jon’s musings…

What a community believes about God, themselves, and the world around them is important. Most of the well-documented evils the church has either condoned or actually been a part of, from slavery and the crusades, to some of our current challenges with the environment and our global economy, are all the fruits of a community that believes the wrong things. There is a growing number of people asking if religion in general, and Christianity in particular, does more harm in the world than good.

While recognizing our history, we believe that the only hope for the world is for a great diversity of communities following the life and teachings of Jesus. At Restoration, we believe that theology is very important, not as an abstract set of truth, but a robust, living Truth, personified by Jesus Himself (John 1). We believe this is what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” (John 14), and why the Holy Spirit is so vital to the church.

While theology is important, we also recognize our tendency to go to extremes. Our theology often reveals much more about us than it does about God or the Bible, as we use God to justify ourselves and create enemies out of others. One of the tendencies of religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is to explain all of Reality and to remove all the mystery out of life; to conquer and master Reality, rather than kneel humbly before the Truth. Most of us at Restoration have very personal stories of ways people in churches (including Restoration) have hurt us. It’s a miracle that some of us still proudly identify ourselves as Christians.

While theology often goes to extremes, and while those who claim to represent God Himself have historically done more harm than good, we cannot accept that all claims to Truth are equally valid, nor can we accept that God has chosen to remain silent and hide Himself from the world He created. While we wrestle with doubt together, both individually and together as a community, we will not accept that we are products of chance or a god who abandoned us.

So we approach theology with confidence (in what we believe) and humility (in what we believe to be uncertain). What we believe and hold as the foundation of our faith is best summarized by the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy world-wide Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

As an Evangelical Covenant Church, we, “major in the majors and minor in the minors”. In other words, we pour our energy into what is clearest and most central (loving God and our neighbor) and not on what is debatable and (at best) peripheral (speculating over the “end times.”) We have certain distinctives that you can read about in other places on our website, but we cherish a great theological diversity (some of us are Reformed in our theology, some are Charismatic, and some of us don’t fit into any category). What holds us together as a community is not our doctrinal system, but our allegiance to Jesus and our heart for the world.

Jesus taught that a tree is measured by its fruit (Luke 6:43-44). We hope and pray that the fruit of our theology is a city and world transformed by love and grace, done in the name of Jesus through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, reflecting the heart of our Father. This is how Jesus taught his disciples to evaluate themselves and others, and we believe this is the safest, most generous way for a church to practice theology.

One of the questions I get asked the most, both by those considering joining Restoration Covenant Church and those who are simply trying to understand what we are all about, is whether or not we are an “Emerging” or “Postmodern” church. Since this is not a ‘yes or no’ question (even though it kind of sounds like one), it will unfortunately take a bit of time for me to unpack my answer. My short answer is this: I do not really think of myself as a pastor of an Emerging Church (EC), but I do think of myself as a pastor to an emerging culture. It may sound like I am dodging the question a bit and maybe I could make this a whole lot easier by fitting myself into a nice and neat category, but I don’t think that this will create clarity, understanding, and dialogue.

Saying yes to the question is kind of like a band admitting that they are emo; the minute a band classifies itself as ‘emo,’ most potential listeners will dismiss them instantly and brand them uncool on principle. The point is that people have already formed an opinion as to whether or not they like emo; any band that accepts the label eliminates over half of their potential audience, especially since now it is no longer cool to like it. I dare you to find a band today that would categorize itself as emo, even if its music made Dashboard Confessional sound calloused and insensitive. The point I am trying to make with obscure music references is that you have probably already made an opinion about the Emerging Church. So rather than attaching my allegiance to something nobody really understands but still holds an opinion on, I think it will be far more useful for me to state what I do believe.

All of the following bullet points are summaries which will probably raise more questions than answers. Feel free to email me if you want to chat about any one of these points or want good resources to think through them.

• I take culture seriously. In my opinion, criticizing a church for being influenced by culture is like accusing a fish of being influenced by water. Culture isn’t something you choose to walk away from when you become a Christian. I’ve heard a lot of pastors us the word culture like this: I worry that today’s youth are being influenced more by culture than the church. What they (probably) mean is this: I don’t like that teenagers seem to resemble the characters on Real World than how I think a follower of Jesus Christ ought to act. While the pastor may have a valid point, his use of culture to mean, “all the things I don’t happen to like about youth behavior” is unhelpful. When I go and buy a pack of gum at Vons, I probably subconsciously follow 50 cultural cues before I’m out the front door. This is neither good nor bad. The way I’m dressed, make eye-contact and smile, intuitively know where the gum is located, make small talk in line, read and understand the covers of the magazines, tune-out the music playing, exchange money, and any other number of little things I do are all culturally conditioned. Of course, culture is more than the ways we have arbitrarily and unconsciously chosen to live among each other; culture also includes a system of core values and beliefs that serve to under gird the way we interact with each other, define success, ignore certain people while esteeming others, buy things we may or may not need, understand our role and place in the world, or talk politics to name a few. As such, anything else that would fall under the category of values and/or beliefs can, at times, resonate deeply with the Gospel. However, there are also values and beliefs in direct opposition to the Gospel. It is therefore important to have a community of mission-minded people, saturated in the message of Jesus, who love God and people and won’t settle for superficial analysis of the world we live in or allow themselves to be corrupted by the cultural values that stand in opposition to God’s Kingdom.

