Church Renewal Posts
(Hauerwas Posts Below...)
Four Pillars Introduction
ReJesus - Jesus Our Model
Loving God by Loving Others
Relational Key as Spiritual DNA (koinonia/community)
Mission Our Manifesto
June 23, 2025
The FOUR PILLARS for Renewal by Randy Howard
Let me take a page or so here to describe the concept I offer as what I see as the core aim of discipleship. This is a shift from the traditional approach so I will need a few words to bring a minimal understanding. Thanks for your patience friend.
('The FOUR Pillars' is the title of a volume Dr. Howard has written and will share step by step through this blog.)
In my spiritual journey I landed pretty early on the idea that there were four pillars of Christian faith. In my observation those pillars were the Bible, Prayer, Worship, and Church. As a college student I felt an increasing call to walk deeper into these pillars with the aim of growing spiritually. I began a lifelong practice of memorizing Bible scriptures. I soon began to develop a daily prayer walk that would grow stronger over time. I loved worship as it has been mainly perceived, singing praise with prayer blended in. And my life had been formed in church attendance and participation since birth. These four activities formed my personal individual discipleship curriculum which lasted through more than four decades of life. I often reflect that these pillars built a spiritual foundation for my life and everything else that I experienced on the journey was facilitated by those pillars. As I enter the sunset of life I have come to believe these four activities have generally been considered ‘the pillars’ of Christian spiritual growth universally.
In this season of life and reflection I have come to believe that there are FOUR OTHER PILLARS that I now feel should be placed at the foundation of Christian faith and life. This shift in my thinking does not in any way diminish the importance of the four former pillars. They are and will continue to be essential in spiritual growth. In my view now, they should not be the goals to achieve, but they should be the means, the catalysts, the steps in process to reach and experience the ‘four pillars’ I now believe to hold the greatest import. Those pillars have been discussed in my recent book as Loving God by Loving Others, Relationship as Spiritual DNA, Jesus Our Model, and Mission Our Manifesto. In short, these pillars are Love, Relationship, Jesus, and Mission.
One influence for the shift in my thinking about the four critical pillars of Christianity has been a change in my personal journey in ministry. Ten years ago, I stepped into ministry serving the poor of my community. In this blog I will write stories of friends I have met and have been privileged to walk beside in life. As their friend I have worked to help them approach stability in life and inner hope and peace in Christ. Some of these friends I have had the privilege to walk with for over five years while all of them have been a part of my life for at least a year. These extended relationships have shown me the importance of the four pillars I now recommend as foundations for Christian life and ministry: Love, Relationship, Jesus, and Mission.
I have come to believe that these four pillars are actually the goal of genuine Christianity and therefore should be the goal of all discipleship efforts. Think with me. The Bible cannot be a goal of Christian life. It is a vehicle to carry Christ followers toward their goal. The same is true of Prayer. Christ followers are called to pray in order to see Christian faith and action activated in their life walk. The same is true for Church. Christ followers go to church to be built up, energized, and equipped for Kingdom building action in life. And Worship is far more than gathering together for sessions of praise and prayer blended powerfully, or in touching ways so that we may enjoy the presence of God. Worship is our whole life offering in the hope of glorifying God daily. The Bible, Prayer, Worship, and Church are critical to the development and effectiveness of a Christ follower, but they are not the goals a Christ follower is aiming for, they are the assisting means. I like the word catalysts. The goal is far higher; a life of consuming love for God by loving others extravagantly, a life lived in community reaching to build new relationships with others in need, a life aiming to emulate the model of Jesus, and by these three we arrive at life lived on mission every day.
Read that last sentence again. These ideas resonate -- a life of love, loving and serving others, living in community, inviting others to gracious relationship with us, and therefore living on mission each day. These elements ring true to New Testament narratives and most importantly the life model of Jesus. In my view it is time to move these pillars to the front and to call all of God’s people to embrace these goals personally. Love is the center affirmed by all of scripture. Actually love is the foundation for each of the other three pillars. There is no genuine Christianity without love filling the heart. All other attempts at Christianity without love as the prime element have missed the mark and sink to the level of mere religion. Love motivates viewing Christian life as relational. We are meant to be in close family relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We also are meant to offer our friendship and brotherhood to the lost, inviting them to come join the family. Love motivates emulating Jesus. We become like what we love the scripture teaches and life experience affirms. The Christ in us seeks to radiate out from us to all those around us, serving others just like Jesus. Finally love motivates mission. Love is the most powerful and pure motivation for mission. The love motive is greater than command, greater than instruction, greater than institutional programming, even greater than the urgency of the need. God’s love filling his children enables these four pillars naturally and effectively; Love, Relations, Jesus, and Mission.
June 25, 2025
Why FOUR PILLARS?
Briefly let me explain that this blog will deal with topics that surround five ideas:
The need for renewal in the church AND the FOUR PILLARS
Jesus Our Model,
Loving God by Loving Others,
Community/Koinonia as Our Spiritual DNA (relationship),
Mission Our Manifesto
In looking back over the last 50-70 years we have seen numerous waves of thought to try and help the church fulfill its mission. We can all remember many of the most notable ones. I think of the Church Growth wave and I personally attended Peter Wagner’s seminar, and ultimately met him personally at one conference. There was the less prominent Church Health wave that was a small reaction to sheer numbers, data, and logistics. There was the Leadership wave with the John Maxwell and his many many books. That wave continues even today as you google church leadership and find many current and well known authors. Mixed in with all this was the mega church trend which actually swept through all waves. In the last 30 years the contemporary church has made it a high priority to build ‘big box’ churches just as culture has enjoyed ‘big box’ stores like Walmart and Target, to name a few. More recently the satellite church strategy has spread with Andy Stanley and Dr. Ed Young for example.
The amazing reality has now dawned on a significant number of Christian leaders that in the last 70 years when all of these waves were training and forming the vision for the contemporary church the church itself was declining in what the data shows has been an accelerating phenomenon. My feeling in writing the FOUR PILLARS for Renewal has been that all, or nearly all, of these waves were simply adapting secular models and applying them to the church so that the church would be more effective, more efficient, more excellent, more attractive, etc. In the FOUR PILLARS I ask the question what are the most fundamental and biblical elements that have perhaps slipped from the focus of the church through all of these waves.
Let me give an example from the Reveal Study from Willow Creek Church and Bill Hybels. I first want to honor the courage and transparency of Hybels and the leaders of this flagship church here in America. Hybels launched the church on the ‘Seeker Sensitive’ philosophy and helped make it famous in Christian circles. (This could be considered another wave.) After decades of what seemed like great success Willow Creek asked for a study to be done of how well they were making disciples as they genuinely attracted ‘seekers.’ The study ‘revealed’ that although they had attracted so many, and they had seen them become a part of their church, they had failed in the main to make them into disciples.
This blog aims to talk about how authentic church renewal can come as we build the FOUR PILLARS into as many believers as possible and they become actual Christ followers. I am excited about the conversation and the potential latently held in these God given concepts.
You may click the link in the graphic below to go to the Anakainosis blog page where you will find every blog we have posted and a few we have yet to release. Thanks for following this conversation about Church Renewal.
‘The Great Dechurching’
June 20, 2025
Consider this source as we talk about the need for renewal in the contemporary church.
‘The Great Dechurching’
By Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge
“Unfortunately, the reality is that many of the regular attendees who no longer come to our churches have simply stopped going anywhere on Sundays.” **
This study “describes this phenomenon, which is being experienced throughout the North American church. The ominous title matches a distressing reality: people are leaving the church—many with no intention to return.” ** They report 40 million have left.
