Response to a video made by Israel's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon

Original on Tuesday, 20 September 2011, updated 9 March 2012

This is a response to a video made by Israel's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon which purports to explain 'the historical facts relating to the Israeli Palestinian conflict'.

Like most subtle propaganda it is not what is said in the video that is significant, but what is omitted. In the video Danny Aylon says he will not go back to Biblical mandate, but I believe that in order to see the current conflict in context that is exactly what you must do. I have tried to summarise, and although I may have left something out myself, the intention is show that neither side are actually striving for peace, but both using and abusing systems of power in an effort to control the opposition. Danny Ayalon's point that we should not refer to 'occupied territories' but 'disputed territories' is at variance with the language actually used in UN resolutions related to Palestine.

BC 2100: God promises land to 'descendants of Abraham'. The description of that land includes what we currently know as parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the whole of Israel/Palestine. Abraham had two children and from those two siblings are both the Jews and the peoples who currently inhabit Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the whole of Israel. Thus the creation of the two semitic peoples: The Jews and the Arabs.

The promise to Abraham was displaying our Father's heart. It was not merely a promise to bless, but showed His heart for the world: I will bless you so that you can bless the nations. It is not blessing for it's own sake, but blessing to communicate the love of our Father to the whole earth.

BC 1900: Joseph expresses this promise to the Egyptian people. As he is blessed so he blesses those he is in contact with. The twelve brothers eventually learn this 'blessing others' and become the fathers of the tribes who make up that side of the family.

BC 1446 to BC 300: The family feud continues with the twelve tribes battling with those from Abraham's other son over which part of land belongs to which side of the family. What is noticeable during this time is that for most of these 1100 years neither side of the family remember the clause to 'be a blessing' but are very happy to be on the receiving end of blessings.

BC 1150: Earliest record of Palestinians by name (Peleset People) in Egyptian writing during twentieth dynasty of Egypt. As a people they were sufficiently large to invade Egypt during Ramses III’s reign. We can assume therefore they have been around for hundreds of years to have grown to a number sufficient to invade Egypt. This is obviously at variance to Israel’s claim that Palestinians are a recent people group in the area and some misguided people assuming Palestinians were the Philistines mentioned in the Bible. Nor is the invasion a blessing to the Egyptians!

BC 300 to AD 0: The silent years. Our Father is brooding over the planet preparing for a major change.

AD 0 to AD 33: Our Father sends His son to reiterate that those who are to receive His blessing are those who should bless. He demonstrates that His way is not the way of power and might and that those who follow the way of power and might are against our Father. The twelve tribes are hoping for something rather different and so disinherit the promise by rejecting our Father. No longer is the promise for the physical children of Abraham but for the spiritual offspring: Those who chose the path of peace and who share our Father's blessing with the world. These are called the followers of the Way.

BC 64 - AD 324: The Roman's use power and might to subjugate the whole Mediterranean basin including Palestine.

AD 313: The Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, while at the same time maintaining the Empire by power and might and not promoting blessing of others. Whether this was the intention of our Father is open to debate.

AD 324 to AD 636: Byzantine rule of Palestine, where Eastern Orthodox control was maintained by power and might. Very few Jews lived in Palestine (10%-15% of the population). This diaspora, which continued till the 20th Century, should have allowed the Jews to demonstrate being blessed in order to be a blessing around the world. Sadly they failed to do so.

AD 636 to AD 1096: Rule by power and might changed control of Palestine, demonstrating again the way of those opposed to the Way of our Father. This time it was those claiming a revelation of strict adherence to law that used the sword to crush the people living in the area.

AD 1099 to AD 1260: We see the Way of peace trampled by those claiming to be Christians. Battling with swords and horses they sought to liberate land rather than hearts and thus entirely missed our Father's commendation to be a blessing.

AD 1260 to AD 1517: Power and might succeed in ejecting the 'Christians' and rule of Palestine is by an Egyptian Sultan. During this time the Jews, having failed to demonstrate our Father's call to be a blessing are significantly persecuted by those who claimed to replace them in the promise and have now, themselves, forgotten the call to peace and to be a blessing to others. It is a bloody awful mess.

AD 1516 to AD 1917: Palestine was conquered by power and might by the Turkish Sultan Selim II and was a conquered state being a province of Syria till Britain, the new world power demonstrated it's might.

AD 1897: The 'Zionist Organisation' was founded with a specific aim to 'to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.' One of the slogans used was 'A land without a people for a people without a land'. This totally ignored the large non-Jewish Palestinian population living there. However, Christian 'Restorationists' decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that despite their numbers, these Palestinians were not sufficiently coherent to be considered a 'people'. This was definitely at variance to our Father's call to be a blessing to the nations and showed how they had become corrupted by power.

AD 1916: Three great powers connived together to control the area. This came out in what is known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. It was, at the time, a secret agreement between the governments of the UK and France with the assent of Russia. The aim was to define their influence in what we call the Middle East. Hence the French influence in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey and the British influence in Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. They were planning how they would carve up the Middle East and control it pending the downfall of Ottoman control in the region.

AD 1914 to AD 1918: TE Lawrence (a British Army Officer) honed and developed urban guerilla warfare techniques throughout the region, working with the Arabs. He is hailed as a hero, but had the victor been the other side, he would have been known as a terrorist. These techniques were embedded into the psyche of the people of the region.

AD 1917: The British foreign minister sent a letter to Lord Rothchild. That letter became known as 'the Balfour Declaration'. It included two significant phrases, that the British Government viewed with favour 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people' and that it was 'clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'. It could be construed that this demonstrates a desire to be a blessing, both to the Jews and to the Arabs in the area.

AD 1922 to AD 1948: Britain wished to establish it's power and might and so after the First World War, the League of Nations was established in Europe. Unsurprisingly the 'British Mandate' which gave them control of the region called Palestine was confirmed by the League of Nations, which included the Balfour Declaration. The USA, staying clear of the League of Nations, endorsed this mandate. During the whole interwar period, the British, keeping in mind power and might, rejected the principle of majority rule or any other measure that would give the Arab majority control over the government of Palestine.

AD 1919 to AD 1923: Many thousands of Jews migrated to Palestine. This created stress between Jews and Palestinians. The family feud started some 4000 years earlier has still not been resolved.

AD 1920 to AD 1921: Jewish immigration and the way the British implemented the Balfour Declaration/British Mandate led to Arab riots. The British then started a system of immigration quotas. Attacks on Jewish settlements, which the British failed to protect, led to establishment of a Jewish militia to attempt to defend those settlements.

