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May, 2004 Blogs
A new perma-link top right, a word on ministry
A new link below.. Emerging Women Leaders and see also Jonny Baker's blog and the Center for Emerging Female Leadership.
The debate with Alan continues in the notes below...Friday, May 28th, the most recent being a post arguing that separating Christ from Christians is part of a dualistic approach. In fact, I think this is at the root of the entire argument over meditation and silence in prayer. Part of the argument is essentially that if the New Agers or Buddhists use meditation, then it must be dangerous or wrong. Rather, if they use it wrongly, then we ought to use it rightly, to hear the voice of the living God who speaks still. Let us redeem all things for the sake of the Kingdom, and let us not walk in fear of the enemies power.
Personally, the quiet times in the morning have been the most intimate times for me. I have sometimes clearly heard God's voice, usually speaking Scripture (read my bio via the link top right for details). As for the issue of gnosticism, separating the sacred and secular, or body and spirit, or humanity of Jesus from his divinity.. we have gone a long way down that road and the link I posted on Saturday from "The Shaping of Things to Come" is part of three chapters that look at correcting our thinking. Remember that Jesus was an eastern Jew, not a western Hellenist, but the primary foundation of the western church is Greek thought. It will take a conscious effort to recover a wholistic and integrated approach to thought, theology and to life.
Last summer I registered for the DMin program at ACTS in Langley, BC. They allowed me to defer entry for one year.. and now I have to make a decision.
I'm finding my feelings really mixed... on the one hand I always thought I would do some kind of PhD. On the other hand, I'm not sure what the point is... I have already read most of the books.. I already have great conversations about these issues.. and most of the men in my cohort probably won't really understand what the emergent church is all about. Most of them are senior pastors and most almost all are over forty years of age.
The fall will likely be busy for me, both with work and with ministry. A PhD might open new doors for me eventually.. but I'm not sure if most of those doors would really be very welcoming to an alternative thinker.
I've wondered if my reticence relates to fear of failure. I've realized that it does not relate.. that if anything, my fear is success. Once I have a PhD.. what then? I fear I would have climbed the educational tower only to be disappointed.. that what I am really looking for is relevance and influence, that I want to find more vehicles to bring change and transformation to individuals and systems around me.
I haven't figured this out yet.. I'll keep thinking, praying and listening...
"In this section we want to suggest ways in which the church can structure its communal 1ife in a way that embodies a missional-messianic spirituality. Behind this is the belief that the medium of the church itself must communicate a message that helps people find God in every sphere of life and not just within the confines of the church and in church activities.
"To do this we need to go back briefly to the issue of dualism. We raise the issue of dualism again because it is so easy to embody this belief in the very Structures and activities of the church in a way that counters any life-affirming message we might wish to portray verbally."
Some excellent thought here and also some good diagrams..
Go to Missional-Incarnational from "The Shaping of Things to Come"
Brian D. McLaren talks about beginnings, endings and the Bible in best-picture nominee 'The Return of the King'
In case you never read it two years ago, 95 Theses for Church Revolution
Alternative and post-charismatic worship: From hearts of stone to hearts of flesh
Steve Taylor's A to Z of Emerging Church
A Buddhist monk was threatened with death by a bandit. "Then be good enough to fulfil my dying wish," said the monk, "and cut off the branch of that tree."
One slash of the sword, and the branch fell. "What now?" asked the bandit.
"Put it back again," came the request. The bandit laughed, "You must be crazy. No one can do that."
"On the contrary, it is you who are crazy to think that you are powerful because you can wound and destroy. That is the task of children. The powerful know how to create and to heal."
Anthony De Mello, "In the Heart of the Enlightened"
...whether they know Jesus or not? He seems to be directly at odds with John
14:6 is he not?
"If there is to be another reformation we should be wary of who we are being
led by."
Go to the discussion...
"I dare to say there are several reasons why Water's Edge began. The main reason - it's simply a God thing. We gathered some Christian friends together, and we said that we wanted to pray about the possibility of starting a new church. Over the next six months we increasingly understood that our hearts were being moved in this direction.
"Quite awhile ago it occurred to me that "community" is a loaded term. We all talk about it, and... what does it mean? I'm far from a brain surgeon, but it would seem to me that community is really about friendships, genuine friendships. So, we are starting to talk about friendship instead of community. It makes a lot more sense, and we seem to have a better understanding of friendships than community.
"Everyone has been burned by bad friendships, and we all hold a few good friendships near to our heart. I'm not sure we can identify good "community." We can usually identify bad community, but we need a way to recognize if we are moving in the right direction. I think we can gauge "success" if we are growing friendships. This could mean either growing deeper friendships or growing new friendships. Thus far we have focused more of our energy on the first; I hope the second also becomes more important as we increasingly understand missional community."
A good interview at Next-Wave on a new missional community, Water's Edge
Kingdom Ecology
Prominent Canadian scientist David Suzuki charged in a six part series on the CBC (A Planet for the Taking) that mankind is guilty of unrestrained selfishness, resourcism, chauvinism and speciesism, using the avowed transcendence of the race as an excuse for the wholesale rape of the earth. Suzuki strongly implied that Christianity has a major responsibility in the crime.
Farley Mowat, the famous Canadian author, in an interview discussing his book Sea of Slaughter pointed to the Judeo-Christian ethic as the source of man's failure to respect other forms of life, since "God created all life to serve man's need." For Mowat, as for Suzuki, the solution is to reestablish man as one animal among many, to conquer the "domination" ethic by operating on the basis of need rather than greed.
Rene Dubos, in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "So Human An Animal," agrees that technological societies have exploited the earth but disagrees with White's charge that Western culture has simply applied the biblical maxim to creation. Dubos insists that Genesis 1 and 2 have been misunderstood, and in reality teach that the earth has been given to people for their care. The proper relationship of humanity to creation is one of harmony, not conquest; we are called to work with the earth, not against it.
