I think to some extent that may be true- especially for those of us who tend towards the co-dependant. Being driven more by who we feel others want us to be. 

But I think it might be more precise to say we often become people we didn't intend to be. And we do so by living reactively- taking each day as it comes, dealing with the facts (and fires) on the ground, avoiding the 50,000 foot view altogether. 

And the 50,000 ft view is a picture of who we want to be down the road. 

This week I was reading Letters To A Skeptic by Greg Boyd. In it, he talks about a woman he knows who had been a bright, vibrant and happy person early in her life. All that changed when her sister ran off with her fiance. Or maybe I should say, all that began to change with how she reacted to that event, and how she chose to continue to react- nurturing bitterness and unforgiveness- until at the end of her life she was regarded as a difficult, bitter and angry old woman. 

As I thought about that story and overlaid my own life on top of it, I realized a piece of something I had let creep in to my emotions and come out in certain actions just wasn't congruent with the person of peace I hoped to be in old age. That realization alone was enough to get me off my chair and into making a concrete change.

In other words, I realize it's not just that we make choices- it's that our choices are very literally making us. And unless those choices are guided by a picture, a blueprint of who we want to be, we'll end up becoming someone purely by accident- shaped more by our circumstances and reactions to those circumstances than by any values or vision we might have. 

So here's the question: Who do you want to be? And what are you doing to become that? What are you doing that is at odds with that, that is taking you in another direction. 

And more importantly, what are you going to do about it? 

And that's just the first page. 

Despite the stated purpose of Sim Church being to counter the "fluff pieces- pretty pictures, nice ideas but little substance" that the author identifies as so far making up the discussion on virtual church, I can't help but feel like, based on the first few pages, that's exactly what I'm I'm in for. 

Let's lay aside (for the moment) theological considerations of just what it is that breaks down barriers, unites people and builds the kingdom (hint: it's called the Gospel!), I think this book already suffers from the main problem of most books looking at issues of virtual church, video venues, etc, that is, begging the question. Assuming that "God is in this" and it only remains to work out the details. It IS church (the refrain throughout the opening chapter is "Today a new community of the people of God has begun"), now we just have to figure out what kind of church. 

And I say, hold on. It's not that simple. 

"Church" is defined by certain markers, the presence of certain elements, without which it may still be helpful, still be worthwhile, and yet not rise past the level of para-church. AA does a lot of good things, builds community, meets needs- but it's not Church. The Masons do most of the things Church does. Service? Check. Ritual? Check. Gathering together? Check. Funny hats? Double check.

But it's not Church. 

I'll get more in depth into what is and what isn't Church as I interact with future chapters (particularly chpt 2 where the author, very briefly, takes up the most critical question: What is Church and does Virtual Church qualify) , but I wanted to do two things by way of intro- push back against the initial first-line-of-the-first-paragraph assumption of this book that Virtual Church is Church and say- that's the very question you need actually to wrestle with, not tip your hat to and move on. 

And second, to point out this. The author makes this statement in closing chapter 1: "The Christian church is engaging far less than 1 percent of the seventy million people who are active in the virtual world. This means the virtual world is by far the largest unreached people group on Planet Earth... We have great work to do."

The obvious flaw in that reasoning is this: the (mistaken) assumption that these people are "unreached" in real life. They may have no credible Gospel witness in their lives, and virtual efforts at evangelism may be worth pursuing. But... it is seriously doubtful that, in missiological terms (and that's exactly what "unreached people group" is)  these folks are online and logging in to Second Life and are "unreached." This feels like a calculated attempt to draw parallels between virtual environments and real ones and play off our emotions regarding unreached people groups who have never had even an opportunity to respond to the Gospel and to bring a sheen of missionary respectability to efforts at building virtual churches. And again, that begs the question. Not an auspicious beginning. 

If you are new to this discussion you can catch up by reading my article There Is No Virtual Ecclesia here (part 1 part 2, Doug Estes' response here, and my response to his response here

Brick-and-Mortar Pastor Defends Virtual Church as Real

By Lillian Kwon|Christian Post Reporter

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The Christian church is engaging far less than 1 percent of the 70 million people who are active in the virtual world. This means the virtual world is by far the largest unreached people group on planet Earth, says one pastor.

