Considering Radical

Radical by David Platt is one of the books that has been enjoying lots of word of mouth among American Calvinists (mainly neo-Calvinists) since its release.  When I had the opportunity to get a review copy, I took it.  I wanted to read it to see what the buzz was about, and the topic interests me.

“I am convinced that we as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe.”

Years ago, I preached my Advent series from Revelation.  One of those sermons was on the dual strategies of the Evil One to destroy the church.  The Beast represents governments that persecute the church.  The Prostitute represents seduction, as the world seduces the church such that she slowly becomes like the world.  In some countries the church experiences persecution, but here in America we face the Seductress.  It goes without saying that the message was not well received by some.  So, that being said, I get what David Platt is trying to say in his book.

This is not a new subject.  Michael Horton has written numerous books on the subject of how American Christianity has been warped by American values (instead of the influence going the other way).  People like Ron Sider, Francis Chan and a host of others have tackled this subject in the 25 years since Christ rescued me.  In fact, this book is part Horton (he stresses some theological ideas contrary to American thought- Calvinism), part Francis Chan (a ‘radical’ approach) and part Ron Sider (“pack your bags, we’re going on a guilt trip).  Which makes this a difficult book to review.

“A command for us to be gospel-living, gospel-speaking people at every moment and in every context where we find ourselves.”

Radical is not as good as the hype nor as bad as most (poorly informed) critics make it out to be.  But let me start with some good things, because there are things I appreciate about the book.  There are things the American Church needs to reckon with regarding how we’ve been seduced by our corner of the world.

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Considering Success

The final chapter of Total Church covers the idea of success.  After a few less than stellar chapters, they end the book with a home run.

Pastors and congregations often fall prey to false (idolatrous) views of success.  Those idolatrous views often assume control, OUR control over outcomes.  We do have control over our choices and decisions, but we can’t control how those turn out.  So they suggest three shifts in outlook.

First, from larger churches to more churches.  We often measure the success of a church by how large it is (or isn’t).  There are many factors that go into how large a church becomes (faithfulness to the gospel, or lack there of an important one).  They suggest we change our model to more churches- measuring growth in terms of starting new healthy gospel communities.  Yes, this could become an idolatrous numbers game too since we are sinners prone to pride.

But smaller churches (or many mulitplying small groups) provide an environment where we can obey God’s call to love one another in various ways throughout the New Testament.  Smaller communities are more likely to maintain gospel fidelity (greater accountability), as well as work out how the gospel has application to the various circumstances of the members.

Second, a shift in leadership from performance to enabling.  It is easy for pastors to get stuck in the performance trap, and many a congregation enables or demands it.  In a smaller community, the pastor’s flaws are more obvious because he is known better.  And you also see how the gospel is at work in him.  Biblically, the pastor’s role is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.

Here is the rub, in many small churches it often falls to the pastor to do most ministry.  It can be difficult to find people to equip.  This is a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.

As someone in the midst of looking for a new call, I find many churches focused on performance rather than character.  Committees can want you to sell yourself rather than demonstrate character.  We need to rediscover the biblical qualifications for office- all but one is about character!

The third shift is from a theology of glory (success) to one of the cross (suffering).  I’ve been preaching this for years, and it is a tough sell.  But people want to see how to suffer/fail/lose well.  By well, I mean finding the grace to persevere and not be crushed by suffering and disappointment.  Luther took notice of what was happening in the Letters to the Corinthians.  Like the Corinthians, the church of Rome had embraced a theology of glory.  It was about power, success, honor and more.  The American church struggles with this as well today.  Paul preaches a theology of the cross, embracing suffering along with Christ.  The community is one that embraces broken people, instead of being image conscious.  It was where this mindset prospered in the early church that the church prospered.  They took in the orphans and elderly, and the gospel made great in-roads.  But when the shift to glory took place, the gospel was obscured.

Overall this is a very good, profitable book.  Not everything they say may “fit” every congregations situation.  But the overall focus they want people to embrace is a good one, and an overdue one.

