Recently I gained a new BFF.  (Surely, I’m not the only one with multiple BFF’s?) 

We are very different.  She grew up in the multicultural city of New York in a vibrant Puerto Rican heritage.  I grew up in the restrained American South, in the state that proudly housed the capital of the Civil War Confederacy.  She is fully fluent in Spanish and English.  I still struggle on when to use “lay” or “lie.”  Her skin is brown.  Mine is white.  We have spent tens of thousands of work hours in different locations.  She has worked in our local government for almost four decades.  I grew up in a ministry family and have served the local church for nearly thirty years.

We should have nothing in common.  Except that we do.  The Son created us both.  And on top of that, the Son has called us both to partner together for the Gospel.  And we both love each other and love working together in the local church.  I am so thankful for my partnership with Carolyn.  

As we try to address the Church in Crisis we have seen the importance of placing your identity in the Gospel story. With that foundation in place, we looked at how you can address your challenges as an architect, the builder of a local church.  Now that we know who we are, and what we have been empowered to build, a couple of questions naturally arise: How do we build the church? And what materials do we build with?  Again, we can count on Paul to help us think through this problem.  Paul expanded the Kingdom, not with a program but with the pinnacle of God’s creation: People.  

“Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.  Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. …  So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News.  God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:3-5, 7-8).

Paul never took his fellowship partners (κοινωνίᾳ in Phil. 1:5) for granted.  They were sacred relationships.  I’d argue the single greatest joy of Paul’s life, after his union with Jesus, was in unearthing and developing his partnerships for the Gospel.  Though we may think of Paul’s contrarian nature, there is no doubt he had thousands of admirers and perhaps hundreds of partners who were actively sharing their time, money, strategy, and/or exposing themselves to great risk for the cause.

F. F. Bruce says the New Testament records over 70 names in what he dubs the Pauline Circle, the cadre of Paul’s associations/partners for the Gospel.  In a pre-modern world, with no means of mass communication, no way of rapid travel, battling life and death, trans-regional obstacles, the accumulating of dozens and dozens of Gospel coworkers, hosts and financial supporters, who spanned the different cultures of the Mediterranean, is an astounding and unlikely accomplishment for a Jew and Pharisee. And of course the New Testament does not come close to naming all of Paul’s partners.

Paul, the Israelite scholar and gospel herald extraordinaire, had partners that no man of his breeding should have had.  The entire Gentile mission and sponsors he developed from it are beyond unlikely; they were spiritually illegal.  The number of women Paul worked with is so unlikely. Acts and the Epistles refer to at least 19 women who took part in advancing the Gospel.  Paul lived with, dined with, and spiritually defended (Galatians 2:2-14) Gentiles, so much so he called himself "the apostle to the Gentiles" (Romans 11:13). Despite the differences and challenges, for Paul, developing these relationships was at the center of not only the strategy of the Gospel but also the very message of the Gospel.  

Who are your unlikely partners for the Gospel in your local ministry context?

The Gospel should be collecting for us all kinds of people, with all kinds of different life stories. The Gospel is not just for some of us.  It is for all of us - and it is especially needed by Christendom.

At Kairos Church Planting, where we see the Gospel story advancing and where we see new people being baptized in faith, we are seeing unlikely partnerships. We are seeing burgeoning international partnerships.  We are seeing partnerships between churches and public schools and partnerships where ministers are embedded in police and fire departments.  We are seeing where politics and political taboos are gladly back-seated for a grander story.  We see unbelievers fighting domestic violence and are partnering with those in Christ because it is no longer about “them and us.”  It’s just about us.  We are seeing traditional Christians having food delivered to LGBTQ houses of compassion, because if the Gospel is the Gospel, we may come from different experiences. but what we have in common is greater than that which is different.  Because the Gospel of Jesus destroys all walls of hostility and mistrust.  It creates unlikely partners.  

Unlikely partners were the means of the advance of the Gospel in the ancient world.  Unlikely partners will be our means too.

Who are your unlikely partners?  If you have few then ask, seek, and knock on the door of heaven and on the doors of your local community leaders.  And the God of grace will give us an opportunity to be the means and the messengers of the mission we all so long to see accomplished.

​Next time--Part 4, Living for the Lost

In part 1 we looked at how Paul responded to the people of God (Jesus-following Jews and-Jesus following Gentiles) when they found themselves in a time of crisis.  The solution was to find identity.  Once you know who you are and what you should be doing, you can address the crisis.  Identity for Paul is the Gospel story.  He no longer considered his former self alive; it passed away on the cross.  A new self was born!  But what does one do with the new self in Jesus?  

