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April, 2004 Blogs
"God must have a lot of confidence in you to put you on the planet at just this time. It was his sovereign decision to insert you onto planet earth during a time of huge transition. It takes incredible faith to lead during hinge points of history.
"Think about John the Baptist as a transitional leader. He grew up hearing the stories of Luke 1 and 2 as part of his family legend. Can't you just hear John's mom? "When your dad found out we were expecting you, he was speechless!" or "When your Aunt Mary came to see me to tell me she was going to have a baby, I thought you were going to jump right out of me!" John saw heaven open and the Spirit descend when he baptized his first cousin. Yet when he was in jail he sent word to Jesus, "Now, let's go over this one more time: are you the one?" Jeus doesn't slam John. In fact, he extols his cousin: "There's never been a better man born," Jesus says (Luke 7:28).
"Jesus doesn't slam you for your doubts, fears and uncertainties either. He wants to encourage you in your current assignment. You are being asked to lead during a time when you are not sure where all this is going. If previous history is an accurate indicator, the kinds of changes we are undergoing will not settle out for another century or more. This means that some of you are giving direction to the great-great-great grandparents of the leaders of the Christian movement when it all shake sout on the other side of the postmodern wormhole. You are leading by faith, trusting that the subplot obediences you practice will contribute to the larger drama. Your courage to believe with partial sight will be rewarded one day when a full view is afforded.
"On the flip side, you have the chance to do what only a few have been privileged to do. You get the chance to give shape to the movement that will define its expression for perhaps hundreds of years (if Jesus tarries). You must choose carefully.
"Leadership is always in high demand and short supply. Sometimes the leadership deficit is more actue. This is especially true in times of great paradigmatic shifts, when the leadership requirements are shifting also. It takes time for a new crop of leaders to come up to speed to the new set of challenges. We are in such a leadership crisis now in the North America church. Simply put, we have a critical shortage of the right kind of leadership necessary to help the North American church become more missionally effective." R. McNeal, "The Present Future"
And found at ROBBYMAC, (from Sweet's "Soul Cafe")
"I am part of the Church of the Out-of-Control. I once was a control junkie, but now am an Out-of-Control Disciple. I've given up my control to God. I trust and obey the Spirit. I've jumped off the fence, I've stepped over the line, I've pulled out all the stops, I'm holding nothing back. There's no turning back, looking around, slowing down, backing away, letting up, or shutting up. It's life Against the Odds, Outside the Box, Over the Wall, the game of life played Without Goal Lines other than "Thy Will Be Done..."
"A Magna Charta of Trust by an Out-of-Control Disciple."
Over the years I have found it most easy to relate to thoughtful, creative, and out-of-the-box people. Some of these people are in positions of leadership, and some are not.
It's easy to form nice social clubs with such people. Gathering together a bunch of thoughtful, creative people is stimulating, and often great fun. Many of these types are quite successful, though the more artistic tend to struggle with commercial success.
In terms of kingdom dynamics, it's not the best way to plant a church. It tends too easily to be an exclusive clique with restricted membership. It is not very invitational to the work-a-day types or to the poor.
Maybe that's why Jesus disciples included members from all parts of society.. the working poor, the intellectuals, the rebels, and the mystics.
But what is most astonishing is that while Jesus disciples did form a kind of in group in spite of their diversity, Jesus Himself is always noticing the ones on the edge.
Take the incident with Zaccheus, for example. A lovely day in Israel, Jesus and his followers are walking the road, probably having a great time rehearsing the events of the day, talking politics, theology, house church vs mega church, postmodernism and change (right)... maybe Jesus is refereeing the odd argument.. and He is loving it. He is at home with these people; they are His disciples and His friends.
But He sees the tree in the forest. He looks up the tree and notices the one outside the group, the one on the edge.
Or take the incident with the woman with the issue of blood. Again, Jesus is in a crowd, moving along, excited. This time it is His own followers and many others. A single needy (and ceremonially unclean) woman touches Him, and He notices it and stops to meet her. Jesus had this incredible ability to see the big picture, and the small one.. to be in a crowd of friends, yet to reach out to the ones on the edge.
I love this. I want to relate to my friends and peers, but not fail to notice the others. I want to be in the circle of creative and reflective types, and also embrace those who could care less. I want to walk equally at ease with leaders and with those who have no interest in leading.
I think this is important for more than the obvious reasons. I think it is a matter of lenses and perspective.
We learn one set of lessons with our friends, another set with those who don't see it our way. We learn one set of lessons in the inner circles, another set of lessons on the edge.
In fact, one of the scariest places to be can be the leadership circle. We learn to easily affirm one another. We all think alike. We see the issues in the same way, we are reading the same books. This is a perfect setup for "group think." We fail to notice what we fail to notice. We think we are brilliant and creative and with-it.. everyone is hanging on our words. But we are really just navel gazing. Those on the edge hardly care what we think. We have ceased being relevant to the real world and to common needs, and we become relevant only to the crowd who think and feel as we do. We create our own reality and we think it applies to everyone.
The view from the edge is completely different. Imagine what Zaccheus saw from up that tree. Imagine the perspective of the work-a-day world compared to the world of the professional. Imagine not quite having enough every month to pay your bills. Imagine not being certain that your kids will have a birthday present this year. Imagine wondering where you will be living next month. Imagine wondering whether the new psychiatrist or new social worker will like you?
