The 567 Cafe - An Interview with Keith Watson

In an effort to give our Missional Community group a better understanding of what is going on with our church's cafe, "The 567 Cafe," I am posting the first half of a report I wrote last semester for a class. The aim of the report was to first report on an attempt at cultural engagement, and to follow that up with an analysis of the attempt. So, what follows is the report, which is based largely on an interview I conducted with Pastor Keith. Enjoy!



New City Church downtown (NCCd), of which I am a member, states that “we exist to see the gospel transform everything within our reach… ourselves, our church, our city, and the world.” In April of 2008, the 567 Café became a very public expression of this mission. Located at 567 Cherry St., Macon, Georgia, the café provides a venue for musicians and artists to present their work on Friday and Saturday nights while providing coffee and other refreshments to the patrons.

In an interview on August 1, 2009, Keith Watson, pastor of NCCd said to me the following when asked what the goal of the 567 Café is.

The ultimate goal of the 567 is the same as the mission of our church: to see the gospel transform everything within our reach. The 567 is a tool that, primarily through the relationships we develop there, the gospel can go forward. Our goal primarily is gospel-transformation in people who work, live, or play in downtown Macon.

Another benefit that has been observed by the church in having the 567 Café is that the members can form new relationships with people whom they would not contact otherwise. The setting is an easy place to have conversations that lead to discussing the church, the gospel, and Jesus. Secular artists, musicians, and patrons often ask questions about why a church would provide such a venue in the downtown area. In short, the café serves to help people live missional lives.

New City Church downtown is committed to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. NCCd also holds that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. The church is a theologically conservative evangelical church which believes in the authority, inerrancy, and infallibility of Scripture. A more complete list of theological beliefs can be found at the church’s website: www.newcitydowntown.org/about_new_city.

Part of the reason NCCd gathers in downtown Macon (and thus the 567 Café is in downtown Macon) is that other churches have left the area, and most of the churches who are still there are not engaging the culture with the gospel. Thus, the 567 Café seeks to be for the good of the city, and the advancement of the kingdom and the gospel.

In addition, downtown Macon has a fairly rich music history and a music scene that seems to be reviving. Keith expounded on how the 567 Café took on its current form.

As a part of the revitalization efforts of downtown, NCCd wanted to involve the visual arts and music. In talking with musicians and others who were downtown, NCCd found that the only places to listen to music were bars. There were no listening rooms. It was just loud bars filled with smoke. We could meet a need in that musicians are looking for a place to play. Macon needed its own residents to see good things happening downtown. The space just fit all of that. It fit our needs and the
needs of the city. That’s contextualizing what we do.

I asked Pastor Keith how he sees the 567 serving to establish a counter-culture rather than a sub-culture. Here is how he answered:

Our hope and goal is to celebrate good things that God has created. God created us to be creative people like he is creative. I believe that’s a part of being created in his image. So we celebrate the creativity of the people in our city. We do so in an environment that is generally clean and safe for family and where we can come with our wife and children. It’s an environment that is good for the musicians as well.

What we do at the 567 is counter-cultural in two ways. It’s counter-cultural in the secular world because we’re a place that celebrates the artists and their creativity. This is very counter-cultural because in the other venues that those artists play, it’s not about the artists or their art; [rather] it’s about them bringing money to the facility. So we’re counter-cultural there in that we truly celebrate them and the gifts that God’s
given to them.

The 567 is also counter-cultural in church culture because we’re not running from our community and our culture. We’re engaging it and celebrating what is good.

When asked to share some of the things that have shown him that God’s hand is really involved in this ministry, Keith shared the following.

Many people have been skeptical of the church being downtown and us doing this cafe thing for music. There have been a number of people who have been sitting back and watching to see whether we were real and genuine. I had a conversation at Bragg Jam last week with a female musician whose lyrics indicates that she’s got Christian background, but you can also hear in her lyrics that something has happened that really hurt her. She walked away from the church several years ago. Well she’s played at the 567 Cafe several times. We have developed a relationship through talking with her about her music and about her playing at the cafe and through serving her while she’s at the Cafe (by helping her get set up and torn down). That developed that relationship so that when we were at Bragg Jam, she and I sat down while one of the musicians was playing and had a thirty minute conversation about religion, church, and the gospel. We’re supposed to meet again for coffee just to talk more. But she was obviously very excited. She said she has not found anyone in the last several years who she felt that she could talk openly and honestly to about her hurts in the church and
religion. So there’s one.