“This book doesn’t merely cite data that validates an observable reality. It also provides survey results from the departing masses to discern why they’re leaving and what might bring them back again. The Great Dechurching combines a heart for the local church and a deep interest in understanding the culture with rigorous statistical analysis.” **
“The Great Dechurching is painfully honest. The data suggests this dechurching is happening everywhere—not simply among one denomination or stratum of society. This data, which is the result of a statistically rigorous survey, makes clear that the work of mission and evangelism is necessary for everyone.” **
On the other hand, the authors speak of opportunities in the middle of this crisis. “51% of the 40 million say they will return. (p. 3) Over 50% still hold orthodox beliefs. (p. 5) Many dechurched just need a nudge. Invite them. Use hospitality in your home and life. Invite them into your lives. (p. 6) They don’t need to be convinced church has value, but they need to be nudged. (p. 10) Millions leave due to not feeling loved, or belonging, or that they fit in. (p. 7-8) For them Church is not an event it is a family. Many find better relating at sports events of their children… (p. 8)
Go to the link for our blog and let’s look at what the church can learn from ‘The Great Dechurching’ for renewal. We talk about ‘gold’ for church renewal today.
The authors of ‘The Great Dechurching’ feel from the surveys that the way the church relates with people is a problem. They are so bold as to say, “Relational incompetence is clear in both churches and individual Christians as they relate with the potential dechurched. But, they say, ‘We can change the way we relate.’” (p. 17) The book goes on to say, “People are not projects, but human beings bearing the image of God.” (p. 20) “We don’t just want to persuade them, but to meet their needs on the very deepest levels. We will have to have some relational capital with those we intend to influence.” (p. 21) They talk about the willingness to listen and understand, as well as acting with transparency and vulnerability appropriate to touch people in their needs. (p. 22, 25-26)
The authors feel that the relational element is a need for the ‘dechurched’ that this study has uncovered. This will become one of the ‘pillar concepts’ of this blog in the weeks and months to come, but for today look at a few implications.
I raised the relational deficiency idea to a church leader recently and their response was quick and strong. This church is a loving church where people are tightly woven into the fabric of this network. From my observations this is a feeling among most church leaders and attenders. I had attended the leader’s church with my homeless friend before so I asked how long he thought it might take for my friend to enter that status? A seed was sown but I knew it would take much more to erode that idea ‘his church was loving to everyone.’
I remember working with a single parent mother in poverty with addiction issues for some years. She came with me to my own church and I remember telling her that this church could become a place where she could find a support network for life. She was listening with her feelings from that Sunday distracting her, since she felt like an outsider that hardly anyone noticed. Realistically I said to her if she would come and sit on this pew for the next three years I felt the people would gradually accept her there and begin to relate with her with friendship and care. I wanted to be honest with her and avoid painting a picture few churches could live up to. I had already come to grips with the reality that to become an embraced part of the fabric of a church one would need to show up consistently for some years.
On the flip side I am thinking of three or the most notable movements for Jesus in the history of Christianity; the early church from year 100ad to 300ad, the Chinese revival that flourished all through the 20th century, and the Wesleyan movement in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Anyone who would study the details of these massive movements would find that a common denominator was the powerful loving acceptance they displayed to others in their worlds. Each of these movements were known for this quality as one of their most effective tools in reaching people and saturating their cultures. When we translate the ‘relational element’ into the Gospel call to ‘love others’ we find gold, one of the great treasures for church renewal.
** Information taken from Matt Rogers’ review of this volume in The Church Coalition website, November 2023.
January 25, 2026
7 Disruptive Church Trends That Will Rule 2026
By Carey Nieuwhof
Nieuwhof introduces his report with these thoughts:
2025 was the first year we began to see the stirrings and anecdotes associated with revival become statistically meaningful.
The reversal is as surprising as it is encouraging, especially for those of us who have seen years of mostly decline in the numbers and trends. For example, Bible sales are up 41.6% since 2022, spiritual app downloads rose 79.5% since 2019, and Christian music streams are up 50% since 2019.
According to Barna, the number of Americans who say they have a personal commitment to Jesus that is still meaningful in their lives rose 12 percentage points between 2022 and 2025. All of these stirrings continue to fuel the 2026 church trends.
All of that said, we need to take a breath. Despite all the positive evidence and talk of revival, there is a meta-trend hanging over all the other church trends we’ll look at for 2026: the ongoing general decline of Christianity in America.
Fresh data from Barna shows that, at the same time we’re seeing some positive trends, Christianity as a whole is less important to Americans than in years past. And more Christians than ever don’t practice their faith.
For example, in 2000, 74% of Christians said faith was central to their lives. Today, it’s 54%. That means that 46% of US Christians do not consider their faith to be central to their lives. Which is, I think you’d agree, a bit of an issue.
Similarly, half of all US adults (48%) now qualify as non-practicing Christians. In fact, only 24% of Christians actively pursue their faith. That’s a significant finding and a big change from 15 years ago, when more Christians practiced their faith than didn’t. Perhaps this helps describe the crisis in discipleship and the partisanship we’re seeing.
No doubt many are curious about the 7 Church Trends that Nieuwhof reports. I will give them below and anyone can look for them online for all the details.
I share Nieuwhof’s introductory comments because this blog is about church renewal. Every now and then it is good to hear a new voice stating that church renewal is still our pressing challenge.
This blog (Anakainosisforthechurch.com) offers the recommendation that churches begin to build Four Pillar Living into the lives of their people. This is our contribution to renewal, a discipleship strategy that aims to develop followers of Jesus that live out the Four Pillars 24/7. Certainly other aspects are needed but we are convinced that renewal movements historically have mobilized the common Christ followers to live empowered lives of loving service.
The Protestant Reformation used the motto: reformata et semper reformanda
“Reformed and always Reforming”
Although Martin Luther and the Reformation leaders led the cataclysmic revolution for reform from the Catholic Church, they understood they must maintain the attitude that reformation will always be an ongoing process. This is a powerful reformation truth we need to revisit today. It has often been said, “any organization that stops changing is dead.”
Finally consider this idea about paradigms.
Paradigms are more or less mental models we create of how things should be. After they are established, paradigms in many ways do our thinking for us; that is their purpose. This can easily lead to paradigm blindness where we are so reliant on the paradigm we do not see as it becomes less and less effective. (p. xxxii from Hirsch and Catchim, Permanent Revolution)
Institutional or Traditional
Many will agree that over the decades and centuries there is more institutionalism and traditionalism in the church than we would want to admit. Yes, the role of tradition can be guiding and sustaining for the church in any age. But we also realize tradition relies on past formulas and thinking, tends to be reactionary, resists creative thinking solutions, and is self referential, often bureaucratic.
The fact is that the Bible sustains a thorough and consistent critique of religious institutionalism. The prophets project their concerns for kings, judges, and priests. Jesus railed against the institutionalism of the scribes and pharisees. Paul wrote his protest against the powers entrenched in human institutions and people. (p. xxii)
Remember the ancient philosopher Epictetus said, “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” (p. xxiv)
7 Disruptive Church Trends That Will Rule 2026 by Nieuwhof:
1. Gen Z Is Leading the Surge in Church Attendance
2. Young Men Are Coming To Church… And Women Are Leaving
3. Evangelism is Getting Bolder and More Direct
4. Preaching is Starting to Shift From Presentation to Encounter
5. Discipleship is Now Largely Controlled By Algorithm (And Pastors Are Paying a Huge Price)
6. Senior Pastors Are Aging Out, and Few Are Replacing Them
7. The Church Has Yet To Brace for the Coming AI Revolution
Adventures in the Borderlands
February 6, 2026
Adventures in the Borderlands
Let’s briefly touch church renewal today as we step into this exciting understanding about ministry in the borderlands.