"In Judaism, there is a distinct activity called kavanah. It is cultivated in order to maximize the inwardness of our actions. It means to pay attention, to direct the mind and heart in order to maximize the levels of intentionality in our actions. This applies to actions/deeds as it does to the Study of Scripture and to prayer but goes beyond these activities themselves to the notion of attentiveness to God Himself. It is not primarily an awareness of being commanded by God, but an awareness of the God who commands. The focus in kavanah shifts from the deed itself to its inner meaning, the goal being to find access to the sacred in the deed itself. It is finding the essence of the cask, to partake of its Inspiration, to be made equal to the task of fulfilling holy commands. Abraham Heschel says that "kavanah is direction to God and requires the involvement and redirection of the whole person. It is the act of bringing together the scattered forces of the self; it means the participation of heart and soul, not only of will and mind."
From Frost and Hirsch, "The Shaping of Things to Come." For a longer excerpt go HERE.
In ancient Japan it is said that after making love, the man had to write a poem so that when his lover awakened she might find the poem next to her sleeping mat. This custom was intended to link together sensuality and love. The poem and the consideration behind its creation was a reassurance that sexual intercourse was a fruit of love and not just a "taking..." These expressions that combine thanksgiving and affection are equally necessary in our love affair with God.
Edward Hays, "Secular Sanctity"
"The church is described as belonging not to the people by whom it is constituted...
R. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community
“Fresh expressions of the church will come from the margins of society, where they will radically reshape both our understanding of the church and the gospel.” Craig Van Gelder, response to "The Haze of Christendom"
“Change agents are more likely to be pioneering church planters who have no congregational history to deal with and who are immersed in the cultures of the people they endeavor to reach." Eddie Gibbs, from "Churchnext: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry"
“We need to watch the margins of our society - the inner cities and the rural areas where creative approaches are emerging, often born in despair. And so when desperation forces us to let go of the old ways, God can bring new life.” Ann Wilkerson-Hayes in “New Ways of Being Church.”
"Today we are constrained by the divine Spirit to rediscover the possibilities of littleness. We are to decrease that Christ may increase. We cannot enter this new phase without pain, for truly we have been glorious in this world’s terms. It seems to many of us a humiliation that we are made to reconsider our destiny as “little flocks.” Douglas Hall, "The End of Christendom"
"Working with small groups has made it necessary to bring the vulnerable and marginalized to the core of church life along with their humble wisdom and challenge to the way we do church." Brian McGaffigan, "Ministry at the Margins"
"Jesus tapped into a widespread sentiment of disillusionment with religion but hunger for God with his teaching about the kingdom of God and how people could become a part of it. His emphasis was on universal accessibility as opposed to the exclusivity of the Pharisees. The movement Jesus initiated had power because it had at its core a personal, life-transforming experience." Reggie McNeal, "The Present Future"
"The church was created to be the people of God to join him in his redemptive mission in the world. The church was never intended to exist for itself. It was and is the chosen instrument of God to expand his kingdom. The church is the bride of Christ. Its union with him is designed for reproduction, the growth of the kingdom. Jesus did not teach his disciples to pray, "Thy church come." The kingdom is the destination. In its institutional existence the church abandoned its real identity and reason for existence."
"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?" Reggie McNeal, "The Present Future"
"Those who created the problem are unlikely to develop solutions to fix it." Max DePree
More evidence that chocolate is good for you.. turns out it is loaded with antioxidants. And for women, it is also very high in magnesium, and low magnesium levels contribute to more severe PMS. Buy your wife plenty of chocolate, she will live longer and be happier.
The worlds largest democracy elected is now ruled by a non-Hindu for the first time ever. A Sikh has been appointed India's head of state.. very interesting.. India's PM
You may know that Paul Martin, PM of Canada after Jean Chretien retired in December, has called a snap election for June 25th. All the signs are that this will be an interesting contest and could reduce the liberals from a majority to a minority, which would be a good thing.
A new article at ALLELON: A Context for Spiritual Transformation by Todd Hunter as well as his lecture notes on Transformational Leadership. Brian McGaffigan writes about Ministry at the Margins
There is a story of a Hasidic rabbi, renowned for his piety. He was unexpectedly confronted one day by one of his devoted youthful disciples. In a burst of feeling, theyound disciple exlaimed, "My master, I love you!" The ancient teacher looked up from his books and asked his fervent disciple, "Do you know what hurts me?"
The young man was puzzled. Composing himself, he stuttered, "I don't understand your question Rabbi. I am trying to tell you how much you mean to me, and you confuse me with questions?"
Replied the Rabbi, "My son, if you do not know what hurts me, how can you truly love me?"
It was in the winter of '23,
Townsfolk said "where do you come from?"
Bless my soul, I want to be,
From then on in it was her and me,
Bless my soul..
I'm an old man now, and the folks all say
Bless my soul...
Resting in the Arms of Amazing Grace, Jim Woodyard
One really needs to become a dog owner to appreciate cats. I have grown more and more fond of our feline friend, who we believe is mostly Siamese in heritage. Here is a shot of her in a more docile moment..
I dug out my copy of "Spiritual Literacy" this morning instead of reaching for Merton. This compilation is filled with quotes from spiritual authors of renown. Unfortunately, only a few of them are Christian. I attribute this not to the prejudice of the collection's editor, but more to the fact that there isn't an abundance of spirituality in Christian circles.
What a shocking and sad statement. I'd like to tell you that I can't understand it, but I only have to look in the mirror to figure it out.. I am not one of the most spiritual people I know...
After nearly two years of uncertainty, it now seems clear to us that we won't be connecting formally with the Vineyard. We'll remain friends running on a parallel track with much vision in common.
I'll ascribe the outcome to human frailty and a clash of cultures. It feels to me that the broader Vineyard culture is an attempt to bridge the modern and post-modern worlds. I resonate strongly with that effort, because we need bridges. I have often felt that has been my own role, and I want to continue to relate to people in both worlds. But my own center needs to be firmly in postmodern culture, and I want to move forward with those who are ready to dream about new ways of being the church.
