Renovate: Changing Who You Are by Loving Where You Are - Softcover

Crump Jr., Léonce B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1601425546 ISBN 13: 9781601425546

Publisher: Multnomah, 2016

Synopsis

An Atlanta pastor describes how individuals and churches can become agents for spiritual and cultural renewal in urban contexts.

God is not wiping this world away. He is in the midst of renovating it. 

Léonce Crump, lead pastor of Renovation Church in the urban core of Atlanta, invites you to do what God did when He wanted to make a difference in this world—move in.
 
Whether you’re a pastor looking to plant a church, a missionary preparing to serve in a far-off land, a family preparing to move into a new community, or a follower of Jesus simply looking to engage more deeply in your current neighborhood, Léonce reveals how our agendas can often sabotage achieving real change in our world.
 
Léonce takes you on a journey to understand what he calls “the ministry of presence” which he himself learned the hard way after planting a church in one of the most violent areas of Atlanta. Léonce and his family found that, before we can preach or reach others, we must first know the story of a place and its people—especially since skin color, cultural norms, and economic status often isolate us more than bringing us together.
 

About this title

About the Author

Léonce B. Crump Jr. is lead pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta. The former professional athlete has strong transcultural appeal and connections in the world of professional sports and pop music as well as church planting and leadership circles. He is currently earning his Master of Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary. Leonce and his wife Breanna reside in downtown Atlanta with their two daughters and son.
 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Why Are We Here?
 
 
Directions are instructions given to explain how. Direction is a vision offered to explain why.
-Simon Sinek

his book  is essentially a renovation project,  and  as with  any such  project, it is essential  to start  with  the  foundation. Is it sound? Does  it need  repair  in any way? Bypassing  the  founda­ tion  only leads to headache later, so that's  where  we're going  to begin-the foundation. Answering the  question "Why are we here?"  is our  foundation. Discovering God's true  purposes for the world He created and  our  role in it is our foundation. Upon this  foundation we  will  build  every  other  idea  presented and hopefully build  a holy confidence in you that  empowers you to believe that  what you are doing, right where you are, right  now, matters. There will  be some  lofty  proposals that  may  disturb what you've always felt to be true, and I certainly won't  be able to cover every potential objection exhaustively. My  hope,  though, is that as you grapple with the possibility that our most com- mon understanding of the phrase “Jesus came to save the world” may be truncated or misguided is that you would do so by first running to the Scriptures and nowhere else to determine whether what is being written here is true or whether I’ve sim- ply lost my mind. So are you ready? Really ready? Okay then, here we go.
Heaven  is not our ultimate hope. Yes, you read that correctly. To take heaven as our ultimate hope, believing that in the end God will simply wipe away the world and start over, has far-reaching effects. Our belief may subconsciously stunt the way we live life and do ministry. Even the difficulty many have with investing long-term in a place, to see a ministry effort through to its end, is connected to our view of what God will do with this world. If you believe our ultimate hope is in heaven, I must ask, what if you’re wrong?
 
 
For God  So loved This World
 
Jesus came to save the world—what an incredibly pregnant phrase, a phrase familiar to most every follower of Jesus. Jesus came not to condemn the world, nor judge the world, but to save the world. He says as much throughout the Gospels. He says it with force in His emotion-filled soliloquy at the end of John’s narrative, in chapter 12.
 
 
I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. (verses 46–47)
 
 
This phrase captures the thrust of His intentions. It is re- flective of God’s desires described amid many illustrative state- ments at the close of His public ministry, and we must consider it with new eyes if we are ever to understand what it means to be fully present in a place, as opposed to transient, and what it means to do ministry in this world, the only world we have.
So I ask a simple but complex question:
 
 
how is it that you view this world?
 