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Douglas Estes, a pastor from San Jose, Calif., has no vested interest in virtual or internet churches – a relatively new phenomenon – but given the large "unreached" population on the internet, he says he has a desire to see healthy churches proliferate "regardless of context."

Although he leads a brick and mortar church (Berryessa Valley Church), Estes defends virtual churches against critics in his newly released book, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World, maintaining that they are real churches with real people.

He summed up his argument in a recent post on Christianity Today's Out of Ur blog: "People are led to believe that members of online churches all connect to their video-game church as anonymous zombies in a Tron-like world. Supposedly these virtual (fake) Christians never really know each other, it’s all a facade, and that this is the sum and total of a virtual church.

"The real truth is that every virtual church I’ve ever attended has flesh-and-blood people in virtual (real!) community with other flesh-and-blood people whose primary meeting place is in synthetic space."

In recent years, Christians have begun to take on the internet by building church communities in virtual worlds like Second Life and The Sims and launching internet campuses where anyone from around the world can join weekend worship services live on the Web. The growth of virtual worshipping communities, however, has sparked debates on whether such churches are effective and biblical.

A major argument against internet churches is that they lack physical contact, Estes pointed out. But that same argument could be made against megachurches and any other church, for that matter, where people never really touch or come to know each other, he argued.

Virtual churches, critics say, also don't have real community.

Estes, however, pushed back by pointing out that church isn't about where it meets. "Isn't church supposed to be about people in communion with God rather than the building? ... Since when does the location of a church determine the quality of its community?"

"Virtual churches may meet for services in the virtual world, but they are not the one-dimensional illusion that critics like to easily prop up so as to knock down for their friends to applaud," he maintained. "And here’s the irony: Even as virtual churches seek to create community in both virtual and physical space, so too do their critics use virtual space when it is convenient for them in their brick and mortar ministries."

Bob Hyatt, pastor of the Evergreen Community in Portland, Ore., didn't buy Estes' argument.

He stressed, "It’s not where we meet, but that we meet," according to his post on Out of Ur.

"And whether people are actually meeting together – that is, whether you and me watching the same video stream, silently reading the comments in the chat room as we sip our individual portions of grape juice and eat crackers, rises to the level of 'ecclesia' and the picture of Acts 2:42 – has yet to be determined.

"In other words, I have yet to be convinced that simultaneity equals community," Hyatt stated.

Read the rest here

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Last week, Doug Estes, the writer of a new book called Sim Church posted on Out of Ur what was essentially a response to my thoughts in previous Ur articles regarding the idea of Virtual Church. He wanted to avoid responding to me by name, but there were too many pointed comments to avoid the conclusion. 

You can check in out here: "In Defense of Virtual Church."

I wrote and sent a response that was pretty quickly made superfluous by the (now) 87 (and counting!) comments on the original post. 

I reproduce some of it here. I hope you'll read it (and the original article that inspired it) and come back here to answer this question: What do you think of this debate? 

It's my contention it's an important one to have (in fact, I think I need to write a post on why!)- but I'd like to know what you all think. 

Here's my response to Mr. Estes:

October 27, 2009

Virtual Church is STILL a Bad Idea

Online churches are missing a few essential ingredients.

by Bob Hyatt

**Editor's Note: I apologize for the lack of posts in recent days. We've been experiencing some technical difficulties. -Url Scaramanga**

I was disappointed to read Douglas Estes’ piece last week on Ur, for a number of reasons, but chief among them is this: it fails to deal substantively with a single serious critique that has been raised regarding virtual church. In fact, Mr. Estes not only fails to address the critique, but he seems to fail even to understand it.

So in a spirit of Christian love and good dialogue, let me respond point by point!

First, Mr. Estes asserts that critique of virtual church can be boiled down to “Internet campuses and online churches are not true churches because they don’t look like and feel like churches are expected to look like and feel like (in the West, anyway).”

Respectfully, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, my concern about internet church is that it’s too much like what we expect (and want) church to look and feel like (at least in the West).