This was I think the tenth year of the Bragg Jam music festival. This was our [the 567’s] second year as a venue and this year we were the only non-alcohol-serving venue at Bragg Jam. We had rave reviews from a lot of the people who played there and who visited there for music. After Bragg Jam, because of the 567 and because our people serve at Bragg Jam, there were some conversations as they were planning for next year’s Bragg Jam. [We talked about NCCd] providing help to them, create a couple
of more venues that were family-friendly, and even having Christian music. One of the ideas was to maybe do some gospel music to bring black and white together-maybe even to bring a couple of the church choirs together as one of the acts. So all of that, to me, is a hint of redemption that is coming through Bragg Jam, which was a pub crawl only two years ago. The only way that that conversation was taking place was because of the 567 and our people serving in the city. So that is a huge success.

City Watch [a Neighborhood Watch for a sixteen block area surrounding the 567 Café] is a result of the 567 because people saw that we were serious about our city and loved our city and wanted to be a part of revitalizing our city. That led to conversations about what we could do about security and other issues downtown. That led to City Watch, which pays a part of Patrick’s monthly income. So that was a big thing directly connected to the 567.

There have been tons of gospel conversations with unbelievers… and on and on.

New City’s efforts have been met with some skepticism from those outside the body. The common misunderstanding was that it would be a “church café” for “church people” with “church bands.” It was thought that the 567 Café would simply be against the things that go on in the city.” The Church in downtown Macon has not generally celebrated with the culture. It has been completely isolated in its own world, following more of Niebuhr’s “Christ Against Culture” model. So, the apprehension was brought about because people expected the 567 Café to be the same.

Ambition - To Preach the Gospel Where Christ is not Known

This is shaping up to be a great conference. It will be put on by Acts 29 in Louisville, KY November 10-11. It serves as one of their "boot camps" for those who want to be church planters within their network, but is also open to the public.

From the website:

Simply knowing how to plant and lead a church is not enough. Knowledge
must come hand-in-hand with God-given ambition. The Apostle Paul responded
to God’s call to make the gospel known among the Gentiles with zealous
determination. Paul, empowered by the Holy Spirit, made it his ambition to
take the gospel to those who did not have it even if it cost him
everything. He proclaimed the gospel, gathered believers into churches,
established elders, and discipled believers; and he did all this with zeal and
passion. In the hope of this type of ambition overflowing in the Church,
we would like to invite you to the Acts 29 Network Ambition Boot Camp,
November 10-11, 2009, which will focus on planting and leading churches with
God-given ambition.

Get more info on speakers, breakout sessions, cost, etc. here.

The Lord seems to have been showing me two things to seek lately: humility and joy. The call to humility has come primarily through reading C.J.Mahaney’s book Humility: True Greatness. This book is a great quick read that I highly recommend. If you prefer an audio version (as I do), he preached a two sermons at a conference around 2000 that are available at the Sovereign Grace Ministries website. These audio files were the basis for the book. In the back of the book, C.J. Mahaney gives a list of suggestions on how to fight pride and cultivate humility.

The call to seek joy came as a friend, Jonathan Rowe, noted how recent parenting struggles have been robbing me of joy. He was exactly right, and I hadn’t even noted it really. So, I picked up Piper’s book Desiring God, flipped to the back where he has an appendix titled “How then shall we fight for joy?” This also is a list of sorts, with numerous Scriptures given showing the basis for his suggestions.

So, one thing I noticed in comparing the two lists is some real overlap. Much of the guidance for cultivating humility has to do with seeing God in the Scripture, and that is also the chief means of finding joy in Christ. And it makes sense, doesn’t it, that as God humbles us, we have necessarily seen true greatness in the person and work of Christ, and in that seeing of the gospel we have great joy!

Here are a few things that stick out:
· (Mahaney) “Practice the spiritual disciplines (prayer, Bible study, worship)
· (Mahaney) “Seize your commute time to memorize & meditate on Scripture”
· (Piper) “Realize that the battle is primarily a fight to see God for who He is.”
· (Piper) “Meditate on the Word of God day and night.”
· (Piper) “Learn to preach to yourself rather than listen to yourself.”

And a quote found in Desiring God from George Muller of Bristol:

I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished… I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditate on it.

