Best Choice Ever

Last month our church took an offering for an organization called Pregnancy Decision Health Center that helps women navigate the difficult waters of choosing not to have an abortion. I signed up to volunteer with them, but since I'm a dude there's not much I can do for them on site. So I pray and I get their newsletter, which I think comes monthly because I got my first one today. The anonymous testimony included moved me so much I wanted to pass it along to those of you who read this blog.

Recently a young woman called the Hotline as she was preparing a party for her son's first birthday. She tearfully told the Hotline worker that when she had become pregnant with him she had been planning to have an abortion. In fact, she was headed to an abortion clinic when someone told her about Pregnancy Decision and the services that we offer. She decided to walk-in to our office. She said that when she went in she was greeted with love, kindness, and respect. After talking with our consultant and hearing more information about her options and the support that was available she said she knew she would parent. When she called the Hotline, a year and a half later, she told the consultant that it was the BEST decision she has ever made! She has been so incredibly happy this past year and wanted to call and thank all the people at the office for everything. She is truly grateful to the Pregnancy Decision for the help she received and the blessing of her son.

Best. Choice. Ever.

A Biblical Mandate?

Wolfgang Simson lays out an ecclesiology (a theology of the Church) in his book The House Church Book. At the core of his ecclesiology is the fivefold ministry—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers—found in Ephesians 4:11-13. He asserts that this leadership model has been ordained by God and, therefore, the pyramid-structure of the senior leader models of many American evangelical churches is fundamentally unbiblical. But we don’t get to see his exegetical work. He seems to take it for granted that Ephesians 4 is the paradigm of church leadership. And while I want to obey Scripture with a clear conscience, I’ve come to realize that it’s not always so simple as pulling out one passage and applying that to Christians across all time and space. So I want to take a brief look at some of the key church leadership passages in the NT and see if I can’t come to some conclusions. (As I write this, I’m not convinced either way on this issue.)

Ephesians 4:11-13

This is the defining text for Simson, and it’s as good a place as any to start. The first thing that I see is that God gave five types of people to the Church for the purpose of preparing them for works of service. When we look at this passage in the light of 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12:4-8 many similarities become evident—enough that we can conclude that this is, like those, a spiritual gifts text. These five roles are really five gifts of the Spirit, and the gifts are Spirit-enabled people who are, for the Church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.

But does this mean that every church in every place must have at least one person operating in each of these gifts? Has the Holy Spirit given every local congregation an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor, and a teacher? But before we can begin to answer these questions, we have to look at, at least, two more texts.

I Timothy 3:1-7

When I come to this passage with Ephesians 4 in the back of my mind, I immediately notice that Paul makes no mention of apostles, prophets, or the rest. Instead, he uses the rather generic term overseer. And rather than describing the task of the overseer, he talks about the character required for the office.

The relevant question for this discussion is, “What is the relationship between overseers and the five roles mentioned in Ephesians 4?” The fashion seems to be, in Evangelicalism anyhow, that the senior pastor is the overseer operating in all five of the Eph. 4 gifts. (And if not all five, then the gifts left out are not present in that congregation.) The fivefold ministry is accomplished, then, by this one man.

But does this make sense of the biblical record? Let me ask some probing questions. Are apostles overseers? Are prophets overseers? What about evangelists? And pastors? And are teachers overseers? Perhaps, in the letter to Timothy, Paul is talking about an office, and in the letter to the Ephesians, he is talking about the spiritual manifestations of that office. In other words, some people are overseers through the gift of apostleship and others through the gift of prophecy—and so it goes. 1 Timothy 3 is about the character of the people who lead the church, and Ephesians 4 is about the gifts and mission of those leaders.

But we still don’t have a clear sense of a biblical structure of Church leadership. Let’s look at one more passage and see if we can come to some conclusions.

Acts 6:1-4

This is, I believe, the genesis of the ministry of deacons. The twelve disciples chose seven men to administer the needs of the Church, while they themselves kept at their task of “prayer and the ministry of the word”. One of the interesting things about this passage is that Luke’s purpose in writing it is to introduce Stephen, the first Christian martyr. His point was not to lay a foundation for Church governance that would endure through all time and in every place.

