Holiness Today, July/August 2006

[Hans Deventer]

I was somewhat surprised to see article about the Revivalism Fund in the July/August issue. Reading the "Letters" page, there are several approving letters on the "When the Old Ways Don't Work Anymore" article in the May/June issue. But when you turn the page, you'll to find an article to raise money for what is probably the prime example of old ways that indeed don't work anymore!

Don't get me wrong, we need evangelists more than ever before! But revivals are dead and it is a waste of money and effort to even attempt to keep them alive.

I think it is time, and it may not be too late yet, for evangelists to find new ways to bring the gospel, for that is their gift. The church would benefit from that immensely, and every dollar put into a fund for creative evangelism would be a dollar well spent.

Now I'm just dreaming of course but what if evangelists, apart from using their gift directly, could use it indirectly by training church members in evangelism? Sponsored by this fund?

[William Hunter]

Hans, I agree with you. No matter what is said by those who want to hang on to the older methods, in some places like where I pastor, revival meetings just do not work. When most of a cong. has been in Christ and in the Church of the Nazarene for 7 yrs. or less, they have no historical reference for revival mtgs. and they see little value is more worship services beyond what they faithfully take part in on Sunday morning. They are very interested is spiritual formation and small groups that provide pastoral care, organize for service, etc. I know revival mtgs. still work in some areas, but I think I am right is saying they are less and less a successful method for the church.

I grew up with revival mtgs. and value them, but most of the people I minister to have no such value and will not attend. Thus, I must find methods of ministry that work in growing spiritual maturity in Christians and reaching lost people.




I was somewhat surprised to see article about the Revivalism Fund in the July/August issue. Reading the "Letters" page, there are several approving letters on the "When the Old Ways Don't Work Anymore" article in the May/June issue. But when you turn the page, you'll to find an article to raise money for what is probably the prime example of old ways that indeed don't work anymore!

Don't get me wrong, we need evangelists more than ever before! But revivals are dead and it is a waste of money and effort to even attempt to keep them alive.

I think it is time, and it may not be too late yet, for evangelists to find new ways to bring the gospel, for that is their gift. The church would benefit from that immensely, and every dollar put into a fund for creative evangelism fund would be well spent.

Now I'm just dreaming of course but what if evangelists, apart from using their gift directly, could use it indirectly by training church members in evangelism? Sponsored by this fund?

[Andrew Henck]

I agree completely with you Hans. It is refreshing to hear what you have to say this morning...

Enjoy the day!

[Brad Mercer]

The problem for most people, even in denominational leadership, is that it's so much easier to value what you already have than what you don't yet have, but could. It's easier to value the dying old real church than the imaginary church that could be planted. It's easier to prop up the campmeeting and the revival than to imagine non-existent structures that might serve the purpose tomorrow that they served 50-150 years ago.

I heard a church leader at a district assembly talk to the gathered delegates about how we use square wheels instead of finding round wheels, to say that we need new methods to reach the post-modern generation. He'd read that in a book he was telling us about, and he indicated that he agreed with the book, and that that's what we needed to do. Then he pointed to the success of the Jesus film in reaching people in tribal Africa as an example of our ability to reach people today in post-modern society, apparently unaware that just because that tribal society is today, that doesn't make it a post-modern society. Then he said we do have round wheels, and pointed specifically to campmeeting and revival, along with all the other traditional existing methods and programs as effective ways to reach people in the 21st century post-modern U.S.

It takes real vision and imagination and creativity to give birth to something genuinely new while remaining orthodox and bringing the church masses along with you.

We have a shortage of leaders like that.

Brad

[William Hunter]

Thanks for the post, Brad, and the illustration. It is amazing to me that we talk with such contridictions as the denominational leader you mentioned. It is almost like a dysfuctional family where, if one pereson in that unit tries to make a break and move toward wholeness, the rest of the family will do all in its power to get that one person back into dysfunctional operation. Anyone who wants to truly think new thoughts, think about whole new structures that can be powerfully effective in bringing ost people to the church and to Christ, are quickly put down and told to get in line---with the old ways, not to question anything, just be a good little pastor, pay your budgets, and keep your mouth shut, etc. I have seen this around me so many times over 32 yrs. of ministry. I am thankful for those brave souls who follow Christ into what He is doing, no matter how the system of old methods rants and raves.

I refreshing read is the current issue of "Leadership." In it are several articles that have been an inspiration to me and will have some effect in our next board mtg. as we continue to think abut how to become more and more effective in reaching lost people.



The problem for most people, even in denominational leadership, is that it's so much easier to value what you already have than what you don't yet have, but could. It's easier to value the dying old real church than the imaginary church that could be planted. It's easier to prop up the campmeeting and the revival than to imagine non-existent structures that might serve the purpose tomorrow that they served 50-150 years ago.

