Sweet on Nazarenes
Nazarene pastors throughout the eastern region met with Leonard Sweet at ENC last week. Leonard shared during three sessions on our three day Pastors and Leaders Enrichment Conference a message that stretched, challenged, and for some blew away previous ideas of being the church in today’s world.
To describe the church, and its reluctance to change even as it is gaining an awareness of the need to change, Leonard once used the amended Red Green motto: “I’m a church… but I can change… if I have to… I guess.” This statement embodies some of those who attended this conference as they wrestled with how the world was changing around them and how they could be relevant in it. Even the most old school of pastors attending were at least wrestling with these concepts and listened as Sweet forecasted that the church right now is in perhaps it’s first “Perfect Storm.”
“The Perfect Storm” is the convergence of Post-Modernity, Post-Christianity, and Post-Humanity. Any one of these alone would be a significant storm on its own and each one deserves far more attention that I plan on giving them in this blog entry. But the point is that all of these are coming and together are reaching critical mass or as Sweet says “post-scale”.
One of the examples of post scale Sweet used was scrambling eggs. At first you whisk the eggs around in the pan as a liquid until the eggs reach post scale and become something all together different, a solid. At this point our whisking becomes destructive to the eggs now in a solid state and we get scrambled eggs. Reaching post scale means that the things we did that were productive in the past have now become destructive as the scale of the modern world has grown so large that it has actually shifted and become something else.
Because of this, the things we as the church may want to do instinctively in a storm could be the most destructive. We may want to secure our vessels to the docks, but that would be the worst thing we could do. In reality the best thing we could do is head out into the storm and have the ride of our lives. The church seems to want to retreat into self preservation; unfortunately the church is fighting to preserve modernity far more than Christianity.
Our context is changing, and the church is far behind in changing with it. We have for so long understood our faith in our previous context that we are fighting the doomed battle to preserve our modern context with the false perception that we are fighting for Christianity. In reality, this change of context is a gift for us to help us filter out true Christianity from Christianity in one limited form and applied context of modernity.
Church of the Nazarene gets an MRI Exam
Leonard Sweet gave lots of practical advice for navigating this perfect storm, but the thing that resonated most with me was becoming a M.R.I church. M.R.I stands for Missional, Relational, and Incarnational. Leonard also said that he felt like Nazarenes have one of the best chances to navigate this storm.
Forget all of our modern vision and mission statements because God already gave us our mission statements; the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. The Church of the Nazarene has a solid heritage of missions, both foreign and domestic. Yet I wonder as we have grown into a modern institution if it is far more natural for us to love ourselves more than God and our neighbor and retreat into self preservation than go out into all the world an make disciples. I do not think our people have lost this sense of mission as much as we are finding it difficult to be effective through a modern institution in a changing post-modern world. I believe that because of our heritage Nazarenes are inspired by true missional vision. The question is, will we learn to live it or will we fail because we depend on our modern institutional models and strategies to do it for us?
When it comes to being relational Sweet was most hopeful for us because of our holiness heritage. After all Wesley spoke of holiness in the context of perfect love, and nothing is more relational than love. Leonard Sweet pointed out that unfortunately that the modern church has turned the brilliantly unique relational message of Christianity into another propositional faith. All other faiths in the world are based on buying into truth as a set of propositions, and the modern church has done the same thing. However, Christianity is the only faith that says that real Truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. For Christians, truth is far larger than just an idea or proposition; it is a person whom we can have a loving relationship with who changes how we relate to everything and everyone else as well.
I would say that our holiness heritage is helpful in navigating this relational world we now live in, but we need to recapture the true heart of holiness. Leonard Sweet said we need to become EPIC (which is Experiential, Participatory, Image-rich, and Connective). But instead of dynamic and authentic holiness seen in the context of our relationships with others we have often reduced this to just a proposition as well. We have forgotten about the relationships and about love as we draw diagrams and models that make holiness about self help and just about freedom from our vices rather than freedom to love in our relationship with God and our neighbors. It is in this kind of EPIC holiness that I can see us truly making an impact on the world.
Finally we come to being incarnational. I think this is where we, like, many modern church institutions have fallen most short. We have a much more attractional and colonial model of the church. Ironically we were probably much more incarnational when we were formed as a denomination and we desired to live a life of holiness in the modern culture of that time. Unfortunately as we grew, we grew in a tangent churched culture rather than growing up in modernity and transforming into post-modernity naturally like the rest of culture. It is perhaps hardest for us to see the church outside of the cultural context we invented for it, and it is even harder to see the church outside the modern context we were established in. So seeing the church incarnate in the context of postmodern culture blows our minds.
