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June Blog Index
"We will only stay in community if we have gone through the passage from choosing community to knowing that we have been chosen for community." Jean Vanier
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
2:40 PM
After a few discussions on the weekend, I'm thinking again about that most ubiquitous of Christian traditions, the sermon.
Let's consider a few facts, gleaned from learning theory as well as observation, and then place those facts up against what we know about the purpose of the church.
1. Most listeners are capable of staying with a good speaker for fifteen to twenty minutes. After that minds wander and drift.
2. Most sermons exceed twenty minutes in length.
3. We remember little of what we hear, around 5%. We remember up to 15% of what we see and read.
4. Transformation has little connection to information. Most of us are already more informed than we need to be, and less obedient than we oulght to be.
5. When we ask people about change and personal growth, and when we ask them for examples, virtually no one will point to a sermon that changed their lives. In fact, most can't remember the topic of the sermon they last heard only a few days after hearing it.
When pressed for facts about change and growth, most people will point to events and names. Most of us grow and change through a combination of love and example and friendship. We are influenced and healed and grow as a direct result of those in our lives who love and care for us. It is from these people that we also learn the most, because we trust them to speak into our lives at the point of need.
This is pretty close to the core reason the church exists.. to grow us and heal us and then create a community of safety for the healing of others. Do we need information and education to form this safe place? Yes we do. The next question is the best way to get the information we need, and the answer has more to do with dialogue and interaction than with monologue.
But I believe there is still a place for teaching and instruction and study. The real issue may be that sermons are too long and are not hitting us at the point of need, and that there is often no opportunity for interaction and personal application afterward.
Instead, we ought to place people in a circle and have a short lesson, and then have dialogue with one another about meaning and application. But let's face it.. the theatre that is the modern church gathering is built around an expert, a passive audience, and a consumer culture.
A friend of mine says that most sermons are "fast food," and we all know what happens on a diet of fast-food..
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:40 AM
"Comfort My people,
The voice of one crying,
Deserts and valleys are also a place of grace.
Not long ago I was thinking how much I have learned in the desert places that I could never know in the high places. I learn about God's provision and favor in new ways. I experience His comfort. He opened my eyes to see through a new lens.
It's uncomfortable to be challenged in such ways. We can feel abandoned by God. We can feel like we are drowning, or that our world is falling apart.
It's a physical transition, moving from mountain top to valleys. Like the physical change itself, in the valleys we tend to "go deep." I think of Ps. 1.. the tree sends its roots deep when drought comes. The quality of deep water is different than surface water; it can be much clearer and sweeter.
When culture shifts we can lose the feeling that life makes sense. Our frameworks of meaning collapse. Our structures of interpreting life and the world can be lost. This profoundly impacts our personal sense of identity. Even the communities we have relied on to reflect to us our personal significance may no longer provide that for us.
But these times are powerful, creative experiences. They call us to new levels of trust and faith. When all around us is shaken we are invited by the Most High to make Him our refuge.
Deserts of transition or loss cause us to reflect deeply on our lives. We learn even that if those things are lost that we thought we could not live without, God is still with us. The desert can break our addiction to the culture. We eventually learn that so long as we are in Him, we cannot be shaken.
We also learn to listen in new ways... in the dry places God may come to us in a small voice, when we were used to hearing him clearly (we thought) in the exciting and active times.
If we are to know God in all his ways, then we need the valleys as well as the mountain tops. The desert is a place of grace in a way that the mountain top can never be.
In these exilic times God calls out to us from desert places; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:00 AM
The Lord woke me this morning thinking about listening and our inheritance as sons and daughters.
Jeremiah 31
"Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.
"And it shall come to pass, as I have watch over them to pluck up, to break down, to throw down, to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant....
"And this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will write my law in their minds, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord."
In the Gospels Jesus remarks that "My sheep hear My voice," and that He will not leave us orphans, but will come and abide in us and the Holy Spirit will reveal Him to us and lead us into all truth.
Jesus is describing an intimate relationship where we know Him as a friend. Furthermore, it is by the Spirit that we are brought into the relationship of sons and daughters to a Father.
As a result of hearing His voice we can walk alongside Him, working with Him in all that He is doing. But the even more foundational benefit is simply knowing Him.. and thus finding our identity "in Christ.." knowing ourselves as loved by God.
From that foundational place we learn to work with Him, ask Him for what we need, and intercede on behalf of others.
This is all astonishing stuff.. that we shall all know the Lord, and all hear His voice. Our inheritance is to be a prophethood of believers, representing God to the world. We don't primarily represent God to one another, though in the early stages of our growth this is necessary. We never cease needing the body ("can the eye say to the hand, I have no need of you?"), but we must each have our own direct connection to the Head. (The head doesn't tell the hand to tell the eye what to do).
All this to say I am disappointed in my level of faith these days. Jesus tells us to "ask and you will receive," and I am embarassed to say that I ask a great deal, but my expectations are small. Perhaps if I believed more, I would ask more and ask differently.
What is the point in asking at all if we don't expect to be heard? I need a deeper revelation of Christ.
Furthermore, my expectation of hearing His voice is too small. Lord, transform my faith.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:00 AM
Todd Hunter blogs,
"I know lots of people who are getting really worried about all things church. As the approach of the last 40-50 years (read marketing driven, church growth) is being questioned, if not thrown out, we are left with only the questionable results of our own approaches... changing models alone is not going to be enough: it is good, but not capable of producing real change.
"This is true because the church is not “a thing”, it cannot be fixed with “tools”. It is a people and people have characters, a spiritually formed life that they bring into any setting. This is what must be transformed —- lives. Otherwise, “people” just mess up our models.