I barely imagine that it is possible to see the world from the center as well as from the edge, but Jesus managed to do it. The only times I have managed it is by being in relationship with people in both groups, and genuinely caring for both. It is always tempting to treat one group with respect and hold the other at arms length. But that is not the way of Jesus. In fact, he seems to go out of His way to treat those on the edge with special love and care.
I want to live that way.
It was possible for Jesus because He genuinely "saw" everyone. We tend to "see" on that which is helpful or useful to us. We are selective in our seeing and in our hearing. But the eyes and ears of Jesus are open to all reality. Lord, give us Your perspective.
It's terribly hard to borrow money, even when you have a project that is virtually guaranteed to succeed. It seems lenders only want to lend money to you if you don't need it. Very odd, particularly in these days when money is supposed to be so readily available. I would have given up the attempt by now if the opportunity wasn't such a good one, and if I didn't feel that I have come this far because of God's favor.
Last night I was thinking about friendship, which resulted in the quote from Augustine you see below. I know.. the relation isn't obvious, but I was thinking that what really attracts me to my friends is that I have seen some beauty in them. The outward things that draw friends together.. common interest.. are good places to start. But what grows love between friends is something deeper, and I think it is that we see the beauty of God in the soul.
Of course that beauty exists in every soul out there. But it is hidden, a treasure to be found. Unless we hang in long enough, we may never see it. Those common interests enable us to hang in.. and we discover something precious and imperishable. We call it, in theological terms, the image of God, and in those who know God and have grown to love Him, we say it is a reflection of Jesus. It is that, but it is more.. it is the unique stamp of the maker, a heart of compassion and kindness, wisdom and insight, passion and purpose... it is something poetic and mysterious, beautiful and original.
"Too late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved You. Behold, You were within me, while I was outside: it was there that I sought You, and a deformed creature, rushed headlong upon these things of beauty which you have made. You were with me, but I was not with You. They kept me far from You, those fair things which, if they were not in You, would not exist at all. You have called to me, and have cried out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light, and have shone upon me, and You have put my blindness to flight! You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after You. I have tasted You, and I hunger and thirst after You. You have touched me, and I have burned for Your peace." Augustine, "Confessions"
McChurch
"Her leaders lead for pay,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
"And He shall stand and feed His flock
"He has shown you, O man, what is good;
* * *
In conversation last night:" "Maybe we are only limited by the courage we bring to our dreams."
Symposium on Tolkien's Landmark Essay "On Fairey Stories"
"The success of the film version of the final part of the Tolkien trilogy, The Return of the King, picking up 11 Oscars last week, has cemented the success of Jackson’s epic translation of Tolkien to the big screen.
"But Loren Wilkinson, of Regent College, Vancouver, said that, against the background of the film’s success, there are some shortcomings.
"A great genius of Tolkien’s narrative is that he marries the hero story, which is represented in the warrior and his quest, and the home story, which represents roots and daily love. With the exception of a few frames at the beginning and the end of the film, the movie fails to reproduce this."
Army or Family?
“The church is a body, not a machine or a corporation. The church is not an army of Christian soldiers. An army functions by forcibly restricting the complexity of human interaction and programming it into a strict chain of command. An army is an unnatural community – very effective for one purpose, but not for building a healthy community.” Snyder, "Decoding the Church"
Cabbages and Kings gathering will be delayed to September..
I posted at the Solomon's Porch forums this morning in response to reading "Reimagining Spiritual Formation." Here is my post..
First impressions on cracking the cover.. ooh, the format is the new "emergent" style where even the margins are full of thoughts and reflections. It takes getting used to, and those of us who are used to making notes in the margins have to carry a separate pad instead .
1. I love that the book feels like a communal effort, and invites us into the life of a community. This feels good, limits the potential esoteric ideality that could have come through. The confessional nature helps.. the use of journal entries and personal stories. Sure... the book is still idealistic in the sense of being visionary, but we are constantly reminded through the personal voice that things are far from perfect. In this way it reads kinda like.. the bible! lol
I love that everyone is given a voice. The "average guy/gal" tells what they see and hear, experience and believe and value.
2. I love that the ethos of the porch comes thru so strongly. Its obvious that most really "own" what is happening, and don't defer to "the pastor" or other leaders. It sounds like a true leadership culture is being formed. (see Deering and Dilts in "Leader to Leader" spring 2003)
3. I love that the lens of spiritual formation constantly informs perspective, and that this is not merely inward and spiritual but also outward and visible. I love the connection to the arts and to justice.
4. Related, I love the ethos of risk and creativity. Later I realized that I felt vaguely reminded of the early work of Elizabeth O'Connor out of Church of the Savior. In Call to Commitment she wrote that, "we must be willing to let come into being that which might fail." In a success oriented world where we invest so much of our identity in work and productivity, this is a big challenge. But we offer a special gift to God when we walk that road in faith.
5. I love the wholistic paradigm. I confess I am more left brained than right and my experience of such a paradigm is limited, but it is where I want to go. I think many of us have the theology of an integrated spirituality, both body and soul, but we lack the experience and have few examples to follow.
As I mentioned elsewhere to Doug, I am deeply jealous that the Porch exists in Minn and not here. I demand a conference on planting (p)orches elsewhere, but would settle for a good map and ten point plan Oh.. and funding would help ;)
No, seriously, you guys are where many of us want to be.. not geographically, I'm fine here in Canada thanks.. but contextually, in vision and praxis, in missional community. Many of us are thinking in the same directions.. but few have got their feet into the clay yet. Don't be surprised to hear that another Porch has been birthed in Canada.. but methinks it may happen somewhere else even before we get there.