The scriptures are replete with examples of renewal in and among God‘s people. From the so-called deuteronomic cycles (judges through chronicles and kings) to the eschatological promises of God through the prophets (for example Isaiah 40 through 66) and from Jesus’ radical renewal of Israel to the call to repentance in the churches of Revelations, a consistent cycle of renewal has been present. Renewal takes place, both corporately and individually. Without regular cycles of renewal and revitalization, what were once dynamic movements will degrade to the point of closure. (p. 137, Permanent Revolution, Hirsch and Catchim)
Renewal means more than reinventing ourselves. It means rediscovering the primal power of the spirit and the gospel already present in the life of the church —reconnecting with this divine source. (P. 148)
Dallas Willard urges younger leaders to stir the primal coals of the movement, do what they did, say what they said. He is wisely, encouraging them to be radical traditionalists. (P. 149)
Renewal requires the reseeding of key ideas related to being a movement originally, for example: recentering the church on its Christological roots, forging new approaches to mission, shaping organizational structure to fit, and getting over risk aversion. (p. 150)
Borderlands
There is a biological process by which renewal occurs. On the one hand, renewal will require some sort of reconnecting with the central founding ideas of the faith. On the other hand, renewal involves being stimulated by events and experiences at the outer edges of the organization. It is the dynamic oscillation between the two that brings about spiritual and organizational renewal. (p.152)
The redemptive move outward into life itself is vital to the revitalization process. In fact, it seems that renewal is largely precipitated by engaging the fringes or, to use a phrase from living systems theory, surfing the edge of chaos. (p. 152)
W. C. Roof notes that the main stimulus for the renewal of Christianity will come from the bottom and from the edge, from the sectors of the Christian world that are on the margins. This is partly because movements of mission outside the church, usually generate movements of renewal inside the church. New insights are gained and old ideas renovated as the church engages in mission, and this has a positive impact on the church as a whole. Movements of mission fuel movements of spiritual and theological renewal, and usually not the other way around. (p. 152)
In my experience and my observations, it is when the Kingdom of light confronts the kingdom of darkness that Jesus loves to demonstrate the power of his Gospel and the relevance of this faith life. I personally have seen more miraculous moments in mission to people in desperation than I have seen in the fellowship of the saints. Of course we know when the purpose of the Gospel is realized a surge of affirming energy sweeps through the family of God. Mission successes validate the authenticity of the church and attract other followers to join life ‘on mission.’ All of these and so much more describe the renewing and mobilizing qualities of mission activity for the church and individual believers.
For three years I had the privilege of travelling and training churches in the popular evangelism method of that day. As I took believers out into homes and neighborhoods to share the Gospel it was always exciting to sense the thrill of mission among the teams. Later I did similar training for a Christian college and the excitement for these students was tangible as they saw the Gospel work before their eyes. In the last seven years I have taken a more personal and intensive approach walking with people in desperate need, often with them for years. It is still profoundly moving to watch God work in ministry on the edges, the borderlands.
Wasn’t this the life style of Jesus? He did not spend his time in the synagogue or temple. He moved out to the edges where Jewish faith was not dominant. There ‘surfing the edge of the chaos of life’ Jesus met the desperate, healed the hurting, touched the untouchables, confronted the evil powers, and spoke life and hope to all. Hirsch and Catchim are reminding us that renewal happens when we venture with our faith to the edges, when we reach out to captives on the borderlands and life chaos. When the church joins Jesus out on the edges a dynamic supernatural reaction takes place that cannot be duplicated elsewhere.
Left to their own devices, most organizations tend to toward a sort of sociological conservatism that will increasingly forgo engagement with their context in favor of preserving what they see as their repository of inherited ideas. In other words, they turn away from mission, and toward an increasingly traditionalist, sentimental interpretation of reality. Instead of looking forward to a possible future of which they are called to be a part, they look back to an idealized past. Without engagement at the borderlands, where the gospel is extending its reach into previously unreached areas, whatever wisdom we retain in our many organizations becomes a trap for our mind instead of a guide to our possible future. We are captured by past successes. (p. 153)
Many voices have declared the church has become safe and secure in her cocoon of comfortable religion. This post points to renewal that will come as the church breaks out of her sanctuary safety and walks out to shine the light of love, compassion, care, and Gospel faith in the streets of despair and darkness. Our King has said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail…” Church let’s go join Him out on the edges.
Ready for Reformation II ?
February 14, 2026
Ready for Reformation II ?
I love what Rick Warren said.
“The first Reformation was about creeds. The second will be about deeds.”
Micheal Frost and Alan Hirsch make a case for a second Reformation at the door. Their thoughts certainly provide one more validation for a needed renewal in the church.
When there are mega shifts in a culture, there tends to be a reconceptualization of the church. The more profound the cultural shift, the more thorough is the shift in the church’s notion of itself. (Frost and Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, pp. 29-30)
The most noteworthy example of this was the innate connection between the Renaissance of the 15th century and the Reformation of the early 16th century. The Renaissance, particularly with its new hermeneutics, set in motion cultural forces that led inexorably to Luther’s Reformation, which intern unleashed a massive recalibration in both church theology and praxis. The church is inseparably related to its cultural milieu.
This provides a vital lesson for our day. We are living in an epoch shifting period in the west (and globally) as we shift from the modern to the postmodern. There is every indication that this cultural shift will be even more profound and radical than was the shift precipitated by the Renaissance, which took place within the auspices of Christendom. What is happening now is entirely outside of any discernible Christian influence.
We propose that what will emerge from the chaos of the current historical social shift to the postmodern is likely to be a second Reformation as the church rediscovers itself as an apostolic movement.
Essentially the early church was a missional movement to its core. It understood that personal conversion implied the embracing of the ‘missio dei’, the redemptive mission of God to the whole world through the work of his Messiah. It is this redemptive mission that we seek to recover for our own day. Forging missional movements will require massive paradigm shifts in the current Christendom based church. It requires a different kind of thinking that innovates new modes of doing and being church and recasts it’s notions of leadership, structure, and mission.
Frost and Hirsch give us a historical justification for considering the need for renewal in the church. Check out our blog web page for other motivations as to why renewal should be considered today.
Attraction or Incarnation?
February 17, 2026
Michael Frost and Allan Hirsch talk about these two modes of Christian expression in their book, The Shaping of Things to Come. (p. 61)
The traditional Christendom mode of the church to touch the world around it can best be described as attractional. That is, the church expects people to be willing to come to a centrally located religious institution to hear, respond, and be nurtured in the gospel. The church bids people to come and hear the gospel within the holy confines of the church and it’s community. This seems so natural to us after 17 centuries of Christendom, but at what price today as culture shifts?
In this mode it follows that mission and evangelism involve simply inviting people to church related meetings. Evangelism therefore is primarily about mobilizing church members to attract unbelievers into church where they can experience God. Rather than being genuine ‘outreach,’ it effectively becomes something more like ‘in draw.’
(Side Note: Today invitation is not really a major part of the attractional church. Taking its cue from the entertainment industry the attraction mode leans on excellent music, preaching, programming, and services like child care, youth ministry, and activities for women and men. Advertising/marketing with social media is primary.)
If the church limits the gospel application to particular times and places that the vast majority of not yet Christians have little or no desire to attend, or possibly have no sense of access, then the gospel is effectively hobbled. The gospel becomes nearly inaccessible to the vast majority of people in the western world, where the church culture that has effectively imprisoned the good news within its cultural system.
The only means to evangelize people becomes organizing little ‘patrols’ to go into the world in order to rescue them and bring them back to the safety of church. Frost and Hirsch remind us that many westerners in our post Christendom era report that they’ve tried church and found it wanting. If they don’t want to go back, what then?
If they won’t come to us, we have to go to them. This approach is incarnational, the opposite of being attractional. It is the example God gives us in the life and ministry of Jesus. It implies something of a Go-To-Them approach to mission and evangelism, instead of asking non-Christians to Come-To-Us, to our services, to our gatherings, to our programs, and on our terms. The incarnational church seeks to infiltrate society to represent Christ in the world.
Frost and Hirsch propose a shift from the attractional mode to the incarnational mode. This is no mean request, because the vast majority of churches in the west (possibly 95%) operate in the attractional mode of mission. The incarnational mode creates a church that is a dynamic web of relationships, friendships, and acquaintances, fanning out into the community. It creates a medium of living relationships through which the gospel can travel. It emphasizes the importance of individual Christians infiltrating a community, like salt and light, to make those creative connections with people where God talk and shared experience allow for real cross cultural Christian mission to take place.
If we are to take incarnational mission, seriously, (following the example of Jesus’ own ministry) then we must see that God‘s future, his new creation, is not just among ‘his people’, church going Christians, but it is among the ‘ordinary people’, the lost, the strugglers, and the desperate ones of our world.
