My Own Take on Ethos
I was inspired by my buddy Mike’s posts on Ethos at Bish Blog. Mike and I are a part of the same faith community. But when you read my take on Ethos then read Mike’s, you’ll see we are looking at the same coin. He sees heads and I see tails.
In my mind Ethos is to be cultivated as well as experienced. Case in point: When immigrants of my grandparent’s generation came to this country they came to become Americans. They believed in the American dream that if you work hard and smart, are honest, and a little bit lucky, one can provide a nice life for yourself and your family. They came, they learned the language, and they adopted large parts of the culture. At the same time they didn’t completely abandon their own culture. Thank God too. Where would we be without Italian restaurants and Chinese food? What they didn’t do is come here to impose their culture on the rest of America.
Ethos is a funny thing. It is literally the sum of the cultural parts as expressed in a particular community. As different people come and go the Ethos literally changes with each addition and each subtraction. But is there a part of the Ethos that is not negotiable? Another way to look at it is what makes this faith community (or church family) different form every other one. Is there something here in the culture of this faith community that makes some people want to stay and adopt it while others don’t want to adopt it and leave?
I submit to you that there are parts of the culture that if removed simply wouldn’t be the same culture. It’s those parts that we agree on that are the glue. I think they need to be explored, discussed, presented to people investigating us and taught to each other and our children.
So what's the glue?
First I would say we are all Christians in the traditional sense of the word. There are many different denominational backgrounds and beliefs represented. But we would all agree on the basic tenants of the faith like Jesus’ divinity, sacrifice on the cross to pay for the sins of us all etcetera.
This could be said about many churches and faith communities. But when Tara and I walk into a new home church we can usually tell within five minutes if they are kindred spirits or if they are just traditional church that hasn’t grown enough to meet in a building so they use a home instead. We like to visit other home churches to encourage them since when we started out 8 years ago we felt so alone. Similarly when someone visits our faith community they should be able to tell within a few minutes that something’s different here. It’s those differences that I think set us apart and join us together.
Answers to “Who’s your pastor?” and “How do you handle money?” tell Tara and I nearly everything we need to know to understand if they share the core components of our ethos or not.
If you were to ask ten different people in our church family who is the pastor you would get ten different answers. And none of them would be easy. No one would say seriously that it was pastor so and so. You might get answers like we all pastor each other. Or there is no specific person that is the pastor. Or different people have the gift of pasturing.
The next question is about money. To be frank, to prove tithing is legitimate from the new testament you have to do some serious biblical acrobatics. There’s more flips and twists in that argument than on an Olympic gym floor. So if we get an answer like “We teach that one should not rob God of his tithe which is 10% of gross income.” I know I’m just not in the right place. In our community we don’t teach or practice tithing to the community. Some in the group may tithe to other nonprofit organizations like Compassion international. But that is up to the individual family. I personally believe God wants 100% not a measly 10. But that’s another blog.
I should say something about transition here. Often times we hear an answer we like to one question but not both. Or we’ve seen where the answers they give show we are on the same page but their actions tell a different story. In those cases we say they are in transition. Most of us came out of a traditional 501c3 church where there is a board of directors, and executive director (the pastor) perhaps a staff (the clergy) and everyone else (laity.) When someone feels that there is something wrong with this sometimes they leave and do something new. Sometimes they work their way towards what many people know as a home church. During the time when they are unlearning everything they were taught and relearning what is true according to the Bible, we call this time transition. This process takes time, often several years. During which what people believe and how they practice that belief goes through many changes. But that’s another blog.
A related element of our Ethos is the willingness to unlearn, relearn and challenge long held beliefs. When Tara and I first left our AG church we spent the next 6 years just trying to figure out what the Bible actually said instead of what people told us it said. Believe it or not it doesn’t take a degree in theology to understand its core messages and meanings. Yes there is value to an education. Don’t get me wrong. But in an effort to differentiate themselves and justify their occupations too many theologians have complicated the good news beyond repair. Some over complicate the simple. There are lots of reasons this is the natural tendency but that’s another blog.
Finally the priest hood of the believer is held to be true and practiced. Most churches will say they believe in the priesthood of the believer but when it comes to praying for people, teaching, preaching, etc. it’s usually up to paid clergy to do that work. Everyone else is relegated to child care and parking ministry. In my own experience I made it all the way up to head usher. I was shooting for senior head usher but didn’t make it before I left. In the group I worship with now, everyone is encouraged to use their gifts no matter who they are or what their education. All that is needed is maturity, gifting, opportunity, and God’s timing all within the context of respect for the boundaries of the nuclear family. Maturity is the state of knowing what to do or say, gifting is the God given power to do or say it, opportunity is having the chance to do it, and finally God’s timing is that internal sense that God wants it done or said now or later. The context of nuclear family means if a man is going to room to privately pray for another man’s wife, he had better ask the man’s permission first and all the other situations like that where God has put man to protect his wife and parents to protect their children.
