The Surprising God

For other posts in this series on the book  Life Together , click a number: 1 , 3 ,  4 ,  5 ,   6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 . Last time in this series exploring  Life Together, we noted that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote during a time when the German Lutheran Confessing Church had to go underground in order to survive. Such times remind us of just how precious the Christian fellowship is that we, in easier times, tend to take for granted. Bonhoeffer comments: It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us... It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren (p20). The value of the church, is that it is "community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ... A Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ... A Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ" (p21). In Christian community, we come toget...

For other posts in this series  on the book  Life Together ,  click a number: 2 , 3 , 4 ,  5 ,   6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 . As members of the body of Christ (the church) we have a particular communion with Christ and one another that Dietrich Bonhoeffer helpfully explored in two books: His doctoral thesis  Sanctorum Communio ,  in which he engaged with social philosophy and sociology in interpreting the church as “Christ existing as church-community.” Karl Barth referred to this work, which Bonhoeffer completed at age 21, as "More instructive and stimulating and illuminating and genuinely edifying reading today than many of the more famous works which have since been written on the problem of the church."  His book  Life Together ,  in which he wrote about Christian community in light of the common life he and his students experienced in the underground seminary at Finkenwalde, Germany.   This post begins a se...

If you have about two hours, your time will be well spent watching this lecture from Dr. Gary Deddo (pictured at right) entitled "The Holy Spirit in the Trinity." Gary's lecture was given at a meeting of Grace Communion International mission developers, other denominational leaders and church pastors. Note: Dr. Deddo has turned this lecture into an essay that is published serially on the  GCI Weekly Update blog. For part 1 in that series, click here .

The Relational Pastor, part 15 (conclusion) For other posts in this series, click a number:  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 ,  10 ,  11 ,  12 ,  13 , 14 . This post concludes our exploration of Andrew Root's book,  The Relational Pastor: Sharing in Christ by sharing ourselves . Last time we looked at our part in the ongoing place sharing ministry of Jesus, the ultimate place sharer. Because of who Jesus is (God and man in one person through the incarnation and hypostatic union) he is, in his own person, in relationship with us -- a union so deep that he can refer to his people (the church ) as his own body (the body of Christ). We see this in Acts 9 where Jesus confronts Saul (later renamed Paul) on the road to Damascus, accusing Saul of persecuting him  when, in actuality, Paul was persecuting Jesus' followers. Root comments: To persecute [the] church is to persecute Jesus himself. Ther...

The Relational Pastor, part 14 For other posts in this series, click on a number:  1 , 2 ,  8 ,  9 ,  10 ,  11 ,  12 , 13 , 15 . Last time in our exploration of  The Relational Pastor , we looked at Andrew Root's definition of salvation as a relationship with God in union with Jesus the "place sharer." This time Root unpacks the concept of place sharing as it applies to Jesus, to his followers as they place share with Jesus and to pastors who are called to be "curators" of spaces and places that facilitate place sharing. Jesus as place sharer As Root states, "place sharing is the very state of Jesus' being" (p161). As the ultimate place sharer, Jesus shares the "place" (life) of every human. Root borrows this idea from Dietrich Bonhoeffer who spoke of Jesus as fundamentally a Stellvertreter and the state of Jesus' being as Stellvertretung  (p161). Making reference to the thought of both Bonhoeffer and T.F. Torrance, Root el...

The Relational Pastor, part 13 For other posts in this series, click on a number:  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 ,  10 ,  11 ,  12 , 14 ,  15 . Last time in this series in Andrew Root's book,  The Relational Pastor , we saw that Christian ministry is fundamentally about joining Jesus in sharing the lives of other persons. "But," some might object, "isn't our job as pastors to get people saved?" Root answers by pointing out that rather than a  transaction (based on a forensic model of the atonement), salvation should be understood as an enduring relationship with God, for "in union with God we are saved" (p148). This Trinitarian incarnational, relational view of salvation holds Christology and soteriology (the theology of salvation) closely together. It acknowledges that Jesus, in his divine-human person, is our salvation. Jesus is the atonement. Thus our calling as Christian minis...

We take a short break here in our ongoing series on The Relational Pastor to consider a different, though certainly related topic. Given that all are included in Christ through his incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, how are we to understand what happens when a person turns to God in faith (the moment often referred to as "regeneration" or being "born again")? And what about evangelism: How are we to present the gospel in a truly Christ-centered way, including inviting a person to a response of faith? Thomas F. Torrance Regeneration  As with evangelism (see below), the key to a thoroughly biblical, Christ-centered understanding of regeneration is to focus one's attention first not on personal (subjective) experience, but on the objective (albeit mysterious) reality of Jesus Christ as the permanent union of God and humanity in one divine-human person. This key is helpfully addressed by Thomas F. Torrance in his book  The Med...