Four Pillar living supports this incarnational mode of church expression. Drawing from an earlier post consider this:
Let me put this in Four Pillar language. Could we (each follower of Christ) Emulate Jesus (Pillar 1) and offer dignity to one unseen, or hope to one hopeless, or our presence to one alone? Could we Love Someone (Pillar 2) as they sit overwhelmed by their troubles? Could we invite someone into Community/Koinonia relating (Pillar 3) that seems disconnected? Could we look through Missional eyes (Pillar 4) for people such as these to touch like Jesus? I believe we all realize the world is full of such folks.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
March 17, 2026
All my life I wondered what was the big deal about Saint Patrick’s Day. People wearing green and all. One year I was in Philadelphia for a conference on Saint Patrick’s Day. There was a noisy parade and the bar in the hotel seemed to indicate that drinking was an important part of the celebration, Irish style and all.
More recently in my studies I came to realize that Saint Patrick joined a few other Christian monks (Columbanus, Boniface and others) to lead one of the great revival evangelization movements of Christian history. The context for this was the advance of norther barbarian Germanic tribes attacking the Roman Empire (Goths, Visigoths, Lumbards, Vandals, Saxxons, and Angels). Ultimately Rome was sacked several times and the Empire fell to the pagans.
Interesting enough Patrick was not Irish. In a raid into Britain young Patrick was captured and carried north by a tribe. There he worked as a slave in the barbarian north lands. In time he was able to escape to France where he entered a monastery and became a monk. In a dream Patrick saw pagan children crying out to him to come and rescue them and he decided that he must study Christianity and return to the north.
Similar to Columbanus, Boniface, and other missionary monks in the north, Patrick’s ministry was marked by supernatural moments. At times God chose to amaze the pagans with demonstrations of superior power. When this happened it gained the attention of entire clans and often brought warlords to faith, along with all their warriors.
Patrick was also known for applying the method of Jesus, sending his monks in training out to evangelize the villages. John Wesley also did this in his work in England. In the tradition of monastic life and ministry, Patrick’s followers established schools, fed the poor, and cared for people in need in the villages. History now shows that the pagan barbarian tribes conquered the Roman Empire, but the Christian missionaries brought the pagans to faith and so saved civilization.
Bruce Shelley wrote:
Europe owes more to the Christian faith than most people realize. When the barbarians destroyed the Roman Empire in the west, it was the Christian church that put together a new order called Europe. The church took the lead in rule by law, the pursuit of knowledge, and the expressions of culture. (Church History in Plain Language, p. 179)
The Celtic Revival is one of the great mission movements of Christian History. When pagan barbarians swept in with their cultic practices, no education, tribal culture, and no structure of law, it was the missionary monks that penetrated the north and brought Christian faith as the basis for building civilization again.
I am fairly certain the celebrants in Philadelphia that year did not understand all of this. Perhaps it is time for a great surge of Christian mission to once again launch out through our land carrying the transforming and liberating power of the Gospel and the Kingdom in Jesus Christ.
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
Three Gospels Often Heard
March 20, 2026
Dallas Willard was a venerated Christian leader, writer, and teacher that has made great contributions to contemporary Christianity in the last fifty years, especially in the area of spiritual formation (ie., discipleship). Dallas passed away in 2013. Here is a clip from a brief book summary.
Christianity tends to focus on beliefs and choices as the keys for personal growth. But biblical evidence and modern brain science tell a different story. This work offers a refreshing perspective of how our attachment to God impacts our minds and hearts. You’ll find that our spiritual growth is about more than just what we believe, it’s about who we love.
This blog will review YouTube video clips of Dallas Willard teaching at Denver Seminary explaining three Gospels he observes currently in use. (Regrettably we will only have time to discuss the most common one.) Willard challenges us all that each of the three are INCOMPLETE and he offers a fourth for consideration. From such a respected voice comes an insightful observation touching why we are failing to ‘make disciples’. Listen. (Check out the short videos: Dallas Willard - The 3 Gospels Heard Today Part 1 )
Gospel 1
Your sins will be forgiven and you will be in heaven in the afterlife if you believe that Jesus suffered for your sins.
Willard says:
We often use this to call people to decision.
Many likely know there is more, but this version is what people hear as a call.
This version of the Gospel has no connection with spiritual life or moral character.
This version does not evangelize for disciples.
This version prepares a life for death, which is good. But if we don’t die, what do we do to live? We are ready to go but we don’t know how to live today. What Now?
My Comments:
This is the Gospel call I have heard all my life. Actually it has been so pervasive through the decades that most, like me, think it is the complete Gospel. But remember, the call Jesus gave often was ‘follow me’. (Mat. 4:19) As I hear Dallas Willard talk about this Gospel as a limited version it makes me realize how something repeated over time can be accepted as the authentic item. Could there be essential elements that are not found in this common presentation of the Gospel?
One of the elements Willard sees as missing is a clear call for commitment to discipleship. Spiritual formation and discipleship has been a major theme in his writing and his contributions to Christianity. It has been his passion. The discipleship dilemma is a well documented problem for contemporary Christianity, becoming most obvious over the last fifty years.
Some might defend saying, “Discipleship is a second step after conversion.” But it seems the church has not done well leading new converts in that next step. Others might say, “The church today has nearly abandoned discipleship, possibly believing that the Sunday service will get the job done.” But how is that working for the church today? Quite possibly Willard makes a good point that something else is needed, perhaps in our Gospel call.
Willard makes the statement that, “This Gospel version prepares a life for death, which is good. But if we don’t die, what do we do to live? We are ready to go but we don’t know how to live today. What Now?”
I believe this thought hints at a frustration for all pastors and Christian leaders. Once a person has responded to this Gospel call to believe there is little motivation for more. Someone might even ask, “More What?”
Willard goes on to mention spiritual growth and moral character development are not a part of this common salvation call either. All of these thoughts seem to affirm the need for what this blog advocates, Four Pillar Living. Most pastors would be thrilled to see their church members fully engaged in this kind of life:
A life aiming to emulate (mimetes) the model of Jesus, a life of consuming love for God by loving others extravagantly (agape), a life lived in community (koinonia) and reaching to build new relationships with others in need, and by these three we arrive at a life lived on mission every day (missio dei).
Setting aside Willard’s point on “our incomplete Gospels,’ we can hear him clearly calling for a strong and effective movement to raise up disciples once more in the Christian church. The church needs to be filled with devoted followers of Christ that carry their faith and loving service out into their worlds, influencing searching lives all around them.
Why Most Churches Don't Make Disciples
April 16, 2026
This article by Peyton Jones is so aligned with Four Pillar living I felt I must pass it on to you. Peyton says:
I’ve noticed something over the years working with churches. Almost every church says they care about discipleship and many are doing a lot. They’ll point to their small groups, bible studies, and sermons as evidence. And all of those things are good. But despite all that activity, very few churches are actually producing disciple-makers or witnesses. The reason is simple: Most churches are doing discipleship. But Jesus commanded us to make disciples. Those are not necessarily the same thing.
Consider these comparisons:
Discipleship Disciple Making
Happens after conversion Leads to conversion
Self-focused Others focused
With Christians With non-Christians
A weekly event A lifestyle
Centered on a topic Centered on Jesus
Investment in self Investment in others
Ends with you Ends with others
Discipleship usually means helping someone grow spiritually. It often involves Bible study, prayer, community, and accountability. Disciple-making, however, is about bringing someone to follow Jesus and help other people follow Jesus.
Discipleship produces mature believers. Disciple-making produces disciple-makers. Most churches are structured for discipleship. Very few are structured for disciple-making.
When you look at how Jesus trained his disciples, his method wasn’t complicated. But it was intentional. He built their lives around three rhythms:
● Time
● Teaching
● Tactics
Time meant proximity, relationship, life together.
Teaching meant instruction, Scripture, and explaining the kingdom.
Tactics meant actually going on mission.
