|
|
|
|
|
July, 2004 Blogs
In conversation: "The G12 movement is merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.."
Are You a Strange Bird?
If you are called to ministry but not necessarily traditional pastoral ministry; if you resist being pigeonholed vocationally or theologically; if you build eclectic nests, blending ancient spiritual practices with contemporary culture -- then you are probably a Strange Bird. And you're not alone.
Dr. Seuss says in his poem "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" ...
You'll get mixed up, of course,
Strange Birds are flocking to beautiful Vashon Island in Puget Sound October 1-4, 2004, for the 2nd Gathering of Strange Birds. It's an opportunity to get mixed up with kindred spirits -- and celebrate the calling that is uniquely yours.
"How do I name this experience?" asked Donne Hayden, a nonprofit leader and student at Earlham School of Religion following the 2003 Gathering. "It was community; it was action; it was relationship; it was affirming and confirming of the sense that many kindred spirits exist and work toward similar goals without being aware of each other."
Make plans now to migrate to Vashon Island in October. But hurry -- you must register by August 4 at Strangebirds.
Friendship
I like the metaphor of friendship, because it places the emphasis on the quality of relationships in the community, and it excludes the idea of hierarchy. Friendship also has limits as a metaphor in our culture, seen usually as total unqualified acceptance. So we need "friendship on steroids," friendship that invites the best from others and is willing to hold our friends feet to the fire in the name of Love.
But it hasn't always been obvious to me how friendship extends beyond the inward life of community to the outward life and the growth of the community. It hasn't been obvious how we move from a gathering of friends to sent friends - friends on mission together into the world.
Suddenly it seems quite obvious. The Lord has many friends he has not yet met :) He wants to expand His circle of friends.. He wants us to invite more friends to the party.
* * *
At a leadership luncheon Erwin McManus challenged the myth that "the safest place you can be is in the middle of God's will." McManus asserted that living in God's will is often a dangerous proposition. The lack of risk taking has rendered the church boring and all but irrelevant. What do you think? Is God's will a place of safety, or danger?
Do you have those times in life where everything has been moving slowly.. little sense of movement.. and then suddenly the world is spinning? Somewhere this spring we moved from the quiet waters of a separated body off the main stream into the flow of the river.. now life is full of action, new faces, new connections, constant change, and a sense of power and Design moving all things forward.
Meanwhile, I am completing another simulation project and it is in the final stages. I have had another friend come on board, who is both British and skilled and he has offered to be involved to give the product more of a period feel. He will be flying and testing the missions as well as rewriting all the briefings. Very helpful! We have about ten days to complete the project and ship it off to the publisher.
My earlier project is now heading for the US market.. very good news since it will mean additional income this fall. If you fly Microsoft CFS 3 look for D-Day, 1944 on a shelf near you...
Todd Hunter writes on the discipline of submission
Dallas Willard writes on the Significance of Postmodernism for Christian faith.
* * *
"What if the formula is this: be confused, invite someone along, discover god is everywhere...by accident?" Found at Jen Leman.
Do you know the work of Amnesty International ? If not, get with the program and sign up ...
How I Spent My SuMMer Vacation
Tuesday evening we spent in Greendale with Betty's sister. It's always nice to visit with family. On Wednesday we visited UBC, Regent College, Stanley Park and Granville Island Market.
It was only the second time I had been to Regent College since the new building was erected around 1990. It still impresses me as an unusual physical space for a graduate school, with a beautiful fit into a beautiful University campus set on one of the most beautiful peninsulas in BC. Regent remains a dangerous place to visit, however, particularly since their bookstore now houses a cappucino bar.
While at Regent I noticed a poster advertising the 20th anniversary of Pacific Theatre, a professional acting troupe founded by some Regent students when I was still hanging around there. Some of the hilights of my years living in Vancouver were attending Pacific Theatre productions around Christmas time.
Wednesday evening we spent in Langley with Rose and Kelly Weiler. What a gift they and their children were to us! Their sons connected easily with our girls, while we talked with Rose and Kelly, and sometimes also with Matt and Ben and Josh, about culture, the kingdom of God, the church and change. Fellowship with those walking outside the walls is always sweet.. we have much in common in terms of discovery, insecurity, and a hunger for the truth.
On Thursday morning we hung out some more with the Weilers, then spent time on the beaches in White Rock. It wsa refreshing to see the ocean again. Happily the tide was out, which made beach combing possible. We hit a perfect day, with warm sunshine but a cool breeze.