23 and 24 August 1929: Sixty-seven Jews were killed in a massacre in Hebron by Palestinians. This was the tipping point to violence for the Jews who formed the group called the 'Irgun Tzvai Leumi', which itself carried out many terrorist activities, as a result.

AD 1939 to AD 1945: The second world war, which became known as 'the war to end all wars' raged throughout the world. Sadly, it was not the war to end all wars and some people claim there has only actually been 26 days of peace since that war. During the war Hitler raged against both the Jews and the Christians killing them in roughly equal numbers in camps like Auschwitz. The Jews appropriated this to themselves, calling it the 'Holocaust', a strange name for it since they were killed not by fire but by gas. Rather than being a blessing to others they saw themselves in the role of victim.

AD 1945 to AD 1947: The British Empire was severely weakened by the second world war and the power base moved from the League of Nations, which it somewhat controlled, to the United Nations, somewhat controlled by the USA. Power and might had moved its centre from Geneva to New York. In Palestine, Jews were secretly smuggled into the country (about 110,000 of them) and a terrorist group similar to al Qaeda called  'Haganah' waged war on the British.

July 1946:  92 British people were killed in the King David Hotel when it was bombed by Irgun Tzvai Leumi. The result was that Tel Aviv was placed under curfew and over 120,000 Jews were questioned by the police. Since power had moved to North America, when the USA criticized British handling of the situation and delayed loans which were vital to British post-war recovery it forced the British Government to refer the Palestine problem to the United Nations. Terrorism by Irgun Tzvai Leumi continued using techniques similar to those developed by TE Lawrence in the First World War.

29 November 1947: UN General Assembly ratified a plan to create two states: Israel and Palestine, partitioning the land between the descendants of the two brothers who had the squabble some 4000 years earlier. Jerusalem would be under direct UN control since it was such a sensitive issue. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip plus some land in both the north and the south of Palestine was to be the Palestinian homeland. This was significantly more than is currently under dispute as being 'occupied territories'.

AD 1947 - AD 1948: The partition never happened because the struggle for power between the Brits and the Americans (through the UN) meant the Brits failed to withdraw in time. Though ratified, it was thus never implemented. Three way hostilities continued for two years between the British, the Jews and the Palestinians. Eventually enough was enough and the Brits withdrew. None of the three protagonists seemed to recognize a desire for peace or to be a blessing to others.

14 May 1948: David Ben-Gurion, declared the establishment of the State of Israel, in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister of the new state. Both superpower leaders, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, immediately recognized Israel. At this time the Jewish population of Palestine was approximately 650,000, the Arab population around 1.2 million. Hence, had it been a single state the Arabs would have outvoted the Jews 2:1. The Palestinian state was not formed at that stage.

AD 1948 to AD 1967: Two significant, but short conflicts between the Arabs and Palestinians on one side and the Israelis on the other. The Israelis did better than the Arabs. In part this was because they were significantly better trained, but also because they were better navigators. There is also the reason that they were supplied with extra armaments in direct violation of a UN Security Council Resolution. The 1947 partition line became confused and it was clear that both sides wanted 100% of the land. The Israelis ended up in control and the United Nations passed resolution 242 which required Israel to withdraw 'armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict'. This is the context of what we now call the 'occupied territories'.

AD 1948: During the conflict many Palestinians in areas occupied by the Israelis were forced from their homes and fled to other countries like Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. In every other situation people fleeing for their lives are referred to as 'refugees'. However, Palestinians are not treated like this and are not dealt with by UNHCR but by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). There are now three or four generations of Palestinians who cannot return to their homeland, who have no passport and for whom it is illegal to work with aid provided for education and health care by UNRWA.

AD 1982: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defined piracy as 'any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship… on the high seas… or against persons or property on board such ship… against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State'. The aim was to protect individuals sailing in 'International waters'.

AD 1987-1993: The First Intifada. The ‘shake off’ began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinian actions primarily included nonviolent civil disobedience and resistance, and it was the first time that Palestinians acted together and as a nation. There were general strikes, boycotts on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, graffiti, and barricades, but the Palestinian demonstrations that included stone-throwing by youths against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) defined the violence for many. However, intra-Palestinian violence was a prominent feature of the Intifada, with widespread executions of alleged Israeli collaborators. While Israeli forces killed an estimated 1,100 Palestinians and Palestinians killed 164 Israelis, Palestinians killed an estimated 1,000 other Palestinians as alleged collaborators, although fewer than half had any proven contact with the Israeli authorities.

15 November 1988: The Palestinian Declaration of Independence, written by Mahmoud Darwish and declared by Yasser Arafat which broadly similar to the 14 May 1948 statement by David Ben-Gurion. It does not of itself recognise the state of Israel, but an accompanying document citing UN resolution 242 was considered enough to invite Arafat to address the United Nations General Assembly. A UNGA resolution was adopted ‘acknowledging the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988’ 104 states voted for this resolution, 44 abstained, and 2 – the United States and Israel – voted against. By mid-December, 75 states had recognized Palestine as a country, rising to 89 states by February 1989.

September 2000 - today: Second Intifada or ‘shake off’. Palestinian terrorists launch attacks against Israel and Israel launched attacks against Palestinian territories. Like two teenagers squabbling… but with much more serious effects. Wikipedia lists the casualties as 719 Israeli civilians were killed and 334 Israeli security force personnel were killed, 2,204 Palestinian civilians were killed and 1,671 fighters were killed, a further 870 Palestinians were killed and it is unclear if they were civilians or fighters.

Somewhere between 2005 and 2008: It is possible that it changed to what is known as the Third Intifada, but this definition, along with claims it is a battle of words not of violence is disputed. During that time Israel has blockaded parts of Palestine refusing to allow sufficient food and medical aid into Gaza. Followers of the Way, including at least one highly qualified doctor who I personally know, tried to take medical supplies in by sea and were chased out by Israeli gunboats.

31 May 2010: Israeli Defense Forces attack a flotilla of ships carrying aid supplies heading towards Egypt in International Waters. International waters starts where territorial waters cease, which is approximately 14 miles from the coast. At that stage they had not turned towards Gaza which was their announced destination. The ban on entry to Gaza by sea was made by the Israeli military after the flotilla were already en route. Initial contact was 120 miles northwest of Gaza and 80 miles west of the southern border of Lebanon. Under the 1982 definition this is International Piracy, however, the power base in the United Nations refused to condemn the action as such, though a UNHRC fact-finding mission described six of the nine passengers' deaths as "summary execution" by the Israeli commandos.

