Andy Rowell

Month: December 2008

  • Willow Creek REVEAL’s second book Follow Me tells us very little

    Bradley Wright, associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, has now thoroughly and aptly reviewed Follow Me (September 2008), the second REVEAL book. (I too have read both books).  Follow Me is quite similar to the first REVEAL book (September 2007) but you will be interested to know Willow Creek itself is not included in the data this time–though you learned nothing about Willow Creek from REVEAL either since their data was mixed in with six other churches.

    See: Search for Follow Me at Bradley Wright's blog

    I love Willow Creek but I am sad that they are not using quantitative data better because it is no doubt confusing them and a lot of other people.
    The Reveal and Follow Me studies look for factors that are highly correlative in spiritual growth.  However, none of these "discoveries" are in fact at all surprising.

    I have summarized their conclusions below in my own words. 

    Here are their Reveal conclusions paraphrased by me:

    • People who report their commitment to God at high levels spend about as much time in church activities as those who report a medium level of commitment to God. 
    • Personal spiritual practices correlate with a Christ-centered life.
    • A church’s most active evangelists, volunteers and donors come from those who report a high level of commitment to God.
    • More than 25 percent of those surveyed described themselves as spiritually stalled or dissatisfied with the role of the church in their spiritual growth.

    Here are the Follow Me conclusions paraphrased by me:

    • They found that people who self-report being closer to Christ correlate with more knowledge of Christian beliefs, more practicing of Christian behaviors, and appreciating the Bible more. 

    If church leaders get access to the raw data and are able to interpret it in ways different from how it is explained in the Reveal and Follow Me books, that could indeed be very fruitful.

    For example, Follow Me has this intriguing line but no further explanation.  "In the 200 churches surveyed, this number [the number of those who are both satisfied and not stalled] ranged from a high of 84 percent to a low of 48 percent" (p. 101). Unfortunately, Follow Me does not tell us anything about those churches or even hint what might  be going on in them that produces the disparate scores. 

    Furthermore, they do not measure how many people are newly committing to Christ.  If a church scored 48% because some people were dissatisfied with all the new converts around, then that 48% might not be as bad a number.

    It seems to me the two books are designed to encourage churches to do the REVEAL study in their churches.  I think you can do better with other resources. 

    There are other consultants who do church self-assessment work:

    1. Allelon: Alan Roxburgh

    See his book about consulting: The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (J-B Leadership Network Series) by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk (2006).  They offer the Mission-Shaped Leader Survey. This group located in Eagle, ID has a "missional" emphasis similar to Darrell Guder's The Missional Church.

    2. Church Innovations: Patrick Keifert

    Luther Seminary (St. Paul, Minn.) professor Keifert has a book out about consulting: We Are Here Now: A New Missional Era by Patrick Keifert (2007).  Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) is what they call their qualitative assessment process.  "Church FutureFinder is an on-line resource for congregational discovery." This group has a "missional" emphasis similar to Darrell Guder's The Missional Church and has particular strengths with Lutheran congregations.

    3. Easum Bandy & Associates: Bill Easum, Tom Bandy, Bill Tenny-Brittian and the EBA Associates.

    In 2000, Bill Easum and Tom Bandy, (see preceding links for their books), merged their consulting organizations: Easum's "21st Century Strategies" (founded in 1987) and Bandy's  "Thriving Church Consulting" (founded in 1995) to form EBA located in Port Aransas, TX.  See their Consultation Tools.  This group has more of a focus on church growth.

    4. Alban Institute: Alban Consultants

    Founded in 1974, located in greater Washington, DC, they have published many books on issues related to pastoral leadership.  They serve mostly mainline congregations.   

    See also this reputable book about doing church self-assessment:

    Studying Congregations: A New Handbook by Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Jackson W. Carroll, Carl S. Dudley, and William McKinney (1998)

  • Bad shepherd teases Baby Jesus

    Ryan: "The bad shepherd calls Jesus another name–not Baby Jesus."

    Mommy: "What does he call him?"

    Ryan: "The bad shepherd calls him Baby Moses–and that's not good.  He's bad."

