I embarked some weeks ago on a series of articles about discipleship. I am convinced that we have reduced the meaning of this extremely important word to: (1) Learning information from the Bible, or content about faith, and; (2) To relating our lives to the local church and its programs. In the process we have emptied the word disciple of deep meaning and allowed people to profess a faith that does not require them to imagine what can or should be done as radical followers of Jesus Christ.
Last week I ended with a reference to Acts 2:17 where the apostle Peter refers to the day of Pentecost as “the (beginning of the) last days.” A balanced understanding of the Scripture reveals that these last days” will continue until the end of this present age. I concluded that experience, reason and common sense—as important as they are when properly used—oftenrestrict our imagination and fail to inspire in us the hope of a new and better day. Spirit-filled disciples, living in the shadow of Pentecost, will never reduce their lives to reason and common sense, not as long as they believe that they have been called to live as faithful disciples.
Last week I wrote of the balance that disciples of Christ need between a faithful conservatism and a healthy imagination. We must always make sure that we conserve the truths that are vital to confessional Christianity. At the same time we must be completely willing to imagine new ideas which can impact a new world. My late friend Robert Webber called this kind of Christianity: “ancient-future faith.” I share that perspective.
I argued in my last ACT 3 Weekly that it was time for Christians to ask: Why not? It is time to also ask: What if? As I personally embrace what is the final phase of my public ministry life the temptation is to accept what has happened as the expectation for what should or will happen. I am determined to think and live otherwise. Because I embrace the virtues of faith, hope and love as the core of my being I ask how living as a mature disciple can make a real difference in the lives of others, especially those who come behind me.
Most Christians see the world in an extremely limited way. They only see what is, not what God has promised or what he assures us will eventually come to be. Most of us pray for the “kingdom to come [on earth] as it is in heaven” but we do not really believe in the present reign of Christ. The kingdom of God has no real bearing on how we actually live from day-to-day. Some of us have embraced a particular brand of eschatology, a theology that buys into pessimism and defeat. Others have become locked into the indicative mood. When this happens we live in a way that can only describe what appears to be. We lack imagination about the future.
The Holy Spirit is always working in the disciples of Jesus bringing about “new creation.” Ultimately, the Lord himself will bring about the final work of the new creation when he comes to create the new heavens and new earth at the end of this age. For now the church faithfully prays, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) God hears this kingdom plea and equips us (personally and collectively) do kingdom work on earth in his name/authority. His name, remember, refers to the very same Jesus who inaugurated his kingdom in the first century. It is through this same authority that we now experience his work on earth, especially on the margins of society.
Each week, for the past seven years, I have published an article that has been sent to subscribers via the Internet. I did not originally plan for these articles to be done every single week. The response was so encouraging in the early days that a habit was established and I have been writing one each week ever since. I want to end this year by telling you a bit more about why I write these articles and what the ministry of ACT 3 means. My goal is to encourage you to become more involved in the mission of ACT 3 in 2010.
Each year churches and missions express gratitude to their benefactors at the end of the calendar year. Most will also appeal for year-end gifts. I have followed this pattern for seventeen years. But this year we have done something different. We mailed a special thank-you gift to all 425 of our donors. This gift was a new 29-minute video: “The ACT 3 Story.” Here our friends can see and experience the unique vision that God has given to me. I now invite you, the 3,000 plus subscribers to the ACT 3 Weekly, to see this same video. You can watch it on our Web site at: www.act3online.com. It will download as soon as you open the homepage so plan to take a half hour and watch our story at your earliest convenience.
The evidence is clear that the church in America is in spiritual, moral and numerical decline. Since the Second Great Awakening (1800-1830) we have not seen decreases like those we now see in the AmericanChurch. The church seems to have become a dysfunctional family with little or no impact. God’s solution is found in the prayer that Jesus prayed in John 17. It is that we would be united in Christ, and that thereby we would advance his mission. Christ’s call to all churches and Christians is to embrace this apologetic of love, because only by this means may people know that God the Father is real.
Please prayerfully consider what is presented in these few pages, especially in light of how God has called you to serve Him in His Kingdom.
John H. Armstrong, a former pastor of more than twenty years, is the president and founder of ACT 3. He is the author/editor of twelve books, a contributor to numerous books and magazines and a prolific Web-based writer and blogger. He has preached in hundreds of churches and conferences throughout the U.S. and abroad and is a mentor and life coach to many Christians. He also serves as adjunct professor of evangelism at Wheaton College.
ACT 3 emerged in 1991 out of two decades of ministry to church leaders and now serves the church by "equipping leaders for unity in Christ's mission." John is the author of Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christian Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church (Zondervan).
ACT 3 is deeply committed to enabling Christian leaders to exegete both culture and Scripture in order to speak into our present context in ways that are faithful to the missional purposes of God as revealed in Holy Scripture. We do this by teaching leaders how to connect Jesus' prayer for unity (John 17) with his commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28).
I began this series on discipleship and imagination six weeks ago by saying that true discipleship is rooted in divine joy. But this joy will create a real disturbance when we encounter the living God. I showed last week that the Holy Spirit will sometimes bring chaos to the church in order to lead the church into the way where it can be used to renew the cosmos. Sometimes the church resists the Spirit’s ministry, thus we quench the flame of God among us. This is what Ephesians 4 is all about.
Catholic writer Anthony J. Gittins correctly speaks of the “relative disarray in which the Christian churches find themselves today” (Gittins, 22). I agree and think this very simple observation cannot be overstated. Nothing can trip up a football team quite like over-confidence. The same could be said about the general attitude of churches and their leaders. Over-confidence is leading us from one loss to another.
I grew up in a context where following Christ’s mission to the ends of the earth, what has been technically called missio ad gentes, was continually stressed. I believe in this mission to reach unreached peoples that I heard from meeting missionaries from all over the world. At one time I thought I would become such a career cross-cultural missionary. I often wish that I could have gone to some far flung place to preach Christ to people who had never heard of him. One of the greatest thrills of my life was two extended periods of time I spent in India in the 1980s when I had the joy of preaching Christ to thousands upon thousands of people, many of whom heard Christ’s good news for the first time, multitudes of whom entered his kingdom. I prayed over the sick, assisted in casting out demons and baptized many new converts. It was an amazing experience. If I could do that full-time I would be crazy not to do it. But God called me in a different way and to a different mission context.
