminds constantly that the emerging movement is not just American – and this needs to be emphasized. I think of Andrew Hamilton and Sivin Kit, and those around the world who have drawn deeply on the emerging voices.

I’m impressed with Steve McCoy who is a leading voice among the Southern Baptists when it comes to things emerging. His blog has a wealth of back-and-forth, pomo humor, and good ideas.

Who are your thought leaders in the movement?

McLaren stimulates me to think. Pagitt does, too. I’ve read some of Tony Jones’ blogs and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with for his dissertation. For me, though, the thinker I most resonate with would be Stan Grenz (and John Franke too). I’ve met Stan, but New Testament scholars and theological scholars run in different circles – which is sad. So, I never got to sit over coffee with him. I really like Lesslie Newbigin’s books, and think he had a “proper confidence” in the gospel in a pluralistic society.

What did Newbigin mean by “proper confidence” and what do you see as its significance?

Newbigin means that we need to have and can have “confidence” but we can’t achieve intellectual certainty as fallen human beings in world where all our knowledge claims are shaped by our context. This book is a must-read for all interested in the emerging conversation.

Have you had opportunity yet to participate in any emerging church events (e.g. conferences, gatherings)?  What were your impressions?

I wanted to go last Spring to Nashville [The Emergent Convention] and beat myself up thinking about it, but I had a publishing deadline to meet and simply couldn’t afford to take time away from Embracing Grace at that time. I can’t go to New Mexico and miss that much class, but I’m hoping to get some events this year if I can. I sense I will meet old friends I’ve known for years but never met.

What do you think that the larger evangelical world needs to learn from the emergers?

First, that the gospel is something that has to be performed or incarnated or lived out as much as something that is to be believed in.

Second, that the gospel is holistic and means working with God in the redemption God has planned.

Third, that culture has a grip on our minds and our theology and that we need to be both more circumspect and humble about what we know and believe.

Fourth, that it is OK to ask questions about cherished things and that humans are worthy of being listened to when they ask questions – questions lead to conversations that can lead to transformation and relationship.

Fifth, the church is bigger than the evangelical church and the historic churches are part of who we are.

Since most emergers came from an evangelical background, what do you think the emerging church community needs to remember from their days as “just evangelicals”?

The greatest contributions to the catholic Church by evangelicals are manifold – personal faith and conversion or what Stan Grenz called “convertive piety”; Bible study and the need for theology to be rooted in Scripture; the value (if also some problems) of local church integrity (I think “autonomy” is a bad word for the church).

Could you unpack your term “local church integrity” for me?

Local churches need to have the freedom to work things out for themselves – in relationship to other churches and the wider history of the catholic Church. But, when it becomes “autonomy” the local church begins to become insulated and arrogant. Evangelicalism sometimes shows the arrogance bug in its local church mentality – when pastors operate in the pretence that they are papal (though never in wording).

Do you think there are any features of evangelicalism that emerging church enthusiasts are throwing out to their detriment?

Some, I suppose, are. My biggest fear for the emerging movement is a fear of evangelism as proclamation. The gospel has to be lived out (performed) but Jesus not only performed Kingdom but he also proclaimed it. Some are so ashamed of the excesses of evangelism and the abuse of people by some in evangelistic practices that they are shying away from the good news as something Jesus offers to each of us.

Some would say that a strength of the emerging church is its emphasis on dialogue.  How do dialogue and proclamation coexist in the church?  Or, put another way, what is the balance between “a chastened rationalism” and Christian conviction?

Good question, Stephen, and I’m not sure I have an answer to this one. (How’s that for dialogical?) Dialogue occurs when we operate with what Alan Jacobs calls a “hermeneutic of love.” That is, when we treat the words of others with a genuine listening. And when we can be treated by the other in such a manner that we can express what we really think and believe. When this occurs, dialogue occurs. Dialogue today too often means compromise for the purpose of getting along – dialogue is best when I can tell you exactly what I think and you will listen and we can talk about it; and when you say what you think and I can listen.

Some have compared the emerging church phenomenon with the Jesus People movement of the 1970′s.  Do you see that comparison and do you see any other comparisons in Church History?

