A Blog by Jason Salamun

Blogger Dave Ingland asked me and others to answer three questions on the church for an upcoming blog series.

Here are his three questions and my replies.

What do you think? How would you answer?

1) How would you define the (local) church?

In a nutshell, the local church is a community of sinners saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ who join God in his mission in the world.

Symbolically of course, the Church is referred to as the Body of Christ, Bride of Christ,and Family of God. Scripture gives us purposes, distinctions, and directions on how we are to function and organize but to answer your question, I’ll stick with my simple answer.

2) Is the church relevant? Why?

Five to ten years ago I would have said, “no.” The music is outdated, the dress code is too stuffy, the church buildings are on the cutting edge of 1890, etc. I’d refer to myself as a “Christ Follower” instead of a “Christian” because I didn’t want to be connected to THOSE people.

I was immature.

Many of us were.

Many of us still are.

A church is relevant because the gospel is (I’m assuming a genuine church is a gospel-centered church). The message is unchanging and relevant but communicating the message will depend on your culture. Speak the language but don’t change the message.

I’m all for contextualizing the gospel to our culture but it’s so much more than cool lights, killer environments, and pop worship. Frankly, a traditional church service full of liturgy can be just as (or more) “relevant” as a rock show worship experience. As I look out at the church planting landscape, I’m seeing a bunch of cookie-cutter “relevant” churches who somehow believe their graphic t-shirts and a coffee bars are the good news.  Sad. So sad.

Throwing a pair of hipster jeans on the gospel doesn’t make it relevant.

The gospel is about a King and a Kingdom.

Every community is different but I do know this: love is relevant in any language. Jesus doesn’t need make-up to be attractive to our culture, he is to be lifted up and he said he would draw people to himself (John 12:32).

I’m not against creating environments, talking plainly, having modern music etc., (our church does that), but I think “relevance” as we know it is superficial at best. It’s so much more than style and preferences. I think our generation needs to understand the gospel better and learn how to diagnose idolatry in their culture and people’s hearts and treat it with the gospel. Show people how they fit into God’s epic story. That’s relevant to any people in any time, and any place.

P.S. Nothing is sadder than a middle-aged pastor wearing his college kids clothes and trying to talk Snoop in a sermon. That’s not relevant, that’s goofy.

3) Do you see the church looking different in the future? Please explain.

I believe in the church because I believe in Jesus.

This defeatist attitude we have about the church in the west is pathetic. We already know how this will all end! We are the Body of Christ! He said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The question is, do we believe it?

In the future, just as in the past, churches will gather in various expressions and models and forms, but we all have the same mission: Make disciples who love God and people. From house churches to mega-churches, from traditional churches to contemporary churches and everything in between, we need them all. The point isn’t to build the Church, the Lord will do that. The point is to point people to him.

I don’t know about tomorrow but I know about today. The future is a product of the present. We were born for such a time as this and the need for the gospel has never been greater. The time is now!

Imagine if churches followed Jesus and lived out passages like Luke 4:18-19,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

That’s a future I want to help create!

Recently, I had the opportunity to pray at center ice of a local pro hockey game in front of 4500 people.

It was a sweet moment.

As I was waiting by the penalty box listening to the National Anthem, I thought, “Why me?”

With the chill of the ice beneath my feet and the chill of the goosebumps on my arms as the young gal sang, “of the land and of the freeeeee” I was dumbfounded how I got to this point.

How did I go from sitting on the sidelines of life watching others live their dreams to playing in the game and living mine?

Why me?

I’m just an ordinary guy.

Just five years ago I was content to have a good job, take care of my family, go to church, try to be a decent person, and live a comfortable life.

Until God disturbed me.

He filled me with a passion to help people live free.

And I know the only path to true freedom is the gospel.

The gospel produces community who are on a mission to make disciples.

Followers of Jesus who love God, love people, & live free.

The gospel was the seed that birthed Project Church.

And somehow, someway God called me to be a part of this.

Why me?

There are certainly better people God could have chosen.

Better pedigree.

Better leaders.

Better communicators.

Better looking.

You name it.

Some people feel the need to point out how unimpressive I am.