Finally, note that Piper’s whole book is expanding on why the following are true:
· The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever
· God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him

Contextualizing the Gospel

In his chapter titled "Contextualization: True and False," Lesslie Newbigin discusses the following:

• The need for contextualization


• Historic struggles with contextualization


• Culture is in missionaries and in the Bible


• The church re-contextualizes the gospel in new cultures


• When cultural demands are placed on newly-evangelized cultures by missionaries


• Evidence that the gospel is embraced by a newly evangelized people


• Overcontextualization (false contextualization)


• True contextualization

Here is one of my favorite portions, which is under the "True contextualization" heading as I have outlined the chapter above:

I am saying that authentic Christian thought and action begin not by attending to the aspirations of the people, not by answering the questions they are asking in their terms, not by offering solutions to the problems as the world sees them. It must begin and continue by attending to what God has done in the story of Israel and supremely in the story of Jesus Christ. It must continue by indwelling the story so that it is our story, the way we understand the real story. And then, and this is the vital point to attend with open hearts and minds to the real needs of the people in the way that Jesus attended to them, knowing that the real need is that which can only be satisfied by everything that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). As we share in the life, and worship of the Church, through fellowship, word, and sacrament, we indwell the story and from within that story we seek to be the voice and the hands of Jesus for our time and place. [Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 151].

He continues shortly thereafter on p.152, showing how we might fail.

I am thus again stressing the priority of the gospel as the message, embodied in an actual story of what God has in fact done, is doing, and will do. Christian theology is a form of rational discourse developed within the community which accepts the primacy of this story and seeks actively to live in the world in accordance with the story. It can fail by failing to understand and take seriously the world in which it is set so that the gospel is not heard but remains incomprehensible because the Church has sought security in its own past instead of risking its life in a deep involvement with the world. It can fail, on the other hand, by allowing the world to dictate the issues and the terms of the meeting. The result then is that the world is not challenged at its depth but rather absorbs and domesticates the gospel and uses it to sacralize its own purposes. ... True contextualization accords to the gospel its rightful primacy, its power to penetrate every culture and to speak within each culture, in its own speech and symbol, the word which is both No and Yes, both judgment and grace. And that happens when the word is not a disembodied word, but comes from a community which embodies the true story, God's story, in a style of life which communicates both the grace and the judgment. In order that it may do this, it must be both truly local and truly ecumenical. Truly local in that it embodies God's particular word of grace and judgment for that people. Truly ecumenical in being open to the witness of churches in all other places, and thus saved from absorption into the culture of that place and enabled to represent to that place the universality, the catholicity of God's purpose of grace and judgment for all humanity. [Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 152].

A culturally diverse community of believers serves to ensure we don't make God in our own image

I think you will agree with me that it is a real danger for us to start thinking we have the not only the truest understanding of who Jesus is, but also that our understanding is complete. Though we are justified and counted as righteous as Christ in the Father's eyes, we are fallible. So, how is our understanding of who Christ is to be protected from leading us off down the wrong path? I think God provides at least three graces to keep us (or move us back) on the right path: 1) the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Scripture; 2) people of long past cultures speak to us through their writings; and 3) people of contemporary cultures for community with us, so that we and they alike can be mutually edified in our pursuit of faithful living.

It is this third means that Lesslie Newbigin addresses as follows:

The way in which any Christian perceives God's revelation in Christ and in the whole biblical story will be shaped tby the culture through which that individual was formed. It is a simple fact that Jesus has been and is portrayed in an amazing variety of portraits from the Byzantine Pantocrator through the medieval crucifix and the Jesus of the sacred heart to the blue-eyed blond of American protestantism and the Che Guevara freedom fighter of liberation theology. For some writers it seems obvious that Jesus can be portrayed in any guise that is (as they would say) "meaningful" for them and their contemporaries. But "Jesus" is not a name to which we can attach any character we like to imagine. Jesus is the name of a man of whom we have information in the books of New Testament interpreted (as they must be) in the light of the books which were Jesus' own scriptures. The Jesus of whom the New Testament writers bear witness is not an inaccessible figure. Our varying perceptions of him - and of course they will vary because we are culturally different people - have to be checked in some way that all our claims to perceive reality have to be checked. we have to share them with others who perceive Jesus with the different lenses furnished by their different cultures. [Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, pg. 192-193].

So, a culturally diverse community of believers serves to ensure we don't make God in our own image.

How diverse is your community? Mine isn't great, but I will say that it is getting more diverse. God's mission is aimed at a VERY diverse world, and as we become more missional, our community is likely to become more diverse. Lord, help us be a part of transforming everything within our reach - ourselves, our church, our CITY, and the WORLD!

Cultural / Societal Transformation by the Gospel - Newbigin

From Lesslie Newbigin's book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society on pgs. 232-233.

If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society, if Christians are to occupy the "high ground" which they vacated in the noontime of "modernity," it will not be by forming a Christian political party, or by aggressive propaganda campaigns. Once again it has to be said that there can be no going back to the "Constantinian" era. It will only be by movements that begin with the local congreation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men an women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God's redeeming grace for the whole life of society.

