John H Armstrong

Lesslie Newbigin and My First You Tube Post

One of the ways I am working with Zondervan to prepare for the publication of my new book, Your Church Is Too Small, is to record video clips that can be posted on You Tube. My first such venture is now posted. I hope you will take three minutes to watch it. This is a new experience for me. I reckon that this is my first, but surely not my last, such venture into this new media. Check out my video discussion about Lesslie Newbigin, a role model for me and for a multitude of other missional thinkers and pastors. If you do not yet know Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998) begin to read about him and get some of his books and dig in. There is a load of good material online. There is even a Facebook page for fans of Newbigin. You will likely be a better Christian for the effort.

Your Church Is Too Small: An Update on My Book

Most readers know that I began work over two years ago on a book about the mission of the church and unity. That book is titled: Your Church Is Too Small. I envisioned this book about three years ago. I realized that God had clearly given me a vision of mission and that I needed to explain this vision openly and seek to create a movement of leaders and churches that shared this vision. I began to collect my thoughts and planned to write. I contracted to publish this book in November of 2008 with Zondervan. I initially expected that the book would be released by this fall. But a number of things beyond my control happened to create many delays. Further delays came as we edited the book over recent months. My original material was almost twice as long as the final book will be. Most of this "cut" material will be posted on a Web site and thus be available when the book is published.

When I gave Zondervan my manuscript last fall I gave them well over 90,000 words. This was reduced in late April to 73,000 words, by further painstaking edits I undertook. I then learned, in July, that the text needed to be cut to 62,500 words if we were to get it into a 208-plus page (cloth) book.  More cuts and edits followed. At times this process was stressful but in the end I think what we got was a more readable text. My goal was to write a book for non-specialists so that church leaders, both pastors and lay leaders, could follow my story and my argument(s) about the nature of the church, Christ’s mission and our unity in him.

Finally, two weeks ago, the edited manuscript was completed. Now the book, which is being typeset as I write, is being distributed in electronic format to a number of people who are being asked to read it and endorse it, if they choose. We hope to get a fairly wide response from Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readers. The book will appeal to evangelical Protestants in particular, but in general it is intended for all Christians who care about Christ’s mission and their unity with one another.

The book is scheduled for an April 2010 release. I expect to see my first copy by March. Between now and then a great deal is being done on the book before it is released. Besides finishing cover design, and writing a foreword (pray for the person who will do this as we are not sure yet who this will be), a Web site is being developed for the book and further plans for publicity are being developed. I will be telling you a lot more about this book in the months ahead. Your Church Is Too Small will allow me to tell my story and to promote the vision that I believe God gave to me in the 1990s, a vision to see a new ecumenism develop at the grass roots. This is where Christians really live and work together for the advance of Christ’s kingdom throughout the earth. Please pray for Your Church Is Too Small and all that still goes into its final stages of editing and promotion before its release next April.

Do You Have a Mission Strategy?

I have a good friend who is teaching me a great deal about strategic planning. For some years I have known that a mission like ACT 3 should have a strategy but I have always found the concept difficult to relate to spiritual and missional planning. I think the reasons are becoming more and more clear to me because of my friend's patient help.

A strategy is nothing other than a human plan. The word seems to have had its origins in the military where leaders developed a large scale plan for military operations in advance of a battle. The idea was to put their army in the most advantageous position so that they could win once they actually began the fight. I have been to the battlefield at Gettysburg more times than I can now count. (I think it is something like ten or more.) Every time I take the time to look out over the open fields and see the various high spots and remember how generals made strategy for how they would engage in a battle during those first days in July of 1863. I remember that they had to change their plans once the battle commenced. But, and this is my point, they always came back to pursuing the fight according to a definite strategy that had one clear goal in mind.

I see the Apostle Paul doing the same thing in the Book of Acts. Paul has a clear vision, to get the gospel to the outermost regions of the Roman Empire (Spain) and to plant a Christian colony, or a church congregation, in every major city. If you study his missionary journeys you soon see that each trip took him further and further from Israel. He seems to have been following Matthew 28: 18-20 very carefully. And he pursued this plan to the end of his days. Sometimes the Holy Spirit seems to have redirected his actions but he kept following his plan. He even revised his plan as the Spirit moved him here and there, opening and closing doors. But he planned to get to the uttermost place and followed his plan to reach this vision all the way.