Too much this, not enough that.

So and so is better.

I already know.

I’m just a dude.

But I’m a dude who really loves Jesus.

I’m a dude who really wants you to live free.

To know the Jesus that I know.

To taste the grace that I’ve tasted.

To experience the freedom that I’m experiencing.

Why me?

Perhaps my life will be proof that there is a God.

Because if he can use me, he can use anybody.

That includes you!

So here’s to The Ordinaries like me.

Like Peter and John before us, may anything extraordinary we do be because we had been with Jesus.

May he always be the extra in our ordinary.

May we always remember that.

“A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” John Calvin

As Paul writes to the churches of Galatia he is livid.

He had invested time with them in preaching the gospel and as a result, new churches were birthed. He left to continue that mission elsewhere when news got back to him that the Galatians were being seduced to believe a false gospel.  Paul is not one to quarrel over secondary matters but this is no secondary matter; this is a matter of first importance; a cause worth fighting for: The centrality of gospel. And it must be defended!

In our day, there are false teachings that have crept into our churches, Christian bookstores, and imaginations and once again, the centrality of the gospel must be defended!

Spotting false teaching is easy. Just follow the glory. False gospels always diminish Christ and elevate someone or something else. It’s Christianity without Christ which is nothing but crap.

What are these false teachings that are seducing us today?

There are three major ones and we will illustrate them as three characters: The Taskmaster, The Game Show Host, and The Mad Chef.

The Taskmaster
His message is moralism.  The idea is to make sinners better behaved.  In following the taskmaster, we not only earn our salvation, but we earn the keeping of it by following rules (or principles as they’re called today).  Any blessings from God is directly in proportion to our production, nothing more, nothing less. “Try harder” is our mantra.

When we do good, we feel really good.  Over time, we climb the ladder of spiritual superiority and work our way up to middle management with a critical eye on the performance of others.  We feel very proud of our accomplishments.

When we do bad, we feel really bad. Over time, we just give up. What’s the use in trying when all we do is fail? The Taskmaster cracks a whip to motivate us on but when you’ve been beaten your whole life, you form scar tissues, and lose all feeling.  Hopelessness and complacency sets in and you often go from believing a false gospel to believing in nothing. It’s the only way you can live with yourself.

This is not the gospel.

The Game Show Host
His message is prosperity driven.  God is a genie in the bottle and if you do these seven things you will have the good life.  God is a pinata and is here to supply you with what you really want: Happy relationships, wealth, position, possessions, good health, you name it, you claim it, it’s yours. After all, it’s all about you.

The Game Show Host, with his fancy suit and pearly whites sparkling through his smile, points you to believe in a better future and it will be yours. In this game, you are like god and the one, true God is a means to your end: to give you the desires of your heart.  After all, it’s right there in the Bible, so it must be true. Believe in God and you will get your gods.

There’s only one problem. The storms of life still come. When they do, we will cling to something to make it through. That which we cling to is what we actually place our trust in. The winds blow, the rain beats down, and in the prosperity gospel we are left holding onto pillars of sand.

This is not the gospel.

The Mad Chef
His message is a religion made your way. A stew of spirituality created with a little bit of Bible (only with verses we like which are out-of-context), our own life experiences, a slice of philosophy, a pinch of pop culture, a dose of our family tradition, a song lyrics to two. Combine that with our fears, anxieties, and personal preferences, a little bit from other religions, add in some love to make it seem reasonable and VOILA!, a spirituality customized just for us.

The beauty of this one is it can never contradict us and never tell us when we’re wrong because all we have to do is change the ingredients to fit our taste.

Then again, we’ve all been wrong about many things before. In fact, most of us can’t even figure out how to change the oil in our car yet we’ve somehow unlocked the meaning of life? No man has fully understood a woman yet somehow we fully understand the Divine? Something seems amiss.

The Mad Chef lets us create whatever self-help stew of spirituality we want yet all it leaves us with are stomach aches. We keep tweaking with the ingredients but end up with the same result. Our lives still have problems, our soul is still restless, and we’re still left holding a bottle of Pepto blaming God.

This is not the gospel.

So what is the gospel?

