Miguel Labrador's Blog, page 6

Why I Prayed For The Demise of a Church Plant.

Several days ago, I discovered that a group of folks had built up a small section of ground in one of the communities we’re making disciples in to “lay the foundation” for a new church. “Oh, but it’s an evangelical church, ” she said as she registered the look of surprise on my face.

Upon further investigation, I found out it was the “Iglesia Evangélica Apostólica del Nombre de Jesús,” or the “Evangelical Apostolic Church of the Name of Jesus.” They also go by “Oneness Pentecostals,” “United Pentecostals,” and derogatorily “Jesus Only Church.”

This post is not about their theology, their denial, of the trinity, or their doctrine of baptismal regeneration, it’s simply about what I did when I found out that someone was trying to “plant” this church where we are currently making disciples (church planting) and trying to insert another Jesus, another Gospel, and another Spirit.

I went over to the lot, took a GPS reading*, and prayed, “Father, don’t permit this church to be built. Foil and frustrate the plans of those who want to build it. May this piece of land be cursed so long as they continue, and may it be an utter failure in Jesus name, Amen.”

Did I do the wrong thing?

 

 

*By The way, here’s the GPS coordinates and Map if you want to pray along with me.

 

 

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Presence, Proximity, and Proclamation in Disciple Making

I was out and about yesterday visiting with and encouraging folks in a few of our faith communities in Acts 14 fashion.*  In my heart, I was carrying an assumption and an attitude that one of these communities was on shaky spiritual ground and it wasn’t my fault.  I thought to myself, “They should be farther along in their faith journey than they are.”  I also thought, “If they are depending on my presence to keep them in a growing relationship with God, then they are immature or unwilling to take the initiative in following hard after God themselves.”

Shortly after arriving and engaging this group, which was larger than expected, my assumptions and attitude were melted away as these words came to my mind;

“They need presence more than proclamation. Incarnation more than information.

A gospel that lives and breathes the same air as they do.”

It completely disassembled me.  In that moment “I looked on them with compassion.”  (Mark 6:34) (Matthew 9:36)  Instead of a timetable, the Lord gave me tenderheartedness.  I’m still wrestling with the ramifications of those 2 sentences and how to maintain the proper balance in that community, but with a changed heart and a renewed sense that Jesus is “always with me” in this thing we call Making Disciples.

I made a post on Facebook which you can see here regarding the same, but wanted to blog about it too.

* Acts 14:21-28  

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If You Church Gals Want to Play With The BIG BOYS, then…

I know, I drew you in with the title, but I’d love to know what you were thinking just before you got here.  The attitude represented in the title, while mostly unspoken, is clearly heard in church circles, conferences, and any other venues where there are men and women gather together.  Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been more disposed to be wowed by the deeply intellectual male provocateur than the thoughtful, nurturing, and sometimes less boisterous female, but, that’s your fault.  We’ll get to why it’s your fault in a minute.

For the past 7+ years, I’ve lived in one of the most wonderfully diverse and simple environments. I’ve heard some astounding theological things come from the mouths of men, women, and young people.  In fact, I’ve often told my wife that I’ve heard spiritual insights from the commonest of people here that would blow the doors of most theological training institutions.  I don’t mean “common” in a derogatory way. 

These insights are easy to miss if you’re not listening.  It’s not so much a matter of gender deafness or prejudice, but one of misplaced exclusivity.  For the most part, the church, men and women, still want to hear from the spiritually elite, the educated, the sage, the guru, and the celebrity.  Unfortunately most of those, it’s assumed, are dudes. 

Right now, I’m staring at a picture of a Negro Baseball League team photo that I picked up at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City a couple of months ago.  It reminds me of the time when talented people were separated from playing the game with the “big boys” for the color of their skin.  It’s almost analogous to the current discussion in the church regarding the ministerial role of women.  Except for one thing…  In the Church, we’re all talented people.  The Apostle Paul loved that when the body got together, “each one” had a teaching, a song, a psalm, a prophecy, etc.  Everyday people contributed to the edification of everyone. (1 Corinthians 14:26)  He goes on later to describe how the full-functioning body looked in ministry.  He said that God gave Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, and Evangelists for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, for attaining unity of the faith, and for growing in the knowledge of the Son of God with a view towards maturity and fullness. (Ephesians 4:11,12,13) These gifts were not given to only men.