Many churches today have the first two. They have time together and they have teaching. But without tactics, something important is missing.
You can spend time together, you can study the Bible together, but if no one is actually practicing the mission of Jesus, you don’t end up with disciple-makers. You end up with well-taught Christians who never learn how to make disciples.
Think of disciple-making like a door with three locks.
- Time unlocks the relationship.
- Teaching unlocks understanding.
- Tactics unlocks mobilization.
You can unlock two of the locks and the door still won’t open.
This is where many churches are stuck. Without tactics, the door never opens and people are never mobilized.
The Great Commission was not just, “Go and teach people everything I commanded.”
It was “Go and make disciples,” with teaching as one of the essential components.
If we want to see disciple-making movements, we can’t just build better teaching environments. We have to build training environments where people spend time together, learn together, and go on mission together.
We don’t need more discipleship programs. We need more disciple-making systems.
The goal is people who follow Jesus and help other people follow Jesus.
That’s when disciple-making begins.
Peyton Jones continues, “I’ve been thinking and writing about this idea for several years now and this eventually became the framework behind my book Discipology. This isn’t about abandoning discipleship. It’s about completing it.
When time, teaching, and tactics come together, people don’t just grow—they go. And as they go, they begin to help others follow Jesus in the same way they’ve been shown. That’s how disciple-making starts to take shape, not as a program, but as a way of life. It multiplies into families, networks, and communities where the gospel can move freely.
This is the heart of the needed shift--- Moving from environments that inform to environments that train. From gathering people around content to sending people into mission. When time, teaching, and tactics come together, disciple-making stops being an idea—and starts becoming a reality.
April 29, 2016
Rich In the Life and Cause of Christ
One of the best working definitions of poverty is not just a lack of money, but the lack of a dream, a vision, hope. --- Darrell Gardner
“Gardner, the director of Youth for Christ in New Zealand, believes it is the missionaries task to rouse the imaginative abilities that lie at the base of the human soul, in order to awaken the possibilities for a new gospel future and to access the deepest sources of human motivation – faith, love, pleasure, and hope. It is to awaken a sense of purpose, of mission, in life. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch feel no less is needed to help birth and nurture the missional church in the west.
(This post from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come. (pp. 231-233, 239)
Once more think back to the early church (years 100AD to 300AD). For the most part these Christ followers were not wealthy, many were servants and slaves. Still it seems they were rich in purpose, vision, a cause, a life, the Way! They felt each one was an Ambassador of Christ and a laborer in building this new Kingdom of God. They had a Gospel to share, New Life to tell about, the Way to invite friends to join, Koinonia in God’s Family to offer the lonely and disenfranchised, Agape (unconditional love) to heal the wounded in heart, and best of all, Jesus for all who would receive. In the dog-eat-dog Roman culture these ‘Christ’ians did seem rich in love, joy, peace, unity, and purpose.
Frost and Hirsch easily saw this Gardner quote in terms of the western church today. With our mega church model held supremely we seem rich, but in the qualities listed for the early church above we seem lacking. (Rev. 3:17-20)
The ‘Living On-Mission’ call “awakens and harnesses, the dreams and visions of the members of a given community and gives them deeper coherence by means of a grand vision that ties together all the little visions (passions) of the members of the group.” (p. 232)
I will say Mission is the God authored catalyst for all the Body of Christ is intended to be here on earth. Consider ‘worship’ as an illustration, which many would assume is the core calling of the church. The richest and most full orbed worship is generated when Christ followers return rejoicing and praising after they have participated in mission. They have seen the sovereign authority of God extended over humanity and principalities. They have seen the miraculous and merciful intervention of God in the traumas of human life. They have seen the loving kindness of salvation and grace poured out in reality. They are not worshipping in theory or the abstract about what God ‘can do’ or what the Bible promises He ‘will do’. They worship experientially since they have seen what God has done as His mission is advanced in the fallen world.
This catalyst of mission is available in all its applications (discipleship, community, worship…) when Christ followers advance to live ‘On Mission.’ Four Pillar living helps guide followers of Christ toward this reality. “It is holy ground.” (p. 232)
“When Martin Luther King Jr. articulated his vision in the speech, “I Have A Dream,” he was acting like something of a midwife to the great primal dream of God, lying at the heart of every human prayer for justice. Rather than just exposing a new vision, he was awakening their innate sense of purpose, and their longing for justice and peace by giving that dream a vocabulary, legitimacy, and direction.” (p. 232)
Frost and Hirsch refer to this vision as another illustration of the sense of vision, calling, and purpose that every follower of Christ must have to walk in the riches of the Christ Life mentioned above. They write of this out of a longing for renewal for the church of today. It seems clear that believers and church attenders in the malaise of Christianity today generally do not walk in this sense of calling, nor in this sense of spiritual wealth as the early church displayed. For this reason this blog promotes Four Pillar living as one help toward renewal.
Church Renewal Solution
May 3, 2026
Pressing into renewal Frost and Hirsch feel the church today generally has become too comfortable, cautious, and routine. They touch the idea of risk saying, “If there is no risk, there will be mostly priestly maintenance and more of the same [routine and status quo] that secures people from confrontation with that most radical and dangerous person. This person who required his followers to risk all to gain the kingdom of God and even more to advance it. This person? None other than Jesus.”
(This post from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come. (pp. 232-233, 239)
They add, “Every church should have a research and development department – that is, a forum for dreaming, for nothing is impossible, and no thought too outrageous. And every authentic mission church will experiment like mad in order to find new and accessible ways of doing and being the people of God.” (p. 233) [My words included here. Rather than the business vocabulary of ‘research and development’ it would be more biblical to point churches to the radical leadership of the Spirit that has been present in all major movements through Christian history. Though we must avoid falling into the cliché use of the Spirit that will not point to anything radical as we seek to press the Kingdom ahead forcefully.]
“One of the most important lessons from history is that the renewal of the church always comes from the fringes, and we mean always. And it is the movements of mission that intern create movements of renewal. This can be tested in every context of the church. The lesson is that the church ought to remain on mission for God‘s sake, but also for its own sake. It is this radical openness to, and engagement with, the margins that so often brings the needed in-rush of new thinking, new acting, and empowered feeling to Jesus people.” (p. 239)
Frost and Hirsch state, “This concept brings critique to bourgeois, middle class, cultural blindness, that can settle so easily on the western church. It is so often the culture of church brought about through various social forces that suppresses and marginalizes people who are different. It is well known fringe people feel alienated from the predominant expression of the church in the west. But it is so often these people who will bring a renewal of perspective, even spiritual rebirth, to God‘s people.
It is common for us to imagine the impact that Jesus must have had on those people, but it is also very interesting to think about the impact these people must have had on Jesus in his own culturally condition humanity. We would venture to suggest that much of the radical nature of Jesus’ message stemmed from his deep love and commitment to, but also from his profound relationship with, the rejected sinners of his time. Our authors also feel, they have been deeply enriched and irrevocably changed by hanging out with those on the edge of society and not only normal people. [My words --- I feel this also in my journey.]
This blog joins many voices that are convinced that ‘mission’ is the God designed catalyst that God has given to move the church forward toward His destiny.
What Does Renewal Look Like?
May 9, 2026
Howard Snyder and his important book, “Signs of the Spirit”, identifies the following as distinctives of renewal movements:
(This post is from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come. (pp. 250-252)
A thirst for renewal: a holy discontent with what exists precipitates a recovery of the vitality and patterns of the early church.
The tide is rising of leaders that feel this ‘holy discontent’ about the status of the contemporary church. Accelerating decline for the church in western culture for 50 years has caught the attention of church leaders and is now soaking down into the lay population as well. Add to this the growing disdain for the church in society. Where the church had held a center position in culture for centuries it has now been relegated to the edge and seen as irrelevant by more and more. Yes, a thirst for renewal is rising.
A new stress on the work of the spirit: the work of the spirit is seen, not only as important in the past, but also as an experience in the present.
