Hey Charlie,

This is my first time to visit your site, and I think that it is cool that you're raising questions about the church.  It is good to see postmodernism discussed freely and openly.  Most people in my neck of the woods couldn't even tell you what it is.  And they certainly don't understand the thought processes that come with it.  I've been an odd ball at my pragmatist church for around a year now, and it is extremely frustrating.

 

With that in mind, I was surprised to see so many pragmatist ideas surfacing in Eutychus Bailey's article from the future.  As a postmodern kind of person, I found his ideas to be overgeneralizations that don't rightly describe the movement.  I'm not sure if anyone cares, but I've enclosed short arguments on each of his points.

 

Leadership - He seems to think that we reject all forms of leadership.  That is simply not the case.  The Bible does indeed speak of leadership as a spiritual gift.  I don't want to be the guy to argue against that.  I will say, though, that I am very selective when it comes to the kind of leader I will follow.  I am about sick to death of number crunchers who aren't worried about anything but what is going to get more butts into the auditorium.  I am sick of leaders that only ask how to reach people.  If you'll give me a leader, however, who is concerned with actually leading the church to be a people (namely the people of God), I'll be much more inclined to follow him or her.  I want to be part of something bigger than myself, not just part of a show that tickles people's fancies.

 

Calling - As just mentioned, the Spirit gifts us as He wishes.  Some people are to be leaders of the church and are gifted to fill that role.  This does not mean that there is not a "conspiracy against the laity", though.  In my experience in the pragmatist scene, there is very little actual calling of the laity to be something more by the power of God.  The farthest we get in that direction is asking them to give up their worship preference in order to reach more people.  When it comes down to it, the question is not of the call to ministry but what kind of minister you will be.  Will you mold a church after God's own heart?  That is the heart of the matter.  (And, by the way, I'm pretty sure that a bivocational pastor can have just as much of an impact, if not more than a full time pastor).

 

Effectiveness - So what makes a church effective?  Must we once again bow to the unworthy god of numbers?  A church is effective when it is the Church.  It's as simple as that.  We hold ourselves up to a Biblical standard and things fall into place.  We allow for the leading of the Spirit, and He actually does lead.  I've become convinced that if we would just center ourselves on being a people after God's own heart that we would begin to hit the mark.  We would come to understand true worship and true community.  We would come to feel the huge need in the world for God.  We would cry out to Him for intervention.  We would weep for revival.  That sounds like an effective church to me, and it is brought about by a move of the Holy Spirit, not by charts in the ministers' meeting room.

 

Resourcing - Call me crazy, but I really think that we could do without all of the "resourcing".  I heard recently of a product called "Church in a Box."  You open it up and bam, you've got all the tools necessary to start your own highly successful church.  Just pay the easy one time payment of ____, and you're good to go.  The problem with this is the boxed nature of the thing.  I don't have to pray.  I don't have to see my community through God's eyes.  I just have to open the box and follow the directions.  I just have to look to the big dogs and do as they have done.  Forget being original.  And, when it comes down to it, most of these "resources" have to do with reaching more people.  I wonder what would happen if we taught our current people what it is to have a God given gift and responsibility to be a light in the world.  I wonder what would happen if we asked continually for the Spirit's empowering and consuming of their lives.  Might they take Christ to work and bring the young single through a relationship instead of through tempting them with a Bible study with other singles?  As to the commonality between churches, do we really want to be defined by our programs and resources?  What if our commonality was obviously Jesus Christ?  What if it was that we are obviously a bunch of Jesus communities.  That's enough commonality for me.

 

Vision - Ok, once again, what exactly are we talking about?  I have personally been part of churches that have vision that only touches the three B's.  And man, it gets old.  They constantly talk about the promised land of the next building project or more numbers, but in the end, there is no end.  There is no promised land.  There will always be a bigger, better goal once we have "arrived".  I think it comes down to the vision you paint.  I personally don't want to be part of a church that is just known for depopulating hell.  I think that that is a small vision.  We are called to be the people of God in this world.  To be salt and light.  To serve the poor and oppressed.  To be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people called by God, etc.  Now that is a vision I don't mind casting.  It is a vision that is not so much concerned with reaching people as it is with being a people.  And, by the way, isn't a better translation of that verse, "Without revelation, the people cast off restraint."?  If you think about it that way, it sounds like we are in much greater need of God to speak than for vision casters to throw banquets in order to fund the latest campaign.

 

Responsibility - I'm personally not going to follow a leader who can only talk about his shortcomings.  Part of being authentic is to also share the victories of the Journey.  It is absolutely not ok for a leader to be a slacker.  It is absolutely not ok for him or her to shirk responsibility in the name of authenticity.  That really isn't authenticity at all!  It is hypocrisy.

 

Multiplication - The author's view on this was that since we've lost all this other stuff, we can't multiply.  This is just a branch that stems from the preconceived idea that church is about reaching people.  Let's take a moment, though, and think about another preconceived notion about the church: that it is about being a people.  Then let's suppose that our people caught the fire of the Holy Spirit (which happens periodically throughout history) and began to weep for their communities.  Let's assume that they began to take Christ to the workplace and supermarket and wherever.  Let's assume that church members began to pray in mass numbers that the lost be brought to Christ.  Then let's assume that half of them were blessed with leading one person to Christ per year (which we'll call a modest estimate).  We'll take a church of 100 to start off with.  In a year they are at 150.  In two they are at 225.  In three they are at 337.  In four they are at 505.  In five they are at 757.  Sounds like multiplication to me.  And we can bank on these numbers as true conversions, not church church hoppers out to find the hippest scene.

 

I guess that in the end, I don't think that we are throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Or maybe we just see different babies.  Yeah, a lot of this stuff is necessary, but in the end I hope we don't sell out to the god of numbers or vision.  I hope that we see each of these "babies" through the eyes of the Holy Spirit.  And I hope that we begin a movement in the American church that will shake it to the core.  I hope that we'll begin to take a view of church that says that She exists for God.  That She is to be a community of true worship.  That She is to come together in real community, unity, and authenticity.  I hope we stop treating Her like a business and instead see Her for the bride that She is.  And I hope that our high goal is to wash Her in the water of the Word to present Her blameless to the Bridegroom.

 

Thanks for reading.  I'll shut up now.

 

Sincerely,

Mike Smith