And Paul had a definite plan for each city that he entered as well. He would go first to the synagogue and gather people. He would teach them that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. Jews were dispersed throughout the world. Rarely would there be a city without a Jewish population. Even in a small place like Philippi, where there was no synagogue, there was a little gathering of people for prayer. Paul went there to preach. Some synagogues were receptive and some were hostile. But Paul pressed on in his plan. His vision was to reach Gentiles but he did not begin there, at least not in most cities.

My aforementioned friend, who is teaching me about vision and strategy, introduced me to a fine business book recently: Blue Ocean Strategy. The book has helped me think more strategically about my mission. Blue Ocean Strategy sheds light on how businesses can develop new strategies. A "blue ocean" is a new opportunity for growth and development that does not contest with other businesses (companies) for a shrinking profit pool. Blue ocean thinking makes strategic moves that will open powerful new opportunities. A "red ocean" is a market that is already taken and in which you must compete with others in a way that sheds more blood in the process. "Blue ocean" thinking can be used by missions as well as businesses since the principles are clearly transferable. It calls for upending traditional approaches so that a leader and their mission can sail the uncharted waters of blue oceans. This is why I have always puzzled over pastors and leaders who see new missions as some kind of threat. They think the ocean is limited to what they can see and what they see is a finite number of people thus they fear that a new mission will take away from their own mission. This "red ocean" thinking will kill you spiritually.

Should we have a vision in our mission? And should that vision lead us to actually strategize in order to reach our vision/goal(s)? The Scripture says, "In their hearts human beings plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps" (Proverbs 16:9). We also read in Proverbs 16:3 "Commit to the Lord whatever you do and he will establish your plans." I think we plan to fail if we have no strategy. To not plan is to tempt providence in a certain sense. To plan and not trust the Lord for the outcome is to become vainly centered in our own importance. By his grace we must plan and we must trust. "The Lord works our everything to its proper end" (Proverbs 16:4a).

The World Is Changing: What Will the Church Do About It?

The world is clearly changing at a dizzying pace. Everything we know about the world of the 20th Century has changed, is changing, or soon will change. If you do not believe this then watch this documentary video presentation, titled "Did You Know?" If you already believe the world is changing rapidly then watch this anyway. It will only convince you all the more that your sense of things is correct. When I watch something like this I have to ask: “How will we (Christians) prepare the church, our mission organizations, seminaries and other ministries for THIS new world?” If we fail to plan we should plan to fail. Only those who think deeply about the context of Christ's mission will do anything bold and filled with faith to respond to this new world.

Is It Time to Do Church Differently?

I have written in numerous contexts that the church needs to rethink its mission as soon as possible. Sadly, most churches are not doing this.

We must grasp anew the way to do church in the twenty-first century. The message of the gospel does not change but the way we make disciples is changing and must change even more than most people are ready to acknowledge. The complexities of the modern cultural context are unique. The way we gain real access to people's minds and hearts is being altered so quickly that only those who are doing evangelism in the trenches seem to recognize the real significance and power of this hyper-change.

The recently retired U. S. President of the Navigators, Alan Andrews, succinctly sums up what I see when he says:

In my opinion the time has come to do church differently. I am convinced that we must shift our focus from highly programmed ministry to developing Missional/Transformational Communities that are formed as a seamless organic whole. These types of communities are rare and difficult to visualize because we have moved so forcefully to programmatic ministry in the last half of the previous century. . . . Now the climate in America has begun to shift. Much of the culture is beginning to look for integrity and wholeness. Many people are coming from broken backgrounds with deep wounds in their souls. They long for something that provides real relationships, something that provides integration for their lives, and something that fills the longings of their soul. In short, though they are not aware of it, they seek the whole Gospel for their whole lives.