Our heritage is based on separation not incarnation. The call to be “set apart” has been misunderstood by us as we have become the modern day Amish who shine our dim light under the rooftops of our churches where no one can see it. We have bought into the false notion of separating ourselves from the “secular” and exchange it for a cheap imitation of the “sacred.” Our theology might be sound, but as a church culture we define holiness by what we abstain from rather than what we have in our relationship with God. We truly hold to a form of godliness but we deny its power to really transform lives in the context of the world we live in.
God has called us, and empowered us to be holy in the world rather than apart from it. The idea of incarnation and separation are not mutually exclusive when we understand them correctly. As we live in, and have relationship with the real world, the secular world, we should stand out and be noticed because of our love. We should not separate ourselves from culture, but as we love God and people in culture our love will set us apart and we will stand out as a truly unique and holy people.
Being incarnational also means that rather than calling people to come into church as a place we should take the church as the body of Christ to the world. We need to spend more time equipping people to be the church where they live rather than to run the programs that make our church organization go around.
Hope for the Nazarene Tribe
Leonard Sweet said that the future is coming so “C.O.D.” (Change Or Die). A medical definition of death is a body that does not change. But our body is changing and we are growing. It helps me personally to see the Church of the Nazarene as body rather than as an Institution. As an Institution I could be far more discouraged as I look at how we organize and strategize in such a modern way. I could be frustrated as we treat our denomination like a franchise rather than a movement of people. And I could become heart broken as we define holy living through a Covenant of Christian Conduct rather than through radical love and relationships. However, when I see us as a people, outside the cogs and gears of what makes our institution go, I see a movement of people seeking God’s face and wrestling with how we can be relevant in the world we live in. Last week was encouraging because I saw us as a people entertain the idea of what it means to change and to grow. Hearing Leonard Sweet was great, but the best thing about the conference was the conversations it sparked among us. Real dialogue is taking place and I believe this is just the beginning of real growth and change.
James Diggs
6 comments:
"...as a church culture we define holiness by what we abstain from rather than what we have in our relationship with God."
I have long contended that this is the major weakness of our denomination. It is going to take time for the idea you describe to re-shape our denomination so that we have a real and robust understaing of what Holiness is for the believer. But you are not alone in your ideas and those of us who believe in Holiness as incarnational love will be able to exert positive change.
James -
Well written.
There's a lot to reply to in that, and Kevin noted one phrase that jumped out at me. But I'll just make comment on the second and third to last paragraphs for now.
In my local church community, we have left to the same benedictory song over the last four-five weeks. Derek Webb's Take to the World challenges us to take the shape of the Trinity. (Actually...there's enough room there for years of commentary alone.) His specific challenge to us in that song though is to "become what you want to save...'cause that's still the way He takes to the world."
Your discussion of incarnational impact resonates with this idea. In a world where humanity could not reconcile themselves to God, God came to us - became one of us - to show us the way to him, all the while staying true to his perfectly loving nature.
That challenge is essential for us today.
I was glad to hear Leonard Sweet encourage us that the Church of the Nazarene can weather the storm and come out on the other side ('cause I think he's correct in certain ways). I really was. But the realization must come that if we indeed are to come out on the "other side" (whatever and whenever that may be), we will most certainly look a whole lot different than we do now. And to come out looking differently, we must right now look at the world differently.
Thanks for the site and post, James,
F&TC,
- J
I was too distracted by Leonard Sweet's "Saturday Night Fever",John Travolta type hair to register anything he said. Did he really say all of that stuff? Hes pretty articulate and good at making up his own words. His language skills may be heightened by the enormous amount of hair spray he must use daily. No but seriously, I was mostly encouraged that no one had a stroke over what he had to say. People genuinely seemed to be processing what they heard. Nazarene clergy training hasn't been designed to teach people to think (in general) or to wrestle intellectually with the broad philosophical issues that need to be re-examined if we are to engage our changing world in ways that are relevant to the unchurched, non-insiders whose lives have been shaped by the "underside of modernity". That leaves many unequipped to enage the "Kingdom Coming" especially when it doesn't fit clearly with the institutional machine we've been trained to operate. I was encouraged to see and hear some serious thnking happening among my peers.
I think that it is ironic that Sweet uses so many anagrams to illustrate his points. Is there anything that screams modern boomer than an anagram?