* * *
This means that we have actually gained clarity about who we are and where we are going. (I owe my thanks to the local Vineyard people for their patience as we worked this through.) We are planning to gather with some other couples to explore and envision what a new kind of church might look like here in Kelowna. This would be a church without buildings (but many gathering places), without paid staff (but many leaders), without programs (but not lacking activity or mission), and without.. dare we hope.. a sermon (but not lacking teaching or a love for the Scripture).
Just think of it.. we could be holistic, egalitarian, sacramental, messianic, incarnational and apostolic. Shaken, not stirred please..
As I talked with Nick about all this on Thursday evening, a scene from "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" popped into my head. In the movie Francis good friend Bernardo has come out to the meadow where Francis is rebuilding a church that is in ruins. Stone by stone, in bare feet in the lightly falling snow, he is rebuilding the church. As Bernardo looks at him sympathetically (the poor man has lost his mind), Francis quotes from the book of Peter, "Oh come, let us be built as living stones into a spiritual priesthood..." Shivers went up my spine.. this is the stage we are at, inviting others to come along and be built into a living priesthood.. we are setting foundations.
As I continue to read in Frost and Hirsch (The Shaping of Things to Come) I continue to be amazed at these guys. If I were to write a book, it would be much like this, though not as good :) I'll share a couple of quotes today but I want to scan a couple of pages to share a longer quote.
"It might well have been that in the seven-days-a-week life of that congregation every member was involved in ministry, but their public church service sent some very clear signals that day. You can say that there is no distinction between clergy and laity in your church brochure or sign, but the medium is the message. In a later chapter on the medium being message we will address the various unspoken messages we send. But for now, while thinking about the shape of church, we can say that our church buildings and practices betray our refusal to embrace the radical biblical teaching on Christian community."
Go to the full four pages.
Time to share some images...
The first image is our pup, chewing on .. hey, that sure looks like one of my slippers..
The second image is our deck in progress. A fun project and I'm now working on the railing.
The third image is my eldest daughter rehearsing with her friends for a gig at Java Express. They're having fun and growing as musicians... good stuff.
Thanks to Derek my dentist for work well done this morning, though the conversation was one-sided! Ah.. but I get to comment back in a one-sided way here... LOL.
Derek, one other book for your list.. Reggie McNeal, "The Present Future." Check out some samples by clicking HERE, another one you can readily get from AMAZON.CA.
A friend wrote to take exception to my attributing the ongoing place of the sermon to gatherings filled with believers over fifty years of age. That was unfair, so I'll elaborate.
Perhaps what I should have said was, "Some of those modern believers over fifty who are not likely to change." Because I personally have friends over fifty and even over sixty who are very much "new paradigm" and can no longer stand to sit for forty minutes being told what they already know (or in some cases, being told what they consider irrelevant).
In other words, there are those over fifty, or over sixty, who are in the same postmodern transition I find myself. There are those in that group who are beyond me. So much for generalizations.
In other places where the sacred sermon will remain, whether we will or no, I have friends who will use that space to try to prod people along and shake them awake.
Ecclesiology in the Modern World.
God gave teachers and pastors to the church.. they quickly decided they could handle the important work themselves and shaped the entire edifice to suit their own gifting.
Eventually, everyone believed this was the way it was meant to be. It helped that the pastors and teachers taught it this way. We liked it because it meant we could simply sit and listen while others did all the work. And of course, we paid them to pastor and teach, so they were the more reluctant to give up the place of honor.
Funny, though.. the body never seemed quite whole after this. It was as if it was all mouth and ears no eyes, hands, or feet. Lacking this wholeness and health, the body was cut off from the real world and increasingly moved in the esoteric world of theology and religion. The church became an exclusive club, as secular as secular could be.
For a just slightly more detailed treatment see Evolution of the Clergy
"From the fulness of joy the Father utters
Islam arose not long after the time of Constantine because the church became a settled and predictable affair ruled by priests. We turned a movement into a religion, preparing the way for a new movement with new vitality. The failure of the church to be the people of God is in part responsible for the mess we find ourselves in today.
A busy week.. I've been under the gun with the second stage of a software project that became seriously stressful toward the end. I had to build a new EXE which incorporated a patch and some new data, and for some reason the EXE was completely broken. After about eight hours of blood, sweat and tears I found the problem. Thanks Lord.
That combined with family matters and general life have kept me from blogging, but I've had some good conversations this past week -- conversations about life, family, kingdom and community.
I still believe there is a place for the sermon. The primary place is... you guessed it.. churches filled with people over fifty years of age. The second place is... times of transition. When we are moving from what we were to what we must become, we need those with vision to show us the way. Part of that "showing" will be "telling," mapping the new territory, correcting error, etc. I'll continue to argue that should be first relational and second dialogical, but I'll concede that teaching continues to have a place. But please, let's lose the 45 minute lecture.
I've actually found some transitional communities that are maintaining a sermon at the center of their meetings in the name of "seeker sensitive.." After all, those ones who have been used to this format can't simply jump into something new and feel safe, right?
I think this is a mistake, personally. I believe we have to bring these people with us, without playing to their old conditioning. And the "medium is the message." We continue to give the wrong message about who has authority, who is really a minister, etc. Furthermore, if we are establishing a new community we risk setting the wrong DNA... attracting those who simply want to continue to "play church," and who do not really want to move forward and discover their own calling and mission.
More thoughts on conditioning.. the respect for authority and/or position that actually disempowers the living priesthood.. but I'll leave those thoughts for later today.
* * *
Another major part of my life and time the past few weeks has gone toward the building of a deck in our back yard. It's been a fun project.. good to work with my hands again and good to see something concrete from my efforts.
As I have worked I've reflected on the setting of foundations. How critical this part of the work is... the foundations we set determine what the structure will support, how it will grow, and how it will look. The foundations limit or empower all that we build later. I'll post a few images later today.