This distinctive of renewal applies to ministries whether Pentecostal/Charismatic or on the opposite side of the spectrum. Renewal is being activated by this sense of the work of the Spirit, the presence of the Spirit, and personal experiences with the Spirit. The Spirit is considered the leading factor in carrying Christ followers and His church ahead in renewal.
An institutional – charismatic tension: in almost every case of renewal tensions within existing structures will arise.
Renewal seems to bring an almost prophetic sensitivity to macro narratives, ie., institutions, bureaucracies, grand structures, denominations, blanket protocols, policies… A shift to the grass roots and more personal modes is more compatible with renewal chemistries.
A concern for being a counter – cultural community: movements call the church to a more radical commitment and a more active tension with the world.
Renewal reacts when the church is perceived to look and act like the culture, ie., social status, wealth, corporate power, elitism… It calls for radical personal investment.
Nontraditional or non-ordained leadership: renewal movements are often led by people with no recognized formal leadership status in the church. Charismatic capacity is the key. Furthermore, women are more noticeably active in movements.
Renewal movements tend to mobilize the mass of the laity to carry forward the cause. Therefore higher levels of education, certification, and authorization can be delayed or suspended for some time. Renewal energizes everyone far beyond a limited professional strategy.
Ministry to the poor: movements almost always involve people at the grass roots level. They actively serve and involve the masses (the uneducated or socially outcast) and often start as missions among the poor (Saint Francis, the Wesley’s, Salvation Army).
In contrast entrenched ministries often cherish or focus on middle class targets. History has shown that success in serving the poor will bring the other social levels as well.
Energy and dynamism: new movements have the ability to excite and enlist others as participants and leaders.
This can be seen as one of the great strengths of movements generally, whereas longstanding ministries seem to struggle to recruit workers.
In addition, Frost and Hirsch compare Snyder‘s list of a Wesleyan perspective in renewal to sociologists, Gerlach and Hine, who research movements sociologically and point to the following characteristics:
A segmented, cellular organization composed of units held together by various personal, structural, and ideological ties. In other words, a group of small faith communities. (house churches or cell groups) gathered around Jesus and his mission.
This could describe the early church between AD100 and AD300, possibly the most impacting era of cultural influence in the history of the church.
Face to face recruitment by committed individuals using their own pre-existing significant social relationships. Friendships and organic relationships are the primary means of recruiting people to the cause.
The relational foundation seems critical here.
Personal commitment generated by an act or experience that separates a convert in someway from the established order, identifies him or her with a new set of values, and commits him or her to change patterns of behavior. This is what believers have always called conversion – a radical reorientation of life and lifestyle.
An ideology of articulated values and goals which provide a conceptual framework for life, motivate and provide a rationale for change, defined the opposition, inform the basis for unity among the segmented networks of groups in the movement. In other words, a clearly articulated and accessible philosophy of life and ministry that all can connect with in some real way is needed.
Real or perceived opposition from society at large, or from that segment of the established order within which the movement has risen. This has occurred in almost every instance of the emergence of movements that we are aware of. Wesley was shunned by the Anglican Church, as was Booth and his Salvation Army. Martin Luther King Jr. was also rejected by the hegemonic Christianity of his day.
Join me asking Father God to breathe over his people a fresh wind of renewal for glorious Kingdom building amidst the challenges of this day.
Lewis and Clark on Changing Culture and Ministry?
May 24, 2026
What would Lewis and Clark have to say about shifting culture and ministry?
Tod Bolsinger creatively uses the epic discovery trek of Lewis and Clark to talk about how ministry can adapt and thrive in the tides of culture change.
(Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing in the Mountains, pp. 89-90)
Lewis and Clark at Lemhi Pass
Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns describe a defining moment in Meriwether Lewis’s life:
He was approaching the farthest boundary of the Louisiana Territory, the Continental Divide—the spine of the Rocky Mountains beyond which the rivers flow west. No American citizen had ever been there before. This he believed was the Northwest Passage: the goal of explorers for more than three centuries, the great prize that Thomas Jefferson had sent him to find and claim for the United States.
With each stride, Lewis was nearing what he expected to be the crowning moment of his expedition and his life. From the vantage point just ahead, all of science and geography had prepared him to see the watershed of the Columbia and beyond it, perhaps, a great plain that led down to the Pacific. Instead there were just more mountains—“immense ranges of high mountains still to the West of us,” he wrote, “with their tops partially covered with snow.” At that moment, in the daunting vista spread out at the feet of Meriwether Lewis, the dream of an easy water route across the continent—a dream stretching back to Christopher Columbus—was shattered.
According to historical geographer John Logan Allen, that moment atop the Lemhi Pass was when the “geography of hope” gave way to the “geography of reality,” a disappointing reality it must have been. When a mental model dies, a painful paradigm shift takes place within us. It is disorienting and anxiety making. It’s as if the world as we know it ceases to exist. Meriwether Lewis makes no comment about that world-rearranging moment in his journal, but Sgt. Patrick Gass describes his reaction some days later, saying that they “proceeded over the most terrible mountains I ever beheld.” This is exactly the moment that the church faces today with the demise of Christendom and a changing topography of faith. In this new
culture a new missional mental model is needed, and a new way of leading —and learning—is necessary.
Bolsinger’s book, “Canoeing in the Mountains”, is a popular current piece on the challenge for churches and ministry that has been increasing for decades. His inspiration to use the Lewis and Clark expedition as a historical model of adaptation is clever, interesting, and quite useful. I had personally never known many details of that famous journey of discovery.
Possibly the central learning point was revealed when Lewis and Clark realized their canoes were not going to be of any further value to them. The plan was to find a waterway that would carry commerce from the east all the way to the west, the Pacific Ocean. But in the Rocky Mountains they came to understand that this was an unrealistic dream, thus the book title, Canoeing in the Mountains.
At that point Lewis and Clark had to make major changes in their plan and strategy in order to adapt to the new environment they had not been able to predict. The book describes how they had to abandon their canoes in the mountain peaks, they bought horse from the Indians, they made friends of the natives, and they learned much about the unknown topography from them.
Naturally Bolsinger uses each of these points to apply to potential adaptations for the church today. The central theme remains the same, like Lewis and Clark the church will endure and thrive if it is willing to learn and adapt. This book treats one of the five central themes of our blog, church renewal.
Once again join us in the prayer that God will lead us through this most challenging era of ministry and teach us how to adapt while carrying the essentials of the Kingdom forward.
[The other four central themes of this blog are the Four Pillars: 1) Jesus Our Model, 2) Loving God by Loving Others, 3) Koinonia/Community/Relationship as our Spiritual DNA, and 4) Mission Our Manifesto.]
Christine Caine
May 29, 2026
Christine Caine
… is a voice for church renewal in the world.
She will be speaking in the Assembly of the Church of God in July.
Christine wrote the forward to the second edition of one of my favorite books, ReJesus, by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. Here are a few quotes from there to give us a taste. Caine writes:
I very quickly realized there was something fundamentally wrong when our Sunday sermon does not impact our Monday practice. When what happens within the church walls, no longer leads to transformation within the communities on the other side of those walls. When our personal comfort is preferred to addressing the discomfort in the world. When singing songs about freedom and justice is preferable to fighting for freedom and justice. When the gifts of the spirit are used to entertain the church rather than bringing healing and hope to the world. When what I believe about, Jesus does not lead me to act in the ways of Jesus out in the world.
It was the message of ReJesus that helped me keep going in the times when I wanted to give up. To be reassured that I had not lost my mind, stepping out of the Christian bubble, and into the purpose of Jesus, probably saved my soul from becoming calloused, and me from becoming a professional Christian.
With another generation having been raised up, I believe another moment in time has come for the message of ReJesus. In the church, what we thought used to work no longer does, and perhaps we are ready to address the question of how much was really working anyway. What were we measuring and why? What did we consider to be success and why? At the very least, hopefully, we have realized that the answer is not in the latest method, message, or messenger. Perhaps we inadvertently placed our hope in the wrong things, and we need to rediscover the one who is the source of all hope and joy and peace.