My Belly-Button Window

If you're like me, you probably never think much about your belly-button... until this week.

The Bible shows us in Romans 5 that we are born under the curse of sin, passed down to every person in every generation since Adam. We don't choose to be born under this curse, it just is what it is, because God designed the universe in such a way that the sin of parents would be passed on to their children. The curse means that we will surely be dead spiritually ("for in the day that you eat [the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil], you will surely die"). Adams sin made us all sinners. We have no choice in the matter - WE ARE BORN DEAD.

Until recently, I had never thought of belly-buttons as a scar. But, this shows us a very important thing: being human means we are certainly going to be scarred. We must have oxygen to live in the womb, and the only way for us to get this is via the umbilical cord. And the umbilical cord does us no good once we are born - it must be cut, clamped off, and fall off. And that means there will have to be a scar.

This illustrates original sin for us: we are scarred before we even know who our parents are. And we are destined to be scarred be the very fact that we are human.

NEVERTHELESS!!!

"Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s gdisobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous." (Ro 5:18-19, ESV)

All the healing we need for our scars, to redeem us out of the curse and bring us the greatest happiness we could ever have has been accomplished through the one man's righteousness. We have perfect righteousness gifted to us simply by faith in that one man - Jesus.

I never thought my belly-button would be my teacher...

Gospel Parenting - Questions from an almost Four year old

I read the creation account in The Jesus Storybook Bible (Sally Lloyd-Jones) last night with Elijah. The boy had his thinking cap on again.

Me: "Before God made anything, there wasn't anything except God, and He had a plan to send Jesus."
Elijah: “Dad, who made God?”
Me: “Nobody bubba, God has always existed.”

Later on after the creation of the animals, leading up to Adam and Eve:
Elijah: “Daddy, why did God make Adam first, not Eve?”
Me: “I think God wanted to establish an order bubba, that men would be leaders [in the family].”

And I’m not sure where this last one came from…
Elijah: “Why did God make Satan?”
Me: “Well,… because God wanted to show his wrath against evil and sin I think.”

I didn’t expect to have to think that hard that late in the day!

Immensity and Omnipresence vs. Pantheism and Panantheism

Since the Bible teaches that God is omnipresent, are we to then take a pantheistic view of God, or a panantheistic view of God?

To frame this post, let’s start with some definitions. In his book Systematic Theology, Louis Berkhof defines immensity as follows: "That perfection of the Divine Being by which He transcends all spatial limitations and yet is present in every point of space with His whole Being. It has a negative and a positive side, denying all limitations of space to the Divine Being, and asserting that God is above space and fills every part of it with His whole Being. The last words are added in order to ward off the idea that God is diffused through space, so that one part of His Being is present in one place, and another part some other place." [p.60-61].

He goes on to say that omnipresence and immensity can be regarded as synonyms, but that whereas immensity emphasizes God's transcendence, omnipresence emphasizes His immanence ("denotes that He nevertheless fills every part of space with His entire Being" [p.61]).

Pantheism denies the transcendence of God, saying that the essence of the universe is the very being of God [p.61]. Panantheism is defined at wiki.answers.com as follows:

It is the belief that God's physical body is the universe and everything in it,
and that God also transcends this universe. Existence is a part of God, but God
is larger than existence. It is similar but different to pantheism, which says
that the universe IS God in totality. It is also a belief in a genderless God,
and God as the creator.

Now for the analysis. Though there are some common elements, God’s immanence/omnipresence should not be confused with pantheism or panantheism. Immensity and omnipresence hold that God is both transcendent and present in creation at every point with His whole Being. Pantheism holds that all of creation is all of God, and thus God is “spread out” throughout the universe as matter is spread out. Pantheism says that there is no more to God than the universe, so He does not transcend the universe. Omnipresence does not conflict with the transcendence of God; that is, omnipresence holds that God is not bound by space and time. Solomon, after building the temple of the LORD, said the following in 1 King 8:27:

"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven
cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”

Pantheism is thus forced to say that God is always becoming, always changing as the creation takes on chang. However, in the Bible, God reveals Himself as never changing (Exodus 3:14; Hebrews 1:11,12; James 1:17).

So, what about panantheism? Those who believe in panantheism will at least have the transcendent attribute of God. However, they throw in the belief that the universe is God’s body. This cannot be reconciled with the Bible, for it clearly states in the second commandment that the Israelites were not to make any carved images of Him. If the image they made was (part of) Him, there would be no reason for God to make such a demand. Similarly, God would not have opposed those who “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:23).