I believe Andrews has stated what is very obvious with unique insight and clarity. Read his statement once again. Just when the church felt that it had mastered the programmatic approach to evangelism and mission the whole game was changed. "The climate in American has begun to shift." Yes, but it has more than begun, it has shifted. And it is not going back to the old way anytime soon. An entire generation has been reared in broken homes and by parents with little or no moral anchor. A whole generation has been raised in a context where they know almost nothing about God or how to think about eternal values and choices. What this generation longs for is relationships, not answers. The answers we have will only matter when there is a real relationship. My generation does not understand this and continues to do church the way we always did it. We cannot "visualize" this, as Andrews says, because we have no reference point for it in our collective experience. I think we learn best by doing and this will be something we must do in order to learn. It will require real faith to do it, something few have these days. But those that do have such faith need to be equipped and encouraged. This is why ACT 3 exists: "To equip leaders in unity for Christ's mission."

I think our present cultural context is far more like the culture the earliest Christians faced than that which my grandparents, or even my parents, faced. This mega-shift is truly remarkable. Let those with eyes to see grasp this powerfully and then begin to ask the truly missional questions that this moment requires of us if we are to be faithful to our own time with the good news of Christ's gospel.

While you are at it pray for ACT 3. This is what my vision is all about. I need both your prayer and financial support it I am to get this message to leaders all across America. I also need your personal support so I can help those leaders who see this way of "doing church differently." It is not easy to communicate this message to my generation since they do not have eyes to see it.

Principles vs. Rules

Structure is necessary for life to survive. The church needs structure to be fruitful. But much of the history of the Christian church reveals that structure has been far more important than life itself.

The gospel is taken by a missionary to a culture different from their own. They plant it like seed in the soil. They pray and teach and water this gospel seed to produce churches. The problems come when the missionaries do not replant the seed properly in the new culture/soil.

A few days ago I quoted D.T. Niles of Sri Lanka. Niles observed this point when he wrote:

The gospel is like seed and you have to sow it. Now, when missionaries came to our lands they brought not only the seed of the gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flower pot included! So what we have to do is to break the flower pot, take out the seed of the gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.

Niles is not talking about what we Americans call models. He is talking about what we might better term mission principles. What are the principles we should follow to plant seeds of the gospel and then let them emerge and multiply within a natural soil environment? What we desire is truly organic growth, thus the increasingly popular term "organic church."

Organic churches are relational and flexible. They allow people and ideas to emerge that are faithful to the gospel, not human rules or cultures. If you desire to carry the good seed of the gospel into a missional context then you have to be truly willing to break flower pots and trust the seed to work under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This the church has never found easy. We much prefer to control the growth, limit the problems and comfortably adopt the culture in a way that makes it harder for the gospel to actually work among us.

What Is That Guy Doing Hanging Up There on the Plus Sign?

I believe the recently released date from the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), and the story told in the March 9 edition of USA Today, tells a story so compelling that missional Christians must not ignore what is really happening to millions of people in the U.S. We have clearly moved from a deeply religious culture, firmly rooted in some expression of historic Catholic and Protestant faith, to a society that is rapidly moving away from any kind of "deep personal commitment." Barry Kosmin, one of the authors of this ARIS report suggests religion is more of a "fashion statement" for many Americans than anything remotely related to everyday spiritual reality. I think this is a correct analysis. We who believe in the Great Commission had best take serious note of all these developments.

Some religion is growing, at least in certain regions in America. There you find religious adherence and practice that is on the increase. In Texas, for instance, Roman Catholicism is growing faster than the bishops can handle. The same is true in South Carolina. But in New England the Catholic Church is slowly fading away as a cultural relic of the past, declining by 15% in only 18 years. Young adults are choosing to opt out and their parents and grandparents have moved South. These young adults may still claim, nominally at least, to be Catholic but they are not baptizing their children or having sacramental weddings. In my area attendance at confession is almost non-existent, with the exception of a few more traditional parishes that still emphasize it and get a larger response.

One ex-Catholic, a 21 year-old philosophy student in Boston, says that he is quite typical among his peers. When religion comes up, he says, "everyone at the table will start mocking it. I don't know anyone religious and hardly anyone 'spiritual.'" I think this sums up a trend that is obvious.

At the same time my friends who work with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a para-church evangelistic ministry on college campuses, say that they are seeing a slight increase in conversions over the past two or three years. Could this become a new trend? God alone knows but we should all foster this hope with our efforts and dollars and then pray for it purposefully.

The primary gap in the culture wars, say authors Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, is what they term a "piety gap." Kosmin says this "piety gap" is "about gay marriage and abortion and stem cells and the family. If a personal God says, 'Thou shalt not,' or 'Thou shalt' . . . you'd take it very seriously. Meanwhile, three in ten people aren't listening to that God." Keysar adds, confirming what I have also experienced personally, "There's more clarity at the two extremes and the mishmash is in the middle."