"Simple church can be just as political as a mega church when some one or some group is trying to get their own way in a manipulative manner. House church leaders can be just as controlling, fear based and performance driven as any mainline guy. I could go on, but I’ll bet your getting the picture…
"I once asked Dallas Willard why he characterizes The Divine Conspiracy as “a moral revolution”? I think I now know why. God is transforming us into Jesus-kind-of-people so that we don’t mess up his cosmic model (Rev. 22:5), so that we become the trusted, cooperative friends of Jesus who can incarnate our selves into other people’s live with no agenda but to be an ambassador of the Kingdom. Note that “worthiness” (moral capacity which makes one trustworthy) is THE issue in Rev. 5...
"I know we will never be perfect—that’s a lot for a perfectionist to admit! But, I also know that the lack of true godly altruism —- wanting things for people with no expectation of getting anything back for your self -— versus always wanting things from people is undermining, if not killing our approaches to church -— simple or mega..."
So Todd blogs.. and I am thinking that the wine is more important than the skin, even while we can't neglect the relationship between the two. Ultimately form does matter, but tweaking the form won't determine the kind of people we are. And gatherings, after all, make up the smallest time segment in the life of a community of faith.
Ultimately we do need a true spirituality, a spirituality for the road, an outside-the-walls, tested and proven spirituality that goes beyond individuality into purposeful relationships of love and grace and giving. There is a spirituality of the safe places, and a spirituality for the road. There is a spirituality that is good enough for Sunday mornings, and a spirituality that will endure on the street. There is a spirituality that is adequate when we are in large and impersonal gatherings, and another for the face-to-face and open heart encounter.
In these chaotic and uncertain times, when so many things we depend on are changing or have ceased to exist, we long to see something new revealed. And we long to be part of the of something that is truly life giving, truly God centered, and truly liberating. We want to see His kingdom come.
But it will only be born as we let go of fear, as we let go of our own addiction to control, and as we learn to embrace insecurity. Only as we release our hold on the things of this world can we embrace the new thing that God is doing. Letting go of the old things will bring fear if we are not deeply rooted in a different reality. And if we walk in fear, we won't even recognize the new thing when we see it. Fear is a binding and blinding force that causes our sight to turn inward.
This means that in order to move forward into the things God has for us we need a deeper spirituality than we previously knew. Some years ago I was listening to a prophetic teacher who said this,
"One year I was called in by a church that was going through a particularly difficult transition. I prayed for five weeks and heard nothing. Finally when I arrived on scene and was in the meeting the Lord reminded me of words from the last year and the word for the church was, "Welcome to boot camp."
"In the midst of chaos God is often silent. He is quiet and still because He is teaching us to rest in Him.
"We cannot hold onto our old order and still progress to a new level of anointing. When a new paradigm unfolds before us, it will always take us back to ground zero. Paradigms do not build on each other; they replace each other. God loves this! We start again with a new dependency rising out of fresh inadequacy."
And this is why so many spiritual writers and bloggers are talking about the need for discipline. Discipline is the force that draws us forward when our passion fails us. In community terms discipline means covenant and commitment; a commitment to hang in there through good times and bad times. Let's face it, as humans we are habit dominated and lazy. Like water, when things get tough we tend to seek the path of least resistance. We bail out precisely when we need to stand our ground and risk being honestly known. Unless we have strong commitments, when chaos and fear hit us we will look for the path of escape instead of passing through the fire that can heal and transform us.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:10 AM
Jordon Cooper posted on the PM Theology list..
"Spencer Burke and I have been working on a network of like minded sites
called the Indie Allies. There are a lot of plans but not much done yet
except the fact that we have set up a Meetup.com for independent Christian
thinkers (have no idea what that means either) but it is a place for readers
of a lot of sites like mine, ginkworld, next-wave, theooze, and others to
get together and meet face to face. People vote on a location in their town
and then get together for coffee and just meet and talk.
"If you are interested, head over to http://indieallies.meetup.com, sign up,
vote for a location, and let some other people know."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:40 AM
12 Principles of Knowledge Management
* * *
Lately I've been talking with my daughter about education... and that the goal is not good grades on a test or more information stored in a liquid data-base, but rather formation. Learning has more to do with skills and with heart and with an openness to life than with a bigger mainframe.
Recently she read What Really Matters by John Taylor Gatto, New York's Teacher of the Year. She has been challenged to look at education in more broad terms, and even the local Christian school is struggling to stay centered in the face of a system that pushes it to conform to secular academic criteria.
When we were home schooling we found we could give the kids everything they needed in about 3.5 hours a day. Now they spend seven hours a day, and much of that time is wasted. This has us pondering.. what could we do to change the system so that it worked more for the kids and less for the system itself? What could we do with seven hours a day if we were free to dream about how to make half the time more effective for life skills and kingdom initiatives?
What we've been dreaming about is mornings of academics to meet the provincial requirements, and afternoons spent in other ways. Elise is interested in learning the Scripture, but not in listening to 90 minutes of lecturing about it. She is interested in reading and in discussion. She would much rather read a book like "The Emerging Church" or "SOul Survivor" then talk about it with some friends than hear someone lecture on change or on G K Chesterton.
We'd like to see her get out in the neighborhood in service. We'd like to see her get some skills training. She would like to pursue dance and drama.
One of the things we learned in home schooling our children is that the educational system kills initiative. Children's natural creativity and ability to take initiative is severely squelched. Because home schooling is flexible and adaptable and individually tailored, it encourages initiative and creativity. When we bring together a classroom full of students the first problem we run up against is management; and much of the task of teaching is simply managing kids and keeping them on track. Doing this with a group that is diverse.. in social, emotional, and intellectual development, requires constant management and control.
Schools are good at managing the lives of children. But that system of management kills initiative. One of the things I see in our children is the ability to take initiative. More than many kids in their classes, they know who they are and what they want; that is the legacy both of decent parenting and of home schooling.
Other Articles or Interviews with JT Gatto
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:10 AM
"Build" or "Grow?"
