It seems to me that European representations of Christ have steadily been on the way out -- both in the media as well as in the Christian culture at large. In fact, traditional portrayals of Jesus as a fair-skinned white man are even being teased and used in parodies! If you haven't yet visited vintage21.com, you've GOTTA check out their four "Jesus Videos" -- they're hilarious!

Anyway, with the popularity of icons on the rise (both ancient as well as contemporary), and the continuing de-europeanization of Christianity in many arenas, I'm thinking that the dominance of a White Christ is quickly fading.

Now, with that said... I've got to say that I enjoy ethnic portrayals of Christ. In fact, it's refreshing to encounter an Asian Christ, an African Christ, an Hispanic or Native American Christ. And in such an environment, a European Christ should be taken in equal stride.

Do you see this trend as well? What are your thoughts?

The room is quiet, except for wordless music softly playing in the background. The man up front has asked us to bow our heads and close our eyes.

"If you would like to receive Christ," he begins, "just raise your hand." The awkward silence continues.

"I see your hand... and I see your hand... and yours..." he says before continuing, "Now, I'd like you to pray and repeat after me..."

Something like this has been the reality for countless thousands of Evangelical Christians over the past 50-some years. The raising of a hand; the repeating of a prayer; the explanation of a new-found faith.

But things are beginning to change within Evangelical churches -- increasing numbers of pastors and leaders are teaching that baptism rather than a raised hand or a repeated prayer is the true sign of faith -- the true sign of decision.

"And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" - 1 Peter 3:21 (NRSV)

An appeal to God...
Could it be that we were never meant to separate our "asking Christ into our lives" from the act of baptism?

I'm especially intrigued by this second of three installments as I interview Matt and Dawn about house church ministry -- and even more so in light of my earlier post and the amazing quote by Reggie McNeal. If you missed part one, you can find it here.

Chris:
How has pastoring a house-church changed “how” you encourage, participate-in, and facilitate ministry?

Matt:
As for myself, I experienced a shift in my thinking. For several years, I had the experience of being a full time music director at a large IC. This involved managing an "all volunteer" music program that included a worship band, orchestra, and singers. I found myself striving for nothing less than "musical excellence," and saw these volunteers as people with musical giftings who helped to make me and my department look good.

I cared for these people as much as I could with "thank you cards", pats on the back, etc. -- like a pastor would. However, I did not know these people with any spiritual depth. I never talked about what God was doing in their lives. I only saw what I wanted to see: "People who make me and my program look good". Never did I give any thought that maybe some of these volunteers had specific callings by God which were outside of the music department or even outside of the church walls. Could it be they themselves did not recognize their true calling by God?

Some people may have had a heart for… intercessory prayer, healing, teaching or evangelism – but if I don't help them find their calling and release them, as opposed to “keep on patting them on the back for their participation in my program, never acknowledging the calling on their life -- then I’m simply holding them "hostage" and keeping them from fulfilling their true calling by God. Also, if I never took the time to know my sheep, I wouldn’t identify their true callings in the first place. Pastors, shepherds and leaders (me included) need to repent of holding their sheep hostage – failing to release them to fulfill their true calling and destiny and using them instead for other purposes.

What would happen if we shepherds said "yes" to peoples' true calling by God, and then trained the body of Christ to say "yes" to each others' callings; resulting in ALL of us working within our callings? I would envision a lot of people would find their giftings/callings are to be used outside the four walls of the church.

At "The Gathering", there is not a committee, a church board, a staff, or even a Senior Pastor to tell us how our giftings shall be used or how we should live out our calling. We use our giftings as God leads us, we live out our calling under God's direction. At this level, I am able to shepherd people one on one more effectively. In fact, we shepherd each other. One of my personal passions, is to help people identify their giftings/callings and find a way to get them on a road to fulfill their destiny; thus forwarding the kingdom of God. Some of the giftings found in "The Gathering" are the prophetic, faith, exhorters, and listening prayer. Some are called to pastor, evangelize, teach, disciple and minister to the poor. (It's kind of peculiar, but it may well be possible to see the 5 fold ministry represented in one body – c.f. Eph 4) In fact, those of us in The Gathering know what each other's giftings/callings are, thus encouraging each other to exercise those giftings when we meet as well as in the marketplace.

Since doing church differently, I have surrendered to the fact that I do not believe in some the ways I used to do ministry.

A new book is on it's way to me -- thanks in part to Len at NextReformation.com. In his Thursday, August 19th post, evaluating a recent exchange between Brian McLaren and Dr. Duane Litfin (President, Wheaton), he interjects a fantastic quote from The Present Future, by Reggie McNeal:

"We have a church in North American that is more secular than the culture. Just when the church adopted a business model, the culture went looking for God. Just when the church embraced strategic planning (linear and Newtonian), the universe shifted to preparedness (loopy and quantum). Just when the church began building recreation centers, the culture began a search for sacred space. Church people still think that secularism holds sway and that people outside the church have trouble connecting to God. The problem is that when people come to church, expecting to find God, they often encounter a religious club holding a meeting where God is conspicuously absent. It may feel like a self-help seminar or even a political rally. But if pre-Christians came expecting to find God -- sorry! They may experience more spiritual energy at a U2 concert or listening to a Creed CD."

It feels as if the Church has lost it's prophetic gift and voice in relation to the culture-at-large. Instead of being that community-in-the-Holy-Spirit which forsees and anticipates and boldly steps out to lead -- the Church largely continues to function in "copy-cat" mode.

Does this bother anyone?

After a one-year break, one of the church's in our town is gearing up for another round of "Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames" -- the popular evangelistic drama that swept the United States (and parts of Europe) in the 90's. And the amazing (or perhaps, puzzling) thing is that it's still around!