I heard a church leader at a district assembly talk to the gathered delegates about how we use square wheels instead of finding round wheels, to say that we need new methods to reach the post-modern generation. He'd read that in a book he was telling us about, and he indicated that he agreed with the book, and that that's what we needed to do. Then he pointed to the success of the Jesus film in reaching people in tribal Africa as an example of our ability to reach people today in post-modern society, apparently unaware that just because that tribal society is today, that doesn't make it a post-modern society. Then he said we do have round wheels, and pointed specifically to campmeeting and revival, along with all the other traditional existing methods and programs as effective ways to reach people in the 21st century post-modern U.S.

It takes real vision and imagination and creativity to give birth to something genuinely new while remaining orthodox and bringing the church masses along with you.

We have a shortage of leaders like that.

Brad

[Bob Woolley]

I am 60 years old and I want change!

I can tell there is nothing old fashion about me! I like the old hymns but I like all the new stuff as well.

I have been scouting around to various churches in our area here lately and I am looking mostly at the ones that are growing.

Points of interest that I found are in order of prominence with these two growing denominations, and you can guess who they are:

1) dynamic pastor who preaches on life issues from the Word, that one can take home with and use through the week. Also sees the need to get the change in one's heart first. (evangelism centered)

2) Visionary people in the church using all the latest technology. They probably have the latest gadgets in their homes but they see the need to buy and use them in church as well. They are up with the times and want to meet the needs of their community. They are genuinely interested in new people and love them as soon as they greet them at the door. They have made follow-up the main priority with strangers and new family visitors.

When there is no vision, the people perish! At sixty years of age, I am finding that there is more truth in that statement now than in the past.

You can jump on me all you want but the Church of the Nazarene is floundering along its merry way, not going anywhere in North Amercia! We had better change or in 10 years, you won't find too many Nazarenes left in the northern continent! My opinion for what's worth after shaking my head visiting these other two main growing denominations.:eek:

We can't sit back and expect things to fall into our lap!

[Anne and Dwayne Hood]

Hans, there are many places where REVIVALS still work.

[Jenny Mitchell]

I just got my 'book' on holding a revival that was 'g.s. approved,' and skimmed through it. I couldn't believe $1000 a Sunday minimum plus housing and travel and food - and that's not counting any musical help we want. and then they said if we had 25 giving units pledge $5 a month, in a year we'd have $1500. We don't have 25 giving units! I pastor a small church for which a revival might well work - but not at that price. I make less than a quarter of that weekly - no way my board is going to spring for all that, plus a Christmas bonus for an evangelist. And then in what I saw they didn't even mention the matching fund for small churches who want a revival and haven't held one in a while. My first instinct is to say, "I'll use a pastor friend for a revival instead - I can't afford a 'real' evangelist." I guess all this is to say that I think that book was actually counterproductive.

Now to get off my soapbox.

Grace and peace,
Jenny

[Gary Swartzlander]

In a previous post about our district assembly (which drew little respone) I was thrilled at the theme of the need for change which was presented by both our DS and GS Dr. Porter. One quote from Dr. Porter (which he had heard someplace) regarded the sacred cows in the church. He said...

"You don't have to kill sacred cows, you just have to stop feeding them."

[Andrew Henck]

This is why I not only like, but appreciate and value Dr. Porter as a leader in our denomination.

[Brad Mercer]

This is why I not only like, but appreciate and value Dr. Porter as a leader in our denomination.

Me, too. He came and spoke at our little church, just because we asked him, and had lunch with us twice after that. That time with him was incredibly encouraging, and raised my opinion of him still higher.

Brad

[Hans Deventer]

Hans, there are many places where REVIVALS still work.

So, have many have been saved through revivals recently? The funny thing was that the article didn't spend a single word on that, while I would think that it is the sole reason for its existance.

[Brad Mercer]

So, have many have been saved through revivals recently? The funny thing was that the article didn't spend a single word on that, while I would think that it is the sole reason for its existance.

Well, of course, another point is that even if it still works "plenty of places" it doesn't work in enough places to be self-sustaining, which is why the Evangelism Fund.

And as long as the supply of would-be full-time evangelists way exceeds the demand, they'll tend to do what all institutions do, and revise their reason for existence when the original reason is no longer adequate. If it used to be about drawing a crowd and getting people saved, it'll be about something less tangible and quantifiable (and disprovable), like spiritual growth of the saints, or something.

The March of Dimes was originally created to raise money to cure polio. When that goal was met, instead of disbanding, they just changed their purpose. In Texas, the Railroad Commission, with railroads much less important than they were 100 years ago, now regulates natural gas pipelines and so forth. It happens all the time.