And maybe this is the greatest gift the book offers.. an incarnate vision. Here it is, fleshed out, good and bad.. That will greatly help some of us to articulate our own longings and direction, and in turn help us invite others along on the journey. That is really critical, because many want to go there but need help in imagining that new place before they can feel sae enough to take the risk.
Oddly.. it is still intimidating. I ask myself.. "wow.. could I really go there?" But maybe the real question is, "how can I not go there?" because you guys are living my dream. To not go there is to give up something that is very deep, and is a death I am not prepared to face.
So the comfort you offer is that in fact this is not the vision or dream of any one person, but a communal dream expressed in life. Any similar expression will likewise depend not on an individual, but on something the Lord is doing in a whole community of people. And my hope is that the seeds I see sprouting locally have similar genetics.
Thanks to all who made the effort to share the journey. it only expands your own fruitfulness and the growth of the kingdom of God.
You love stories and mystery? Check out This Life
In case you haven't noticed I have been reading Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier in the mornings recently, trying to alternate between three books. Yesterday's reading in Nouwen was particularly interesting.. and confronting.
I too am driven by the need to produce, somehow connecting what I produce to my value and significance. But that is deadly.. and an error. I wonder how many of us struggle with a devotional life for just this reason. It is so difficult to measure it's impact or "usefulness."
I want to continue the journey to the house of love.
Reimagining Spiritual Formation
A friend of mine wrote me recently about that fact, suggesting that maybe it is time to see something really new rooted here in Kelowna. I agree. I have felt for years that the Lord has something in mind in that direction. Perhaps it will happen here also. If anyone reading this has Doug Pagitt's personal email, I want to drop him a note.
Over the next week I plan to work on a full review of "Reimagining Spiritual Formation," and I'll begin dropping plenty of quotes here. This is a book I will encourage all my friends to read.
Fear can lead us either way.. to sterility, or to frantic productivity. Henri Nouwen explains:
"Here we have to make an important distinction between fruitfulness and productivity. The call of Jesus to live a fruitful life does not necessarily imply a call to be productive. A product is someting we make. Certain concrete actions lead to a product that we can subsequently claim as our own. When we repeat these actions, the result is the same product, and if we repeat these actions over and over, we are soon considered very productive persons who do not waste their time.
"In our world, everything can become a product: not only cars, houses, and books, but also friends, successful interactions, and important decisions. They all can become part of what we have "made," what gives us a sense of significance. People are often introduced with emphasis on their productivity. "This is Frank; he wrote some influential books; this is Mary, who knows everything about photography..." In all of this, the sugtgestion is made that we are what we make. In our culture, with its emphasis on accomplishment and success, we often live as if being productive is the same as being fruitful. Productivity gives us a certain notoriety and helps take away our fear of being useless. But if we want to live as followers of Jesus, we must come to know that products, successes, and results often belong more to the house of fear than to the house of love.
"When fear dominates our lives, we worry about our value as persons and become easily preoccupied with products. I even wonder if our deep seated fear of being sterile does not often motivate us to a frantic productivity..." Henri Nouwen in "Lifesigns"
"If I have this divine lilfe in me, what do the accidents of pain and pleasure, hope and fear, joy and sorrow mean to me? They are not my life and they have little to do with it. Why should I fear anything that cannot rob me of God, and why should I desire anything that cannot give me possession of Him?
"Exterior things come and go, but why should they disturb me? Why should joy excite me or sorrow cast me down, achievement delight me or failure depress me, life attract me or death repel me if I live only in the life that is within me by God's gift?
"Why should I worry about losing a bodily life that I must inevitably lose anyway, as long as I possess a spiritual life and identity that cannot be lost against my desire? Why should I fear to cease to be what I am not when I have already become something of what I am? Why should I go to great labor to possess satisfactions that cannot last an hour, and which bring misery after them, when I already own God in His eternity of joy?
"It is the easiest thing in the world to possess this life and this joy; all you have to do is believe and love; and yet people waste their whole lives in appalling labor and difficulty and sacrifice to get things that make real life impossible.
"This is one of the chief contradictions that sin has brought into our souls: we have to do violence to ourselves to keep from laboring uselessly for what is bitter and without joy, and we have to compel ourselve to take what is easy and full of happiness as though it were against our interest, because for us the line of least resistance leads in the way of greatest hardship and sometimes for us to do what is, in itself, most easy, can be the hardest thing in the world."
Thomas Merton, "New Seeds of Contemplation"
"To love God is to know Him.
William of St. Thierry
Great humor, see Karl Thienes on "Star Wars denominations" Tuesday, April 13th blog entry. See also Rob McAlpine and the comments on his "Star Wars" entry.
Intimacy and Safety
"When Jean Vanier talks about that place [of safety and intimacy] he often stretches out his arm and cups his hand as if it holds a small, wounded bird. He asks: "What will happen if I open my hand fully?" We say: "The bird will try to flutter its wings, and it will fall and die." Then he asks again: "But what will happen if I close my hand?" We say: "The bird will be crushed and die." Then he smiles and says, "An intimate place is like my cupped hand, neither totally open nor totally closed. It is the space where growth can take place."