As a kid I would read Acts and would be blown away by the person of Paul.  Who was this guy?  What kind of human travels and re-travels the ancient world in seemingly constant danger?  Who gets shipwrecked?  (Think about it, do you know anyone who has?) Who bobs up and down in open waters for a day, seemingly abandoned by God, and later willingly hoists another sail, after such epic trauma?  Who gets tenderized via stoning, to the point of death, gets dragged out of town with the trash, only to stand up and walk right back into town?  I get why people in Lystra regarded Paul as a god.  Mere mortals don’t do these things.  Truly Paul’s new self was caught up in Christ.  Thus, Paul was the archetype missionary and reflection of Jesus.  He would do anything – anything! – to be able to declare the Gospel which saved him.

Yet in my youthful hero worship of Paul the MIssionary I think I missed out on one of Paul’s most important job titles, one that we, the shepherds of the church in crisis, really need to see right now.

“Because of God’s grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful. …
Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw.  But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.”  1 Corinthians 3:10-13

Most translations render the original here (σοφὸς ἀρχιτέκτων) something akin to “skillful builder.”  But Paul was more than a talented laborer.  Though he was certainly that, Paul describes the builder here as the selector of building materials and the designer of the building.  Those aren’t decisions day laborers get to make.  This may be a new paradigm for you but Paul regarded himself as the literal translation of the original Greek - a “wise architect!”  

Paul did not just see himself as an evangelist or even as a church planter.  Paul saw himself as the architect of a church planting network.  He had a definite plan for places where he wanted to work and for places he wanted to avoid.  He was careful to revisit works he had started while also making time to start new faith communities.  When he could not be physically present he wrote letters of instruction and encouragement to build up the network and he encouraged his churches to pass on his letters to other churches in his network.  He had a team of apprentices he was purposely raising up to bolster the greater building project for Asia Minor.  He leveraged burgeoning friendships with people he had never met to plant churches in places he had never been.  These aren’t just the actions of a willing firebrand (though few have ever burned hotter).  These are the actions of a thinker, a planner, and a designer for the skillful and strategic distribution of the greatest story ever told.  Paul saw God as a planner and designer of masterpieces to be used for good works (Eph. 2:10)  It should not surprise us that Paul tried to image God in the same way.

Now how can Paul the Architect be a game changer for us?  By redefining our job in the present church crisis.  No longer do we have to see ourselves as just willing servants, charged with the excruciating task of dispensing spiritual services to a dilapidating church, helpless to make systemic changes even though we know the system needs change.  No, we too can become architects. We can rebuild the house with a new layout.  We can become designers of new things, new faith communities, new approaches, selecting from the best of our materials to hand out a timeless faith for this place in time.  Paul the Architect becomes a role model for our task for our time.  If we can adopt this view of self, whose personal identity is in the Gospel story and whose job it is to distribute it with planning and network coordination, this would be a task not only worthy but also deeply fulfilling.  God the architect has selected us for this time and place.  Can we see our challenge afresh, becoming coordinated designers and builders of a new house for the lost of our generation? 

Next time: Part 3, Partnerships for the Gospel ​

Have you ever lived in a time when church felt more uncertain?  I have not.  Over the past 2 years I have been blessed to have front row seats on nearly a dozen new church projects, and have had the opportunity to visit several established churches, and visit with dozens of church leaders, from coast to coast. 

What word would I pick to describe the collective mood? … crisis.  “What is happening to our church?  Why is attendance so low?  Why aren’t people here?  How do we get our young people more interested?  When can we get back to normal?  Will we turn this around or is this a new normal?  If we don’t do something soon, this church could die in a generation,” are very typical summary statements.  Even in places that are growing, the growth seems tenuous.  It feels the very structure of things we have taken for granted (e.g. paid full-time ministers, owning church buildings, Sunday and mid-week worship formats) are all of a sudden “on the table.”  

To be honest I find “crisis” to be a fitting and appropriate description for our dilemma.  Yes, I know God’s church will never fail in any eternal sense.  It will not.  But we have to be honest with ourselves.  We have never seen the church in North America in a poorer state of health.  Should we not have deep concern for her decline?  And, a sense of crisis is not all bad.  It is a blessing to recognize when something is in trouble.  This awareness can get us emotional.  It can spur us to immediate and necessary action to promote our long-term health. ​

What should we do when the church is in crisis?  

