Excited About EQUIP SA

So 28 – 30 September is EQUIP South Africa, a training time for churches across South Africa. I’m quite excited about it. Here’s why.

Ephesians 4:11-16 talks about how God has given to the church the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints to do the work of the ministry and for building up the body of Christ.

It goes on to talk about the unity of the faith so that we may all grow up to mature manhood, so that we may no longer be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, that we would grow up every way into Christ. It ends off with how, when each part of the body is working properly, the body grows so that it builds itself up in love.

EQUIP SA is one of those key times in the year when all this takes place. We get to sit under some powerful teaching from guys who I have huge respect for. We get to ask questions. We get to connect with each other and enjoy each other as churches across the country. And, of course, when I say “churches” I don’t mean organisations – I mean the people, because we are the church.

All this helps us to grow into unity and mature manhood. It also keeps us from weird and strange teachings, like the many we can find all over the Internet. I think this is done not just by the content of the teaching we receive but the depth of the relationships we have the opportunity to form. When we form better relationships we know each others’ hearts better, so there’s more trust between us all, and more openness for correction and, of course, encouragement!

It’s about being built up together in love. See, verse 15 says that through this equipping we are able to “Speak the truth in love”, and so we grow. The end results are that every person in the body is performing their function while at the same time being built up in love towards each other, which brings unity. Friendship within function. It’s a marvelous picture and you get to see it happening at EQUIP times such as this.

It’s not just about receiving teachings so we can be a sponge but to be equipped to actually DO the work of the ministry. And that work is multi-layered with one purpose: Jesus. To spread the good news of his life, death, resurrection, Kingdom and coming Kingdom. To work in every part of society to be salt of the Earth and let His Kingdom break through into the lives of the many hurting out there, rich or poor. It’s broad and yet focused, freeing and yet a challenge. All awesome.

EQUIP is not just for NCMI relating churches

The EQUIP time is run by New Covenant Ministries (NCMI) relating churches and I’m stoked that it’s being hosted by my church, Cornerstone Church, this year. But it’s not just for NCMI relating churches, it’s for everyone. Some people tend to think it’s exclusive but it’s not. I think it’s worth mentioning that.

There is going to be a host of guys from all over the world whom I have the utmost respect for who will be there to exhort, encourage, challenge and teach. On the Thursday and Friday mornings there will be two sessions, effectively. The second session will be a ‘break-out’ session where we can gather into more intimate sort of ‘workshops’.

Mike Hanchett from the USA will host Prophetic break-out sessions while John Bishop (Australia) will host Evangelism sessions and Jon Daniel (Australia) will host Worship sessions. These are more intimate times of teaching where we can ask questions and receive practical training as well and each of these guys are awesome.

It’s going to be fantastic and registrations for EQUIP SA 2011 are at www.equipsouthafrica.co.za. R70 a session (five sessions) but as from Monday it will be R85 a session. If you’re looking for more info have a poke around that site but you’re also welcome to ask me and I’ll provide anything you need as best I can.

Also check out the EQUIP SA Facebook page or follow @NCMIEquipSA on Twitter.

Are You Radical Enough?

A post at Out of Ur by Skye Jethani has not got me thinking as much as concluding, and I ask the question: are you radical enough? It’s a question directed at me, firstly, about my Christianity.

See, I’m coming to a conclusion much like Jethani is.

…after years of hearing, and offering, [a] call to radical activism, I’ve realized that activist Christianity may be just as detrimental and off-center as consumer Christianity. We can all agree that using God simply as a divine vending machine to provide us with the American Dream, as consumer Christianity teaches, is wrong. God is not a means to an end. He is the end. But what about using God as a means of solving world hunger, growing the church, or constructing a sense of self-worth and value? Could such activist Christian tendencies be equally flawed? Might activist Christianity also reduce God to a useful device?

The post goes on to talk about making Christ the center of the Christian faith. I recommend you read it.

Now, it seems ironic that Christians should be reminded to make Christ the center of their faith, I mean the very definition of the word “Christian” implies exactly that, but we lose this focus so often.

I’ve begun to realise that in the past I’ve been very gun-ho about suffering for the Gospel and being radical and all that, and I’ve used the example of Paul and the apostles to drive home the case — look at Paul, look at the shipwrecks, the beatings, the suffering. We need to be doing the same!

Not so, perhaps. Paul had a unique calling, you see, and while I think it’s true that the Scriptures encourage us to be prepared to suffer, there is no scripture anywhere that I can see that encourages us to bring suffering upon ourselves. The difference is obvious: you’re not supposed to seek suffering as much as you’re not supposed to seek a cushy life. We’re supposed to seek a relationship with the Living God, Jesus Christ Himself.