Rather than finding a biblical Church leadership model in Acts 6, what we have is a really good idea. The Spirit guided the twelve disciples to not get bogged down in the details of food distribution, but to keep at their primary work of prayer and the word. This delegation of responsibility also empowered other men to step into leadership roles, which, in that instance at least, greatly improved the overall health of the congregation.

The conclusions of this very brief exercise are:

• The fivefold ministry is a function of the gifting of the Holy Spirit.
  
• Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are the gifts of the Spirit to the Church.
  
• Overseer is an office that has specific character qualifications that must be met.
  
• Overseer is the general term for church leader.
  
• Anyone operating within the fivefold ministry who meets the character qualifications can be an overseer.
  
• Wise delegation of leadership responsibility leads to healthy Church environments.
  

But have we found a biblical mandate for Church leadership structures? I don’t think so, but I’ll have to give it some more thought and, hopefully, come back to the issue tomorrow.

The FiveFold Ministry

How should church leadership be structured? That is one of the main questions Wolfgang Simson tackles in his book, The House Church Book. Most churches that I’m familiar with have a leadership structure shaped like a pyramid. The senior pastor is at the top, and beneath him are the elders, the staff, and the lay (volunteer) leaders. There is a clear reporting system, with neatly defined levels of leadership. Many churches use titles, like Pastor and Director, to draw sharp lines of distinction between these levels.

There are many benefits to the pyramid structure of church leadership, but the most important question is not whether it is efficient or productive, but whether it is biblical. Wolfgang Simson’s answer is a definitive, “No!” The current structure, he says, more closely resembles corporate America than the New Testament church. The biblical mandate for church leadership structure is found in Ephesians 4:11-13.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Simson finds here what he calls “the fivefold ministry”: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These five people, he insists, are to share leadership within the church. (Which, he asserts, should not be any larger than 20 people—but that’s a discussion for another day.) Rather than a pyramid, the leadership structure of the church ought to be flat, with these five roles filled by five individuals. The man-at-the-top is replaced by five people, each ministering according to the gift that God has given them.

Some questions worth asking: Is God issuing a mandate for the leadership structure in the church, binding the church to the fivefold ministry for all time? Is the pyramid structure unbiblical, and therefore sinful? Do you have apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in your church? What would it look like, in your local church setting, to have a flat leadership structure with each of these roles filled by someone in your congregation?

These are big questions that I believe are worth exploring more fully, and I’ll do my best to flesh them out a bit over the next few days. What we’re really talking about here is ecclesiology, or the nature of the church. This goes far beyond leadership structures, and points to the inner workings of the Body of Christ—how it is, exactly, that we are prepared for works of service and built up until we reach unity and attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, as Paul envisioned two millennia ago.

Why America Hates Soccer

Apparently there's some large soccer tournament happening somewhere in the world. I know this because my facebook stalker-feed is being bombarded by over-earnest soccer fans updating their statuses with bitter soccer apologetics. They hate that soccer isn't popular in America, and now their hearts are aflame with the hope that the World Cup will pique American's interest in the world's sport. Sigh.

Well, let me break it down for you. Americans hate soccer, and here's why: Americans are story people. We love stories. We love plot and tension and resolution. In fact, we crave resolution like we crave cheeseburgers. We like turns of fortune and plot twists. Story is built into our DNA, and the sports we love reflect this.

Every at bat in baseball and every possession in football is a story. There is a beginning (first down, strike one), a middle (a swinging bat, a missed tackle), and an end (the runner crosses home plate, the pass is intercepted). There is tension and resolution. And then we get to watch it happen again! And each at-bat and each possession is like a mini-story of our lives. We're down in the count. We need to go the whole nine yards. We live out the story of our lives dozens of time in the span of a few hours.

The reason why soccer will never, ever become a popular sport in America is because there is no clear story. There is too much tension and not enough resolution. (This is why, I think, soccer fans are so violent. Their game is fundamentally frustrating!) Far too few goals are scored. Far too many shots go wide. Far too little action takes place in front of the net.