Video venues and internet church are the logical next step to the celebrity and consumer culture of America, and they represent a threat to both the overall maturity of the Body of Christ and our counter-cultural mandate. Celebrity elevation of pastors who have begun to franchise themselves and their “brand” around the nation should concern us for a number of reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere—they draw down people and resources from other church communities and they are unable to do mission-critical activities.

I’d say those are pretty substantial concerns.

Second, this article repeats what I see as the major scriptural argument in favor of virtual church—“Nowhere in the Bible does it preclude online church.” The argument from silence, as we all remember from high school debate class, is the weakest. And in this case, I believe the Bible isn’t silent. Let me ask very plainly...

READ THE REST AT OUT OF UR 

Time to start writing again. By a sheer ACT OF MY WILL... 

:)

(pt 1, 2, 3, 4)

So, if you've stuck with the series, you know the answer is "yes."

AND husbands need to submit to their wives.

The whole thing is rooted in three things-

First, the brokenness of this world, which leads to a lot of pain, but specifically in marriage leads women to want to rule their husbands and husbands to want to dominate their wives (Gen 3:16).

But (secondly) the Gospel breaks down walls, begins to reverse the effects of the curse, calls us to participate in that reversal, and serves as a great leveler of rich and poor, slave and free, and male and female.

And specifically (and thirdly), it calls us to resist the urge to dominate one another by means of mutual submission. 

Yes, Paul says- you Wives still need to submit to your husbands- but not out of duty to the Hellenistic ideas of male superiority, not out of social convention and the pater familias family structure, but out of reverence for Christ and a desire to witness to a watching world that your husband may own you (in ancient culture), but it's JESUS who is your Lord.

And Husbands (even more radically in Paul's day, and apparently in ours as well) you need to submit to your wives.

In Eph 4:21, Paul commands us to submit to one another. This is SPECIFICALLY tied to the marriage verses which follow. How? In the Greek, the whole thing is one sentence with just one verb- Submit to each other- wives in this way, husbands in this way. "Submission" and "laying down your life" are really two ways of saying the same thing.

So why only tell the men they need to lay down their lives?

Maybe because most women already GET that submission means laying down your life- Paul doesn't have to tell them that. Most women do it almost daily in marriage and mothering.

But he reminds the women that are tempted to forget that and he needs to tell the men,Your submission to your wife looks practically like this: laying down your life. Those who believe that marriage is meant to represent Jesus and the Church (it is), but take that to mean that submission moves only in one direction misread (I believe) what Paul is saying here and miss the very example of Jesus in becoming a servant Himself- both in death and practically, as an example to His disciples in washing their feet. 

Submission runs both ways- and we see this in Paul's explicit command (Eph 4:21), by the working of the Gospel and by Jesus' example...

Paul's overall contextual desire (at least in the Colossians passage most of this has flowed out of) is this: "And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father."  His main concern is that we represent Jesus well- that our relationships, be they marriage,  parent-child, or  those we  work for/with, represent Jesus well. 

Now, the big complaint in the comments of this series is that the complementarian ideal of marriage isn't "offensive." Well... I've seen "complementarian"marriages that were both offensive and non-offensive, at least on their face. However... I think the idea of stressing wives' submission misses both Paul's command to submit to each other as well as his intent. Stressing wifely submissionwithout balancing it out with husbandly submission is, I think, inherently offensive, and violates the spirit of what Paul is trying to do.   

Overall, here's how I read these commands to wives- Paul's not laying on this over-arching ethos of womanly submission as many seem to think. He's speaking specifically to those living in a patriarchal, abusive-to-women society and saying "Women, believing in Jesus doesn't give you the right to give your husband the finger. And men your duty as a follower of Jesus trumps your rights as Roman citizens/pater familias. As a Christ follower, you still have a duty to submit to each other- as to the Lord!"

And to me, the marriage which best represents Jesus to an onlooking world is one which understands and lives out the principles which Paul lays out here- which, like most things, probably look pretty different in our context than it did in theirs. 

So. The big question- do wives have to submit to their husbands?

In some senses that’s the wrong question. Paul says in Ephesians, just before writing out similar commands to husbands and wives and children and slaves- he says-submit to one another. Husbands submit to wives? Yeah. Wives to husbands? Yeah.