• I believe that there is Truth. I was listening to Tony Jones (an important thinker in the Emerging Church dialogue) who said that the question, “Do you believe in Absolute Truth?” is ridiculous since in what way could truth ever not be absolute? Think about it: how could anything be true in a non-absolute sense? I only say this because there was a time where “absolute truth” functioned as a kind of line in the sand for me; truth was being eroded by relativists who didn’t understand that the statement “There are no absolute truths!” is a claim to truth that is absolutely true and therefore self-refuting! I don’t really know why we, as Christians, are so often guilty of such shallow analysis and so consistently surprised when we aren’t taken seriously. But I digress. One of the major critiques of the Emerging Church is that it believes truth is relative; that what is true may or may not be true for you. I don’t know anybody who actually believes this. I certainly don’t. I mean, those people are probably out there, but they are probably mostly obnoxious undergrad students. I think what we (as younger Christians) are reacting against a model of evangelism that seems more concerned about proving “I am right” than “I love and respect you.” I think the emphasis is much more about how we use and understand what we know, rather than a skepticism over whether things are actually knowable. The way this plays out is as a bias towards good living over right belief. This makes us vulnerable to a new batch of blind spots, such as having a weak theology and a fear of talking about Jesus with our friends because of the chance they might find us offensive. Have we let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction? In some areas we almost certainly have, which is why we must not ignore our critics or foster a spirit of arrogance.

• Did I just admit to being an EC pastor? No, but I am very much influenced by some of the writings of the leaders in the Emerging Church. I resonate deeply with their writings, mostly because we have a common background: we, for the most part, were raised in Christian homes, deeply love the Church, but believe there must be significant reform or else a whole generation will be lost.

This post is already too long, so I’ll have to write a follow-up at another time. I think it would be helpful if you were able to take the time to respond below with your thoughts and (especially) any specific concerns with the Emerging Church. I think a thoughtful and honest dialogue will really help us move beyond this dialogue into a new frontier of missions to our generation.

Have you ever tried to name a church? I hadn’t either. You should try it some time, just for fun. It’s hard to navigate through the clichés and come up with a name that doesn’t sound like a strange cult or retirement village. It’s like naming a child, knowing that the name you choose will have an effect on their identity and that they will have to live with it…forever. When we chose the name Restoration, we wanted it to embody our deepest core values. On this one word hangs our identity that we hope seeps down into our very DNA. Restoration comes from our desire to embody a complete Gospel; a reaction against the idea that the message of Jesus is just that He came to offer us as individuals forgiveness of sins. While we affirm that Jesus alone offers forgiveness of sins, the Gospel is about much more. We believe that the forgiveness of sins is the means to an end, not the end itself; that we accept the work of Jesus on the Cross as truth, that it is the beginning of our story, not the end. If we could choose a word that summarizes the Gospel, it would be restoration. Restoration of…

•Our humanity. We believe that those who follow Jesus have their lives transformed inside-out. That changing our hearts to good is possible; in fact, it is the rule, not the exception. We expect that as we follow Jesus, generosity, peace, joy, faith, and love will come more naturally than greed, worry, unforgiveness, and anger.

•Our community. If our church isn’t making our community better, we believe we should cease to exist. In our vision statement we write that community is our apologetic. This means that the way we live our lives together as a family will be the strongest statement we can make as to the truth and beauty of the Gospel.

•Our World. We believe that being a disciple of Jesus affects the way we take care of the Earth and the way we view ourselves as citizens of the world. This impacts our responsibilities as consumers, our awareness of the AIDS pandemic, and seeing the Earth and its creatures as gifts to be treasured, not resources to exploit for our benefit.

We hold very strongly to these beliefs.

And most of all, we believe that we can make a difference in the world; that we are agents of restoration; that God has given us the dignity of partnering with Him in changing the world; that when we love our neighbor, we are not simply earning points in heaven, but that we are ushering the Kingdom of God to Earth and overwhelming the destructive powers of darkness with love, faith, and hope. We are not alone in this but part of a vast network of Christ-followers in Redlands, the Inland Empire, and in every country of the world.

While no single word could ever summarize who we are, we think Restoration comes pretty close.