3 Pitfalls to Avoid when Sharing Jesus this Christmas
Pitfall #1: Pushing the Gospel Like a Used Car Salesman
A common mistake believers make is pushing the Gospel onto others without first understanding where they're coming from. This is often done when we are either really excited to share Jesus or we are driven by feelings of guilt to reach out to others. In either case, take the time alone with God to center your heart in his love and rest in his finished work. Remember, in the work of the gospel we are not the hero. He is. We are simply there to be his hands and feet. And that’s a lot easier and less stressful than trying to save people.
With that in mind, instead of bombarding people with your beliefs, take the time to listen. Avoid dominating the conversation or dismissing their worldview. Show genuine interest in their perspectives, concerns, and questions. Remember, understanding precedes being understood. By actively listening, we build trust and create space for a respectful exchange of ideas.
Pitfall #2: The “Let Me School You” Trap
It's easy to fall into the trap of appearing judgmental or condescending when talking about faith because its already a touchy subject. Because of this, we have to be extra intentional about ensuring we cultivate a space where people feel supported and heard. The best way to do this is to avoid making friends or family feel inferior or inadequate because their worldview differs from yours. And the secret to doing this well is via a little thing called “curiosity”.
When we approach conversations with curiosity, we acknowledge the value of a person’s journey. This creates an environment where meaningful dialogue can take place without alienation.
Here’s the best curiosity mission-hack I can teach you. It’s a simple phrase and it only has 3 words: “Tell me more.”
The power of that phrase cannot be overemphasized. When discussing life and faith with others, if you ever feel like arguing, or you get that rush through your body when someone says something you disagree with, rather than biting back or going frowny-face do this instead. Embrace curiosity by replying with, “Tell me more.”
As they express more of their own story or worldview, you will get the bigger picture and you will build rapport and respect with the person. Will this always lead to a transformative gospel moment? Not a chance. Nothing ever does. But it will create a foundation that can nurture true relationship and meaningful connection for years to come.
Pitfall #3: The “Theopedia” Dump
Sometimes, in our enthusiasm to share the richness of our faith, we overload our secular friends with too much information. And information overload makes people feel overwhelmed. And overwhelmed people just want to get away from you. So here’s a rule to keep in mind: When it comes to secular seekers, just because a person expresses interest in faith doesn’t mean you can go trigger-happy on Bible stuff. You have to be chill and go easy.
Here’s how. Avoid overwhelming them with theological jargon, Bible verses, or complex doctrines right from the start. Keep it simple and relatable. Focus on sharing a personal story, experience, and a simple point on how Jesus made a difference. Don’t share too many stories or drench them in endless examples. Less is more. Aim to plant seeds rather than inundate them with a deluge of information that might confuse or distance them.
The best way to do this is to have a simple story of what Jesus means to you already internalized in your heart. This means you can share it without having to make something up on the spot. On the spot reactions are more likely to be chaotic and overwhelming. An internalized story you have prepared beforehand is more likely to be short, sweet, and simple.
As I said in the previous email, these tips enable us to do mission with more effectiveness and less stress. And that’s the key to a sustainable missional life.
So prioritize listening, avoid judgment, and opt for simplicity over overwhelming information. By doing so, we can build bridges of understanding and compassion, making the message of Jesus more accessible and appealing to those around us.
Merry Christmas!
Pastor M
Why Witchcraft, AI, and Aliens Are Outpacing the Church
According to a recent news report, “Modern-day witchcraft is on the rise in Australia as support for organised religion plummets…”*
For those who have been following the last 20-30 years of worldview shifts in western culture, this is no surprise.
There is an age of re-enchantment upon us - a kind of post-secularism in which younger generations tire of the materialistic, naturalistic, and consumerist world the post-religious west has built.
These new generations long for mystery, for transcendence, and to inhabit a world with room for the sacred and the mystical. Gone are the days of ridiculing the supernatural. Gone are the days of mocking belief in God. And gone are the days of assuming that everything that is real must, of necessity, be purely material.
The unexplainable, the uncontainable, and the immesurable are back in vogue.
Modernism has faded. Postmodernism has faded. Metamodernism is now opening new doors to faith and spirituality - including religion itself. And post-humanism (the belief that humanity must upgrade itself through technology in order to advance to its next evolutionary chapter) is redefining the nature of reality and the limits of scientific inquiry.
In some contexts, this results in a resurgence of Christianity. We see this reflected in high profile conversions like Russel Brand, Shia Le Beouf, Martin Shaw, Jordan Peterson and Rob Scheider - all of whom have converted to either Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy in recent years.
In others settings, this return to an enchanted cosmology results in the popularization of simulation theory (that we live in a simulated reality akin to a video game, with a simulator coding everything we see), in the re-emergence of ancient rituals (as in Ayahuasca retreats), in the mainstreaming of extra-terrestrial interest (UFOs/ UAPs taken seriously in congressional hearings and mainstream news agencies) and in a neo-ressurgence of mysticism and witchcraft.
In fact, as I type, Artifical Intelligence religions have already begun taking shape with its first church, “Way of the Future”, led by engineer Anthony Levandowski already attracting thousands.
The goal? To create a “spiritual connection between humans and AI.”**
UFO religions are also on the rise. A Boston Globe article published in March of this year (2024) put it this way:
“Jesus, the Buddha, and Yahweh have competition for the faithful: aliens.”***
And if that sentence makes you roll your eyes and laugh, allow me to challenge you for a moment. You most likely laugh because, the last time you checked, “belief in aliens” was reserved for 40 year old weirdos who had never kissed a girl posting on back-net forums from their mom’s basement. But as professor of psychology David Steno put it (in the same article referenced above),
“Belief in aliens is no longer fringe. Fifty-one percent of Americans think that unidentified flying objects are likely controlled by extraterrestrials — an increase of more than 20 percentage points since 1996. And one in three believe we’re likely to make formal contact with aliens in the next 50 years.”
Still laughing? The chuckles might just be a sign that you are painfully out of touch — stuck in the world of 1980 and in need of a 2024 massive system upgrade. But I digress. 😉
A brief look at these emerging shifts leaves us with a very obvious conclusion: we are headed into a new world at a speed previously unknown.
At the root of all of these shifts lies a rejection of organized religion and its abuse of power. Christian’s often decry these movements as a sign that the world is becoming more corrupt. But in doing so, we miss the real drive behind them. People want nothing to do with Christianity, not because they are becoming more corrupt, but because they have never actually seen true Christianity. For them, the church with its rapsheet of child abuse, its judgmental cultures and its harmful posture toward women and LGBT communities, added onto its already long history of war, bloodshed, displacement, colonization, and oppression has left an entire generation in the lurch. They envision a very biblical world of compassion and healing. And yet this is a world that the church has not merely “failed to deliver” — it is a world the church has shown itself to be actively against.
And evangelicalisms current engagement with the political right, amplified by Christian nationalist and supremacist agendas, means any moral ground the church might have regained in recent decades has been all but lost.
As these complex swirls unfold around us, AI continues to advance, Elon Musk’s plans for a city on Mars move foward not in steps, but in leaps, and Kim Kardashian hangs out with a Tesla Humanoid bot projecting what might well be a new social normal for emerging generations...
Let there be no doubt: The world of the next 10 years will be unrecognisable, the anxieties unprecedented, the cosmologies unknown.
Will we, as a church, continue to speak the language of 1950, 1980, or even 2010?
Will we continue to answer questions peple are no longer asking?
Will we insist on pushing a biblical framework that was relevant yesterday but that today says nothing to the lived anxieties, fears, and worries of new generations inhabiting a world our pioneers would never have imagined?
I have said it for years, and I will say it again. The changes we have seen to date are simply a taste-test. We have seen nothing yet. Everything is about to invert itself. A new era is coming. I can’t tell you what it will look like. The minds at silicon valley can’t tell you either. Shane Legg, founder of Google Deepmind, put it best when he asked,
“What does medicine look like in a post-AGI world? What does accounting look like in the post-AGI world? What does education look like in the post-AGI world? What does research look like in a post-AGI world? What does economics look like in a post-AGI world?”****
The answer? No one knows. Some are optimistic. Others are warning about the end of the human species. What everyone agrees on - the world will never be the same.
We may not like these changes. But the work of the missionary is not to like or dislike. The work of the missionary is to understand and then contextualize the method of mission in order to speak to the heart of her city and root the gospel in ways that are relevant, meaningful, and radically impactful.
I pray this will be the story of our church. But history has shown that most likely, we will go on sleeping, oblivious to our own unimportance, blind to our own banality. And there is perhaps little that believers like you and I can do about this. But there is one thing we can do. We can leave those enamoured with the nostalgia of a bygone era to their prison-like time-capsules as we move forward and onward, to new horizons, to new methods, to creativity and innovation, that like Paul, we might “become all things to all people so that by all possible means [we] might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22 NIV)
Are you a mission-driven Adventist who’s ready to stop feeling isolated and start creating a church that connects with the next generation?
*https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/modernday-witchcraft-is-on-the-rise-in-australia-as-support-for-organised-religion-plummets/news-story/ccbc9bbcbc05ffd8acd8c5ab3f780f38
**https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion/
***https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/03/27/opinion/new-religion-americans-ufos-aliens/
****https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/google/Its-time-to-think-about-generally-intelligent-ai/3974/
Why I Can't Walk Away from Adventism
Over the years I have written, blogged, and podcasted about Adventism. And a big part of what I have focused on is refuting and resisting the toxic ideas prevalent in our church.
Legalism
Eurocentrism
Perfectionism
Consumerism
Traditionalism
and more.
I've gone toe to toe with Last Generation Theology (a conservative SDA soteriological model which I consider heresy), modern SDA local church structures, and the many customs and traditions we adhere to like they are the 10 commandments even though they are just man made constructs that need to be upgraded or discarded.
As I wrestle with all these issues in our denomination, I see others in the same struggle who choose to simply leave. They unplug, check out, and move on.
Why don't I do the same?
Three simple reasons.
1. There is nowehere else to go. I am a theology nerd. I've studied all the theological systems. And when it comes to protestantism these are your options: A) Join a Calvinist denomination that believes God is a divine dictator, B) Join an Arminian denomination that doesn't have a cohesive theological system, or, C) Leave protestantism.
I don't want to leave protestantism. I don't want to join a denomination that doesn't have a cohesive theological system. And I don't believe God is a divine dictator. So Adventism, with its anti-divine tyranny perspective plus its cohesive systematic theology and its commitment to protesting "church empire" is kinda the only option for me.
2. We aren't the only toxic ones. Calvinist theology is inherently coercive. Arminianism is inherently inconsistent. Arminianism believes in free will and God's love, but it retains eternal torment and many of its local churches exhibit their own version of spiritualized toxicity (such as disaster warfare theology, prosperity gospel, charismania etc.)
Not to mention, many of these churches are first in line to support the unification of church and state and advocate for a Christian nationalist agenda.
Adventism, on the other hand, is built on seperation of church and state and while it has many toxic elements, swapping ours for someone else's just seems silly to me.
3. Our potential is unmatched. When I compared SDA theology to other theological systems out there, I found that despite our major flaws as a culture, our theology possesses a raw potential that no other theology has. Inherent in our potential is a theology of love that is coherent (ex. we don't believe God loves you but will burn you in hell forever if you don't love him back). This coherence invites deep nuance which, in turn, rejects creeds and established statements of truth, opting instead for a vision of truth as an unfolding phenomenon (present truth) where we are constantly discovering more and more of God.
But thats not all. Adventism also holds space for a theology of social protest, a theology of human wholeness, a theology of ecological harmony, a theology of cosmic rebalancing, and a theology that is diverse, inclusive, and contextual.
Perfect? No.
Often twisted into its own version of coercive conservatism? Yep.
Capable of becoming so much more while maintaining a cohesive biblical cosmology? Oh, yeah.
And its that last bit that keeps me here. Our potential. What our story is capable of. What we can be.
There will always be a toxic Adventism that obsesses over rules and control. Every denomination has a dimmension like this.
But the potential of a theology like ours to bring healing and beauty to the human experience? It's unmatched in my opinion. And I really, truly believe that.
