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18 Questions for Re-Imagining the Church

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imagining the church

I spent a few posts this week (Questioning the Church, Extreme Church Makeover, What if You Were God?) talking about how you and your church and figure out what God wants you to do in your community with your time, energy, and money.

Part of this process involves imagining different ways of being church, different ways of loving others, and different ways of serving our neighbors.

Some people calling this “casting vision” but in my opinion, the word “vision” is one of those overused churchy buzzwords which makes most people gag. So following the ideas presented in books by Walter Brueggemann and Greg Boyd, I invite you to imagine what the church can be and do.

Imagine new ways of being the church, living within the Kingdom of God, loving others, serving the needy, and revealing Jesus Christ to others.

Here are some great “What if” questions to move you in the right direction: (Note: So I don’t pull a Driscoll… These 18 questions for re-imagining the church originally came from a post by Kevin Bussey in 2008, but I can no longer find that post.)

What would happen if…

  • Followers of Jesus concentrated on sharing their faith with a lost and dying world?
  • Followers of Jesus prayed for the church across the street?
  • Churches didn’t see other churches as competition but as allies?
  • Churches rejoiced when another church is thriving?
  • We realized our view might be wrong?
  • Their church is just as important to God as yours?
  • We recognized God likes variety?
  • Followers of Jesus didn’t shoot their wounded?
  • We acted like Grace really is amazing?
  • We give Grace beyond the point of conversion?
  • We realized God likes worship–no matter what the style is?
  • Churches in a community partnered with each other to reach the lost and hurting people that God has given to them?
  • Churches didn’t criticize other churches?
  • Followers of Jesus didn’t nit-pick other believers, churches or ministries?
  • Followers of Jesus became part of the solution rather than being the problem?
  • We really prayed…?
  • Followers of Jesus could put aside differences in order to minister to a dying world?
  • Followers of Jesus really became one?

Do you have any questions to add to this list? Include them in the comments below? How do you and your church seek to find new ways to share the love of Jesus with others?

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What if you were God? How Would you Set up Church?

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As I try to dream and imagine what kind of “church” model best fits my personality and the cultural and historical context in which I find myself, I have slowly yet systematically stripped away everything I know and believe about how church has been traditionally done, and even how it is being done in the most innovative and progressive churches of our day.

In the process, I have found one question to be more helpful than anything else. It is a helpful question in developing a vision for church, but a dangerous question due to where it might lead. Do you want to ask it?

First, before you can ask the question, you have to clear your mind of everything you think you know about church. Start with as blank a slate as possible. Then, you have think about everything you know about God’s character: His mercy, love, grace, righteousness, and justice. You have to be willing to let people be people. You cannot coerce people, or force them to do what you want.

With “church” gone, and your mind filled with the character of God, ask yourself this question:

If I were God, how would I want church to look?

In other words, if you were God, and you were dreaming up how you wanted the church to be, and what you wanted the church to do in this world, how would it look? Since all power and knowledge are at my disposal, how would “church” look? What instructions would you provide?

if you were godWhat non-negotiables would you require? What would be the best way for God to expand His rule over the earth?

Once you have done this sort of brainstorming, look at your description.

That is the kind of church God wants you to be. You have just discovered what God might want to do in this world through you.

When Jesus came to this earth, He came to reveal God to us, and when He left, He told us to do the same thing. We need to reveal God to the world, and live like God to the world, to live the way we think God would live.

This way of visioning the church can also be applied to other theological and missional questions which are not necessarily about the church, but about God’s work in the world. For example, let’s say that you want to end global poverty. How would you do it if you were God? Rain down money from the sky? Is free money really the answer for the world’s poor? Maybe there is a better, wiser way to end global poverty. If so, what is that better way?

None of this, of course, means that your answers are the right answers, or that your solutions are the best way forward. But this process gets you thinking in a visionary way. 

Here is a video where people ask this sort of question. Interestingly, God has actually done some of the things the people suggest… but the most beautiful thing about the video is to see their eyes light up and wonder about the possibility.

Guess what? By trying to do some of the things we imagine God should be doing, God is actually doing those things through us!

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Ten Signs Your Church Doesn’t Understand Mission

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church mission failHow can you tell if your church doesn’t understand it’s mission?

Sometimes the signs are pretty obvious that the church really doesn’t want to reach out and love others. But other times, we just don’t recognize the attitudes and behaviors which indicate a failure of our mission to be Jesus to the world.

Here are ten things you might hear in a Sunday service which will clue you in that your church leadership fails to grasp our mission to enter the dark and dangerous places of this world with the Gospel of the Kingdom or the fact the church is something we are, not something we attend.

(Note: In my first church, I said almost all ten at one time or another.)