A good look at the scriptures will show that not even all the apostles went through the kind of things Paul did. Paul had a unique calling, Apollos another. I know that traditionally most (if not all?) of Jesus’ disciples are said to have had a rather bad end (crucified upside-down, boiled alive) but even there we know that out of all the 500 disciples mentioned that Jesus had, only 12 are highlighted to have a unique calling of the original apostles (more apostles do come later) and only three seem to have an even more unique calling than those (Peter, James and John)

We can really get caught up in such hype sometimes, and in this case a hype of being ‘radical’ and suffering and selling all we have and doing all sorts of things that might have nothing to do with our unique calling in God. The examples given in scripture are there for us to follow in one instance but not another. Where we follow is we understand that we, too, each of us have our own unique calling and we must walk in that. Where we don’t follow is we don’t look at Paul and think that our calling must look the same. Wasn’t that exactly Jesus’ point in John 21:21 – 22, where Jesus tells Peter to forget about John’s calling but follow Him himself. I realised years ago to stop comparing myself with others but only recently began to realise that I ought to also stop comparing myself with the apostles too.

Maybe God has an apostolic calling for me for the future, maybe he doesn’t. And even then my apostolic calling needn’t look like Paul’s. Apollos, as an example I can think of, certainly seemed to have a very different call and life than Paul, yet they were both apostles.

Many people mean many different things when they say ‘radical Christianity’. One calls ‘radical’ rolling on the floor, shouting in tongues and acting altogether weird. Another calls ‘radical’ stocking up tinned food for when the anti-christ comes, so we can be ready. Another calls ‘radical’ throwing stones at other people’s ministry in the name of ‘discernment’. Another calls ‘radical’ having these amazing visions and prophetic words and experiences (often questionable experiences). And really, I question how Christian any of all this stuff is, because where is Christ in all of that extremism? Another calls ‘radical’ selling all we have and helping the poor and going to rough countries. Fair enough, but is that everyone’s calling?

Perhaps we’re not called to be ‘radical’, but we’re called to be ‘Other’. Radical seems to me to 99 percent of the time end in unhealthy extremism that, in the case of Christians, loses the plot of Jesus and focuses on the radicalism of an idea. It becomes all about the idea, in the end.

Are you radical enough? Perhaps you shouldn’t be. Perhaps Christ wasn’t radical. They wanted him to be. If he were more radical he could have started a political revolution. People were certainly hoping that from him. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he went to a cross. Radical wasn’t the issue here, love was. Maybe we should stop being radical and instead focus on Christ and letting Him love through us. Is that radical? Maybe. Or perhaps that’s more like relevant than radical. Or, perhaps, entirely different altogether.

Elitist Mentality

(Picture from here)

I’ve begun to despise the elitist mentality more and more.

What I mean by this is not so much when someone says, “my theology is right” but moreso when someone says, “we’re special and you’re not.”

An example might serve my purposes here. As you can see in this article, one man says this: “As a member of the church, you’re not following the true doctrine.”

Yes, I believe some doctrine has no merit and others have more merit. Heck, some doctrine I would even call ‘right’. But this isn’t really an issue of doctrine here, I think, this is more an issue of membership. See what the guy is saying? “As a member of the church, you’re not following the true doctrine.” He is basically saying that they (the article will explain who) are members of something that does follow the true doctrine. The heart of it isn’t so much the doctrine (which I would call ‘wrong’ in this context, by the way) but who’s in and who’s out. Or who’s more special, better, than the rest.

The disciples had a similar argument in Luke 9:46 – 50, about who amongst them is the greatest. This argument is still going on today, and Jesus’ response is always poignant. “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me,” “He who is least among you, he is the greatest”, and “for whoever is not against you is for you.”

I’ve heard this ‘who is the greatest’ argument from numerous fronts lately. Some in the house church movement, for example, claim that they’re the greatest, believing they have hit the jackpot in terms of how God wants us to do church, with some going so far as to claim that God has left the other churches and now the Spirit is moving only with them.

See what I mean? It’s an issue of who’s more special than the other, overall. These have perhaps lost focus that no model of church will save us, but only Christ Himself.

Others claim that apostolic government is the jackpot, with some going so far as to say that if the church (or even the world, mind you) doesn’t humble itself under apostolic authority (and perhaps they have particular apostles in mind, too) God will ‘strike the land with a curse’. Again, the issue here is ‘we are the greatest, we are the super-apostles.’

I believe in apostolic government in the church, but not of an elitist kind. I also believe that salvation is in no other name except Jesus. But I don’t see that as elitist, as it’s not an argument around who is the greatest or who is loved more, but rather who is saved. (This would require a whole new discussion though.)

Everytime I read about someone else claiming that the church this and the church that and they have discovered some new shining model or belief that shows why they’re the greatest, I switch off (after getting a little angry). Get over yourself and stop your pride man! For the last shall be first!