 
I ask this first because it is fundamental to our discussion. How we view God’s world matters with respect to how we treat God’s world and how we see ourselves in it. I ask, second, be- cause for centuries we’ve been taught there is a dichotomy be- tween the sacred and the secular, between that which is of the world and that which is not. This is a sort of Christianized Gnosticism that treats this material world as inherently bad and our being in Christ as purely spiritual, which in turn leaves us completely detached from this world. The unfortunate conse- quence of this perspective is that many of us have been taught, and therefore believe, that we are pitted against the world as enemies—and if not enemies, then neutral participants—rather than postured toward this world as what I call “redemptive agents.” On a more serious front, this has led to an escapism mentality when it comes to the world; namely, we are separate from it and therefore must survive it until we are relieved.
 
 
a Silly GoSPel
 
In sillier forms this mentality has led to Christianized interpre- tations of otherwise normal activities. What, for instance, is Christian aerobics or, more controversially, Christian hip-hop? The church has created an entire subculture rooted in this sacred/secular divide, which has more to do with separating us from the world than it does with God’s intentions for the world. I realize there is nuance here, but in our fear of being too of this world, we are all too often not really in it either, but merely on it, taking up space. Songs and sermons have been written to remand us to the idea that this world is not our home. In one sense, this is true. This world, as it is, is not our home. But have we, in much of our understanding, taken this and created a false dichotomy? According to Scripture it certainly seems we have, and knowing this should make us ask some penetrating questions, such as “Why would we live detached from what Jesus came to save?” and “Why would we believe to be inher- ently evil (the world) what God once called very good?” In good conscience and right submission to God’s Word, we can’t. The world is not inherently evil; it wasn’t created that way. It has been infected with a disease called sin. This infection was initiated by satanic lies and ratified by the covenant-breaking actions of the first family. The world was made good, and God so loves His world, why would He abandon it?
Here’s one way to conceptualize this idea, particularly if you are married or desire to be. Imagine your spouse is sud- denly infected with a disease, though it is their own fault that they are infected. They wandered into a quarantined area for no good reason other than they wanted to, and they have now contracted a life-threatening illness. Would you revile them or seek to redeem them? Would you desire to heal them or have them die? Would you desire to save them or see them destroyed? Unless you lack an ounce of humanity, we both know the an- swer to those questions. How much more, then, would God, in His infinite and unalterable perfection and love, long to keep His covenant with creation, eradicate the disease of sin, and restore His creative work? God wants to win the world, not destroy it! God’s ultimate desire is to restore the world, not wipe it away. This world is not an evil place needing to be escaped from, but an infected place needing to be renewed, to be re- stored, to be renovated. Make no mistake, these are competing worldviews. The escapist route is best captured by that word I’ve mentioned a few times already—transience—which may be the ministry problem, if not life problem, of our time. The renovating route evokes words like perseverance, faithfulness, long-suffering, staying put.
This is the narrative of the Scriptures—God’s continued revelation of His covenant relationship with humanity and creation. What we have, then, in Jesus repeatedly declaring that He came to save the world rather than rid God of it is so rich with meaning that we must embrace it, not only for how it af- fects our view of our future, but for how it impacts the way we live now, where we live now, and what we do day-to-day in our present reality.
 
 
baCkWard underSTandinG
 
You’ve probably heard some variation of the quote, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” The source is the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, and his point was that clarity for our lives forward lies in looking to the past. That’s how it works here, as we look back to the very beginning. The Scriptures open with a dramatic tone. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1–2). If you are a Christian, then you have likely read these words, perhaps many times. You have more than likely taken them as a simple account of what took place when the world was made. But what if I told you that these few words, and what follows for the next two chapters, are revealing for us far more than just a simple narrative of God’s creating everything from nothing? What if I told you that what is being revealed to us in actuality is God covenantally binding Himself not only to humanity but to the full breadth of His creation? But what does that mean, exactly?

A covenant, in brief, was a typical way of describing a rela- tionship bound by promises and obligations. The word cove- nant can be found 286 times in the Old Testament and is a common feature of the ancient world, particularly in Middle Eastern cultures. When Moses writes that God created the heavens and the earth, what he is shaping immediately for the reader is that God was establishing a covenantal relationship with His world. What comes next is familiar to most. After these substantial opening words, God begins to create, and with nearly everything He creates, He immediately calls it good. The Scriptures record an almost rhythmic continuation of just that—He creates, He calls it good. In this we see the declaration of God’s unchanging covenant with the totality of His creation. Everything He made, He sustains. And every- thing He made is meant to obey Him. Everything is bound covenantally to God (see Psalm 145).
 