 If we’ll take a look at most church structures and systems, we’ll have to acknowledge that they’ve been set up to separate people instead of unify them. Christendom has constructed containment facilities which they call “churches,” and then set up barriers within, pulpits, etc., to block certain segments of the body from ministering to the whole.  There’s no getting past that the idea that most church structures and systems have been intentionally or inadvertently engineered to separate people instead of unify them.  More often than not those venues which mimic worship service gatherings, like conferences, roundtables, social media platforms, and even higher Christian education institutions, have the potential to suffer the same primal dividing behaviors as the common church paradigm.

When it comes to women in the church, we’re focusing on the wrong questions generated from wrong assumptions and paradigms.  We will never arrive at a solution when having these sorts of discussions in a spiritually diluted and contaminated environment.  Whether women should or shouldn’t be behind pulpits or podiums is a question generated from a paradigm designed to separate people. Let’s take the discussion of women’s ministry out of the counterfeit paradigm of ecclesia and put it back where it belongs, in ministry.

A few questions:

 1.   Ok, but what are we going to do with 1 Timothy 2:12?

2.  Regarding women in ministry, how do you decide which texts from scripture are cultural and which are not?

3.  If women do want to “Play With The Big Boys,” then shouldn’t they “Amp Up Their Game” a bit?  

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Thou Art The Church Which Causeth Poverty!

Dr. Jayakumar Christian once said, “Relationship is not a program or activity, an after thought, or an add-on.  The basic unit in any society is not individuals, but people in relationships. When “people in relationships” is fractured, or broken, or exclusion happens, then that is poverty and oppression.”

You would think that one of the primary goals of the church is to build relationships.  But, if you’re able to take a step back and look at the church system, I think you’ll quickly acknowledge that much of it is designed to do the very opposite.  

Clergy/Laity – Men/Women – Professional/Amateur – Elite/Common – Celebrity/Nobody – etc.

When every member of the church functions in his or her role for the relational unity of the faith with a view towards knowing each other and God and maturing together as a unit, we attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  When we come together to relate to each other and to God, it’s suppose to be an open, non-exclusive, participatory, and “relationship fostering” gathering that continues into the mission and purpose of our every day lives, our “service of worship.” (Ephesians 4:11,12,13) (1 Corinthians 14:26) (Romans 12:1) 

If the church is not those things, then the very organization whose task it is to relieve poverty, spiritually and otherwise, is the one causing it. 

It seems odd that with our church mouths we say we want relationship, unity, and maturity, but by our actions we demonstrate and believe that dividing people is the path to unity and the alleviation of poverty. It’s disconcerting to realize that the very system that purports to “help the poor” may actually be perpetuating poverty.

 

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CommentsThanks for another insightful message. Division abounds in ... by Frank ColemanVery disconcerting indeed, Miguel. And in parallel with the ... by Chris JefferiesRelated StoriesMissional, Yes… But Still Missionary-ish Too.The Bride of Christ, She’s A Hot Mess.UX vs. UI In The Modern Church 

Two Kinds of Teaching, One’s For Discipleship, The Other…

In his book “Discipleship” Dbw Vol 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer differentiates between teaching which makes itself superfluous and teaching which does not. In other words, when the church “steadfastly continued” in the teaching of the Apostles (Acts 2:42), Bonhoeffer says that, “There must, therefore, be some rational necessity for this particular ‘teaching’ to demand continued attention.”* Since his focus was discipleship, it raises a few good question for us:

What kind of teaching are we doing when we disciple someone?

In discipleship, Are we to “teach ourselves out of a job?”

What was the Apostles teaching?

*Bonhoeffer, Dietrich (2010-03-11). Discipleship Dbw Vol 4 (p. 227). Augsburg Fortress – A. Kindle Edition.

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Missional, Yes… But Still Missionary-ish Too.

There is a measure heat generated between the many who are embracing missional thinking and those who hold to a more historic or classical missionary mind-set. It’s something that acknowledged silently within both groups, but not usually discussed in “mixed” circles. The missional folks say that “we have much to learn from our cross-cultural missionaries,” and yet simultaneously push back from concepts such as “not staying in your own neighborhoods,” to do mission.

