The Benefit of NOT Telling the Theological Answers

“If Jesus was the Son of God, why did he always call himself ‘Son of Man’?”

It’s not uncommon for people to ask big theological questions like this. If you’re like me, these questions from curious friends, antagonistic critics, or sincere church-mates can leave you feeling caught with your pants down.

Or if you’re not like me, perhaps your experiences, studies, and journey with God have prepared you to proficiently smack any particular Christendom-conundrum out of the park. You’ve done your homework, you’ve read the books, you’ve read the Book, and you effortlessly articulate some systematic explanation regarding your friend’s nagging questions, doubts, or situation.

Hold that thought.

What if when someone asks you one of those huge questions, you actually try not to provide the answer yourself, even if you know it? Last year I read a book titled, Church Planting Movements, by David Garrison who says that missionaries and church planters engaged in catalyzing church planting movements (CPMs) worldwide learn very quickly to deflect questions of doctrine from themselves - on purpose.

We all know how frustrating it can be when someone with an answer won’t share what we itch to know! So why would they do that, and what’s the alternative?

“When asked by a new believer or new church leader, “What should we do in this situation?” rather than answer from his own pool of wisdom or training, the CPM-savvy church-planter replies, “Let’s see what God’s Word says.” (183)

Here are the reasons church-planters redirect new believers from themselves to the Bible:

The explosive nature of a movement makes it impossible to personally oversee & disciple all new believers and leaders. Redirecting initial believers to the Bible with their questions sets an early pattern that keeps additional movement-generations well-grounded when they are too far removed from the personal influence of “experts”. If church-planters provide the answer themselves, they create an unhealthy dependency that limits the expansion of the movement to the church-planter’s reach.

They establish God’s Word as the true authority. This keeps “the movement from fragmenting into a thousand heresies like a crack splintering across a car windshield.” (183). If church planters model God’s word as the authority, it will be the authority of new believers as well, extending for multiple generations.

Some challenges in going this route: 1.) It takes much more time. 2.) It kinda feels good to be the go-to guy, and it could be hard to let that go.

All this isn’t to say there’s no place for wisdom, knowledge, teaching, leaders, etc. There’s absolutely a need for discipleship, teaching, leadership training, etc. But that’s another post for another day.

The point of this post is to question whether our discipleship-as-we-know-it approaches might actually stunt a movement and limit capacity to expand.

Here’s a parting quote from the same book on the same topic:

When modern day practitioners of Church Planting Movements refuse to counsel their converts with words of wisdom or time-honored doctrines, but instead direct them to God’s word, they are living out the New Testament model initiated by Jesus and transmitted through the apostles. p 206, CPM, David Garrison

Questions:

• What would change in your sphere of influence if you habitually responded with “Let’s see what God’s word says” when posed with a question? What impact might this have if fully implemented?
• What concerns or additional benefits do you anticipate with God’s word as a first response?
• What do church leaders here in the West have to learn from our brothers and sisters practicing this abroad among unreached people groups?

*This section coupled this authority of scripture with the Lordship of Christ as “parallel railroad tracks guiding the movement”, but I’ve chosen to focus on the one for now for sake of time and space.*

Jim & Casper Go to Church – Book Review

Ever thought to hire someone to go to church with you? No, this isn’t desperation-evangelism. Far from it. A former pastor and executive director of Off the Map, Jim Henderson hires an atheist acquaintance, Matt Casper, to visit churches across the country because he wants to learn from his observations and experiences.

Jim and Casper fascinated and refreshed me. You’ve probably heard the saying, “things are clearer from the outside looking in.” The experiences of Jim and Casper illustrate the cliche well. Casper’s point of view is provoking and intelligent. His ability to hone in on aspects of church culture that I gloss over from familiarity was stimulating. I respect Casper for approaching the project (visiting house churches, mega-churches, and everything in between) with an open mind and quickly giving credit and praise where it was due. Yet with nothing to lose and honesty as his guiding principle, Casper says things I’ve rarely heard about church let alone said within church, and thus consistently and effectively also fells herds of sacred cows. Perhaps most challenging was Casper repeatedly returning to the question, “Is this what Jesus told you guys to do?”

Besides keeping me laughing at Jim & Casper’s humor, this book had me wondering, “Yeah, why do churches do that / say that? Where does that come from? How are we perpetuating empty practices?”

The tagline for this book is “A believer, an atheist, an unlikely friendship…” Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the book was eavesdropping on the relationship develop between Jim & Casper. They show that relationships between atheists and believers don’t have to be unlikely at all.

This book was well worthwhile and to the church’s benefit to read.