The problem here is really quite simple. Much of the visible church, even the evangelical church, lives in this "mishmash." We are tired of the culture wars (I include myself in this group) and we are not sure that mission and kingdom ministry matters anymore (I am not in this group). Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, sees in all these numbers "an emergence of a soft evangelicalism---E-lite---that owes a lot to evangelical styles of worship and a basic approach to church." But Silk adds, "E-lite is more a matter of aesthetic and style and a considerable softening of the edges in doctrine, politics and social values." There can be no serious question that his analysis is spot on.

Rev. Kendall Harmon, an Episcopalian who is committed to the gospel of grace, tells a story that sums all of this up very powerfully. He interviewed a family in his office that brought along a yellow pad with some of their teenage son's questions. The one that underscored the amazing reality of how far we have moved away from a cultural awareness of the meaning of Christ and Christian faith sums it up powerfully. The teen asked: "What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?"

I can't think of a more powerful testimony to the need for a fresh vision and power for mission on this day, Good Friday, 2009. While some traditional folks argue about baseball teams playing games this afternoon, between noon and 3 p.m., the church doesn't seem to realize that millions of people have no earthly idea what the cross means at all.

A faithful and awakened church will know this truth and then concur, with real integrity, with Paul when he said: "May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14).

Is Religion in America a Hobby or a Fashion Statement?

The recently published ARIS report, comparing religious data in the United States in 2008 with the same data from 1990, revealed a number of important facts that Christians who care about the health of the church and the nation should be concerned about. Yesterday, I wrote about the growing presence of the "nones," now fastest growing religious preference in America. There is other important data to be noted in this same report.

Roman Catholicism has declined 1.1% since 1990. This is somewhat surprising since their has been a large-scale increase in Catholic immigrants into America during the same period of time. The reasons for this decline are probably numerous. The sex scandals plainly hurt the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. And the liberal trends in Catholic higher education have failed to catechize and strengthen Catholics at the parish level.

Baptists have declined even faster, from 19.3% to 15.8%, a drop of 3.5%. This is a huge decrease and is reflected in the considerable decrease in baptisms and additions in the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). There could be a number of reasons for this large decrease but I am inclined, based on both hard data and anecdotal opinion, to believe the "political struggles" in the SBC have added to this decrease! The conservatives won the power, at the national level, but this win seems more hollow by the day. It raises a perennially important question: "At what price do we wage war with fellow Christians about power and control of institutions and seminaries?" Conservatives will argue that the battles were essential and that the in the longer term the SBC will be stronger for it. Moderate, or more liberal Baptists, will argue that in unity the SBC knew much greater freedom and the mission agencies did much better without the two decade-long struggle for the heart and soul of the convention. I am inclined to believe both sides have a point but I lean toward the belief that such struggles almost never result in stronger and more effective mission.

What about Islam in the U.S.? Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky suggests that all such surveys under-count Muslims. This just might be true given the way data is collected and how Muslims might respond to being interviewed. One thing is for sure, Islam is growing but probably not as rapidly as some suggest who want to promote fear and reaction.

There are now 2.8 million Americans who identify with dozens of new religious movements (NRM). These groups include Wicca, a contemporary form of paganism (in the right sense of this historic term) that includes goddess worship and reverence for nature. Wicca has recently made its way into the Arlington National Cemetery where the five-pointed star symbol can be used on veteran's gravestones.

Perhaps the most interesting insight of all was offered by co-author Barry Kosmin who concluded from the 1990 survey that many Americans saw God as "a personal hobby" and America as a "greenhouse for spiritual sprouts." After analysis of the 2008 data Kosmin says, "religion has become a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many."

I find that comparison consistent with what I've seen over the past eighteen years. I began the wider, national ministry of ACT 3 in 1991. By 1992 I began to travel to every region of the country. I have spoken in many culturally and religiously diverse contexts, to small groups and large gatherings. I have talked to older adults and to my own generation. I have also listened to the under-35s. While many under 35 are profoundly interested in a deeper spirituality their number is clearly declining. And the overall effect is that most lack "a deep personal commitment" to Christ or any other person or faith.