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Considering Children and Young People

As a small church pastor, we failed to satisfy many a parent’s desires when it came to children’s programming.  This is the plight of many a small church.  This is the subject Chester and Timmis address next in Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community.

They begin by exposing the problem they are having in Great Britain.  Despite the focus on youth work, many leave the church upon reaching adulthood.  It seems as though the growth of youth ministry in England has not produced any significant, positive results.  They wonder how churches can make a better impact for the gospel.

Rather than siphoning them off in a youth-focused ministry, they seek to integrate them into the gospel community.  There they are exposed to real-life Christianity.  They are also connected to more mature Christians, deepening their relationships with the whole congregation instead of just the youth worker(s).

They have also witnessed similar problems with churches utilizing children’s church.  Though it sounds as if those churches still had children’s church for teens.  If they are not integrated into the rest of worship earlier than that, then it is no wonder they leave when they graduate.

At Crowded House they integrate the kids into the gospel community as well.  They seek to maintain “dual fidelity to the gospel word and the gospel community.”  They want the kids to see people taking the Bible seriously and seeking how to obey it.  Some of their groups break up into application groups that are age appropriate.

“The integration of children into the life of the church is consistent with an understanding of the church as an extended family.”

I agree with this, yet I have also led family-oriented small groups.  The kids were a huge distraction.  The reality of the situation is that we don’t have to embrace a false dichotomy: either total integreation or total separation.  We can avoid the extremes to find a workable solution that makes sure the kids and youth are consistently exposed to the gospel (not moralism) and the gospel community, yet not distracting to the adults.  Even in the family, the kids often go off to play or study alone while adults spend quality time together.

This brief chapter left me going “yes, but” quite abit.  I embrace the ideals, but have not found their solutions as helpful as they have.

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Considering Discipleship, Training and Pastoral Care

Total Church moves from the outward focus to the inward focus that sustains the outward focus.  I like that they started with the outward focus.  Churches, just as C.S. Lewis said about sinners, tend to be curved inward.  Rare is the church that is to outward focused.  Most struggle against being ingrown, housebound and narcissistic.

They seek to maintain that dual fidelity to the gospel word and the gospel community as they seek to teach one another to obey everything Jesus has commanded.  This is the essence of discipleship.

“The means by which sinners are evangelized, the gospel word and the gospel community, are the means by which sinners are discipled.  We continue to “evangelize” one another as Christians because it continues to be the gospel message with which we exhort and encourage one another.  The good news that gives life is the good news that transforms, while the community that incarnates the gospel truth for the sinner is the community that incarnates gospel truth for the saint.”

I could not have said this better.  While we usually affirm the necessity of the gospel word, we often neglect the need for the gospel community.  Our churches often, intentionally, become too big for meaningful relationships.  Our gospel communities should look to begin new gospel communities through church planting to maintain quality life-on-life relationships.  They quote Chesterton:

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Considering Church Planting and World Mission

Let me tell you a story ….

Years ago in Orlando I was the member of a church that was beginning a capital fund raising program to move across the street into a huge new facility.  They thought it would take $5-6 million.  I met the pastor for lunch one day.  I asked him about the abandoned super-market next door: might make a good sanctuary and office space.  Apparently his deacons didn’t think it looked like a church.  I thought it would save lots of money.  “What about planting a church?”  I was not expecting the response I got.

He claimed you needed to have a membership of 3-400 to plant a new church and not “harm” the mother church.  “So, you’re telling me we have to spend $5-6 million to get a congregation large enough to think about planting a church?”  He said yes.

Since then I’ve seen churches committed to church planting rather than endless building programs.  I worshipped in one today that has planted 3 churches so far.

The authors of Total Church think this should be the rule rather than the exception.  I agree.

“Church planting puts mission at the heart of church and church at the heart of mission.”

It is too easy for churches to lose sight of vision and mission in order to maintain and sustain a bulding and programs.  Churches move into a maintenance mode, so they plateau and eventually decline.  But a gospel community is one for which growth is a commitment.  And a natural expression of that growth is the planting of new churches.