AD 2011: Palestinian Authority declared it wished to have full membership of the UN. At that stage it was reported that 126 (65.4%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations had recognised the State of Palestine. A successful application for membership in the UN would require approval from the UN Security Council and a two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly (128 states). On the prospect of this being successful, the USA alluded to possible withdrawal of UN funding, which would destabilize the whole UN. This is power and control without blessing. However, when addressing the UNGA directly President Obama proposed a more conciliatory approach,  ‘Each side has legitimate aspirations -- and that's part of what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other's shoes; each side can see the world through the other's eyes. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be promoting’. That is the Way of truth and reconciliation.

18 July 2011: Syria announced that it had formally recognised the State of Palestine. Events in 2011 and 2012 suggest that other nations may no longer recognize the Syrian administration who made this declaration.

23 September 2011: Mahmoud Abbas delivered to the UN Secretary-General the official application for recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN and a membership of the UN. The UN Security Council began deliberations on the matter on 26 September. 


31 October 2011: The General Council of UNESCO voted in favour of admitting Palestine as a member state. 

4 November 2011: Israeli Defense Forces attack a flotilla of ships heading to Gaza carrying aid supplies. Initial contact was made 48 nautical miles from the coast, well into International waters. The crew of the boats didn't help themselves by failing to observe correct maritime radio protocol. They were boarded soon after. Under the 1982 definition this is International Piracy. Blockading Gaza and stopping delivery of medical supplies is also in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1860.

15 December 2011: Iceland recognized Palestine as an independent and sovereign state. For two thirds majority of UNGA Palestine needs 128 states to recognise them. In theory, they now have that number, however there is some dispute about the list of countries.

TODAY: Some areas of the 1947 partition are under Israeli control and others under Palestinian control. Millions of Palestinians, possibly in the order of six million, live outside of Palestine, not only with no hope of return to their homeland, but many of them as stateless persons, without passport, without right to work and totally reliant on UN aid for education and health care. More than three million Palestinians live inside Palestinian controlled areas and are struggling for education and health care blocked by Israel. As many as eight million Jews live outside of Israel, with the right to return to Israel and with legal passports both from their host country and from Israel.

My comments: What we observe is a spin on stories from both sides of the dispute, often playing clever word games on whether 'occupied territories' are 'disputed territories'. We see power play between super powers, minor powers and micro powers. We don't see either side seeking blessing for other nations. Thus both sides have forgotten or are ignoring our Father's blessing and his call to be a blessing to others.

But that is not the whole story. Behind the scenes there is a small group of followers of the Way who call themselves 'Musalaha' which is the Arabic word for reconciliation. It is a group who take protagonists from both sides out to the Negev desert, not to play with words, not to argue who is right and wrong, but to try to bless. Individual followers of the Way in other countries like Lebanon have also tried to bring about musalaha/reconclliation and have been persecuted and in some cases forced to become refugees as a result. There are also individual followers of the Way trying to be a blessing. I have a British friend who is a surgeon in Gaza and tried to take in needed medical supplies to her hospital by sea on a 36 foot catamaran. She was turned away by the Israeli Defense Force.

As followers of the Way ourselves, our brothers and sisters working for Musalaha and others, like my doctor friend who are bringing blessing are the people in need are those we should specifically bless and pray for. Also, despite everything, we should seek to show our Father's blessing to protagonists on both sides. However, Propaganda is propaganda, spun to gain power and control. That is not the way of our Father.

Real men don't eat quiche…

Today I was thinking about the phrase 'Real men don't…' and all the ideas of conformity that we follow. The book 'Real men don't eat quiche' by Bruce Feirstein characterises all that makes my stomach turn about conformity to the male stereotype. Peer pressure affects our children, being expected to conform to whatever stereotype their sub-culture demands, whether it's the type of music to listen to or the type of sneakers to wear.

The trouble is, I feel I have been locked into another stereotype. The stereotype Christian. Or maybe I should say the stereotype white English Evangelical Christian.

You may have read 'So you don't want to go to church anymore' by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman, if not I highly recommend it. However, what started me thinking about this was a phrase buzzing round my head all morning: 'Real Christians don't go to church'. Before you hang me for a heretic, listen to the logic…

My family name is Fairhead and there are times when we gather as a family. When we do we don't say we're going to Fairhead. So the concept of 'going to church' somehow separates the relationship into either a place or an organisation. I don't go to church because I gather with the church. But even that doesn't really work. It's more I don't go to church because implicitly I am part of the church.

But Paul commended us not to stop meeting together. So what does that really mean. We can look at the example of the early followers of Jesus and we would realise how important eating together and fellowship is in building the family relationships. We could look at Paul's letter explaining how the family works, with different family members each bringing something to the meeting…

I hear stories about family gatherings of different families and realise how many of the church meetings also show diversity. Some families when they get together make music or sing, for others the last thing on earth they would want to do is sing but they do enjoy a game of basketball or baseball, for others a hike in the woods is how they gather. Almost all would involve some form of meal together. Then there are dysfunctional families for whom a meeting is a battleground.

The same is true for gatherings of God's family. Or should be. My concern is that we have turned gatherings of Christians into some sort of socio-political organisation. The Bible records how the early believers ate together - frequently. Real Christians don't go to church: They church together - they are the church.

Discipleship, family and the theatre

I have been having a discussion on Facebook about discipleship.

A friend of mine posted to his wall

The difference between theater and Church is discipleship

to which I responded, slightly tongue in cheek

Careful… you can often learn more at the theatre than in many churches!

to which he responded

But the goal isn't just learning, it's following.

And then started a discussion about the meaning of discipleship, both semantic, etymological and what followers of Jesus today mean by the word... along with what Jesus meant by disciple - try Luke 9:23 and Luke 14:26 for example. So what does it mean to 'take up our cross daily' and 'hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters...' This seems to have little about learning in the sense that we in 21st Century know of learning.

Looking at what Christ said, the first thing to realise is that he almost certainly is using hyperbole. Actually the first thing to realise is that Jesus probably spoke either in Hebrew or Aramaic and that Luke is translating what he said into Greek. So we don't actually have a record of Jesus words to base it on.

But back to the idea of hyperbole... Middle Easterners use what Westerners would consider hyperbole a lot. Consider the word habibi in Arabic. Translated it means beloved or sweetheart or my baby or my darling. Hardly the word or phrase a man would use for a casual male friend, yet in Arabic it would be used that way, as hyperbole that is understood to mean my friend or my mate.

Hyperbole is something I use continually. I am sometimes criticised for using it as people try to interpret some of what I say literally. So reading the passages in Luke's gospel in context I just read them as hyperbole.

There has been much discussion on the interpretation of these passages, a lot of it online. I'm not going to quote it, you can just Google for it if you are interested. However the context is enough to convince me that being a disciple is a learner, but not a student.

