Chapter 5: Going to Practice

RW: Back to your Monday night community—it still just sounds like a glorified small group.
AT: OK, here are two things that I think really set it apart from your normal ‘evangelical’ church small group in Orange County, or most anywhere in North America. First, it is how we define what church is. In the days and years following the death and resurrection of Jesus, communities that committed to Jesus’ nonviolent way began to call themselves ekklesia. This was a political concept, like an assembly or a parliament or a town hall meeting. It was the place where they worked out, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, how to be faithful to what God was doing in and around their community. In those early years, most of these folks were Jews who believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the King of Israel that would restore them to faithfulness—most Christian communities were simply made up of ‘Jews for Jesus.’ Then, some Gentiles began receiving this message about what God had done in Jesus and got an open invitation to participate with Jews in these communities. This was a socio-political miracle: Jews and Gentiles worshipping the one Creator and Redeemer God under the same roof! This is what Yoder called ‘the original revolution.’ So, first of all, church is a political body that pledges allegiance to God’s Kingdom. It is what Paul calls a ‘new creation’ in II Corinthians and Galatians, even though most Christians interpret that phrase individually.

The second key difference is what our community is committed to. Most churches have websites with doctrinal statements and key beliefs. These beliefs about biblical authority, Jesus’ identity, eternal salvation and views on other religions are, indeed, important to address and dialogue. However, in our community, we put the priority on practices. There are five practices that we are whole-heartedly committed to within and without our community: (1) a one-on-one commitment to conflict resolution and consciousness raising to deal with sin and error; (2) the open floor during our times together—anyone and everyone gets to share and question; (3) the multiplicity of gifts used—everyone has a role to play. And then the last two are two classic Christian sacraments with a twist: (4) our communion or Eucharist is an emphasis on sharing our food and resources with each other and those in need outside of the community; and (5) our baptism isn’t simply a one time event, but a commitment to interethnic solidarity, the new humanity in Christ, just like it was in those first Jew + Gentile communities—but in Lawrence, Kansas we have African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, refugees from the Middle East and Africa, all living in the same city and many of them are brothers and sisters in Christ, baptized into a new identity. These practices, we believe, are uniquely ‘Christian,’ and they constitute our worship, but also our evangelism since they are naturally practices that our non-believing neighbors are longing for and can actually participate with us quite organically. Another way of putting it is, in our time together on Mondays or any day of the week, our community is practicing what it means to be distinctly Christian. The more we practice these things together, the more these naturally overflow, in the power of the Spirit, in our workplaces, in the grocery store, in our eating and leisure times and everything else that constitutes ‘real life.’ It’s just like in prime-time college and pro sports: you’ve got to practice in order to win. Our Mondays are committed to practicing so that we can play aggressively—yet nonviolently, of course—for God’s Kingdom…and win.
RW: These all sound like great ideas, but I’m a bit skeptical of this overemphasis on ‘being relevant.’ Aren’t we just catering to what is chic or popular in our culture?
AT: It is impressive how ahead of his time Yoder was. I mean, he was publishing these ideas 20 years ago. But let me follow up with two notes. First of all, these practices are straight out of the New Testament: for instance, Matthew 18 is one of the hardest passages to follow in our gossip-saturated culture and I Corinthians 11 clearly calls the little ekklesia in Corinth to allow all members, men and women, to have the floor during their times together. Second, Yoder complemented these five practices with what I shared with you before—the three scandal factors: service, forgiveness and enemy love. These, by no means, are relevant concepts, if what you mean by that is that it is catering to culture in order to define Christian faith. Instead, these notions are rooted in the identity and mission of the scandalous messiah and his people. They are hard work and they cut against the grain of dominating leadership and vengeful solutions that our culture continues to be obsessed with. This vision calls Christian communities to more radical living, requiring blood, sweat and tears. At the same time, a community who models this way-of-life, consistently and practically, will produce an intriguing and mostly magnetic response from the neighbors. That’s what relevance should consist of in the Body of Christ today.