Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Bulwark or Bulldozer?
October 2006 congregational letter
By Rich Nathan, senior pastor of Vineyard Columbus, Ohio
It has now been more than two decades since I had the conversation which entirely changed the direction of my life and the direction of our church. I was in England participating on a prayer ministry team at a John Wimber Healing Conference. For those of you who are unfamiliar with John, he was the late founder of the Vineyard Movement.
At the time, our church was an independent, non-denominational church with about 150 attenders. We felt God stirring us to be part of something larger than ourselves. The two most obvious options for our little church were an ecumenical movement based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with whom we had had a historical relationship; the other was the Vineyard. The two movements couldn’t have been more different. The leaders of the ecumenical movement were very conservative; the leaders of the Vineyard were radical. The leaders of the ecumenical movement wouldn’t try anything new unless it had been weighed and sifted a thousand times; the leaders of the Vineyard, sometimes to a fault, were open to everything new.
But the main difference had to do with the metaphor that the ecumenical movement used to describe itself. They said that their reason for being was to be a “bulwark against the world.” A bulwark can be defined as a fortress or stronghold. But it is often used to describe a series of barriers constructed along a shoreline that keep the beach from being eroded by the successive pounding of ocean waves. Called to be a bulwark! This was an entirely defensive metaphor. It meant simply holding the ground, trying to preserve whatever Christian heritage still remained, protecting and defending the faith.
As I walked around an English park discussing the two possible options for us as a church, God gave me a moment of prophetic clarity. I said to my friend, “If we join this ecumenical movement, I need to resign as the leader of the church. In fact, I will probably be forced to go start something else because God has not called me to be a bulwark. God has called me to be a bulldozer.”
Have you ever spoken words that were inspired by the Holy Spirit which helped to define the course of your life? Perhaps it was a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph that you had not previously considered, but that you spontaneously spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Those moments are normally rare in a person’s life, but they can help to define what the course of our lives will be.
In some ways the choice between being a bulwark and being a bulldozer is the line of separation between Bible-believing churches today. On the one hand, the mass of Bible-believing churches believe their fundamental calling is to “hold the line” against the ravaging tides of secularism and modernism. Their basic approach to American culture is to go to war against the culture. In bulwark churches, all the kids are pulled out of public schools and sent to conservative Christian schools for the sake of protection. In bulwark churches, young adults are warned to avoid various academic disciplines when they attend universities such as the sciences, philosophy, the arts, dance, theatre, and liberal arts. Bulwark churches communicate to their members that the world is hopelessly fallen and cannot be changed. Therefore, it is a waste of time to work for justice, or to engage in social action or political efforts. The singular purpose of life in bulwark churches is to evangelize as many people as possible, so that we can rescue folks from a world that will ultimately be destroyed.
Bulldozer churches are very different. We are not naïve regarding the depth of sin that exists in the world. Nor are we naïve about the difficulty in changing people or in changing the world. Nevertheless, we believe that like bulldozers, we are called upon to change the landscape of the communities into which God has placed us. Bulldozer churches do not see their primary calling as merely holding the line. Bulldozer churches want to move the line through the demonstration and proclamation of the kingdom of God. Bulldozer churches celebrate people who have heroically changed the landscape: people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and William Wilberforce, the 19th century English Christian member of Parliament who led the movement that ended slavery throughout the British Empire. Bulldozer churches teach young adults to penetrate every academic discipline, again, not with naiveté, but with courage, believing in our calling to be salt and light everywhere in the world. Bulldozer churches are not afraid of truth wherever it may be found. Bulldozer churches are not afraid to think outside of the box, or to violate convention so long as we remain ruthlessly committed to scripture and to the leading of God’s Spirit.
Ultimately, bulldozer churches are churches that have a high degree of confidence in the promise contained in 1 John 5:4, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
By Rich Nathan, senior pastor of Vineyard Columbus, Ohio
It has now been more than two decades since I had the conversation which entirely changed the direction of my life and the direction of our church. I was in England participating on a prayer ministry team at a John Wimber Healing Conference. For those of you who are unfamiliar with John, he was the late founder of the Vineyard Movement.
At the time, our church was an independent, non-denominational church with about 150 attenders. We felt God stirring us to be part of something larger than ourselves. The two most obvious options for our little church were an ecumenical movement based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with whom we had had a historical relationship; the other was the Vineyard. The two movements couldn’t have been more different. The leaders of the ecumenical movement were very conservative; the leaders of the Vineyard were radical. The leaders of the ecumenical movement wouldn’t try anything new unless it had been weighed and sifted a thousand times; the leaders of the Vineyard, sometimes to a fault, were open to everything new.
But the main difference had to do with the metaphor that the ecumenical movement used to describe itself. They said that their reason for being was to be a “bulwark against the world.” A bulwark can be defined as a fortress or stronghold. But it is often used to describe a series of barriers constructed along a shoreline that keep the beach from being eroded by the successive pounding of ocean waves. Called to be a bulwark! This was an entirely defensive metaphor. It meant simply holding the ground, trying to preserve whatever Christian heritage still remained, protecting and defending the faith.
As I walked around an English park discussing the two possible options for us as a church, God gave me a moment of prophetic clarity. I said to my friend, “If we join this ecumenical movement, I need to resign as the leader of the church. In fact, I will probably be forced to go start something else because God has not called me to be a bulwark. God has called me to be a bulldozer.”
Have you ever spoken words that were inspired by the Holy Spirit which helped to define the course of your life? Perhaps it was a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph that you had not previously considered, but that you spontaneously spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Those moments are normally rare in a person’s life, but they can help to define what the course of our lives will be.
In some ways the choice between being a bulwark and being a bulldozer is the line of separation between Bible-believing churches today. On the one hand, the mass of Bible-believing churches believe their fundamental calling is to “hold the line” against the ravaging tides of secularism and modernism. Their basic approach to American culture is to go to war against the culture. In bulwark churches, all the kids are pulled out of public schools and sent to conservative Christian schools for the sake of protection. In bulwark churches, young adults are warned to avoid various academic disciplines when they attend universities such as the sciences, philosophy, the arts, dance, theatre, and liberal arts. Bulwark churches communicate to their members that the world is hopelessly fallen and cannot be changed. Therefore, it is a waste of time to work for justice, or to engage in social action or political efforts. The singular purpose of life in bulwark churches is to evangelize as many people as possible, so that we can rescue folks from a world that will ultimately be destroyed.
Bulldozer churches are very different. We are not naïve regarding the depth of sin that exists in the world. Nor are we naïve about the difficulty in changing people or in changing the world. Nevertheless, we believe that like bulldozers, we are called upon to change the landscape of the communities into which God has placed us. Bulldozer churches do not see their primary calling as merely holding the line. Bulldozer churches want to move the line through the demonstration and proclamation of the kingdom of God. Bulldozer churches celebrate people who have heroically changed the landscape: people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and William Wilberforce, the 19th century English Christian member of Parliament who led the movement that ended slavery throughout the British Empire. Bulldozer churches teach young adults to penetrate every academic discipline, again, not with naiveté, but with courage, believing in our calling to be salt and light everywhere in the world. Bulldozer churches are not afraid of truth wherever it may be found. Bulldozer churches are not afraid to think outside of the box, or to violate convention so long as we remain ruthlessly committed to scripture and to the leading of God’s Spirit.
Ultimately, bulldozer churches are churches that have a high degree of confidence in the promise contained in 1 John 5:4, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