It was the first thing that came to mind. I mentioned this to Pagitt, and he smiled as if he was hearing a high school teacher tell a new class an old joke. There are always major differences in such comparisons, but there are some major similarities – not the least of which is a radical commitment to live the gospel in spite of what it might do for a person’s economic future. There is a strong and healthy counterculturalism to the emerging movement. A commitment to community. I also think there are some significant parallels to Anabaptism, but that is in part biased in my own favor and in part accurate – their radical commitment to community, to radical Christian life-styles, and to the Bible, etc., show some similarities.

Do you plan to do any book length writing around the emerging church experience?

In a space of about two weeks I was approached by three publishers; I may and I may not. I’ve got some things to say, but I have a full plate for publications right now and I think I need to focus on those things. Maybe some papers will spin into a small book.

Other than the Bible, what’s the one book you’ve read which has most moved you to love God and others?

Please don’t pin me to a “one book” option. I have two marvelous kids, so I’ll give you two books, and they show my catholic spirit: The Little Flowers of St Francis and Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections.

If you could change 3 things about how pastors are trained in the United States what would you change?  How can the local churches and the seminaries dance better together?  Have you seen any really effective models?

Now you’re meddling in what is uppermost in my mind at times, and it pains me to say so because I left teaching at a seminary. That I no longer teach there thins my words, but they are still what I think.

First, seminarians need to be involved in ministry, deeply, while in seminary.

Second, more careful assessment of giftedness needs to take place. (Most seminaries admit those who can afford the tuition, and rarely do they do serious assessment of gifts first.)

Third, everything needs to be shaped toward personal living of the Christian life.

And I’ll add a fourth:  learning in seminary should take place within a small group of fellow seminarians so that it becomes communally-shaped.

Local churches should be where seminaries are located. Any seminary disconnected from a church is creating problems that are long-term.

Models. I’ll avoid answering that one for fear of offending those doing it right and criticizing those I don’t think are doing it right.

Before leaving this one, Stephen, know that for more than a decade I was part of that problem myself for I taught at a seminary and I believed the best model of a pastor was a scholar/theologian who could preach and teach. I believe in scholarship, and preaching and teaching, but pastoring is so much more and begins at home and not in the study or library.

You’ve written, “Is there a possibility for a Fourth Way for the Emerging Church? A way that lives in the story of the entire Church, including the Eastern Orthodox tradition and the Western Roman Catholic tradition, as well as the Protestant tradition, one that both lets this be our story and yet that gives us freedom to take that story into a new story for a new day? I think so.”

Have you been able to develop a vision yet of how that might play out in the next 5-20 years institutionally or will it require the development of new institutions (realizing that’s a bad word for some)?

I believe we are on the threshold of creating a church identity that transcends the old boundaries, and I want to be part of it. But, I’m not the sort of person that can spell these things out – as I’m not in a position to effect those changes. But, if I could (like Eric Clapton) change the world, I’d ask churches to begin by spelling out outcomes (and I’d want them to be loving God and loving others) and I’d ask pastors and leaders and churches to shape everything in that direction. How often have our churches been taught “how” to love and “what loves looks like” and “how we can become more loving” (of God or others)? If this is the Jesus Creed, then why is it not more central to our focuses?

Institutions is not a bad term for me; it is the inevitable result of charismatic movements (here I sound like Max Weber). We want institutions that keep thing alive (here I protest Weber). But, we’ll need central organizations and we’ll need “seminaries” (and we’ll have to think how they ought to look and where they could be and what they should accomplish), and churches that have new focus and that cooperate with other Christians and with local governments, and that see a holistic gospel and seek to perform it locally for the good of the world.

You’ve also written:

“But this one comment: the singular most arrogant posture a Christian can take is to pretend (and that is what it is) that he or she can start all over again” and do so by ignoring the creeds and the voice of the Spirit in the Church.”

What are some practical ways that you suggest local emerging church communities can ensure they stay in creedal tradition without being boxed in by mere traditionalism?

I link to the creeds on my blogsite (www.jesuscreed.org); churches need to read them and learn them and teach them. They need to see the big sweep of the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Movement, and they need to see that local churches can embody the whole Church in a variety of ways – not just by swiping icons from the Orthodox or candles from the Catholics and disciplines from the monastics, but by learning the story of the Church (read Gonzalez or someone like him) and letting that story be our story.

Assessment is the key to keeping things being alive: we have to have an outcome-based shape to what we are doing so people see why we are doing what we are doing.