That’s where you come in.

I would love to hear what you believe the gospel is.

“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.

A handful of random thoughts on church planting and leadership.

There’s a healthy way to start and lead a church without losing your soul.

Jesus has left footprints to guide us and our responsibility as leaders is to see them and follow him.

Your calling to lead a church will never, ever, ever trump God’s requirements to lead a church.

Rather than starting a church at the expense of your family, include them.

He has called you not because you’re so great, but because he is.

You must be faithful in a world full of fads.

You must boldly pursue him in a world that doesn’t.

The idea of a super-spiritual lone ranger pastor from whom all things flow is unbiblical and unhealthy.

The church is the body of Christ made up of many parts, not a giant robot with you behind the controls.

Funny how I had more answers 3 years ago than I do today.

Like many would-be church planters, I was a bit arrogant and knew it all.

Then I started a church and soon new questions arose that I didn’t even know existed.

We church planters read and learn from the same circle of people.

We live in an age of cookie-cutter churches and copycat church planters.

We  look like our favorite churches and talk like our favorite leaders.

We’re not original, we’re posers.

We need to get over our man-crushes on celebrity leaders.

It’s pathetic and needs to stop.

Be a man, not a puppy dog.

Babies aren’t born adults and neither are churches.

Seeds don’t turn into trees overnight and neither do churches.

In a culture that values the speed of the microwave it’s hard to appreciate the the slow bake of an oven.

Yet, which method makes a tastier turkey?

Something to think about.

Ultimately, it’s about the gospel.

The gospel always produces community.

The gospel always compels us to mission.

The gospel always leads to Jesus.

We showed this classic video from The Hoff prior to my message at Project Church. It will change your life!!! Okay, maybe it won’t change your life but it does make for a good laugh.

After watching it, you can give the podcast on freedom a listen.

Each year I create an intentional reading plan as part of my personal growth and development. There are bound to be exceptions as I discover new titles throughout the year, but this pretty much tells the story of the knowledge that will be dropped in my mind. There are even a few re-reads.

Look it over and let me know any books on this list that you’ve read and what you liked/disliked about them.

Ragamuffin Gospel – Brennan Manning (Annual Re-read)
Renewal as a Way of Life – Richard Lovelace
Counterfeit Gods – Tim Keller
Untamed – Alan Hirsch
The Canon of Scripture – F.F. Bruce
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – Donald Miller
Hear No Evil – Matthew Paul Turner
Spiritual Leadership – J. Oswald Sanders
Eat This Book – Eugene Peterson
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction – Eugene Peterson
The Jesus Way – Eugene Peterson
The Blue Parakeet – Scott McKnight
Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals – William Webb
The Homiletical Plot – Eugene Lowry
Sex, Lies, and Religion – Randy Elrod
The Divine Commodity – Skye Jethani
Resident Aliens – Stanley Hauerwas
Galatians – Martin Luther
Forgotten God – Francis Chan
Doctrine – Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
Finally Alive – John Piper
Heaven – Randy Alcorn
Simply Christian – N.T. Wright
Church in the Making – Ben Arment
The Trellis and the Vine – Colin Marshall and Tony Payne
The Normal Christian Life – Watchman Nee
The Meaning of the Pentateuch – John Sailhamer
The Lost World of Genesis One – John Walton
The Gospel-Driven Life – Michael Horton
From Eternity to Here – Frank Viola
Messy Faith – A.J. Gregory
Your Jesus is Too Safe – Jared Wilson
Primal – Mark Batterson
The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society – Lesslie Newbigin
The Return of the Prodigal Son – Henri Nouwen
Classic Christianity – Thomas Oden
The Seeking Heart – Fenelon
Leading on Empty – Wayne Cordeiro
How People Change – Timothy Lane
Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands – Paul Tripp
The Book of God – Walter Wangerin
Decision Making and the Will of God – Garry Freisen
3 Crucial Questions About Spiritual Warfare – Clinton Arnold
The Cross of Christ - John Stott
The Cost of Discipleship – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards – George Mardsen
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount – David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and The Principles of Screenwriting – Robert McKee
Linchpin – Seth Godin
Drive - Dan Pink
A Whole New Mind – Dan Pink
Switch – Chip and Dan Heath
Thinkertoys – Michael Michalco
Have a Little Faith – Mitch Albom
My Life Outside the Ring – Hulk Hogan
The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown
East of Eden – John Steinbeck

“Someday, I’m going to chase that dream.”

