James William McClendon tells a very convicting story in his Systematic Theology text, the first volume which is about ethics. It is the story of a conversation between Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Community in Americus, GA (where Jake Warren lived and worked) and his brother, Robert Jordan, who would become a state senator and eventually sat on the state’s Supreme Court. However, before all of his fame and success his brother Clarence asked him to be the community’s legal representative.
The community needed legal help because after they were excommunicated by the Southern Baptist Convention for “persisting in holding services where both white and colored attend together” there came a time of huge persecution: vandalism, cross-burnings, beatings, bombings, boycotts, and sniper shootings. They needed help and Clarence asked his brother to be that help.
“Clarence, I can’t do that. You know my political aspirations. Why, if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I’ve got.”
“We might lose everything too, Bob.”
“It’s different for you.”
“Why is it different? I remember; it seems to me, that you and I jointed the church the same Sunday as boys. I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me about the same question he did you. He asked me, ‘Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ What did you say?
“I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point.”
“Could that point by any chance be – the cross?”
“That’s right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified.”
“Then I don’t believe you’re a disciple. You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you’re an admirer not a disciple.”
“Well now, if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn’t have a church, would we?”
“The question,” Clarence said, “is do you have a church?”
(excerpted from Dissident Discipleship by Augsburger)
I find this conversation very convicting and enlightening to my soul. It is a question (Do you have a church?) that I ask myself all the time, and one that I hope will explain my position on the place and importance of community development in the vision of the church.
It was clear on Sunday night that we have tensions and concerns about the place and importance of community development. Some are more focused on its essential essence to the church, others not so much. Here is how I think about it.
The gospel is holistic in that it makes claims and demands on a person’s (and the Church’s) whole life. It is not only individual (a personal gospel) but it effects all of life (has social impacts) and requires believers to take the whole teachings that Jesus taught out into the world to reveal his glory to the “world” (especially to the people and places he plants his church). In this understanding the category “community development” is not an optional choice within the life of the church but the very situation and circumstances in which that life is lived out and defined.
The danger of defining it as an optional part is that it lets people think they don’t have to “do it.” It opens the door to the false idea that they can select something else from the disciple’s menu more to their liking.
On the other hand, there is a danger that disciples can fool themselves into thinking that the social dimensions of the gospel are what matter most. This false dichotomy cuts the work off from the full life of the church that Jesus taught. Instead of relationships, sharing and living the gospel together, baptism, faith, discipleship, etc. we get programs and tasks.
The category of activities we call “community development” is not the gospel. However, you cannot have a biblical version of “the gospel” without the focus, activities, fear & faith that “community development” draws the church into. This is especially true of the full-orbed “asset-based community development” taught by the CCDA and to which we adhere.
I fully agree with Bill Field’s summary on Sunday night about the calling, purpose, and function of the church as being greater than the category “community development.” However, I also see it as more than just a description of activity, but is a lens and focal point to keep the church from a selfish, self-absorbed, me-directed, false gospel. While not a biblical word “community development” is a biblical concept and central to a life of faith as described everywhere in scripture.
I think that discipleship or “equipping” is a more biblical word and description. However, in our individualized, me-first thinking the Bible’s idea of equipping is totally mutilated without the focus that community development gives to the church’s purpose and mission. At the same time, there are so many places to express his life and love within a church on mission (international missions, teaching children, helping with finances, developing leaders, etc).
Does this make sense?
So what does this mean to the individual at OTC? It means that the Lord has graciously given us a way to obedience. It is an obedience that doesn’t take us to the cross, but onto the cross. None of us volunteers for the cross – this is why Jesus is essential. Yet, even when we say “yes” to focusing our lives and following Jesus (using the category of community development as a touch-stone); we still fail, get fearful, confront sin, find victory, etc. In other words, we mature. And maturing is not an option for a disciple, it is the definition of discipleship.
At the same time, no one at OTC will “volunteer you” for community development. I will never compell anyone to an obedience that is only an act of love when it is freely given to God in response to him. While no one will be volunteerd, I will not stop talking about it or holding up the importance of taking Christ’s love into the world.
In a culture of privilege, privatized faith; dueling demands and huge competition for our time, attention, and energy; we desperately need community development as guide and helper to stay on the narrow path Jesus calls us to. It will offend and terrify us. That is part of the point. It will also bring freedom, joy, faith, and glory to God because he is the only one than can truly bring it about.
It is in this context that all that the Bible calls us to has significance – marriage, parenting, loving, growing, preaching, repenting, confession, baptizing, communion, prayer, worship, Sunday service, calling, Bible study, right doctrine, confronting false teaching, sharing the gospel, being a church of the nations, freedom from sin, church discipline, forgiveness, hospitality, generosity, risk taking…
In the context of going into the world as Jesus commanded to do the things that he commanded we grow into following the Jesus of scripture vs. the Jesus of America. Let me end with a quote by Augsberger:
“One can be familiar with the Jesus story, be an admirer of Jesus as a uniquely self-aware yet selfless person, know a great deal about the historical Jesus, be taught helpful perspectives on who Jesus is from the practice of a religious faith, and love Jesus in an experience of personal piety, yet fail to enter the encounter of discipleship in which one recognizes Jesus not as the popular; the mythical, the devotional, or the civilly religionist, but as the one who said “come and die.” Only when one encounters Jesus as Jesus will one feel the rush of surprise. “You’re not Jesus Christ. You’re JESUS THE CHRIST!”
(Dissident Discipleship, p.24-25)