I'm excited about that vision. I want to be a part of that message. And in my own small way, I want to participate in what this radical truth will bring to the world.
So I'm not going anywhere.
Here I stand. I can do no other.
How about you? Despite our movement's many issues, why are you still here? Share below!
Donald Trump Won… Now What?
Adventism has an addiction to conspiracies and cynical apocalypticism:
I heard it throughout my entire youth —
“Reagan will bring about the New World Order!”
“Clinton will unite church and state!”
“Bush will usher in the Sunday Law!”
“Obama is the final president!”
And of course, let’s not forget all the Catholic-Panic rhetoric:
“John Paul the 2nd just sneezed! It’s a sign of the end!”
“Benedict looks like Emperor Palpatine. It’s because he’s the final evil pope to bring about the end!”
Whelp… he retired…
“BUT… DID YOU HEAR? THE NEW GUY (FRANCIS) IS A JESUIT!”
Let’s just say, after nearly 40 years of hearing this same recycled nonsense, the temptation to throw it all in the bin and be done with anything remotely resembling end time events is very strong.
But 2 things keep me from doing so.
First, the knowledge that Jewish Apocalypticism (Daniel & Revelation) is a long tradition of protest to the imperial powers that colonize and marginalize…
And I sure do hope that my annoyance at emotionally unstable Adventists looking for a devil under every bush doesn’t deter me from continuing in this ancient tradition that gives a voice to the voiceless while speaking truth to power…
Second, the conviction that misuing something is not an excuse for throwing that thing away. Afterall, I don’t throw away my towels (made to dry me nicely after a warm shower) just because some teenage bozo in the locker room decided to go “tower snap” crazy on everyone…
(OK, I admit I was the bozo… but moving on…)
The prophetic voice of scripture is too beautiful, too rich, too drenched in social and civil resistance, too rooted in the soil of the oppressed for me to ever give it up.
And with that in mind, I turn my attention to current events… Donald Trump won… decisively… so now what?
To be frank, I am not a republican or a democrat. I don’t trust either party. I have no faith in the systems of men. Of course, I am not knocking anyone who identifies with either party. I’m just saying - I don’t trust empire. No matter how pretty its speech or how eloquent its promises, there is a reason why the Bible calls empire a “beast.”
Beasts are neither good nor evil. They simply exist with one instinct: self-preservation and perpetuation of their species.
That is the primal instinct of the lion, the tiger, and the leopard.
These beasts don’t care what your goals and dreams are. They have zero interest in all the good things you have done or what degree you got or how much you love your kids.
When they see you, they see food. Because their instinct is merely this: eat to survive.
Jewish apocalypticism refers to empires as “beasts” because this is precicely how they function. Despite all the good motives, brilliant ideals, and philosophical dreams they might have… in the end they have to eat to survive… and eat they will.
I don’t mean to oversimplify politics. It’s messy and complicated. But in the end, empire is empire. And empire likes to empire.
Donald Trump is now president. Where to from here?
There are too many opinions and estimations on this question.
But the one thing that is clear to me is that this administration has the backing and support of the religious right…
Christian nationalism is on the rise.
Emboldened by Trump, evangelicalism chases power in Washington like never before.
And if things materialize the way some of these evangelicals want - there are some beastly days ahead.
Ellen White warned of this when she wrote,
“the union of the church with the state… while it may appear to bring the world nearer to the church, does in reality but bring the church nearer to the world.”1
She goes on to say:
When Protestant churches shall unite with the secular power to sustain a false religion… when the state shall use its power to enforce the decrees and sustain the institutions of the church—then will Protestant America have formed an image to the papacy [a church-state union].”2
And while this may tick off some SDA Trumpers out there…
The above scenario is not something that a secular, post-modern left will enact. It is something that will come, and is already in motion (see Project 2025), through the political right.
I don’t meant to imply the left is innocent. I think the pull of the one fuels the tug of the other.
But in the end, a church-state alliance will not come from the post-religious left. It will come via the policies of a very, very religious right.
So, how shall we then live?
Here are 3 thoughts that cross my mind:
Don’t expect empire to be what the church alone has been called to be. Empire isn’t supposed to be welcoming, inclusive, vulnerable, relational, and safe. Don’t get me wrong - I wish it could be. But it simply can’t. As Machiavelli once said, stability is an empires chief goal and it must accomplish this via subterfuge, espionage, deception, and if need be… violence… But the church is Christ’s alternative community, his humanity 2.0, and it is up to us to live out the kingdom of love in the here and now.
Plant, plant, plant. Because of this, my encouragement to Adventists everywhere is to plant new churches that reflect the rhythms of the kingdom thus bringing its beauty into the center of our polarized and despondent communities. You don’t need a building or even a pastor to do this. You just need a passion for cultivating warm spaces of belonging for people to encounter God’s heart and you can plant a church.
Speak truth to power. I love Adventism’s prophetic heritage and focus. My encouragement though? We need to decolonize our apocalyptic preaching. We have made it too much about religio-centric and individualistic/ pietistic themes. We have lost the true vision of prophecy as a protest of systems of power that marginalize, oppress, and harm the voiceless and forgotten. In both word and action, our local communities must become centers of prophetic protest that advocate on behalf of the suffering.
Regardless of whether Trump and the right hold power or not…
Our mission remains the same.
To be the alternative community. The home of the other. The space of belonging. The voice in the wilderness. The center of healing that points to Jesus.
Not the appropriated Jesus with an American flag and a rifle…
The authentic Jesus who laid down his life for his enemies and friends.
Let’s be that church.
PS. Join the Mission Collective and learn the art of transforming your church, reaching your youth, connecting with the secular world, and planting new, creative & innovative churches designed for post-religious mission! TAP HERE
_____
1. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911),p. 297.
2. Ellen G. White, Last Day Events (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1992), p. 134. (Italics supplied.)
My Top 3 Tips on Launching A Highly Successful Online Ministry
After 10 years of running an indie online ministry here is my best advice for young creatives wanting to do the same:
1. Don't wait until everything is perfect. Just start. When I look back at my early content it makes me cringe. The quality was bad. The approach was cheesy. And I totally annoyed people. But here's the thing: had I not started then, I wouldn't have a successful podcast, multiple self published books, and an online school with students around the world today. I'm glad I started when I did and learned a long the way. Because if I had waited till everything was perfect, I'd still be waiting.
2. Know your WHO. Knowing who you are serving with your online ministry is the only way to survive the trolls and critics. And trust me, if you didn't already know it, there are a ton of them. They will send you nasty emails. Leave you nasty comments. And if they find your contact info, they will even send you anonymous letters and texts with nasty words.
I've had plenty of them over the years. I've been called an arrogant child for the crime of daring to share my thoughts. I've been called a Jesuit for the crime of disagreeing with fundamentalist and ultra conservative nonsense. When I was an employee pastor, people complained behind my back to my conference leaders all the time (they never said it to my face of course) and caused all kinds of headaches.
It never deterred me and here's why. My online ministry wasn't for them. I knew my WHO and I served them with passion. And guess what? For every troll I've encountered in the last 10 years, I've met 10 thankful souls who absolutely love and support what I do. And their opinion is the only one that counts because they are my WHO.
3. Never, ever apologize for charging or selling content. The money mindset in Christianity is absolutely appalling. If you sell a book, an online course, or anything else you will have folk complaining that because it's ministry it should all be free.
Don't listen to them. First, they aren't your WHO anyways. Second, they are wrong.
Your creativity, time, and energy don't have to be free. If you produce good content that has good value people who appreciate it will pay. If they don't want to pay, it's because they don't value your offering.
Folk with a poor money mindset simply don't understand what it takes to run an online project because they either haven't done it, or they haven't done it in a modern, professional, elegant way. They don't get that it costs money to run a decent website, to host a podcast, to get good sound and video gear, fees to send email reminders, and high costs to advertise your products to reach more people. If you publish a book they don't get that the publisher takes a cut, the distributor takes a cut, you have to hire editors and designers that cost money and so on and so forth.
All they see is a price tag and immediately freak out. But their poor money mindset isn't your emergency. If you do good work, you deserve to be compensated, end of story.
So never apologize for monetizing content. Your ideal WHO won't complain anyway because they value you, your time, and your creativity.
Have any more questions about launching a successful online ministry? Ask below! I'll do my best to answer
New 4-Volume Book Set “Adventism+” Says its time to Upgrade Adventism…
Groundbreaking series explores all 28 Fundamental beliefs of our church with a missional lens from our metamodern present toward the next 10-30 years of AI, space migration, and rapid technological shifts…
Are we prepared to share our hope in this new, post-religious, and radically different world? Or will we keep saying and doing the same things that no longer make sense to emerging generations?
Kindle | Hardcover | Softcover
From the desk of Pastor Marcos Torres
September 30, 2024
To every missional, innovative, and creative Adventist who loves our message and longs to adapt how we share it with new, unchurched generations…
I have exciting news for you.
Volume 1 of the 4-Volume Adventism+ set is now available on Amazon!
But what exactly is this set about? And why should you read it?
This set is all about sharing the unique message of Adventism in the midst of the largest cultural revolution of our lifetime: the posthuman revolution.
Post-humanism is most commonly used to refer to the cultural revolution that Artificial Intelligence, robotics, gene-editing, and cyborg technology (etc.) are bringing to the human experience.
For example, tech giants like Elon Musk are pushing the idea that humans need to take over our own evolution in order to upgrade to the next stage or else risk extinction.
This next stage, they believe, we will arrive at by becoming more than human through blending our bodies with machines and AI. (This is why Elon has developed Neuralink for example.)
Because the goal is to become more than human… or a better, more “upgraded” kind of human… this cultural shift is generally referred to as either "Transhumanism" or "Post-Humanism."
Within the post-human landscape you have things like:
- Life extension (where aging is seen as a disease that can be cured through technology)
- Gene editing (where we can edit out the genes that cause illness and disability)
- Cyborg technology (where we blend man with machine in order to enhance our abilities)
- Multiplanetary migration (where we begin building cities on Mars, the moon, floating in space etc. in order to ensure our species survival in the event of an earth-catastrophe)
And more…
These things are not science fiction either.
They are happening already with clinical trials, billionaire investors, and government regulations being drafted.
And within the next 30 years this will introduce a revolution in human thinking and experience… like the digital, industrial, and agricultural revolutions that came before.
And as these shifts become more and more normative in the modern world, the anxieties that people experience will also change with them.
Which means if we keep sharing our message using the same language and angles that worked in 1920 and 1950 (even 1990 for that matter) we will increasingly speak in a way that makes absolutely no sense to anyone listening to us (…although chances are, they won’t be listening)
Thinking ahead is the key to articulating our message to speak clearly and meaningfully no matter how deeply our world changes.
Because here’s the sad truth: A lot of our churches are still stuck debating coffee and jewelry while the rest of society is moving toward an AI/ Cyborg revolution… 🤖
Even though we have THE most beautiful revelation of God’s heart for the world today,
We are so desperately out of touch,
…that when we share our message, we do so in ways that have little relevance or importance to anyone who isn’t already one of “us”…
But the good news is, we don't have to stay stuck like this..
A new generation of SDA believers is on the move,
…and the “Adventism+” four-volume set is going to map out a new vision for how we, as a movement, can anchor the beauty of our message in our current metamodern age with a lens toward the rapidly emerging, post-human revolution. 🚀
Here is a brief breakdown:
📕Volume 1: Explores fundamental beliefs 1-7 wrestling with questions like creation, the nature of God, and humanity in light of our current metamodern landscape as well as the emerging post-human revolution. (Available Now!)
📗Volume 2: Dissects fundamental beliefs 8-14 offering a metamodern and posthuman contextualization on the Great Controversy, the gospel, and the church that speaks directly to evolving anxieties. (Arrives in early 2025)
📘Volume 3: Unravels fundamental beliefs 15-21, exploring a reanimated vision of themes like law and Sabbath that reinvigorates our faith, moving it from irrelevant to socially impactful in a world of humanoids and space travel. (Arrives in late 2025)
📙Volume 4: Unpacks fundamental beliefs 22-28 through the unfolding vision of fast approaching multi-planetary migration and AI revolutions, with a message of sacred-protest for our species. (Arrives in 2026)
These in depth explorations matter because we have a message for this generation and for this time…
But this means we are responsible to communicate it in a way that resonates with the heart of the seeker,
And maybe that means, its time to “Upgrade”
So if you are a missional Adventist with a passion for emerging generations…
And you want to learn how to share the gospel in ways that make sense to our current tired-of-religion world…
And prepare yourself to share it in the fast approaching post-human, techno-wild era that is already upon us,
Then you DO NOT want to miss this 4-Volume set.
