Barnabas File

And   I   tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock   I   will   build   my   church , and the gates of Hades   will   not overcome   i t.(Matthew 16:18, NIV)   I probably spend more time on social media than I should, but I find it a good way to keep in touch with how my friends at the grassroots feel about the church—both laity and clergy.   A big theme I pick up goes something like this: “The church is in decline and is losing its influence.  I just hope it lasts one more generation for me and my family or until I retire from ministry.”   Such thoughts are not new.  There have been many times in the last two thousand years when the church has been counted out. Even so, it is still here.   Perhaps we should clarify some terms.  What do we mean when we use the word “church”?  The Church (big C) was established by Christ.  In theological terms, when we us...

In a recent conversation, a pastor friend asked this question: “Does God require all the things I think my congregation needs?”    Great question!   Depending on our experience and faith family, we each have ingrained idea of “this is what a church looks like.”  When I was involved in a church start several years ago, we worked hard to offer everything that our denomination (at that time) told us that good church needed—Sunday morning and evening worship, Bible Study (Sunday School) for all ages, Wednesday night service, and financial support for missions.  It was a lot of work for a small group of people, but we did quite well!   Over the years, what has come to be expected of a church has changed and even more so during the Pandemic.  We have pared down to the essentials and it has not looked the same in every case. I wonder, however, if we have included God in the conversation about what is “essential”?   Most often, God speaks t...

The church of which I am a member has responded effectively to the pandemic.     We quickly went to an online service, moved to doing Bible study and committee meetings (and even business meetings) online, and began providing proactive member contacts through phone calls and digital media.    With the leadership of a COVID-19 task force, we have a phased plan to restart on-campus activities based on public health data rather than opinions or personal preferences.   Many of the things we are doing have gone very well.  Our staff has led in putting together a Sunday morning worship experience that is recorded ahead and broadcast at the usual worship time.  Many members have contributed recorded segments and it has been fun to see individuals and families offering music, art, and the spoken word.  At last count, we seemed to be engaging more people in virtual worship than we were in person before the coronavirus.   Most of our Bib...

“[Do]   not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day [of Christ] approaching.” -- Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)   In recent days the threat of COVID-19 has prohibited most of our churches from following this apostolic directive.  For the sake of the health of our communities, we are unable to meet in our traditional places of worship.  This time has been replaced creatively by pastors, church staff, and lay leaders by using Facebook live, Zoom, and other platforms to stream worship services from sanctuaries, pastors’ homes, and even from the outdoors.   We talk about and practice the concept of the gathered and scattered church--the church gathers for worship, prayer, and study, then scatters to the community to serve.  In both situations, we are the church, whether we are assembled in one place or in our homes, schools, or businesses.  ...

I had the opportunity to join Pinnacle colleague Mark Tidsworth last weekend in a workshop for the South Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).    As I introduced myself to the group, I said: “We believe that the church is not only going to survive but prosper.” I sincerely believe this, but the caveat is that the church that is going to survive may not necessarily be the church as you know it now.  If we are objective, we will realize that all expressions of the church have changed and evolved over the last twenty centuries.  The reason that the church has not just survived but prospered is that it has continually been reinventing itself in order to fulfill its mission.   So how do we reinvent our churches today to be the people of God in our context?  Here are some suggestions: First, listen to the Spirit of God.  My teacher Alan Roxburgh says something like this: “The Spirit of G...

Have you ever noticed how much time we spend talking about the church?   We emphasize church growth, health, and viability.   We talk about how to renew, revive, or reimagine the church.   We judge a believer’s faithfulness by how much time they spend within the walls of the church. I once heard missional advocate Alan Roxburgh make an observation something like this: “We spend too much time talking about the church and too little doing the work of the kingdom.”  His comment got my attention and I imagine that it gets yours, too. Those of us who are Baptist in background have always had a thing about the church.  We live to build up the church (usually meaning our congregation).  We have been (perhaps too much) devoted to the autonomy of the local church. This has led to some aberrations like closed communion which restricts the Lord’s table only to the baptized members of the congregation where it is being offered.  I am t...

On Sunday morning, we sang the hymn “Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul” in worship. My wife Rita and I glanced at each other and exchanged smiles.  When I was a student pastor in Texas, the church where we worshipped on weekends loved this song.  We were not familiar with it when we first went there and Rita, who was the pianist (of course), had to get the hang of it.  Once she did, they wanted to sing it every Sunday. Sunday afternoon Rita asked, “I wonder if that church is still there?” I went to the Baptist General Convention of Texas website and did a search, but the name of the church did not come up.  I began to speculate about what might have happened. Perhaps the church just closed its doors.  They were small 50 years ago and only had a few families.  Maybe they could no longer support the church. Another possibility is that they had gone independent or joined a more conservative Baptist group and no longer identified with...

My friend Mark Tidsworth recently shared this quote by Hans Kung in The Church as the People of God:   "A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling. ... [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, and live by improvisation and experiment." You will rarely hear this preached in a Sunday morning worship service.   Most of those who step into pulpits feel compelled to preach about certainty, stability, and safety.   Even those who do not proclaim a gospel of prosperity are reluctant to tell their congregants, “Don’t get too comfortable.   Not only are things going to change but, if we are the people of God, we should expect them to change.” When rightly lived, the message we proclaim of the Kingdom of God is about instability, change, and new challenges.   My pastor preached on Luke 13:18-19 yesterday.   In this pas...