So an issue that has come up several times in recent discussions is whether God calls us to be faithful or to be successful. This is an important issue in various missions paradigms. Central to the church growth school is that Christ said not “Go try your hardest to make disciples and I’ll be okay with that” but “Go make disciples.” He expects us to actually get results. Therefore, the advocates of the church growth approach spend enormous amounts of efforts researching, analyzing, and evaluating methods in order to be the most effective. On the other side of the issue are many evangelicals, especially of the Calvinistic stripe, who stress that all mission success depends on God – we are simply privileged to be tagging along. Since God judges the heart, all that He cares is that we are faithful, that we try our hardest.

So where do you land? Are we shooting for faithfulness or success? More importantly, where does God land?

Okay, I can’t claim to speak for God. He’s fully able to speak for himself. On the other hand, he has spoken in Scripture. I think particularly of the OT prophets. They seem to be the epitome of the faithful and ultimately unsuccessful ministers. How did God feel about them? Well, actually, it was his idea in the first place. Consider his call to Isaiah:

God: Who will go for us?

Isaiah: Here I am, send me.

God: Okay, go preach. Preach and expose the stubbornness of these people.

(Isaiah thinks, “Uh, I’m not sure this is what I signed up for…)

Isaiah: How long, Lord?

God: Until cities lie devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate.

And that is what Isaiah did. He preached faithfully for years and years, and just as God had foretold, the people didn’t listen. Success, in any tangible sense, was not even in the picture. Jeremiah, similarly, became excessively bitter because of the lack of “success,” and he let God know about it. But he too remained faithful. The prophets spent their lives trying to fulfill their commission. Success was not the measure of God’s pleasure with them. Perhaps it’s not with us either.

On the web again

So it's been a while. I know. I might think about posting again soon... maybe. Meanwhile, I've just started trying out Facebook.

A blogging wife

Mm hmm, Katie's loose in the blogo-sphere. There's no telling what she'll write about, but if the current entry is any indication, we all might learn a little about the fuzzy sides of life. I'm enjoying getting to teach her about new things, and she's excited about trying out this new toy. So stop on by and say hi at http://www.angolateam.org/reese/katie.

My Modern Medieval Monster

Here's a thought prompted by history class today. During medieval times, three orders of society crystallized. There were:

1. Those who fight (knights, nobles, lords)
2. Those who work (serfs, peasants)
3. Those who pray (monks, priests, clerics)

These orders of society were indications of professionalization. In other words, those who fought were the only ones who fought; they fought on behalf of the whole society. Similarly, the serfs did the manual labor for the whole community. More interestingly to me, the clerics did all the praying for the society. In general, others (whether lords or peasants) didn't do their own praying. When they felt the need for God's intervention, they asked the priest to pray for them.

That's all very interesting, but what does that have to do with us? We don't continue the same "professionalization of prayer." As good ol' Protestants, we each pray individually. But with a little further reflection, it seems like we continue the same tradition with a twist: we have a very definite "professionalization of theology." Our "clerics" do the thinking for the whole community. When others (whether lords or peasants) have questions about God, they don't often dig through those questions themselves. Rather, they ask the preacher (who in turn asks the commentaries).

Am I wrong? I'm sure most of us want to react against this criticism. And obviously I'm over-generalizing. There are many dedicated Christians who spend much time contemplating on the things of God. But I think what I'm saying is still an accurate broad picture of our church. And what are we going to do about it? I'm a poor one to bring up this subject - my training is making me a professional thinker! It's like trying to reverse the negative effects of monasticism by becoming a monk.

So I'll leave this to you who still have a chance...

Angola's new housing development

We spent a month this summer in Angola (which for those of you who are geographically semi-literate is a country in southwest Africa; for those of you who are geographically illiterate, it's not in America). It was incredible on numerous levels. I thought I might share a few pics that illustrate the state the country is in. We'll start with Angola's new housing development - which isn't quite what you'd expect:



The big concrete thing isn't a new development. It's been there a while, and like many other buildings in the city of Kuito it got bombed out during the 18 month siege of the city several years ago. The caving in roof doesn't seem to bother the market sellers out front - it hasn't yet fallen all the way down, so why should it today? What's more amazing is the housing inside the ruins. That's right. Look carefully and you'll see mud block walls inside the concrete building. Those are people's houses. They moved in, built houses, and stuck around. They live there. They sleep there. Every day. Like this family:



I took that picture inside the collapsing building. This is just one of perhaps 30 families that laugh in the face of impending burial under tons of concrete. There is even a store inside this little development. It's quite a burgeoning community. They were all quite surprised to see two white guys inside it, though. Who knows, we may have been some of the first white people to enter the premises since its half-destruction. If you live in a place like this, you don't have to worry too much about unwanted visitors.

Back in the saddle

I'm not sure which saddle we're talking about, but I'm back anyway. This summer has been an incredible whirlwind of Angola, wedding, and class mumbled together, and now the fall semester has caught me not quite prepared. So I'm working my tail off. Actually, I'm taking a break to post on a long-forgotten blog. If I can manage it, I'll post a few tidbits of our trip to Angola during the next several weeks.

I've also started editing Wikipedia in my not-so-free time. It's fun, even if certain critics think it's a waste of brain power, or perhaps lack thereof. You might enjoy it too.