You may know.. or you may discover this day (!) that I am militant in my position on women in ministry. I am as militant in convictions and practice as I believe that Jesus was. In a culture where women were not acknowledged as legal witnesses, he scripted that the first witness to his resurrection was a woman. In a culture where men did not speak to women in public places, he had a conversation with a woman at a well. He also had female followers and supporters, and we already know that some of the apostles in the early church were female.
Male Headship
"I believe in male headship unabashedly and unreservedly. I cannot evade the issue or rationalize my way around it. The headship of husbands is clearly and unassailably taught in the New Testament. Moreover, the Bible clearly declares that the response of wives to their husbands' headship is submission in everything. Indeed, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. As the church is subject to Christ, so wives must be subject in everything to their husbands (Eph. 5:23-24). This precept is not given in Scripture as a recommendation, a suggestion or a piece of advice that may be optionally followed. It is an absolute mandate that requires the same level of adherence as any of its commandments.
"Coming from an advocate of the reform movement called egalitarian or, more accurately, non-hierarchical complementarian, the above statement sounds regressive. For this reason, I also caution against citing it without referencing what follows."
Headship at CBE
A Challenge for Proponents of Female Subordination To Prove Their Case from The Bible.
By Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, Professor Emeritus, Wheaton College
"The purpose of this challenge is to prompt Christians to grapple with biblical facts rather than to accept traditional assumptions about female roles. What is at stake is not the role of women as much as the definition of the church as authentic biblical community. Is it possible for a local church to aspire to define itself as biblical community when more than half its constituency is excluded from participating in the most significant aspects of its life?
"In the course of history, the church has often lost its way. For instance, during a thousand years, the church forgot something as crucial as the way of salvation and replaced it with methods of salvation by works that never worked. The biblical teaching was finally recovered by the Reformers just a few centuries ago.
"Likewise, many present-day Christians believe that, along the way, the church has lost its own definition as community and replaced it with false definitions that reduce it to the status of institution, establishment, hierarchy, corporation and programs. This challenge provides an incentive to help Christians rediscover for themselves the biblical definition of the church as God’s community of oneness.
An effective approach to tackle this challenge would be to go through this document one page at a time, to check the references with an open Bible at hand, and to search the Scriptures in order to supply the requested references.
More articles from Christians for Biblical Equality
New at ALLELON
"The history and outlook of Western Christians, their theological DNA structure, was shaped by the circumstances through which they received the gospel. The Roman Empire needed a unifying ideology to rule a world with too much diversity and pluralism. In order to have a united people they needed a unifying code. It made good political and economic sense, even today! The momentum and influence of Christianity was used to this effect. In the process a form of territorial Christianity was born ..
"The way in which Europe and the West colonialized the Americas, Africa and Asia in the end led to the downfall of Christendom. The two terrible wars of the twentieth century put the final nails in the coffin. Western political and economical imperialism is, however, continuing this legacy with the holy war rhetoric between President Bush on the one hand and Saddam Hussein and the Taliban on the other hand.
“In keeping with the serial nature of Christian Expansion that seems so characteristic of the Christian faith, the dissolution of Christendom made possible a diffusion of Christianity that is now in process of transforming it.” The Acts 15 agenda was freed to encounter the cultures with the good news and to transform them under the guidance of the Holy Spirit."
"What we usually fail to realise, though it would have been blindingly obvious to Luke and his earliest readers, is that this brings the reality and message of God’s power into the sphere which we more normally associate with ‘power’ without the word ‘spiritual’ attached to it, namely the world of earthly power, political power. Saying that someone is the nation’s true king, the world’s true Lord, is fighting talk, and every early Christian knew it. The message of Pentecost invites us not simply to a new, cleansing and reviving spirituality,.. it invites us to hail the risen and ascended Jesus as king and lord on earth as he is in heaven."
Bruce Cockburn plays "Soul of a Man." I made this recording around 8 years ago from a CBC special and just recently digitized it from VHS to WMV. 12 MB. If you right click on the image with your mouse and select "Save Target As" you can download the entire clip then view it in a larger format.
"With more than two dozen records and numerous international awards to his credit, Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn has earned a reputation as a globe-trotting troubadour who protests social injustice along with probing the spiritual realm. Cockburn traveled to Iraq in January as part of a religious delegation to assess the humanitarian situation there. Sojourners editorial assistant Jesse Holcomb spoke with Cockburn about his experiences."
See also the Interview in Sojourners Magazine, 2004.
I know, I know.. a few will find my following Cockburn controversial. I'm not saying he is the perfect imitator of Christ.. but neither am I. I am saying he is a bold and compassionate prophet addressing issues that few believers will touch. I am saying he deserves a hearing. He also happens to be a great poet and musician and "outside the walls" like many of us. I love the guy. Pray for him, he is not in an easy place.
Spirituality outside institutional church
"George Lings, the Church Army’s Director of Research, has challenged Christians this week to acknowledge that many encounter Jesus and spirituality more effectively outside than inside the structures of traditional church."
The story is told of a certain Rabbi, a deeply zealous and ascetic man. One day he has a vision where he meets a woman who symbolizes the exiled glory of God, trying to make her way back to God. The woman is covered from head to ankles in a long black veil. Only her feet are bare, and they are caked in dust and blood from long traveling on harsh roads in her exile.
The woman says to him, "I am weary unto death, for people have hunted me down. I am sick unto death, for they have tormented me. I am ashamed, for they have denied me. You (humans) are the tyrants who keep me in exile. When you are hostile to one another, you hunt me down. When you plot evil against each other, you torment me. When youy slander each other, you deny me. In doing these things you send your follow human into exile and so you send me into exile. And for you, Rabbi Jacob, do you realize that while you intend to follow me with your religious rituals, you in actual fact estrange yourself from me all the more? One cannot love me [the Shekinah] and abandon people."