It’s time to ReJesus. The spiritual tectonic plates have shifted. We are surrounded by rubble that we once defined as church. The hope of the church is not in strategies, programs, or methods. It always was, and only ever will be, in Jesus. We are finally ready to listen. It’s a new day. This generation wants nothing less than the Jesus of the gospels, for he is the only Jesus.
Reframation
June 7, 2026
If you lived 2000 years ago or so, and heard the ruckus John the Baptist and his revival movement was stirring from the margins, you’d probably want to go have a look for yourself. Picture yourself there, hearing the wildly popular, wild-eyed prophet, camel hair shining in the brilliant sun, hair flowing in the desert wind as his voice booms through the swarming crowds, popping back protein packed snack sized locusts between speeches to keep his game on. There is no doubt, as you listened to his fiery message, you’d be faced with a decision. (Danielle Strickland writes the Forward to the book “Reframation,” by Alan Hirsch and Mark Nelson, 2019. This post is a segment of that Forward, pp. 19-20.)
Imagine yourself standing at the edges of the crown, your ego rages at the nerve of the man to invite you to a public repentance (full immersion, really?), and, at the exact same moment of offense, your heart starts thumping, your spirit leaping, even soaring as your eyes and ears open to a heightened sense of something coming, something real emerging. Maybe, just maybe, your heart tells you it’s true. The kingdom is coming. The promises are genuine. Maybe it’s not too late and not too hard for God to show up – for the kingdom to come. Maybe there is hope for this broken world, healing for the wounds of humanity, a future for you and the people you love.
The change that John the Baptist introduced was made flesh in the person of Jesus. He was unlike anyone who had come before. He was so different that the people most dedicated to the scriptures and the prophets didn’t recognize him. Even dear old John sent questions for confirmation from a prison cell as he felt his own end approaching: “Are you the one we’ve been expecting?”
I have a hunch that, like those early religious leaders, we study the scriptures with expectation but peer at the world with disdain. Jesus never did that. Jesus saw the world through a kingdom lens, a divine perspective, a holy paradigm. And the way Jesus saw every situation and every person changed everything. It made every blind man an opportunity for divine encounter, every woman a potential apostle, every beggar first place for discipleship, every religious leader a seeker, and, well, the results were extraordinary. The upside-down nature of God‘s kingdom entered the world and has continually ebbed and flowed in increasing force and impact ever since.
And yet, we still find ourselves at the mercy of our infantile intellect, bloated sensational news outlets, and the amazingly irritating human capacity for small mindedness. We remain contained within human constructs and religious boundaries. We forget that the kingdom emerges and advances in the most unlikely of ways, through the most irritatingly unqualified people; it spreads like wildflowers planted whimsically by a love-crazed Gardener and is brought to fullness by a truly wild king.
Strickland gives us a hint of the radical nature of Jesus and John, and His Kingdom, and his mission. As we pray for renewal in the church this radical core of Jesus cannot be overlooked. Hirsch and Nelson feel our Kingdom vision must be ‘Reframed’ for today.
Reduction in Christianity
June 12, 2026
We are so easily imprisoned by our own interpretations and so convinced of the absolute rightness of them that we close the door to engaging the ever greater God. This was precisely the problem with Israel’s leaders in the time of Jesus. Their interpretations became the religious prisons for their own souls and minds as well as for the collective mind of Israel. (From “Reframation,” by Alan Hirsch and Mark Nelson, 2019, p. 50)
Hirsch and Nelson describe how religion often parallels an eclipse. When the moon comes between the sun and the Earth, there is an eclipse that hides all or part of the sun. That is sometimes true in religion. (p. 46) Perhaps we can illustrate this eclipse of God concept by thinking of my/our holiness heritage. Decades ago, the length of someone’s hair was thought to be a clear indication of holiness, as well as the length of their skirt, or the absence of jewelry. Those convictions were so strong that they came in between much greater revelations of God and the body of believers. In another mode, the news continues to report about the current struggle concerning women in ministry among the Southern Baptist. Here again we see elements that eclipse the greater view of God.
The old parable of the blind men trying to describe the elephant is another metaphor Hirsch and Nelson use. No doubt many are familiar with how one blind man is studying the trunk and so his view of the elephant is like the trunk. Another blind man is studying the ear and his view of the elephant is like the ear. (How easily this tale fits so many religious narratives over the centuries.) Obviously, God will not, indeed he cannot, be put into a box of our limited understanding. As God told Moses, he is the ‘I AM’ and claims an always unlimited and uncontainable sovereignty. (p. 51)
Hirsch and Nelson introduce the term ‘Reduction’, to describe when Christian concepts from theology, to ministry, to life are reduced or narrowed from their most broad understandings.
Brad Briscoe laments the following reductions that he finds: (p. 53)
We have reduced the church to a place and a gathering.
We have reduced mission to evangelism.
We have reduced (my thoughts—-evangelism to attendance).
We have reduced worship to singing songs.
We have reduced the gospel to bullet points.
We have reduced Christology to the cross.
We have reduced discipleship to the transfer of information.
We have reduced the ministry callings of Ephesians for two Shepherd and teacher.
We have reduced spirituality to withdrawal from the world.
We have reduced church planting to starting new worship services.
I will add a few reductions I see:
We have made Christianity about church attendance and giving.
We have allowed church to evolve into stage performance. (R. Huff)
We have allowed discipleship to all but disappear.
We have allowed personally living on-mission to disappear.
We have allowed Lordship to disappear from salvation and Christian living.
We have replaced ‘koinonia’/community with mega church anonymity.
We must always address our tendencies to reduction—-to suppress, own, and limit God and the gospel. (While we reduce concepts for simplicity, or through traditions, or naivety, or even human error, we must not accept that we have fully defined God or His ways.) We must always be aware that our grasp of God can never be absolute. Humans are limited and cannot comprehend the Absolute absolutely. (p. 52)
Ultimately, the sad (and frankly embarrassing) outcomes of accumulated reduction, codifications of the truth, and preferred ministry practices are seen and experienced in our lives and churches as: (p. 53)
Ossified doctrines; where ideas are believed, but not lived, and faith degenerates into the religious.
Wooden proclamations; where little resonates with the people beyond the church, and theological boredom grows.
Empty doxology; where ritualized religion replaces, true worship, with no relationship to the eternal and the universal perspective.
Legalistic ethics; where discipleship is reduced to religious moralism, and shame and guilt replace freedom. (p. 53)
As we pray for renewal for the church we must be willing to confess reductions in current Christianity have to be reviewed and corrected. Otherwise they will continue to dull and diminish the influence God intends for his church to bring to our world.
Reduction and the Sunday School Jesus
June 15, 2026
The invitation from God is always an invitation to relationship, not an invitation to the right way of following rules and regulations. We fall into danger when we slip into esteeming religious rules above relating to the living God.
(This post is from “Reframation,” by Alan Hirsch and Mark Nelson, 2019, p. 55)
Reductionism happens when we make following God anything less than relationship with him. We need to understand that love (for God as well as for others) and relationships really matter. (Mark 12:30) When defending truth is done in a loveless way, it violates the very purposes of truth – to make us more like Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6) If our convictions leave broken bodies in the wake, or if our pursuits of our religious values and prerogatives snuff out people’s vitality in other ways, then we are almost certainly doing something wrong.
C.S. Lewis warns us saying, “My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast.
Lewis goes on to say that this shattering is actually one of the sure signs of God’s presence. The incarnation is the ultimate example, leaving all previous ideas of the Messiah in shattered ruins.
Reductions, restrictions, and limitations are much more easily managed than interpreting a truth and grace, that confounds our sense of logic and fairness, a truth that is always bigger, never smaller. Have we placed God in a box, and in doing so, have we created an ossified, wooden, empty, and legalistic religion that has reduced the reality and truth of God?