In part, I think, it’s because there exists a competition of sorts for resources and people within the different mission venues. I think it’s time for the classical missionaries and the new missional motivators to sit down at the same table and have a heart to heart conversation. While I would consider myself a missionary in the classic sense, I also consider myself missional. I’ve said before that “Being a missional missionary is neither redundant nor contradictory.” Living in the friction, however, has not been easy.

I think the tide is turning. I think that many classical missionaries, those across borders, culturally and otherwise, have a lot to learn from what our missional brothers and sisters are fleshing out in their own neighborhoods. I strongly believe there is a point of convergence, a biblical synergy if you will, that can optimize the strength of both advances.

Instead of putting more weight on either “going” or “staying,” and the guilting pressures that are often associated with them, the church would be better suited to assume a posture of preparedness. Believers are to be disposed to “go until,” and “stay until.” Yes, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, Message Bible), but he didn’t stay in the neighborhood. Jesus went where the Father told him to go, did what the Father told him to do, and said what the Father told him to say.

The missionary worth his or her salt, has no choice but to go, get the gospel to where it’s needed, and be ministers of reconciliation where they are.  The missional likewise, but the missional paradigm seems to take more theory, energy, and convincing to get there.  I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but I am noticing that deployment seems more difficult amongst the missional.  This is often confirmed by missional folks reaching out to classical missionaries to understand how they’re doing what they’re doing. 

We need the missional as well as the missionary in our midsts. Some “overlapping,” in my view, is no longer sufficient. Sending and staying can only be held in balance and tension when the church is collectively listening to the Father and functioning as a unit. It’s time for the missional to be more missionary-ish and the missionary to be more missional.

 

A few questions:

1.  Do you perceive any friction between the missional and the classic missionary mind-sets?  Describe them.

2.  Are you more of an “AS YOU GO Make Disciples” kind of person or a “GO and Make Disciples kind of person?”

Where are you being missional?  Where are you a missionary? 

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How’s a New Covenant Prophet Suppose To Act? Part I

Lesslie Newbigin once wrote, ”Wherever we look in the Old Testament we find that the prophets and psalmists speak of salvation in terms of actual historic happenings: deliverance from famine, sickness, danger, enemies, and oppression. Therefore, for the biblical writers, to “know the Lord” is not a matter of intellectual contemplation or mystical union; it is a matter of doing justice and mercy in concrete situations.” *

 

 

In the light of that quote, how does the new Covenant Prophet translate these thoughts to action?

* Lesslie Newbigin. The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Kindle Locations 1330-1332). Kindle Edition.

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The Bride of Christ, She’s A Hot Mess.

Over the past several months, I’ve heard several folks say that “If you talk bad about The Church, you’re talking bad about the Bride of Christ, and the Groom, Jesus, isn’t going to like it very much.”  I think, for the most part, sayings like that or those similar to it, are leveled against those who seem to be constantly criticizing the church as it exists and operates today, those who are deconstructing its assumptions, and those who are calling out her impostors.

I’ve thought a lot about this lately, because I tend to be one of those kinds of persons.  But, if someone in my family, or a friend, was talking about my spouse and saying things like “Her character is flawed,” “She’s unfaithful,” or even “She should be more _______ and less _______  Fill in the blanks… Then I too would get angry and probably recoil from or lash out at that person.  Even if those things were true.

On the other hand, if someone in my family observed that my wife was cheating on me, maligning my name in public, or acting in a manner that contradicted her professed love for me, I’d probably still get angry and maybe even lash out at the person bringing it to my attention, but in the long run, there would most likely be growth, healing, and reconciliation.  I don’t suppose that the truth, even though “the truth hurts,” would make me “feel” any better initially, but, “faithful are the wounds of a friend.”  (Proverbs 27:6)

Of course, if the skanky impostor broad is always trying to seat herself as, or pretend to be the church (Revelation 19:2), then we need someone to tell us.  Don’t we?  ”Yes!” some would say, but… “You’re not doing it love.”  And most times, I fear that they would be correct.  These sorts of criticisms generate an awful lot of heat.  Anyone can cause a mess or a melt down, it’s in our nature, but encouragement and edification are the end-game, or should be, in these type of “prophetic” utterances.    

The problem, and challenge for the Church, or should I say local churches, is whether they want to hear it, or would “just rather not know the truth,” and pretend that everything is ok.  I remember once preaching in a small church about fidelity.  At one point I asked the congregation while pointing at them, “How many of you are cheating on your spouse?  Raise your hand.”  An overwhelming number of them raised their hands.  Spouses were crying, people were moaning and yelling.  It was as if someone exploded a grief bomb in our midst.  It was an intensely painful moment. 