Brad

[Cindi Hammons]

Did that headline get everyone's attention? :)

Well, it's true, in our church. The two Sunday revival services are usually attended well (normal Sunday numbers), but the weeknights are terrible. Our church runs around 100-125 on Sunday AM...weeknight revivals rarely get more than 30-40 people, many of which are visitors from other Nazarene churches who tend to go to all the local revivals. It is embarrassing for me to have an evangelist speaking to a handful of the regulars who are the core of the church anyways! One cannot claim that it is the lack of quality either...we have recently had Nelson Purdue and Elaine Pettit as well as other well known evangelists. I have seen "regulars" receive help during a revival but cannot tell you the last time I saw someone get saved in one.

For our church, something else besides Revivals need to happen. I don't know what it is, but something else. I confess, since we are without a pastor right now, I am thrilled that we won't be spending the large amount of money it costs us to have a revival this Fall. Last year, we had Robert Dabydeen (I really liked him). This cost us his 2-way airfare, hotel room for 5 days, food and then his fee. I know he needs to make a living, I don't resent that, I just think our church can't afford the costs when compared to the benefit. Are we holding Revival solely for the sake of tradition? I know there are some in our church who will be upset when they figure out that we don't have a Revival scheduled, but they will be unable to tell me why it is important other than to get people saved. They also won't be able to tell me when the last person was saved in one of our Revivals. Maybe our church should look into weekend features? Or something along those lines? Maybe go a completely different direction? Who knows.

I recently received the Missionstrategy.org magazine that talked about six mistakes that plateaued or dying churches make. Number 6 was, spending resources (money or people) on things that do not directly benefit the local church. In our church, I think Revival fits this well.

I also received the little handbook outlining revival costs. I nearly fell on the floor. One thing that some general church people cannot conceive (when they attend huge well-funded churches) is that many, if not a big majority of churches are just getting by. They don't have $1,000 for a Sunday speaker plus Christmas gift! Puh-lease!

Cindi also getting off her soapbox!

[Billy Cox]

Then he pointed to the success of the Jesus film in reaching people in tribal Africa as an example of our ability to reach people today in post-modern society, apparently unaware that just because that tribal society is today, that doesn't make it a post-modern society. Then he said we do have round wheels, and pointed specifically to campmeeting and revival, along with all the other traditional existing methods and programs as effective ways to reach people in the 21st century post-modern U.S.


In the early days of the Church of the Nazarene, preachers and evangelists preached the fires of Hell down on modernism. Considering the fact that the average Nazarene Church is now packed with modernists, there must have been a point where we quit condemning modernists and began embracing them.

So...when and where did we set out to 'reach modernists'? Did we have conferences and how-to manuals, and books explaining how the future of the church was directly tied to reaching modernists?

I suspect that much of the talk about reaching post-modernists is just so much noise. Healthy multi-generational churches will become post-modern with or without alot of hoopla and anxiety. We have only to be the Church and God will make it grow.

[Brad Mercer]

I suspect that much of the talk about reaching post-modernists is just so much noise. Healthy multi-generational churches will become post-modern with or without alot of hoopla and anxiety. We have only to be the Church and God will make it grow.
Sure, but that kind of begs the question. How does one become a "healthy, multi-generational church? How do we go about fulfilling the charge to "only be the Church"? What does that mean? How do we do that, in the details? God will always have a people, but it's not promised that there will always be a Church of the Nazarene as a component of his people. There was a Church of God for 1900 years without us, and there may well be a Church of God for another 1900 years in the future without us.

A "healthy multi-generational church" that is "only" being the Church in a post-modern community has almost by definition already become post-modern. The question is how they got there when other churches who also at some level wanted to continue to be a part of God's plan to rescue the perishing didn't succeed in making that transition, and died, even though they started out looking very much like the sister Nazarene church down the street that did make that transition.

Certainly those churches that communicate clearly and compellingly to the actual people around them will reach people and survive as institutions, and those that don't, won't. Maybe such communication can happen without reflection or deliberate, purposeful action for some, but maybe more of us could get there if we had a little help.

As we ourselves become more and more thoroughly post-modern ourselves, just by virtue of living and working in this time and place, we'll more and more talk in church and about God and faith from the same perspective and in the same language that we talk about everything else. The people who started the branches of the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles and New York City were essentially modernists to start with, while the Southern group was probably more traditional and agrarian. They struggled among themselves from the beginning, as evidenced by the debate over the special rules at Pilot Point. As the broader culture continued to shift, the church continued to struggle with how to deal with those shifts. Obviously those kinds of cultural shifts happen gradually, and certainly not without struggle, as indicated by our declining involvement in compassionate and inner city ministries in the 1920's and the church splits we suffered as large groups left the Church of the Nazarene to found their own reactionary denominations in the '50's.

So there certainly was hoopla and anxiety. The bottom line, it seems to me, was that just about the time we got past all that hoopla and anxiety and got settled into a broad consensus, the next cultural shift began, and our growth, which had been fairly phenomenal from 1908 through the 1950's as we were struggling with those issues, began to level off in the 60's and has been completely flat-lined for some time now. We are a significantly smaller percentage of the United States today than we were 40 years ago. From what I've been able to tell from the statistics, it looks like Nazarenes are also a smaller percentage of Australians than they were 30 years ago, too.