Then she concludes: "Dream not that my forehead radiates heavenly beams or has haloes all around it. My face is that of the created being." She then raises her veil from her fact, and he recognizes the face of a neighbor. (Frost and Hirsch, "The Shaping of Things to Come")
* * *
I had a dream last night that I was with YWAM people in an Islamic country. I was aware of a warning from the Lord that we were walking into a place of great danger.. actually an intentional trap set for us by Islamic leaders. Pray for protection for YWAM people in Islamic nations.
In an open and honest dialogue yesterday with a Vineyard leader, I was told that most believers don't want to have a voice, so structuring for an open meeting is counter-productive. Further, it was argued that an open meeting (SP style) is not a safe environment for many.
Both of these arguments presume that the way our (religious) culture has been shaped makes a more participative structure problematic. The first argument depend partly on context. In a transitional community with more established believers who are well conditioned to passivity, it would be very difficult to transition to something more open. It simply wouldn't feel safe.
The second argument likewise depends on context. Some meetings remain more seeker oriented, and if the expected seekers are traditional in orientation or mostly over forty years of age, a more open style may not be welcomed.
But back to the first point.. that most believers don't want to have a voice. I believe this is rapidly changing. In emergent contexts not having a voice simply isn't acceptable. And in some contexts learned passivity needs challenging. As in "Chicken Run," we have to work through the conditioning that we experienced in the traditional setting.
"In a tragic scene, she [Ginger] is trying to share her vision and stir up another escape attempt when she realizes that most of her fellow hens have no concept of freedom. For them, this is the way it has always been. Why try and change it, when, as one hapless chicken claims, "This is a chicken's lot -- to lay eggs then die." Ginger is a real hero because she refuses to give in to the prevailing consciousness of the prison camp. She's a prophet and visionary and a darn good leader. At risk of her life and by enduring incarceration and suffering she eventually succeeds in organizing the most daring escape by building the most extraordinary flying machine... Without being too dramatic, this is precisely what is needed for missional leaders and radical disciples who know that the urgency of the day requires a significant shift from the predominant image of "church." Frost and Hirsch
**
Do you know of any emerging communities in Calgary? If so, pass on the contact info please.
The Presence of the Kingdom
* The Christian in the World
Marshall McLuhan wasn't the only one thinking about the problems generated by technos (our tools and the way they in turn shape us). Jacques Ellul, the French sociologist, reflected Christianly and prophetically on these issues some twenty years later.
"We must be convinced that there are no such things as "Christian principles." There is the person of Christ, who is the principle of everything. But if we wish to be faithful to him, we cannot dream of reducing Christianity to a certain number of principles (though this is often done), the consequences of which can be logically deduced. This tendency to transform the work of the living God into a philosophical doctrine is the constant temptation of theologians, and also of the faithful, and their greatest disloyalty when they transform the action of the Spirit which brings forth fruit in themselves into an ethic, a new law, into "principles" which only have to be "applied." The Christian life does not spring from a "cause," but it moves toward an "end"; it is this which completely changes the outlook for humanity, and renders the Christian life different from every other life."
"A thing is never good or bad in itself, not even by the use man makes of it. A thing is only good or bad in its own time, according to its situation in the light of the Kingdom of God, according to its conformity to the work of God for the coming of the Kingdom, and, finally, according to its possible use for the glory of God, or vice versa. These are the three criteria, which are very precise and concrete, once we have abandoned our obsession with ethical formulae or political doctrines. It is in the daily application of these three criteria to social facts that the action of the Christian is revolutionary, by "actualizing the eschaton."
"Our first point is extremely important: the problem of the end and the means is an ancient problem, but its form has altered, and it is now expressed in very different terms from those which were used in earlier days. Today the problem has been absolutely transformed; it is no longer a discussion between two conceptions of the relation between the end and the means (for instance, "the end justifies the means" and "just ends, just means"), for it is no longer expressed in philosophical terms, but in terms of facts, and of particular facts, which are peculiarly urgent: technical facts. Thus this question is a clue to the understanding of our own day.. it must be seen in the light of technics.
"The first great fact that emerges from our civilization is that today everything has become "means." There is no longer an "end;" we do not know whither we are going. We have forgotten our collective ends, and we possess great means: we set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere. The end (by this I mean the collective end of civilization, for individuals still have their own ends-for instance, to succeed in a competition, or to get a higher salary, and the like) has been effaced by the means.
"Thus, man himself, alive and concrete, the man in the street, is subjected to "means" which are supposed to secure the happiness of "man" in the abstract. The "man" of the philosophers and the politicians, who does not exist, is the only result of this tremendous adventure which brings misery to the man of flesh and blood, and transforms him into a "means."
"This remarkable proliferation of means thus leads to making everything "useful." In our world everything has to serve: that is to say, to be a "means." Further, as means increase, and as ends are relegated to the abstract, they become implicit and are no longer questioned."
Not to mention "the subversion of Christianity"..
"How has it come about that the development of Christianity and the church has given birth to a society, a civilization, a culture that are completely opposite to what we read in the Bible, to what is indisputably the text of the law, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul? I say advisedly "completely opposite." There is not just contradiction on one point but on all points."
" Marx and Kierkegaard both tried to prevent their thinking from being reduced to an ideological mechanism. But they could not stop their successors from freezing their living thought into one (or many) systems, and in this way an ideology arose. "
" It was not for nothing that the first Christians were attacked in the Roman Empire as dangerous anarchists, as agents subverting Roman order. They had conscientous objections against military service, against the administration, and against the emperor."