When we were trying to find a phrase in Arabic for a follower of Jesus that was more neutral than the normal one we came a phrase of 'mourideen el masih' meaning disciple of the Messiah. The word mourideen is close to the Hebrew word talmidim. It is thought that when Jesus called the disciples he was engendering the concept of talmidim in contrast to the western idea of student.

In an article Rabbi and Talmidim on the followtherabbi.com the author claims:

Being like the rabbi is the major focus of the life of talmidim. They listen and question, they respond when questioned, they follow without knowing where the rabbi is taking them knowing that the rabbi has good reason for bringing them to the right place for his teaching to make the most sense.

In the Nooma DVD Dust, Rob Bell starts from the scripture record that it wasn't the disciples choosing Jesus but Jesus choosing the disciples that is significant. From that he asserts that it is more about Jesus believing in us than us believing in Him. It means that in Christ He can accomplish great things through us. But it's really the work of Christ. Grace. We can't do it without the call of Christ, the empowerment of Christ, the knowledge and wisdom of Christ, and the perseverance of Christ. It is something infused from rabbi to talmid.

But I think its much more than 'doing amazing things for God' but rather that as we are created in His image, as redeemed creations, with His power working in and through us, he calls us to follow in His footsteps, even to death. But it's all about relationship, His call is not about function but about our Father longing to express His love, His Grace in and through us.

A student at UNCA wrote, when discussing theatre:

...children wholeheartedly pretend. They become so fully immersed in their imagination they act "truthfully under imaginary circumstances." 

My concern is that church has become imagination under truthful circumstances. Sometimes services have become like theatre, but theatre without questions and without life. 

Thinking more about this whole subject of discipleship, I have come back to our family. We home-educated our kids. I am deliberately using the english rather than american phrase home-schooled, not because we are English, but because the meaning is different. Our aim was not to create school at home, but to create an environment at home where our children would catch the vision to become lifelong learners. I think they have. School develops students, education develops disciples.

I am growing in conviction that the two words church and disciple are increasingly incomprehensible in 21st century western civilization. However, in the context of home-education, they seem to make more sense: In the relationship of family, we encourage our children to catch our way of life, to become life long learners following the Messiah.

Part of the problem is that the church has become more like a school and less like a family. At church we sit in rows watching the teacher, at home we sit around in the living room or the dining table discussing. One thing that guests to our house used to remark upon was the number of times at the meal table we would get out a dictionary while discussing the meaning of a word or phrase. We were and are continually listening and questioning each other. That is true learning not the idea of teaching we have today.

My concern is that the church has mirrored the secular way of teaching rather than encouraging learning. Rarely do was hear a pastor say 'Hey guys, I'm going to the mall to tell people about the good news Jesus came to share... want to come too?' Rarely do we see meals as the central place they appeared to be from the New Testament. Meals are great place for relaxed discussion and learning.

TS Eliot said 'A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.' Jesus parables frequently resulted in the disciples asking Him what they meant. Ralph Richardson, a contemporary of Lawrence Olivier, described the difference between theatre and music: 'In music, the punctuation is absolutely strict, the bars and the rests are absolutely defined. But our punctuation cannot be quite strict because we have to relate it to the audience. In other words, we are continually changing the score.' 

My concern is that we have regimented following Christ and converted it into a religion. But I am sure Athanasius did not intend closing of Biblical Canon in 367AD to change following Christ from a relationship into an equation: A + B = C. Cross + Repentance = Salvation. The problem is that in a sense it is that simple, but it completely ignores the underlying motivation and relationship. It is almost more John the Baptist's message than Jesus'.

In none of his parables does Jesus reduce the Kingdom of God to a simple equation. The parable we call the 'Prodigal Son' has the son doing nothing except returning to his father. The centrality of this story is the love of the father for the son and the desire he has for relationship with the son. It's not strict punctuation. It is not a simple equation. It's a relationship.

post-what?

It's my birthday, I was born 54 years ago. Though that makes me technically 'post-modern' most of the 'baby boomers' tend to be more modernist. I'm not sure if I have always been post-modern (I think I probably have) or whether I have grown more that way as I have grown older. Whichever, I am now who I am. Sometimes I wish I was more modernist and able to be more sure of 'facts' rejecting 'dialogue' or 'narrative'.

Years ago I had a Nigerian friend who took me through another post-*, this one slightly more complex. We  had been talking about colonialism and the rejection of this concept, hence colonial and anti-colonial. Timothy's perception was that we should now be embracing post-anti-colonialism. What he meant was colonial = white man boss, anti-colonial = black man boss, post-anti-colonial = white and black man partners.

I think in using the term post-modern we may be missing similar logic.

Modernism tends to have a mechanistic or deconstructionist approach - everything can be known even if we don't know now and that everything is fitted together into a giant mechanistic entity. Life, the world and the universe are all rule driven. Modernist theology is propositional and using it we interpret the Bible in terms of it being a rule book for life. I remember as a teenager that people described the Bible in terms of a 'manual' like a  car maintenance manual.

My perception is that some of what we call post-modernism is actually anti-modernism; a rejection of the modernist propositional logic in favour of a fuzzy, wooly 'we can't know anything really'. However, in reality, I believe most people who are labeled post-modernist are actually post-anti-modernist. In other words, they live in partnership between ambiguity and propositional reality. Narrative and propositional are not the antithesis of each other but are complementary ways of looking at life.

This lack of understanding the complementary nature of modern and post-modern is why some modernists totally reject post-modernism. Take 'Why we're not Emergent' by Deyoung and Kluck, for example, a book my son Daniel, who incidentally shares the same birthday, showed me today. The authors see the 'Emergent Church' as being the 'liberal' rejection of the Evangelical Church. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As a teenager I was wooed to the Evangelical Church not by the modernist approach of Evangelicalism but by the 'God can be known' experiential approach of the the Evangelical church which was antipodal concept to the idea that 'God is a hope'. Thus the certainty of approach, which is very modernist, was appealing not because of the empirical but because of the relational. God can be known. As person to person.

This relational aspect of Evangelicalism seems to be more and more diminishing in light of the increasing post-modern, so called emerging or emergent church. The modern Evangelical is reacting to the post-modern which they perceive to be anti-modern. If we had approached it not as post-modern but post-anti-modern, I think at least some of this dichotomy could have been reduced.

To some degree the dichotomy is one sided - the modernist Evangelical rejecting the post-modern Emerging whereas post-moderns tend not to reject the modernist so out of hand. They embrace Information Technology, which is in some ways the ultimate expression of modernism. Most post-moderns readily enjoy computers, Androids, iPhones and iPads. Thus in reality, unless they wish to return to yellow slips of paper for aid-memoires, post-moderns are not mandating exclusively using post-IT notes! (I'm sorry, I couldn't avoid using that one, it has been haunting me all day.)