Could you say a few words about the nexus of the Jesus Creed and the Emerging Church distinctives?

Jesus grew up saying the Shema twice a day; he taught his followers a new shape to that Shema (both Hear O Israel… love God, and love your neighbor as yourself). This shaped how Jesus lived and taught others how to live. Love is what God’s nature is all about, in the perichoretic dance of God’s interpenetrating Trinitarian love) and it is what our live with others is about.

The gospel is not designed to forgive us so we can go to heaven; it is so much more. It is the work of God to restore Eikons (humans as the image of God) to union with God and communion with others, through the Cross, resurrection, and Pentecost, for the good of others and the world.

For me, the distinctive trait of the emerging movement is the word “missional” and a gospel definition like that above, which is the heart of my next book, Embracing Grace, can sustain an entire missional focus to the church of the emerging generation. I hope I live forty more years to see it all work out!

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From the author’s website:

The success of Blue Like Jazz ensured Don a writing career for a long time to come, and since then has released Searching for God Knows What and Through Painted Deserts. Donald also serves as the Director of The Burnside Writers Collective, a collection of writers and thinkers who form an online magazine. He is the coeditor of The Ankeny Briefcase, a bi-annual release of short stories from unpublished writers. Don’s most recent project is a book about growing up without a father called To Own a Dragon. He desires to turn the momentum from this book into a mentoring and equipping foundation, helping single moms survive the hardship of parenting and providing role models for children without fathers.

Next-Wave: Looking back on the “younger” Donald Miller who wrote “Through Painted Deserts”, do you have any advice you would like to give him?

Nothing I could sum up in a few sentences. I think I would just tell him things are going to be okay, and probably something about how whatever girl I was dating at the time was not going to work out, so dont lose any sleep.

Next-Wave: Was your journey as literary as it seems while you were experiencing it in real-time?

No, things are only literary in hindsight. I think that is one of the magic things about books/film/music, is that they help us understand there is something poetic about our lives, something beneath the surface of the mundane. Paul and my journey was very “real time” as you say, it was about being hungry or tired or irritated. But occasionally, here in the now, I try to remind myself that this period of my life, whatever period it is, is probably going to seem somewhat romantic to me some day, and I want to enjoy a little bit of that in the now.

Next-Wave: You and your traveling companion, Paul, discussed some deep stuff. Do you think road trips lend themselves well to the deeper things of life?

I think leaving all things familiar takes us into the deeper questions. Sometimes you have to walk away from life as you know it to look at it from a distance. Road trips tend to do this for us, at least in America.

Next-Wave: Paul almost seems too “free” to be real, what was the most important lesson you learned from him?

I don’t know what you mean by too “free.” I am supposing you are talking about his having cut ties from materialism. He still lives in that place today, even with a family, and I find it amazing. His goals are small goals, but somehow more Godlike, more simple. He’s a happy guy, busy but happy, and I think in being good friends with Paul, I am forced to look at the antithesis of what my life is, and that always causes you to second guess yourself. But there isn’t one way to live, we all have callings, we are all going to do it a different way, but yeah, I learn from Paul.

Next-Wave: Do you think that this kind of journey is a pivotal “growing up” kind of experience?

No, it depends on the person. Its a luxury in this country that anybody can leave home, leave their brothers and sisters and family and just be a vagabond. It’s a product of our incredible wealth. but I think there are other ways of growing up, much better ways involving taking care of younger siblings, providing for a family, this sort of thing. Kids in third-world conditions are a great deal more mature than we are.

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Jesus Manifesto

1. Jesus: He’s the central figure of our faith, and yet in so many ways He’s like a living Rorschach test – everyone sees what they want to see: Mystic, sage, redeemer, prophet, reformer. Who is your Jesus? Is He the Jesus of history? The Christ of faith and inner experience? What are your sources, and what need do you feel that Jesus Manifesto is fulfilling in publishing, yet again, about the Most Talked About Man in History?

Frank: We believe that the Jesus disclosed to us in the New Testament is the same Christ whom the Holy Spirit reveals today. He is the Christ of the cosmos, the Christ of Eternity, the Alpha and the Omega, as well as the Christ who lived on this earth as the quintessential human – the second Adam, or more accurately, the Last Adam – who then died, rose again, was glorified, ascended, enthroned, and now lives in His people.