I think if we dismiss the need to actually think through the issues that face us as an institution today within our own broader culture, we won't see a lot of those healthy churches who are only being the church, that God is causing therefore to grow. Part of being healthy, and being the church, a very central part, in fact, is to love him with all our mind as well as spirit, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and I think loving him with all our mind, part of the "renewing of your minds", includes actually deliberately thinking about who my specific, individual neighbors are, what language they speak, what assumptions we share and what assumptions we don't share, so that I can love them as I love myself, and communicate that love in a way that they can recognize as love.

If love could be perfected in practice without "noise" and "hoopla", we wouldn't need much preaching, and we certainly wouldn't need whatever they're calling the Special Rules these days. We probably wouldn't need all of those books in the Bible, even.

At least that's my own personal opinion, which may indeed be worth what you're paying for it.
:fav18

If I'm wrong, I hope my noise and hoopla are at worst just irrelevant, rather than destructive. Some days I recognize that I'm relying on grace rather more heavily than on other days.

Love,
Brad

[Roland Hearn]

Revivals have a very short life span in terms of church history. They come from a time where people were becoming increasingly mobile, had growing disposable income, but were still basically rural in their outlook. They were a brilliant application of missiological principles. People loved gathering together in large extended family and community groupings. There was a great deal of value in simply the gathering. They swept across the US and England and revivals became camp meetings and in places like Keswick UK established a permanent presence which gave its name to a whole theological perspective. I’m sure they occurred in Europe, beyond the UK and I know they occurred in Australia. They were something of a cultural phenomena but by the late 1960’s the cultural forces that had given birth to these things over 100 years earlier had all but disappeared. They survived because of the memory of Christians. In places where they still work they work exclusively because of that reason.
You see the forebears of the revival meeting in the work of John Wesley and certainly even as Paul gathered in local churches with a crowd of people you could see that there is a genuine power in people coming together to hear the gospel. However revival meetings as we have known them are peculiarly a 19th century phenomena that were so affective that there impact lasted long after the needs that created them had disappeared. You could probably argue that if the sense of community and belonging and the limited entertainment environment that gave rise to the revival/camp meeting still existed the world would be better place. However the, possibly lamentable, fact is they don’t exist. People have way too much entertainment options and the idea of large gatherings coming together lost their sense of community at Woodstock. Large gatherings are the domain of sporting events, rock concerts and political marches. If you want community you must have it in a small face to face group that creates an experiential encounter. The church cannot survive if it sees large group movements as the place to introduce Christ. Large groups will gather for celebration but the modern individual is skeptical, thoughtful, defensive and longing for genuine relationship.
The church is flogging a dead horse when it tries to keep such things alive. There may be a genuine human rationale for paying an evangelist $1000/week to come to do a revival service. $1000/week every time he/she does a revival service probably means the individual evangelist is earning less than $20,000/year if that is their sole source of income. So if you feel the need to have an evangelist that is probably a fair thing to pay them but it would be money poorly spent.
At NewStart we would have our annual “family camp” and get around 40% of the congregation there. During that weekend we would have four or five services and an extended, sometimes 3-4 hour long, testimony session. Most of the people attending had no clue of the historical camp meeting application but they were there for the community. We didn’t need an outside preacher coming in because it wasn’t primarily about the preaching as much as it was about encountering God and each other. They were among the most blessed times we had as a church and people looked forward to them all year long – they worked because they were intermit and that is what people are longing for. We need to find ways to get the results that revivals and camp meetings got but those things in the same form won’t get those results today.

[William Hunter]

Excellent post, Brad. I take exception with Billy's mindset stated above. That kind of thinking is often found in those who do not do a thorough job os a study of the culture. That kind of mindset only leaves the church like it is; slowly dying and not at all reaching lost people for Christ; and not following Christ out where He is at work in our culture.

The study of culture takes a huge amount of time and energy. I spend hours at it and we are seeing some inroads into the post-modern culture around us. I beleive George Hunter is right when he said that if we do not change soon, the New Testament church in America today will become the Amish of the 21st Century. We must be students of our post-modern culture, and the culture in which the New Testament church was born. They are very similar. The more I study the more God creates ideas in my thinking about reaching the post-moderns. I am finding that my moderns want to become part of the change and actively involved in reaching a post-modern culture. It is not easy, the study of it take lots of energy and time, but when it is all done, my cong. is growing when most on our dist., if not in the USA/Canada/Europe are declining for they are dead or nearly so.



Sure, but that kind of begs the question. How does one become a "healthy, multi-generational church? How do we go about fulfilling the charge to "only be the Church"? What does that mean? How do we do that, in the details? God will always have a people, but it's not promised that there will always be a Church of the Nazarene as a component of his people. There was a Church of God for 1900 years without us, and there may well be a Church of God for another 1900 years in the future without us.