In the NT "build" is applied to the house of God, and the term generally comes from "oikodomeo," which is usually translated as "edify." Paul refers to himself in Corinthians as a "master builder."
When we ran "build" through the grid of moderism it became a technical term. Builders have a plan, a budget, and a schedule. Someone at the top tells everyone else what to do. Every bit of work is executed in fine detail, exactly following the plan. What needs to be known is known, everything is measurable and we can check our work against the blueprint.
While the model works great for buildings, it works poorly with relationships. While we know everything we need to know about concrete and steel, human beings and spirit are less well understood and can't be controlled. When a building goes up it's good to have a strong director in charge. Paul says something very different about the body in Ephesians 4. We don't want to be the head of the church; that job is already taken. Furthermore, I've found God more in the interruptions and in the chaos than in my own plans.
I'm not ready to throw out the word, but it's useful to ask how we can redeem the metaphor. How do we grow a community?
We collect some stones. We talk to the Master about how they fit together. We expect Him to visit with us on a regular basis and knock the edges off. We expect Him to do some shaping and sculpting.
I had a chance to build a fireplace hearth a few years ago. It wasn't at all the same as working with bricks, which I had done when I built the fireplace itself.
To build the hearth I used natural stone I collected from our East Kootenay property. I wandered for an hour or so for a few mornings collecting stones that varied in size from four inches to twelve inches. They varied from more or less square to quite round. They varied in color and shade from red to white to grey or black. Then I laid a bed of mortar and began to fit them together.
It was a joyful, satisfying time in my life. I was creating a 17' by 24' two storey open ceiling add-on to our home on the bench above Cranbrook. It was time to reflect on the goodness of God and the beauty of His work in creation.
Building was a communal process. I laid the foundation, and then we had a work weekend where most of the church showed up. We looked over the plan together. It was important to have the entire team understand the project. Then we produced trusses and set them in a pile. Next we built walls. We constructed them on the ground, one by one, then raised them by main strength, hammered temporary supports in place, and then connected them permanently at the corners. Two of us climbed on the walls and two others passed us up the trusses. It was slow going; but step by step the building went up, spread out over the land, became warm and living and inviting. We gathered many small groups there, and when there was need for a larger meeting space, we gathered the whole church.
I'm not sure what to do with the metaphor of building as it applies to the church. I'm not Paul or Jesus. Building is a communal venture, and building is intentional. There is only one Plan, but it works out differently in every application. No budget is needed for the temple God is building, but it won't happen without people willing to give. What we need most of all is broken souls willing to partner with Him and willing to have the rough edges knocked off as they are set into the foundation.
The metaphor that better fits the task of founding and nurturing communities of faith is gardening and growing. It's a metaphor that is solidly organic.
Doug Pagitt once proposed we ditch the word "leadership" with all its military implications, and find new language for talking about those who tend to communities. His preferred analogy was an organic gardener.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:50 AM
Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1500. Not long afterward an obscure monk began what was intended to be a closed theological debate by pinning 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. A new media made the bible available to common people, a stick of dynamite among the closed ranks of the clergy (the only ones with access to the Scripture) that undermined hierarchy and began the Protestant Reformation.
Five hundred years later a second revolution in media is taking us another step along the road to reformation. On Friday night I watched "Anti-Trust" with my family. At the end of the movie my 15 year old daughter clearly saw the implications for the church. "Dad, we need open source code for the church." Wow. We must be doing something right.
In case you didn't know, we already have OpenSource Theology .
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:20 AM
Large Church vs Small Church
If you put two elephants in a room with two rabbits, in three years you will have three elephants and 476 million rabbits.
"If the megachurch is the legacy of the Baby Boomers, the legacy of the next generations may be just the opposite -- smaller churches designed to feed the need for close-knit, authentic relationships."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:00 AM
I've noticed a reduction in the posts of some of the blogs I visit.. a certain lull in cyberspace, reflecting perhaps fatigue? Or perhaps it reflects a certain pessimism among the dreamers and visionaries out there. Change is so slow in coming, and when we have seen and tasted a small glimpse of the real church, it's very hard to settle for the mundane reality of the old one.
I know what cynicism is about.. I've been there, and still visit the place myself occasionally.
I don't like being there. It's an internal desert where I go toe-to-toe with my own demons.
Yet it's the Lord's grace that brings us to that place. We learn new dependence on Him, and we learn our need of Him, and how easily we become the naval gazing center of our little worlds. By God's grace we learn that we too are the problem. We too are ego-centric and unwilling to die for a new world to be born.
I've been thinking lately that it's a challenge to live in the bright world of the future while continuing to dwell in the real world of human brokenness and a broken church. It's the world Jesus came to redeem, and He came "for sinners, not for the well."
I want to live among the broken, because I too am broken, and I believe it's only in our brokenness that we find faith and hope.
I want to remain a dreamer and a visionary for a more whole expression of the church, because the Lord calls us closer to Him, while at the same time loving the reality of the church that is mired in the past, reluctant to change, or fearful of what lies ahead. This is a real challenge. But as Bonhoeffer wrote, "He who loves his ideals of community more than the individuals of the community is a destroyer of community."
There has always been a tension between the pastoral and the prophetic, and this is it.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
5:00 PM
"The IRAQWAR.RU analytical center was created recently by a group of journalists and military experts from Russia to provide accurate and up-to-date news and analysis of the war against Iraq." Be sure to also check out John Sutherland's article about this site in The Guardian." Note: English version available at link on top of page...
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:00 AM
"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential
glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or
too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or
burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid on my back, a load so
heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud
will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of
possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most
uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature
which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship,
or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only
in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each
other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of
these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the
circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our
dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all
politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere
mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations--these are mortal, and
their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom
we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors
or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be
perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that
kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between
people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no
flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a
real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of
which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance or indulgence which
parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment...."