Volume 1 is already here!
Adventism+ Vol. 1: Origins
Kindle | Hardcover | Softcover
I Resigned from Ministry A Year Ago. Here’s What I Have Learned.
It has now been slightly over 1 year since I resigned from full time pastoral church employment.
Which means, its time for an update!
What on earth have I been up to? What has the journey post-employment been like? And what has been the biggest difference between being a fulltime pastor and a volunteer?
Here goes!
What on earth have I been up to?
A lot of people ask me what I have been doing since transitioning out of church employment. Afterall, I have a bachelors in theology and a minors in biblical languages. Not exactly the kind of papertrail that gets you hired at a well paying coorporation.
But the good news is, God has gifted me with the gift of writing and I have been using that skill to build my own marketing business where I work with other businesses to help improve their branding, sales, and engagement. And while the business is still growing, so far we are doing good!
Candice and I also launched 'The Hunger App' - a trauma-informed devotional app for survivors of church harm, religious trauma, and spiritual abuse. Its still in its early stages with lots of growth projected for the future but this project has also kept us pretty busy.
And of course, there is 'The Story Church Project'. I've teamed up with pastor Mario Alvarado to relaunch the podcast. I've also continued to run the online school and have a new book I've been preparing to publish (Volume 1 of the Adventism+ series).
What has the journey post-employment been like?
It would be disingenous of me to say any of this has been easy. To be honest, the last year has been the hardest year of our family life. If it wasnt for the love, support, and encouragement of our church family we wouldn't have survived. The body of Christ has kept us going and its only toward the end of the year that business began to pick up enough for us to stabalize again.
I share this because I want to encourage anyone reading who feels called by God to leave a comfort zone and do something radical. It's unlikely to be easy. Following God doesn't mean all the pieces of the puzzle will magically come together. It doesn't guarantee an easy journey or even a steady stream miracles. We have wrestled through months of silence, lack of clarity, unknowns, and doubts. We even wrestled with whether we misheard God. But through all our prayers and conversations, the conviction that God led us this way has only grown stronger.
I loved working for the denomination. I learned a ton. Met incredible people. Served with amazing believers. And had inspiring leaders who supported, encouraged and poured into me during the last 10 years. But we also knew that if we were going to fully immerse ourselves in the work of secular mission, we needed to humbly step out of the system. And while its been insanely hard and we have more obstacles to overcome, we wouldn't change the journey for anything in the world.
What has been the biggest difference between being a fulltime pastor and being a volunteer?
I always try and walk this line as carefully as possible because while I think its important to challenge the church, I never want to come across like one of those toxic independent ministries who are bitter, cynical, and divisive. Hopefully I walk that line well as I answer this very relevant question.
The honest truth is, the biggest insight I have gained since leaving church employment is how much innovation is valued outside the church versus within it.
Now I get there are legitimate reasons for that. I don't advocate for an innovation free-for-all. Healthy adaptation must involve a balance of modernization and risk management. And when the novelty wears off, not every innovation is positive or good.
However, while risk management is good the church often seems to confuse risk management with risk aversion. In the companies that I work with, risk management is a huge part of what they do. They want to ensure new innitiatives minimize risk while maximizing results.
But the difference between risk management and risk aversion is that risk management welcomes new ideas and explores them enthusiastically within an intelligent execution framework.
Risk aversion, on the other hand, simply rejects new ideas outright. There is no enthusiasm, openness, or interest. Instead, we lead with a posture of immeditate suspicion and rejection of anything that is new or different.
The easiest way to put it is that risk management leans into innovation and engages it enthusiastically while maintaining smart execution processes.
Risk aversion leans away from innovation and runs from it, views it with suspicion, and prefers to simply do the same "safe and familiar" thing over and over even if it doesn't work.
Now I can't speak about our church's upper administrative layers like conferences and unions because I never worked in those. But when it comes to the local church, I can confidently say a culture of risk aversion is what I have encountered most often.
In fact, I encountered it so often that in my first post-pastoral-employment meeting with a client I offered a new idea and immediately my body clenched with the expectation of resistance. Instead, the opposite happened! Client after client has responded to new, innovative ideas with so much enthusiasm that it took me a while to get used to it.
So that appreciation, curiosity, excitement and eagerness for new ideas has been the biggest difference for me. But I don't say this in a critical way because I believe the church can develop a more elastic approach to mission and culture. That vision is a huge part of why I started and continue to nurture this project.
So there you have it! My 1 year update. If you have any specific questions you'd like to ask, post them below! Comments and thoughts are also welcome.
Much love!
Pastor M
Prophetic Irrelevance: How Modern Adventism Forgot Its Social Justice Roots
Disclaimer: Not all Modern Adventism has forgotten its social justice roots. Many voices, particularly in (but not limited to) Black Adventism, have been calling these issues out for decades. Its time the rest of the church listened.
___
I was having a chat with a friend yesterday about the purpose of prophecy and what makes it meaningful vs irrelevant in our modern world.
Here are the 3 points we touched on.
1. Biblical prophecy is an ancient Hebraic phenomenon. It's not American. It's not European. It's not western. It is Hebraic-Jewish in its makeup. Any prophetic discourse that ignores this, ignores the very heart of Biblical prophecy.
2. The heart of Jewish prophecy is a protest against institutional, systemic, and imperial systems of oppression and corruption. Both the major and minor prophets were social justice warriors driven by a vision of a just society in harmony with YHWHs heart.
3. The early Adventists who fought against the slave trade, ran underground railroads, and advocated for religious freedom knew this. Sadly, modern fundamentalist Adventism has continued to preach prophecy, but divorced it from its social protest dimensions. We have turned it into an irrelevant set of super nerdy discourses that are religio-centric and have very little relevance to most people, especially in our secular world.
Perhaps this neutering is why our institution complied with Jim Crow in America, supported the 3rd Reich in Germany, and stood by apartheid in south Africa all the while continuing to preach "prophecy" seminars.
In 2025 the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists wants to run 3000 evangelistic programs.
Those who choose to participate here is my invitation --- remember who we are.
As a prophetic movement we have a responsibility to resist injustice, cultivate healing, and protest corruption. Today, this includes protesting the Christian Nationalism that is growing in influence via the conservative, evangelical right.
We need to step into our true identity. Adventism isn't meant to be another conservative fundamentalist church. The world has had plenty of sectarian, narcissists religion.
We are instead meant to be an alternative community that lives out the rhythms of the kingdom of heaven - a new kind of world rooted in servanthood and not domination, whose king washes feet and touches lepers. Not a warrior with muscle. Not an emperor with coercive power. But a lamb who calls us to love.
Why SDA Church Planters Feel Alone & What to Do About It
I want to share you with the biggest struggle my missional church planting students have...
Before I share it though, allow me to say this: I have done missional church plant training with 3 different organizations. And this problem that I am talking about is not something other denominations face. This seems to be an SDA problem. Perhaps not exclusively, but definitely more common...
And here is the problem: Loneliness
It sounds like this: "I don't have any good candidates to build a core team with."
"The Adventists in my local church are either,
A) “Toxic, unhealthy, and unsafe to build a secular mission core team with, or..."
B) "They get the vision and agree with it, but are otherwise too comfortable and disconnected to take the risk and plant a missional community..."
Which translates to: "I feel alone in this. I have no one to build with. I don't know what to do."
When I trained with other denominations, this was never an issue. Pentecostals, Baptists, Wesleyans — none of them had this problem. If they wanted to plant a church, even an innovative and creative one, they had a much easier time gathering a team of mission-hearted, relationship focused believers ready to do something radical for the kingdom.
SDA's? Not so much.
In my own personal church planting experience I have found that some SDA's are so conservative and fundamentalist that they do not make healthy candidates for missional church planting leadership — especially if your vision is to reach secular, post-church seekers.
And the ones that do agree with the overall vision lack the drive and determination to sacrifice comfort for mission. (They either prefer the comfort of a spectator model, are too scared to try something new, or have religious trauma and need to focus on healing.)
And it can leave the missionaries and church planters feeling like this is an impossible task. Like we will never be able to get anywhere because we just don't have the nucleus of believers to build a sustainable team with.
In some parts of the world you do have a good handful who are willing to go all in. This has been my unique experience in my city.
But in most parts, this basic pre-requisite doesn't exist.
I know because I run an online school with missional SDA's from all over the globe.
And this is the #1 frustration that I hear from all of them.
But here's the good news: Some of the members of this online school have been able to find each other and connect through our private chat group. These connections, I pray, will enable missional believers who live near each other without knowing to connect and launch new church plants that capture the relational vision our church desperately needs.
That aside, here are my top 3 tips for any missional Adventists out there who have no good candidates in your region who you can build a new, healthy community with.
Look elsewhere. Yep, I said it. If there are no healthy SDA candidates in your region who can be a part of bringing Kingdom to culture, build a team with non-SDA's. Find people who have a heart for Jesus and humanity, who are Kingdom minded rather than religion minded, and build something with them.
Start with discipleship, not denomination. If your goal in life is to make more SDA's then you might never get anywhere. If your goal in life is to make more disciples of Jesus, then you can get to work. As much as I love the SDA movement, we can't deny that our own faith-tribe is beyond sleepy and very difficult to mobilize. But the world still needs Jesus. Build (or join) a team of believers who want to share the hope of Jesus and make disciples and leave denominational brand loyalty aside.
Learn how to share Adventism in ways that build bridges not walls. This way you don't have to bury our message as you work with other believers. Instead, you can confidently share it because you know how to do it in ways that awaken curiosity and excitement as opposed to defensiveness.
Some SDA's will get angry at these tips and see it as an abandonment of our movement. But if I can be perfectly honest — I'm not the biggest fan of these tips either, not because I don't like other believers but because I wish, with all my heart, that our own faith tribe was filled with passionate, spiritual, relational, healthy, innovative, socially conscious, radically creative people who were ready to go hard for the kingdom. I wish I didn't have to "look elsewhere". My heart breaks at the condition of our movement and the lack of energy and vision.
So if these tips make you angry, don't come at me. Instead, use that anger to help cultivate a new generation of Adventists who are so on fire for Jesus, missional church planters will never feel alone again.
Of course, I still believe in this and TSCP is all about that task of awakening the dry bones in our own backyard.
But I get that in some regions, if you want to get somewhere, you have to go elsewhere.
Oh and one more thing… While I can’t guarantee anything you can always link up with other missional SDA believers around the world through my private online academy. This school isn't open to everyone. You have to apply to join. If your application is approved, you might be able to find some innovative SDA's who live close by.
And in that online school, I also show you how to do steps 1-3 in simple and sustainable ways.
You can apply here: nas.io/the-mission-collective
But if you can't join, no worries! Keep following this page for more tips and content on mission in our tired-of-religion age. And don't forget, our movement began as a smorgasboard of diverse denominations who were passionate about one thing: the coming of Jesus.
There's no reason we can't go back there.
Pastor M
Who’s ready to do something different?
A friend of mine was travelling last year and visited the SDA church near his hotel. He had never been to this town before. No one knew him.
He walked into the church on Sabbath morning and was there from Sabbath School all the way to main service.
The entire experiece was dry, monotonous, lacking in life and energy with songs sung half asleep and a sermon that had no intelligible point to it.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Not one person spoke to him the entire morning.
No one said hello. Asked where he was from or invited him to eat.
He felt so crushed by the experiece that he decided to visit the local evangelical church the next Sunday.
As soon as he walked in he was warmly greeted, and not just by a greeters team but by every day church members.
They had never seen him before and wanted to meet him. It wasn't overwhelming or over the top. It was sincere and genuine interest.