By my lights, the Christ that is presented to us in Colossians and Ephesians is little known or preached today. Mind you, He’s the same Christ as the One born in Bethlehem. But His incomparable greatness has been lost sight of in so many quarters.

We feel that for many Christians today, their Christ is simply too small. And so we chase all sorts of other things . . . good things, religious things, spiritual things even. And Jesus becomes a mere footnote or a stamp of approval – an Imprimatur – that we place over those other things.

We expound on the following point in one of our chapters, but take for instance Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Scholars have spent a lot trying to figure out the exact nature of the erroneous teaching that captured the minds and hearts of the Colossian believers.

One of the reasons why there is so much debate over it is because Paul never directly addresses the problem. Paul’s primary way of dealing with church problems is to give God’s people a stunning unveiling of Jesus Christ. (Therein lies a valuable lesson for all church leaders.)

For Paul, Jesus Christ is the solution to all problems. And any problem that a believer or a church has can always be juiced down to one common denominator. They have lost sight of the Head, Christ. They have lost touch with the living Christ. Or to put it in Paul’s words, they have stopped “holding fast to the Head.”

But whatever the error was, we can be sure of this: The Colossians thought they could graduate beyond Jesus Christ. They took Him as Lord and Savior, but they felt they could advance to higher and deeper things. Higher and deeper things beyond Jesus . . . hmmm.

In short, if we ever get to the place where Jesus Christ isn’t enough … if we ever get to the place where we feel we can advance beyond Him … then we haven’t met the Christ of Colossians. And our Christ is too small.

In the same connection, there is a debate within much of Christendom presently. It’s not new, but it’s grabbed the attention of many young believers, so it seems novel to some.

One side argues for the Jesus of justice – who is largely derived from the Gospel accounts. The other side argues for the Jesus of justification – who is largely drawn from some of Paul’s statements in Galatians and Romans.

While Len and I embrace the Jesus of justice and the Jesus of justification, our book attempts to present a Christ who is far greater, far more glorious, and far richer than simply being the Justice-Giver or the Justifier.

We feel that this third vision of Jesus is sorely neglected in our time. It’s possible to put justice and justification on the throne, and leave the living Christ out in the cold.

The indwelling life of Jesus also seems to be a missing note in both discussions.

In this regard, I don’t think I can improve upon what Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, said about the book:

“This is a really exhilarating reintroduction to a Jesus who seems sometimes to have become a stranger to the Church; a passionate and joyful celebration of God with us, which cuts right through churchy quarrelling and brings us back to wonder, love and praise – and the urgent desire to make Him known to all.”

Len: When I was 17, I deconverted from Christianity and became an atheist. After college I decided to go into academe and study the history of religions from a scientific, critical perspective. When I was in graduate school, and gradually finding my way back to faith, I made an appointment with a professor to talk about my return journey to orthodoxy. This theologian confessed that for him personally, “I am in pursuit of truth. Whatever truth is, and wherever it is to be found, that is the journey I’m on. When I seek truth and find it, and if truth turns out to be two hydrogen atoms that accidentally collided, and no more than that, I will kneel in front of those two atoms and give them my worship and praise.”

I shall never forget the power of his words which sought to embrace the meaning of meaninglessness.

At about the same time, I encountered a letter Dostoevsky wrote to Natalya Fonvizina, in which he admitted that he was a “child of unbelief and doubt” and would remain so “until my coffin is closed over me.” That got my attention. But then Dostoevsky went on to say more: in the letter he laid out his conviction that “nothing is more perfect than Christ . . . .” He then adds: “If someone succeeded in proving to me that Christ was outside the truth, and if, in reality, the truth was outside Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth.”

It suddenly hit me that here were the two choices I was facing in my spiritual journey: the worship of a Big Bang, or the worship of a Savior, Redeemer, Sanctifier and Friend who sticks closer than a Big Brother (Proverbs 18:24).  That was a decisive moment for my spiritual pilgrimage, and I immediately immersed myself in our sacred texts and traditions and learned from them that it is dangerous to separate three things that enliven and enfaith us: Jesus, Scriptures, Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings Christ to life, and the Scriptures point us to Christ. Separate one from the other and you risk writing another chapter in the history of the waylaying and wrong-footing of the Christian story.