  • 60 Theologians on an Ecclesiological Spectrum

    What is a church?  Allow me in this post to introduce you to three phrases:

    esse notae ecclesiae (essential marks of the church)

    bene notae ecclesiae (good marks of the church)

    plene notae ecclesiae (full marks of the church)

    My thesis is that there are substantive differences along the ecclesiological spectrum regarding the first category–the esse notae ecclesiae (essential marks of the church) but that there is ecumenical potential–that is their possibility for broad consensus–around the second and third categories.

    All Christians believe that a church should be "one holy catholic and apostolic" as the Nicene Creed says.  All Christians believe a community needs a few "essential marks of the church" (esse notae ecclesiae) to be "a church."  Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox require structural identification with what they perceive to be "the Church" that traces its identity back to the apostles through apostolic succession.  The Reformers are famous for calling for two marks: "the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered."  Others suggest "a church" is any group that gathers in the name of Jesus:  "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:20).  

    I have made a list below of lots of theologians and I have guessed where they might fall on the ecclesiological spectrum.  The ones at the top would have more formal requirements for what constitutes "a church."  The ones at the bottom would consider a community to be "a church" with relatively few formal requirements. 

    All believe that their version of formal requirements and flexibility best conform to the New Testament parameters.  The ones at the bottom of the list with fewer formal requirements might say that their churches are actually "stricter" in some respects.  Thus, I labeled the list "high church" to "low church" not "very strict" to "less strict."

    Though these theologians would disagree strongly about what is essential, they would all agree that "a church" should grow closer to what it is supposed to be–developing more bene notae ecclesiae (good marks of the church) and they all aspire to have the plene notae ecclesiae (the full marks of the church).  Perhaps the latter two areas are where we can find the most ecumenical consensus. 

    In my papers on the missional ecclesiologies of Anglican and current Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the the Mennonite ethicist (1927-1997) John Howard Yoder, I reflect on the central practices in their ecclesiologies.  For Williams, these are esse notae ecclesiae (essential marks).  Yoder's five practices in Body Politics are bene notae ecclesiae (good marks of the church).

    The four practices I draw from Williams are these:

    (1) moral discernment oriented by martyrdom (drawn mostly from his book Why Study the Past?)

    (2) participation in the sacraments

    (3) standing under the authority of Scripture

    (4) communicating the Good News drawn from a letter. 

    For the latter three practices see, Williams's “Archbishop of Canterbury's Advent Letter,” The Anglican Communion Official Website (14 December 2007). 

    Williams hoped that the Anglican Communion would rally around these constitutive practices–esse notae. 

    On the other hand, John Howard Yoder describes well the thriving church–bene notae.
    (1) Binding and Loosing / reconciling dialogue
    (2) Disciples Break Bread Together / Eucharist
    (3) Baptism and the New Humanity / Baptism
    (4) The Fullness of Christ / Multiplicity of gifts
    (5) The Rule of Paul / Open meeting

    Yoder does not intend to be comprehensive in his list–he calls these "sample" practices–and therefore, even though they are inspiring, they do not constitute a full ecclesiological foundation (as I argue in my paper).

    If you are interested in this topic, you will want to read Miroslav Volf's book After Our Likeness: The Church As the Image of the Trinity. Volf engages Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) and John Zizioulas–both of whom are near the top of the list–over the issue of esse notae.  Volf argues that a community of people is "a church" if they "gather in the name of Jesus" and he adds a few more esse notae.  Thus, he is pretty close to the bottom of the list.  He is arguing that being "at the bottom of the list"–having a free church theology–can be theologically legitimate.

    Therefore, as we think about ecclesiological differences with others, I think it is worth reflecting on not only our differences as evident on the spectrum below, but also about the possibility of common purposes in the bene and plene notae.

     

    Disclaimer: I have not read books by all of these people and do not know all of their ecclesiologies that well.  I was just trying to sketch out what I was thinking.  I thought my readers could help me fix the list.

    I have put a little bit more about notae (marks) below the list.