On Friday we picked blueberries in Yarrow at an organic berry farm. Unfortunately we picked in a section that was a bit thin, and it was hotter than famous places to the south. But the berries were good, and we didn't mind sweating for an hour. We headed for home around 6 PM and arrived about 9:30. Our aging 1992 AXXESS didn't enjoy the hills on the Coquihalla, but the shadows were lengthening so we were able to drive without air conditioning for most of the way home, freeing up a few extra horses for the laboring engine.
* * *
The crew of those heading from Kelowna to the ALLELON missional church forum in September is growing. There will be three couples from Kelowna. Hopefully we can locate or rent a van so that we can travel to Eagle, Idaho together. We're told it's less than seven hours from here via Grand Forks. I'll finally get to meet so many of the people I have interacted with via email or on the ALLELON forums: Mark Priddy, Gary Waller, Stephen Shields, George Hunsberger, Todd Hunter and others.
We head for the city of Vancouver, and for the ocean. We arrive in the Fraser Valley on a bright sunny afternoon, but not an ordinary day. It rained in the morning, which makes the air crystal clear and brings the snow-capped mountains ringing the valley into stark relief. From mountaintop to seascape, the panorama is grand.
We cross the Port Man bridge into the city, and eventually reach the Grandview exit. From here our perspective is still broad and encompassing, but now it's time to focus. We gradually narrow our view from the universal to the particular, from the forest to the trees...
We head down 12th Avenue to 10th Avenue and to University Boulevard. Some travellers will pause at the University for more information, to ask questions and receive answers, but others will continue on without pause to the seashore, to embrace the mystery. You can sit on the beach and ponder meaning and metaphor, marvel at the expanse of sand and sun and tide. It's not that you won't find answers, but wonder is the key that unlocks the door.
Others will embrace the sense of wonder, but will want to begin walking outward on sand, where the tide has swept back for a half mile or so. Yes, it's risky walking in the tidal zone. One minute you think you are on firm ground, the next it is dissolving beneath your feet. Tidal explorers aren't content to ponder the mystery, they want to experience it. They are seeking for a sense of movement and purpose. They remain pilgrims but need to know that the journey is going somewhere.
Then the learning about waves begins. There are no straight lines in nature, only man makes straight lines. In nature there are only curves and waves, and no two alike.
* * *
What I have given you here is not only a metaphor, but a summary of our experience for the past five days. It combines our physical journey with the spiritual one, and represents a kind of archetypal journey that many others are making as the Lord leads them forward.
We are off to the coast today. Arrangements have been made with two of Elise's friends to house sit for us and take care of the dog, cat, plants, fish, rattlesnake, spider ..... hmm.. must be something else.. ;)
Tonight at Betty's sister in Yarrow, tomorrow to Vancouver. Itinerary for Monday is Stanley Park and Gastown. Tuesday we'll visit UBC, Regent College, and ACTS, then off to White Rock. We might catch an IMax show or something on the silver screen.. Arthur looks like an interesting story, though its connection to history is dubious.
We are spending the second night with Kelly and Rose, house church planters in Langley. We met this couple through NextReformation, which is kind of cool. It's nice to get not only the international mail, but also connect with people doing kingdom work here in Canada.
We're hoping for decent weather. When we travelled to Victoria three years ago we hit the heat wave of the century. The entire area was cooked... water restrictions and brown lawns.. and it was HOT even by the seashore, very unusual for the west coast. Any time you head for the coast you have to prepare for rain.. but HEAT.. that is supposed to stay here in the Okanagan.
We'll be home Wednesday or Thursday then off for a few nights camping in the Shushwap with some friends. We are hearing reports that the mosquitos have taken over this year. If true we'll probably reduce our two nights to one. I hate mosquitos.. even though they love me... If they prove unlivable, maybe I can convince my family to do a night or two in the high country around Revelstoke. I love mountain camping.. but I'm the only one in my family who doesn't worry about wild animals...
Did a search this morning for Walter Brueggemann online. It's tough to weed through all the AMAZON.COM links.. but he does have a bit of writing that can be found online, and apparently a new book is about to be released. I also discovered that he is a featured speaker at an EMERGENT event in Georgia in early September.
I finally decided after prayer and counsel to go ahead with the DMin program at ACTS this fall. This was one of the hardest decisions I have made in recent years. I'm not sure how we will finance this.. but the Lord has told me to do it, so He must have a plan. Here is a link to the DMin program Brochure.
I am hearing this is a great new book: Leadership and Self-Deception
Have you checked out REALITY Magazine lately?
From Bounded Set to Centered Set - Jim Peterson "Church Without Walls"
"I believe there is a single truth that must lie at the heart of any adequate definition of the church. In essence, the church is people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who is transforming their character and giving them gifts they are to use for service. Every believer is to use whatever he or she has to serve one another- and his or her neighbors. Most of the big passages that have to do with God's people in the New Testament revolve around this truth.