They made sure he had a good seat. During the altar call another member came by and sat next to him and asked him if he would like to pray together.
They invited him to stay and eat and gave him a flyer with information about their mid week small groups so he could connect during the week and find a good support network.
After telling me this story, my friend (a committed SDA elder who has planted 3 churches himself) looked at me with despondency in his eyes and asked:
"What is wrong with us?"
We sat there in silence. Neither knowing what to say.
I don't know whats wrong. I honestly think its the wrong question - the kind that takes you down a pointless rabbit trail that ends nowhere.
My prefered question is this: Who’s ready to do something different for the kingdom?
Who’s ready to say 'no more'?
Who’s ready to move without permission, love without restriction, and serve without condition?
If you said "I am" to any of the above questions, then I want to encourage you. The future of our movement depends on a new generation of believers like you who value relationships over religion, people over programs, and togetherness over tradition.
Get moving! I'm in your corner rooting for you. And if you need help along the way, feel free to check out my website for training resources and content to empower you along the way.
Here's to an Adventism. Redesigned.
Pastor M
Pastor Marcos | Missional Church Planter
P.S. Are you ready to shatter the status quo and reach secular post-church generations in a way that truly resonates? The Mission Collective online school is the ultimate game-changer, offering a treasure trove of proven strategies, innovative approaches, and insider secrets to help you share the Gospel in a way that's both authentic and compelling. With 30+ workshops, relevant resource downloads, and weekly live sessions, you'll be equipped to break through the noise and connect with those who need it most. Join the movement and apply now to become part of a vibrant community of global believers who are passionate about mission and dedicated to making a real difference! Apply HERE.
Effective Missional Outreach Doesn't Work, Unless…
In the last 10 years of active ministry, I have noticed that we Adventists loooove a good old “model”.
A one-size-fits-all evangelism blueprint we can copy and paste without having to work too hard while still guaranteeing results.
I can already hear the advertisement:
"Discover the ultimate evangelism shortcut! Our New Model guarantees baptisms without requiring personal connections or time-consuming relationship-building. Simply follow our proven, step-by-step formula and watch your church grow - no friendships needed!"
Whoever designs this new model is guaranteed to get SDA rich! (Remember me when you make it big 😅)
Jokes asside, depending on what your particular task and context are, blueprints can be helpful.
But when it comes to mission in the secular, post-church age I need to be super clear:
There is no blueprint. No one-size-fits-all. No standardized model. No copy-paste system.
Yes, there are basic principles. (Which I share exclusively in my Monday Missional emails. Subscribe here to never miss out.)
But outside of those basic principles, there is no system you can mindlessly inject into your local context and expect wild results. And here is the main reason why:
Secularism is fragmented.
I know, I know — what on earth am I talking about with my fancy-schmancy words, right?
Let me put it this way: If you are a missionary in a Buddhist society, you will find there are a diversity of Buddhists.
However, you will also find a general “worldview” that unites all Buddhists. Same in Muslim countries, or really any religious society.
But in the secular post-modern west, there is no agreed upon worldview that people unite around. Everyone just kinds of makes up their own as they go along. So rather than a united perspective, secular countries have a fragmented one which means secular people are not the same from one house to the next, let alone one city to the next.
And without a united worldview to anchor in, we simply can’t develop a singular blueprint of mission to secular culture.
Unless…
When I was a soldier training to go to Iraq, a lot of the cadre used to say that whatever they taught us was likely to be outdated by the time we made it into the combat zone.
The reason was insurgents studied the tactics used by the Army and would develop counter-tactics specifically designed to frustrate our most well developed plans.
The only way to stay one step ahead of them was to develop a culture of “elasticity” where we anticipated their counter-tactics and counteracted them before they had a chance to implement them.
Sounds confusing, I know. But the bottom line is this: Our enemy was so smart, so ahead of the curve, so creative and innovative that unless we abandoned our love for strict military structure and embraced a flexible approach, we would lose lives.
So we switched tactics. Uniformity was out the window.
Strict plans were out the window.
Elasticity (flexible, adaptable tactics) was in.
And its the same in secular mission. While secular people differ from house to house and city to city there is at least one thing we can always count on being true no matter where we go and its this: they will be fragmented.
To put it in plain english:
“The only thing that makes secular people the same is that they are never the same”
And because of this, we can count on the fact that secular mission must look different everywhere we go. Once we embrace that simple paradigm shift, we can begin to develop new missional approaches that are flexible, adaptable, and contextual.
This, I believe, is one of the primordial keys to mission in our secular, post-church age: elasticity.
It’s time we threw away the unformity. The standardization of local church ministry. The blind allegiance to a manual. And the copy-paste model of evangelism.
In fact, its time we threw away our desire to find a blueprint altogether.
Instead, lets get back to kingdom basics: raw, on the ground relationships where we listen deeply, adapt accordingly, and connect contextually.
Pastor Marcos | Missional Church Planter
P.S. Are you ready to shatter the status quo and reach secular post-church generations in a way that truly resonates? The Mission Collective online school is the ultimate game-changer, offering a treasure trove of proven strategies, innovative approaches, and insider secrets to help you share the Gospel in a way that's both authentic and compelling. With 30+ workshops, relevant resource downloads, and weekly live sessions, you'll be equipped to break through the noise and connect with those who need it most. Join the movement and apply now to become part of a vibrant community of global believers who are passionate about mission and dedicated to making a real difference! Apply HERE.
The Top 3 Worst SDA Outreach Habits
The top 3 worst SDA outreach habits I have seen in my 10+ years of ministry:
1. Assuming What People Need: I once had a church member complain that they had tried giving a co-worker a book. The co-worker said they weren't interested and refused the book. The Adventist was upset that the co-worker didn't accept the book. After asking a few questions here is what I learned: The co-worker was a secular person who had no religious affiliations or background. The book the Adventist offered them was about the Waldensians. Now, I don't want to shame this dear member for giving outreach a go, but I think its obvious what went wrong in this whole scenario.
2. Explaining our Message in 19th Century Ways: I shared this story recently but heres a shorter version: I once sat in on a Bible study with an elder trying to explain to a secular seeker why the state of the dead was such an important topic. His reasoning? Because if we think people go to heaven when they die, Satan can deceive us by pretending to be our dead loved ones. The secular guy was lost, unamused, and unimpressed. This approach to the state of the dead might not be "wrong" but its outdated. And the truth is, we do this with almost all our doctrines. Sabbath vs Sunday? Dated. Investigative Judment as defending God's transparency? Dated. The Health Message as increasing longevity? Dated. We can preach the same message in modern ways that actually make sense to people in the 21st century, cause it ain't 1890 anymore.
3. Handing out Literature without Relationships: I get it, there isn't always time to build relationships and sometimes media is the best way to get the message out there. There is nothing wrong with that. But here's a quick story: A guy I knew was in rehab. Some local SDA ladies brought him a meal and with it, a bag with a whole stack of EGW books. He wasn't SDA so he called me to ask what that was all about. He said at first he felt really blessed by the food, but when he saw the bag with all the books he immediately felt like a project. Whats worse, the ladies never came back, never visited him again. It was as if, once they dumped the EGW library on him, their job was done. No relationship. No connection. Just drop and go evangelism. And it sucks.
The wild thing is each of these scenarios would have been 100% better if the Adventists did 1 thing differently. Not 10, not 5, just 1. No need for a degree, for special training, or for a unique set of skills. This 1 simple thing would have made all the difference and anyone can do it.
It's called listening. Thats all. Thats how you avoid being tone deaf. Thats how you avoid being disingenous. Thats how you avoid being agenda driven. You listen. And you listen with intention. To know, to learn, to understand, and to serve.
Had listening taken place in scenario 1, a book on the Waldensians would never have been offered to a secular co-worker. Instead, the Adventist would have gotten to know the person, built a relationship with them, and sought to serve them according to THEIR needs.
Had listening taken place in scenario 2, that secular seeker and elder would both have had a much more enjoyable, productive, and relevant Bible study rather than an attempted indoctrination session.
Had listening taken place in scenario 3, a lost soul in a rehab center would have encountered hope in genuine people rather than being repulsed by the phony kindness used as a guise to convert.
Listening. We're not very good at it as SDAs. We "have the truth" so we prefer to do all the talking. Well, we can keep talking all we want. Truth is, folk stopped listening a long time ago.
Its time we zipped our lips. Surrendered our pride. And learned to listen. This is the key to mission in our post-church age.
P.S. Adventists love a good conspiracy theory, so I decided to create my own secret society. 😅 Wanna join? Tap here.
Over 90,000 Baptisms? 😲
Have you heard the news? Over 90,000 people were recently baptised in Papua New Guniea during the PNG for Christ campaign.
THAT. IS. INCREDIBLE.
Since this took place, I have heard a few SDA’s ask — what will it take for that to happen here, in Australia?
And by extension, how can we see the same results in other secular western countries like Europe, Canada and America?
Here are my thoughts:
We must keep context in mind. Long before SDA’s showed up, 98% of PNG’s population already identified as Christian. To the contrary, Australia’s Christian population has dropped from 86% in 1971 to 44% in 2021. In the meantime, the number of people identifying as having “no religion” has grown from 7% in 1971 to 38% in 2021. In other western secular countries, the stats are much the same.
Context dictates method. PNG’s culture is deeply religious which means a traditional religious frame works in evangelizing its population. To the contrary, Australia has a deeply secular culture meaning a different frame must be used if we want to root the gospel here.
But what does this actually look like?
Here’s what it DOESN’T look like:
More church programs
More traditional prophecy or doctrinal seminars
More advertising campaigns
These approaches simply don’t work in secular, post-church environments for three reasons:
Secular people are by-and-large uninterested in religion no matter how its “packaged”
Millennials & Zed’s are the most “advertised to” generations of all time. They can smell a sales pitch from a mile away, especially a religious one.
Almost every outreach model our church fails to speak meaningfuly to the anxieties faced by emerging generations.
So, if what we are doing doesn’t work — whats it going to take?
I recorded a simple video to help answer that very question,
Pastor M
Night is Coming: Mission in an Age of Chaos
As a 90's kid, I find it super hard to explain to my kids what the pre-9/11 world was like.
I don't mean to over-romantisize it, but in my personal experience, the 90's were, well... simple. The air was different. The world was different. There was an innocence in the atmosphere. People trusted each other. The social imagination and civic ecosystem were more relaxed. Our collective anxiety and cultural tensions were less pronounced. And this is coming from a latino who grew up in Newark, NJ - surrounded by gangs and injustice, poverty and struggle.
Even then, I'm still nostalgic about those days of naïveté and sincerity - uncomplicated by the trauma of terror, the ravenous polarisation of the political landscape, and the hyper-connectedness of the social media era.
But it all changed. And it changed incredibly fast. One day I was falling asleep in Mr. Garutto’s math class, and the next day it was 9/11. And the world I had always known flipped upside down. And everything started to change. The innocence and simplicity faded. A new era was upon us.
While my kids will never taste the chill vibes of the 90’s, they still know what its like for things to suddenly change. Because one day they were playing tag in recess, and the next day there was a pandemic lock down. One day they were napping, and the next day Russia invaded Ukraine. In fact, just last Sabbath most of us were resting, others sleeping, and others raving at a music festival in Southern Israel. And just like that, over 2000 rockets shot into the sky.
In less than a few hours, thousands in Israel had died. The nation declared war. For so many, in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
But for many of us, especially in the west, these conflicts are still distant. Yet just like that, in the blink of an eye, we too can find our world change forever. What we once thought abnormal can suddenly become the new normal. And it may happen sooner than we think. As the conflict in Israel escalates, China also threatens war. North Korea builds its nuclear arsenal. The war between Russia and Ukraine goes on. And Artificial Intelligence, for all its enthusiastic promise, is already being weaponised in ways we can’t fully comprehend.*
I think it’s safe to say: Our geopolitical landscape is dancing on a knifes edge.
It reminds me of the words of Jesus in John 9:4,
“I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night is coming when no man can work.”
I'm not a fear monger. You all know I am allergic to conspiracy theories, apocalyptic obsession, and doom-gloom rhetoric. But as a student of culture and society I can’t deny the glaringly obvious: night is coming.