    60 Theologians on an Ecclesiological Spectrum (from high church to low church)

    High church: significant formal requirement for what constitutes "a church"

    1. Council of Trent
    2. Thomas Aquinas
    3. Pope Benedict XVI – Roman Catholic
    4. Henri de Lubac – RC
    5. William T. Cavanaugh – author of Torture and Eucharist
    6. Vincent J. Miller – Roman Catholic and author of Consuming Religion
    7. Pope John Paul II – RC
    8. Hans Urs von Balthasar
    9. Hans Küng – RC
    10. John Zizoulas – Eastern Orthodox
    11. Augustine
    12. Martin Luther
    13. John Calvin
    14. John Milbank – Anglo-Catholic
    15. John Wesley
    16. Oliver O'Donovan – Anglican
    17. N.T Wright – Anglican
    18. Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Lutheran
    19. Stanley Hauerwas – United Methodist
    20. Rowan Williams – Anglican
    21. Craig Van Gelder – Lutheran
    22. Patrick Keifert – Lutheran
    23. Søren Kierkegaard – Reformed
    24. Eugene Peterson – PCUSA
    25. Lesslie Newbigin – Reformed
    26. Karl Barth – Reformed
    27. Mark Driscoll – conservative Reformed
    28. Jürgen Moltmann – Reformed
    29. T.F. Torrance – Reformed
    30. Walter Brueggemann – Reformed
    31. Tim Keller – PCA
    32. Darrell Guder – Reformed
    33. John Piper – Reformed Baptist
    34. Reinhold Niebuhr – Congregational
    35. H. Richard Niebuhr – Congregational
    36. David Bosch – Reformed
    37. Wolfhart Pannenberg
    38. Richard Hays – UM
    39. Len Sweet – United Methodist
    40. James Dunn – UM
    41. Miroslav Volf – Episcopal and Pentecostal, author of After Our Likeness
    42. Scot McKnight – Evangelical Covenant
    43. Andrew Jones – Tall Skinny Kiwi
    44. Stan Grenz – Baptist
    45. Rick Warren – SBC
    46. Ed Stetzer – SBC
    47. Dan Kimball
    48. Menno Simons
    49. John Howard Yoder – Mennonite
    50. FF Bruce – Plymouth Brethren
    51. Bill Hybels – evangelical
    52. Andy Stanley – evangelical
    53. Rob Bell – evangelical
    54. David Fitch – author of The Great Giveaway
    55. Tony Jones
    56. Doug Pagitt
    57. Ryan Bolger – author of Emerging Churches
    58. Eddie Gibbs
    59. John Wimber – Vineyard founder
    60. Peter Rollins
    61. Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost – authors of The Shaping of Things to Come.
    62. Frank Viola – author of Reimaging Church
    63. Donald McGavran and Peter C. Wagner – founders of the "Church Growth Movement."
    64. George Barna – author of Revolution
    65. George Fox – Quaker, Society of Friends

    Low church: fewer formal marks of what is needed to be called "a church"

    The language of notae (marks) which I have used here is used differently by different theologians.  Some believe "a church" has certain beliefs, others believe a church has certain traits, others believe a church has a certain structure, others believe it has certain practices.   

    The notae ecclesiae can be traced at least back to the Lutheran Church’s Augsburg Confession (1530) written by Philipp Melanchthon and Martin Luther.

    The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered. And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments.[1]

    A revised version of the Augsburg Confession called the Variata, was later signed by John Calvin in 1540. Calvin’s words in The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536, 1559) are quite similar to the Lutheran document.

    The marks of the church and our application of them to judgment: Hence the form of the Church appears and stands forth conspicuous to our view. Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the Church of God has some existence.[2]

    Both name the proper preaching of the word and the proper administration of the sacraments as the crucial characteristics of a church.

    John Howard Yoder develops four additional marks suggested by Menno Simons in the 1540’s: (1) holy living, (2) brotherly love, (3) unreserved testimony, and (4) suffering.[3]

     

    [1] The Augsburg Confession, article 7 (The Book of Concord). Cited 9 July 2008. Online: http://www.bookofconcord.org/augsburgconfession.html#article7

    [2] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2 vols.; LCC; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), IV, 1, 9. Cited 9 July 2008. Online: http://www.reformed.org/books/institutes/books/book4/bk4ch01.html#nine.htm

    [3] John Howard Yoder, “A People in the World,” The Royal Priesthood, 77-89.