The Subversion of Christianity
Preaching is "broken"
EMERGENT church calls preaching ' broken , ' inauthentic. Pagitt, like most other leaders of the emerging church movement have an evangelical background where preaching is valued. ... Preaching is "broken"
THE Subversive Art
"... It connects, we've seen, with students at his alma mater, Wheaton College, and emerging church leaders at national conferences, where Bell is likely to teach ... The Subversive Art
CASUAL Sundays
... the church as a whole," said Dan Kimball, pastor at the Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, Calif., and author of "The Emerging Church" and "Emerging Worship ... Casual Sundays
COFFEEHOUSES of worship
... re rethinking the church as a whole," said Dan Kimball, pastor at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, Calif., and author of The Emerging Church and Emerging ... Coffeehouses of Worship
YOUNG adults make new church homes in unusual places
... Each "emerging" church paves its own path to being Christian, he said. "I look back on the New Testament, and the church was always changing. ... New Church Homes
BRAVE new church
'Emerging' Movement Attracts Young People With Movies and All Things Digital... Jones' church is part of a movement known as the "emerging church" that is cropping up in cities across the nation. Brave New Church
NEW places for sharing spirituality include some with taps and spirits.
... fact, many churches that attract young people avoid talk of ''going to church'' altogether, said Dan Kimball, author of Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity ... New places..
I am enjoying Frost and Hirsch. More than enjoying it, I am finding a resonance with this book that I have rarely found over the years. They continue to surprise me by echoing my own thought... Yes, that's right, it's nice to find guys as crazy as I am.. crazy loves company. To my surprise I sometimes find myself with moist eyes, reading a book on missions and ecclesiology!
Seriously, my guess is that "The Shaping of Things to Come" will be the most significant work yet on missions in the postmodern context. I am loving their ability to hit at the heart of the issue, carefully structure their thought, yet remain both creative and personal. It's a wonderful work of integration and vision. The books represents a wonderful balance of theological reflection, wisdom and insight and practical application.
As I mentioned in April, 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 failure of the church in western culture. I was glad to see more attention paid to that legacy, it's a foundational perspective and an omission I have noticed in other places. This piece of history resulted in a cultural manifestation the authors label "Christendom" as opposed to Christian, and "Christendom, particularly its ecclesiological and missiological manifestations, amounts to a failed experiment."
I was almost shocked to see a chapter titled "The Medium Really is the Message." Frost and Hirsch even spend a few pages discussing the Canadian writer Marshall McLuhan, a neglected thinker in the mid 60s who wrote "Understanding Media." This is the first discussion of McLuhan I have seen in a discussion of postmodern ministry and ministry methods, and I was excited to see it. We have to understand that our methods are not value neutral, and often speak in contradiction to our words, preventing the message that we want to hear from being heard. This has implications both for ecclesiology and missions.
This chapter (nine) leads off with a reflection on the movie "Chicken Run." If you've seen it, you know it parallels the story of "The Great Escape. The heroine, Ginger, refuses to give up trying to organize a mass escape. She has a vision of what life could be if they all lived free.
"In a tragic scene, she is trying to share her vision and stir up another escape attempt when she realizes that most of her fellow hens have no concept of freedom. For them, this is the way it has always been. Why try and change it, when, as one hapless chicken claims, "This is a chicken's lot -- to lay eggs then die." Ginger is a real hero because she refuses to give in to the prevailing consciousness of the prison camp. She's a prophet and visionary and a darn good leader. At risk of her life and by enduring incarceration and suffering she eventually succeeds in organizing the most daring escape by building the most extraordinary flying machine... Without being too dramatic, this is precisely what is needed for missional leaders and radical disciples who know that the urgency of the day requires a significant shift from the predominant image of "church."
"It is true that most concentration camp victims give up the hope of freedom and die a death of the spirit long before they die physically. This is because they have given up their inner freedom. Freedom is a condition of the soul whereas liberty is a condition of the body....
"To break free from the shackles of a dying Christendom we need to awaken a Christian spirituality that can nurture and envision and alternative reality if cinnunal life together. If ever there was a time to act, it is now..."
We believe that such a spirituality must be missional and evangelistic because is must be insipred by the Gospel in all its dimensions, and it needs to adopt the same stanc in relation to surrounding cultures that Jesus and the early church did--as the object of a mission.
Frost and Hirsch, "The Shaping of Things to Come," p.147
Download the first chapter, "Evolution or Revolution?" of "The Shaping of Things to Come" PDF.
"We believe that if we aim at ministry, we seldom get to do much mission. But if we aim at mission, we have to do ministry because ministry is the means by which mission is achieved. The established church has generally got this wrong."
An inside look at Reimagining Spiritual Formation
A conversation with a friend opened up Thursdays post in new ways. It is both a personal discovery and a revelation of a systemic problem.
I am realizing that when I participate in a group with identified leaders, I defer to them in ways that I would not defer to a friend. Furthermore, I limit my participation when there is a strong facilitator.
I realize that this is part of my conditioning in the religious subculture. But I wonder how many leaders are aware that the more they exercise their gift, the more likely they are to disempower participation, and thus limit learning and growth.
We need good facilitators. We need confident leaders. It's a beautiful gift, and it's always a pleasure to participate in a good group. But somehow leaders have to become aware that their strength can become a weakness by limiting the participation of others. The problem is made more acute by the religious conditioning most of us have acquired. We automatically defer to those in leadership positions; we may even do this unconsciously, and we may do it when we shouldn't.
The implications of failure to address the issue is that the group can stagnate. Another danger is that we fit snugly into our roles, without the flexibility to change them when appropriate, and with some tending to be passive while others over participate. We need to empower every member of the body if we are to become a real priesthood, a priesthood both when the church gathers and as it goes out to the world.
I am reading Frost and Hirsch, "The Shaping of Things to Come."
Where we have to go as communities of faith is toward incarnational mission. But the few who have vision for this are emerging leaders.. we are the few among the few. Is it possible to take those who have sat in the pew for 20 or 30 years along with us? Like many of us, they learned passivity. They were told they were priests, but the message the structure gave was that they had no voice, nothing to give.. can these dead bones live?
This is why I believe that the missional church will not be birthed among established Christians, those who have been warming pews. That conditioning is very powerful. We need a transitional time where people are given a voice. How critical it is that we shift from hierarchy to community as we move toward rediscovering our purpose as a priesthood of believers. And how critical it is that we change our forms. Even the way we gather must reflect the truth of our identity, and not just the identity of those called as leaders in the community. "The medium is the message." If we continue to disempower the many, we have no hope of becoming a missional people. And unless we become a missional people, we will increasingly sink toward isolation and irrelevance.