“Someday, I’m going to get in shape.”

“Someday, I’m going to help those less fortunate.”

“Someday, I’m going to overcome that fear.”

“Someday, I’m going to ask her out.”

“Someday, I’m going to take my family on that trip.”

“Someday, I’m going to finish that project.”

“Someday, I’m going to learn that instrument.”

“Someday, I’m going to be debt-free.”

“Someday, I’m going to be a leader.”

“Someday, I’m going to spend more time with my kids.”

“Someday, I’m going to get these addictions under control.”

“Someday, I’m going to make a difference.”

A life full of regrets is paved on a path littered with somedays.

What’s it going to take to turn someday into today?

Someone dying?

Your health going downhill?

Your kids growing up?

Why wait?

You’re not promised tomorrow!

You have this moment- where your past and your future collide.

Replace the word someday with the the words, “Beginning today…”

And take the next step to advance that someday list forward.

You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. - James 4:14

Now’s the time!

Today’s the day!

Don’t waste your life!

You’ve got a story to live!

Go live it!

The quest for freedom burns within all of us. We long for liberty and seek freedom in many forms: religion, relationships, vocations, entertainment, possessions, and more. All of which leave us wanting.

Yet Jesus proclaims in John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

The Christian life is to be a free life but what does it mean to live free? How does the gospel change everything? That’s what Project Church is exploring as we look at Paul’s letter of liberty- Galatians.

I’ve been looking forward to teaching this for quite some time.  I pray our church and podcast listeners will be drenched in the gospel of grace over the next several months and our lives will reflect the freedom we have.

This week, I announced that from here on out, Project Church is giving away half our budget to end human trafficking & sex slavery globally, serve the poor locally, and help start churches who share our DNA.

I’ve been told this is a crazy thing for a new church to do.

After all, we have so many needs ourselves.

“Why not wait until you’re more established?” some may ask.

But you know…we’ll always have needs.

If we were ever going to make a bold move like this, we wanted to do it while the cement was still wet in our new church plant.

And as our influence grows, so will our impact.

My prayer is that sowing this seed of generosity into the fertile soil of our baby church today will produce much fruit tomorrow.

Our mission is clear: Love God. Love People. Live Free.

In light of this, we have committed to focus on three actions of social justice:

1. Being good news to the poor
In particular, in our local community.

We have a relationship with an elementary school that’s located in the heart of the most impoverished area of our city.  Our hope is to utilize this common ground to reach out to the students, families, and staff of this school and be good news to them in creative and loving ways.

2. Freedom for the enslaved
Freedom comes in many forms. So does slavery. We are committed to helping people live free in many ways however, one particular cause has broken our hearts and captured our imagination: human trafficking and sex slavery.  With two children sold every minute with an estimated 27 million souls crying out for freedom, we must do something!

Our church is going to partner with Love146.org. Their vision is the abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation. Nothing less.

That’s a fight worth fighting!

To work to that end, they provide aftercare for the children who have been trapped in this horrific industry as well as prevention programs to bring awareness to the issue.

3. Joining God in advancing the gospel
We believe the most effective way to do this is through starting fresh expressions of gospel-driven churches.

The gospel of grace found in Jesus is the greatest news to ever hit humanity.  Our love for him compels us to love others and join together in communities of faith to become more like Jesus.

There’s no greater cause than the gospel.

Giving half our offering away is a huge leap of faith for our church and we’re trusting that God will provide for all of our needs. Following him is one grand adventure and something tells me we’re just getting started.

In sharing this, please know this is not just a “Jason Salamun” thing, it is a “Project Church” thing.  I’m so thankful to be a part of a community who are willing to make bold moves for the Kingdom.

Please be in prayer for us.  We would greatly appreciate it.

If you are interested in investing in what Project Church is doing, click here to give securely via PayPal.