Mars Hill: Orthodoxy, Orthopraxy, Controversy, and Love (Day Eleven)

Total Mileage: 1,347

Song of the Day: “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me” (uncertain authorship)

Books of the Day:

 - unChristian (David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons)

 - Love Wins (Rob Bell)

Whoa.  Where do I begin?  Oh, I know.  Before I get to the visit itself . . .

That Funky Asterisk-Looking Logo

I asked about this at the information kiosk, and the response from one attendant was a somewhat terse “Oh, that’s on our website.”  I prodded a little and said that I hadn’t found it when I looked the other night, and a slightly friendlier attendant overheard our exchange.  The friendlier attendant explained the logo and handed me a pamphlet on the subject.  It turns out that each of the six points corresponds to one of the church’s key directions under the “values” link from the main page.  In spite of the circular graphics on that page, I hadn’t quite made the connection to the logo, so I was glad to have this spelled out a little more clearly.  The Mars Hill “directions” essentially form the church’s confession of faith, and they are:

Backward (roots)- We affirm the central truths of historic orthodox Christian faith, seeing ourselves in a long line of generations taking part in the endless conversation between God and people. We believe the Bible to be the voices of many who have come before us, inspired by God to pass along their poems, stories, accounts, and letters of response and relationship with each other and the living God. To know where we’re going, we have to know where we’ve been.

Forward (journey)- We have great confidence that God will restore all of creation under the authority of Christ. We believe that every church has to ask the question: “What does it look like for us to live out that future reality today?” We are constantly exploring, questioning, and wrestling with new and creative ways to live out and communicate the teachings of Jesus. Because we see faith as a journey, change is assumed, innovation is expected, and rebirth is welcomed.

Inward (wholeness)- We believe that God wants to bring about a new humanity by redeeming every part of us. We embrace the salvation Jesus offers as the only hope for the healing of our relationships with God, each other, ourselves, and creation. We believe that all of life is spiritual, and that all of our fears, failures, and brokenness can be restored and made whole. We value the inner journey because we want to be fully integrated people–mind, body, and soul, emotions and experiences all offered together to God.

Withward (community)- We value the image of God in all people, everywhere. We believe that we were created to live deeply with one another, carrying each other’s burdens, sharing our possessions, to pray for and confess our sins to each other, to suffer and celebrate together. It’s in these honest, loving relationships that God transforms us and truth becomes a reality. The way of Jesus cannot be lived alone.

Outward (serving)- We believe that Jesus is God in human form and that the Church is God’s ongoing presence in the world. Led by the Spirit of God, we are passionate about relieving suffering and fighting injustice, joining the God of the oppressed in living out the transforming message of the resurrected Jesus. Jesus calls his Church to be a compelling force for good in the world, and we believe that the Church is at its best when it serves, sacrifices, and loves, caring about the things God cares about. We were created to live for something larger than ourselves.

Upward (celebration)- We take great joy in partnering with God to change the world, embracing the truth that all of life is sacred, hope is real, and tomorrow can be better than today. We celebrate the divine in the daily, pursuing lives of hope, gratitude, and worship. God invites everyone everywhere into this way of life, and we believe it is the best possible way to live.

Well, that all sounds pretty orthodox to me.  More in line with my research this summer, Mars Hill also uses the mission statement:

“Living out the way of Jesus in missional communities, announcing the arrival of his kingdom, working for measurable change among the oppressed.”

Ooo, “missional” is a word that I really like, particularly after I attended a conference at First Baptist of Wilmington, NC, last October.  The word missional implies that the church is not so much concerned with bringing people in as it is with equipping people and sending them out to engage the world, and it’s a mindset that really draws a lot of attention, particularly among socially-aware, media-savvy young adults.  I realize this almost sounds a bit paradoxical, but in the missional model, a desire to send people out actually brings more people in.  According to the mindset back at FBC Wilmington, American churches have wasted their time developing “attractions” (programs, facilities, perfectly-rehearsed praise bands, etc.), when what they should really be concerned with is the call to serve the community.  Based on their barebones facilities, I think Mars Hill shares that sentiment, but their missions focus seems a little more global than local, but more on that later.  In the promotional material I picked up, their mission statement is broken down line-by-line, and one portion read, “We believe it is our privilege to engage in the great causes of our day: reaching out to the poor, the marginalized, the victimized and powerless of our world.”  Right on, Mars Hill.  Right on.