"On most occasions the sermon is followed by a time of open discussion where I ask for comments, interpretations, and thoughts of significance from our community. During these few minutes not only are brilliant observations made, but we are reminded that we are called to listen to one another and be taught by one another and not only by a pastor." Frm "Reimagining Spiritual Formation"
Christian churches running on empty? Research indicates number of Americans who don't attend services nearly doubling.. Worldnet Daily
Spiritual Formation Through Dialogue
"The Tuesday night Bible discussion group is my primary time of preparation for the following Sunday's sermon, not only because it gives me a better idea of how to focus what I'm going to say, but also because I like the idea of the sermon being something more than just my thoughts and research on a passage. Part of our desire is to be a community that is equipped to contribute to the future thinking, life and faith of the Church. This means we need to not only hear the thoughts of those who have gone before us, but also to create new ways of thinking and living the dreams and ways of God.
"Dialogue isn't just helpful in spiritual formation, it is essential. If people are to center their lives on the story and call of Jesus, we as the church need to find ways to help the truths of Jesus become embedded in those lives. For many people, that can only happen when they are allowed to turn an idea over in their heads for a while, to ask questions of it, to make sense of it in their own time and in light of their own experiences.
"Anna, another of the Tuesday-night regulars, recently noted that she has often struggled with more traditional religious methods. "During a sermon," she says, "I feel like my job is just to sit there and take it." For her, participating in a dialogue about the difficult questions and demands of faith has meant the difference between being an active player in the story of God and being the passive recipient of someone else's ideas.
"In every communication there are at least two authors: the one generating or expressing the idea and the one rebirthing the idea in his or her own mind. A person who simply listens to a speech or sermon really isn't given time to process the ideas -- by the time the idea is out there, thr presenter has moved on to the next thought.
"Doesn't it seem strange that when we're talking about the life-transforming process of a person being captured by the story of God, we fail to make room for true two-way conversation?
"It can be nerve racking for a pastor to give up being the one who decides what gets said and taught in a community. But after three years of weekly discussion groups and dialogues following my sermons, I've found that people -- even those who are new to things of faith -- really do know a lot about the Bible and the implications of the story of God in their lives.
"These practices have created an attitude in our community where people believe they can and should learn from one another. As a pastor, it's such a blessing to not be seen as the "Bible Answer Man," but as a member of the community, one who happens to have training, gifts and a degree in theology. Even with this training there is no way any one person can, or should, understand and apply the Bible to the lives of everyone else. If we value the full immersion of our lives in the story of God as it is revealed in the Bible and desire for that story to creep into every vestige of our lives, we need the perspectives of many people. If my life has been smooth smailing, I'm going to get something very different from the stories of faith and life in the Bible than those who have suffered greatly.
"The dialogical approach means that the authority of teaching and explanation needs to be decentralized away from me as the pastor both in the "pulpit" and during the week. I really enjoy this different role in our community. Even though I have found that I enjoy preaching and teaching, and there are even people who tell me they like listening to me talk, it's so refreshing for me to be one of the voices impacting a person's faith, and not to have the burden of being the only voice... There is no question that my community leads me as much as I lead them. All that through something as simple as conversation.
"In the early days as we shared our desires for the feel, intentions and ways of Solomon's Porch, we often asked a key question of one another: "What in your past that was lifegiving could we incorporate into our lives together?" We didn't look at handbooks or guides to starting a church. We had no interest in doing a "cover" version of someone else's model... We often say that we want the dreams of Solomon's Porch to reflect the dreams of the people in our community. We want that list to keep growing and changing with us. It was never meant to be stagnant.
"This idea of bringing our dreams to the church is quite different from the model of the "program" church many of us had experienced where the community becomes a collection of services meant to meet the felt needs of the congregants. We never wanted SP to be a place where people were "serviced."
Spiritual Formation Through Worship
"Our intention is that Sunday night gatherings be a time when people contribute to the creation of a setting in which we are transformed, not a setting in which people come to be serviced by professionals or qualifed volunteers. I like to think of it as having dinner at a friend's house where it is expected that you will help pass the serving dishes and clear the table at the end of the meal.
"Our gatherings reflect our belief that we are in this together and that we all have something to offer here. Our worship gatherings are not meant to be shows or concerts. They are designed as interactive experiences. We invite participatants to join in, share what they have, and take a piece of what those around have to give. We are a gathering of people who are on a pilgrimage through life with each other and with God. Our gatherings for worship are designed to help us on that journey.
"Because our gatherings are designed to be interactive and participatory, our furniture is set in the round so we can see one another.. over time, we have gotten used to seeing faces in church rather than the backs of heads.
"Part of our communal effort on Sunday nights is to limit the things that separate those in charge from those who are not; our hope is that all people will be part of this experience. That's why it's important that the roles people play not be confused with power in other areas of our community. We don't have special places of activity or certain rights that are reserved for some. Because we don't have a stage, we don't have to be concerned with who is utilizing that place of power. It is important for us not to centralize power or give undue power to those wearing microphones who speak to the entire group in ways that others do not. We are conscious of the feelings that come when one person has the ability to address the crowd with sophisticated sound reinforcement and what that communicates to others about whose words are important.
"On most occasions the sermon is followed by a time of open discussion where I ask for comments, interpretations, and thoughts of significance from our community. During these few minutes not only are brilliant observations made, but we are reminded that we are called to listen to one another and be taught by one another and not only by a pastor."
Next: Spiritual Formation Through Dialogue
Why Paul Vieira likes "The Matrix.."