“But mission very easily becomes one activity among others in church life.  It sits on the agenda alongside a list of other items, vying for attention.  Or it is left to the enthusiasts to get on with it at the edge of church life.  For some churches mission seems a distant dream as they struggle to keep the institution of the church afloat.  Putting on a weekly service is challenge enough.”

Sounds strange, why go all the trouble to convert and mature those Christians if you’re going to send them off to start a new church?  Sounds just like a family.  You have and raise kids so they can go and start their own families.  It is part of the natural growth process God has established for your household … and His.  Building His kingdom (instead of ours) means having His priorities and passions of mission instead of ours.

The Book of Acts reveals to us that God’s priorities are for new Christians and new churches- worldwide.  Most of that book is taken up with Paul’s missionary journeys, which resulted in new churches.  The church is God’s mission strategy: locally and globally.  Remember, Paul and Barnabas were sent out by the church to form new churches (not merely convert individual sinners).  Gospel communities want to beget new gospel communities, just like families want to beget new families at least if they are healthy.

Not only that, but it takes it back out of the realm of “programs” and into the very rhythm of life.  It is no longer a “special event” but something you are always working towards, something that intentionally affects each decision for the community.

“Mission is a communal project in which a number of gospel communities are involved together as they seek to extend the reign of Jesus though planting more churches.”

Precisely!  Chester and Timmis are calling us back to gospel priorites in these chapters.  We would do well to listen.  Bigger is not always better.

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Considering Evangelism and Social Involvement

After the introductory chapters on gospel and community, Total Church authors Chester and Timmis begin to practically work them out in a variety of important areas.  They start with evangelism and social involvement.

“Our conviction is that Christian are called to a dual fideltiy- fidelity to the core content of the gospel accompanied by fidelity to the primary context of a believing community.  To ignore or minimize either is not merely to hamstring the task of evangelism; it is effectively to deconstruct it.”

Their thesis is that evangelism focuses on the gospel word within the gospel community.  A phrase often attributed to Francis of Assisi, (apparently falsely) “Preach the gospel; use words if necessary” has wrongly separated gospel preaching and words.  The gospel is a message, so words are necessary.  Sometimes actions are too!

Too often we think of our need to do evangelism individually.  We all have a personal responsibility.  But we all have strengths and weaknesses that should be balanced out in the context of the community.  Not only that, but as the gospel community “incarnates” the gospel, people have an easier time grasping the power of the gospel.

Their vision is to have people bringing people to social events where the gospel is lived and proclaimed by the community.  This takes some of the burden off of us to think we have to answer all questions, address every concern and close the deal like some cold call salesman.  Some are better at building relationships with others and inviting them into the community.  Others are better at discerning the particular gospel issues that need to be addressed.

Does this happen automatically?  No, but the goal is to create a culture of gospel intentionality where the community works together to proclaim the gospel.

“If church and mission are redefined in relational terms, then work, leisure, and family time can all be viewed as gospel activities.  Ordinary life becomes pastoral and missional if we have gospel intentionality.  Watching a film with friends or looking after a burdened mother’s children can simultaneously be family time, leisure, mission, and church.”

The gospel is also about the marginalized (economically, socially, racially etc) experiencing acceptance in the community because of the gospel.  This means that the gospel community is involved in society’s problems.  It does not merely do good, but connects it with the gospel.  We show love because God is love.  We show compassion because God is compassionate.  We offer acceptance because Christ has torn down all dividing walls to create a new living temple.  The grace of God is at stake, as we see in places like James 2.  The church is to be an economically, socially and racially diverse community.

“If our congregations are full of respectable people, then it may be that we have not truly grasped the radical grace of God.”

They make three assertions:

Evangelism and social action are distinct activities.

Proclamation is central.

Evangelism and social action are inseparable.

As with evangelism, Chester and Timmis advocate a healthier, more biblical approach to social action.  We act together, rather than as individuals.  In this way people are connected to the community, and not just an individual.  As a result, the full reality of the gospel is make known from the outset- God saves us into community.  This also protects us from creating a disconnect between evangelism and social action.  The social gospel movement merged the two, losing the distinction and usually the gospel.  Fundamentalism separated the two, often abandoning social involvement in a knee jerk reaction to the social gospel.  We are to distinguish them, but ultimately not separate them as we do the 2 natures of Messiah as well justification and sanctification.