I would write a bit about their narrative theology, but I think I’ll just post the website instead since there’s a lot more to cover today.

Arrival and First Impressions

It was a gray, dreary Michigan morning.

Back when I was in elementary school, I read a short story by Ray Bradbury called “All Summer in a Day” which followed a group of school children on the planet Venus.  The story suggested that it always rained on Venus, so the children would have to stand in sun lamps every day to get the necessary light exposure they needed to stay healthy.  Still, once every seven years, the clouds would break for just two hours, allowing the children to see the sun and play outside in its warmth even if for a little while.  When I opened my curtains to another rainy, overcast Grand Rapids day this morning, I couldn’t help but think of this story and envy the children who would get to see the sun.

Making matters worse, I’ve had a sore throat for at least the past 48 hours, and I suspect that the culprit may be my old nemesis: the Kenyon Krud.  The Krud is an upper respiratory bug that lurks around our campus, causing anything from a minor sore throat to headaches and low-grade fevers, and the average Kenyon student usually experiences some strain of the Krud for 3-4 days once a year.  In my case, it’s just the sore throat and a little productive coughing (which started happening just in time for my Mars Hill visit).

I grabbed my jacket and hat to deal with the rain and cold, loaded up my car, checked out of the hotel, and headed to Mars Hill.  I was incredibly early, arriving a solid 40 minutes before the service was to begin, so I took the opportunity to poke around the building a bit.  I looked into the sanctuary to see the band running a few songs, and Rob Bell himself was setting up a few props to be used in his sermon.  I found myself thinking, “What’s he doing with that soccer goal?  This should be interesting.”  I thought about taking advantage of this chance to walk up and strike up a conversation with him, but he seemed to be very much in business mode, and I figured it would be bad form to ask him a big series of questions about celebrity pastors this close to the start of the service.  Rob went off to check some things at the sound booth, and the band continued to rehearse.  I found it interesting that they were all facing inward toward the center of the room with their backs to the crowd.  Aside from the obvious benefit of being able to see one another for cues across the slightly-elevated, square stage, this had the added effect of making the band feel like part of the congregation, and their inward glances served as a reminder that the center of attention in that room was not the band or even Rob; the center of attention was God.

A slightly younger Rob Bell under the Death Cube.

Furthering this theme, the room itself was incredibly sparse and free of anything ornate that might distract the eye.  The carpet was gray.  The walls were basic white drywall.  The ceiling had visible scaffolding, and the recessed lighting that hung there in the blackness kept the room in meditative dusk throughout both services.  At the center of the room was the square stage with various levels of stairs and platforms, and suspended above this were four, connected, outward-facing projector screens that I instinctively labeled as the “Death Cube” since its industrial simplicity and technological capabilities made it look like the sort of communication system Darth Vader might design.  The Death Cube flashed announcements before the service, displayed song lyrics during worship, and was used for Rob’s notes, pictures, and videos during the sermon.  Throughout all of this, the Death Cube kept everything in the same stark white-text-on-black-background style.  At first, I supposed that the Death Cube reminded me of the Tabernacle, but for some reason, once the many circles of chairs had filled up during the second service, I found myself thinking of it as more like the Kaaba.  In the upper right corner of each face of the cube was an LED display that would occasionally flash a 5-digit code.  When I asked a church member about this, he explained that, when you checked a child into the nursery, you were given a 5-digit number, and if it flashed on the display, it meant that your child was being fussy enough to merit pulling you out of the service.  I thought this was a pretty creative way to handle that problem without distracting others from worship, even though the mental image of checking your child and receiving a claim ticket like you might do with a coat at a nightclub made me a bit uneasy.

Outside of the sanctuary, the hallways of the church felt very mall-like with their high ceilings, unadorned walls, little stations here and there for information/snacks/etc., and side rooms for children and various classes.  In particular, a small antechamber labeled “Special Needs Room” caught my attention, and it contained only a few tables and chairs.  My guess was that this room could be used in case of a sudden emergency counseling need or if someone present that morning had a disability that necessitated solitude (as I would see later in the 11:00AM service with a mentally handicapped man a few rows in front on me who had to be escorted out by his caretaker at one point).  I wanted to poke my head into this room to see if it contained a TV so that someone inside could still observe the service, but something else in the hall caught my eye (and my stomach).   There were tables stationed all along one wall with coffee, lemonade, and pre-cut quarters of bagels; the cinnamon sugar ones were easily the pick of the litter, and they quickly supplanted my granola bar as the preferred breakfast food of the morning.