Henri Nouwen in "Lifesigns"
"The husband is the head of the wife..."
This verse is commonly used to justify a teaching on "headship" that states, in short, that the husband should always make the final decision in the home. After a discussion of "team," it is argued that when there is a deadlock, someone has to make the move. The same argument is used to justify the church CEO as "first among equals."
Thankfully, not all evangelicals see it this way. Some of the books I passed to my daughter this morning include:
"Your Daughters Shall Prophesy." JE Toews, Ed. Kindred Press, 1992
See also Women in Ministry.
"Tithing to the Storehouse"
And we all know its your local church, right? The only problem is the verses used to justify this teaching come from Malachi and refer exclusively to the Temple. There is no possible theological legitimation to apply this to a local Christian community.
Some good articles on tithing: To Tithe or Not to Tithe and
The Tithe and the Field.
The last time we fought this whole tithing doctrine Clive Pick was in town. The guy claimed to be apostolic and prophetic and was neither, more "a wolf in sheep's clothing."
Wait No More
Wild things are prowling – storm winds are howling tonight
Sipping wine with angels in this torch-lit tavern by the sea
What does it take for the heart to explode into stars?
Bruce Cockburn, 2001
"When Jesus says, "Make your home in me as I make mine in you" (Jn.15) he offers us an intimate place that we can call home. Home is that place or space where we do not have to be afraid but can let go of our defenses and be free, free from worries, free from tensions, free from pressures. Home is where we can laugh and cry, embrce and dance, sleep long and dream quietly, eat, read, play, watch the fire, listen to music, and be with a friend. Home is where we can rest and be healed.. a good place to be, it is the house of love.
"But in this world millions of people are homeless. Some are homeless because of their inner anguish, while others are homeless because they have been driven from their own towns and countries. In prisons, mental hosptials, refugee camps, in hidden-away apartments, in nursing homes and overnight shelters we get a glimpse of homelessness.
"Speaking of himself as the vine and of his disciples as the branches, Jesus says: "Make your home in me." This is an invitation to intimacy. Then he adds: "Those who remain in me with me in them, bear fruit in plenty." This is an invitation to fecundity. Finally, when he says, "I have told you this so that your joy may be full," he promises ecstasy.
"There are two houses in this world: the house of fear, and the house of love.
"Though we think of ourselves as followers of Jesus, we are often seduced by the fearful questions of the world. WIthout realizing it, we become anxious, nervous people, caught in the questions of survival: our own survival,the survival of our friends, of our church, our country and our world. Once these questions become the guiding questions of our lives, we tend to dismiss words spoken from the house of love as unrealistic, sentimental, or just useless. When love is offered as an alternative to fear we say, "Yes, that sounds beautiful, but..." The "but" reveals how much we live in the grip of the world..."
"We are so accustomed to fear that we do not hear the voice that says, "Do not be afraid..." Yet it is this voice that announces a whole new way of living..."
Henri Nouwen in "Lifesigns"
"I say we have a church in North America that is more secular than the culture.
"Just when the church adopted a business model, the culture went looking for God.
"Just when the church embraced strategic planning (linear and Newtonian), the universe shifted to preparedness (loopy and quantum).
"Just when the church began building recreation centers, [or theaters], the culture began a search for the sacred.
"Church people still think that secularism holds sway and that people outside the church have trouble connecting to God. The problem is that when people come to church, expecting to find God, they often encounter a religious club holding a meeting where God is conspicuously absent. It may feel like a self-ehlp seminar or even a political rally. But if pre-Christians came expecting to find God. sorry! They may experience more spiritual energy at a U2 concert or listening to a Creed CD." Reggie NcNeal, "The Present Future"
From Tim Bednar, "The Participatory Church"
* The traditional church (with a small "c") conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is "saved" and "unsaved" by owning those definitions. This is no longer true. Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ. Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church.
* Conversations are all around us. Christianity is one of many.
* Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include, but are not limited to Christianity. We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition, church, pastor or denomination. We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional church hierarchy.
* Every Christian is a creator. We no longer have to wait for church authorization to act or speak in the name of Christ.
* Christians belong to multiple congregations.
* Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation.
* Congregations are conversations. They have a human voice. Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other. Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes Christians.
* Churches are not congregations. They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation. In this new reality, churches sound hollow, flat and literally inhuman to their congregations. They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice. Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity.
* Most churches assume they build congregations. This is false. Pastors and church leaders no longer build congregations. Rather they belong to congregations. In this new era, congregations (like conversations) are all around us-we are in search of churches (and pastors).
* Pastors are credentialed by congregations that trust them not churches, seminaries, publishers or denominations. Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency.
* Successful pastors and churches of the future will participate in conversations. They enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complex conversations. They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians, embrace emergence and foster learning.
* Pastors are not primarily preachers. Sermons are no longer teachings, but learning experiences. Goal of preaching is to learn not teach.
* This means church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations.
* The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity, namely the congregation. Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story. All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations.
* These new participatory churches work on a gift economy. This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power.
* Relational authenticity and longevity not attendance equals success in the participatory church. A church's primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation. Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation.
* Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations. Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation, they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others.
* The participatory church intentionally embraces diverse viewpoints, traditions and people. It actively works to empower previously oppressed voices. Because of this, the new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity and works towards social justice. These self-ordering systems make up the participatory church and the work of the pastor.