Nor are they mandating post-evangelical, though many might embrace post-conservative evangelical. God can still be known. God was, is, and is to come. The dialogue continues... as does the narrative.

Egypt, Israel and the USA

Listening to the BBC World Service late tonight was interesting. Obviously the number one news story were the protests in Egypt in 'Liberation Square' (Tahir), a place I know well and have spent many hours sitting in the cafe in the Nile Hilton Hotel overlooking the square. But the story was developing because

President Obama's special envoy to Egypt, Frank Wisner, told the international security conference in Germany, that Mr Mubarak was needed to oversee a transition to democracy. 

What made the story top news was that the USA was disowning his comments. Meanwhile BBC News Hour interviewed an Israeli representative saying that they didn't actually want democracy in Egypt because it might result in a government that was hostile to Israel and therefore wanted Mubarak to stay because he was friendly towards them. So, who is supporting Mubarak? Israel?

Alongside this I am getting emails from Christians in Egypt, some with prophetic tone:

I sensed a strong urgency from the LORD saying: "As the people of Egypt presented their requests to Mubarak, I am calling on My people to rise up before me and present their requests to me for their nation".  I went on to hear the LORD: "Let the Holy Council assemble".

The email then went on to become more political in nature telling of huge demonstrations, in a Mustapha Mahmoud Square which is somewhat smaller than Tahir:

The numbers had grown even more, POSSIBLY OVER A MILLION. As we drove home we saw the same slogans on banners all over the city, on cars, on walls, on shop windows. 

Claiming there were banners all over the place saying things like:

- yes to stability, yes to Mubarak

- give change a chance

- we are sorry Mr. president

- we accept dialogue, we trust you

And then asking why the BBC and CNN and Al Jazeerah TV were not filming this. Good question and I asked the sender why these people had not uploaded video to You Tube to show the size of these demonstrations.

But that was not the end. I then got a second email from another source also claiming to have first hand evidence of these  pro-Mubarak protests. The interesting thing about this second email from a different person was that some paragraphs were word for word identical to the first source. Hmmm... now that is facinating. I wonder if I will get a third and a fourth eye witness also with word for word identical paragraphs. I guess the more I get the more credible it will be.

Which brings me back to the BBC interviewing a representative of the US administration who was looking for a 'credible democracy' in Egypt. I guess like the credible threat of nuclear or chemical attacks from Iraq before the Gulf war. In English, when we hear credible in that context, we translate it to mean 'believable but untrue'. I don't think that's quite the way it is intended in American!

So where does that leave followers of Jesus? What does our Father want in this situation?

Paul in one of the epistles talks about being 'in the world, not of the world' and the early followers of Jesus really confused people. They were totally integrated into society, more so that other groups, yet at the same time they were obviously separated and didn't fight wars etc. They saw the 'Kingdom of God' as a present reality not a future hope.

Down through the centuries other Christians have take alternative positions: fighting wars (the infamous 'Crusades', which was the same word George Bush once used about the invision of Iraq), taking radical political positions (eg Desmund Tutu and Jim Wallis) and so on.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and I am sure our Father weeps today over what is happening in the world He has leant us. I believe we somehow need to get back to being 'relational Christians', totally engaged with the men and women in the society we live and expressing our Father's love for them, yet somehow separated from the political and other battles around us. The Kingdom of God is both present reality and future hope.

Gathering Together

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. [1]

Throughout the centuries there have been discussions about what ekklesia is or should be: What a gathering of believers should look like. These discussions have sometimes been heated. 

There are only two references to Jesus using the word ekklesia or ‘gathering’ in the New Testament; in Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 18:17[2].

This paper is an attempt to take a fresh look at three types of ekklesia from a missiological perspective. The final section ‘Following Jesus’ is an attempt to look at some of the examples of these approaches in the Gospels.


As I get comments from people about this, I will add them in to the text as quotations. So please add comments to this so we can dialogue together.

Types of ekklesia

From my observation there are three types of ekklesia or gathering: Messianic Bridge Communities (MBCs), Extracted Christian Communities (ECCs) and HCCs (Historic Christian Communities). I know there are actually many more, but for the logic of this document I will focus on the three that I think fit many parts of the world. I also recognise this is in some ways an over simplification of the categories, for example, some HCCs may exhibit some MBC characteristics or any combination of the above.

MBCs focus on being a bridge between the local culture and Christ, often struggling with Christianity as a western culture that embraces warmongering, structure and control.  Technically they are mistaking Christendom for Christianity but this unwarranted criticism is a common error that causes stress to many in HCCs[3] that may result in them rejecting MBCs without understanding the real reason why they express this issue.

Members of an ECC are extracted from the local culture and associate with Christianity both as a religion and often as a culture too even though it may be a foreign culture to their own.

HCCs are not extracted, but have for some time been creating parallel cultures as historically they associate with Christianity both as a religion and as a culture. This is often a politically accepted culture with long history and either is their home culture that fits their ordinary working life as well, or has become so. Hence why for many outside the Christian faith the word ‘Christianity’ becomes synonymous with a western culture even when that culture is at variance with Christian faith. For example, a Muslim recently asked me about how many people I had sex with, since I came from the Christian west. Even though he knew me to be a passionate follower of Christ, he had not understood that the image he had of western promiscuity was at variance with following Christ.

It is also observable that some HCCs also exhibit either MBC or ECC characteristics, so the boundaries between the different types are not always clear-cut.

When looking at these three types of gathering you can observe their practice, their theology and their missiology. Because there is a concern over syncretism for some MBCs, for the purpose of this paper I am going to assume we are only dealing with groups following an orthodox Christian approach on ‘the divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.[4]’ I will, however, look briefly at syncretism later in the document.

My thesis is that MBCs, ECCs and HCCs vary on their practice (praxis) and missiology rather than on their beliefs about the nature and personality of God and His relationship to mankind. It is easy to feel one or more of these expressions of ekklesia are wrong: I have observed criticism of MBCs by some HCC members and of ECCs by some MBC members. In considering the differences we should 'bless the light, not curse the darkness' and remember the old Native American proverb ‘don’t judge a man till you have walked in his moccasins’.

My thesis too is that these three expressions of ekklesia can be observed throughout the world. They are not unique to one region, country or continent. In each instance there are similarities and differences: HCCs tend to be internally pastoral while being externally isolationist, ECCs tend to be internally somewhat self-righteous whilst being externally highly concerned for those who do not yet know Jesus and MBCs tend to be internally very defensive while externally very open. Each has their positive and negative characteristics.