For all those with a penchant for boxing God up nice and tight, we would do well to remember that the God of the Scriptures is not one who will endure such reductions. That is why in scripture he is revealed as spirit and fire – whoever approaches God approaches the uncontainable fire of a holy love that cannot and will not be contained. This holy love will offend a life obsessed with safety and security. (Hebrews 12:18–29) God is not safe nor containable, and he claims us, body and soul, but this is what we are made for. In acknowledging God as a consuming fire, we recognize he can never fit in any box we try to place him. He is always the ever-greater God and the seducer of our hearts. (p. 56)
The Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann writes, “The gospel is a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.”
When we reduce God and truth what naturally follows is a reduction of the story of God that we tell. The telling of a reduced story takes the always impressive and authoritative story of Jesus, and siphons it of its transformative power, drains it of its restorative influence, or simply bleeds it dry of life. This happens all the time in Sunday school when Jesus stories are used to bolster middle class morality rather than unleashing the revolutionary call to transformation they are intended for; hence the prevalence of the so-called Sunday School Jesus. (p. 63)
Stanley Hauerwas Posts
Stanley Hauerwas is a prominent American theologian that has written volumes in the last 50 years. Here at the sunset of his writing he has brought together thoughts from many of his works under the title “Jesus Changes Everything.” It will be interesting to dialogue with Hauerwas and his provocative and often unorthodox views on Faith.
June 30, 2025
Select Quotes from Hauerwas
This will be our last post with theologian Stanley Hauerwas for a while. He has helped us touch one of our five points of focus in this blog, especially at the launch --- The Need for Renewal in the Church.
Check out these 5 quotes from Hauerwas. I hope he does not step on your toes as much as he steps on mine! 😊
Hauerwas Quotes for Thought (p. xxi)
Let’s give some thought to a few quotes from Hauerwas that may surprise us:
Bad theology makes us ‘admirers’ of Jesus rather than ‘disciples’ of Jesus
Following Jesus is never safe
The wealth of the church is the poor
The worst unkindness is to rob others of their right to suffer
What has to end is the habit of Christians asking non-Christians to do what we cannot get Christians to do (p. xxv)
On the disciples quote it seems common today to read statements about the failure of the contemporary church to make disciples. If that is indeed a fact then there is nothing left but for Christians to be ‘admirers.’ Disciples will follow, they will emulate, they will adopt the mission and vision of the Master, they will practice what they have seen and received. So it is no surprise when the polls repeatedly come back with the secular response, “We love Jesus but we do not like the church.”
On the ‘safe to follow Jesus’ quote, many voices are now saying Christianity has domesticated Jesus. In other words, Christianity can comfortably follow a tame and safe Jesus. We would all agree that the Jesus we read about in the Gospels is quite radical and surprising as he shows up in places we would not expect, with people we would not consider, doing things that surprise us. If Christians today were following that Jesus life would cross the safety red line on many occasions.
On the ‘poor being the wealth of the church’ quote, I love it. Since God moved my personal walk into direct contact with the poor I have been drawn to agree with this statement. As the church serves the poor she wins the respect of society. As the church touches the poor she finds the most receptive harvest. As the church ministers to the poor the most attractive traits come to light. As the church lifts up the poor social transformation takes place. As the church gives priority to the poor the more fortunate folks are attracted. As the church walks with the poor she walks with Christ.
On the quote about robbed of the right to suffer, we will have to admit that security is one of the highest priorities of our culture, many would say the highest. That may be part of the reason the cross is the favorite jewelry of Christians and our favorite sentimental theme. Yet few want to take up that hideous instrument of death to self, as we hope to follow Jesus.
On the quote on asking non-Christians to do things, think about our ideas about government, what we debate the government should do and so on. In the first three hundred years the early church did not have any influence with the government (the Roman Empire) yet their lives of influence resonated through the empire and brought radical results.
From these quotes we can see how Hauerwas challenges the church with provocative insights that make me feel the pinch as well. Ouch!
A little side story on toe stepping.
In the first church I pastored in West Virginia there was the sweetest little Pentecostal lady and saint. Naturally from her background she had come to love good old hard and hot preaching. By that she meant the kind where her toes got stepped on properly. I loved this precious saint and her sweet face in the church carried me through many sermons as a young ministers. But the truth was, I was from a new generation and I just could not preach it as hard and hot as she liked. Now decades later I don’t even think Hauerwas could have scratched that itch for her. Smile.
June 10, 2025
Turning the Other Cheek
Hauerwas notes that “some Christians explicitly say that turning the other cheek doesn’t work anymore, that we have to fight back now.” But Hauerwas makes it clear that “turning the other cheek has never worked, if by “working” we mean creating a nice life for us and our children that is free of suffering and sacrifice, a life that fits neatly into the cultural expectations and political categories of our moment.” (p. xii)
Hauerwas goes on to say, “to deprive Christians of suffering is to tell them that they cannot follow Jesus to the cross.” He understands we often “use whatever means necessary to avoid the cross.” On the other hand, he writes, “Jesus is the Kingdom enfleshed, and he demonstrates this, surprisingly, through his utter vulnerability.” (p. xiii)
Hauerwas dares (and dares us) to take the scriptures seriously enough to be disturbed by them. He has seen that “most of us Christians, particularly in the west, often contort the teachings of Jesus to fit into our own quest for the good life.”
Certainly turning the other cheek is not a popular and often used sermon text these days. But Hauerwas uses it to step on my toes, reminding me how this consumeristic culture has been woven into my perspectives and lifestyle choices. Ouch!
What do you see and/or think after reading his thoughts?
June 27, 2025
Hauerwas on Social Ethic
The American (Texas) theologian tends to stir the pot for us on the journey of this blog. Listen.
Hauerwas proclaims, “The church does not have a social ethic, the church is a social ethic.”
“Our ability to welcome the vulnerable, the disabled, and children; to speak truth; to practice generosity; to honor the limits and holiness of human bodies; to live ‘out of step’ with the world; and to love our enemies is the embodiment of an ethic birthed out of the resurrection. This kind of discipleship isn’t a strategy for winning an election, having a picture-perfect family, or getting a raise.” (p. xiv)
Like the eagle taking the comfortable fluff out of the nest to prod the eaglets to fly, Hauerwas makes it uncomfortable for Christians like me that aimed to raise a picture-perfect family, and thought an election needed to be won by the correct side, and so on. Perhaps culture has had more influence on contemporary Christianity than we would like to confess. Perhaps returning to the social ethic of Jesus would rearrange some of our priorities and practices. Before reading this man, I was quite comfortable in all that warm fluff lining the nest.
I had a ‘cagin’ friend from Louisiana that loved to say, “Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” It is possible God sent Stanley Hauerwas on that mission as well. I do appreciate the list he mentions for the social ethic that forms the church. In the last dozen years or so I have been drawn to some of these elements as heaven’s call for the Kingdom; welcome the vulnerable, practice generosity, live ‘out of step’ with the world, and ‘love our enemies.’
Click on the Anakainosis graphic below and read the rest of ‘Today’s Post’ with thoughts from Stanley Hauerwas.
Hauerwas’ aim is to “foment a modest revolution by forcing Christians to take themselves serious as Christians.” He hopes to “shake them out of their customary ways of thinking and living, so they can be more faithful to Christ.” (p. xxi)
One of Hauerwas’ more well known titles is “Resident Aliens.” This is his description of Christians, we are resident in this world but our world view is Alien to everything about this fallen world and broken culture. From this platform he says, “Attempts to Christianize the social order in the name of furthering God’s Kingdom or being politically responsible lead the church to…” He lists several catastrophic consequences to this. (p. xxvi) From the ‘Moral Majority’ fifty years ago this temptation has been strong for Christians to resist. No doubt such things have helped our culture call us “Unchristian.” (See the book ‘unChristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity’ by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons.)
Hauerwas does believe “following Jesus is a public affair with cosmic consequences. To worship Him is itself a politics, a politics that subverts the status quo.” (p. xxvi) He says, “This isn’t just any politics. It is a politics of hospitality toward the other and toward the stranger, [a politics of] patience and long suffering with one’s enemies, [a politics of] caring for the injured and oppressed, and [a politics of] peaceableness that is truthful.” (p. xxvii) Clearly this is a Jesus kind of politics that the contemporary church may want to review once again.