The Rise of the "Nones"

Yesterday I commented on the recent American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). The simple facts about religion in America are very clear to all who look at the evidence at all. Religion is in decline as an important part of our culture. Co-author of the ARIS Survey, Barry Kosmin, says, "Don't blame secularism for driving up the percentage of Americans who say they have no religion. These people aren't secularized. They're not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they're not thinking about it at all."

A close look at the rising category of the "nones" in this survey tells you about everything you need to know about American spiritual life and its connection to the practice of public faith. 40% of these say they had no childhood religious initiation ceremony (baptism, christening, circumcision or some kind of naming or dedication). 55% of those who are married had no religious ceremony. 66% say they do not expect to have a religious funeral. Says Kosmin, "Your parents may decide for you on baptism and your spouse has a say in your wedding, but when people talk about dying, they speak for themselves."

Kosmin expects the "nones" to keep growing rather rapidly as each generation follows this pattern.

Rev. Kendall Harmon, theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina (he is an orthodox theologian by the way) believes "social mobility" has had a great impact on faith as well. He says, "Mobility means your ideas are more challenged and your family and childhood traditions have less influence, particularly if you are not strongly rooted in them. I see kids today who have no vocabulary of faith, and neither do many of their parents."

In 1990 Oregon led the nation in nones. In 2008 it is Vermont, with 34%. Are most of these nones atheists? There is very little evidence to support this conclusion. Most have not made a philosophical choice so much as they have simply chosen to disconnect from religious practice altogether.

The most staggering conclusion in this data can be found by taking the "nones" (15%) and combining them with the "Don't Know/Refused" category, which is all but saying "None." The total exceeds 20%. So, to put this clearly, 1 in 5 Americans has no religious practice in any sense and they openly admit it. Unless God sends "showers of mercy" and refreshed and awakens the church to her calling and mission this number will increase and the results will be culturally and socially catastrophic.

I am sometimes asked why I do not think engaging in aggressive partisan politics has altered the spiritual and moral landscape of America since the 1970s? I now have all the evidence I need to make my point. We ought to become involved in public life but linking a political movement, philosophy or party too closely to Christian faith hasn't done a single thing to stop the slide toward secularism in this nation. It may have actually helped this slide, as other more anecdotal surveys have shown in the past few years.

Christianity Losing Ground in America?

 USA Today reported in the March 9 edition that "Almost all denominations [are] losing ground" in America. For those who study these matters, as I do routinely, this was no great surprise. We are, said the article, "a land of freelancers." The percentage of people who call themselves some kind of Christian has dropped 11% in a generation. The Bible Belt is less Baptist and the Rust Belt is less Catholic. This cuts across all lines. People are exploring new spiritual frontiers and searching for new approaches to faith. Many are simply dropping out totally.

These shifts have occurred over an eighteen year period, according to the newest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). Despite the growth of immigration, which has added 50 millions new people to the nation, almost all denominations have lost ground since 1990. Barry Kosmin, who is this survey's co-author, says, "More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself.'"

The survey said that 15% of all Americans claim no religion (none), up from 8% in 1990. This is the fastest growing religious category in the United States, hands down. This category outranks all others except for Roman Catholic and Baptist. The challenge to Christianity comes not from other religions, such as Islam or Hinduism, but from "none."

Catholic strongholds in New England and the Midwest have faded as immigrants and retirees have moved to the Sun Belt. Bishops in the Midwest and Northeast are forced to close parishes while bishops in the South scramble.

Baptists make up 15.8% of those surveyed, just very slightly less than the "none" category. This number dropped from 19.5% in 1990. Mainline Protestant denominations continue their sharp decline as well.

But don't take too much comfort in any of this if you prefer the label "Christian" or "non-denominational" or just "born again." This figure was 14.2%, essentially the same as in 1990. So, and this is important to note, even if mainline people are shifting to evangelical churches, which some are clearly doing, this is not stopping the loss of people overall.

My personal observation is that very few congregations are growing by actually reaching "real converts" week-by-week. The evidence that biblical evangelism is actually transforming significant numbers of people is very small. What amazes me is that the ordinary Christian in the typical church doesn't really care. Anyone think we need a real, God-sent, spiritual awakening anytime soon?