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
6:55 PM
"Community is a place of conflict.. the first conflict is between the values of the world and the values of community, between togetherness and independence. The next source of conflict is in learning to give space to others so that they may grown, rather than competing with them and lording over them.
"The third source of conflict is similar to the second. It is the conflict between caring for people and caring only for oneself.
"The fourth source of conflict is between being open and being closed. [Too often] the extended family is closed... people may sacrifice their personal growth, freedom and becoming to the god of belonging.. a death to personal growth. A community which is called to keep people open is a vulnerable community that takes risks. It does not hang on to its own security and power, obliging people to stay.
"There is a myth about community, just as there is a myth about marriage. The reality of marriage is that it is a place where a man and a woman are called to sacrifice their own egos on the altar in order to create one body..."
Jean Vanier, "From Brokenness to Community"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
4:35 PM
Part of a dialogue on the postmodern theology mailing list..
"I found that in life as God created it, there is order.
While I can't possibly fathom all that this means, I know that order
and goals are not a modernist conception, though possibly a modernist
perversion. Any truth of God can be perverted by claiming it before
we have really had time to mine it and see it for all that it is."
I think Rick implies an important distinction. There is order.. and we perceive it, though through a glass darkly.
We respond to perceived order or the need for it in various ways.
First, there is helpful and useful structure. This is structure that empowers individuals to understand and to act, individually or together, for the sake of the kingdom. It is growth inducing and encourages responsibility.
Second, we take our knowledge of perceived order and build systems. Every system we build incarnates some truth --attention to some things while ignoring others. But many systems which begin well gain a life of their own because of our fears or need for control. Whenever we use our knowledge to establish our personal power rather than to serve and give away our lives, we distort the truth.
On the personal level structure and order are critical, and on the corporate level
desireable.. but we have to be willing to live with greater levels of chaos
and greater uncertainty as the system grows, because with increased
complexity we simply can't rationalize every connection. Perhaps this is
where the modern church fell; the desire to simplify and multiply efficiency led to the building of systems of control which began to restrict life and initiative rather than empower it.
The modern church began to rely on a certain order and an understanding of that system,
rather than allowing it to grow and evolve (as it is now doing at a rapid
pace). That restriction is increasingly felt by post-moderns, who know that life is dynamic, non-linear, chaotic and unpredictable.. They rebel at systems which for the
sake of efficiency and predictability and control use structure to reduce
chaotic elements.
So even while life has structure.. we don't rely on the structure for life.
We always risk confusing the vehicle for the journey. Rick continued..
"I've done a little bit of reading on theories of consciousness and
neurophysiology. It appears that the human brain is hardwired to see the world in patterns. Even when there is no
pattern present, our brains will impose one on them. This is the cause of
most "optical" illusions. They aren't really optical at all but a case of
the brain attempting to resolve a mental ambiguity rather than accepting
what is there."
"I think that perhaps a challenge in all of this is to
bring focus and organization to others without encoding it with our
own agenda."
This hits the heart of it.. structure and order are part of God's design. But only when structure and order remain his servants and accomplish his purpose of giving life and stimulating growth.
This means that leaders, even while leading, must get out of the way. A lovely paradox.
I like the way some of the Brethren put it.. "the task of servants (leaders) is to answer that of God in every one.."
The essence of that task is listening.. Which calls to mind Bonhoeffer's "Life Together" and his section on "the ministry of listening" which precedes "the ministry of speaking"...
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:05 AM
Found at JordonCooper.com
Dennis Camplin on the Ontario Court's Ruling about Homosexual Marriages
Here are two important questions posed by one of the Ontario pastors in The Free Methodist Church in Canada:
(a) Is this the time for local congregations and ordained ministers of the Gospel to get out of doing the government's business (officiating marriages), for which we have no "scriptural" directives, and giving ourselves totally to the apostolic ministry of the Gospel and the care of God's people? I can see Christian couples being joined lawfully by Justices of the Peace or Commissioners of Marriage, then returning to the fellowship of their brothers and sisters to be celebrated and prayed over with great joy and reverence.
(b) Should I take the lead and be part of a silent protest by relinquishing my authorization to perform marriages? This could also mean in Canada that I would likely no longer be able to sign documents (passport applications, etc.) which are now calling for the Minister of Religion's marriage licence number.
"I think Dennis is correct with both of those thoughts. Not all pastors will get out of the business of performing marriages but I think moving to a kind of "blessing ceremony" makes a lot of sense in light of the ruling. Let the government run the civil side and let churches handle the spiritual."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:45 AM
I am living uncomfortably with a certain paradox. On the one hand words are fossils of reality.. on the other hand, as pointers to reality the word has the potential of bearing incarnation.
On the practical level, I react against phrases like "purpose driven" because it smacks of a certain clarity and resolution we only rarely achieve, and because I am suspicious of any trace of a canned product. I've also noticed a certain mindset in some of those who flog that agenda.. and I worry that they distort reality to arrive at the end they value. I worry that people can be sacrificed to purpose.
Yet at the same time, I am myself given to building frameworks and models.. I like to organize and I value efficiency and understanding.
So.. where do I go? To the rational or the relational? Is this the living paradox of word and spirit?
Lately the Lord has been speaking to me about focus... but at a time when I have been increasingly interested in process rather than goals.
It strikes me that we need both wine and wineskin, framework and life, and that even my bent to escaping all this is an attempt to arrive at a greater clarity and simplicity. Maybe that simplicity is unattainable in thought until realized in life.
I do value purpose, and when I am unfocused or lack passion work becomes a grind, and I achieve less. I ask myself if achievement is perhaps over-rated.. but I can't escape the teleological nature of reality.. designed by a purposeful Creator... and the knowledge that history is not a wheel but a line, moving toward a climax.