* The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen not lead. They will be able to develop self-ordering church systems that help the congregation
* Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders. Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy or filter their conversation. Orthodoxy will emerge. Call it emergent orthodoxy.
* Credibility is not granted by a single source like a church, denomination or seminary and is distributed throughout the congregation. Neil Cole, a leader in the organic church movement observes, "The best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in 'the pulpits', but better-trained people in 'the pews'."
For more see The Participatory Church.
Tim argues that the Internet culture signals a move from a consumer culture to a producer (and participatory) culture. If he is right, and I think that he is, this is another reason why western churches in their current form will experience an increasing disconnect. Moreover, we will have the opportunity of a lifetime to express a new form that is much more conducive to actualizing the value of a real priesthood of believers. The potential impact on our culture is simply HUGE.
Elise, my oldest daughter, is seriously considering switching from a Christian school to the local high school for her grade twelve year. It would be a big sacrifice.. of security and friendship. But she increeasingly has a missional mindset. She wouldn't use those words, but she feels far too sheltered, a bit bored, and frustrated with what she increasingly understands to be a very religious and closed system. The canned answers to her questions, and the argument that she needs a safe refuge are ringing hollow. Jesus never seemed to worry about how safe He was outside the walls of the Temple; instead, He reveled in rubbing shoulders with the poor and the lost. Elise sees so many lost kids.. and she feels compassion for them.
Church kids rarely become missional. They are raised to be good church kids; to play by the rules of the church club, and to avoid contact with those who don't know the rules.
We had mixed feelings when we left our own institutional experience behind. We worried about how our kids would fare. We worried about how they would interpret the change, and what they would hear others say about us, and about them. While we were ready to leave that nest, we weren't at all sure that they were ready for the rootlessness and potential isolation it would bring.
Elise has done well. She felt some loss, but managed to stay in touch with her better friends while gaining new ones. Meanwhile, her experience working at Pizza Hut and the loss of security in an ordered religious world opened her to a new way of seeing the relationship of the church to the kingdom of God. She increasingly has seen the fallenness of the system, and the pitfalls of modern western religion. She particularly chaffs when her Christian friends are so judgemental of those outside the faith. She is a compassionate intercessor instead of a critic. And she is very ready to live outside the walls as a missionary to the culture.
We have had some great talks about "secularism." The standard line from christian school is that "we have to hold the line against secularism." It was hard for me to keep a straight face at that one. So I gently told her that her school is as secular as the surrounding culture, but with a religious facade. Last night I read these words in The Present Future:
McNeal says that we must transform members into missionaries; but this amounts to a shift in paradigms and always precipitates a crisis.
"Member values clash with missionary values. Member values are all about real estate, churchprogramming, who's in and who's out, member services, member issues ("am I getting what I want out of this church?"). Missionary values are about the street, people's needs, breaking down barriers, community issues ("am I partnering with God's work in people?") Club members are clueless about developing relationships outside the club."
"Adopting a missional approach requires changing the scorecard. Church scorecards reflect member values: how many show up, pay up, and participate in club activities. These numbers are used to compare one church against another. A missionary culture needs to keep score on different things. These may include how many ministry initiatives we are establishing, how many conversations we are having with pre-Christians, how many volunteers we are releasing into local and global mission projects, how many groups use our facility, how many church activities target people who aren't here yet... Until we bless people who go out from us to reach people who may not come to us, we will continue to have a kingdom vision that is shrink-wrapped to church programs and church real estate."
"Wrong question: how do we grow this church? Several decades of the church growth movement hae conditioned leaders to look for the next program, the "latest model," the latest fad to help grow the church. The focus is on success. But more energy on survival is misplaced. We can keep trying to get them to want what we have or we can start offering what they always need: God in their lives.
"Right question: how do we transform our community? The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture. In our self-absorption we don't even see the people we are supposed to reach. Growing up in the church we are concerned with internal issues rather than keeping our eyes on the harvest. Missional spirituality requires that God's people be captured by his heart for people, that our hearts be broken for what breaks his, that we rejoice in what brings him joy (Luke 15)."
"Wrong question: how do we develop church members? We have made following Jesus about being a good church member.
"Right question:how do we develop followers of Jesus?"
"I am recommending that churches provide life coaching for people. We need to view this as spiritual formation. We cannot take the approach that we just need to teach people the classic spiritual disciples, assuming that a person already has a developed center. We must use spiritual disciplines to help people form the center. We must attend to their self-awareness and life relationships."
Reggie McNeal, "The Present Future," Jossey-Bass, 2003.
I was stunned when I read these words in "The Prophetic Imagination." I believe many of us who are called to walk in new directions, and reflect on life, kingdom and culture will identify with them. This is a call to grieve, and to believe, and to move forward...
"We ourselves shall move in and out [of certainty, of our convictions about the nature of the kingdom of God and His body, our awareness of what God is doing] precisely because of our poor capacity to grieve the death in our own lives and so be amazed at the new futures. We are not more skilled in that than all the other children of the compromised community, and therefore we must engage in the same painful practices of becoming who we are called to be. I have come to think that there is no more succinct summary of prophetic ministry than the statement of Jesus: "Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh" (Luke 6:21), or ""Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt 5:4).