We got a glimpse of it with COVID lockdowns. And that glimpse was enough to knock our local churches out for a whole year. Mission stopped. Evangelism stopped. Discipleship stopped. The best we could do was translate our program template onto a digital screen so we could keep the same old, tired gears spinning.
The work God had called us to do in the day we had failed to do. Night came, and the tragedy of our irrelevance and missional impotence was exposed.
And yet, in the midst of all this the cry I heard most was not a cry for mission, for innovation, or for creative adaptation to the needs of the time. The loudest cry was a longing to return to the status quo, to get back to our usual programming, to reopen our buildings so we could get back to our banal traditions.
We had a golden opportunity to adapt for the needs of our generation. With the demands of weekly events on pause, we had a once-in-a-lifetime shot to redesign our churches for mission. And we let it pass us by.
It’s no secret: My greatest burden is for our movement to break free from the spell of consumer driven church programs and reclaim the primitive godliness of incarnational, love-centred, radical countercultural, relationally driven communities. Because night is coming. The signs are everywhere. You don't even have to be a Christian to see it. And when it comes, it will be dark. And the work we have failed to do in the day we will have to do in the night, and we will look back at the daylight and long we had done something different.
Ellen White put it this way:
"The work which the church has failed to do in a time of peace and prosperity, she will have to do in a terrible crisis, under most discouraging, forbidding circumstances." (Ev. 31.4)
So that's the bad news. The good news is, it isn't night yet. At least, not for all of us. We still have daylight. There is still time. We can still get to work. We can still be the change we wish to see. We can still lead a revolution in the world.
But how? Thats the big question most missional believers have. It’s one thing to desire change. Its another thing to know how to do it. What we need at this hour is not more talk of change. What we need are steps.
At The Story Church Project, my goal is to provide these steps. I don’t just want to talk about change. I want to empower change.
Which is why I have just put together the “Daylight Missional Toolkit”. This toolkit has all my best resources. Ebooks for group discussion. Video training on how to share the gospel in our secular world. Church planting training on how to start new missional communities with no degree, no money, and no influence, and more.
The time for talk is done. It's time to be part of the change. To lead with courage. To make a difference in the church and in the world. Because the clock nears midnight. The day is almost done.
The Daylight Missional Toolkit is jam packed with everything you need to get started. It challenges you to stop talking and start walking. And it gives you all the steps you need to walk with confidence. Here's a breakdown of what you get:
Ebooks for group discussion: Gather a small group of believers and begin exploring these ebooks together, digging deep into our mission and identity as Adventists and the calling God has given us to share the gospel with the world.
Video instruction on theology, mission, and sharing the gospel with unbelievers: Over 30 videos exploring modern culture and its resistance to the gospel, with practical insights and steps on how to share Jesus effectively.
Step-by-step church planting training: Learn a new model for the local SDA church that anyone can start with no degree, no money, and no influence. You don't have to be a paid pastor or conference employee. This training will give you the step-by-step process to launching an effective Missional church that reaches your city.
This entire mission school is unique in that it focuses on sharing Jesus with a secular, post-religious culture. You will learn the art of contextualisation, adaptation, innovation and gospel immersion while remaining radically faithful to the good news of Jesus.
This entire toolkit—ebooks, courses, PDFs and PPTs—could easily cost 300. But I’m only charging one super low price of $37 USD. The funds from this will enable me to create even more resources and develop new on-the-edge tools to empower mission in our age of chaos.
We still have daylight! Let's work the works of him who called us.
_____
* Kania, E. B. (2020). "AI weapons" in China's military innovation. Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ai-weapons-in-chinas-military-innovation/
Why I Will Never Stop Teaching "Doctrine"
Jesus said, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
This verse once spoke to and confused me. It spoke to me because I needed freedom. Freedom from my addictions. Freedom from the seemingly endless cycle of sin, feel bad, repent, feel fine, hit rewind and replay. And it confused me because, as far as I was concerned I knew the truth. But I still wasn’t free!
I had grown up an Adventist. I had been through Sabbath School, Pathfinders, and baptismal classes. I only listened to Christian music and went to church religiously every weekend. I would even go to the local Christian book store and get some extra stuff to read. Truth was something I had in abundance.
But I wasn’t free.
Turns out, I didn’t understand Jesus’ words in John 8:32 at all. Because when Jesus spoke about truth he was talking about something quite different from what I was thinking of. But before I tell you what that is, I want to back up a bit and introduce the rest of this blog with the following statement:
All of scripture is a revelation of God’s heart.
What does this have to do with John 8:32 and truth setting us free?
Let’s find out.
THE ESSENCE OF SCRIPTURE
The foundation and essence of the Biblical narrative is to unveil, step by step, a deeper and richer picture of who God is and what he is like. And this reality is expressed through all of scripture. Not just John or Galatians or the Psalms - all of scripture is an unfolding and uncovering of the mystery that is the love of God.
Another way to put it is like this: The entire Bible is gospel.
“The foundation and essence of the Biblical narrative is to unveil, step by step, a deeper and richer picture of who God is and what he is like. ”
Not just Matthew, Romans or Colossians. All of scripture is good news. Its there in Genesis, in Leviticus, in Isaiah and Ezra. The gospel doesn’t begin in the New Testament, and its not confined to the epistles. To the contrary, the gospel begins in Genesis and unravels itself through poetry, history and prophecy all the way through to Revelation.
What this means is that the entire narrative of scripture, from beginning to end, is about the love of God. His love is the essence, the theme, and the fullness of what the Bible is. And every doctrine that exists, does not exist independently of this love, but rather as a magnifier of it.
Picture it like this. Imagine the shape of a heart on a table surrounded by diverse magnifying glasses. As you approach the table, each magnifying glass enables you to zoom in on the heart in different ways. The main point of the whole experience is that heart. It is the hero of the story. But the magnifying glasses are there, not to take the attention to themselves, but to help you get a deeper look at the heart.
This is how the Bible is meant to be experienced. It’s not the love of God here and the doctrines there. Instead, the love of God is the centre of the entire experience and the doctrines are there to magnify that love in ways unimaginable to the human heart. If you think you have God’s love figured out, place it under the magnifying glass of the doctrine of baptism and you will walk away a totally new person, or the Sabbath, the Judgement, the Sanctuary etc. Each of these doctrines take us deep into God’s love and transform us.
DRY THEOLOGY
My biggest mistake when it came to this whole, “truth will set you free thing” is that I missed the essence of what truth was. Truth, in my mind, was a series of propositional ideas. I understood the Sabbath and could defend it. I understood the judgement as well. And the sanctuary. But what I missed was how each of these doctrines came together to tell one perfectly tethered story that both discloses the heart of God and immerses the reader in it’s intensity.
In short, I had a bunch of magnifying glasses with nothing to look at. As a result, none of my doctrinal knowledge really led me anywhere. They were facts, but they were not truth in the fullest sense of the word. Although I understood them, they did not lead me to the place of freedom.
Let’s look at Jesus’ words again. In John 8:32 he says, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. But go down a few verses to verse 36. What does he say there? “Whom the son sets free will be free indeed.”
Jesus equates the truth that sets us free with himself. The truth that delivers us is not merely right theology or right doctrine. All that does it make you smarter. But if you want to be set free, then your doctrine has to lead you to Jesus. It has to lead you to God’s heart. Because true freedom is in the presence of God.
Unfortunately, what happens is some people focus on the doctrines as though they are the main point of everything. This is what I did. It’s not that God’s love was ignored but rather, I treated it as a separate doctrine. God’s love and gospel are here and his law and church and end time events are over there. In this view, what I ended up with was a table full of magnifying glasses with nothing to look at. So I became obsessed with the magnifying glasses themselves and then wondered, “Why am I not experiencing freedom if I know the truth? Why isn’t Jesus’ promise working for me?”
In time, God showed me that the magnifying glasses are not designed to be looked at, they are designed to be looked through. And that’s how doctrine functions in the Bible. Doctrine is not something we look at, its something we look through. But when you remove the love of God, there is nothing to look at through the doctrines, so the doctrines, not God’s love, become ends to themselves that lead you nowhere. This results in staring at the magnifying glasses rather than looking through them. There is no life in this.
CHEESY THEOLOGY
On the flip side, there are those who say, “Forget doctrine! Its not important. The only thing that matters is the love of God!” Usually, they are reacting to Dry Theology which is understandable. I too went through this experience where, in my desire to taste the love of God I abandoned doctrine and treated it as the unwanted step-child of the Bible. But the downside is I ended up with a Cheesy Theology that was just as powerless to set me free.
In fact, lots of churches do this. And its sad. Its sad because while you feel a sense of self-righteousness in not being like those “dry people over there obsessed with doctrine,” you unavoidably nurture a shallow, irrelevant theology.
In this model, doctrine is proudly ignored and we harp on about the love of God week after week. But the problem is we never dig into that love deep enough to discover what it has to say to the gut wrenching existential inquiries of humanity.
This theology may be comfortable and marketable, but it is powerless before the atheist, the political ideologue, and the sibylline like wanderer who wants to believe in God but can’t find a single Christian capable of answering his questions in any remotely compelling way.
The only way to avoid dry theology on one end, and cheesy theology on the other is to embrace the tension between doctrine and love. That tension doesn’t really exist, but I find it necessary to codify it and speak of it in these terms because most of us treat them as antithetical to one another. And yet, read properly, the Bible is a progressive unveiling of the heart of God that transforms the reader. And that unveiling takes place in the harmonious dance between the overarching theme of God’s love, and the intentional presence of doctrinal magnifying glasses that give us greater, more colourful and more relevant glimpses into the bottomless ocean of his heart.
And it’s when those two are in harmony - God’s love as the central theme and doctrine as its continual magnifier - that we discover the life changing and freedom spawning nature of the Bible. In this dance we can encounter and communicate a truly relevant and liberating theology.
Why Does this Matter?
Once I discovered this, I realised once and for all why I wasn’t experiencing the freedom Jesus spoke of. It’s because I wasn’t experiencing truth. Truth and Jesus are one and the same. The Bible offers eternal life only because it offers him (John 5:39). You can understand all the doctrine you want, but if doctrine is merely something you are looking at and not something you are looking through - a portal into the presence of God - then you will never experience freedom, plain and simple. But once doctrine claims its rightful place as a microscope into the depths of God’s heart and you spend each day exploring those depths, your heart will begin to change.
But why does any of this matter? There are two answers to that question. The first is that the battle between good and evil is fundamentally rooted in the the person-hood of God. Satan spreads lies about him while God reveals truth about himself. So, at the end of the day, this lie-versus-truth conflict is a conflict over who God is and what he is like. And the only way to get an accurate picture that breaks the spell of Satan’s anti-God propaganda is to discover the love of God through the Biblical narrative, complete with the doctrinal magnifying glasses it provides.
In short, read your Bible. But more. If Satan cannot keep you from the Bible he will warp the way you read it. The cheesy model is one way he warps our ability to grasp the beauty of God’s character. The dry model is the other (which Adventists, I’m so sorry, tend to be most fond of.) Therefore, read your Bible but do it with a simple twofold approach. The first, to discover the heart of God in everything you read. The second, to read everything.
The second reason why it matters is because we become like what or whom we worship. If the God we worship is strict, stoic and controlling we will become that kind of people. So Satan doesn’t really care if you go to church and read your Bible, so long as he can keep you chained to his lies about God’s character. And as you worship this god - this false god of approval, this false god who sits in heaven looking desperately for an excuse to keep you out, this false god who demands perfection of you on the threat of eternal damnation - then you progressively become like that god. Your character begins to reflect the insecurity, judgmentalism, criticism and stoicism that the god you worship exemplifies. In this sense, Satan’s lies about God have a double effect. First, they damage our picture of God’s character. And second, they damage our own character. As we behold this false deity, our characters are shaped into its false image.
I have seen this damage for decades as an Adventist member and pastor. Everywhere I go I meet Adventists who are stuck in the mire of legalism, unsure about their own salvation. The difficult God they worship, reflected in their own difficult characters. Our churches are dying - our monotonous worship merely a reflection of our mechanical God. Our youth are leaving. Our leaders are ageing. Our church is hardly known by anyone outside our walls.