A "healthy multi-generational church" that is "only" being the Church in a post-modern community has almost by definition already become post-modern. The question is how they got there when other churches who also at some level wanted to continue to be a part of God's plan to rescue the perishing didn't succeed in making that transition, and died, even though they started out looking very much like the sister Nazarene church down the street that did make that transition.

Certainly those churches that communicate clearly and compellingly to the actual people around them will reach people and survive as institutions, and those that don't, won't. Maybe such communication can happen without reflection or deliberate, purposeful action for some, but maybe more of us could get there if we had a little help.

As we ourselves become more and more thoroughly post-modern ourselves, just by virtue of living and working in this time and place, we'll more and more talk in church and about God and faith from the same perspective and in the same language that we talk about everything else. The people who started the branches of the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles and New York City were essentially modernists to start with, while the Southern group was probably more traditional and agrarian. They struggled among themselves from the beginning, as evidenced by the debate over the special rules at Pilot Point. As the broader culture continued to shift, the church continued to struggle with how to deal with those shifts. Obviously those kinds of cultural shifts happen gradually, and certainly not without struggle, as indicated by our declining involvement in compassionate and inner city ministries in the 1920's and the church splits we suffered as large groups left the Church of the Nazarene to found their own reactionary denominations in the '50's.

So there certainly was hoopla and anxiety. The bottom line, it seems to me, was that just about the time we got past all that hoopla and anxiety and got settled into a broad consensus, the next cultural shift began, and our growth, which had been fairly phenomenal from 1908 through the 1950's as we were struggling with those issues, began to level off in the 60's and has been completely flat-lined for some time now. We are a significantly smaller percentage of the United States today than we were 40 years ago. From what I've been able to tell from the statistics, it looks like Nazarenes are also a smaller percentage of Australians than they were 30 years ago, too.

I think if we dismiss the need to actually think through the issues that face us as an institution today within our own broader culture, we won't see a lot of those healthy churches who are only being the church, that God is causing therefore to grow. Part of being healthy, and being the church, a very central part, in fact, is to love him with all our mind as well as spirit, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and I think loving him with all our mind, part of the "renewing of your minds", includes actually deliberately thinking about who my specific, individual neighbors are, what language they speak, what assumptions we share and what assumptions we don't share, so that I can love them as I love myself.

If love could be perfected in practice without "noise" and "hoopla", we wouldn't need much preaching, and we certainly wouldn't need whatever they're calling the Special Rules these days. We probably wouldn't need all of those books in the Bible, even.

At least that's my own personal opinion, which may indeed be worth what you're paying for it.
:fav18

If I'm wrong, I hope my noise and hoopla are at worst just irrelevant, rather than destructive. Some days I recognize that I'm relying on grace rather more heavily than on other days.

Love,
Brad

[Brad Mercer]

I take exception with Billy's mindset stated above.

Well, my first thought actually was that Billy was playing devil's advocate, and arguing a position he didn't really believe, just to get my response. At any rate, from reading his posts over the years(?) he's been on NazNet, I've come to the conclusion that he has a wonderful heart and a wonderful mind, and he therefore either doesn't believe what he's said, or I've misunderstood him, or it's just one of those things where he and I must forgive each other this particular blind spot and pass over it, rather than defining each other by it.

One of the fairly recent developments in my spiritual life is reaching the place where I can value individual people with whom I am in relationship, more than I value my own -- even strongly held -- opinions. That's why I ended my post like I did. If someone as good as Billy disagrees with me, even about something I think is as important as this, I have to hold open the theoretical (if remote) possibility that he could be right and I could be wrong.

I know you already agree with all that; I'm just preaching to myself. ;-)

Brad

[William Hunter]

My intent has nothing to do with Billy as a person. He and I have never met and would probably enjoy sitting and talking together if we did. The problem with print when we have never met is that the only reference point we have is what is in front of us in print. I try not to read into anyone's post what is not clearly stated there. Probably do not get it done all the time but my intent is to just repsond to what is there, if I respond. Thus, my response to Billy's post was just on what I saw there. I have no other reference points to help see if there is anything else intended except what I see in front of me. I was taking exception what what he posted not having any other point of reference to make me believe he was doing anything else.

Billy, if I missed your intent, for that I am sorry. Perhaps if you had another thing in mind, and we had privilege of mtg. face to face, my response may have been different. I responded only to what I saw in your post.





Well, my first thought actually was that Billy was playing devil's advocate, and arguing a position he didn't really believe, just to get my response. At any rate, from reading his posts over the years(?) he's been on NazNet, I've come to the conclusion that he has a wonderful heart and a wonderful mind, and he therefore either doesn't believe what he's said, or I've misunderstood him, or it's just one of those things where he and I must forgive each other this particular blind spot and pass over it, rather than defining each other by it.