2. The Jesus Manifesto started out as an online declaration by you two; now it’s a book. How did this come together?

Len: I smelled Jesus all over Frank and wanted to know how he had kept his faith “fixed” on Christ. Frank and I met at a GFU event, and stayed in the same bed & breakfast. In the course of coming and going, we both commiserated about how, to hold on to tolerance, so many of us think we must let go of Christ and just hold on to God. So the Christian story becomes Unitarian, primarily about God, only peripherally about God’s Spirit. But Jesus no longer has the leading role . . . that belongs to God alone.

Then I mentioned to Frank that I could not get to Colossians 2 because I couldn’t get past Colossians 1, where it says that “the secret that has been kept hidden has now been revealed, and that secret is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” When I found out that Frank also was transfixed and transfigured by Colossians, we first talked of jointly writing a commentary on Colossians. But then we were led in this direction, and now no one knows the rest of the story …

Frank: In August of 2008, Len and I began conversing via email and phone. One of the things that came up in our conversations (as a pleasant surprise to both of us) was that we both felt that Jesus was getting short-changed in His church, being eclipsed by other “hot” topics and subjects.

In February 2009, we both spoke at a seminar hosted by George Fox Seminary, and we were able to spend some time in person to discuss what was on our hearts. Our burden only increased, as well as an awareness that God had something for us to accomplish together to discharge it.

In April, the idea of writing a joint article/essay emerged. We wrote it in approxiamately18 days, titled it “A Magna Carta,” and subtitled it “A Jesus Manifesto.” It was published online on June 22, 2009. It went viral immediately. I’m told that it was viewed 500,000 times in 8 weeks.

Thomas Nelson was interested in turning the essay into a book (and we were as well), and that’s what happened.

Folks can visit www.theJesusManifesto.com and read sample chapters, hear some brand new songs that were recorded by professional Christian artists based on the book (one of them by the man who wrote some of Amy Grant’s most popular tunes), check out the iPhone app, read endorsements, etc.

3. Frank, you’ve been identified with the ‘house church’ and ‘organic church’ movements – how has Jesus Manifesto been nurtured in that soil? In what ways do you think if functions as a kind of prophetic critique to it?

Frank: In 2005, I began working on a project that I finished at the end of 2009. The project has come to be called the ReChurch Library – five books on radical church reform and the restoration of God’s grand mission in the earth.

The dominating subtext of these five books is the absolute, functional headship and supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Each book in the series themes around this subtext. The afterword of From Eternity to Here is fully dedicated to it.

In short, the organic expression of the church and the supremacy of Christ go hand in hand. Christ is the head; the church is His body. They are organically connected by life. I’ve defined the (local) church as a group of people who are learning to live by the indwelling life of Christ together and displaying that life in their locale. I don’t believe the New Testament knows of any other kind of local church. In addition, the church has no other specialty but her Lord. Everything else flows out of that relationship. Thus for me, the issue of the church has never been its structure. The issue has always been its center – Christ. If Christ is truly the functional head in a particular church, the expression of that church will be effected—sometimes radically. This is my chief argument in Reimagining Church.

Jesus Manifesto takes the thread Christ’s supremacy and builds an entire volume around it. Consequently, the book is a blending of both our (Len and mine) hearts, voices, and burdens regarding our shared vision that Christ should “have the first place in all things” (as Paul put it). Our book explores what that means exactly.

In short, I view Jesus Manifesto as an enlargement of the thread that runs through all of my previous books.

On a lighter note, for the last two years I’ve been writing cook books, but this is my first sweet book

With respect to your last question, I am of the opinion that the driving force of much of the house church, organic church, simple church, and missional church movements is not Jesus Christ. And so I’d like to see this changed. Hopefully, God will use the book toward that end.

4. Len, you have been a pioneer in Christians’ being responsive to the postmodern cultural and philosophical turn – what is now known in different circles as ‘emerging’ or ‘missional’ church. Is Jesus Manifesto a departure from your earlier fascination with cultural change and its impact on faith, or in some ways a fulfillment of it?