This is not to mention the fact that the Bible never speaks of God having the universe as His body. The Bible is the supreme revelation God has given us about Himself. Yes, the creation does tell us something of God, of His invisible attributes (eternal power and divine nature) can be seen in what has been created, but the problem is that we cannot rightly understand what it is telling us because of the sin nature in us. So, this means that we are utterly reliant upon the revelation God gives us of Himself in the Scripture. So, since the Scripture never says anything about God having the universe as His body, such a view has no authoritative basis.

On Prayer and the Sovereignty of God

I find myself in the midst of a crisis which calls for MUCH prayer. It reminds me of events not too long ago when we were pleading to God for the lives of our boys on three different occasions. In all three of those situations, we were powerless to do anything, and God was all we needed and could ask for.

So, this is a similar situation for some friends of ours - I know what they are feeling right now - desperation for God to do a good work and thereby glorifying Himself. There are a number of people praying for them. Why? Because we all believe that God listens to the prayers of His saints and may act upon them.

Does this sound strange for the Almighty Sovereign God to act upon the prayers of His saints? It is not. Do not forget, Greg Wood, that God could have ordained your prayers to be that which God would act upon, thus bringing about His good plan. God ordains the end and the means to get to that end. Do not forget that your prayers show your dependency upon God. Do not forget that prayer is great blessing, the blessing of communion with your joyful heavenly Father. God has not put the universe in motion, given natural laws, stepped back, and said "Good luck!" No, He is involved in every aspect of the creation, but especially that of His moral creatures. We are not alone, we are not hopeless.

This truth of the Sovereignty of God gives me faith in Him, reverence for Him, and love for Him - and I hope that it does for you too. He gets the credit for every good in this world, and I can know that everything is done for the good of His saints (Rom. 8:28). Nothing is meaningless. Further, when God ordains a prayer as His means of acting - that prayer will be effective and nothing can stop Him.

Now come Lord Jesus, strengthen your children and their little child. Let your glory be seen and loved. Let your name be exalted. Defeat the RSV. To you, the only wise God, be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen!

Is Church Membership Biblical? Part 1

A couple of Sundays ago, the band came over to our house for lunch after the morning service. The topic of church membership came up in conversation. We asked the question, "What is church membership?" A great conversation followed, which showed that people have real concerns about "membership" and what that might communicate to people.

Here I would like to ask the question, "When the Bible speaks of the church, does it ever put forward anything that resembles church membership?" Or restated: "Does God guide His flock in ways that make local church membership a useful means of grace?"

Observation #1
Our church is moving forward in establishing/growing its leadership. We will have our second elder soon, and I am sure there are more to follow. One of the charges given to elders is that they are to pay careful attention to themselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made them overseers, and to care for the church of God (Acts 20:28). So, it seems that a reasonable question for an elder is, "Who is the flock for which I am an overseer?" Obviosly, the elders in Ephesus were expected to understand Paul when he made this statement, and Paul spoke of a particular duty to protect some group of people called a "flock." But, how are these people identified?

So, my observation here is this: The elders are to guard a certain set of people, and by having those people make a commitment to that particular church family, agreeing to come under that elder leadership, this role is fulfilled. You can call that church membership if you want to, but what is needed is knowledge of the flock that is to be guarded. Note that this doesn't give us any indication as to how formal this was (written versus verbal).

Would elders be responsible for everyone who ever darkened the door of one of the church's gatherings? I cannot imagine the answer being yes. Wouldn't they be responsible though for those who wanted their godly shepherding? But you may say, "there was just 'the church' in those days, each city with a set of believers, and so the elders were responsible for all of them. But, would elders in our day be responsible for all of the believers in their city, though they may never come to the elders' particular gathering of believers? I think it is reasonable to say "no." So this seems to indicate that people need to commit to being members of one another, in the sense that we have members of our physical body. People need to come under the leadership of the elders, and entrust to them the right to hold them spiritually accountable.

More reasons for us to be committed to a local church are to come...

Who is at the Center of God's Universe?

Premise 1: Righteousness is defined as esteeming (through emotions, thoughts, and actions) that which is infinitely worthy of being esteemed.

Premise 2: God is righteous.

Conclusion: God's righteousness means that He esteems Himself most highly in the universe. In other words, God is the center of His own universe. He is the most God-centered being there is, and there is no unrighteousness (e.g. selfishness) in His doing so.

Credits: John Piper gave this definition of righteousness in a sermon on Romans 9. I am sure that Jonathan Edwards said or influenced the conclusion.