 
All things, plants, animals, and persons are appointed to be covenant servants, to obey God’s law, and be instru- ments . . . of His gracious purpose.
—John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God
 
 
While that quote is true, there is a nuance when it comes to “persons.” Among all the things God created, humanity is different. Human beings are the one creature created, called, and empowered to bear God’s image within the rest of His creation.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
 
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
 
 
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26–28)
 
 
Human beings were created to mediate the rule of God to His world. We were given stewardship over everything, trusted with everything. A failure to be faithful to God on our part af- fects all of creation. We were made accountable to our Creator for His cosmos, His world.
 
 
To miss humanity’s unique calling in this world would
 
be to miss the very purpose of our being made in god’s image.

You see, this understanding only comes by looking back. But this has to leave us wondering, where is the disconnect be- tween what God intended and the world in which we presently exist? In other words, what happened?
 
 
So WhaT haPPened?
 
God created all things, and after each successive creative erup- tion, He deemed it good. After He made humanity, He looked over everything with the admiration of an overjoyed father and deemed it all “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Then a shift occurs. What Moses records following this series of creative events is tragic. Even those unfamiliar with the Bible know the unfortu- nate end of the first family, and with it the decline of “very good” into disorder and decay.
The Fall. This phrase has come to be the common nomen- clature used to describe the events of Genesis 3, a familiar but often diminished incident in history. Though the phrasing grabs our attention, it is far from adequate in describing the utter violation of God’s goodness that subsequently brought fracture and discord into God’s creation. It is inadequate in describing the devastating infection unleashed on creation that followed Adam and Eve’s terrible decision.
The full account of humanity’s creation is unpacked in Genesis 2. After God created the man, He gave him a job, to work and keep his new, perfect home. This was a beautiful be- ginning. We don’t have a time line of this period. We don’t know how long it lasted or how often God engaged with Adam, but what we read in Genesis 3:8 smacks of familiarity. God is described there as “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” This is written as though it were a common occurrence. God is personal. There is clearly a rich relationship present between the Father and Adam. Within the bounds of this relationship—the  relational dynamic of covenant is vitally important—the Father says to Adam, and Adam alone, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:16–17). This was the com- mand. It was clear. Periodically I’ve wondered to myself, why? Why create a tree that could cause such havoc? But I know I am asking the wrong question. It is not about the tree, but what the tree represented.
 
 
It was not the nature of the tree that made it dangerous . . . but what it stood for: obedience to the word of God.
—Michael D. Williams,  Far as the Curse Is Found
 
 
The tree itself is inconsequential. What’s in view is whether this man, created in God’s image, endued with God’s love, and granted stewardship of God’s rule, would trust God’s word. It’s the exact same struggle all human beings have today. Will we trust God and take Him at His word, or will we trust ourselves and elevate our word over His? Adam’s, and subsequently Eve’s, answer to that question is all too clear. The ramifications were far-reaching, affecting every aspect of creation and spreading through every generation since them.
Lucifer. The Evil One. Satan. Historically feared, maligned, or made into a playful character, he enters the narrative of Gen- esis 3 in the form of a serpent, as the voice of reasonable decep- tion. Yes, reasonable deception. He approaches Eve subtly and seemingly without ill intent. Adam is not engaged. The serpent begins his innocent inquiry by simply asking, “Did God actu- ally say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (verse 1). This is not threatening at first, but is presented as confusion on his part. Perhaps one unfamiliar with the narrative may think he simply misunderstood the command of God. But this was no misunderstanding. This was a coy attempt at dishonoring their Father and inciting rebellion. Eve, having been instructed at some point by Adam as to w...

About this edition

• Publisher: Multnomah
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1601425546
• ISBN 13: 9781601425546
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224