Negative99

There are not many books that I would say are my most-recommended, and indeed ostensibly there should be only one. Well, right now – for my Christ-following readers – the next book you read needs to be the Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Really… not kidding… read the friggin’ book and do it right now. Admittedly for my non-outright-Christ-following readers this has some risk of being dull… but truly know that even if you just vaguely believe in such a thing as God there is value to be gained here. All the block quotes in this post will be straight from the book.

So what is it about this book? First of all… this is not a highfalutin and boring diatribe on Christian blah blah blah. In fact, nowhere are the words highfalutin or diatribe used. But the book is written very well, and with a straight-forward no-nonsense manner that breathes honesty… and is injected with a poignant wit that can only come from sincerity. In effect, Mark Driscoll writes perfectly.

“Reaching Out Without Selling Out” is the tagline for this tome of relevancy. And indeed, being relevant (and theologically sound) is what makes modern missions effective (see my previous post on relevance). If ever there was an instruction manual on how to be a Christ-follower carrying out the great commission right where you are… surely this is it! Most of our present approaches to reach the world fail… and we need a radical change in how we share the truth to reach our post-Christian culture. That radical change is what Driscoll calls “reformission”.

We are all on a mission with Jesus everyday, and we are either good missionaries or bad.

I could write for days on the topics expressed in this book, but you’d assassinate me or my wife would leave me, so I’ll be pithy. Driscoll makes clear that effective churches need to have the message of Jesus (the gospel), a true gathering of believers, and hearts in tune with the culture they reside in. Missing any of these three creates a ministry that lacks a vital component of who Christ told us to be. The balanced blending of all three of these, built on the foundation of the Bible, is what being a reformission Christian is all about.

What most churches and Christians seem to have the problem with is “culture”. Reaching the world actually means you have to go in the world… and if you think that’s intuitively obvious you haven’t been to many churches lately. Most church leaders will pay out mad duckets to send someone to an unpronounceable wasteland thousands of miles away to spend years learning and embracing the language and culture and music. Yet these same “leaders” won’t learn the music of their own culture a mere one mile away. You can’t make this stuff up. Driscoll calls the Christians that ignore their own culture “traditionalists”.

…Traditionalism fails to distinguish between Biblical principles for ministry and cultural methods for implementing those principles. Traditionalism clings to dated ineffective methods in the name of staying truer to tradition than to Scripture. The result of traditionalism is a Christianity that has all of the right answers to all of the wrong questions…

I remember a good friend who was the Principal of a school in Michigan. He would watch the show Dawson’s Creek religiously. As adult male to adult male I would toss him the obligatory hardship for devoting his time to such a teeny-bopper diversion. But you know what he told me? When asked why he watches it he responded in a tone similar to someone answering a trivia question they already knew the answer to… “All my students are watching it.” That really stuck with me… that short sentence spoke volumes.

Reformission Christians and churches exist to perpetuate the gospel and should be swift to change their cultural forms if they are not the most beneficial for achieving that goal. This is what Paul told the Corinthians about being all things to all people and using all means to see as many people as possible saved (1 Cor. 9:19-23). Reformission churches have to continually examine and adjust their musical styles, websites, aesthetics, acoustics, programming, and just about everything but their Bible in an effort to effectively communicate the gospel to as many people as possible in the cultures around them.

At the end of each chapter in the book Driscoll includes an interview with a reformission Christian. These people span the full spectrum for sure… Hollywood insider, secular radio host, former exotic dancer turned office administrator, secular band manager, television broadcaster, pub & brewery owner and operator… and my favorite, the tattoo and piercing studio owner, operator, and artist (who also owns his own tattoo magazine).

The tattoo guy’s remarks showed more insight than a dozen Christian Sociologists could journal together in a week, and packed more truthful punch than a 100mph Gideons King James taken in the belly. When asked about his ministry…

[I'm] revealing the truth of the gospel to everyone I come in contact with, primarily people between eighteen and thirty-five, and many who are very unlikely to set foot in a traditional church setting.

[...]

I feel I was put in this particular profession for the purpose of reaching this postmodern generation with the truth of the gospel in the arena of a desperate, lost, and angry culture. My goal every day is not to target and convert anyone but to look for opportunities when I might be able to show Christ’s love to people who have never once been shown what the real message of the gospel is. What they have been told, and what they’ve seen themselves, are the lies of legalism masquerading as the gospel, and “quick to judge and condemn” Christians pointing their fingers at them.

[...]

From what I see in the Gospels, Jesus preached to a society from within the culture of his day, not from above it as the Pharisees did. In my opinion, the majority of churches today are more concerned with converting one cultural image into their own cultural image, with the implication that theirs is “Christian” (where no one drinks alcohol or listens to secular music and everyone dresses in business attire), while those cultures which differ from their view are not. Once again, this is definitely pharisaical. Unfortunately, I find this sums up the majority of the church world all too well.

Wow! How true is that!

Driscoll deftly crafts the path to reformission, and it involves breaking down several myths that have been injected by the enemy into churches over the years (and no, this does NOT involve the Da Vinci Code). The biggest myth to me was “culture equals worldliness”. The fact that Christians have regarded to two as synonyms has nearly killed reformission.

There are elements in every culture that could be used to oppose God and His work on the Earth but that are in and of themselves neutral and useable for either sin or worship. Examples include tasty food that could be used for either sinful gluttony or holy feasting, music that could be used for either idolatry or worship, and stylish clothing that could be used for either lust or beauty.

And of course, what book on being culturally relevant would be complete without a quick refresher on alcohol. Our feminism-driven romance with prohibitionism (alcohol is sin) and abstentionism (it’s not a sin but Christians should abstain) has sickeningly not only produced a couple generations of pussified church leaders, but has made them dangerously close to being liars. Indeed, the enemy has been using this lie to mislead an entire nation of believers. So, compliments of Mark Driscoll, let’s have a history lesson, shall we?

• Saint Gall was a missionary to the Celts and a renowned brewer
• After Charlemagne’s reign, the church became Europe’s exclusive brewer
• When a young woman was preparing for marriage, her church brewed a special bridal ale, from which we derive the word bridal
• Pastor John Calvin’s annual salary included upwards of 250 gallons of wine to be enjoyed by him and his guests
• Martin Luther once wrote of the Reformation, “While I sat still and drank beer with Philip and Amsdorf, God dealt the papacy a mighty blow.”
• Luther’s wife Catherine was a skilled brewer, and his love letters to her when they were apart lamented his inability to drink her beer
• When the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock, the first permanent structure they erected was a brewery

Most of those facts I did not previously know. Indeed I have cause to believe much Biblical truth on alcohol has been obscured from many a pulpit for many years. Some Methodist minister by the name of Welch invents grape juice in 1869 to replace communion wine and we’ve been suckling it ever since.

Thankfully, the resurgence of microbrewing in the United States is helping to overcome the great loss and to resurrect the art of brewing. I personally long for the return to the glory days of Christian pubs where God’s men gather to drink beer and talk theology.

Fortunately where I worship is inside a nightclub operated by (and right nextdoor to) Brown’s Brewing Company, a great local pub and microbrewery. But why does the alcohol thing matter? Driscoll explains this and much more in the book. I need to quit now or I’ll never stop… but maybe meet me for a Cherry Raspberry Ale at Brown’s and we can speak more on these things… as true Christians like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien would… over a beer.