Sure, the production has had it's critics (like this one or this one), but I'd love to hear your thoughts as to why churches and para-church ministries continue to present this drama in today's culture.

Someone showed me this painting a few days ago, and it's got me wondering...

Is this how we see the Church - the bride of Christ? Are we in love with her? Totally committed to her? Proud of her?

Sure, the Church has problems. But rather than "washing" the bride and helping her to clean up (Ephesians 5:25-32), I fear there are still too many of us who would rather "shoot" the bride and get a new one!

It feels to me as if we emerging church leaders need to develop more passion for the bride of Christ. Do you agree or disagree?

Some culture-embracing leaders within the Emerging Church may find it difficult relating to our Orthodox brethren in Greece -- especially when they publically explain their disdain for certain aspects of the Olympics:

Like many of the country’s religious leaders, Father Eirinaios Nakos, of Athens Orthodox Cathedral, is suspicious of Olympiad ideals: 'We support the Olympiad, but the Church does not believe in the ancient pagan aspects of the Olympic movement, which are idolatrous. For example, the Olympic flame is idolatry.'

The quote is part of an interesting discussion going on at World Magazine Blog.

So what do you think? Do our Greek brothers have the backbone that we may lack? Or does their stance on this issue hurt the name of Christ?

One of the refreshing emphases common throughout the Emerging Church today is the value being placed on asking the right questions, instead of being compelled to provide the right answers.

I love questions. And I appreciate this greater emphasis on valuing the right questions.

Thanks to Andii at Nouslife, I came across a brief and well-articulated example -- at The Dying Church -- of asking the "right questions." Go check it out -it's very helpful. I'm convinced that the right questions help us to focus our attention and energies in the right direction. The right questions often remind us of the theological tensions of our faith -- the both/and realities that challenge and mystify us. I thank God for such questions.

But in the emerging community of faith of which I'm a part, I'm discovering that more and more people are as hungry for answers as they are for the right questions. Now, I'm not suggesting that the need is for answers to the "right questions," but rather a valuing of both questions -- in some instances -- and answers in others.

The challenge for those of us in emerging churches or those simply desiring to reach the postmodern culture -- is to discern when the right question is what's most needed (resisting, if necessary, the urge to provide answers), and when answers should be wisely and humbly offered.

If you too have found yourself wondering about the valuing of questions and/or answers, I'd love to hear about it.

Matt and Dawn Segawa left the staff of a denominational megachurch over two years ago, embarking on a journey where God led them out of a traditional way of doing church and into a new way (for them) of being church. As ordained thirty-something pastors who are part of “Third Day Churches” – Matt and Dawn have developed some amazing insights into culture and ministry and what’s ahead for the universal Body of Christ.

Over the next 2 weeks, Paradoxology will be featuring the results of an interview I conducted with the Segawa’s. What has me really excited about all this is the fact that Matt & Dawn are house-church practitioners (rather than simply thought-leaders). In addition, the Segawa’s are regular readers of Paradoxology and are looking forward to interacting with those of you who end up posting questions or comments. My hope, is that we’ll see more interaction like this throughout the blogosphere. That said – I hope you enjoy the interview!

Chris:
What was it that led you out of the institutional church structures you had previously been involved in for years, and into the house-church movement?

Matt:
We were still attending a large institutional church when God moved on our hearts to start a home fellowship. This was a gathering of believers, meeting every other week, who wanted to pursue more of God in their lives – to experience more of God than what we were experiencing on Sunday mornings. We were careful to leave “church politics” outside and focus only on Jesus. We had potluck dinners together, worship that was not rushed, had great discussions about God and his Word, prayed over each other, and held each other accountable for the difficult things in our lives. Since “the clock” had no relevance to us, some meetings would last 4+ hours.

A year-and-a-half later, sensing a new direction in our calling, we left the IC. At that time, it was obvious to us that we were getting more spiritual nourishment out of our home fellowship than from the church we’d been attending. God began to speak to us, moving us to do something more with our home fellowship. And that fellowship became church for us.

Dawn:
I’d like to say that we didn’t purposely set out to make the shift from an institutional church into what we’re doing now. If God had made it clear that he wanted us to stay within the institutional church, we would have done that. It was all about obeying where we felt God was leading us, rather than reacting or rebelling or turning against the institutional church. We were simply open to wherever God was leading us. And that happened to be under Gary Goodell. And he happened to be the one who was saying “yes” to us and affirming, “yes, you have a call on your life.” And so it was where God was giving us an open door.

Matt:
Gary ended up blessing our calling by God and released us. And so we went back to our fellowship and shared with them about our plan to become a network of house churches. This meant reorganizing into three groups which would meet each week, and then all come together once a month to see each other, worship together and party with God together. And so that’s how we got started. And when we started we had about 30 people with us, but the majority were still attending institutional churches as well as ours. We had made the shift that this was our “church”, and since then God has sent us others who are like-minded.

A spiritual type of slavery? Such a notion in today's culture immediately sends us running. The idea of slavery -- in any form -- elicits alarm, repulsion, and even anger. Yet despite the vast socio-political differences between our culture today and that of the Roman empire in the first-century, I find myself wondering... is there something about being a slave of Christ that is both missing and needed today?

Romans 1:1 (NLT) This letter is from Paul, Jesus Christ's slave, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News.

James 1:1 (NLT) This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ...

Although the leadership of the early church often spoke of themselves this way -- as slaves of Christ -- their writings sometimes portrayed spiritual slavery very differently:

Galatians 4:7 (NLT) Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you.

So herein lies yet another paradox -- for it seems that the testimony of scripture both encourages and discourages a kind of spiritual servitude.