Lottie Moon is now blogging!

Yes, THE Lottie Moon, for whom the SBC’s foreign mission offering is named has begun a blog.

The blog states:

What if Lottie Moon lived and was serving in China today with all the advanced technology that we find in our world? One can assume that based on her prolific letter writing, she would have daily been emailing and blogging so that Southern Baptists in the States would be informed of the needs around the world, and specifically in China. Using current technology, Lottie Moon’s blog site might have read like this during the 39 years she served in the Shantung Province of North China.

Has Alan Hirsch has been studying the SBC?

In his new book, The Forgotten Ways, (a seminal book, one of the best I’ve read in years), in a chapter on organic systems, Hirsch states:

Perhaps a further exploration of what is meant by institutionalism is needed here. Institutions are organizations initially set up in order to fill a necessary religious and social function and to provide some sort of structural support for whatever that function requires. In many ways they fulfill the very purpose of structure; organization is needed if we seek to act collectively for a common cause. All movements start this way, but in the initial stages structure exists solely to support the grass roots. The problem happens when the newly instituted structures move beyond being simply structural support to become a governing body of sorts - structure becomes centralized governance…

But something else begins to happen: as we outsource to the structure what is essential to the function, there is a transfer of responsibility and power/authority to the new established centralized body. In this situation it inevitability becomes the locus of power, which uses some of that power to sanction behaviors of its members that are out of keeping with the institution. Instead of serving the mission, institutions begin to have a life of their own, and they can become blockers, not “blessers…”

As far as I am aware, no historical denomination has ever been able to fully recover its earlier, more fluid and dynamic, movement ethos again. That’s why it is the network structure, where power and responsibility is diffused throughout the organization and not concentrated at the center, that more approximates our real nature and calling as the body of Christ.

Did Alan study the SBC? Has he been to any of the state conventions this year?
I have come to the belief that the SBC has been incredible institutional. We have transfered responsibility for education and missions and those institutions are becoming blockers, not blessers. They have created a power structure that are sanctioning and rejecting beliefs and behaviors that are not in line with the institution (see the IMB and SWBTS). Unless a movement happens that reverts these institutions back to a support role instead of a role of power, we will find ourselves becoming so institutionalized that our declines becomes death.

Is it any wonder that a grassroots movement is attempting to be dismantled? (see anti-blogging reports from the SBC convention in Greensboro and other state conventions around the country) Power and significance are lost in this rising movement, thus it must be destroyed or at least anathamatized. Otherwise, as stated above, the SBC will go the way of irrelevance.

Disturbing equilibrium

Alan Hirsch is blogging and in his latest entry he states:

Christianity minus Jesus equalls religion. And this happens in more churches than we are given to believe. We marginalize Jesus all the time and in so many subtle ways. And we do this because dealing directly with Jesus (or God for that matter) is always a disturbing thing to a sin-wracked people who would prefer a stable, more controllable, religion. Like all living systems, churches seek equilibrium. We want to settle down. We want to bolt down the Revelation and make God understandable, accessible, and therefore more controllable–a ‘God-on-tap.’ Sociologists call this ‘the routinization of charisma’ (google that!) and it is written through the structures of all religions including our own. But Jesus disturbs our equilibrium. He won’t be controlled. He won’t be handled only by priests and professional religionists. He won’t be domesticated. He is Lord! Yes, Jesus is our disequilibrium. And the way back to an authentic Christianity is simply to put Jesus back into the equation. Christianity plus Jesus equals World Transformation.

God in a box.  God unleashed.  God controlled.  God ablaze.  Which statement truly describes you best?

Written by David Phillips · Filed Under Ministry, Misc, Missional