I have seen broken people driven out of our churches, gossip and slander our primary weapons of choice as we dig our trenches in never-ending battle between liberals and conservatives. In our history, we have promulgated lies about God just as much as the very religious institutions we were raised to protest.
What this means is that our safety cannot rest in some label like, “Adventist”. Our only safety is in Jesus. The Bible must become to us a telescope into the character of God. Every doctrine, not a point of controversy to be debated, but a magnifying glass into his heart. And as we marvel at that beauty, we will be transformed into his image—the image of love that our world desperately needs.
_____
Icon made by Puppets from www.flaticon.com (Magnifying Glasses)
Icon made by Bogdan Rosu from www.flaticon.com (Heart)
The 1 Question Adventists Need to Answer
I’ve been a pastor for a decade. In that time, the most common question I hear church leaders and missional believers wrestle with is “why is our church struggling to share its message?”
We are hardly keeping our young people, let alone reaching new ones. And recent surveys have shown that to this day, very few people in the general public know who SDA’s are or what our message is. And of those who do know about us, most have a very poor and unfavorable picture of us. (You can read about that here.)
I don’t have the full answer obviously, but after 10 years of ministry, I have definitely picked up on something that is essential to this conversation. But before I say what it is, let me offer an illustration:
I want you to picture a bookcase. The case is stacked with books. Every book happens to be a story about the meaning of life. And every story is different. Some are thick, 800 page volumes. Others are short, 100 page novels. But again, they all answer the same question (the meaning of life) but tell entirely different stories with entirely different answers to that same question.
As you picture that bookcase, I want you to imagine people coming to the bookcase. Everyone who comes is searching for answers to the meaning of life. Some are old, some are young. Some rich, some poor. When they get to the bookcase they are confronted with hundreds of stories - all of them offering their own narrative - and they choose one, sometimes two or three and read the books hoping to find answers.
Now I want you to walk right up to the book case and begin reading the book titles. One book is titled “The Path of Buddhism”. Another book is titled “The Way of Islam”. Still another is titled, “In the Footsteps of Abraham,” and another, “The Wisdom of the Vedas.” As you scan the book titles you discover that all of them are religions, philosophies and ideologies. Every book on the book case is essentially a story attempting to answer the same question but all telling different stories with their own unique contribution to the search for meaning.
Next, you arrive at the Christian section but instead of finding one book, you find a whole ton of them. “The Puritan Path”, “The Baptist Confession”, “The Methodist Quest,” and on and on.
Each of these books represent different perspectives on the search for meaning - for God. They each tell a different story and offer different insights into that adventure.
Finally, you arrive at a book titled “The Narrative of Adventism.”
It’s there among all the others. But here is my question to you - is there anything in that book that merits it being there?
Does that book have anything to offer, anything remotely important to say that no other book is saying?
Does that one book deserve to be its own book? Does it have anything meaningful, compelling or beautiful that no other book on that bookshelf has?
If the answer is no, then why was the book even written? Why add to the confusion of those who already have to sort through so much by adding an unnecessary story to the shelf?
But if the answer is “yes, it does have something unique to say,” then my question is - what is it? What does it say that no one else is saying?
When it comes to the question of Adventism’s uniqueness - what it is we have to say that is so eccentric and needed in the world - very few Adventists seem to know.
On the one hand, I find people who think they know. They think its the law, or the mark of the beast, or prophecy, or warnings about judgment, Babylon, and the end of the world.
On the other hand, there are people who find the question itself offensive. They want Adventism to be like everyone else and the very suggestion that it may have something unique to say is interpreted as arrogant.
Both groups are wrong.
Now, before you get angry and dart off to the comments section hear me out. Our book isn’t on that shelf to tell the world scary stuff about God. Plenty of churches do that already. In fact, if your driving motivation is doom, gloom, and judgment I can think of denominations that are much better at it than Adventists have ever been. DM me if you want recommendations.
On the other hand, if we are saying the same thing everyone else is saying with a few slightly nuanced doctrines then that means we are nothing more than an unnecessary distraction for those on the search for meaning.
And after 10 years of ministry, I’m convinced the innability to answer this question in any meaningful or compelling way is at the root of our missional inneffectiveness.
Churches that answer it with the doomy-gloomy stuff are toxic, unhealthy, and off putting.
Churches that answer it by ignoring it or saying “we’re the same as everyone else” are missing out on the radical and relevant story we’ve been called to tell the world.
Somehow, we have to come up with a better answer. One that is neither arrogant nor banal. One that points to Jesus but does so in radically beautiful and unique ways that tell a story the world is longing to hear.
So what do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!
64% of Australians Don't Know Who Adventist's Are. And That's Tragic.
Life is busy at the moment. So blogging isn’t something I do a whole lot of these days. In fact, I recently posted an update on my FB page letting people know not to expect anymore blogs or podcasts for a while.
But then, the AUC released the SDA Church Perception Study - a report compiled by McCrindle Research - on how the general public in Australia and New Zealand perceive the SDA Church. And let’s just say, the results were so relevant to post-church mission, I couldn’t resist the urge to write a responce.
You can download the full report in the link above. Below I share 5 reactions.
1. I have a love-hate relationship with church surveys.
On the hate bit: The truth is, if you ran a church perception survey at any point in human history you are unlikely to receive glowing reviews for the church. The church has always been counter-cultural. It has always been a thorn on the side of empire. It has always been a threat to the stability of social conventions. “Jesus is king” has always been, and will forever be, a seditious narrative. So, I don’t believe for a moment that church perception surveys filled with praise from the general public should be a goal or an aim for believers.
On the love bit: Nevertheless, when the unfavorable opinion is based on people not knowing who we are or what story we are telling the world, there’s a problem. In other words, I don’t mind being hated by the world so long as I am hated for the right reasons. For example, Jesus was hated for being a friend of sinners, for eating and dining with rejects, for proclaiming a message of love and inclusion so potent that it destabalised the religio-social scaffolds of his day. Likewise, early Christians were ridiculed for rescuing babies from dumps, for celebrating communion, for rejecting class warfare, for resisting emperor worship, and for seeing all people regardless of gender, economic class, or nationality as “one in Christ Jesus”. If people hate the church for these reasons, fair enough! But if people dislike us for being irrelevant and out of touch… well, thats on us.
And sadly, when it comes to how the general public perceives Adventist’s in Australia and NZ, thats basically what you get. Here are the 3 stats that stood out to me the most:
Most people are not open to attending religious programs.
Most people have no idea who SDA’s are and what we believe.
Most people don’t think our church is relevant in the 21st century.
Again, I’m not chasing public praise. I don’t mind if people think we’re weird.
What does bother me though, is when no one knows who we are, what story we have to tell, and how relevant it is for our world today.
And when I see that we, as the church, spend 90% of our energy running religious services every weekend that are having virtualy zero impact in our emerging secular, post-church society, I have to admit, my eye lid starts to twitch a bit.
2. We clearly live in a secular, post-church society.
At the start of the survey we see the following question: “What religion do you currently practice or identify with?”
For Australia, the highest number is “None” at 35%.
When we consider that many people who identify as Cathoclics tend to be “cultural Catholics” and many who identify as Christian today do so for political and cultural reasons as well, it becomes clear that the vast majority of our neighbors in Australia are post-church. They don’t go to church. Their parents and peers don’t go to church. And their kids have next to no idea what a church is or does.
But, what if we had a super good preacher, excellent music, and put on a fantastic service each weekend? In fact, what if we went digital and hosted church services online? Would they be open to attending then?
Nope.
I think this is honestly where we have to do our deepest and most painful soul searching as a church.
If most Autralians do not attend church programs and are not interested in attending church programs, then why do we invest so much time, resources, and energy into running them?
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that the church should not gather to worship, pray, fellowship etc. The Bible clearly commands this.
But is there a simpler way to do it?
A way that is smaller, more mobile, and less exhausting so that we can re-invest our talent and energy into getting to know our post-church neighbors without the constant demands of rehearsing, rostering, and executing the weekend program?
I’m not trying to start any wars here. But its a relevant question that deserves honest exploration.
3. Most Australians and NZ’s have no idea who SDA’s are. We are, by and large, an irrelevant subculture of Christianity.
According to the survey, “Almost half of Australian’s and NZ’s are unfamiliar with the [SDA] church."
When asked, “Do you know of a local SDA church in your suburb or town?” 77% said “No”.
Later on, we find that 34% of Australians never heard of the SDA church while another 30% think of it as just another denomination among the many. Taken in totality, thats a whopping 64% of Aussies who do not know who Adventist’s are, and that is tragic.
Now let’s put this into perspective. We live in a post-church society which means most people don’t know anything about any Christian denomination.
I met a guy about a year and a half ago at a local workout park. When I told him I was a pastor, he asked me what church. I asked him if he was familiar with Pentecostals, Wesleyans, Methodists etc. ( I wanted to gauge what his knowledge of Christian culture was). He gave me a blank look and shook his head. “Never heard of them,” he replied.
A few months ago a young tow truck driver came to my rescue (my car ran out of petrol on the way to the petrol station). I told him I was a pastor. He had never heard the word. He even asked me to repeat it again because he couldn’t pronounce it.
This reminded me of the millennial Sydney doctor I met who had never heard of pastors either. I told him I was kind of like a chaplain, but I worked in churches not hospitals. He replied, “whats a chaplain?”
Aparently he had seen them in the hospital when he worked in emergency. But he had no idea what they did and never bothered to ask.
In this secular context, our church as a whole tends to get swallowed up into all the others. In the end, nothing we have to say seems to have any significance to the lives of contemporary Australian generations.
Now what does this mean? Does it mean we need better marketing campaigns? Better branding, signage, and logos?
The simplest answer is: not really.
I mean, as a denomination we have already done some pretty remarkable work with modernising our branding. I still recall when the new branding kicked in around 6 or 7 years ago (ish?) and thinking - hey, this is well done! I don’t have to be embarassed with outdated fonts and logos anymore!
But the reality is, the above stats of people not knowing who we are, are results that have continued through the years following all our re-branding work. So good as it might be, branding alone isn’t the answer here.
So what is the answer? I don’t think I have the full picture myself, but here is a good place to start: We as Adventist’s have to accept that whenever society changes, the anxieties people experience change as well. And as anxieties change, the questions people are asking change with them.
I believe the reason so many people don’t know who we are or what we believe is because we Adventists are still answering questions people were asking in 1930. We focus on religio-centric topics like:
Law vs grace
What day the Sabbath is
The day/year principle
Daniel 2
The investigative judgment
Now don’t get me wrong. I believe all the above. I have even written books on the stuff. But the way we engage these conversations is so outdated, only already-religious-folk like us find them relevant.
Most people today could care less about what day the Sabbath is, creation vs evolution, what the true church is, why so many denominations exist, etc. Simply put, these are NOT questions emerging secular generations are anxious about. And no amount of new signage, color schemes, or fonts are going to change the fact that most of our churches spend most of their time answering questions emerging generations simply aren’t asking.
New generations have questions revolving around social issues, oppression and marginalization, justice and equity, economics, affordable housing, ecology, and so on. That some dude in a weird hat (pope) whose church I never attended and whose name I can’t pronounce changed the Sabbath to Sunday thousands of years ago is meaningless to generations that have grown up with next to zero religious context.
If we want to be a relevant church, I believe the best place to begin is by listening to our neighbours, understanding their anxieties, and offering a message of hope that speaks directly to their anxieties, not ours.
4. Young people are still searching and still open!
But there is good news! According to the survey, secular generations are still open to attending activities put on by SDA’s. The difference between activities and events is simple. Events are religious programs and services. Activities are more social in nature. Take a look:
If secular people are open to attending community service and social activities, then the most missional shift our churches can make is to re-orient energy from endless religious programming toward community service projects and social events where we can connect with and get to know our neighbours well.
If this means we do less church programs so that we can do more social and community activities, then let’s do it!
5. Final thoughts…
Some of you reading might be thinking, “Yes! I agree! But how?”