What followed was a time of great spiritual and mental healing, confessing, and cleansing.  Funny thing, it was not planned.  It wasn’t part of my “message.”  The Lord put it in my heart in that moment and told me to say what I did.  I’ll never forget it.

However, when I get the inkling that I’m trying to separate the wheat from the tares in my human strength or desire, then I pray the lord shuts my mouth.  For me, speaking bad about the Church, is not speaking bad about Christ’s Bride, but calling out the whore who’s always trying to take her place.  A few questions:

1.  Besides speaking the truth in love, what other precautions would you suggest regarding being critical about the Church, Christ’s Bride?

2.  Is constructive prophetic criticism best received from those inside of, or outside the local church?

3.  What’s your first reaction when someone speaks ill of your spouse?  Do you think Jesus feels the same way? 

 

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The Reformation, The Conformation, and The Transformation.

For “Reformation Day,” I’d like to consider three words that are often used synonymously, but are not.  There is some overlapping in the meaning of these words, but I think the church misses out when not embracing, and implementing, all three.  Those the words are; Reform, Transform, and Conform:

Conform – σύμμορφον (symmorphon) – properly, conformed, by sharing the same inner essence-identity (form); showing similar behavior from having the same essential nature. Also, suschématizó (συσχηματίζω) – I conform to, assume a similar outward form (expression) by following the same pattern, be fashioned by a model or mode.  Romans 8:29, Philippians 3:21, Romans 12:2, 1 Peter 1:14

Reform – ἐπιστρέφω (epistrephó) – to turn, to return, to turn to, to bring back, to come back to oneself.  Mark 4:12, Acts 3:19, Revelation 2:5, Philippians 3:21 

Transform – μεταμορφόω (metamorphoó) – to change form, “change after being with” “changing form in keeping with inner reality,” transfigured, metamorphisized.  Philippians 3:21, 2 Corinthians 11:14, 1 Corinthians 4:6, 2 Corinthians 3:18

The common rallying cry of the Reformation or reformed folks is “Ecclesia semper reformanda est.” (Latin for “the church is always to be reformed”)  Sometimes shortened to “semper reformanda,” (always to be reformed).  I’d like to change that to “Ecclesia semper reformans, conformantes, et commutat.”  The Church should always be Reforming, Conforming, and Transforming.  How’s my Latin? 

After all, if the Church is not always reforming (returning to Christ),

conforming (becoming the same essential nature as Christ),

and transforming (being metamorphisized into the image of Christ),

then what are we doing?

A few questions:

1.  Would you place these 3 words in any particular order or progression? 

2.  How can we use these in discipling and  reconciling others? 

3.  What thoughts would you add to this discussion? 

 

 

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Apostolic Discipleship – Part II, A Gospel Exercise.

In Part 1 of this series, I said that in my opinion, “the gospel itself has characteristically apostolic, prophetic, didactic, evangelistic, and pastoral components or elements.”  If you’d like to go back and read that short post before continuing this exercise, then click here.  I promise to give a thorough explanation as to how I view these character elements of the Gospel later.  For now, I thought it might be fun, and a bit challenging to get some community participation in this exercise.  Here’s a primer to get us started:

What might those Gospel

Characteristic Elements look like?

 

 

The Apostolic Elements of the Gospel are those which assess, provide structure, build, send, or have sending language.

The Prophetic Elements of the Gospel are those which probe and provoke, ask us to listen or give attention to with a view towards encouragement.

The Teaching Elements of the Gospel are those which explain, reference, demonstrate, and transfer.

The Evangelistic Elements of the Gospel are those which proclaim, call for a response, tell the story, witness, and encourage mission.

The Pastoral Elements of the Gospel are those which care, watch, feed, nurture, and cultivate community.

Here’s the exercise:

1.  In your opinion, which texts from scripture speak to the apostolic elements of the Gospel?

2.  In your opinion, which texts from scripture speak to the prophetic elements of the Gospel?

3.  In your opinion, which texts from scripture speak to the didactic or teaching elements of the Gospel?

4.  In your opinion, which texts from scripture speak to the evangelistic elements of the Gospel?

5. In your opinion, which elements from scripture speak to the pastoral elements of scripture?

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