Len: Even though my primary field is history and semiotics, I challenge you to find one of my books where I do not make the case for the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ in some fashion. In fact, for the last decade, in one book after another, most blatantly in So Beautiful (2009) and Out of the Question, Into the Mystery (2004), I’ve been obsessed with making this case for understanding Jesus as “The Truth” and for understanding discipleship as becoming a Jesus manifest. I am only saying here what I have said in other places and other forms and other ways: how do we speak the name of “Jesus” in such a way that the world we’re in can actually hear us, not the world we wish we had but the world we actually have. The difference is that here, I feel like Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society,” where he has the students throw away and tear up the text books and instead stand on top of the desks and speak at the top of their lungs. In Jesus Manifesto, maybe I’m back to my “shouting Methodist” and holiness Pentecostal roots.

5. Up until last year, I would have never expected Sweet and Viola to be sharing a book byline together! What was it like collaborating for this? Did your styles naturally gel, or was co-authoring difficult?

Frank: We were given a very quick deadline from the publisher after the book idea was finalized. As a result, we wrote the entire book in roughly six weeks. We were laboring on it Christmas Day even, rushing to meet our January 1^st deadline. The book was also bathed in prayer. We deliberately prayed for one another as we wrote our chapters.

But despite the haste, the process went smoother than I expected. We complimented each other’s chapters, adding to them our own unique ingredients and seasoning them with our own peculiar spices. Len made my chapters stronger, and I hope I did the same for his. I trust that readers will feel that the mix works.

Len: For me, what Frank and I did was not “work” but “play.” You don’t “work” a violin. You don’t “work” basketball.  You play a violin; you play basketball. All the best creativity comes from a play paradigm, not a work paradigm. “Labor” was what we got when we were banished from the garden, and in writing this book I felt that I was back in the garden, living out of God’s Prime Directive to Adam (“Conserve and Conceive”), with my pen a plow and my keyboard a seedbed.

I always feared that co-authoring a book would stymie rather than stimulate my creativity. When I tried my hand at woodworking, I never could master the art of mortise and tenon joinery. But I found that Frank’s passionate investment in the project opened the sluices of my soul and the rain that flowed out from both our beings is what you hold in your hand. It’s a fine line between drawing out a colleague’s best and dredging. Frank never crossed the line. It was a joy to play with him in making mudpies of praise out of soil and rain. But as Frank says, the reader is the ultimate judge and jury of our Back to the Garden project.

6. You all were up against some pretty strong critiques toward your original online Jesus Manifesto last year. Some folks thought that you were so ‘Christ-centered’ that you weren’t Trinitarian enough; others thought you magnified Jesus’ person at the expense of His teachings and deeds. Reading the book length Jesus Manifesto, I see that you more than address Jesus’ place in the Triune dance; perichoresis, the community life of God. But what would you say to the readers approaching your book who are looking to integrate this high view of Jesus with their desire to pursue a witness of good works and social justice toward expressing God’s Kingdom?

Len: Actually, we spend a lot of time talking about this in the book, maybe too much time (two chapters is a lot). But we did it because justice is now top dog among social values, and for many in both the more liberal and emerging sectors of the church, justice is another word for “equality”—making more equality more just than less equality.

The truth is no one knows what justice is. No philosopher in history has been able to satisfactorily define justice, whereas everyone knows what injustice is. Injustice is subject to Justice Potter Stewart’s “you-know-it-when-you-see-it” test (first applied to pornography). In fact, one of the best definitions of justice may be this: justice is what emerges in the struggle against injustice. If you don’t believe me, read Amartya Sen’s new book, The Idea of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2009), where he argues that justice is not a philosophical category or principle (“niti”) but a practice (“nyaya”). Justice is a practical matter of dealing with injustice; justice is asking “what is best to do in the here and now, given what can be done.”

In other words, even philosophers are bringing us back to Micah 6:8 where we are to “love mercy,” and “do justice” all the while “walking humbly with our God.” Notice what we’re to love: mercy. We’re to “do justice,” or to “practice justice,” but we are to “love mercy” and “walk humbly.”

My critique of the emerging movement is precisely here: it’s like these “young evangelicals” discovered the “social gospel” movement a century after liberals did, or fifty years after their boomer parents did in “Sojourners.” I’m a “social gospel” person (is there any other gospel than a social one?). But when you replace the “kingdom of justice” as the “framing story” rather than Jesus’ life, death and resurrection as the framing story, there ends up everything “social” and nothing “gospel.” In the Scriptures the kingdom is never something you build or create; the kingdom is something you receive as a gift and enter with your whole being, because the kingdom is the presence of Christ. A couple of years ago Relevant magazine interviewed me about my critique of Emergent and the emerging church along these precise lines, so you can read more about it there.