" Jesus' concern was finally for the joy of the kingdom. That is what he promised, and to that he invited people. But he was clear that rejoicing in that future required a grieving about the present order. Jesus takes a quite dialectical two-age view of things. He will not be like one world liberals who view the present world as the only one, nor will he be like the unworldly who year for the future with an unconcern about the present. There is work to be done in the present. There is grief work to be done in the present that the future may come. There is mourning to be done for those who do not know of the deathliness of their situation. There is mourning to be done with those who know pain and suffering and lack the power or freedom to bring it to speech. The saying is a harsh one, for it sets their grief work as the precondition of joy. It announces that those who have not cared enough to grieve will not know joy.
" The mourning is a precondition in another way also. It is not a formal, external requirement but rather the only door and route to joy. Seen in that context, Jesus' saying about weeping and laughing is not just a neat aphorism but a summary of the entire theology of the cross. Only that kind of anguished disengagement permits fruitful yearning, and only the public embrace of deathliness permits newness to come. We are at the edge of knowing this in our personal lives, for we understand a bit of the processes of grieving. But we have yet to learn and apply it to the realilty of society. And finally, we have yet to learn it about God, who grieves in ways hidden from us and who waits to rejoice until his promises are fully kept." Walter Brueggemann in the second edition of "The Prophetic Imagination" p.118
"A Sunday School teacher had just finished telling her third graders about how Jesus was crucified and placed in a tomb with a great stone sealing the opening. Then, wanting to share the excitement of the resurrection, she asked: "And what do you think were Jesus’ first words when He came bursting out of that tomb alive?" A hand shot up into the air from the rear of the classroom. Attached to it was the arm of a little girl. Leaping out of her chair she shouted out excitedly "I know, I know!" "Good" said the teacher, "Tell us, what were Jesus first words." And Extending her arms high into the air she said: "TA-DA!"
The resurrected Lord is the central event of our faith. It’s the "TA-DA!" of Christianity." Found at Scott Williams
Easter Sunday
Being bold and courageous (or dumb and bored) my entire family ventured forth into two large gatherings on Sunday. The first was a large charismatic gathering where we knew there would be some very dramatic presentations, good music, and probably dance.
We weren't disappointed. The first half hour of this meeting was excellent. There was a "live" Jesus at the front reading variously from Isaiah or Matthew .. and there were dancers and flags and linen used to symbolize various parts of the Easter story, including the rending of the veil in the temple.
Then came the bad news. The last hour.. (no kidding, it was 55 minutes in length) was as left brain as the first part of the meeting was right brain. A well known speaker took 55 minutes to say what could have been expressed in 15 minutes. Equally jarring.. he must be a disciple of John Chrysostrom... he made theological leaps based on metaphors, spending nearly 15 minutes talking about the practical significance of the angel sitting on the stone that rolled away from Jesus tomb. It probably wouldn't have bothered me so much if it had been a five minute allusion set in a twenty minute lecture.
We spent the afternoon with friends, a great lunch and good conversation with people still working and serving within a traditional setting, but who understand the journey we are on because they are themselves pilgrims. We talked about life, books, ministry, culture, change, healing... good stuff.
In the evening we went to watch our daughter perform "the Decision," a powerful drama that depicts creation, the fall and redemption. This was a much better experience, though the opening "worship" was a noisy and uncoordinated band over-amplified. Ouch.
Ok. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Like duh Len... why didn't you follow your first inclination to attend the service at St. Theresa's Saturday evening? You would have felt a much stronger connection to the Easter story and the larger church dude. Not to mention the sacramental ethos.." Ok, ok.. don't rub it in.
Tried and tested
By the cries of birds
By the planet's arc
Tried and tested
By the pressure to rhyme
Bruce Cockburn, May 2002
What do Burning Man and The Fight Club have in common? What does Albert Einstein have to teach us about perspective and change?
Hirsch and Frost quote Einstein as saying, "The kind of thinking that will solve the world's problems will be of a different order to the kind of thinking that created those problems in the first place." The same thought can be applied to the church.
The authors spend much of the first chapter rehearsing the Constantinian legacy and its impact on ecclesiology. This impact, combined later with the Enlightenment, virtually ensured the irrelevancy of the church in western culture. I was glad to see more attention paid to that legacy, it's an omission I have noticed in other places.
Hirsch and Frost talk about two pubs, each of which was reborn as a church. In one case a Baptist church bought the building and occupied it, sanitized it, and disenfranchised the existing pub community. This is a great illustration of a modern approach. In the other case, the Bradford pub was "taken over" by Christian staff and has become a sanctuary where people can meet the Lord on familiar turf. There is no sacred/secular dichotomy in the second story, but rather secular turf has become Holy. It's an incarnational story and an example of an emergent approach.
I was struck by the story because I recently met a local pastor who relocated his family here from Alberta last year. Lance's story is the Bradford story, in a slightly different form. Lance is an emergent thinker and completely missional in his orientation.
Frost and Hirsch summarize the twelve hallmarks of the missional church from GOCN, and then present three principles which they argue give energy and direction to the twelve points. The three are:
2. The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the world and God's place in it as more holistic and integrated.
3. The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership. By apostolic we mean a mode of leadership that recognizes the fivefold model detailed by Paul in Ephesians 6. It abandons the triangular hierarchies of the traditional church and embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community that unleashes the gifts of evangelism, apostleship and prophecy as well as the currently popular pastoral and teaching gifts.