I can't escape either Jesus or Paul's example.. single minded pursuit of the kingdom of God.
I'd like to learn to live more comfortably with these tensions.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:55 AM
OpenSource Theology reviews "A Mobile Church for EPIC Times" by Fred Peatross.
"Fred Peatross’ book A Mobile Church for E.P.I.C. Times is a curious beast. The first part consists of a diverse collection of essays through which the author explores the impact of cultural change on the church. He sets out his premise in the preface: the world is in transition from rational to Experiential, from representative to Participative, from word-based to Image-based, from individual to Connected; and if the church is to survive in this new E.P.I.C. culture, it will have to acquire a new mobility."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:25 AM
Nick and I had a lengthy conversation this morning about growth and transformation. For a long time now he has had a vision of doing marriage seminars that look at foundational issues of communication. His conviction is that the block to intimacy is fear, but getting past those barriers can be a simple matter of some new skills.
This led us to talking about covenant and community as the foundation for personal growth. I learned long ago that the only thing that really leads me beyond myself is a commitment, and that the way I personally broke through my addictions to self was via marriage.
Our ego-centeredness is a huge issue, and the most simple measure of maturity in community is the transition from "the community for me," to "me for the community." Like Luther said, "God has given us two means of sanctification: marriage and the church."
In the recent past I have tended to use the framework of friendship as foundational for kingdom relationships. More accurately I should be talking about covenant.. covenant friendship. I have a number of these relationships, commitments that take me beyond my comfort zone, and that will last beyond good times or even shared interests. But I need to go deeper still.
"The Hebrew word "hesed" expresses two things: fidelity and tenderness. In our world we can be tender but unfaithful, and faithful without tenderness. The love of God is both tenderness and fidelity. Our world is waiting for communities of tenderness and fidelity. They are coming." - Jean Vanier
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:40 AM
Last night a group of us with an interest in airplanes and history gathered for a movie night, to watch "Dark Blue World." Dark Blue World is bright with faith and hope amidst the darkness of injustice. The movie is about Czech pilots flying for the RAF in 1940-41.
It was interesting to contrast the movie with the much lighter and much earlier Battle of Britain. Battle of Britain pales in comparison as fluffy and sentimental. On the strength of the flying scenes alone Dark Blue World is a superior film. Add in the human drama-- Czech flying heroes were imprisoned in forced labor camps on their return home in 1945-- and the movie goes where Battle of Britain could never imagine.
Battle of Britain is the modern church.. efficient, neat and tidy, often sentimental. Dark Blue World is the emerging church.. authentic and raw.. powerful, by its very existence a critique of the dynamics of fear and control.
One drama played out from 7 to 9 PM, but another drama began after the movie among five other men who are living outside the walls of the church. We are all wounded soldiers who are strong in faith and in hope, trying to live in the light, having come out of a hypocritical, hierarchical, culturally addicted modern church, but still believing in and loving Christ and His kingdom. The discussion we had after the movie was astonishing, unplanned .. a gift.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:45 AM
This is too big for anger
It takes time for a prophetic voice to mature. The more we see, the less we may want to see. Where do you put all the injustice and the pain? Many find themselves stuck in bitterness and rage.
Bruce Cockburn's voice is becoming mature, because his spirit has grown. His new album is astonishing, poignant, painful, lovely.. an image of light shining in the darkness, glory in pots of clay, hope and faith in a broken world.
More from his latest album "You've Never Seen Everything."
Tried and Tested
By the planet's arc
All Our Dark Tomorrows
The village idiot takes the throne
Trickle Down
Workfare foul air homeless beggars everywhere
Everywhere Dance
In grains of sand and Galaxies
Postcards from Cambodia
This is too big for anger
Wait No More
What does it take for the heart to explode into stars?
See also Thursdays blog and the archives of Heavenly Metal.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
In 1999 Bruce Cockburn gave a Convocation Speech at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick.
More recently, Wilfred Langmaid reviewed his latest album: "You've Never Seen Everything".
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
7:00 AM
"Currently, the focus of the emerging church (and my small part within it) is on pilgrimage... shifting the balance of energy away from deconstructing 'the church of what is,' towards fragile and partial embodiments of what church is called to be.
"Yet deconstruction/troubling needs to continue... not at the center, but beneath the surface as a more gentle, yet ongoing current, filtering and purifing our river towards god's new thing."
This got me thinking about deconstruction, and whether it is really an entirely new tool or mode of thought. While the philosophical underpinnings are relatively new, I think deconstruction in principle has been operative with each new generation.
St. Francis said on his deathbed, "Let us begin again, for as yet we have done nothing." You can't start again unless you strip away the accretions of the past.
Every generation needs its radicals.. those who reach back to the roots. Perhaps this perspective can save us from some of the pride of new movements: we are not so different from those who have gone before. Karl Barth wrote,
"Scripture is in the hands, but not in the power, of the church. The church is most faithful to its tradition, and realizes its unity with the church of every age, when, linked but not tied to its past, it today searches the Scriptures and orients its life by them as though this had to happen today for the first time." Church Dogmatics
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:40 AM
For as the earth brings forth its shoots, posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:40 AM
"My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not;
Out of strange strife thy peace is strangely wrought;
By loss on loss I have severely gained
Less hopeless far the miser man might try
"Yet hints come to me from the realm unknown;
from "Diary of an Old Soul," by George Herbert.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
"Community is a place of conflict: conflict inside each one of us. There is first of all the conflict between the values of the world and the values of community, between togetherness and independence. It is painful to lose one's independence, and to come into togetherness--not just proximity--to make decisions together and not all alone. Loss of independence is painful, particularly in a world where we have been told to be independent and to cultivate the feeling that "I don't need anyone else."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:24 AM
Found at TheyBlinked
"If spiritual direction, pastoral work, religious engagement in a vocational way is to be deemed an art form the patrons of such a vocational calling must be willing to deal with the oddities of the creative cadence; the unregimented eccentricities of the artist's way in the world. or those engaged in said art must be willing to live outside of the structures of economic exchange that define what it is to fashion a life, a practice, that carries on ancient patterns of existence that are living reminders of what once was and yet can be."