One of the fairly recent developments in my spiritual life is reaching the place where I can value individual people with whom I am in relationship, more than I value my own -- even strongly held -- opinions. That's why I ended my post like I did. If someone as good as Billy disagrees with me, even about something I think is as important as this, I have to hold open the theoretical (if remote) possibility that he could be right and I could be wrong.

I know you already agree with all that; I'm just preaching to myself. ;-)

Brad

[Roland Hearn]

So...when and where did we set out to 'reach modernists'? Did we have conferences and how-to manuals, and books explaining how the future of the church was directly tied to reaching modernists?


There is definitely a sense in which this is a very appropriate point. I think the “We have only to be the Church and God will make it grow.” line, while being simplistic is probably true too. If we are in fact being the church we will genuinely care that our message is being heard and understood. Isn’t that what was meant by Billy’s original post? The Church of the Nazarene didn’t set out to reach moderns by having classes on how to reach them, most of them were moderns or were becoming moderns and the impact on that issue wasn’t being thought through. They just did what came naturally. I too have been frustrated quite a few times by the constant rhetoric about finding ways of to reach post-moderns. It occurred to me one day why. I have grown up in a developing post modern culture, I was educated in post-modern paradigms. My default setting is to think post-modern and to be frustrated by the modern perspective. Every time I hear the church telling me to learn how to be post-modern I want to scream at them to stop trying to force me into being a modern learning how to communicate to the post-modern. Just leave me alone and I will think the issues through like a post-modern. At some level it seems to me that the agenda is to teach Christians “modern” constructs of thinking and then get them to learn how to communicate to the post modern so that they can in turn convert people back to the modern church. I think we are at the point where we need to stop looking at the church as a modern institution trying to reach post-moderns and simply let the church become what God intended it to be – a culturally relevant expression of His grace. Am I reflecting at all what you were trying to say Billy?

[Gary Swartzlander]

Just leave me alone and I will think the issues through like a post-modern. At some level it seems to me that the agenda is to teach Christians “modern” constructs of thinking and then get them to learn how to communicate to the post modern so that they can in turn convert people back to the modern church. I think we are at the point where we need to stop looking at the church as a modern institution trying to reach post-moderns and simply let the church become what God intended it to be – a culturally relevant expression of His grace. Am I reflecting at all what you were trying to say Billy?

I don't know about Billy, but that certainly reflects what I would have liked to have said.

[David Showalter]

Hans, there are many places where REVIVALS still work.


could you give some examples, thanks

[William Hunter]

Cindi, I so agree with you on this. I know they do not think so of themselves, but many of our HQ people have little understanding of what it takes for the smaller church of just over 100 and less to survive finacially. We see too many examples of peoplke making statements proving they are just very much out of touch with most of the COTN in the USA---those about 100 or less.




Did that headline get everyone's attention? :)

Well, it's true, in our church. The two Sunday revival services are usually attended well (normal Sunday numbers), but the weeknights are terrible. Our church runs around 100-125 on Sunday AM...weeknight revivals rarely get more than 30-40 people, many of which are visitors from other Nazarene churches who tend to go to all the local revivals. It is embarrassing for me to have an evangelist speaking to a handful of the regulars who are the core of the church anyways! One cannot claim that it is the lack of quality either...we have recently had Nelson Purdue and Elaine Pettit as well as other well known evangelists. I have seen "regulars" receive help during a revival but cannot tell you the last time I saw someone get saved in one.

For our church, something else besides Revivals need to happen. I don't know what it is, but something else. I confess, since we are without a pastor right now, I am thrilled that we won't be spending the large amount of money it costs us to have a revival this Fall. Last year, we had Robert Dabydeen (I really liked him). This cost us his 2-way airfare, hotel room for 5 days, food and then his fee. I know he needs to make a living, I don't resent that, I just think our church can't afford the costs when compared to the benefit. Are we holding Revival solely for the sake of tradition? I know there are some in our church who will be upset when they figure out that we don't have a Revival scheduled, but they will be unable to tell me why it is important other than to get people saved. They also won't be able to tell me when the last person was saved in one of our Revivals. Maybe our church should look into weekend features? Or something along those lines? Maybe go a completely different direction? Who knows.

I recently received the Missionstrategy.org magazine that talked about six mistakes that plateaued or dying churches make. Number 6 was, spending resources (money or people) on things that do not directly benefit the local church. In our church, I think Revival fits this well.

I also received the little handbook outlining revival costs. I nearly fell on the floor. One thing that some general church people cannot conceive (when they attend huge well-funded churches) is that many, if not a big majority of churches are just getting by. They don't have $1,000 for a Sunday speaker plus Christmas gift! Puh-lease!

Cindi also getting off her soapbox!