  1. At the beginning of the service: “Well, let’s go ahead and get started. Hopefully more people will show up. Let’s begin by praying for those who are home sick or still on their way.”
  2. At the beginning of the service: “I guess the bad weather outside is keeping people at home.”
  3. At the beginning of the service: “I guess people are taking advantage of the nice weather outside and going to the lake.”
  4. During the prayer time: “Father, we pray that you would bring the people of our community to Jesus and help them to believe the gospel.” (Churches generally pray about this more than they do it.)
  5. During the opening prayer: “God, we invite you into our presence today.”
  6. At the beginning of the prayer time, you hear “Father, we come into your presence today…” (What? Is He only in church?)
  7. During the call to worship, there is an invitation to “leave your worldly cares behind.”
  8. During the opening welcome, you are told that “This is a safe place for you and your family.”
  9. During the opening welcome, you are invited to “Relax and enjoy your time. Get your batteries recharged.”
  10. In the announcements, you learn that there is a budget windfall, and to make the church more attractive to the community the board is trying to decide between repaving the parking lot or repainting the building.

There are dozens of others. Feel free to add to the list by leaving a comment below.

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10 Best Online Bible Colleges and Seminaries

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Lots of people these days are looking for an online Bible college or seminary where they can take courses from home without having to leave their jobs and uproot their families and move to a new city or state. Thankfully, more and more schools are offering online Bible college courses and online seminary classes to meet this rising need.

online Bible College

This post contains what I consider to be the 10 Best Online Bible Colleges and Seminaries. Some of them even offer free online Bible college courses!

Of course, you won’t get actual college credit for taking these free courses, but at least you can get the information. Most of the people I talk to who are interested in taking online Bible college courses are not too concerned about the credit, but simply want the information that an online Bible college or seminary can offer.

So whether you are interested in getting an online Bible college degree, or if you just want to get the information that an online Bible college offers, check out the list of schools near the end of this post.

Online Courses with N.T. Wright

Before you spend a lot of time and money applying and enrolling to one of the online Bible Colleges or seminaries below, you might want to take a few courses first to see if online Bible college is for you. I highly recommend you first take some of the online Bible college courses from leading New Testament Scholar, N. T. Wright.

NT Wright CoursesThese courses are much cheaper than what you will pay at another online Bible College or Seminary ($600-$900 per course), plus you can complete them on your own time and at your own pace.

I recommend you start with N. T. Wright’s course on Galatians, but he has others there as well (such an online course on the Gospel and another on Philippians).

If you take one of these courses from N. T. Wright and you enjoy the online learning experience, then you should consider applying and enrolling into one of the online Bible colleges and seminaries below.

Online Bible Colleges and Seminaries I Recommend

online Bible college and seminaryI have actually attended four of these online Bible colleges, and have taken classes from them. The others I have heard good things about from friends and family members who have attended them.

If you are curious about whether an online Bible college course is equivalent to an in-person Bible college course, I will have a few things to say about this at the end of this post.

  1. Moody Bible Institute Online – I got my Bachelor’s from Moody, and highly recommend this online Bible seminary. They probably have online Bible college courses as well if you look around their site for them.
  2. Dallas Theological Seminary – I received my Masters of Theology from DTS. I took many of their courses online, and can vouch for the quality of these classes.
  3. Biblical Education by Extension – I actually used to teach classes for BEE World. I haven’t done so in a few years, but might want to try to get back into it sometime in the future. One great thing about BEE World is that they specialize in offering online Bible college level courses around the world to people in other countries.
  4. Rocky Mountain Bible College and Seminary – I strongly recommend this online Bible college and seminary. Though this school is relatively small, I am a strong supporter of their theology, even more-so than what is taught at Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological Seminary. The president, Dr. Stephen R. Lewis, is a friend of mine.
  5. Grace School of Theology – I almost attended here instead of Dallas Theological Seminary. At the time, however, they were not accredited, and so Dallas won out. But I believe they are accredited now, and they offer some great online Bible college courses.
  6. Tyndale Theological Seminary – This is another great online Bible seminary, and when I was in Dallas, I knew several students who were getting top-notch education at Tyndale. The cool thing about Tyndale is that you can take their courses for FREE if you don’t want credit for them.
  7. Biola University – Half of my family went to this college, and it looks like they offer online Bible college courses.
  8. Talbot Seminary – Talbot is the Seminary of Biola University. I don’t actually know if they offer online Bible courses, but you can check them out anyway.
  9. Baptist Bible College and Seminary – I am not Baptist, but this seems to be a quality school, and they offer online Bible college courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
  10. Biblical Seminary – I love the emphasis Biblical Seminary places on missional living and missional theology. In my opinion, they are one of the leading seminaries in the country for missional studies.

