Jump 'n Holler Heresy

In recent conversations regarding a few best-selling, Christian books, I have heard the word "heresy" repeated several times. My ears perk up when this particular subject arises for at least two reasons: 1) It has been a long time since the Spanish Inquisition has been fully operational; and, 2) I have been accused of my own heresies during my ministry career. Yes, it must be hard to believe, but several people have found my teaching unpalatable over the years.

[Please note: The previous statement does not make reference to my daughters and wife who have been obligated to hear me preach the same sermon several times and still feign interest. That is a very different type of "unpalatable."]

Within three or four months of becoming a Christian, a group (that would later, unfortunately, evolve into a cult) invited me to become a leader in their "church." I may have been dumber-than-dirt as a new believer, but I knew enough to know that I was not prepared or qualified to be a leader in any Christian fellowship. When the group finally understood that my "no" meant "no," their leaders accused me of "holding hands with the devil" for shirking my God-given duty.

Funny, but I think God used that experience to help me think independently as a believer in Christ. It is hard to lose your reputation after you have been branded a heretic.

Early in my Christian walk I had the great privilege of using my rudimentary knowledge of music (primarily confined to six-chord rock 'n roll) to share my new-found faith. For at least two years I played with my good friend Gary Hanson in churches, coffee houses and city parks. A special memory was playing a concert in the middle of a cow pasture late on an October night for about eighty high-school and college aged students. Words cannot describe how cold human fingers can become playing guitar under those circumstances!

Once we were invited to play for a youth activity at church that - in the interest of protecting the guilty - will go unnamed. After setting up our amplifiers and doing everything necessary to play an hour-long set, we started in with two opening songs. Suddenly the pastor of the church went to the back of the stage and literally pulled the plug on us. He then came out and began to explain to the audience that anyone who played guitars was actually an agent of Satan.

This was rapidly becoming a recurring theme in my Christian life.

Since those inauspicious beginnings, I have had people criticize my ministry and teaching on a number of occasions.

I was once accused of not preaching the Gospel because I didn't "yell enough in my sermons." Now, admittedly this was in the deep South where, years ago, a type of "jump an' holler" homiletic was considered the norm. Still, I continue to fail to understand the direct relationship between vocal volume and the communication of the Good News.

I now like to warn those listening to my preaching or teaching that I might be presenting a heresy to them. It just seems to be a common courtesy. This past week I did so with a group of men at our Multiplication Center in Costa Rica. In trying to work through the early chronology of Paul's life, I suggested that he probably left Damascus, went to Arabia for three years and returned to Damascus before he had to be let down in the basket to escape the city and his persecutors. Funny how a small twist like that can unsettle people.

One of my long-standing "heresies" is that I am a missionary who doesn't believe in the "Great Commission." As I look at Matthew 28:19 and 20, I do not see a command to "go into the world" as much as I see an emphasis on "making disciples as-we-go." In the Greek, the strong verb in the passage is "mathēteuō" which literally means "to disciple." The modifying verb translated as "go" in our English Bibles is probably better understood to mean "as-you-are-going."

Of course, the implication of my "Everyday Commission" heresy is that we are all responsible to live as disciples of Jesus Christ and make disciples as we go through our normal lives. The hope for next-generation Christianity is not special missionaries who go to foreign lands. Instead, it would seem the plan has always been that each one of us would actually be serious disciples of Jesus and, as we go through the lives we are called to live, we would make disciples among those around us.

I must admit, I wish Christians could start talking about heresies like this one a bit more and discussing some of the NY Times best-seller books a bit less. More than that, I wish we could do less talking altogether and have a lot more "being and making." However, those are the kind of sentiments that will probably get me burned at the stake some day.

By the way, if that actually happens, I hereby promise to make up for all my previous short-comings in the "jump an' holler"department. Trust me, I will.