And after the win last week against the Steelers, it’s been impossible to miss all the coverage. There’s a new/old song about him, the inevitable Hitler/Downfall parody, and an incredible number of articles debating whether he’s as awesome as his fans think he is, or just “fool’s gold.” But this article by Rick Reilly is the best one I’ve seen:

I’ve come to believe in Tim Tebow, but not for what he does on a football field, which is still three parts Dr. Jekyll and two parts Mr. Hyde.

No, I’ve come to believe in Tim Tebow for what he does off a football field, which is represent the best parts of us, the parts I want to be and so rarely am.

Read the whole thing.

(And if you’re curious, the Atlantic has a good article by Owen Strachan that addresses the really important question: Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday?)

The problem with my pastoral job is that I don’t really know what I’m doing. So I read every book I can find and I cling to the Bible like a kid who can’t swim but somehow found a life preserver in the middle of the ocean.

I feel that way. A lot.

The theme of the 1910 World Mission Conference was “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.” Everyone in the world would have the opportunity to learn about Jesus and choose whether to become a follower before that generation had passed away.

Well. Two World Wars later, after a Cold War and a Great Depression, after decolonialization in the developing world and societal upheaval in the developed, that goal may be somewhat closer, but we seem, a hundred years later, to be in no danger of attaining it in a single generation.

One thing has changed for the better. Today, we know who the target is. A hundred years ago, they said “the world” but they meant “distant lands full of heathens.” Today, we know better: Christendom is dead-if it ever existed-and the mission field is just as ripe next door as it is across the planet.

During that same year, 1910, the United Presbyterian Church of North America (a predecessor of our denomination) adopted what it called the Great Ends of the Church:

The great ends of the church are (1) the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; (2) the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; (3) the maintenance of divine worship; (4) the preservation of the truth; (5) the promotion of social righteousness; and (6) the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

It’s not a bad list, but we sure can be selective in advancing those ends. For example, the greatest part of our budget goes to #3: divine worship, led by myself and our choir director. The bulk of your volunteer effort goes to #2: fellowship and congregational care. The 4th and 5th ends — truth and social righteousness — need not be in conflict, but it’s a very rare church (or denomination) that is able to hold the two in balance. Generally, what we do is choose one or the other, and then say bad things about Christians who pick the other one.

And that leads us to #1 and #6. How serious are we about proclaiming the gospel to people who’ve never heard it? How much thought to do we give to exhibiting the Kingdom of Heaven to the world?

Especially since we now realize “the world” is next door. It’s across the street and down the block. It’s the grocery store and the gas station. It’s all over. “The world” is everywhere. How well are we doing in evangelizing it? Does it even know we’re here?

Those conferees in Edinburgh a hundred years ago wanted to evangelize the world. They didn’t realize how much of the world needed to be evangelized, but they were willing to try.

Let’s try, too. Let’s not let our church be defined by just one or two of the Great Ends of the Church. Let’s maintain divine worship and nurture the children of God, by all means. But let’s not forget to tell people about Jesus, or to exhibit his Kingdom to them, either.

Well, technically, I wasn’t on a retreat. I was at the 2010 Academy of Missional Preaching (Southwest). But it was held at the Serra Retreat Center in Malibu, and there were retreat-ish aspects to it. If you needed to work on a sermon, you could go sit in a garden like the one above and think about what you were trying to say. It was a pretty harsh existence, but we must all be prepared to sacrifice for the Kingdom.

Of course, it was not only about preaching, it was about missional preaching. (Missional is the idea that the church exists as an instrument used in God’s mission to the world. See John 20:21, Acts 1:8, etc.) In addition to preaching, we also got to hear various speakers including John Dally (Choosing the Kingdom) and Darrell Guder (Missional Church).

Then he went about among the villages teaching.
He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two.
—Mark 6:6-7

In AD 100, the worldwide total number of Christians might have been about 25,000. For the next two centuries, Christianity was an an illegal religion, and endured several waves of violent persecution. It had no trained clergy, nor any church buildings as we know them. But in the early 300′s, when Christianity was finally legalized, the number of Christians was about 20 million.

In 1949, there were about 2 million Christians in China. Under Mao, the state killed or imprisoned every senior Christian leader and banned all meetings of Christians. After Mao had died, and China was somewhat liberalized in the early 1980s, Westerners began to visit it. They were stunned to find that the number of Christians-after 30 years of oppression!-was at least 60 million.

These statistics come from The Forgotten Ways, a book by the Australian Alan Hirsch. From these and other historical lessons Hirsh argues that the Church flourishes in adversity and stagnates, or even decays, in periods of calm and comfort. Whenever it has the luxury to do so, the church ceases to be a movement and becomes an establishment. It spends less of its energy changing lives and more of it doing institutional maintenance.

That’s not a happy thought, but the history of the church in America (and especially Europe) doesn’t provide a very good argument against Hirsch. Our Presbyterian denomination has shrunk about 3% in the last 25 years, while the U.S. population has grown by nearly a quarter. Other denominations have declined as well. Between 1990 and 2008, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Christians has shrunk nearly 10%-from 86% to 76%.

We like to think our institutional trappings are a help to us. We have a place of our own to gather, with classrooms and restrooms and musical instruments and anything else we might need. But restrooms have plumbing and classrooms need painting. With the best will in the world, we find ourselves distracted by it all. Our focus subtly shifts from changing lives to maintaining the institution.

So what are we to do? Advocate for greater religious oppression? Well, you can do that, but I like not being persecuted for my faith!

Then what?

Jesus gives us the answer. Look at the gospels to see how he avoided the problems of institutional maintenance. He moved around. Even when he was popular, he kept moving. But he didn’t just move around with his disciples. He kept them moving too. Even then, we see the kind of problem Hirsch identified, with the disciples arguing among themselves about who was most important (e.g., Mark 9:33 and then again in 9:38). Maybe that’s why he sent them out without him on missionary trips.

After the Resurrection, Jesus sent out his disciples on the greatest trip of all, the one we’re still supposed to be on. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

So let’s lift our gaze a little higher. When we’re talking with our neighbors, let’s see that conversation as the encounter between the church and the world God is redeeming. When we bump into a friend at the grocery store or the community center, let’s remember that’s a place we can be disciples, too. Let’s remember the church isn’t a building or even what we do there. The church is the people of God, moving through history loving God and everyone whom God loves.