Historic Christian Community (HCC)

A Historic Christian Community can be an Orthodox or Catholic Church, a Baptist Church, a Vineyard Fellowship or in some cases even a House Church Fellowship. They are characterized by their open declaration of being Christian. Often, though not necessarily, HCCs will own buildings and have a common time for gathering, which is usually sometime on a Sunday. When they gather they will often have some form of structure to their meeting, often involving singing songs and listening to a talk. Frequently the teaching is didactic rather than dialogue based.

Extracted Christian Community (ECC)

An Extracted Christian Community is some sort of community where the members of that community are extracted from the culture in which they live or from which they used to belong.

An ECC can be part of an HCC or function alongside a number of HCCs. ECC members usually have no problem with the practices of HCCs and are open in their declaration of being Christian. Having moved from one culture to their new faith they often see the transition in black and white terms ‘you are inside or outside the Christian faith’. They perceive MBCs as being fuzzy on this and are critical of them for that reason.

Messianic Bridge Community (MBC)

A Messianic Bridge Community is some form of community that, in seeking to follow Jesus as Messiah, believe they should embrace or retain certain holistic aspects of the host culture (but not the religion) from which they come or in which they live. They are often characterized by a dialogue rather than didactic teaching style, with gatherings that are not necessarily in a special building or at the same place or time.

They sometimes have problems with HCCs, observing the ‘Christian’ label to be confused with ‘western’. Their greatest problems, however, come between ECCs and MBCs since one group embraces their host culture and the other rejects it.

Personality of the community

These different communities also have different personalities. Note, I’m talking about the personality of the community, not the personality of the people attending the community. The community tends to have a personality of its own. In comparing the three communities I looked at the Myers-Briggs type indicator.

HCCs tend to be Introverted. They receive their stimulation not so much from interaction outside the community but from ideas inside the community and find it easy to focus on God within the community, enjoying sermons with depth. HCCs are most at home with the familiar and routine of their meetings and enjoy reinforcing their traditional values often seeing them as the proper way to believe and act, thus HCCs tend to be Sensing rather than Intuitive.

When it comes to decision-making HCCs emphasize their perception of truth as core, often being very careful on words used and their meanings, being more Thinking than Feeling in their decision-making.  They have a strong need for order and structure. The structure might be informal, but it is structural nevertheless and might include the hierarchy of eldership over members being more Judging than Perceiving.

MBCs tend to be the mirror opposite of HCCs, which is why the two types of community find difficulty in communicating: The community is extroverted (even if the members are actually introverted) and receives it receives its energy from interaction with people outside the community, focusing on the people rather than internal meditation and reflection. This can be perceived by other groups as a stronger desire to meet with people rather than God.

Because MBCs tend to be intuitive, their view of God is more transcendent; not only do they see more of the awe and majesty of God they see Him at work in a wider variety of activities and might feel (possibly inaccurately) that HCCs restrict God. In their reading of Scriptures they take a more figurative approach, looking for principles and allowing the outworking of the principles to be the concern of the individual within the context of the society they find themselves.

Because they are more influences by feelings, MBCs look for a warm and friendly approach to their decision making contrasted with the HCC focusing more on truth. They still firmly believe in truth, but they communicate truth externally in a very different way to an HCC. For MBCs God is best perceived through a personal and intimate relationship rather than the facts that HCCs appreciate. They like music that evokes deep feelings and warmth and are often more focuses on tune than text.

As Perceivers MBCs have a free spirit and enjoy a more open and flexible approach to worship. They have a willingness to ‘go with the flow’; regardless of where it might lead which. Sermons or talks will often be less organized and may start and restart and go in a variety of directions.

I'm not sure I agree with your description of the contrast between methods of decision-making between MBC's and HCC's. You describe the former as making the decisions based more on feeling than on thinking. While that may be true of some ECC groups, I think the contrast might be more accurate if described as a contrast between Western linear Greek thinking, and a perception of scripture that leads to action. The latter is not just feeling oriented, but neither is it the Western preference to see the basis of church as sermons and Bible studies. In the great commission, Jesus said to "teach them to do what I taught you to do." In the West, there's great tendency to think that serving Jesus is largely a matter of absorbing the right information. However, think of the impact if Muslim followers of Jesus in MBC actually beginning to forgive their enemies! This would be a dramatic change from the typical Muslim culture which could rock the world, while being much more relevant to Scripture than how and when you worship. (Gary Henley, founder IOM)

One of the core concepts of Myers-Briggs as a type indicator is that none of the 16 types are right or wrong; they are descriptive rather than prescriptive. However, the strengths of a particular type become a weakness if multiplied.  Hence the Perceiver approach of an MBC can lead to communication that is so roundabout that the listener has really no idea what it is about.  Often conflicts between HCCs and MBCs result form one group seeing the strength multiplied as a weakness in the other group.

So what of ECCs? Clearly ECCs are Extroverted: They get their strength from the interactions they have outside the community. They inherit the ‘proper way to believe and act’ from HCCs often rejecting their society in favour of the way HCCs believe and act.

When it comes to decision making ECCs again follow HCCs and emphasize their perception of truth as core, being very careful on words used and their meanings, often being more Thinking than Feeling in their decision making. Since truth matters above feeling, if someone gets hurt in proclaiming truth then so be it. They have a strong need for order and structure: As Judgers they actually have a stronger perception of structure than HCCs, with the ‘one of us’ or ‘not one of us’ being a driving force. They wish to push the extraction model upon everyone else - almost unless you have extracted yourself you are not a true Christian.

These three concepts of community, which I think can be seen worldwide, in the West, East or Middle East, raise the question about how we need to be more incarnated with those around us. There are some who see HCCs or ECCs as a 'peculiar people' separated from society.  Though this extreme is not the dominant view among HCCs and ECCs, nevertheless it is a view that influences a lot of their thinking.

What does an MBC look like?

I remember visiting a Mennonite community in downtown Chicago in the USA. They held a common-purse, which was not a societal value, but to all other characteristics they lived, worked and shared the love of God totally embedded into the society in which they lived: The poor of Chicago. They lived in apartments in the area they wished to serve, while having gatherings that were more open and informal than HCCs in their area. Their gatherings were more like a community meal than a church service.

Geoff Lanham led B1 – a church without walls – for some years. It was based on the B1 postal district of Birmingham in the UK. ‘We saw the huge numbers for whom the City Centre was a magnet for social life. So we started to meet in venues where they would be comfortable. The broad target was 20-40’s but we recognised that there were lots of sub-cultures. So we began with the networks of the team through their interests – sports, leisure, work…’[5] They were working within the culture to reach out to the culture but were not necessarily from that culture.