{it's easier to run a corporation, be a celebrity and sell salvation.
this might explain why getting your MDiv and your MBA are such similar processes.}
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:02 AM
Wabi-Sabi.. Is the Postmodern Conversation Becoming Japanese?
As I was outside thinning the fruit on our peach tree early Saturday morning, I got thinking about Jesus stories and parables in the Gospels.
Every year at this time of year you will see me under our trees keeping watch on their progress. In the case of the soft fruit trees that set too heavily, like the peach, it's important to thin out the fruit, or it will ripen late, and be small and less than sweet at harvest time.
The cyclical nature of my task got me thinking about Jesus and the disciples. Every year I prune our small grape vine. Every year I thin fruit on the peach tree. Every year as I do these tasks I think about fruitfulness, nurture, and God's care for us.
I'll bet Jesus told his stories with a similar rhythm, because His stories were based on life. He must have told the same stories more than once. I'll bet that the first time his disciples were relaxing near a Vineyard watching the workers prune the vines, Jesus commented on the relationship of life and bearing fruit,the importance of abiding in Him. I'll bet the next season they heard a similar story with similar application.
The disciples spent three years with Jesus. In the third year they were together, as they walked through the Vineyards in the pruning season, I can just see John leaning over to Peter.. "Wait... any second now we will hear about abiding in the vine and bearing fruit.." I doubt they tired of hearing the story, or of hearing Jesus tell it. "What variation will we hear this year? What application? Where will He put the emphasis? And then at harvest time... Will He have that warm glow in His face as He holds the bunch of grapes in His hand, enjoying the rich texture, the fragrance, and the full, heavy taste?"
Look not thou down but up!
But I need, now as then,
So, take and use Thy work,
Robert Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:50 AM
One of my favorite singers/poets has released his latest album: You've Never Seen Everything.
"Over the course of three decades,
Bruce Cockburn's ability to distill political events, spiritual revelations and personal experience into rich, compelling songs has made him one of the world's most celebrated artists." A few of the lyrics:
Sun coming up paints the snow all around
* * *
606 takes to get it right.. the new Accord commercial.
Some great articles by Margaret Wheatley:
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:50 AM
I know.. I know.. we do need a "new" Friday five.
1. How did you spend your time this week (top three)..
2. Best book you read or opened?
3. What is the Lord talking to you about?
4. What do you want to do when you grow up?
5. Best movie you've seen since Christmas? posted by Len Hjalmarson |
3:40 PM
Funny how most days I can blog in this space and feel it's the most natural thing.. then other days.. today.. I feel so awkward about it... like this is the most presumptuous, arrogant, self-centered thing to do. I (we) peel back layers of our lives so strangers.. and yes, friends too.. can view them.
Granted, I'm not as transparent as some I know. Most days I admire others for that ability.
But I think we mostly reveal our lives with the confidence that God speaks through ordinary things. That, in fact, it is in the harsh particular that he is most clearly revealed. Shades of Hopkins "Pied Beauty..." or as another put it,
"More as a novelist than as a theologian, more concretely than abstractly, I determined to try to describe my own life as evocatively and candidly as I could in the hope that such glimmers of theological truth as I believe I had glimpsed in it would shine through my description more or less on their own. It seemed to me then, and it seems to to me still, that if God speaks to us at all in this world, if God speaks anywhere, it is into our personal lives that he speaks. ... We sleep and dream. We wake. We work. We remember and forget. We have fun and are depressed. And into the thick of it, or out of the thick of it, at moments of even the most humdrum of our days, God speaks." Frederick Buechner
* * *
"Whenever we're trying to change a deeply structured belief system, everything in life is called into question-our relationships with loved ones, children, and colleagues; our relationships with authority and major institutions. One group of senior leaders, reflecting on the changes they've gone through, commented that the higher you are in the organization, the more change is required of you personally. Those who have led their organizations into new ways of organizing often say that the most important change was what occurred in themselves. Nothing would have changed in their organizations if they hadn't changed.. "(italics mine). Margaret Wheatley in "Goodbye Command and Control, 1997.
I had a flash of realization a couple of days ago that a paradigm shift on the personal level only occurs when their is change in the self. On the cultural level it is a shift in belief and value systems, based on a new way of interpreting reality. But on the individual level, paradigm shifts don't occur unless something in US also changes.
No wonder we can have seminar after seminar, speaker after speaker, book after book, and see only outward conformity to the new world.. tweaking the system... new clothes, but not true transformation. Some people will never "get it," because there is something in their structure of self that fears change, does not comprehend, or is simply stuck.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:10 AM
The mirrors of popular culture cry for our attention. In modern culture the heroes were the Clint Eastwoods, Arnold Schwarzneggers and Sylvester Stallones. Suddenly instead of the confident hero and powerful hero we have Frodo. In place of the intimidating Schwarzneggers and Stallones we have Neo. Both Frodo and Neo are self-doubting types who rely heavily on the community around them for a sense of identity and purpose. Indeed, while they have a sense of the need, and willingness to carry heavy burdens of responsibility, they may not even know the first step on the journey.
"I will carry the Ring to Mordor.. though I do not know the way."
What if leadership has more to do with finding meaning than in setting direction? Then the lack of a map may not be a big problem. In fact, in a time of transition, when the old maps have become useless, the confident leader who knows the way forward could be a handicap.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:15 AM
If postmodernism is dead.. are we into "the network age?"