James, I am chewing over your post and there is a lot to chew. One of the important theological ideas you touched on here is the idea of incarnation. As the body of Christ we must live as incarnationaly as Christ did. For Christ that meant living amongst those who came to love. He lived in a community of those who desparately needed God and the hope of the Kingdom. He could have been a voice in the wilderness like John, but as he lived in the same flesh he created us to live in, he chose to live among us.
It often seems the COTN does a better job of living out this incarnational identity oversees than it does here in the States. Maybe that is why there are significantly more Nazarenes worldwide than there are in the US.
It is ironic, in some ways, that some of the distinctives of our church that seemed to make us less relevant at the height of modernity now hold our hope for the future. Part of this hope for the future is a heritage not just of holiness, but Wesleyan holiness. If we can learn to live out our holiness in a Christ authentic way (through missional, incarnational, communal holiness or MICH for you Sweet Fans) the COTN can indeed thrive in the new millenium.
Jeremy wrote“….I was glad to hear Leonard Sweet encourage us that the Church of the Nazarene can weather the storm and come out on the other side ('cause I think he's correct in certain ways). I really was. But the realization must come that if we indeed are to come out on the "other side" (whatever and whenever that may be), we will most certainly look a whole lot different than we do now. And to come out looking differently, we must right now look at the world differently…..”
I agree. I hope that no one took Len’s encouragement for giving us a false sense of security. I think he was pointing out that we have some foundational things about us (like the relational nature of holiness) that could work in our favor, but this does not mean that there aren’t major things that need to change if we are to “come out on the other side” in one form or another.
Greg wrote, “…If we can learn to live out our holiness in a Christ authentic way (through missional, incarnational, communal holiness or MICH for you Sweet Fans) the COTN can indeed thrive in the new millennium.”
I agree Greg. Is that an actual Leonard Sweet anagram or were you just inspired by him? ;) Being incarnational is probably the most counter our Nazarene culture and heritage, like I said our heritage is based on separation not incarnation. Still, if we can catch on to the idea that we are called to be set apart by the way we love and the fruit of the Spirit in our lives rather than by our rules and methods of withdraw from the world, then we may be able to capture the idea of being incarnational.
James
James,
When I first read in your post and your most recent post the line "our heritage is based on separation not incarnation." It didn't seem right to me.
Then I realized what you were trying to say by re-reading your first post. And you wrote just a few lines above the one I just quoted.
"Ironically we were probably much more incarnational when we were formed as a denomination and we desired to live a life of holiness in the modern culture of that time. Unfortunately as we grew, we grew in a tangent churched culture rather than growing up in modernity and transforming into post-modernity naturally like the rest of culture."
I was simply thinking that our "heritage" was the early years of our founding, but I guess your right it is essentially all of our history as a Church, not just the glory days of Mr. Bresee (sp?).
Although to show how tuly Incarnational we once were in our founding I found this statement on the origin of the Nazarene name that encouraged me in and of itself.
This came from Wikipedia on Nazarenes
Dr. J.P. Widney was one of the two most influential men in the early days of the Church of the Nazarene. He explained the choice of the name had come to him one morning after spending the whole night in prayer. He said that the word "Nazarene" symbolized "the toiling, lowly mission of Christ. It was the name that Christ used of Himself, the name which was used in derision of Him by His enemies, the name which above all others linked Him to the great toiling, struggling, sorrowing heart of the world. It is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth to whom the world in it's misery and despair turns, that it may have hope" (Called Unto Holiness, Volume I).
I just dont want us to forget that we were started to be Christ to the World. I don't think we are doing a very good job at it, especially in the states (like greg said). I want this to be our reminder and remember the passion for the poor, sick, lost, and down trodden that we DID once have.
James I'm really not making a correction I guess more I'm agreeing with you. We need to return to this foundational point of our denomination. How I wish our churches here in the states would act more like our brothers and sisters around the world.
When I was in Tanzania a nazarene brother asked me, "why are our nazarene chuches always in the poorest areas town, is it like that in America?" I had to think about it for a while. I said well it used to be that way, but not really anymore. He then said he wished that they could build big churches like the pictures the missionaries had shown him from America. I kind of moved on in the conversation. I was young, straight out of Highschool. I wish I had said to him "well the poor is where Jesus told us to go".
I thank you for starting this post and was greatly encouraged by Sweet's and Your own words. My prayer is definately that we regain (and continue) to become a Missional Relational and Incarnational Church. How I wish i could have been there at the conference although I am pretty sure that a friend of mine was there. I'm going to have to ask his opinions about it. I'm also going to bring him on board to these conversations as well. These conversations continue to give me hope and help me shape the vision of the ministry at our local Church.
In Christ,
Rob
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