In both the above examples though they meet the criteria of being Messianic and a Bridge Community, they were both cross-cultural in that the members were not natively from the host culture. Geoff Lanham again, ‘We set ourselves to do some cross-cultural mission work. We realised that some of the subcultures were different but more nuanced. The main shift we made was away from being “event dominated”. These had been high quality and guests came, enjoyed them and sometimes came back. But it was very difficult to build ongoing relationship. So we cut the frequency to bi-monthly and spent more time engaging with the networks in smaller settings. We downgraded the overt Christian content and events seen to have no hidden agenda brought in lots of visitors. Like the ”Help, I’m a TV producer get me out of here”. We’ve moved from programmes to friendship.’[6]

What is key to seeing the long-term effectiveness of MBCs and in many ways the difference of MBCs to HCCs and ECCs is the ‘move from programmes to friendship’. At this point it should be noted that some HCCs have caught the vision for a change from programmes to friendships so this is not unique to MBCs, though it is predominately something that characterises the difference.

In the Middle East there was a community I visited a few years back (I am not sure if they are still meeting) that met in a coffee shop. They didn’t have a regular time of gathering; they just used to send text messages around the group as they felt the need to meet. However, it was frequent if not regular. They gathered together, drank coffee and shared fellowship. One of them would share a thought from the Bible, which they would discuss.

When I visited, one major question I asked was this: Because the gathering was irregular wouldn’t it be possible that someone would be forgotten to be told about the meeting? The response was that because they were so involved with each other on a daily basis that was highly unlikely. This community was both inward and outward looking; they were bridging the way of Christ with the local community in which they lived. It was truly friendship not programme.

Differing views on mission

Over the centuries many of the divides in the worldwide church have come about over a differing concept of mission. That has in part been due to different understandings or models of how someone becomes a follower of Jesus. In chapter 3 of my book ‘In the image… of a creative God’ I address the commonly held models of the church, becoming a follower of Jesus and how it happens. ECCs predominately tend towards the Inside/Outside Model, HCCs towards the Process Model and MBCs towards the Orientation and Relationship Models.

ECCs can take the Inside/Outside model to extremes. One example was a sequence from a TV show they used to demonstrate their effectiveness where they show an ECC group pressurizing a distraught viewer calling in to the TV show to ‘repeat this prayer after me…’ Eventually the viewer is persuaded to repeat the prayer and then the line goes dead. The sequence goes on to show the presenters expressing exuberance at any success in winning another soul for Christ.

To some degree the difference in missiology between HCCs and ECCs on one side and MBCs on the other is the difference between what is termed missional and attractional church, where MBCs could be considered missional and HCCs and ECCs attractional. Often the word missional is used for so called ‘emerging churches’, and frequently emerging churches would fit into the category of MBC. However, some people see emerging churches as a way of getting people into ‘regular churches’ (ie HCCs). I think that is an unhelpful way of seeing this as it denigrates an MBC to being merely a stepping-stone to people being members of an HCC.

The conceptual difference between missional and attractional churches is whether the aim is to go out to where people are (sent out) and share about the Kingdom of God there or whether to invite people outside (attract them) to gatherings of people within the Kingdom of God. A classic example of attractional was expressed by a Vineyard pastor in the USA who said that the aim was to have such a deep sense of worship of God in the singing that non-believers present would be automatically attracted to know more about God. He didn’t see a need to proactively go out, even though that congregation did one or two events to reach outsiders per year.

To some degree missional churches live outside the comfort zone of gatherings of followers of the way, almost constantly interacting with and demonstrating ‘Kingdom of God is at hand’[7] to those they meet on a daily basis. There may be widely differing understandings of what the concept for ‘Kingdom of God’ actually is, although very few people would argue that it has any real linkage with the commonly held English understanding of a physical kingdom. The point missional churches claim is that Jesus was outward looking sharing the concept of the Kingdom of God within the society and community that he was living. This is the idea that missional embodies.

Syncretism and MBCs

Within the Middle East and other Islamic cultures MBCs have sometimes been called ‘insiders’ or part of an ‘insider movement’. This descriptor has recently become very divisive, with strong feelings being expressed both for and against insider movements. This descriptor I believe to be both inaccurate and unhelpful, and it is for that reason that I propose the three types of HCC, ECC and MBC.

One of the concerns I have heard expressed by HCCs and ECCs about insiders is syncretism: Mixing a non-Christian religion or worldview with Christianity. Although MBCs are usually more tolerant than ECCs if pushed they too express a concern about syncretism. That concern is seen two ways, looking at themselves and looking at HCCs/ECCs in the west. At extreme they might quote Jesus comments about the speck of sawdust in your brothers eye.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.[8]

In meeting with one group of MBCs one of their concerns was syncretism. They talk about it; we don't bring it up. Not all the time, but it is something they actively consider. People who are concerned whether or not they are syncretistic and checking regularly are probably not. I wonder how many HCCs look and consider if they are syncretistic in any way.

MBCs can be either syncretistic or not, its not possible to paint a broad stroke that says all MBCs are sound and all are unsound, in the same way you cannot say all HCCs are sound or unsound.

I'm sure that there is a real danger of syncretism in the MBC's. But the Western model of church is quite syncretistic in itself. When the church is more nearly like a university, or a successful business, isn't that a syncretistic adaptation to the priorities and methods of Western life? If we see church as a family, then dialogue and the action resulting from the dialogue is the normal pattern. However, dialogue does not take place easily in gatherings of 100 or 1000 people. It can occur quite naturally and simply in a gathering of a dozen or so. Certainly  sound teaching  and/or other means of understanding what the Scripture says should be the basis of that dialogue, a should not preempt it. (Gary Henley, founder IOM)

Some MBCs that are potentially orthodox can still exhibit problems. As an example take the Nine O’clock Service (NOS) in Sheffield. I visited once only when I was filming at that church, so cannot talk from long personal experience, although I do have friends and acquaintances that have more experience of the community.

The aim was basically that of an MBC. It was wildly successful, attracting many from the locality who were unable to relate to HCCs. However, in 1995 accusations surfaced about Rev Chris Brain, who was leading the community, of psychological, emotional and sexual abuse of NOS members. In August of that year the Archbishop of York barred him from acting as an ordained Church of England minister. By this stage the Bishop of Sheffield had already banned him from practising in the diocese.

Note the above example of abuse was not actually syncretism, but personality control issues. Although it could be a problem with any of the groups, illogically, this type of thing is often used as an example of why MBCs can drift into syncretism.