[Hans Deventer]

I think we are at the point where we need to stop looking at the church as a modern institution trying to reach post-moderns and simply let the church become what God intended it to be – a culturally relevant expression of His grace.

I think the problem is that the church is usually not quite on the edge of the culture. We usually fight battles in the rear, not in front of us.

It is a pity that the page I referred to is not online, but the article is a "bright" example of that very principle. And since it was written by the one who is responsible for revivalism at the general level of the church, it does seem to me that we're not even "a modern institution trying to reach post-moderns", we are "a modern institution trying to change post-moderns back into moderns in order for us to be able to reach them"!

Now that is where Brian McLaren and others have a message, and I still believe it is a message that needs to be heard.
I also believe you yourself don't need to hear it :basic03

Unfortunately, you are not the average Nazarene.

[Brad Mercer]

As I see it, the problem is frequently that we as individual long-time Nazarenes (or adherents of other conservative evangelical denominations) develop split personalities. We are, in fact, as you suggest, post-moderns in every sphere of our lives -- except -- in church. We maintain a complete dichotomy between church and the rest of our weekly lives. Our church life is modern -- the structures, language, programs and presuppositions behind them are all modern, in a typical traditional Nazarene church. If we reflect on that dichotomy at all, we frame it as the church against the world, rather than as a dichotomy within ourselves. For instance, a manager goes to seminars and reads business books that teach him to manage by more positive and more effective means than constantly reminding his employees of their duty, but at church he still relies, and still thinks the pastor should rely, on shame and manipulation through calls to duty and condemnations for failing in their duties, to get people to behave appropriately. I think we may very well sometimes need some help in recognizing that dichotomy and doing in regard to the church and its message what comes naturally in ever other sphere of our lives.

It's like medieval Christians in Rome continuing to speak Latin in church after everyone had begun speaking Italian in the rest of their activities.

Brad

There is definitely a sense in which this is a very appropriate point. I think the “We have only to be the Church and God will make it grow.” line, while being simplistic is probably true too. If we are in fact being the church we will genuinely care that our message is being heard and understood. Isn’t that what was meant by Billy’s original post? The Church of the Nazarene didn’t set out to reach moderns by having classes on how to reach them, most of them were moderns or were becoming moderns and the impact on that issue wasn’t being thought through. They just did what came naturally. I too have been frustrated quite a few times by the constant rhetoric about finding ways of to reach post-moderns. It occurred to me one day why. I have grown up in a developing post modern culture, I was educated in post-modern paradigms. My default setting is to think post-modern and to be frustrated by the modern perspective. Every time I hear the church telling me to learn how to be post-modern I want to scream at them to stop trying to force me into being a modern learning how to communicate to the post-modern. Just leave me alone and I will think the issues through like a post-modern. At some level it seems to me that the agenda is to teach Christians “modern” constructs of thinking and then get them to learn how to communicate to the post modern so that they can in turn convert people back to the modern church. I think we are at the point where we need to stop looking at the church as a modern institution trying to reach post-moderns and simply let the church become what God intended it to be – a culturally relevant expression of His grace. Am I reflecting at all what you were trying to say Billy?

[Hans Deventer]

Good post, Brad. You're making a lot of sense (more than I would at 2:45 am)

[Brad Mercer]

Good post, Brad. You're making a lot of sense (more than I would at 2:45 am)

I have to leave right now to take my son Wesley to the airport. He's on his way to spend a week's vacation in Nicaragua, paid for by his Nicaraguan-American girlfriend's doctor father.

Then I'll come back home and try to get a little sleep before the new day begins.

Bye!

Brad

[Billy Cox]

Sure, but that kind of begs the question. How does one become a "healthy, multi-generational church? How do we go about fulfilling the charge to "only be the Church"? What does that mean? How do we do that, in the details? God will always have a people, but it's not promised that there will always be a Church of the Nazarene as a component of his people. There was a Church of God for 1900 years without us, and there may well be a Church of God for another 1900 years in the future without us.

A "healthy multi-generational church" that is "only" being the Church in a post-modern community has almost by definition already become post-modern. The question is how they got there when other churches who also at some level wanted to continue to be a part of God's plan to rescue the perishing didn't succeed in making that transition, and died, even though they started out looking very much like the sister Nazarene church down the street that did make that transition.

Certainly those churches that communicate clearly and compellingly to the actual people around them will reach people and survive as institutions, and those that don't, won't. Maybe such communication can happen without reflection or deliberate, purposeful action for some, but maybe more of us could get there if we had a little help.

As we ourselves become more and more thoroughly post-modern ourselves, just by virtue of living and working in this time and place, we'll more and more talk in church and about God and faith from the same perspective and in the same language that we talk about everything else. The people who started the branches of the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles and New York City were essentially modernists to start with, while the Southern group was probably more traditional and agrarian. They struggled among themselves from the beginning, as evidenced by the debate over the special rules at Pilot Point. As the broader culture continued to shift, the church continued to struggle with how to deal with those shifts. Obviously those kinds of cultural shifts happen gradually, and certainly not without struggle, as indicated by our declining involvement in compassionate and inner city ministries in the 1920's and the church splits we suffered as large groups left the Church of the Nazarene to found their own reactionary denominations in the '50's.