If you know of other good quality online Bible colleges and seminaries, let me know in the comments below.

Are Online Bible Colleges any Good?

I have taken many online Bible college courses, and have taught a few myself. In my opinion, modern technology has allowed online Bible college courses to be just as good as real-world, in-person Bible college courses.

Often you can chat live with other students and the professor. Frequently you can watch the video of the professor teaching the course. At the bare minimum, there is always audio which you can listen to and email to ask questions. Most often there is also some sort of online forum in which you can interact with the professor and other students.

online Bible CollegeThe great benefit to online Bible College courses is that you can “attend class” when it is convenient for you. Though I was actually living in Dallas when I attended Dallas Theological Seminary, I always took at least one course online each semester. This means less time away from home and I could “sit in class” at 1 or 2 in the morning if necessary.

Another thing I liked about the online classes is that they often provided a transcript of what the professor said in the video. I downloaded every transcript of every class I took online and still have them stored on my computer. This is an invaluable resource.

The only downside to taking online Bible college course is that you may not get to personally meet other students and the class professors. But since you don’t have to move or uproot your family to attend Bible college or seminary, going the online Bible college route makes it worth it. If possible, maybe you could even find a few other people in town who will want to take the class together, and then you can all meet and talk about what you are learning in the online Bible college course.

Have you ever taken online Bible college or seminary courses? What was your experience? Do you have any other questions or comments about online Bible college courses? Let me know!

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Evangelism, Mission, and Gospelism with David Bosch

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We are in a series of posts about how it is better to think of gospelism than evangelism.

Transforming Mission
Boring book cover .. GREAT book

Much of my thinking in the areas of mission, evangelism, and discipleship has been reinforced by David Bosch, and his book, Transforming Mission. Below are a few pertinent quotes. Note that he doesn’t use the term “gospelize” but I have included it in brackets where his thinking helped my thinking in this area.

Later today, I will post a story about one group of people who decided to live the gospel in their community (gospelize), rather than just “evangelize.”

So here are the quotes from David Bosch:

We cannot capture the evangel and package it in four or five “principles.” There is no universally applicable master plan for evangelism, no definitive list of truths people only have to embrace in order to be saved. We may never limit the gospel to our understanding of God and of salvation (p. 420).

Evangelism [is] that dimension and activity of the church’s mission which, by word and deed and in the light of particular conditions and a particular context, offers every person and community, everywhere, a valid opportunity to be directly challenged to a radical reorientation of their lives, a reorientation which involves such things as deliverance from slavery to the world and its powers; embracing Christ as Savior and Lord; becoming a living member of his community, the church; being enlisted into his service of reconciliation, peace, and justice on earth; and being committed to God’s purpose of placing all things under the rule of Christ (p. 420).

Mission [or evangelism] is not narrowed down to an activity of making individuals new creatures, of providing them with “blessed assurance” so that, come what may, they will be “eternally saved.” Mission involves, from the beginning and as a matter of course, making new believers sensitive to the needs of others, opening their eyes and hearts to recognize injustice, suffering, oppression, and the plight of those who have fallen by the wayside (p. 81).

The primary responsibility of “ordinary” Christians is not to go out and preach, but to support the mission project [i.e., gospelizing] through their appealing conduct and by making “outsiders” feel welcome in their midst (p. 138).

The church is that community of people who are involved in creating new relationships among themselves and in society at large and, in doing this, bearing witness [i.e., gospelizing] to the lordship of Christ (p. 169).

The church is the only society in the world which exists for the sake of those who are not members of it. [Bonhoeffer said] “The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving” (p. 375).

Mission [gospelizing] is the church sent into the world, to love, to serve, to preach, to teach, to heal, to liberate. …Evangelism is integral to mission. …One may never isolate it and treat it as a completely separate activity of the church (p. 412).

Evangelism is only possible when the community that evangelizes – the church – is a radiating manifestation of the Christian faith and exhibits an attractive lifestyle. …If the church is to impart to the world a message of hope and love, of faith, justice, and peace, something of this should become visible, audible, and tangible in the church itself (p. 414).

A talk-alike, think-alike, look-alike congregation may reflect the prevailing culture and be a club for religious folklore rather than an alternative community in a hostile or compromised environment. …The focus in evangelism should, however, not be on the church but on the irrupting reign of God (p. 415).

[Mission] is the good news of god’s love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world (p. 519).

See more on this gospelism series:

evangelism is gospelismEvangelism is Gospelism (Part 1)
Evangelism is Gospelism (Part 2)
Evangelism is Gospelism (Part 3)
Evangelism is Gospelism (Part 4)
Evangelism is Gospelism (Part 5)
Evangelism is Gospelism (Part 6)

The Gospel According to ScriptureWant to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

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