I didn’t get quite the immediately friendly reception that I did at New Song, and I will admit that our surroundings had a slightly corporate flavor to them that gave everything a very streamlined feel.  In fact, with the classical music that was piping in before the 9:00AM service and all the coffee cups everywhere, I sort of felt like I was in the world’s largest Starbucks.  Most people there were casually-attired young adults or middle-aged couples with children, and the general socioeconomic vibe seemed to be squarely middle class.  Even if they weren’t quite over-the-top friendly, a lot of casual conversations were occurring, and people were pretty receptive when I greeted them.  I asked a few folks where they were from, and the answers were usually other suburbs around Grand Rapids, leading me to the impression that the church sees itself as part of the greater Grand Rapids area rather than just the Grandville community.  I talked to several different information desk attendants throughout my two services, and I found that they ran a range from “pretty friendly” to “needs improvement.”  Most were ever so slightly standoffish, but one woman actually seemed quite annoyed that I was asking questions that could be ascertained from a careful perusal of the website.  Her answers were curt and a little abrasive, so I decided that I would come back later and ask someone else.  “Pfft, Yankee,” I thought to myself as I walked away.  The other desk attendants were quite helpful though, and I managed to acquire quite a bit of free stuff.  I love free stuff.

Shane Hipps, teaching pastor at Mars Hill

I made my way back to my seat and placed one of my complimentary “Love Wins” bumper stickers on my notebook.  I asked the man sitting next to me if he would be bothered by my note-taking, and he said no, after which he introduced himself as Roy.  I told Roy a bit about my project, and he gave me a business card that I am still attempting to unearth from the deep dark recesses of my messenger bag so that I can send him the blog address and get a few book recommendations from him.  Roy explained that he came to Mars Hill from the Unity Church, which has its roots in the Coptic tradition.  “We see Jesus as the example, not the exception,” Roy explained to me.  In response to this, I thought about asking if they drew at all on Peter Abelard’s view of the atonement (in which Christ died to show us how to love perfectly), but I realized that I didn’t need to prove to Roy that I actually paid attention in Church History.  (Oh wow, did I just mature a little?  Nah, couldn’t be.)  Back to the matter at hand, Roy explained that he was most attracted to Rob’s preaching, but he and his fiancée, Julie, enjoy Shane Hipps as well.  Shane is the other pastor at Mars Hill who preaches in Rob’s absence, and when I asked Roy and Julie if there is a noticeable difference in the size of the crowd when Rob speaks, they agreed that it’s a pretty similar turnout no matter who’s preaching.  I found that very reassuring given my concern about the whole celebrity pastor issue.  It was at about this point that the lights briefly dimmed to indicate that the service was about to begin.

Worship

Mars Hill musicians setting up before worship.

With the room about 75% full and with a few people still filing in, the band began their first song, all facing inward toward the Death Cube and its lyrics.  While all of the people around me were singing, their demeanor felt a little staid.  The voice of the British worship leader and harmonizing vocalists easily overshadowed the crowd as they sang,

Did you feel the darkness tremble

When all the saints join in one song

All the streams flow as one river

To wash away our brokenness.

It felt a little slow and meditative for an opening song, so I can see why there wasn’t the same swaying and dancing you might see in other settings.  Still, there was a celebrative element to the song, particularly when they sang the line,

Open up the doors

Let the music play

Let the streets resound with singing.

The musicians were very polished, and I was particularly impressed with the drummer.  Despite being practically under the stage in an acoustically-insulated pit, the drummer was keeping perfect time and providing beats that were rhythmically impressive but never a distraction.  Likewise, the bassist really shined on a couple of songs by providing improvisation beyond the simple straight-eighths pattern you hear in a lot of contemporary Christian music.  The guitarist too made his contribution by providing the occasional ethereal, U2-esque solo over the other instrumentation.  Still, I’m not sure how into it the congregation felt.  After the song, the church members clapped, and the worship leader led a reading of a psalm, but due to translation differences, I’m still not sure which psalm it was.