Here’s what the Gospel says to husbands and wives- you are equal. You are in relationship with God. You both have a duty to submit to each other and to love each other. Your lives, including your marriage should reflect well on Jesus and part of that means it should be attractive and compelling- you represent Jesus.

If you live in a patriarchal society where women are considered property, submit to your husband and show him to whom you really belong.
So, ironically, in our society… those who read these passages and because of them demand that wives take on some kind of subservient role (and they still exist, believe me), that women cannot be leaders in the church, that they are somehow equal in value and yet cannot have the same voice as men in the life of the community- those Christians in an effort to remain faithful to the Scriptures, often end up doing exactly what Paul is arguing against here- their marriages and their communities run the risk of failing to represent Jesus well and so becoming a stumbling block for others.

Now-hear what I’m saying and don’t hear what I’m not saying. The Gospel has serious claims on our lives on the ways we treat others, on our relationship to sex, to money, to power- and sometimes those claims are going to be offensive.

But the point is, if anything about us is going to be offensive, it darn well better be the Gospel, and not our marriages, and so the church better give some serious thought as to how we treat our wives and even women in general.

It’s offensive enough to proclaim that Jesus is the Savior, because that means proclaiming that people are in need of a Savior, that there is a problem that needs to be fixed called sin, and no one wants to hear that. Let’s not add to the offense of the Gospel by missing what’s really going on here and saying that women are somehow second class citizens in the ecclesia.

The prevailing Roman society of Paul’s day, drawing mostly from the Greek thought of the Stoics and others had very rigid family definitions. There was the pater familias, the Man, the Father at the top. And the woman was not equal, not in rights and not in value. In Greek thought she was second class. And the children under her and slaves last of all. Aristotle put it this way: “For the male is by nature better fitted to command than the female… The free rule the slave, the male the female, the man the child…”
So- into the mess of that society, into a whole world patterned on that Paul says, “Wives, submit to your husbands, but do it so they know who you really belong to. Husbands, love your wives and even if the law gives you the right to treat them harshly, Jesus doesn’t. Children, obey your parents- not because you are inferior, but because it makes God happy when you do. Fathers, don’t aggravate your children- you may have a legal right to treat them however you want, but it makes them discouraged.
Slaves- live so that your master knows you have a higher authority in your life than him. And remember- though the law of the land considers you property that can be inherited, the Lord, Jesus Himself says He will give you an inheritance- a reward for serving Him.

Paul, in reiterating to these women who might think that freedom in Christ meant throwing off the "shackles" and no more submission to their husbands that no, they still have a duty as Christ followers to submit, is not defining the woman's role as submissive and the man's as dominant.

Do I submit to my wife? You better bet I do. I couldn't follow Paul's command to love her sacrificially, like Jesus, without submitting myself to her wishes, her desires. To claim that I can love someone sacrificially and yet try to keep "submission" out of it is silly. 
Does she submit herself to me? You bet. As a Christ follower, is she to love me sacrificially like Jesus? Yes. And that includes, even in this day and age though probably looking very different than it did in the first century,  the idea of submission.

For both of us.

Some concluding thoughts tomorrow...

(This series is from the bob.blog archives and is adapted from a sermon I preached during our time in Colossians. I'm heavily indebted to Walsh and Keesmaat and their book Colossians Remixed)

(pt 1 here, pt 2 here)

So- why all this talk about slavery? It’s nice to know, it’s kind of an academic question, but the one we're really interested in is the question about husbands and wives...

Can you think of any reason at all why Paul might want to say something without really saying it? Why he might want to choose his words carefully? And maybe say something between the lines?

I’ll answer that by asking: What does Jesus do?

He changes things.

But He does it in His own way- He transforms structures from the inside out- slowly, surely, like (as He described His kingdom) yeast permeating a whole lump of dough.

What He doesn’t do, at least not yet, is tear down our societal structures completely and start over. His revolution is a slow one that depends on changing the hearts of people, not simply imposing His will. Someday the Kingdom will come fully, but for now- he tells us that in Christ there is neither slave nor free- that He came to free the oppressed and we should be like Him.

And it only took us 1860 some odd years to work out what that meant in regards to slaves.

So- the one who came to set the slaves free says to slaves-don’t demand freedom. But do what?

"Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people."

Live in such a way that your master can never complain about your service and yet becomes completely aware that you have a higher allegiance- a different Master...That you serve Jesus first and foremost, that regardless of what your earthly master may think to be the case- you really are free.

And to wives who may have run their own businesses, like Lydia who was well-known for selling purple cloth, or a woman Paul mentions later in this letter who had the unfortunate name of “Nympha” but who had a church meeting in her house… to these women who in many ways were leaders in business and the church but were still considered by the society around them to be property, chattel, He says- don’t demand your rights, but live in such a way that everyone knows- it’s Jesus you really belong to. If you have a non-Christian husband who believes you are nothing more than his property, live in such a way that he can’t complain about anything, but he clearly knows- you belong to another.

This is subversive thinking at its best. This is nonviolent resistance to this broken world and its broken ways at its best.

See, we read this from a society where slaves are already freed and women are no longer property and we think: how awful, how regressive. And we completely miss the radical, freeing nature of what he is saying. And how absolutely seditious and dangerous it would have sounded to the society around them.

So. The big question- do wives have to submit to their husbands?

pt 4 tomorrow-

(This series is from the bob.blog archives and is adapted from a sermon I preached during our time in Colossians. I'm heavily indebted to Walsh and Keesmaat and their book Colossians Remixed)

"Whene'er I take my pipe and stuff it

And smoke to pass the time away

My thoughts, as I sit there and puff it,

Dwell on a picture sad and grey:

It teaches me that very like

Am I myself unto my pipe.

Like me this pipe, so fragrant burning,

Is made of naught but earthen clay;

To earth I too shall be returning,

And cannot halt my slow decay.

My well used pipe, now cracked and broken,

Of mortal life is but a token.

No stain, the pipe's hue yet doth darken;

It remains white. Thus do I know

That when to death's call I must harken

My body, too, all pale will grow.

To black beneath the sod 'twill turn,

Likewise the pipe, if oft it burn.

Or when the pipe is fairly glowing,

Behold then instantaneously,

The smoke off into thin air going,

'Til naught but ash is left to see.

Man's fame likewise away will burn

And unto dust his body turn.

How oft it happens when one's smoking,

The tamper's missing from it's shelf,

And one goes with one's finger poking

Into the bowl and burns oneself.

If in the pipe such pain doth dwell

How hot must be the pains of Hell!

Thus o'er my pipe in contemplation

Of such things - I can constantly

Indulge in fruitful meditation,

And so, puffing contentedly,

On land, at sea, at home, abroad,

I smoke my pipe and worship God."

Johann Sebastian Bach - 1725 (1685-1750)

I haven't. 

It's not so much burnout maybe as... rust. Ennui. 

As I thought and as we talked I came to think that what I'm feeling is something of the natural extension of the "church planters" personality- that entrepreneurial make-up that pushes us to new things, keeps us from settling in and being satisfied with the status quo... and maybe causes certain people to blow up their lives every so often. 

I've been feeling a desire to be challenged, to be not so much pushed, but pulled purposefully into something deeper, more difficult, more...

Don't worry- I'm not going anywhere. 

But I do think this next stage of my life is going to involve going deeper into mentoring others, building skills in listening and coaching which will express itself in writing and speaking more.

So- first things- blog more. This blog is like a withering plant- dry, dusty, in desperate need of revival. And that's just a symptom really of where my state of creativity is. Writing is a skill that gets easier the more you do. A writer writes... always™! 

Second- finish my book proposal for the video venue/internet church thing. I think the time is right for a critical look- Lord knows there's a new "pro" book every week... 

Third, in my pastoral work, I need to get more focused. I feel as though an effort to bring others along and hand off certain things has left me feeling a blurry and rootless as to my role. So, time to take a slice of the pie of our community and go deeper while continuing to try to bring new and existing leadership along. As it is now, I feel like an effort to step back and let others step forward has resulted in few people feeling pastored by me. It shouldn't be an either/or.

Fourth, my New Year's resolution to "kick ass" needs some, uh... resuscitation. Physically, mentally, spiritually... Ruts suck. Just say no. 

But I will say this- I'm well on my way to an epic beard!