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The reason many of us ignore the formation of our character, says Johnson, is because it will slow us down. Many ministry leaders want success, a big church, or a crowd. But how many of us want a real life? How many of us want a life in God? We can have that, Johnson believes. We can have a character that produces love, peace, patience, kindness…but it will slow us down. It might mean the church won’t grow as big as quickly. It might mean the crowd will get smaller.

But the alternative is both devastating and all too common. The alternative is a ministry of high impact but shallow character. As only Johnson could say it, “In the bible it was a miracle when God spoke through an ass. Now it happens everyday.” Translation: God is speaking powerfully through many pastors, but their characters show nothing of God’s life. These leaders, along with their anger, pride, bitterness, and cynicism, are tolerated by many churches because they are able to “fill the room.” Their powerful spiritual gifts, like Samson’s, deflect the flaws of their characters.

(Success Covers a Multitude of Sins)

I thought to myself that if sola scriptura can result in everything from the philosophical theology of Calvinism to the Open View of God, from Nicean Trinitarianism to social trinitarianism to Oneness Pentecostalism’s rehabilitation of Sabellianism to 19^th-century Unitarianism, then sola scriptura is not a sufficient bulwark for sustaining Christian orthodoxy. (Francis Beckwith)

In the vaunted small-group movement - which certainly has some good things going for it (probably earlier on, more than now) - people say, “Well, we take care of community by having small groups.” Well, those aren’t communities - those are people you like. And, you know, a community has to have people you don’t like in it. (Eugene Peterson, Radix Magazine, Volume 32:3)

Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives. (Henri Nouwen)

That’s part of this life: You ask God questions and you go without a lot of answers… You learn to live with the mystery of a God who doesn’t tell us all the details. Kids ask their parents a lot of questions. And sometimes parents say to their kids, “Just trust me. You don’t know enough to understand the answer. So just live awhile.” Being a Christian and reading the Bible is not a way to get all your questions answered. There are few answers in the Bible. God is wanting to draw us into a relationship of faith, intimacy, and love. That doesn’t come through information alone. It comes through trust, obedience, and the willingness to be present in the mystery of God. It comes through letting Him reveal himself to us as we’re able to receive the revelation. If God just dumped all the answers on us at once, we probably couldn’t handle it. We’d misuse it. We’d think we had control of it now. (Eugene Peterson)

I’m often unsure what to say when people ask me what church I attend. Truth is, I’ve not been attending any church regularly for around 5 years now - since the time I left for my further studies abroad. Reason is because I’ve been searching.

I started moving away from conservative evangelicalism as I became more interested in social justice issues 5 years ago. During this time, I began to lose a lot of the certainty I had before about various Christian issues. That is, epistemologically, I gradually embraced a more moderate or soft form of Postmodernism (or Critical Realism). Conservative evangelicalism, which most of us (and virtually all Singaporean Christians) are born into upon becoming Christians, started to lose its grips on me.

As mentioned elsewhere, the movement or tradition of Christianity I’d identify most with is the Emerging Church movement. I can’t say I agree with everything in this movement, but I certainly identify with a lot in it. That’s the kind of Christianity I’m talking about when I talk about a Christianity that is progressive. That’s the kind of Christianity that I’m very sure Bono of U2 would identify with. And, needless to say, that’s the kind of Christianity I believe is closest to what the Bible advocates. The fact that I can’t find such a Christianity here in Singapore is the reason why I find it hard to settle down and serve in a church - as I think should be the ideal scenario for every Christian. I’d rather not be regularly attending any one particular church though still seeking God on my own, than to attend a church for the sake of attending (and for the sake of being in a community of believers, which I acknowledge is very important) and get discouraged by the kind of mediocre, compromised and self-absorbed Christianity I see being taught and practiced in most Churches nowadays.

However, I do hope to attend and serve in a church faithfully one day. Though, that would take time. For the moment, thinking Christians may wish read this excellent and balanced article about the Emerging Church movement in Christianity Today magazine. The author Scot McKnight, who blogs at Jesus Creed, lists five unique aspects of this movement:

1) Prophetic / provocative: “The emerging movement is consciously and deliberately provocative. Emerging Christians believe the church needs to change…”

2) Postmodernism: “While there are good as well as naughty consequences of opting for a postmodern stance (and not all in the emerging movement are as careful as they should be), evangelical Christians can rightfully embrace certain elements of postmodernity.”

3) Praxis-orientated: “At its core, the emerging movement is an attempt to fashion a new ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). Its distinctive emphases can be seen in its worship, its concern with orthopraxy, and its missional orientation.”

4) Post-evangelical: “The emerging movement is a protest against much of evangelicalism as currently practiced… This stream flows from the conviction that the church must always be reforming itself.”

5) Political: “I also lean left in politics. I tell my friends that I have voted Democrat for years for all the wrong reasons. I don’t think the Democratic Party is worth a hoot, but its historic commitment to the poor and to centralizing government for social justice is what I think government should do. I don’t support abortion—in fact, I think it is immoral. I believe in civil rights, but I don’t believe homosexuality is God’s design. And, like many in the emerging movement, I think the Religious Right doesn’t see what it is doing. Sometimes, however, when I look at emerging politics, I see Walter Rauschenbusch, the architect of the social gospel. Without trying to deny the spiritual gospel, he led his followers into the social gospel. The results were devastating for mainline Christianity’s ability to summon sinners to personal conversion. The results were also devastating for evangelical Christianity, which has itself struggled to maintain a proper balance.”

In the enlightenment project, words were more important than acts, but that was just a blip in history. Before that, it was “the word made flesh.” In this generation, it’s vital to get back to the principle of John 1: the Word must become flesh and move into our neighbourhood. That’s the best revelation of what God’s love is and who God is. (Steve Stockman)