The next song functioned sort of like a doxology and was a little more upbeat.  While I still wasn’t seeing a lot of movement in the congregation, I did notice a few lifted hands here and there along with plenty of closed eyes.  As a whole, the group felt very introspective and reflective, perhaps best represented by the hesitant “woo” that followed a line in the song about making a joyful noise.  It was almost as though they were each experiencing very personal moments that they didn’t want interrupted.  Still, the song was an unmistakable call to communal worship:

How infinite and sweet
This love so rescuing
Oh how infinitely sweet
This great love that has redeemed
As one we sing

Alleluia, Alleluia, He is Holy, He is Holy.

At the line about rescuing love, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Hehe, love wins.”  Based on my conversations in the hallways and in the sanctuary before the service, I had realized that everyone in that congregation was totally aware of the recent controversy surrounding Rob and his book Love Wins and its message that humans hold the keys to heaven and hell.  I still have not read Love Wins, but my parents recently read it and did a Sunday School lesson on the book.  They were kind enough to send me a selection of the more controversial quotes that they had used in their lesson, so I was able to pair the quotes with the harsh responses to the book and get a pretty good idea as to why so many people were upset.  Of course, I can see why modern evangelicals might be made uncomfortable by quotes like:

“Eternal life is less about a kind of time that starts when we die and more about a quality and vitality of life lived now in connection to God. . . . Jesus was also talking about our present eternal, intense, real experiences of joy, peace, and love in this life and the age to come.  Heaven for Jesus was present reality.”

or . . .

Actually, his view of Scripture seems quite high.

“Millions have been taught that if they don't believe, if they don't accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell.  God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever.  A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormenter who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony.  Does God become somebody totally different the moment you die?”

or . . .

“Whatever you've been told about the end --the end of your life, the end of time, the end of the world-- Jesus passionately urges us to live like the end is here, now, today.”

I hope to read Love Wins myself the next chance I get (you know, once I finish Beyond Megachurch Myths, and I think that book and I have a date with the treadmill tomorrow).  My mental journey into Love Wins aside, back at Mars Hill, it was time for another song, and this one was more reflective in nature, not to mention being much more familiar to me.  It was a popular old Hillsong number (and, yes, I realize the humor that I define 2006 as old):

So take me as You find me,

All my fears and failures,

Fill my life again

I give my life to follow,

Everything I believe in,

And now I surrender

Savior, He can move the mountains

Our God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save

Forever, author of Salvation

He rose and conquered the grave,

Jesus conquered the grave.

At this point, perhaps just due to familiarity with the lyrics, there seemed to be a bit more swaying and lifting of hands among the congregation.  In particular, I noticed several people (including Rob himself) entering the “accepting hands” pose with elbows to their sides at right angles and palms turned heavenward.  I have to admit that, at this point, I was fairly unimpressed with the worship service.  The atmosphere was a little streamlined, and the music (though well performed) didn’t seem to be creating the desired effect among the congregation.  Still, the people there were very friendly.  In fact, during the time to greet your neighbors, one couple even offered me a place to stay for the night, and had I not already made my reservations in Chicago, I would’ve gladly taken them up on it.  That’s some serious hospitality to welcome a stranger into your home at the drop of a hat (even if that stranger happens to be a doe-eyed young researcher like myself).  Still, 20 minutes in, there was something missing from the overall worship experience so far.