"Postmodernism, then, was about the deconstruction of the dominant institutions of the Modern and the discrediting of the corresponding metanarratives that gave life to a host of real and perceived social injustices. While PoMo certainly nurtured some excesses, there's a good argument to made that it was a necessary phase in Western society's evolution toward stronger and more productive modes of social organization.
"If we think about our lives here in the early moments of the 3rd Millennium, we can probably see any number of ways in which we're part of an emerging networked social order, and the network itself serves as the best metaphor I can think of for where we are and where we're going now that the big deconstruction is behind us. From a technological and social standpoint, few things have exerted as massive an impact on Western culture over the past few years as the Net - the result of spectacular parallel developments in personal computing and electronic communications...
"For better or worse, contemporary culture is network culture, and it's important to understand that network culture is by nature distributed culture. Modernism was about centralization, but the Network is decentralized - it is ubiquitous and omnipresent, although no less rigorously structured. Our relationships with institutions were once conducted around the site of the monolith - the bank, the church, the school, the county courthouse, these were all physical places and to transact business with the agency in question, you had to transport yourself to the physical address of the institution. In today's corporate lingo, we might say that these official relationships were "institution-centric." Networked, distributed culture, though, is "citizen-centric" (though we'd do more justice to the actual character of the relationship with the term "customer-centric")."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
7:15 AM
A few years ago the Lord birthed a dream that I hoped would come to fruition. It came as a result of being in touch with single parent families who needed housing.
In areas of rapid growth, housing becomes a scarce commodity. Those on the margins find themselves edged further out, living in terrible conditions. Even here in the properous area we live there are some really awful housing situations, and we know two single parent families living in very uncomfortable conditions.
Single moms seem particularly vulnerable. They seem to often end up living with broken down appliances, smelly basements, backed up sewers.. and they are often afraid to make a noise about these issues because it is so difficult to find alternate housing. And if they are on welfare.. even more difficult. We know one single mother who has been desperately looking for a new home.. but when the landlords discover she is on welfare, they don't call back.
What to do? What would be the best possible alternative?
The best alternative would be to somehow enable the responsible ones to purchase their own homes, and begin to build equity so that they have control of their lives and some financial stability.
How would that be possible?
Suppose there was a non profit organization that would take applications for forgiveable downpayments for these ones, and who would also guarantee a portion of the mortgage? Suppose such an organization had a million dollars in the bank backing up their guarantee.
It seems like a dream to me, but these dreams have a way of capturing God's heart. Alternatively, a Society like this could look for duplexes and four-plexes and purchase them, then sell the units to the working poor. In a four-plex perhaps one of the four units could be sold to a stable Christian family who would have a vision for caring for others...
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:15 AM
"Our God is a God of beginnings. There is in him no redundancy or circularity. Thus, if his church wants to be faithful to his revelation, it will be completely mobile, fluid, renascent, bubbling, creative, inventive, adventurous, and imaginative." (Jacques Ellul)
"In the desire to make the church safe, Christians have eliminated the critic and the prophet. As a consequence, the church is bland and irrelevant. ... Change is always necessary lest things stagnate. Therefore, the power of the question lies in its ability to move us beyond the present into new ways of being and acting." (Resist the Powers - Jacques Ellul)
"If change is to come, it will come from the margins ... It was the desert, not the temple, that gave us the prophets." (Wendell Berry)
"Those who are afraid of the future cling to past traditions. Those who anticipate the future use the past as a starting point for the new." (Charles Ringma, in Resist the Powers - Jacques Ellul)
"The sad reality is neither good intention nor smart strategy will change a heart, let alone a church. But, this hope of church in malleable motion should remind us of Christ's desire and ability to renew our own faith. ... Too often, the very people who see the need for church to transform refuse to welcome change into their own hearts.
"Without constant revolution, a church is destined to die. But, the moment that zeal for authentic Christianity returns, at the point of new connection to the miracle of grace, the dreams written off as "childish" will flood our hearts with sudden healing. As children of God, we can set aside our hurts, methods and stereotypes."
J. Stephen Jorge, "When A Church Needs Change"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:55 AM
Jordon Cooper posted Tony Campolo quoting Kierkegaard some time back..
"Kiekegaard tells a story that raises questions about the effectiveness of the clergy in declaring the gospel. In it, he points out that because the clergy are who they are, they cannot be taken seriously.
"As Kierkegaard tells it, there was once a circus, and one day there was a fire in the main tent. The fire spread to wheat fields nearby and then began to burn toward the village in the valley below. The ringmaster yelled, "Someone must tell the people about the fire! Someone must tell the people to run for their lives! Someone must go into the village and let them know that the fire is coming towards them and that the town will burn unless they do something to stop it!"
"The clown, still in full costume, decided to heed the call. He jumped on a bicycle and rode into town sounding the warning. He pedaled up and down the streets yelling at people, "Do something! Run for your lives! Stop the fire! There's a fire coming this way! Your town is going to be burned to the ground unless you do something right away!"
"Unfortunately, the people just stood along the sidewalks and applauded the clown. The more he screamed, the more they applauded. The more he yelled his warnings, the more they cheered him. The didn't take him seriously. "But after all", says Kiekegaard, "he was a clown!"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:10 AM
Do you know of emerging churches on the east coast in the USA? If so, please drop me a note with location and contact information, and a URL if they have a website. (Can you be an "emerging church" without a website LOL).
From The Ooze: An Interview with Ron Martoia
Can you explain to us the Kaleidoscopic Dance?
"The three mirrors in the kaleidoscope are what provides the dance of ministry pieces and programs. The mirrors are the apostolic, the prophetic and the poetic. These three mirrors will reflect a very distinctive ministry dance and provide the direction mission and vision for a church.
"The apostolic mirror says what do we see out there in our "sentness" role as a church. Most churches are very focused within their four walls. The word apostle means sent one. The church isn't to be gathered except to be sent out. As we go out into the culture, what do we see and hear that will enable us to address ministry in ways that are culturally sensitive? In other words, the apostolic mirror reflects to us all the culture context can show us.