Total church is on the right track here.  It is here they lean on their Reformed heritage rather than the Anabaptist influence which has been more characterized by retreat from society (understandable since they were persecuted greatly in Europe).

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Considering Gospel and Community

I’ve been working my way through Total Church: a Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community.  So far, it has been mostly positive.  Chester and Timmis rightly perceive many problems with how “church” is done in the Western world in which we live.  Most of their corrections are very good.  A few are frustrating.

They start with the dual call of Scripture to gospel and community.  They argue that the gospel is both word-centered and mission-centered.  It is a message to be believed, and proclaimed.  It is through this proclamation of the gospel words that community is created.  And that gopel word is proclaimed in and through the gospel community.  They build a solid understanding of the centrality of the Word (and therefore the gospel) in ministry.  It is through this message (which declares God’s acts of salvation and their implications) that God saves sinners, sanctifies saints, expands His kingdom, and more.

The church exists both through the gospel and for the gospel.

So they argue for a “train and release” strategy rather than a “convert and retain” strategy so common today.  This is one of the implications of a mission-centered view of the church.

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Considering Total Church

I’ve come across Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community via the internet.  A growing number of church planters are utilizing the concept.  Steve Timmis, one of the authors of the book, is the new director of Acts 29 Europe.  The San Diego Church Planters’ Boot Camp, hosted by Kaleo, was on Total Church.  I’ve begun to listen, and just borrowed the book from a friend.

The concept is intriguing to me.  The church is a gospel-formed community of people being gospel-shaped.  They have a community-centered understanding of the gospel, which runs counter to the individualistic mindset of most Christians and churches today.  I’d like to consider the relationship between the gospel, community and mission more thoroughly.  It seems less like the “latest, greatest program” or method, but an attempt to return to the power of the gospel, and the emphases of the gospel.

Here is an interview with Tim Chester on Desiring God Ministries blog:

DG: Tim, what do you and Steve Timmis mean by the title Total Church?

Tim Chester: The phrase is actually adapted from the world of football (or soccer in the States!). “Total football” was a style of play associated with the Dutch international side in the 1970s.

“Total church” is our way of capturing the idea that church is not one activity in our lives. Church isn’t a meeting you attend or a building your enter. It’s our identity, our community, our family.  It’s the context for the totality of the Christian life.

DG: How would you summarize the message of the book?

TC: Total Church argues for two core principles: We need to be gospel-centered and community-centered.

Being gospel-centered means we’re word-centered (because the gospel is a message; it is good news), and it means being mission-centered (because the gospel is a message to be proclaimed; it is good news).

I think most conservative evangelicals are strong on this. But we also need to be community-centered. The Christian community is the biblical context for evangelism, discipleship, pastoral care, social involvement, and so on. That doesn’t mean meetings. It means the shared life of the community.

One of our catchphrases is “ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” It means doing the chores, having meals, watching sports, and so on with an intention to talk about Jesus, to pastor one another with the gospel, and to share that gospel with unbelievers.

DG: At several points in the book, you mention the value of hospitality. Do you see this virtue as lacking in the church today, and is there is an especially significant need for it in the 21st-century church?

TC: Here’s what I think is the key issue. In the book, we tell the story of a young man who invited us to do some street preaching with him. When we said it wasn’t really the way we did things, he clearly doubted our courage and commitment.

We began to talk instead about a whole life lived in mission and community, in which we were always looking to build relationships and always looking to talk about Jesus. By the end of the conversation, he admitted he wasn’t sure if he was up for that.

He wanted evangelism you could do for two hours on a Saturday afternoon and then switch off. Tick. Job done for the week. He didn’t want a missional lifestyle.

I think that’s the issue with hospitality. People want to put church and evangelism into a slot in the schedule. But we need to be sharing our lives with others—with shared meals and open homes. That can be demanding, but it’s also wonderfully enriching.

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