Americans want results. We crave it. We need it. Whether it's in sports, business, or politics, Americans are pragmatists who want to see effort lead to results. We like touchdowns and interceptions; homeruns and strikeouts; slam dunks and blocked shots. While we admire the effort of soccer players, we hate--and I mean HATE--that so many shots miss the goal. It's the ultimate sporting letdown. There's nothing more frustrating than watching a great drive peter out because the ball trickled out of bounds. And this happens ALL THE TIME in soccer. The story isn't resolved. You're left hanging. Nobody succeeded and nobody failed. The ball just went out of bounds. This doesn't settle well in the hearts of Americans. In soccer, there are not enough happy endings.

Soccer will never take off in America. It's too frustrating to watch. Maximum effort. Minimum results. You can point to the increased activity in youth soccer leagues all you want. The fact is those have been growing since I was a kid, and you know what, we still hate soccer. We don't watch it. We don't want it. You can have your corner kicks and bittersweet draws. We'll take touchdown passes and walk-off homeruns. Thank you, and God bless America.

Book Review: There Is A God

Antony Flew was a leading philosopher and atheist of the mid to late twentieth century. He taught at several distinguished schools, including Oxford, Aberdeen, and Reading. He also taught at Bowling Green State Universtiy, near my hometown of Toledo, Ohio. He passed away in April of this year.

In There is a God, Flew lays out his journey from atheism to deism, briefly sketching each of the arguments that influenced the evolution of his thought. Because I am not a philosopher, I will not attempt to summarize those arguments here. The book itself is short enough (less than 220 pages) and colloquial enough to not be overwhelming. Many of us may need a Philosophical Dictionary nearby to understand some of the terms, but most folks can easily follow the arc of the story.

The book is a narrative rather than a philosophical treatise, and it tells the story of Flew’s life as it pertains to the issue of the question of God. He tells tales of his many interactions with Christian and Theist philosophers in debates and dialogues. While there was no singular moment of illumination, it was the cumulative effect of these interactions which brought him to his “conversion.” (I put conversion in quotes because he did not become a Christian, so far as I know. He simply came to believe in a “divine Mind”.)

The “conversion” sent a shockwave through the philosophical and atheistic communities. Flew was a pillar of atheism, one of the greatest minds and most ardent defenders of the “faith”. His admission of the existence of a divine Mind was too much for some to bear. There were accusations that the co-author, Roy Abraham Varghese, manipulated Flew, by then an old man, into publishing this book. While Flew admitted that Varghese did the actual writing, he asserted that the thoughts were his. In the years leading up to his death, Flew publicly declared, again and again, that he had become a deist (and denied becoming a Christian or a Theist).

The guiding principle of Flew’s life, and the through line of this book, is the Aristotelian line, “follow the argument wherever it leads.” It was his commitment to this ideal that ultimately led him out of atheism and into belief in a divine Mind. The primary evidence, as laid out in his book, is the complexity of DNA and the lack of a naturalistic explanation for the evolution of reproductive capability. These issues led him to belief in a divine Mind, which of course is not all the way to the Christian Creator God, but is a large leap of faith for an atheist of his stature.

The book includes two appendices, one by Varghese and the other by N.T. Wright. While Flew was “converted” to the concept of a divine Mind, he did not believe in divine revelation, though he was open to being convinced. Of all the religions claiming divine revelation, he thought Christianity to be the only one worth noting.

“I think that the Christian religion is the one religion that most clearly deserves to be honored and respected whether or not its claim to be a divine revelation is true. There is nothing like the combination of a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first-class intellectual like St. Paul. …If you’re wanting Omnipotence to set up a religion, this is the one to beat.” (185-6)

Wright’s contribution is a brief but potent sketch of his defense for the existence of Jesus, his divinity, and the historicity of the resurrection. This alone is worth the price of the book, and if you’ve never read Wright (what are you waiting for?!), will give you a solid introduction to his three large volumes on Jesus.

I don’t know where Antony Flew stood on the issues Wright raised when he died in April. There’s something oddly refreshing, for me at least, that his book was about his conversion to deism and not to evangelical Christianity. It seems more honest that way, I guess. But of course I hope that he came to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, and to receive the forgiveness offered him from the cross.

Questions: How does the “conversion” of a notorious atheist strengthen your faith? What are the most important philosophical questions regarding the existence of God? What are the most important pieces of scientific evidence in this debate?