20 Liters

At this point in the service, Steve (a young, long-haired associate minister who couldn’t have been that far beyond his mid-20s) got up to deliver the announcements.  While promoting the Baptism Sunday next weekend and the upcoming Annual Covenant Meeting on June 5th, the bulk of Steve’s time was spent talking about the 20 Liters program, Mars Hill’s initiative to provide clean water to Rwanda and other areas of the world.  According to data available on the 20 Liters website, one in eight people do not have access to clean water, a child dies every twenty seconds from a water-related disease, and dirty water kills more people each year than all forms of violence (including war).  Even though I didn’t hear the Grandville neighborhood mentioned once during my time at Mars Hill this morning, the church is talking a lot about their global community.  On the church’s main website are links not only to the 20 Liters page, but also to information on international micro-credit operations, a mentoring program with a school in Grand Rapids, and a program designed to help refugees who have settled in Western Michigan.  With people coming from all around Grand Rapids to attend this church, I suppose it makes sense to have a focus beyond the local community, but I still wondered what the church’s relationship with Grandville itself was.  I never really heard it talked about.  Still, the church has reason to pat itself on the back for their work with 20 Liters.  Steve explained that, in their most recent “Walk for Water” fundraiser, 550 people walked for Mars Hill, carrying full 20-liter canisters of river water, and the church raised over $33,000 in the process.  It was definitely an impressive accomplishment, and churches elsewhere in the country are even getting on board and doing their own Walk for Water events.  After Steve delivered a prayer about being still, it was time for the main event: Rob’s sermon.

Sermon: 1 John 2:1-7 (Part of the Summer of Love Series)

Rob began by saying that he was excited to be back at Mars Hill this week, and then he showed a quick video that he had shot of the crowd in Germany to which he had been speaking on the previous Sunday, describing them as “brothers from other mothers and sisters from different misters.”  Rob was definitely warming up the crowd, but this felt a little more intimate than Joel Osteen’s weekly “I like to start each week with something a little funny” (which is endearing but comes off a bit formulaic by contrast to Rob).  Rob went on to explain that, while in Germany, he had an interpreter, and, as Rob put it, “Did you ever wonder if, maybe there was someone halfway across the world who looked just like you?  Like, at the factory where they assemble all the faces, they ran out of other nose-forehead-cheekbone-jaw combinations and just started doing repeats and dropping them in different time zones in the hopes that they would never meet?”  The picture of Rob’s interpreter appeared on the Death Cube, and it could have easily been Rob in a blond, spiky toupee.  This had the crowd in stitches.  Rob went on to tell a few funny little anecdotes about how everything the interpreter said seemed to be about three paragraphs longer than Rob’s original statement.  “Maybe the German language is just that complicated.  After all, the Germans gave us the BMW; they can do very complicated things.”  Again, there was much laughter.  Rob had our attention.  Time to sermonize.

The first of many Rob Bell publicity stills in this section.

I think that Mars Hill knows that its strength in worship lies in its preachers, because while they had devoted only twenty minutes to music and announcements, the sermon was given a full forty minutes, and I didn’t hear one complaint.  Hell, I never even checked my watch once, but that might have also been because I was taking notes furiously through much of it.  Rob went through 1 John 2:1-7 verse-by-verse, interspersing his commentary with humorous illustrations that never once surrendering the attention of the room, but at the same time, his unassuming demeanor never made this style feel flashy or over-the-top.  I will admit that I found myself a little envious of this balance, but I reassured myself, “He’s forty.  He’s been doing this for a while.  It’ll come with time.”  Rob’s Bible was positioned on a music stand on one corner of the stage, and it seemed that he had placed a few sparse notes beside it so that he could refer to them quickly whenever he revisited the passage, but other than this, it seemed as though he was speaking totally from memory.  He also used every inch of that stage.  In fact, he even used most of the area around the stage as well.  He moves around more than any other preacher I’ve ever seen, but he also managed to do this with purpose rather than just out of nervous energy.  The stage had been specially arranged ahead of time so that Rob could actually act out little sections of his illustrations rather than just pacing around emphatically.

“My dear children . . .”

Rob read that line emphatically and would read it again several times throughout the sermon to emphasize John’s pastoral tone in this epistle, alternatingly placing the emphasis on “dear” or on “children.”  Rob revisited the previous weeks’ sermons by Shane Hipps and highlighted that the verses building up to chapter 2 are in fact one long run-on sentence in the Greek.  Rob walked down the steps of the stage as he explained that this run-on sentence was something done for dramatic effect by the author.  Rob explained that, if you were eating dinner, and he suddenly burst into the room spewing a long run-on sentence (at which point he actually leaped back onto the stage and spewed just such a sentence), it would probably get your attention.  Again, this was an example of Rob not just providing an illustration, but acting it out as he did so and relying on comic understatement to highlight each point.  Staying highly animated throughout the sermon with his slightly jerky, marionette-like movements and his balance of fast-paced bursts of narration with heavy, intentional pauses, Rob seemed to be in total control of both his speech and physicality.