The Relational Pastor, part 12 For other posts in this series, click on a number:  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 13 ,  14 ,  15 . Last time in this series exploring Andrew Root's book,  The Relational Pastor , we looked at the stunning truth that Jesus, by virtue of the hypostatic union,  is God and man united inseparably in one person. Now Root considers the implications, noting that because ministry is about participation with Jesus in his ministry, truly Christian ministry is both  personal and spiritual . Ministry is personal Root asserts that "personhood" is the "location" where "God most fully reveals Godself" (p139). The point of this assertion is not to suggest that God is limited to a location (he is omnipresent), but that, because of the Incarnation (John 1:14), God is encountered most fully in Jesus--the Son of God who became (and remains) human person so that we might know...

The Relational Pastor, part 11 For other posts in this series, click on a number:  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 , 9 , 10 , 12 ,  13 ,  14 ,  15 . Last time in this series exploring The Relational Pastor , we looked at how Andrew Root exhorts us to move beyond ministry models to flexible, responsive sharing in the actual continuing ministry of Jesus. Now Root unpacks the nature of that sharing by examining the nature of Jesus himself, understanding that as ministers we are called... ...to encounter Jesus as the incarnate person Jesus is, to share in God's life by sharing in Jesus' person. And I think what the incarnation does is give me the gift of sharing in God's life by sharing in the personhood of others. I think that the incarnation, the revealing of God's person in Jesus, makes personhood the very structure within which we encounter God. So to claim the incarnation for ministry is to claim that we share in God's ...

The Relational Pastor, part 10 For other posts in this series, click on a number:  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 , 9 , 11 ,  12 ,  13 ,  14 ,  15 . This is the tenth post in a series that explores Andrew Root's book, The Relational Pastor . Last time we looked at moving beyond ministry models to sharing in the reality of Jesus' continuing personal ministry. This time we'll note how Root views this sharing as a gift from God: Ministry is the gift given to us by God to share in God's life, to participate in God's action as we share in the person of others. Ministry is the gift of being a person, to dwell in doubt, fear and need, inviting others to indwell us as we indwell them. Ministry is God's gift to us, the gift of leading others in sharing in the life of God (p125).  It's easy to lose sight of the reality by getting caught up in the "stuff" of ministry. And so we need the "40,000-foot overview" that ...

The Relational Pastor, part 9 For other posts in this series, click on a number:  1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ,  15 . This post, the ninth in a series exploring  The Relational Pastor , looks at Andrew Root's concerns about ministry models in general, and one known as "incarnational ministry" in particular. Those who advocate incarnational ministry speak of "incarnating ourselves into people's lives," and "being Jesus with skin on." Though these concepts are admirable in many ways, they reflect (likely unwittingly) a common, though flawed concept that the incarnation was a  temporary  strategy--a means  God used toward a particular end , namely, our salvation. But the incarnation was no mere strategy and certainly was not temporary. The reality is that the Son of God permanently added our humanity to his divinity, becoming Immanuel (God with us, Matt 1:23) forever. The personal union thus forged between God ...

The Relational Pastor, part 8 For other posts in this series, click on a number: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 9 , 10 , 11 ,  12 , 13 , 14 ,  15 . In part 7  of this series exploring  The Relational Pastor   by Andrew Root, we noted that Jesus' place sharing ministry is the outworking of his indwelling of humanity. This incarnational ministry of Jesus then points to our own, for we are called as Christians to participate with Jesus in his ongoing place sharing ministry. Our participation is fundamentally relational, because the triune God, who is relational, has created us in his relational image. As Root likes to say, "We are our relationships." It follows that relationship is the principal "location" where Jesus' ministry and thus ours occurs. This being so, a key characteristic of effective pastors is the personal quality that we refer to as  empathy. Here is Root's definition: [Empathy is] the experience of feeling (often involuntaril...

The Relational Pastor, part 7 For other posts in this series, click on a number: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ,  12 , 13 , 14 ,  15 . In part 6 of this series exploring The Relational Pastor , we concluded with Andrew Root's observation that ministry finds its "lifeblood" in the reality of personhood. Ministry is life-giving when it is authentic participation in the place sharing ministry of Jesus, who as our High Priest, is relating to human persons as we truly are: beings-in-relationship . Jesus' indwelling, place sharing ministry is powerfully illustrated by  Ron DiCianni in this evocative painting entitled  The Leper. Root expands on this important concept by noting that place sharing is the outworking of indwelling . In explaining what this means, he asks a rhetorical question: "How could there possibly be something called ministry that violates or ignores the dynamic spiritual mystery of personal indwelling?" In answering, Root...