If that is you, I have good news. There are two projects currently in motion. One is called The R3 Network: a church plant in Perth, WA that is reimagining the local SDA church for mission in post-church cities. And the best part: It has an entire online school that teaches you how to gather, empower, and launch missional communities for post-church mission wherever you are.
If that sounds like something you have been searching for, access the free course on our website at www.ther3network.com
The second project is The Mission Collective: an online post-modern evangelism school hosted by yours truly. This school teaches students how to be effective missionaries in our contemporary, secular age. For more info, click the button below.
I hope these resources are instrumental in moving our church from simply talking about the issues, to actively participating in change.
Together, we can birth an Adventism. Redesigned.
Did you read the survey? What parts stood out to you? What thoughts did it spark? Share in the comments below!
Is Your Local Adventist Church Like Jesus? (A Quiz)
Is your local Adventist church like Jesus?
This week, I want you to take a quiz. Do it on your own, but also invite others in your church (leaders or not) and do it with them as well. In this quiz, we are going to identify wether or not your church is like Jesus.
Good news: There are only three questions. (Sort of.) But first, we need to read the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-7 because the quiz is based on the parable. So here goes:
“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
OK, now that you have read the parable I am going to break it down into 3 overarching points. Those 3 points will form the basis for our quiz.
Who Does your Church Attract?
The first point that leaps out from this parable is that the sinners were “all” gathering around to hear Jesus. Not the religious folk. Not the culturally conservative. Not the theologians or scholars. They were the ones in the back of the room judging, condeming and complaning about Jesus. In their heads, they couldn’t figure out how a holy and sacred God would associate with people like that—people who were clearly immoral. So the story begins with this simple picture: The religious people on one side of the room, Jesus on the other. And where are the sinners? With Jesus.
I had a friend years ago who was part of a ministry that gave free rides to drunk students on campus. During one of the rides, a student asked her: “Why would people like you (Christians) want to be around people like us?” In the same vein, I have had so many friends tell me they will never set foot in a church. “The building might burn down” some say. “Ill get struck by lighting” others say. But in the end, the message is the same - todays culture does not see the church as a safe place for sinners. We are, in effect, the opposite of who Jesus was. While Jesus attracted sinners, we scare them away.
So my first question in our quiz today is: Who does your church attract? Does it attract sinners or saints? The easiest way to find out is to ask a few followup questions. Questions like:
Who is most at home in your church? (If the religious folk are, its often at the expense of the non-religious.)
Who loves your church most? (If the religious folk love you, it’s because your church caters to them and not the lost.)
Who is most excited to attend your church? (If there is a trend of visitors coming and not staying at your church, it’s because your church only connects with saints, not sinners.)
So who does your church attract? Thats the first question.
Who Does your Church Prioritise?
Jesus attracted the sinners while the religious folk did not. So Jesus tells them a story that reveals exactly why. In the story, Jesus asks a really interesting question: Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
Jesus question is interesting because he states it as a matter of fact: “Doesn’t he”? Its as if Jesus is assuming that the normal thing to do if you lose one sheep is to leave the 99 and go find the one. But from an investment perspective, this makes no sense. If you lose one the best thing to do is count your loss. You don’t leave the 99 “in the open field” and go searching for the one because you risk losing another ten! It seems to me that the best thing to do is count your loss on the one and preseve the 99 you have left.
But Jesus does the oposite. He leaves the 99 and goes searching for the one. It’s as if Jesus is saying: The 99 are not my priority anymore. The one is.
Funny thing is, most of our churches tend to operate the other way around. We live to coddle the 99. We exist to keep them happy, pacify their desires and pamper their every whim. When the 99 complain, the leaders have to find a way to keep them happy. And the sad part is, many of the 99 want a church where they are comfortable—a church where the one doesn’t fit in.
And this is why Jesus attracted sinners while the Pharisees repelled them. Jesus did not exist to coddle the 99. He did not come to the earth to make church folk happy. He came to reach the one. He had a heart that beat for the one. He wasn’t concerned with meeting the expectations of the 99. He was concerned with reaching the one.
Who does your church prioritise? Is it the 99 or the one? Here are some build-up questions that can help you figure it out:
Which department in your church gets the most money? (If your outreach budget is tiny compared to the amount of money you spend on “in house” things, thats worth contemplating.)
How committed is your church to understanding its un-Christian neighbors? (Is your church constantly putting on programs that only feed the saints with things that have little to no missional use? Or is your church investing in resources and tranining on how to connect with its secular surroundings?)
How open is your church to changing its culture and methodology in order to more meaningfully connect with the lost that surround it? (Most churches refuse to change any of their cultural or methodological practices because thats the way they “like it”. This is a sign of a church more interested in the 99 being happy than in the one that is lost.)
What does your church celebrate?
People celebrate when they win. And the easiest way to know what your church celebrates is to find out what it considers a win. Celebration isn’t always a loud party. A celebration can be quiet and hard to identify. So don’t answer this question by trying to find the times when your church throws a party. Instead, dig for the “win”. What is your church’s win? Because when it happens, a celebration ensues wether or not its evident.
For Jesus and all of heaven, a win is the one coming home. When the one returns, Jesus celebrates. Now most churches are happy when theres a baptism - I mean, who wouldn’t be? But that doesn’t mean they are celebrating because a baptism may not be a win for them. Instead, there are churches who consider it a “win” when they disfellowship someone. Others consider it a “win” when they get rid of a particular pastor, gain control over a particular issue in the church, or when they finally scare off those pesky young people with their weird ideas.
Some churches have no win whatseover (in that they have never discussed what a win is or have no unified win) and others consider it a win to reject or resist particular theological developments (ex. churches that pride themselves in being anti-WO or anti-”new theology” etc.).
But Jesus didn’t have any of those as a win. His only win—the only thing the Bible says heaven ever has a party over—is when the one comes home.
So then, what does your church celebrate?
These three questions: Who does your church attract? Who does your church prioritise? And What does your church celebrate? constitute the “Is Your Local Adventist Church Like Jesus? Quiz”.
What are your answers? Share them below and lets chat.
You might be asking: What do we do if our church is not like Jesus?
To answer that question, I have put together an online mission and discipleship school. Tap the button below to learn more.
Debunking the Top 3 Myths About Church
There are lots of church myths floating around our churches these days, and these myths are not victimless. To the contrary, the more we believe them, the more they damage out ability to reach the world.
Let’s take a look at the top 3 and compare them to scripture:
MYTH ONE: THE CHURCH IS A SACRED BUILDING
One of my favorite verses in all of scripture is Exodus 25:8 where God says to the nation of Israel: “have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.”
God has set his people free from slavery and, as they journey through the dessert, he instructs them to build a “sanctuary”. And the reason is simple - “that I may dwell among them”.
Now this isn’t the first time this idea is seen in scripture. Way back in Genesis we see God personally designing humanity out of the dust of the ground. And as God finishes his design, the Bible says he breathes into man’s nostrils the breath of life. There is something special taking place here. There is this inanimate biological entity laying on the ground and the creator leans in and breathes. And man, the Bible says, became a living being.
The rest of creation God speaks into existence. But man? He gets personal on that one. It’s as if God is saying, “I like to be with people.”
Fast forward to Genesis 3:8-9 and man rebells against God. God’s responce is amazing,
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Do I really need to comment on how cool it is that in their moment of rebellion God seeks man out? It’s as if God is saying, “I know what you have done. But I love you and like to be with you. So please tell me where you are!” And as the narrative unfolds we are introduced to a tragic plot twist - sin now seperates us from the God who likes to be with us.
Fast forward to Exodus 25 and God calls a nation of slaves to keep his story alive on the earth and then tells them, “make me a sanctuary so that I can dwell among you.” Why? Because God likes to be with people.
Fast forward to the New Testament and speaking of Jesus an angel says, “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” (Mat. 1:23)
Why God with us? Because, God likes to be with people.
Fast forward to the death of Jesus and the curtain in the temple, representing our separation from God, is removed. “At that moment” Matthew writes, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Matt. 27:51) At this moment, heaven is shouting to humanity - the separation is ended! Jesus is the sacrifice that reconnects us to the father. In him we are reconnected.
Notice what Paul adds in Hebrews 10:19-22 - “Therefore… we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God…”
Why? Because God likes to be with people.
And notice how the story ends in Revelation 21:1-3
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
God likes to be with people. And all throughout scripture, he is working to close the gap, to draw near and end the separation. In the Old Testament, he closed that gap via the sanctuary which served as a symbol of God’s desire to be with people. But after the death of Jesus something amazing happens. The temple is no longer the place where God meets with man. Instead look at what Paul says to the church:
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst? - 1 Cor. 3:16
Now here is the thing. Paul is not talking about the church building! Because nowhere in the NT do you ever find any reference to the church as being a building. Instead Paul is talking about the people because in scripture the church is not a building it is people. God dwells in us, not in a building. And the beauty of church being a people is that instead of “going” to church, the New Testament teaches we “are the church”.
This means that while the temple was the place where God dwelled with people in the Old Testament, in the New Testament the people are the place where God dwells. In short, You are God’s temple - individually and collectively God dwells with humanity through us - flesh and bone.
But somehow, we have bought into this big lie that church is a building. And that big lie results in three tragic outcomes.
First, people begin to think of a church building as “sacred space” where you have to behave extra well but when they aren’t in the building they are no longer in “sacred space”. This leads to divided living where we can be one person out there and the moment we walk into the church building its like Dr Jekyl turns back into Mr Hyde. And this is not biblical at all. The church building doesnt even exist in the NT and we treat it as some super holy space where you can’t do x y z and then we leave the building and its like - “phew I’m not in Gods presence anymore so now I can gossip”. Where do we read this in scripture?
Because of this, people no longer live in the presence of God on a daily basis. Its like he is only there in the building. And so people are no longer living in the presence of God always but compartmentalise God’s presence to a man made structure.
And finally, people lose sight that they are the church. So everything God centred gets relegated to the building and its services. And today many Christians think that church is a building and don’t realise that they are the church every day and every where, God dwells with man through them—not buildings.
MYTH TWO: THE CENTRE OF CHURCH IS THE MAIN SERVICE
The sanctuary reveals that God likes to be with people. What this demonstrates is that the center of scripture a relational God who wants to be in relationship with people. And when the early church gathered under this idea, they ate together, read the word together and celebrated the last supper (communion in which we ‘commune’ with God and celebrate our ‘union’ with him).
Why? Because God likes to be with people.
Luke records:
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)
and,
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
In the new testament there was no such thing as a church service. The central aspect of a church gathering in the NT was communion in which we celebrate the end of separation from God and the sanctuary nature of God.
Why? Because God wants to be with people.
But what is church today?
Fracis Chan captured it pretty well when he said,
Church today has become predictable… You go to a building, someone gives you a bulletin, you sit in a chair, you sing a few songs, a guy delivers maybe a polished message, maybe not, someone sings a solo, you go home… is this all God intended for us?
Let me frame it this way: Where in the NT do you find instructions on when the church should meet? Or how many songs to sing? Or whether there should be a platform party at the front or not? Or whether we should sit in rows or tables? Where in the NT do we see people stressed out with questions like: Is the program running smooth? Is the song service running too long? Have the details been organized well? Is the bulletin accurate? Did we miss an announcement? Was the special item good? Was the preacher inspiring?
Now none of that is inherently bad. There is nothing wrong with being organised, that’s biblical. The problem is we spend all our energy doing what God has never spoken about and have little time to do what he has spoken about. In fact, I have been to churches where they haven’t reached a soul for ten years (which God commanded us to do) and no one seems fussed. But you touch one detail in the program and its an all out war! It’s like “yes! we will die for what God has not spoken about while ignoring the clear commands he has given us.”
And this brings me to my final myth.
MYTH THREE: THE CHURCH’S MISSION IS THE PASTORS JOB
The sanctuary nature of God means God wants to be with people. Sin separates us from him but God initiates a plan to bring us back to himself—this is the sanctuary.
But here is the cool thing. Part of God’s plan to bring people back to himself involves a secret weapon.
Let me share this secret weapon with you. Im going to quote from Ephesians 3: 3, 5-6, and 10-11. Paul writes,
God himself revealed his mysterious plan to me… God did not reveal it to previous generations, but now by his Spirit he has revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets.
