Kingdom Pants

Scot McKnight is on a tirade right now, trying to get people to slow down and think through what they mean when they say “Kingdom.” He pointed out two, somewhat generational definitions of the word.

For the “Skinny Jeans” crowd, there is “kingdom work” which more or less means doing social justice (ie – Tom’s Shoes, wells in Africa).

For the Pleated Pants crowd there are “kingdom moments” where something miraculous happens (ie – healings, reconciliation, victory over evil systems)

This can be pretty offensive to people giving their life for their definition of the Kingdom. But Scot has a point. Skinny jeans leave the church for their wells. Pleated pants use the church to manufacture experiences.

No Rule Book

McKnight went on to team up with Bill Webb (of Slaves, Women and Homosexuals infamy) to radically reenvision how we read the BIble.

Looking at the “divorce texts” they showed how the gospel writers and Paul each framed Jesus teaching a little differently. They made three points:

1. There is no “ultimate ethic” reflected in a single verse of scripture.
2. The Bible is full of stories of discernment, applying ethics to culturally bound circumstances.
3. You can see incremental movement throughout scripture toward a redemptive ethic, found most clearly in the teachings of Jesus and embodied in the Church.

In other words, the Bible is a great story, but it makes for a lousy rule book.

The No Pants Gospel

Mandy Smith answered the lingering question, “how then do we read the Bible?” Mandy’s answer: “let the Bible read you.”

If the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing bones and marrow, we should treat God’s Word like a surgical tool.

We cannot approach the Bible to justify our personal need to be involved in social justice.

We cannot approach the Bible to justify our personal need for an exciting, life-changing experience.

We must approach the Bible as the Word of God, carrying the authority of God. We must set aside our own agendas and approach it naked of our hopes and dreams.

How do we read the Bible? Only with the expectation that learning to live in the Kingdom where God reigns will hurt.

The post The No Pants Gospel appeared first on Chris Morton.

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For the last four years, I’ve called Vox Veniae my home. Vox is the most fun, innovative and loving church community I’ve ever known. Why would anyone leave?

1) If you love something, you want there to be more of it.

I landed at Vox Veniae a little beat up. On my first visit, I saw no pretense, heard the soothing hymns of Sufjan Stevens and was invited out to lunch. The community was made of individuals at different stages of faith with varying lifestyles. They exuded creativity and a sense of belonging. I was encouraged to participate, not just watch.

In a world where millennials seem to be dropping out of church, Vox is young and vibrant. In a commuting culture, Vox is passionate about being good neighbors. In a politically polarized culture, Vox is fighting to create a quiet space to listen to God.

I would love to spend the next few decades as a part of Vox. There is something I am convinced is more important: giving more people the opportunity I had.

2) We need neighborhood churches.

Here’s my theory: the best antidote for consumer church is incarnational communities. When I say “incarnational“, I mean that the church follows the methodology of Jesus: “the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.” Jesus, the eternal Word of God and second person of the Trinity, became a baby. He got calloused hands from working hard labor, spoke Aramaic and ate a lot of locally sourced fish.

There’s a lot of great regional churches. Sometimes the people who live in the same neighborhood as the church building don’t know much about the church other than the traffic jams on Sundays. I’m betting that living the church together in our neighborhoods will make it easier to participate in meaningful community and love our neighbors.

3) My season of “receiving healing” is over.

My church has been a safe place for those who are hurting. I’ve settled into myself a lot over the last few years. The community and resources at Vox have helped with that. The next step of healing will come from working for the benefit of others.

4) It’s good to serve with friends.

Austin Mustard Seed began as the dream of my friends John and Sherri Chandler. They’ve encouraged me throughout my time in Austin. I love working with John and have been thrilled to meet likeminded leaders in Mustard Seed’s network, Ecclesia. John is much more pastoral than I am, more of an optimist and a better preacher. When I looked at churches and organizations around the world, I found that I got more excited about serving with a friend than starting from scratch.

5) God won’t leave me alone.

In college, I was introduced to the idea of church planting. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head for years.

People need Jesus. The world needs communities of Jesus-disciples. We can’t fix our broken world, but we can introduce it to Jesus. We can’t build a perfect society, but we can strive to live out his teachings together. When I read scripture, it seems that the local church is both the means and the ends of God’s current work in the world.

When you think of it that way, why would you want to be a part of anything else?

Austin Mustard Seed begins weekly gatherings on October 13. Visit AustinMustardSeed.org to learn more. If you’d like to know how you can participate or support this work, send me an email.

The post Why I am helping plant Austin Mustard Seed (and you should, too!) appeared first on Chris Morton.

According to Woodward’s, there is a direct correlation between the forms of church leadership and the spiritual lives of individual believers.  He draws on Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 4 that there is a “link between the spiritual maturity of the church and the five kinds of equippers operating in the church: apostles (what I nickname dream awakeners), prophets (heart revealers), evangelists (story tellers), pastors (soul healers) and teachers (light givers)”.