"Paul summarizes this in Ephesians: "We will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. "
"So what's new? we ask. All this sounds familiar enough until we examine the implications of these passages. The verses may be familiar, but their practice is not. I believe there are four factors that must be present if we are to function as a church according to this definition.
Petersen rightly points out that generally out theology is sound, but our practice is not. In fact, most evangelical churches are orthodox in belief, but heretical in practice!
Petersen then lists four areas where this is true, and expands briefly on each.
Petersen then comments that “If our lives as God's people are to be lived out in full view of the world, we need to take conscious, deliberate steps to be sure this is happening. This calls for resetting the boundaries of our definitions of the church.”
Petersen proposes that the boundary markers for the church must be determined by where the gifts and callings of God’s people take them, rather than an artificial standard. He argues that if believers were encouraged and enabled to seize the opportunities God brings their way in the neighborhood and across society, and if they could proceed confident of support from others in the body, the church would be redefined. It would change from being a bounded set to being a centered set.
For more discussion on centered versus bounded conceptions of ekklesia, see Centered vs Bounded
Then Jon Reid ups the ante by actually taking some of the material from the APEPT section and using it to help people in their community identify the way they function
What.. you haven't read the review yet?
See also Beyond the Either/Or Church and Five-fold Ministry (APEPT).
An Interview with NT Wright
W: This is where I really would get quite angry with that point of view. Though I happen to agree with the stance on abortion, it seems blindingly obvious that it is not the big moral issue of our time. Global debt and the economic systems that were set up in 1944 with the Breton Woods Agreement, to slope the table so the money slides into the pockets of the Western banking system, at the cost of keeping most of the world in unpayable debt, seems to me as big a moral issue as slavery was 200 years ago."
An excerpt from an interview with NT Wright by the National Catholic Reporter.
* * * * *
"In a London school a teenager with no church connections hears the Christmas story for the first time. His teacher tells it well and he is fascinated by this amazing story. Risking his friends’ mockery, after the lesson he thanks her for the story. One thing had disturbed him, so he asks: ‘Why did they give the baby a swear-word for his name?’
"One Sunday in Oxford a man visits a church building to collect something for his partner who works during the week in a creative-arts project the church runs. He arrives as the morning congregation is leaving and recognises the minister, whom he knows. Surprised, he asks: ‘What are all these people doing here? I didn’t know churches were open on Sundays!’
"Two snapshots of ‘post-Christendom’ – a culture in which central features of the Christian story are unknown and churches are alien institutions whose rhythms do not normally impinge on most members of society. Only a few years ago, neither would have been credible, but today there are numerous signs that the ‘Christendom’ era in western culture is fading."
"Post-Christendom is the culture that emerges as the Christian faith loses coherence within a society that has been definitively shaped by the Christian story and as the institutions that have been developed to express Christian convictions decline in influence.
"Post-Christendom includes the following transitions:
From The End of Christendom by Stuart Murray
More Thoughts on Following..
It must be simply the most presumptious thing in the world to presume to lead anyone in times like these.
But what if rather than presuming to lead, we are focused on following...
And others, seeing that following as both honest and authentic, come to us with questions. Our response is not to answer their questions or give them a new model, but to help them find their own way forward. We walk alongside them and assist them in discovering their own place in the kingdom. In this way we facilitate partnerships and a movement.
But how do we live with the reality that anything we build together as we move forward in local expressions of faith will necessarily be human and limited, just as the structures we leave behind are human and limited? How do we live with the reality that we ourselves are fallen people, and anything we build will partake of our fallenness?
I think this is the glory and grace of the gospel. Jesus entrusts His kingdom to fallen people, so that the power in the gospel may not come from ourselves, but from God. We have to continually acknowledge our limitations, instead of trying to idealize ourselves or our structures, which is idolatry. The early Anabaptists had it as a point of faith that the church is a fallen institution.
At the same time our fallenness is mitigated as we move forward in community. We "confess our faults to one another," and we gather our weakness together as jars of clay and pray for the Lord to fill the jars with His oil. Perhaps our only limitation will be the amount of emptiness we can gather (remember Elijah and the widow).
In the end, communities have individual character, individual strengths and weaknesses, because those who compose the communities have individual strengths and weaknesses. Local communities are unqiue because God makes no two of us the same, and because they are rightly contextualized. One of the great downfalls of the modern church was lack of diversity, taking one idealized model and attempting to impose that structure on another community. If we embrace our humanness as an opportunity for God's glory, we will find great diversity of expression in the postmodern church, and great freedom for the Spirit to create uniquely in unique places. In the end, that individuality will not limit us, but free us. It is not presumptious to be who God has made us to be.