I had to break up the text somehow.

Of course, Rob also delighted in sharing the great inside joke of the Love Wins controversy with the congregation, and this happened several times throughout the course of the sermon.  Rob explained that, in 1 John, the author is responding to a set of controversies in the early church, at which point Rob quipped, “Yes, I know this will come as a shock, but there were apparently controversies in the early church too.”  The congregation laughed, picking up on the Love Wins subtext.  The guy knows his audience.

The Paraklete

There’s a recurring joke in divinity school about pastors who try to put Greek in their sermons, and at Duke, the assumption is that saying “Let’s look back at the Greek” is a great way to make a rural, Methodist congregation’s eyes glaze over.  You know what?   After my experience at Mars Hill seeing Rob Bell explain the concept of a paraklete to a room full of suburban Michiganders, I’ve decided that the no-Greek rule is intellectual snobbery, and I’m going to start pushing back against it whenever I get the chance.  Rob’s sermon showed me that it’s totally okay to draw on a knowledge of biblical Greek so long as you really make your points clear and provide very thorough explanations of why each word is important.  Just like with your selection of illustrations for a sermon, it’s all in the relevance and how you explain it.

Rob gave two possible interpretations of paraklete, which comes from the Greek kletos (to call) and para (beside), so the word means something along the lines of “to call to the side of.”  The first interpretation was of someone who walks along beside you as a comforter, and Rob asked for a volunteer.  A few hesitant hands went up including my own, but Rob decided to specify, “You know what?  Let’s get a single mom.  Is there a single mom I can borrow for a second?”  A woman raised her hand, and Rob came and got her out of the audience.  To demonstrate paraklete, Rob put his arm around her and walked her around the stage a few times assuring her that everything was going to be alright, that she was in a room full of people who cared about her and wanted to do everything in their power to ease her situation and help her through it.  After walking her back to her seat, Rob even commented, “And everyone please take note that there should be a flood of people offering to babysit after the service.”

The book unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons highlights, among other things, American churches’ chronic neglect of single mothers.  It’s not that they’re made to feel unwelcome or judged, but it’s just that America’s churches so often offer prayer without being willing to provide any financial or emotional support for these members of their community.  There’s a standoffishness in churches that Kinnaman and Lyons found in their research-- a sort of uncertainty about how best to address the issue that ultimately causes the churches not to react at all when they should be offering assistance.  Seeing Rob confront the issue head-on and demand support from his congregation was a very welcome sight to me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Rob had maybe brought a copy of unChristian along for his flights to and from Germany the previous week.  Back to the sermon though . . .

Jumping up to a high platform on the stage to illustrate the next scene, Rob explained that the second meaning of paraklete had a courtroom connotation, wherein the guilty party appeared before a righteous judge, and the paraklete’s job was to whisper in the judge’s ear, “No, it’s alright.  I know him.  I’ve paid his penalty.  It’s okay.”  Of course, Rob then explained further that, the beauty of the heavenly courtroom is that the judge is not harsh and condemnatory but merciful and kind.  In fact, that is a courtroom that is completely rigged in humanity’s favor because, as 1 John 2:2 tells us, “he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”  Rob paused for a beat and then said, “Yeah, discuss that one over lunch.”  I added another mark on my running “allusions to Love Wins” tally.

“. . . if we obey his commandments”

Rob explained that, while scholars hold differing opinions on the authorship of 1 John (whether the author is indeed the disciple or the gospel author or someone else entirely), 1 John is a natural outgrowth of the language and philosophy of the Gospel of John.  Rob cited three verses specifically in relation to “commandments” cited in 1 John 2:3:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)

“I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” (John 15:17)

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)

Strangely, when Rob read John 15:12, he kept reading on in the passage, and as I wrote in my entry for Day Nine, the next verse is one with which I have quite a lengthy history.  “Greater love has no one than this: that a man would lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)  It’s the verse Jeff Williamson used to cite to remind us that Christianity, at its core, is about love and not doctrine.  I stopped writing for a second as I had one of those little “What are you up to, Jesus?” moments.  I felt my heart becoming wax.  Twelve days ago, Erin told me that I remind her of Jonah sometimes and that this summer might just be when I finally wind up in the belly of a whale.  As I looked around Mars Hill’s dark, cavernous interior, I wondered if that’s exactly where I was, and I took a little journey into my head for a minute or two as I mulled over John 15:13 in this new context.  Looking back on that moment, I’ve realized something about the Mars Hill worship style: it’s very much focused on the individual.  While New Song and Summit had their elements of communal effervescence, this particular Mars Hill service was seeking to bring the congregation to personal, private moments of revelation.  That’s why I wasn’t seeing much outward expression of celebration; it was all internal.

