Ben Sternke

Field notes on life and mission with God after Christendom

Christ Church

Why Is Your Church Structured Like That?

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Maybe you’ve heard this story:

A young woman was preparing a ham dinner. After she cut off the end of the ham, she placed it in a pan for baking. Her friend asked her,”Why did you cut off the end of the ham”? And she replied ,”I really don’t know but my mother always did, so I thought you were supposed to.” Later when talking to her mother she asked her why she cut off the end of the ham before baking it, and her mother replied, “I really don’t know, but that’s the way my mom always did it.” A few weeks later while visiting her grandmother, the young woman asked, “Grandma, why is it that you cut off the end of a ham before you bake it?” Her grandmother replied, “Well dear, otherwise it would never fit into my baking pan.

It’s a funny, possibly apocryphal story that should make us think about why we do things the way we do. What brought this story to mind was a hilarious diagram of fake org charts I saw on Seth Godin’s blog:

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Whose feet will you wash?

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If you live alone, whose feet will you wash?

Russian icon of St. Basil
Russian icon of St. Basil

(Warning: stream-of-consciousness post follows… just writing as I’m thinking).

The quote above is attributed to St. Basil, a fourth-century bishop, and one of the fathers of the communal monasticism of the Eastern church.

Basil was passionate about common life as the only place where people could truly grow to maturity in the faith. He taught that it is only in ordinary life with others that we have any chance of growing into persons and communities that are increasingly permeated with the values of the Gospel.

Without others, how do we grow in humility and patience, in solidarity and respect? Without others with whom we share life, how will we learn to embrace practical service to our neighbor? How do we learn to become a living body unless we have opportunity to serve and depend on one another in these small, everyday ways?

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Lover’s Quarrel: A Book Review

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loversquarrelI just finished reading Warren Cole Smith’s book A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church, and wanted to post a few thoughts about it.

It’s easy to find books that critique American evangelicalism. It’s not so easy to find books that do it with the kind of rootedness in history, tradition, and theology that Smith has. He skillfully points out several pathologies that infect much of American evangelicalism:

  • An unmooring from historical theology and tradition that has resulted in a “new provincialism.”
  • A triumph of sentimentality over reality.
  • An inextricable connection to the “Christian-industrial complex” that is more interested in selling merchandise than living out the gospel.
  • A “body count” philosophy of evangelism that counts numbers of “decisions” and people in a building instead of true conversions to Christ.
  • A wholly uncritical acceptance of mass media and video and broadcast technology as philosophically neutral.

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Gospel AND Community

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(Fair warning: stream-of-consciousness post follows…)

I am in New York City for a few days at a church planters’ round table thing hosted by Trinity Grace Church. This first evening we visited one of their missional communities, just to get a feel for what kinds of things happen in them, etc. Afterwards we went to a diner to debrief a bit with some of their leaders.

One thing we discussed tonight has captivated me a bit. Some of us were discussing that in efforts to distance ourselves from fundamentalist pasts and show a fuller view of salvation, we had emphasized community and relationships and social justice. All good things, of course. But is that all there is to the gospel? Good relationships? Salvation is not just about having quality friendships, just like it’s not just a legal way to get to heaven.

I started thinking about it as a pendulum, or a continuum. Some churches are all gospel/no community. They preach the Word accurately, but there’s no sense of community in the congregation. Other churches are all community/no gospel. They “do life together” really well, but they have little understanding or concern about the gospel reaching new people. But seeing it as a pendulum or continuum invites the concept of “balance,” which I don’t think is right, because it implies that to get “more” gospel you need to sacrifice community. Likewise, if you want “more” community you need less gospel. That’s just not true.

We need churches that are 100% gospel-focused and 100% community-focused. Both/and, not either/or, and not “balance.”

But maybe that’s all too theoretical. Instead, maybe think about these two questions:

  1. If someone asked you what the gospel was, would you able to give a coherent answer?
  2. If someone wanted to know where they could connect with other Christians informally, would you know of a community to point them to?

One of the goals I have for Christ Church is that most people in our community would be able to give coherent, meaningful answers to both questions.

50 Days with the Sermon on the Mount

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Our church community is starting a 50-day journey through the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a sermon series combined with daily exercises that encourage us to explore the meaning and implications of Jesus’s famous words in Matthew 5-7. I am praying that it propels us further in maturity and fruitfulness as apprentices of Jesus, and helps us practice being a “Jesus-y” community.

Christ Church Website

If you’d like to participate online, please feel free! Head over to Christ Church’s provisional blog (meaning: the site will morph before your very eyes as I find time to work on things!) and participate in the exercises each day. Post thoughts in the comments or get together with others to reflect on what God seems to be doing in your life as you interact with the Sermon.

I have always been haunted by the Sermon on the Mount, and had planned to preach through it this fall, leading into Advent (which begins the Sunday after Thanksgiving). I got the idea to do the daily exercises from Jason Coker, who is leading his community through a 50-day exploration of the Sermon (they’re on Day 44 today). Jason generously allowed us to use the exercises he developed in any way we saw fit, so we’re adopting some of them wholesale, adapting others, and writing a few of our own.

Hope you can join us on the journey!