Crabbing about Crabtree

Hello again,

At a friend's request, I read an essay by theologian Jack Crabtree about building the Christian Church.  Here's a link.  

 

 http://msc.gutenberg.edu/ audiofiles/Crisis_Paper-1_ Only-One-Truth.pdf

 

Wrote more than I thought on this one, so into the blog it goes!

I clicked on paper #1 and read it.  I have a few comments;

How to build the Church.  It's a big problem these days.  I remember a sincere young black man, a Jehovah's Witness, who came knocking at my door.  I noticed that this clean cut young man in a suit had some scars and some tattoos on his neck that indicated he had been involved in some sort of street gang for a while.  He made his sales pitch.  I told him, "You have to start with a hard look inside yourself.  It doesn't matter what you say to me, It doesn't matter what people think about JW's.  The most important thing to find out is what you _know_ is really, really true in the depths of your soul, late at night when no one else is around.  Do you believe that your personal experience at your own Kingdom Hall  _has_ helped you, _is_ helping you?  If that answer is "yes," then you have something.  If it is "maybe" or "no," you could be wasting your time.  Maybe there is something else you need to be involved in. 

That stopped him.  He looked a little afraid that he might have to say something else.  I held up my hand. 

"Don't answer that.  It makes no difference what I think."

We left on cordial terms, and it felt like we made some sort of connection.  He left shortly after that, and did not come back.  He had come so far, from beginnings that did not promise him much of a future to being able to hold a well-articulated conversation with someone who, at one time, must have seemed to him to be an enemy.  I was proud of him for his great accomplishments.  I still wish him all the best, and I hope he found his way.

So like the young JW, its fair to ask ourselves the same question.  It is difficult to really ask these questions.  I find that most Christians I know would rather do anything else than try to find the truth of what is really going on between themselves and God, but we need to find out what's really the truly true truth, and maybe cut ourselves some slack if they real answer is not the one we think it should be.  So....

Is our faith in the Messiah Jesus helping us?

Having answered that,  we can move on to other questions.

What do we know about the character of our fellowships?

Is it a kingdom of words and not power, or the other way around?

Do you like going to church activities as much as, say, going to a ball game or hanging out with friends? 

Do you ever run into someone with real troubles, and the first thing you say to yourself is, "I know someone in my fellowship who could really help him/her."  ?

It is a difficult thing to get at the truth of what we feel.  These types of indirect questions could help.

Jack Crabtree's essay is mostly OK as far as it goes, but has an awful lot of words, maybe too many by far.  We can cut him some slack because he is a theologian by trade...

1) The Kingdom of God is not for everyone.  The road is narrow, and the way is hard, and those who want to follow it must count the cost.  That's what Jesus said anyway.  We try to drag people in.  Don't.  Let 'em go.  Pray for God to send you people that He has prepared for you to help.  Then look for them .  They will show up.  They will also not be the ones you want.  :-)

2) Don't convince, expand, blab on or elucidate.  Let your words be few.  Jesus said stuff like this all the time, and He did it on purpose.  He drew a crowd, He said mysterious things,  most of them said "Yay Jesus" at the end and left no better than when they arrived.  A few stayed after and asked Him, "What the _heck_ are you talking about?"  Those are the ones God is calling. 

3) Once you have them, take them along with you in whatever activities of your life constitute the working out of your faith.  After a short time, they will have their own activities of faith which might be a lot different looking than yours.  Try to mentor, avoid dependency.  Catch and release.  Do not be afraid to say "I don't know."

Seminaries, most of them, tell their students that they need to learn how to raise funds and get a building built.  Once in the building they need to keep firm control of the congregation  so that error does not get in.  In this way, they can count on a stable career with a pensioned retirement at the end of it.

However, if we really want to see "buildings" made of living stones, those people around us that are as difficult as they are infinitely precious to God, a lot of this is going to go away.  The best structure I have found is the small group-- About ten people who meet in their homes for a meal and fellowship. When you turn over responsibility and control to a small group, spiritual growth happens.  Also, they can't be controlled.  Maybe mentored for a while, but not forever.  They will likely not give more money.  They may decide to spend money on spiritual activities that they come up with on their own, so they may actually give less.  The denominational office will not be happy with their cut of the declining revenues.

Pastor may have to get a job.  Its not the end of the world.  Paul made tents...

It would be helpful to see a Christian fellowship working out like this.  I did know a fellow, Guy Muse, who was a Baptist missionary to Ecuador.  He never had much success building that living church until he put the folks he visited in Guayaquil in charge of their own house churches.  The house churches multiplied in number, and when they got too big they split off.  Lots of little churches, no buildings (other than the houses).  After several years of this, some of the small churches got together and began to field their own missionaries to Africa and other places, maybe even the US.  This has always given me pause...
If you have an account in Yahoo Groups, it may be possible to take a look at the Yahoo Group called "GuayasMestizoTeam" and at least see some pix.  Guy got in a lot of trouble at times for doing things this way, but I think he did what was right.


Finally, about "One Truth;"  Jack seems to be saying that there is only one truly correct way of looking at any and every issue.  He seems to imply that the Pastor should know what that one and only truth is, and lock his folks into it.
I don't agree.
There should be agreement among Christians about who is Jesus.  If someone does not think Jesus is the Messiah, then maybe they aren't a Christian, and should come to terms with it.
But issues like socialism, Democrat or Republican or Green, etc-- I think we can and probably will have a wide range of opinions about these other matters.  If you want to look at the New Testament, I'm pretty sure Paul said something like, "To Jewish People I became like a Jewish Person to win over some of them.  To the Greeks, I became like a Greek... I have become all things to all people that I might win the more..." 
There is, and ought to be, freedom to hold a wide variety of differing opinions on these things.

Maybe we really do want to see our own personal spiritual growth, and we want to see the churches we are in have a real and positive impact on our lives and the lives of those around us.  But attending the eternal lecture series might not be the best way to go about it.