We believe the missional genius of the church can only be unleashed when there are foundational changes made to the church's very DNA, and this means addressing core issues like ecclesiology, spirituality, and leadership. It means a complete shift away from Christendom thinking, which is attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical.
I would likely substitute "sacramental" for messianic. Messianic connotes something too narrowly Hebraic for me, while sacramental echoes an ancient teaching while connoting symbol, redemptive presence, and the gracious intersection of two worlds that may only be obvious to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. But by "messianic" the authors intend to point to the centrality of the life and mission of Jesus, and the wholism implicit in the Hebraic perspective.
Download the first chapter of "The Shaping of Things to Come" PDF.
"Good news to the poor"
Over the past few years I've often wondered if it is possible to understand the gospel in our wealthy, independent western culture. I haven't come to any conclusion.. and maybe never will.
At the end of Luke 11 Jesus talks to the Pharisees.. He says they keep the keys of knowledge (of God) and hinder those who would enter.
Those with power are always the gate keepers. They say who is in and who is out, and what defines each group. Those with power are the ones who name and label and define.
There was a time when that power was restricted to the educated, appointed, and the professionals. In religious western culture this was the clergy.. paid professionals and denominational leaders (though there have always been those among them who never bowed their knee to Baal). But those systems are increasingly breaking down.. and the Internet is fueling the fire.
It's interesting that deconstruction was born partially in an attempt to bring down the seats of power.. and at least can be seen in the emergent church to be somewhat successful. As you can tell, I've been thinking about issues of power and privilege, particularly as it applies to new beginnings.
power issues.. founding authentic communities
When a community is young the focus is on building and movement forward. There is a desire to establish momentum and to set foundations. These are natural and good desires.. but not completely good.
Some of our desire to establish momentum is because we want to appear to succeed. A growing community is something to talk about, and it reflects (we think) on the skill and sacrifice of those who lead. And without question, any time we begin something new we do make sacrifices.
But in order to build momentum, we constantly assess those the Lord brings to the community. "This one is leadership material; this one is not. This one can help us move forward, this one will need energy to keep them from falling behind."
After we make these assessments, we decide where to place our time. Those who can help us accomplish the vision will get most of our attention.
I have two problems with this. First, it means that the attention we give to the "builders" is utilitarian. We give them our time, energy and love because they are most useful to us. We may speak the language of relationship, but it is relationship at the service of vision.
Second, the neglect we show to those who are not builders is because they are less useful to us. We don't see the same worth, in terms of organizational goals. Consequently, we love them less.
The first group may never sense the missing component. If we use the language of relationship and not of task, they may come to believe that they are loved simply because they are connected. Those in the inner circle usually feel important until they burn out in the cause. When they are less useful, they suddenly find the friendships they thought they had have evaporated.
The second group almost always see through the agenda. The poor know they are not considered worthy, so they have fewer expectations about how they will be treated. Yet of course their worth is identical before the Lord.
When I look at Jesus selection of disciples, I marvel. He chose "the foolish things;" "those who were nothing." He hung out with fishermen and rebels. He didn't seem concerned about the pace or momentum.. well, yes, He did express frustration on a few occasions :)
But He seemed less concerned about the foundation. Or was it that the foundation itself was that those who were nothing would be welcomed, and those who thought there were something, because their gift had already made space for them, were given less attention.
The Gospel is first good news to the poor. The discipline of continuing to give priority to the weakest among us will keep us living in the real world, and away from the idolatry of position, status and usefulness. If we hope to build truly hospitable communities, not only our vision must change but the methods we use to get there.
Somewhere Gordon Cosby wrote that "vision is the destroyer of essence." That captures in a nutshell the point I am trying to make. Somewhere else Jacques Ellul said that "the means must incarnate the ends."
I confess, I am too quick to give attention to those who will affirm me, and make me feel good about myself and my calling. I confess, I am too quick to pay attention to those who speak the same language. I want to equally value those who are not useful to me, who may not even like me, and who may never understand me.
All these things are in my mind as we continue to gather and to share life with our small group of friends. I wonder if we are really a church.. ? I wonder what would happen if we stopped wondering and defined ourselves clearly that way? I wonder if I would feel some need to "take control" or begin to shape the vision? I wonder if just being friends together in the presence of God is enough? I wonder if we would lose more than we would gain? It feels very transitory, impermanent and undefined, and my need for structure and movement pulls me toward definition. But I wonder if those are godly pulls, or merely human? I wonder if these transitory and impermanent places are not in fact their own gift of grace, their own field of wonder? I wonder if essence is more primary than vision?
I relocated my office downstairs this weekend. Whew.. what a lot of work.
First it involved painting and patching a couple of bad spots in the wall in the spare bedroom. That took me perhaps 15 hours, spread over a week. Then it involved building a bookshelf. Perhaps another five hours in that process. Finally I had to wire a phone jack, and shift some books from an old shelf into a new one so that the old shelf could come into my office.
Toward the latter part of the week I began unpacking books.. some of which had not seen the light of day in six years.
* * *
Had a great conversation with Elise today about transformation vs conformity. So much of what passes for transformation in Christian communities is really just a response to social pressure to conform. But that is death to the inner self, and it crushes diversity. The last thing we need is mere morality; Christianity is about faith and identity and life in the Spirit, not primarily ethics.
The conversation began when she told me about a conversation she had with an inquiring friend. He's an interesting young man.. thoughtful and a musician, and God is after him. He asked my daughter, "What does God want from me?" She knew that the common answer didn't cut it.