And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and… belong to Christ Jesus.
God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan...
Did you catch that? Through the church, God not only reaches out to the people he likes to be with but through it God reveals his heart to the entire universe.
But here is the crazy thing. Gods secret weapon is the church but the church is not a building and its not a program, the church is people. But its more than that! Notice what Paul says about these people just a chapter before:
Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil…. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. (Eph. 2:1-3)
In other words, God’s secret plan to defeat evil, dwell with humanity and glorify himself is a group of people (the church) but not just people—imperfect people—just like everyone else.
God bypassed perfect and loyal angels and instead has chosen, from history past, that his secret weapon would be messed up people who are just like everyone else. And what does he do with this group of messed up “just like everyone else” people? Peter hits the nail on the haid in 1 Peter 2:9 when he writes:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Please tell me you caught that! God’s secret weapon is shockingly unexpected. Instead of angels or super holy people, God’s secret weapon is imperfect, unholy people—just like everyone else—whom he would transform into a kingdom of priests and then through them reveal his heart to the world and beyond.
This means you are a priest. All of you. And what is a priests job? To help bring the sinner into contact with God.
It’s about bringing the two together. And that is you and that is me, all of us priests because God has called all of us to be a part of his dwelling with humanity because God likes to be with people.
The mission of the church doesn’t belong to a pastor. It belongs to people—unholy people, just like everyone else, saved by grace and called to be priests on the earth.
Wow.
Most of us have no idea what church is in the Bible and we can see the effects all around us.
Adventist churches are dying, splitting and barely functioning.
We think its a building with a program and its own fultime CEO pastor who does it all so we can sit back and get fed. But this is not church. You don’t find that anywhere in the NT.
Instead, the Bible declares that you are the church, that the centre of church is not a program but people and that each of us imperfect, messed up people have been reclaimed by God’s grace and called to be a kingdom of priests with one mission: To point others to Jesus.
Because God likes to be with people.
How to Create a Church that Connects with Secular Culture
Assistant editor to The Atlantic, Faith Hill, published an article titled, “They Tried to Start a Church Without God. For a While, It Worked” where she traced the demise of the secular church movement which, despite starting with a bang in 2012, quickly died off.
However, Hill doesn’t simply explore the secular church movement from a historical perspective but also offers her own observations about the trend and its future. Her overall point is that in order for it to succeed, secular churches “need to do a better job of imitating religion.” In doing so, she hands the church the keys to connecting with secular culture on a silver platter. (More on this later.)
A Bit of History
For those entirely unfamiliar with the secular church movement, it was essentially an attempt to give secular people an alternative to church. As Hill described, “Members gather on Sundays, sing together, listen to speakers, and converse over coffee and donuts. Meetings are meant to be just like Church services—but without God.”
Once again, the movement started off looking super strong. Not only did they grow rapidly in their early years but, as Hill indicates, they were “heavily covered by media outlets.”
“The Hot New Atheist Church,” was one of the hit articles, published in 2013 at the Daily Beast. BBC, the Economist, Huffpost, the Insider, the Guardian, Vox, Salon and Wikipedia where among the other media outlets that reported on the phenomenon. The numerical growth was so impressive early on that “HuffPost noted that the number of [secular] assemblies had doubled in a single weekend in 2014.”
Those of us familiar with the book of Acts will see some parallels here. As the early church began to sweep into the culture of the day, Luke reports incredible numerical growth. Three-thousand in one day (Acts 2:47), another five-thousand plus overnight (Acts 4:4) and “multitudes” more (meaning large enough that Luke couldn’t be bothered guesstimating) as the apostles continued in their mission (Acts 5:14).
However, the parallels between the early church’s explosive growth and the secular church movement sort of end there.
Hill takes us on a journey to the next phase of the secular church’s growth which was marked by, well, no growth.
“[E]ven as the growth of ‘nones’ has revved up in the intervening years” she writes, “the growth of secular congregations hasn’t kept pace. After a promising start, attendance declined, and nearly half the chapters have fizzled out.”
To the contrary, the Christian church continued to spread. Despite being persecuted and scattered nothing was able to stop it. The impact was so strong, that the governing powers of the day described its leaders as “men who have turned the world upside down…” and freaked out that they had “come here too.” (Acts 17:6).
So why the distinction? Why did the secular church movement collapse? Here are three observations:
1. It Didn’t Offer Enough
Hill points out some interesting perspectives. For example, she notes that this experience proved that “[b]uilding a durable community of nonbelievers… is more complicated than just excising God.”
Later she adds that, “The yearning for belonging is not enough, in itself, to create a sense of home.” As her exploration continues, she references religious scholar Linda Woodgead (Lancaster University, Great Britain) who said, “Even more challenging than the logistical barriers are the psychological ones…. Meeting in a building with the same group of people every week … I don’t think there’s any natural need for that”.
I think Woodgead is correct. There is no natural need for “meeting in a building” repeatedly week after week with the same folks. In fact, I will point out later on that one of the reasons I think atheist churches failed is because they attempted to copy the modern church program. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
2. Fragmentation
The whole building thing aside, Woodgead does believe that community is super important but her overall point is that “you can’t just meet for the sake of community itself. You need a very powerful motivating element to keep people coming, something that attendees have in common.”
And herein lies another one of the movements major issues. Hill is clear that the secular church movement is plagued by a sense of fragmentation in which “different groups with different priorities” are gathering together and failing to find common ground outside of their dislike of God.
In some ways, it seemed the only thing the attendees had in common was what they were against and “dislike of anything” is what Alan Cooperman, director of religion research at Pew Research Center, refers to as “the least effective social glue, the dullest possible mobilizing cry, the weakest affinity principle, that one can imagine.”
3. Spectatorship
OK, back to the building thing. The most significant problem the young movement faced was logistical. In their attempts to copy the typical modern western church, secular church organizers found that they were having to put on “a big show on a regular basis.” This created a practical and financial nightmare.
Bands had to be booked. Chairs had to be set up. Food had to be organised.
“Some leaders” Hill points “told me they’re trying to make those weekly meetings so interesting, so entertaining, so powerful that people will keep showing up.”
Sounds like most of our churches doesn’t it?
It was this need to put together a logistically demanding event each weekend that Anne Klaeysen, a secular church organiser identified by Hill, refered to as “unsustainable”. Hill then quotes another organiser - Justina Walford - who pointed out that, in putting on this weekend event, “You’re competing with hundreds of other events at the same time…. Getting enough people to show up felt impossible.”
Once again, the tragedy in this entire scenario is that, in their attempt to create an alternative to the local church, secular church organisers immediately resorted to an attractional program.
What this demonstrates is that in the eye of secular culture, church is a essentially a well-oiled “program” meaning if you want to make an alternative to it, its primarily that weekend program that you are trying to recreate.
What this Means for Adventist Churches
As the article nears its close we encounter a variety of elements and pillars which are purported to exist within local church congregations that gives them a sense of meaning - and thus a greater likelihood of success - not present in secular churches.
Some of the key pillars secular church organisers have pointed our are the presence of costly sacrifice (you have to give up things in order to join the local church as opposed to secular churches which are basically communities “without costly rituals—one[s] that lets you do what you want”).
Other elements pointed out are the need for meaningful rituals, stories, transcendence, and a sense of sacredness attached to the rituals, traditions, and ideals (completely missing in secular churches).
“The irony is that to get away from religion,” says anthropologist Richard Sosis, “they may need to re-create it.”
Sanderson Jones, leader of one of the more successful secular churches named “Sunday Assembly” has also “developed a framework of five core components in any congregation: ‘community life,’ ‘transformational gatherings,’ ‘personal growth,’ ‘helping others,’ and ‘changing the world’”—structural keys that one can find in just about any modern church with business driven strategic models.
However, there is one thing that the secular church movement can’t get around. It is what Cooperman referred to as the real “overwhelming number of people who were raised religious but now have left report being pretty content.”
This sense of contentedness is not something the secular church has been able to break through and it’s also something our local Adventist churches have likewise been unable to overcome. The reason is straightforward: over time, the church has drifted from its New Testament origins as a group of devoted believers living out their faith every day, and it has turned into a mere weekly event in a building we go to for a few hours.
Is it no wonder that the Growing Young research project found that “from 2007 to 2014, mainline Protestant adults slid from 41 million to 36 million, a decline of approximately 5 million” which, the authors summarise saying, “no major Christian tradition is growing in the US today. A few denominations are managing to hold steady, but that’s as good as it gets”.*
The Solution
I don’t have all the answers, but in this article I feel that Hill gives us three keys to connecting effectively with secular culture—keys we would be wise to consider. They are:
In order to reach the culture, we have to move away from spectator events . As pointed out by Woodgead, the thing we call church is simply not natural. We don’t need it. Is it no wonder that most people who attend church would not experience any major change in significance or purpose if they suddenly stopped attending?
Sure, we might miss it because we are used to it but that’s not the same as undergoing an existential crisis. On the other hand, if the apostle Paul disconnected from church his entire life would have been affected. This is because church was not a weekend program for Paul. It was a way of being. A calling that transcended organised gatherings and redesigned his entire identity. Paul did not go to church. In fact, none of the early Christians did. Instead, they were the church and this impacted the way they interacted with society, politics, relationships and just about any other aspect of reality. When they did gather, the gatherings were simple revolving around eating, reading the word and celebrating communion. There was no logistically heavy event and no dry or formal programming.
Sadly, most of our churches today revolve around the main service which tends to be either a dry, repetetive, and formal event with no life, or a logistically heavy program that is exhausting to organise week after week. And my suggestion is that if secular people can’t put on a show for secular people that secular people will want to keep going back to then we sure aren’t going to do it. It’s time to redesign our churches away from revolving around a weekend program to fostering true and meaningful relationships and discipleship beyond the program. In short, we need to offer more and maybe the way to do that is to offer less. Less formality, less spoon-feeding and less lectures. More relationships, more time in the word, and more prayer.
In order to reach the culture, we should not shy away from “costly sacrifice”. Many modern churches, in their attempt to reach the culture, have assumed that we need to get rid of “standards”. However, what even secular people are starting to realise is that what doesn’t cost you something is not valuable. As a result, we should forgo any temptation to make following Jesus “easy”. Love will cost you something. Jesus will cost you everything. And we shouldn’t shy away from that in order to reach people. Meaning is found in sacrifice.
Now of course, I want to be clear. This is not a pass for ultra-conservative Adventists with their ridiculous and unreasonable standards to run around saying “See? We told you!”
Equally true is that many of the people who have abandoned church have done so because church was full of ridiculous rules that caused spiritual harm. The experience with former fundamentalist pastor turned atheist Joshua Harris** is evidence enough of this. So the call here is for us to return to a love-ethic, a balanced and centrist view of sacrifice that actually beautifies the world while demanding radical obedience of us.
In order to reach the culture, we must emphasise our unity in Jesus. The one thing missing in this entire article is how the main glue that kept the early church alive was the union that all believers had in the resurrected Christ.
In Jesus, Paul says, we are one. He has removed the walls of hostility and brought us together. The church is far from perfect, but there is a sense in which it is Jesus, in his broken body, who holds us together and keeps us moving despite our natural human tendency to mess things up. You can remove everything else, and this one thing will remain. Is it no wonder that Jesus said, “by this will all men know you are my disciples if you love one another.” (John 13:35)
Somehow, our unity in Jesus is an incredibly powerful key that keeps the church alive despite its human weaknesses. We need to pursue this unity more. In creating churches designed to connect with the secular world we must demonstrate to them something they cannot find anywhere else - a unity that celebrates the agape love of God and the communal nature of his being. As people see this supernatural union and love exhibited among us, they will be drawn to the Jesus that it all points to.
So those are my thoughts for now! Of course, there is so much more to say about this but I’d love to know your thoughts. What other steps can we take to create churches that connect meaningfuly with secular seekers?
_____
Original article cited in this blog: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/secular-churches-rethink-their-sales-pitch/594109
* Growing Young pages 5 and 7
**On Joshua Harris: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/29/author-christian-relationship-guide-joshua-harris-says-marriage-over