Negative experiences of MBCs in the west have made HCCs wary of all MBCs, especially since 11^th September 2001 within the Muslim world. Since the attack on the World Trade Center there have been increasing concerns about terrorism worldwide and this has resulted in promotion of some very negative perceptions about Muslims and Islam. This is primarily driven by fear and by a lack of experience of Muslims within their society. Within HCCs, ECC members wishing to validate their position of being ECCs have sometimes fuelled this.

Similar negative experiences relating to post-modernism or the New Age Movement have fuelled a rejection of MBCs acting in the west. In both cases this is often claimed to be concerns over syncretism, when in fact it is a difference of missiology and language with both MBCs and HCCs sharing a common orthodox perception of the Gospel should they actually take the time to sit down and listen to each other.

My perception is that to have a blanket rejection of all MBCs is as ridiculous as blanket acceptance of the practices of all HCCs and ECCs. We need to evaluate, in light of orthodox theology, the approach of all communities that claim to follow Christ, pointing everyone towards the Father. This, I believe, fits with the orientation model and relationship models within ‘In the image… of a creative God’ and is closer to what I observe Christ doing when He was on earth.

Speaking of movement, I think that is the issue in all three environments. Are the participants pragmatically moving forward toward the "obedience of faith" as Paul describes the objective in Romans 1, as well as in the last few verses of that same book. Which direction are you going? Is it toward the Lordship of Jesus, and obedience to his teaching, or are you just sitting while stuck in place or, worse yet, moving away from true obedience to Him? The Western model has frustrated me because it focuses so much on learning, as opposed to doing. However, perhaps that's because I'm more of an activist than a theologian. (Gary Henley, founder IOM)

Following Jesus

The three key characteristics of an HCC gathering tend to be singing together, listening to a talk and sharing communion together. ECCs add to this proclaiming a message of repentance. MBCs tend to focus on dialogue and having meals together. All 6 characteristics can be seen in the Gospels to a greater or lesser extent.

There is only one reference I can find to Jesus singing. It is brief and to the point and comes just after what we call the Last Supper.

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.[9]

Does this mean we should rarely if ever sing in gatherings? From the fact that there is only one recorded instance of Jesus singing we cannot assume it was the only time He sang nor can we assume the contrary that He sang frequently. From various records we know the early gatherings of ‘followers of the Way’ frequently sang together. We must realise, though, that there is no record of Jesus using the word worship as a synonym for singing.

Some people like singing. However, some (like me) do not. But I love music and I used to enjoy hearing the spontaneous music making and singing of more musically gifted members of another and my family when we got together. I’m not against music, but what I think we can deduce is that it is not an essential part of a gathering of those who follow Christ.

Re: worship, I certainly agree with you that singing should not be the focal point. The best description of worship is found in Romans 12:1 --2. Additionally, Jesus made it quite plain in John 4, that worship in the Kingdom that Jesus was launching would not be a matter of "in this place or in that place" but "in spirit and in truth", which also relates to Romans 12. (Gary Henley, founder IOM)

Though many gatherings have a central point of the gathering to listen to a talk, there are relatively few examples of Jesus giving direct teaching in this manner. Mostly we see asides at the end of stories, like at the end of the story of the list sheep, but mostly he communicated through the stories or through dialogue.

There are, however, two examples: What we now call the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ and Jesus teaching at the synagogue in Capernaum. The Sermon on the Mount is the longest record of any of Jesus’ teaching, spanning three chapters in Matthew’s narrative. The account of this talk ranges over many topics, and covers a number of different styles of teaching. Hence, I suspect the Sermon on the Mount may have actually been a series of smaller talks that Jesus gave over a period of time during that day pulled together by the Gospel authors.

There are many more examples of Jesus in dialogue with those he met. In ‘In the image… of a creative God’ I consider three of them: Nicodemus, a woman He met at a well in Samaria and the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. In each of these cases, Jesus interacted with the people concerned. The communication was two way. Jesus came to earth to bring God and man back into a relationship. And relationships are concerned very much with communication and dialogue.

The fist Passover was described in chapter 12 of the book of Exedus. Every household was to sacrifice a lamb and paint the blood onto the lintels and doorposts of their houses. This was so that the angel of Death would not kill the first-born sons of those households, but only those of the Egyptians, as God had already warned them. The lamb they had killed the household were to eat along with bread without yeast and bitter herbs to build up their strength prior to their hasty departure from Egypt when Pharoah kicked them out.

Every year at the same time the Jews celebrated the feast of the Passover. Jesus ate the Passover meal with His disciples and in that meal introduced new meaning to the symbolism for His followers. He then commended His followers to do this same meal as a remembrance of Him when He was gone.

Over the centuries the symbolism has increased and the meal decreased so many HCCs now have a sliver of bread and a sip of wine or juice to remind them of Jesus.

There are numerous accounts of Jesus sharing meals with His disciples and with many people during the three years we call His ‘public ministry’. Eating together seemed to be an important part of the gathering when He was on earth and the early disciples continued this practice.

Sharing meals together is something all of the types of ekklesia seem to be discovering, though Eastern MBCs seem to be leading the way. This is in part due to their focus on hospitality, which is partly cultural and partly a natural outworking of their outward focus.

Proclamation Evangelism is very much at the heart of modern Evangelicalism. Proclamation, which is almost the antithesis of dialogue and more related to listing to a talk is described as ‘to announce officially and publicly; declare – to indicate conspicuously; make plain – to praise; extol’[10] So when Luke writes. ‘And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."’[11] Then we too are commended to ‘proclaim the Kingdom of God. How we do it and what it means in today’s society is a different question. Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God primarily in stories.

Proclaiming the Kingdom of God in a way that is being critical or challenging, Jesus only did with religious leaders. Singing was historically part of early church practice and can be accepted or not, but is not an essential part of a gathering. The question of dialogue contrasted with didactic teaching is one that will continue till Jesus returns. However, it can be seen from this that MBCs are not some strange syncretistic aberration of the practice of Jesus, but very much at the core of what He did on earth. 

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[1] Hebrews 10:24-25, ESV

[2] Strong’s Concordance number 1577

[3] Stuart Murray Post Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strangle Land (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004) 83-88.

[4] Evangelical Alliance Basis of Belief, statement 3.

[5] Rev Geoff Lanham, Mission Shaped Church conference in June 2004

[6] Rev Geoff Lanham, Mission Shaped Church conference in June 2004

[7] Mark 1:15, ESV.

[8] Matthew 7:3-5, ESV

[9] Matthew 26:30, ESV

[10] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/proclaim

[11] Luk3 9:60, ESV