So there certainly was hoopla and anxiety. The bottom line, it seems to me, was that just about the time we got past all that hoopla and anxiety and got settled into a broad consensus, the next cultural shift began, and our growth, which had been fairly phenomenal from 1908 through the 1950's as we were struggling with those issues, began to level off in the 60's and has been completely flat-lined for some time now. We are a significantly smaller percentage of the United States today than we were 40 years ago. From what I've been able to tell from the statistics, it looks like Nazarenes are also a smaller percentage of Australians than they were 30 years ago, too.

I think if we dismiss the need to actually think through the issues that face us as an institution today within our own broader culture, we won't see a lot of those healthy churches who are only being the church, that God is causing therefore to grow. Part of being healthy, and being the church, a very central part, in fact, is to love him with all our mind as well as spirit, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and I think loving him with all our mind, part of the "renewing of your minds", includes actually deliberately thinking about who my specific, individual neighbors are, what language they speak, what assumptions we share and what assumptions we don't share, so that I can love them as I love myself, and communicate that love in a way that they can recognize as love.

If love could be perfected in practice without "noise" and "hoopla", we wouldn't need much preaching, and we certainly wouldn't need whatever they're calling the Special Rules these days. We probably wouldn't need all of those books in the Bible, even.

At least that's my own personal opinion, which may indeed be worth what you're paying for it.
:fav18

If I'm wrong, I hope my noise and hoopla are at worst just irrelevant, rather than destructive. Some days I recognize that I'm relying on grace rather more heavily than on other days.

Love,
Brad


I have been considering why talk about reaching post-moderns gets my snake oil reflex going - that is, my skepticism about calling the church to action based on ideas or concepts that are not widely understood within the organization. The only thing I have come up with is that post-moderns are often portrayed as 'those people out there', when in reality they are among us or they 'are' us.

The inescapable irony in my mind is that the church tries to categorize, analyze, classify, and dissect post modernism in a thoroughly modern way. I believe that post modernism defies such analysis, hence my insistence on being the Church - which yes, includes seeking to know the community.

The question that bothers me is whether an organization that has codified modernism into the Manual has room for people like myself who aren't infatuated with the trappings of institutional power.

How do we reach post-moderns? Identify the post-moderns already in our churches and actively listen to them. Understanding begins with firsthand research.

[Billy Cox]

There is definitely a sense in which this is a very appropriate point. I think the “We have only to be the Church and God will make it grow.” line, while being simplistic is probably true too. If we are in fact being the church we will genuinely care that our message is being heard and understood. Isn’t that what was meant by Billy’s original post? The Church of the Nazarene didn’t set out to reach moderns by having classes on how to reach them, most of them were moderns or were becoming moderns and the impact on that issue wasn’t being thought through. They just did what came naturally. I too have been frustrated quite a few times by the constant rhetoric about finding ways of to reach post-moderns. It occurred to me one day why. I have grown up in a developing post modern culture, I was educated in post-modern paradigms. My default setting is to think post-modern and to be frustrated by the modern perspective. Every time I hear the church telling me to learn how to be post-modern I want to scream at them to stop trying to force me into being a modern learning how to communicate to the post-modern. Just leave me alone and I will think the issues through like a post-modern. At some level it seems to me that the agenda is to teach Christians “modern” constructs of thinking and then get them to learn how to communicate to the post modern so that they can in turn convert people back to the modern church. I think we are at the point where we need to stop looking at the church as a modern institution trying to reach post-moderns and simply let the church become what God intended it to be – a culturally relevant expression of His grace. Am I reflecting at all what you were trying to say Billy?

Yeah, that's pretty close.

[Brad Mercer]

Ah! Okay, now I understand, and agree completely! I was pretty sure I would, eventually. Thanks.

Brad

I have been considering why talk about reaching post-moderns gets my snake oil reflex going - that is, my skepticism about calling the church to action based on ideas or concepts that are not widely understood within the organization. The only thing I have come up with is that post-moderns are often portrayed as 'those people out there', when in reality they are among us or they 'are' us.

The inescapable irony in my mind is that the church tries to categorize, analyze, classify, and dissect post modernism in a thoroughly modern way. I believe that post modernism defies such analysis, hence my insistence on being the Church - which yes, includes seeking to know the community.

The question that bothers me is whether an organization that has codified modernism into the Manual has room for people like myself who aren't infatuated with the trappings of institutional power.

How do we reach post-moderns? Identify the post-moderns already in our churches and actively listen to them. Understanding begins with firsthand research.