This view of church leadership is occasionally referred to as APEPT.  The modern churches obsession with Pastor/Teachers often leads to the joke “where are all the APEs in the church?

Here’s a quick overview, and my response:

Part One: The Power of Culture

The book begins by asking:

• What is culture? 
• How does it shape us? 
• What does it mean to have “missional” culture?

Culture is made up of rituals, narratives, ethics and institutions.  Churches usually copy these from their host culture. Instead, they should be approached missionally.

Part Two: A Leadership Imagination That Shapes Missional Culture

He then shows the inherent social-ness of the Trinity shows the need for social-ness in leadership.  With this framework laid, he introduces his ideal of polycentric leadership.

Part Three: The Five Culture Creators

Woodward gets to the meat of his proposal: the five equippers in Ephesians 4 are meant to be a functional model of leadership.

Part Four: Embodying a Missional Culture

The book ends with examples of from Churches exploring polycentric leadership.

Creating a Missional Culture helped me connect some disconnected dots. I have often wondered “why are all leaders called pastors?” or “what happened to all the prophets and apostles?” If Woodward is right, their is a much fuller and more powerful expression of Church than what we are experiencing.

Woodward’s dream is much more difficult than how many Churches organize. But if he’s right, it may be exactly what your Church needs to grow into what God has dreamed up.

Does your church engage the Four Equippers?  How?

The post Three Essential Leaders Missing From Your Church appeared first on Chris Morton.

• Still flying high from my time in DC with Missio Alliance.  It ended up being a bit of a family reunion, with old friends from growing up in Denver, my alma mater, Ecclesia network, and my Fuller MAGL cohort and my church in Austin.
• One person said to me “now I understand Chris!  These are his people.”  That felt good.
• There’s been lots of great feedback from my post Eight Game-Changers Observed at Missio Alliance. One person even wrote a response.  Check it out, and share your thoughts.
• Here’s some other people who have been blogging about Missio:
  • The Missio Alliance eBook Sale from Zondervan | Scot McKnight, Jesus Creed
  • Missio Alliance Poems | Tori Lane, Fusion Project
  • Theology at Missio Alliance | Ken Schenck, Wesleyan University
  • Did I Get What I Expected from Missio Alliance? | Kevin Scott, Sustainable Christianity
• After leaving Missio Alliance, I headed up to New York to spend a few days with my sister and brother-in-law (and future niece!) in the Bronx. Here we are at The Cloisters.
• She is responsible for my awesome new profile pic.  Thanks!

Brother-Sister-Niece!

• Highlight of this trip to NYC? Highline Park.  A former freight train track that runs across through the city that has been repurposed into a hanging garden.  The best views I’ve seen in New York.  Pretty much the closest I’ll ever get to being Spider-Man.

via

• I try to befriend anyone I see reading N.T. Wright in public.  Yesterday at the best-looking coffee shop in Austin, I met Shane Blackshear, a blogger, podcaster, and part of an inspiring church community named Mosaic.  Check out this interview he did with Derek Webb.

The post Friday Roundup 4.19: Bloggers, Cloisters, Spider-Man and Family appeared first on Chris Morton.

Missio Alliance is the brainchild of the Ecclesia Network.  It is a much needed effort to provide a theological framework for how to be the church in a 21st Century, Post-Christendom America.  It features a few speakers who have radically shaped who I am and how I think, most prevalently, Dallas Willard and Scot McKnight.  Other participants include my church’s own Gideon Tsang and one of my incredible Fuller MAGL professors Shelley Trebesch.  Beside’s world-class content, here are the other two reasons I can’t wait:

A Gathering of the Other Voices

Missio is not the first attempt to rethink the church for the 21st century.  However, previous attempts seem to have shifted their energies to focusing on postmodern deconstructionism, or reinvigorating reformed theology.  Missio bills itself as a gathering of Practitioners, Theologians and Missologists who are

“Exploring the shape of a missional encounter with this new context calls for asking fresh questions and engaging in dialogue about topics as fundamental as the gospel, humanity, Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the Kingdom of God; all framed around the role of the Church in relationship to God’s mission in the world.”

It is a promise that the perspective of those of us who follow Christ but don’t fit into the boxes provided by the style of faith seen in American will be heard.

Relationships are Key

Knowing that the event is an outgrowth of the Ecclesia Network, you can expect a heavy focus on relationships.  The speakers are important, but I am much more excited for the time to share your war stories while sipping on quality beverages.

When someone asked me why I pay money to hang out at events like this, I broke it down this way: I spend my work life with secular people who don’t understand my faith.  I do a lot of multi-denominational work, supporting people I love, but often don’t agree with. I love doing these things, because they are my mission.  But Ecclesia gatherings are a chance to just hang out with people who love Jesus and are as crazy as I am.  That’s rare, and worth flying across the country to enjoy.

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