1. we ask this question of everyone, and the diversity in the answers are wonderful - how would you define the "postmodern movement?"
"I define the postmodern movement by what it has caused to happen rather than trying to describe it. Postmodernism seems to have caused three things to happen. We live in a time in which speed is more than cool, it is everything. To move slowly and deliberately at this point in history is so devastating that things like strategic planning is replaced by strategic mapping. This has caused everything to be set on blur and flux. Because of the speed nothing is as clear as it used to be, I mean nothing. Instead of looking for answers, the world is grappling with a new set of questions. As a result, everything is in flux from day to day. Flexibility, without losing ones spiritual equilibrium is essential."
Ginkworld interviews Bill Easum
In the comments on Friday Dana called us to look at Rachelle's blog, echoing similar thoughts to my own on Friday. Here is an excerpt:
" I really intend for this thing I’m doing--we’re doing--to be primarily about facilitating a way of living. And the way of living that I’m trying to learn, promote, and refine together is kingdom living. By that I mean I want to us find a way to really uncover the kingdom reality that Jesus says is already here…and to build more of that reality, to usher in more wholeness everyday."
And Jen Leman is on to something when she writes,
"i wonder if the point of the post-whatever-pastor is simply about holding space. not space so you can examine me and try to be just like me as your leader. but space so that you can think about who you need to become, about who you are already in relationship to this alternate reality we call the kingdom. "
Hmm.. that sounds like truth and clarity, and VeRy much like the Quaker idea of answering the call of God in others.
Note that Ordinary Attempts is now also a book by Jim Henderson.
Thoughts
We met as a local "emergent" group this morning at the Bean Scene as usual. Great interaction.. both thoughtful and honest, clear thinking and honest seeking from both the head and the heart. It's really an honor to meet with such men.
Matt reminded me that vision is another great word that was corrupted by the modern mindset. "Vision" has to do with sight, the clearer the better, and did not originally have anything to do with five year plans. The Marines have a saying.. the first thing you leave behind once the battle is joined is your battle plan. The ability to think, to pray, and to innovate will count for everything as we move forward.
Stories represent where we have been.. but if we have been walking authentically, they can also lead us forward.
Stories represent a personal journey; they may have clues for others, but they are profoundly contextual. They don't offer a model or a map.
Having stories means that we have been moving. We at least have been doing something, and we have stories to share. If we live kingdom lives, then we will have stories to tell. As Stan reminded us, the stories may not seem dramatic or impressive, they may only be as mundane as a cup of water, and as simple as a touch from the Father's hand.
Moving Forward
How do we move forward when we don't know the way?
We don't know the way.. but we know Who to follow. Not long after my wife and I stepped out of the IC locally, she was sitting one morning asking the Lord where to go and who would "cover" us. She immediately had a picture in her mind. She saw a great hand with a great blanket, pulling it softly over her and a voice saying, "I will shelter you." Not long afterward she was reading the call of the disciples in the gospel of Matthew and the Lord said to her, "Follow Me."
The only way into the future is to move forward. Like Israel we won't have a map.. but we can follow the pillar of fire by night, and the cloud by day. We can listen for the voice of the Lord and follow Him.
Matt shared a powerful metaphor, as did Nick. (Nick, remember to send me your "reef" dream :)
Matt used the metaphor of a camera lens with a short depth of field. We are focused on the short term and on success. Consequently, we tend to focus on keeping the large machines running. Our field of vision may be entirely filled with the great machines we have built, and keeping them well oiled. The machines can seem to be all important if the depth of field is too shallow.
But close the lens down and expand the depth of field, and suddenly we see what "church" is really about.. transformed lives, healing and wholeness, becoming the living body of Christ in authentic communities of the Spirit. It's all about people. The machine itself is insignificant, and it's sole purpose should be to serve kingdom purposes, to build community and facilitate kingdom living. It's all about love.
"Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself, I mean do not be disturbed because of your imperfections, and always rise up bravely from a fall. I am glad that you make a daily new beginning; there is no better means of progress in the spiritual life than to be continually beginning afresh, and never to think that we have done." Francis de Sales
"Let all things that have breath praise the Lord!"
Last night we met with a single mom we have known for two years now. She is part native, and probably is living with the impact of fetal alcohol effects (as opposed to FAS which is more serious and physically obvious). We have seen her move from fearfulness of God based on her nominal Catholic history to openness and even now having her own conversations with him. Equally important, we are seeing her begin to set boundaries in her relationships and recognize healthy and unhealthy choices.