A reading of Paul in the New Testament reveals a time of radical crisis and questioning of self-identity for the people of God.  The covenant between God and his people, which was centrally unchanged for 1500 years, was going through unimagineable change.  The changes were not tweaks or fresh coats of paint.  Fundamental plates were shifting.  Definitions of righteousness, worship, fellowship, and salvation were all on the table.  Paul the missionary par excellence reflects on the crisis for the disciples in Galatia.  They were in crisis because of what the church was becoming, because of what the people of God were losing, and because they feared the future.  Feeling lost and anxious, Paul gives the church this compass point.   

My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless.   Galatians 2:20-21.

For Paul, the solution to the crisis - for a confused collective identity is to remind himself who he is first.  So who is he?  He is not what he used to be.  He is what Jesus is doing inside of himself.  He is someone who will live on this earth, trusting in Jesus, knowing Jesus loves him, because Jesus exchanged his own life for Paul’s.  And Paul vows to never become blasé about the miracle that has happened.  Grace can’t be swallowed up by crisis.  This is personal.  This is the paradigm. This is not just a theological point.  

As we look to addressing our church crisis, it begins and ends with the Gospel, with the work of our Christ.  It begins with a firm immovable foundation.  A rock of love, grace, and trust.  It begins by knowing who we are so we act positively in peace and not out of panic.  In our time of church crisis, we must cling to the cross first.  In our time of doubt we cling to the Gospel.  And we clutch the cross with total confidence!  We know it is the solution not just for our personal destiny but also for the collective destiny of God’s work here on earth is his church.  If we cling to the Gospel, we can step forward with confidence, without fear, and without worry.  This is how the first believers were launched and the world was transformed.  This is how we should be launched too.  Once the foundation is established we can then address the rest of God’s building - his church. 

For next time: Part 2: Paul the Architect.

Here is our latest snail mail newsletter with lots of what's been happening the past couple of months. God's Spirit is moving and we are excited to be witnesses and participants in his work.

​Download this newsletter for easier reading.

In Daniel 2:24-45, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about a statue crushed by a “rock.” This king ruled an empire which overpowered the Assyrian kingdom while stretching to the gate of the mighty Egyptians. In his quest for power he laid siege to countries in between Babylon and Egypt taking some captive, including the city of Jerusalem and its surrounding villages. The Hebrew narratives and prophets indicated that this was done by the will of Yahweh as a punishment for Judah’s breaking faith with their God (2 Chron. 36:15-21). However, God continued to show the Jewish nation that their Lord was still in charge, even as captives in a foreign land.

Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by his night vision. He asked his wise leaders to interpret and when they claimed to be unable, he “put a hit out on all of them.” One of the Judean captives, Daniel, volunteered to interpret the dream for his king. After Yahweh revealed the answer, he shared with the king that his dream involved a statue with five parts. A rock was “cut” (possibly from a quarry—and possible another statue/idol) which crushed the statue causing the particles to be scattered by the wind.

Numerous interpretations of Daniel’s description have been given by Biblical scholars, clergy, and religious authors. Interpretations may focus upon the identity of the future kings or Empires as well as the temporal establishment of Babylonian, Persian, Median, Greek, Asian, Roman, and other empires. Some interpretations seek to determine the establishment of the “final” kingdom, known as the Kingdom of God, church, and/or final reign of Christ.
While many pages have been dedicated to discussing these interpretations and their application to academics and ministry, I find that a deeper issue—the permanence of the reign of God, is at the heart of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its interpretation. It may be that the divine message to this king is more regal than chronological. Was the lesson to this Babylonian king concerned with “who would succeed him, and that God would reign hundreds of years later”? Or was the lesson that “no matter who ruled the world, God ruled all?”
​
First, the book of Daniel occupies two different locations in our Canons of scripture. The Hebrew version, known as MT, and Greek version, known as the Septuagint or LXX, places Daniel in different locations. LXX translators put Daniel immediately following the Major Prophet Ezekiel, and at the beginning of the twelve “Minor Prophets.” In this canon Daniel occupies a place within the prophets, which may suggest many of the “prophetic” and “apocalyptic” interpretations of the book. This is the same location as our modern translations.
Second, in the MT Daniel was placed within the Hagiographa (known as the Writings or Praise), rather than the Nabim (Prophets). In this location Daniel occupied a place in the praise and wisdom corpus of the Hebrew Bible. Daniel, along with Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and others represents the stories of courage, faithfulness, and the Fear of the Lord in the courts of the Gentile kings of the world. Daniel shares themes similar to Proverbs through the Fear of the Lord, youth (Na’ar), wisdom, and instruction for kings passages. This also suggests that Daniel’s ability to interpret dreams and serve in the Babylonian court had less of a Messianic emphasis than wisdom.