teleos

I snapped back to reality as Rob was explaining the word “perfection” in 1 John 2:5.  The word is translated from the Greek teleos, which means complete, full, or mature and implies the reaching of a goal.  It was at this point that Rob finally pulled out the soccer ball and goal that had grabbed my attention earlier.  Rob explained that there’s an expression about athletes being “the complete player,” and this doesn’t mean that they are utterly flawless, but that they have mastered the fundamentals of the game and are continuing to grow.  Rob dribbled the ball a bit and then explained that he loves to play soccer.  He plays about once a week at least, and his focus is almost exclusively on kicking goals.  Rob admitted that he is also a terrible defender and that he rationalizes this by arguing that his 6’3” height makes other players faster.  Of course, Rob also admitted that, he tries to use his long legs to his advantage by sticking his feet out to block whenever someone tries to pass him.  Standing in front of the goal, Rob demonstrated his technique, explaining how he would stick out his right leg to block and then his left and then . . . Rob paused as he looked down at the gaping space between his spread legs through which the goal was plainly visible.  The congregation laughed.

“To shoot a ball between someone’s legs in soccer is called a ‘nutmeg,’ a term of questionable etymology, and it is easily the most humiliating thing you can do to a person, and it happens to me all the time.  Even my friends, people who I like, will still nutmeg me.  In fact, I’m famous for being easily nutmegged.  This one time, I was walking onto the field with this Brazilian guy, and he turned to me and said, ‘Hey Rob, if I nutmeg you today, can I have a free book?’  I thought this was all in my head, but the word is clearly out, and there will be no free books.  Needless to say, I have not yet reached teleos in soccer.”

It was a long, strange example, but I guarantee that everyone walked out of that room with a complete understanding of the word teleos.  Just to bring it home, Rob also mentioned watching Lebron James play, and even though Lebron might be able to do amazing things on the basketball court, he still wakes up every morning and goes to practice.  That’s teleos-- having reached maturity in something but still having room to grow.  It is an arrival, but also a journey.  (It’s also straight-up Thomas Aquinas.  Thanks for teaching me that, Dr. Hütter.)

Orthodoxy/Orthopraxy

As we continued to move through the passage, Rob reached one of the points about which I was most curious.  1 John 2:4-6 reads,

Whoever says, "I have come to know him," but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, "I abide in him," ought to walk just as he walked.

Rob explained that, to John, believing and loving are totally inseparable.  Rob took a moment to define orthodoxy (correct beliefs) and orthopraxy (correct practices), and he highlighted the artificial divide between the two in the modern church.  “How many of you have heard of a church defending orthodoxy?”  A few hands went up.  “How many of you have maybe heard of someone getting in trouble over orthodoxy?”  Quite a few hands went up amid laughter, and I put another tally in my Love Wins allusion counter.  “How many of you have ever heard of a church defending orthopraxy or even mentioning orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the same sentence?”  No hands.  “How many of you have ever heard of a pastor getting fired because she or he didn’t follow orthopraxy?  How many of you have ever heard of a pastor getting fired because she or he didn’t love their neighbors enough?  How many of you have ever heard of a church deciding that defending sound love is just as important as defending sound doctrine?”  No hands.  Were we in a more talkback-friendly atmosphere, I would have replied with a stern “my my my.”  He had a great point, and I couldn’t help but think about how my first three semesters of divinity school had been so much about instilling a sense of orthodoxy, but more on that some other time.  To sum up Rob’s point, orthodoxy and orthopraxy are two sides of the same coin.  You cannot have right practice without right doctrine, and you cannot have right doctrine without right practice.  Faith doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  Either it is a part of your daily life, or it doesn’t really exist at all.  Belief and love are eternally interwoven.  As the epistle says, to claim God and not love is to lie.  (CONTINUED IN PART 2)