Frank: Someone once counted almost 200 blogs on the original essay. As I recall, there were only five that were negative. The ones I saw did mention that we neglected to discuss the Trinity—a correct observation. The others felt that we were somehow pitting Jesus against justice.

We certainly failed to talk about the Trinity in the essay. Right or wrong, we didn’t feel it was necessary to discuss it because our entire focus was on Jesus, and we were attempting to point out those aspects about Him that we felt aren’t getting enough air-play today. The Trinitarian nature of God wasn’t one of them; hence, it didn’t come up in our radar. We also wrongly assumed that most of our readers were familiar with our other books that go into the Trinity in detail.

On the other point, we tried to state as clearly as possible that it’s a gross mistake to separate the Jesus of the Gospels from the Person of Christ depicted in the epistles. And that it’s a profound failure to separate His Person from His teachings. For us, neither should be neglected; both should be held together. I addressed this very question (as well as the topic of God’s kingdom and liberation theology) more fully in an interview last year.

Having more space to unravel our vision and burden in the book (which is roughly 190 pages of actual text), we discuss the Trinity and we explore why the Person of Jesus shouldn’t be separated from His teachings and the problems that (we believe) ensue when we divide the two.

7. There seems to be a lot of grassroots energy behind this book, as well as some high-profile friends of its message via endorsers from across the Christian spectrum. If your fondest dreams could be actualized, what do you hope Jesus Manifesto will accomplish – on the literary landscape, in the Body of Christ, in the marketplace of ideas?

Len: When the Marx brothers were in the early stages of their career, the New York City family home was heavily mortgaged to the “Greenbaum” banking firm. Often the payments were very hard to come by. When the three elder brothers (Chico, Harpo and Groucho) and two younger brothers (Gummo and Zeppo) were on stage, their mother would stand in the wings. When her five zany sons began to improvise too much (especially Groucho) and depart  from script, she would snap them back with a loud stage whisper: “Greenbaum! Remember Greenbaum!”

With this book Frank and I are hoping to snap the church back with a loud whisper: “Remember Christ. Remember Christ. Remember Christ.” It’s okay to improvise as long as you stay on script/Scripture and don’t short-shrift Christ. Don’t ever forget the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ.

One more thing: Christianity has lost its liturgical and devotional language. To be sure, English is not the best language for liturgy or piety, as it has largely lost its stately, magisterial register that makes the 1611 King James Version (which was mostly cribbed from Tyndale’s 1537 translation) so resonant and thrilling. Frank and I purposely wrote this in a worshipful way in an attempt to re-introduce the church to a devotional way of talking about Jesus that seems to be missing in the life of faith today.

Frank: Yes. We are thankful that we have over 20 endorsements from some of the most influential leaders on the Christian landscape today. They include Baptist, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist, Charismatic, Pentecostal, New Monastic, Neo-Anabaptist, Missional, etc. It’s a nice mix of theologians, biblical scholars, pastors, and renowned authors, all of whom share our passion for the supremacy of Christ.

My dream in a nutshell: That the Spirit of God would taken the unveiling of Jesus that’s presented in the book and press it upon the hearts of every reader, bringing us all to our faces in the presence of so great a Christ. That we would make Christ and Christ alone our chief pursuit, our chief love, our chief passion, and our chief obsession in life, in ministry, and in our churches – at whatever cost it may exact. That the body of Christ would begin to learn how to live by His indwelling life, which (according to the New Testament) is a major part of “the mystery of the ages.” And that churches all over this planet would be built upon the only foundation that exists – the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Not in rhetoric, but in reality, thus discovering and displaying His inexhaustible riches to one another, to principalities and powers, and to a lost world.

All told: I see the body of Christ in battle with its own. Some are fighting on the left; others on the right. This is true politically as well as theologically. May these timeless words from our Father stop us all dead in our tracks:

“This is my beloved Son, hear HIM.”

Jesus Manifesto is our frail attempt to reflect this heavenly voice.

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Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ (Thomas Nelson) releases Tuesday, June 1^st and will be available on discount from Amazon.com that day.

You can read Mike Morrell’s bio here.

This article originally appeared on http://TheOOZE.com

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