"The matrix itself is an elaborate and convincing web of deception, keeping people from seeing the truth. Those hooked up to the matrix think they are living one reality, when really something else all together is going on. They are in complete and helpless bondage, and no one has a clue. The only way to really know the truth is to pursue that small voice inside that says "something is wrong with the world". When Neo decided to search for the answers, it led him to Morpheus. ( who's name means "change") He offered Neo a choice to see the truth for himself (blue pill or red pill). There are two things that Morpheus tells Neo that is absolutely true: (1) "No one can tell you what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself" and (2) "I can show you the door, but only you can walk through it".
For more visit Harveststone
"Some talk of "Doing Church" and much of the talk is about "saving souls" "mission" organizing ourselves and structuring ourselves to "Do it". While other say, no no no...We are the church... therefore we don't want to "Do church" we want to "Be the church." These people talk of being "authentic" being "incarnational" ...They say, "Its not important what we do but what really matters is who we are. I think you get my point here.
"Who is right? And maybe more importantly why is there so much confusion on this topic. Why can you go up to almost anyone who is apart of a believing community and ask, "What is the nature of the church and how is it suppose to function," And all you get is blank stares? Scary..."
David
David, I take your point re: doing vs being, that it is not possible to separate the two. I can't argue with you. Philosophically, it is not possible to separate action from essence. But as one who has often made the point that we need to quit "doing" church and start "being" the church, the burden is on me to explain myself. Did I get that right?
The problem is language, as usual. Those of us who talk about "being" the church are trying to escape from what we see as unreflective activism, the obsessive/compulsive communal disorder we see manifest in so many communities of faith, where the machine grinds on endlessly, but the purpose is only vaguely biblical.
Or if they are clear about purpose, it is mechanistic, modern, and consumer oriented. It may conform to part of a biblical definition, but it is rarely either a true community or truly missional. These task oriented communities reflect our culture, which is success driven and focused on results. James Houston in "The Mentored Life," wrote,
At the worst, communities which "do" church but are weak at "being" church are Sunday centric. They are not communities but congregations. When "church" is something that happens in meetings, not 24/7, it is about a religious program and not about life.
Now obviously, I am describing a continuum of ethos and behavior and not an either/or scenario. When I then argue that the body of Christ is primarily essence and secondly acted out, I am talking about essence over acted values, and the word I use a lot is "incarnation." The cool thing about that theological point is that the incarnation was the fusion of Word and Spirit, the physical and the spiritual, the sacred and "secular."
God really came into our world. He really took a risk. While the primary witness we have of that action is now mere words, the reason we have a story to tell is because Jesus walked among us, was one of us, and did not merely stay at a safe distance and speak nice words into our darkness. The "I AM" really WAS… it's all about being. Similarly, we have to "become" the answer for this generation.
The philosophers like to say that ontology precedes epistemology, being before knowing, and in the same way I like to argue that being precedes doing. We will incarnate our essence, and that incarnation will be much more powerful than the words we speak. It is about doing, yes, but it is first about the people we are. Richard Rohr, the founder of The Center for Action and Contemplation, writes in "Radical Grace,"
In the end this brings us back to your point. We can't really separate being from action, but we had better know who and what we are before we act, and we had better be transformed people because "what is not transformed we transmit."
One final thought. Last fall I had a weak moment and attended a typical Sunday gathering with my family. Later we reflected that we had particularly enjoyed the worship celebration time. But as we talked about it, we became increasingly uncomfortable. We felt we had been served a high protein meal, and it was sitting in our bodies undigested.
First, we were uncomfortable that it was a highly crafted experience served by professionals. But isn't the body of Christ about giving what we have, regardless of how polished we are? And isn't it about giving whether we are paid professionals or not?
Second, we were uncomfortable that it was an entirely middle class setting. Virtually everyone was well coifed and stylishly dressed. We felt like this was a club membership, and not actually a place where anyone would be safe.
That got us thinking about the OT temple. Temple worship is frequently condemned in the Old Testament prophets.. and in the next sentence, the people of God are blasted for neglecting the poor. What's the connection?
Could it be that we would rather "do" church than "be" the church, and that we would rather "do" worship than "be" worship. "Being" worship would make of our lives a living sacrifice. It might mean that we nail our self oriented ways to the Cross and die there, so that we can be raised up for the life of the world.
I believe that it's good to raise our hands in worship, to physically find ways to express what is happening with our spirit. But when Jesus spread out His arms on the cross, He became worship.. a living sacrifice. That seems to be Pauls' point in Ro. 12:1,2. It seems in modern culture we want a good service.. in the early church they wanted to serve. They had found the good news, and they were naturally missional.
So.. whew.. long answer. Hope this helps…
Woke early in the morning thinking about all the things I have grieved over the past couple of years..
I had a picture in mind of a broken and crumbled building, with pieces of timber sticking out of a pile, and dust and ashes filling the air. From this cloud of dust and debris people came walking outward, looking confused and shaken. With the fall of the old system, these ones were ready to move forward into something new.
It's a grace to us when the old things collapse completely. Until they do we are desperately trying to fix or mend what cannot be mended. No one puts a new patch on an old wineskin..
Even many communities that have a sense of the need of something new are not moving forward because they are afraid to allow the old ways to die. The risk of moving to unknown places is too frightening. Leaders feel responsible to provide the services and safety they have always provided. And the people expect it. They expect continuity. But new paradigms do not build on old paradigms: they replace them.
"To risk is to lose one's foothold for a while; not to risk is to lose one's self forever." Kierkegaard
"When the old wineskin is dying, the new wineskin is created by those who are not afraid to be vulnerable." Graham Cooke
Thus says the Lord:
Then the word put out his hand and touched my mouth;
"The new futuring of God is for those who have not only resisted exploitative practices but have been victimized by them. The future will be given not to people in their fullness but to those who have been forcibly denied enough. The future is given to those who are experienced in groaning. The future is denied to those who have been dynical and calloused and self-deceiving enough to rejoice in the present order and are unable to grieve about the ruin toward which the dominant community is headed." Brueggemann, "The Prophetic Imagination"
Thanks to Robbymac for the idea, with slight modifications on my end...
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