I thought about that a bit, and then told her.. "What God wants of him is for him to discover his deepest self, the passion of his heart, and then dedicate that to God." It's about becoming all he can be for God.. not about giving up all his dreams, and going to India as a missionary to lepers. It's not primarily about changing his habits.. changing clothes. It's about uniqueness, because the Lord is infinitely creative and has made all of us to express something unique in the world, and to express it in praise to the Creator.
Elise liked that answer.. and I think it's a good one.
I picked up my Greek New Testament this morning and opened it to the book of John. To my astonishment.. while the letters themselves made no sense, I could read (pronounce) the opening verses. Somewhere in my head is the memory of this stuff, and while there is no conscious connection.. it looks like gibberish.. the pronunciation is still in there somewhere. It was a weird feeling...
Not long ago our friend the native street evangelist stopped in for a visit. He spent the evening with us and then crashed in our family room downstairs. We make space for him to do this so he can have a respite from ministry and life at the Gospel Mission, where there is never any quiet time.
The next morning at breakfast he spent fifteen minutes telling us how he has seen the impact of our lives in some of his friends. First, and the greatest direct impact, the ones who have spent time with us in our home. It's been slow and gradual for these ones, but he told us of some things he had recently seen in a few lives. It was astonishing to hear how they have continued to grow. Second, the encouragement he has received here when he has been tired or discouraged, and how that has helped his own ministry (which is quite an astonishing one, in spite of his being what I would describe as a "fundamentalist").
We felt a bit strange hearing all this. We aren't hospitable because we want praise, or even because we are focused on impacting lives. We are hospitable because it is the spirit of Jesus to welcome the stranger.
It was also odd because we don't think much about our impact, on our evangelist friend or others. We try to care when and how we can. We generally think we aren't doing very much, and often feel we aren't doing all that we could. But to Arnold's thinking, we have done much. His encouragement was really heart warming.
Our twice monthly Sunday gatherings in our home continue. They seem very ordinary to us. There aren't any bright lights flashing. There aren't any twenty minute speeches. We don't take up a collection. We do pray for one another.
We do see lives changing.. slowly but surely. One young mom who is FAS has been growing in ways we didn't expect, given her diagnosis. She seems to be catching faith like a good infection.. almost unconsciously. And she is beginning to set boundaries, perhaps for the first time in her life.
We are blessed to be a blessing. In the last few months we have helped a number of single mom's get reestablished.. physically and in other ways. We give in small ways.. paying a utility bill.. allowing them to come under our credit to get a phone hooked up.. helping with a car repair bill.. sharing an evening meal. But as our income increases with my new business, we may be able to help in larger ways. I'm hoping to employ one friend part time at least.
We are blessed to be a blessing.
A hectic day. At one point I was on IRC chat, the phone and typing an email response all at the same time. Oh.. did I mention the dog jumping up on me and barking..?
A press release for D-Day, 1944 will likely go out from GMX Media tomorrow, and a press release for the larger project on Monday or thereabouts. I am sworn to secrecy until that time ;)
To my knowledge, this will be the first new product to be produced by a "virtual" team. My team of engineers and artists is scattered all over the globe. While this is commonly done with add-on products (Battle Over Europe, Combat Over Europe or our own "D-Day, 1944: Invasion of Europe," it has not been done before with a new title.
This is the first time I have had to hire engineers and coders for more than a few hours at a time. This means contracts, and it means going to the bank to finance the project. I'll be looking for a credit line around $30,000. I should have a good return over 18 months.
At the same time, I am starting another small project, and toying with a third project to keep a few other friends busy. My own investment with these other projects will be minimal, just supervisory and ensuring they remain on schedule and quality.
I was bumping around in Brueggemann's "The Prophetic Imagination" the past few days, and found a very powerful afterward that is new to the second edition. It is about change, and hope, and grief. Hopefully I'll find time to share it tomorrow. I am also moving my office from the upstairs den to a downstairs room.
"Community is born in mystery, and ends in bureaucracy." Jean Vanier
Tim Bednar writes, Why the Purpose Driven Church Will Not Evangelize the 21st Century
Tim also writes that "Whether the existing church likes it or not, we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants." We have moved from a consumer culture to a producer culture, and that is the essence of the Internet reality. From Cluetrain Manifesto, “People in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches].” Clay Shirky writes in “R.I.P. The Consumer,” that "the Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether, because the Internet destroys the noisy advertiser/silent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon. The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media. In the age of the internet, no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet."
Tim synthesizes a lot of material and draws out the implications with regard to how we do church in point form. The Participatory Church.
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The book arrived last Friday, and I've been bumping around in it. It looks like one of the better investments of the past year, though already I am feeling very jealous. This is the first glimpse I have had of a new community that I would love to be part of. So, I am really excited about the book.. and really ticked off that Solomons Porch exists in Minneapolis and not in Kelowna.
Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost, both Australian writers, have penned 
A Tale of Two Pubs
Sunday evening was the final stage.. actually disassembling my ancient oak desk and moving it piece by piece downstairs, then moving all my office equipment and sound system, reassembling and rewiring it all downstairs. The very last piece was installing a D-Link wireless router and its counterpart upstairs, a Microsoft wireless PCI card. Seems to be working flawlessly so the kids have internet access upstairs while the DSL model resides in my office.