Peace,
-John
I was inspired by my buddy Mike’s posts on Ethos at Bish Blog. Mike and I are a part of the same faith community. But when you read my take on Ethos then read Mike’s, you’ll see we are looking at the same coin. He sees heads and I see tails.
In my mind Ethos is to be cultivated as well as experienced. Case in point: When immigrants of my grandparent’s generation came to this country they came to become Americans. They believed in the American dream that if you work hard and smart, are honest, and a little bit lucky, one can provide a nice life for yourself and your family. They came, they learned the language, and they adopted large parts of the culture. At the same time they didn’t completely abandon their own culture. Thank God too. Where would we be without Italian restaurants and Chinese food? What they didn’t do is come here to impose their culture on the rest of America.
Ethos is a funny thing. It is literally the sum of the cultural parts as expressed in a particular community. As different people come and go the Ethos literally changes with each addition and each subtraction. But is there a part of the Ethos that is not negotiable? Another way to look at it is what makes this faith community (or church family) different form every other one. Is there something here in the culture of this faith community that makes some people want to stay and adopt it while others don’t want to adopt it and leave?
I submit to you that there are parts of the culture that if removed simply wouldn’t be the same culture. It’s those parts that we agree on that are the glue. I think they need to be explored, discussed, presented to people investigating us and taught to each other and our children.
So what's the glue?
First I would say we are all Christians in the traditional sense of the word. There are many different denominational backgrounds and beliefs represented. But we would all agree on the basic tenants of the faith like Jesus’ divinity, sacrifice on the cross to pay for the sins of us all etcetera.
This could be said about many churches and faith communities. But when Tara and I walk into a new home church we can usually tell within five minutes if they are kindred spirits or if they are just traditional church that hasn’t grown enough to meet in a building so they use a home instead. We like to visit other home churches to encourage them since when we started out 8 years ago we felt so alone. Similarly when someone visits our faith community they should be able to tell within a few minutes that something’s different here. It’s those differences that I think set us apart and join us together.
Answers to “Who’s your pastor?” and “How do you handle money?” tell Tara and I nearly everything we need to know to understand if they share the core components of our ethos or not.
If you were to ask ten different people in our church family who is the pastor you would get ten different answers. And none of them would be easy. No one would say seriously that it was pastor so and so. You might get answers like we all pastor each other. Or there is no specific person that is the pastor. Or different people have the gift of pasturing.
The next question is about money. To be frank, to prove tithing is legitimate from the new testament you have to do some serious biblical acrobatics. There’s more flips and twists in that argument than on an Olympic gym floor. So if we get an answer like “We teach that one should not rob God of his tithe which is 10% of gross income.” I know I’m just not in the right place. In our community we don’t teach or practice tithing to the community. Some in the group may tithe to other nonprofit organizations like Compassion international. But that is up to the individual family. I personally believe God wants 100% not a measly 10. But that’s another blog.
I should say something about transition here. Often times we hear an answer we like to one question but not both. Or we’ve seen where the answers they give show we are on the same page but their actions tell a different story. In those cases we say they are in transition. Most of us came out of a traditional 501c3 church where there is a board of directors, and executive director (the pastor) perhaps a staff (the clergy) and everyone else (laity.) When someone feels that there is something wrong with this sometimes they leave and do something new. Sometimes they work their way towards what many people know as a home church. During the time when they are unlearning everything they were taught and relearning what is true according to the Bible, we call this time transition. This process takes time, often several years. During which what people believe and how they practice that belief goes through many changes. But that’s another blog.
A related element of our Ethos is the willingness to unlearn, relearn and challenge long held beliefs. When Tara and I first left our AG church we spent the next 6 years just trying to figure out what the Bible actually said instead of what people told us it said. Believe it or not it doesn’t take a degree in theology to understand its core messages and meanings. Yes there is value to an education. Don’t get me wrong. But in an effort to differentiate themselves and justify their occupations too many theologians have complicated the good news beyond repair. Some over complicate the simple. There are lots of reasons this is the natural tendency but that’s another blog.
Finally the priest hood of the believer is held to be true and practiced. Most churches will say they believe in the priesthood of the believer but when it comes to praying for people, teaching, preaching, etc. it’s usually up to paid clergy to do that work. Everyone else is relegated to child care and parking ministry. In my own experience I made it all the way up to head usher. I was shooting for senior head usher but didn’t make it before I left. In the group I worship with now, everyone is encouraged to use their gifts no matter who they are or what their education. All that is needed is maturity, gifting, opportunity, and God’s timing all within the context of respect for the boundaries of the nuclear family. Maturity is the state of knowing what to do or say, gifting is the God given power to do or say it, opportunity is having the chance to do it, and finally God’s timing is that internal sense that God wants it done or said now or later. The context of nuclear family means if a man is going to room to privately pray for another man’s wife, he had better ask the man’s permission first and all the other situations like that where God has put man to protect his wife and parents to protect their children.
Peace,
-John
Labels: church leadership, ethos, home church, leadership
posted by John Husband at 7:11 PM
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