"The prophetic mirror reflects to us the new thing God wants to do in us and through us. Isaiah 43 says God wants to do a new thing. This mirror reflects to us God's heart at the moment and in the context of the apostolic mirror of the cultural context we find ourselves.
"The third mirror is the poetic. Every church has a unique voice, unique gifts, a unique way of expressing what God is doing through them. The poetic mirror reflects each churches unique delivery system to the community around them. When apostolic "sentness" captures the cultural context, and then mingles with the new thing God wants to speak prophetically into the culture and that is sieved through the poetic voice of the church, you have a very unique missional picture emerge that shapes and contours ministry initiatives for that local church. The interplay of those three mirrors and the corresponding ministry beachheads that emerge are what I call the kaleidoscopic dance."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:52 AM
Instant Replay
"Pen over at Gutless Pacifist has a good post on tithing. What sparked it was that George Barna reported this past week, "The proportion of households that tithe their income to their church – that is, give at least ten percent of their income to that ministry – has dropped by 62% in the past year, from 8% in 2001 to just 3% of adults during 2002." Found at PM Pilgrim
Pen argues:
"So, in a world where we argue about, "What would Jesus Do?" - we have a hard time saying whether the Bible says we should be pacifists, or gay. Whether we should be in ministry with the poor or bound to the discipline of churches that are dominated by a leadership that is white and male... All of this and clearly written in scripture we are asked to do one thing .. tithe. And we are unable to do it."
"Gee -- and we wonder why God does not bless the American church with more -- when we can't even obey basic calls to faithfulness."
I can't believe I missed this so badly. Pen got most of it right.. and I was too busy reacting to the tithe issue.
What I wrote was this: "Could it be that the Lord is trying to tell us something here? Could it be that people are "voting with their feet" [when they don't tithe] that the church is becoming irrelevant. Could it be that money spent on buildings would better go to the poor and to help single moms?
Could it be that those who have tithed for years but never given of their hearts are finally getting the two together?
Is it time to quit hiring people to do the work we all should be doing? It is time to let this whole ungodly modern system die?
Maybe it's time to send people home. "Run your own church.. I'll be your consultant and cheerleader. Then you'll find out what ministry is really all about."
Ok. That was fine. But without that little phrase in brackets it sounds as if I am disagreeing. My only issue here is with tithing. Maybe we are all sensing that there is no point in throwing money at a ship that is rapidly sinking. Maybe we all "have it right" that we should be involved with the poor, inviting them into our homes for a meal, rather than paying someone else to "do ministry" with event driven Christianity as the center.
Pay a consultant.. sure. Paying someone to do much more than that is only a way to escape our call to be disciples and to follow Jesus ourselves.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:20 AM
Walking with my family along Mission Creek the day before yesterday, looking at the "creek" raging like a river and thinking how nice my canoe would look bouncing along through the rapids. Never mind that I haven't had it in the water for three years now.. since we sold our high mileage Explorer and no longer have a vehicle that has a roof rack...
One of the changes that I've made in my life over the past three months is a regular exercise routine. Sheesh.. I don't recommend this to anyone. I sleep less, eat more, and my pants no longer fit. After only two months I am near to the weight I was back in 1985. Something is obviously wrong here.. Ok, yeah, I know, I've been blessed with a good metabolism. My Dad is 76 this year and weighs the same as he did when he was 55, and can probably still beat me in an arm wrestle.
Oh.. and I don't drink pop anymore, and I've cut down on desserts.
The most noticeable thing about aging for me is eyesight. Last year I turned 45, and I noticed my glasses were becoming an impediment to reading. I think there is an easy solution.. I'm considering laser surgery for the fall or winter. Glasses have always been a pain, I didn't care much for contacts when I tried them ten years ago.. the "knife" may be the way to go.
* * *
It has been two years and a bit more since we attended any kind of regular Sunday gathering. We substituted our own Saturday gathering for a long time, and then a twice monthly Sunday afternoon meal at our home.
For the first six months we missed the Sunday thing... now it feels very, very good to have a full Sunday to simply "be." Ok, granted, we often have a family or two over for dinner on Sunday.. our formal gatherings have now become irregular. Not a bad thing, since it puts the onus on individuals to connect with one another during the week, rather than to rely on any "event" to meet that need.
The greatest single benefit of escaping the meeting centered life is that it creates space for a larger relationship circle. In particular, we've found opportunity to connect with the needy around us.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:10 AM
Reading down Jordon Cooper's archives the other day, found this one..
Morph: The Texture of Leadership for Tomorrow's Church
"A couple of years ago Dee Hock, founder of Visa International, wrote a book called Birth of the Chaordic Age. In it he details a surprising redistribution of leadership focus. This insight proved to be so keen that Leader to Leader, the Drucker Foundation leadership magazine, excerpted this core idea for a feature article. He relates asking scores of people where their leadership energy is to be spent. Almost universally, he got a response that leadership is about leading and managing subordinates. Their self-conceived understanding of leadership was to get others in line, help them catch the vision, charge the hill, and accomplish the goals.
"Hock says this is all wrong. If leadership focus isn’t a primarily a glance downwards to subordinates, the what are the other possibilities? After going through the possible candidates for our leadership attention—peers, superiors, and subordinates—he states all of these as only secondary in importance.
He makes the audacious claim that as much as 50 percent of a leader’s energy should be spent on what he calls self-leadership issues. Only after managing and leading self can we hope to leader laterally, lead up, and then and only then, lead our subordinates. And that is Hock’s pecking order. The leading of subordinates should only get about one fifth of our time if we leading appropriately in the other spheres, says Hock."
Morph is the book by Ron Martoia..
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:30 AM
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