It is this location, the Hagiographa, which offers us a unique view of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, involves life under the reign of God rather than a future prediction and fulfillment through prophecy.

Interpreting the Vision

Nebuchadnezzar’s vision was interpreted by Daniel because he feared Yahweh, which was considered the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). The king’s advisors and leaders could not tell him the dream, nor could they interpret it. Daniel, who had proven to be obedient to Yahweh and this Babylonian ruler, through prayer, claimed to receive a divine message from God which included both dream and interpretation. The setting of this dream suggests that this world regent not only needed a lesson in humility, but one that reminded him Yahweh, rather than Marduk, ruled Babylon as well as the rest of the world.

First, the dream included various empires representing parts of the statue such as a head of gold, arms and chest of silver, bronze pants/waist, legs, and feet of iron and clay (Dan. 2:34). Nebuchadnezzar was identified as the head of gold (2:38), while the other parts represented future kings or kingdoms (the Hebrew word mlk can mean either). Often, these components comprise the bulk of scholarly commentary concerning their attempts to “prove” or “validate” history alongside Daniel’s interpretation of the dream. Pages have been written discussing various rulers in the Babylonian, Median, Persian, Greek, Judean, and/or Roman Empires. Other more modern writers have suggested that Daniel’s interpretation has a modern fulfillment connecting the book to Revelation and the Beast/Antichrist. However, these discussions became unimportant for the existing king of Babylon or those reading the text centuries later.
Second, the dream suggested that an “unshakeable” kingdom not only crushed the other rulers but is also eternal (Dan. 2:44-45). Interpreters agree that this is the kingdom of God, however, many disagree as to the “timing” of this “establishment.” “In the days of those kings” has been discussed as occurring at the end of the four or five reigning kings. The establishment of this “future empire” becomes dependent upon the interpretation of the kings. This basis for interpretation has contributed to numerous prophetic predictions concerning the “establishment of God’s reign,” or “Jesus’ kingdom/church.” Was the dream meant to apply only to Nebuchadnezzar, during the reign of Cyrus, persecution of Antiochus, Roman persecution, or even the kingdom “yet to come?”

I offer that the dream has a continual application to those in Daniel’s day and all readers in the future. The phrase “in those days of the kings” suggests that the kingdom of God exists during the reign of any king. This interpretation is not dependent on who rules or when the kingdom of God arrives, but the present reality of Yahweh’s kingdom. For Nebuchadnezzar, the dream suggested that God will always be in charge. For the Judean people the reminder was that no matter who was on the throne, past, present, or future, Yahweh reigns. This application offered hope to those under the Babylonian exilic crisis as well as those serving under the Persian, Greek, Syrian, or even Roman empires. One can even extend this theology of a present kingdom during the dark and chaotic days of history for those facing religious persecution or those feeling that God is silent. Daniel’s actions indicated that even though Yahweh had turned a deaf ear to their cries as the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem (Jer. 11:11, 14), faithfulness and devotion would rouse God to remember the covenant (Dan. 1:9, 17-20).

"You know when we are lost, and even while we are running away, God can still speak to us."

Whatever you've done, whatever choices you've made, God is always ready to welcome you. Bruce Bates, Director of Coaching at Kairos, shares his testimony of learning this the hard way. And he wants you to know God is there for you, too.

Updated: Bruce spoke on Vulnerability in his sermon at The Feast Church on June 6, 2021. Below is a video of that sermon, which includes the pre-recorded testimony above. May you be blessed by the freedom that comes as you share life and Christ with others.

Martin Luther King Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, famously made this biting critique of the church: "So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound.” Unfortunately, this is oftentimes true in our own time as well. Many of us are left with the suffocating feeling that the church seems to stand for little that Jesus stood for and that our world is suffering because of it. What should be salt and light has become dim and tasteless.
 
This year’s theme for the Kairos Blog is “Renewal.” Renewal is certainly something we long for and need. Renewal comes from the Lord lifting up leaders among his people to call for a new course. These people are His prophets. In the abstract, the work of the prophet is a good and necessary thing in the life of the people of God. The prophets call us back to the standard of God. In fact, far from being cynical complainers, prophets call the people of God into a brighter future--a future characterized by love, peace, and justice--the future “beloved community” as King labeled it.