She is one of four single parent families we have been involved with since leaving the IC in the fall of 2000. She is one of three success stories, with a fourth in treatment locally in a recovery program and whose fate is still yet to be known.
Thank God for his faithfulness!
* * * * *
Samuel Smith argues that we are already post-post-modern, and that the new culture is network culture: de-centralized, pervasive and distributed. This has implications for our thinking about leadership culture.
"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."
Obviously, that transportation is no longer necessary, and our reconstruction of leadership must recognize the new context of distributed and decentralized relationships.
* * * * *
"Soon after the Second World War, Professor Emil Brunner questioned the understanding of ecclesia [held] by the existing churches. ... He saw this legalistic institutionalism as the factor distinguishing them most sharply from the ecclesia of the New Testament, which he recognised as 'communion with God through Jesus Christ, and rooted and springing from it, communion or brotherhood with man'. Brunner did not see this as an invisible concept but rather as a living reality, visible even to unbelievers through manifested love. He saw that some form of institution might be essential for continuity of doctrine and preaching, but that 'the effective winning of souls and creating of live cells of Christian fellowship' was better achieved by organisations like the Student Christian Movement of his day. ...He looked forward to new forms of Christian communion showing a true fellowship in Christ." ["The Significance of Small Groups for English Baptist Churches", a dissertation by K. A. Morgan.]
This past week we attended various local events including Canada Day celebrations and the performance of Twelfth Night at Island Stage in City Park. On the weekend we hosted a spontaneous gathering of local friends and new friends from the coast, all of whom are either just launching or dreaming about house churches. We enjoyed good fellowship and mutual encouragement as well as praying together.
The images below make up part of this past week, with a single snapshot from late June showing my two daughters at Elise (16) grade 11 "grad" night.
Weekend Photo Log
Found at "The Ooze"
"Last night I dreamed that integrity was the most important thing, now. And then the dream went into the future where it was even more important. It was after the changes, and we were out foraging for materials we could use - like clear plastic for the windows, etc. We were having trouble getting around since cars wouldn't work. The integrity theme kept repeating.
"After we returned, there was some kind of church service going on. And then the dream got really weird. There were different realities and sizes of religions. When I mean different sizes, the people were like in different levels of reality, and were smaller or bigger. It is like I would suddenly be in another level viewing the religion from that perspective. As it got smaller, and there were more people, it all corrupted more and more as it got smaller and smaller. Maybe it was symbolic of small minds vs bigger, more universal ones... It was very strange... The smaller levels were 'dirtier', too. We were trying to clean things up. In one of the levels, someone stole my purse. "
The cultural relevance of this dream to the postmodernist, authentic worship movement is clear to me....as I interpret it, this dream is indicating the largest organized churches produce the smallest return on investment, in terms of spiritual capital..
Curious that you use the term "integrity". An object has integrity when it is capable of retaining its essence once it has been introduced to a new or chaotic environment. Taken in terms of a Christian, that would mean that we are capable of mixing with (and influencing) the people who are rejected (or would be rejected) by Organized Religion and maintaining our identity in the process. (i.e. the fility rich, the filthy poor, the maimed and deformed, etc., etc.). This is exactly what Jesus did. He has Integrity.
"Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man.
After I made this post yesterday, I found myself thinking about the system we created in the west that created this result.
I believe it is a result of:
1. gnosticism
2. size
3. technology (and related, the church growth movement)
4. faulty leadership models
Gnosticism.. we separated life into spheres of sacred and secular, where holiness was about ethics and information instead of wholeness and growth. As a result, we short-circuited spiritual growth. If most christians remain babes in christ it is because our discipleship and growth models have been faulty and we have failed at community. See also the gospel of sin management.
Size.. we bought the lie that bigger is better, more is better, faster is better.. and built machines that were less organic than organizations (institutions). But institutions become impersonal and are ruled by bureaucracy. In other words, if you build a large structure you will require managers to lead it. But managers are rarely mystics, and the result is that you no longer have a church or a community, you have an institution and a congregation.
Technology.. we set goals of bigness and predictability and excellence.. and hire professionals and technologists to achieve them. We rely on human methods to build a spiritual reality.. any wonder the result is so mixed?
Faulty leadership models.. we borrowed leadership models uncritically from surrounding culture, just as we borrowed so much other thinking. We got what those models were intended to produce.. limited initiative, conformity and a consumer environment. Trying to undo that result is like trying to teach tame geese to fly (or think of "Chicken Run").
Last night as we waited with bated breath for the opening scenes of Spiderman 2, Betty recalled her brother's experience working on a movie set in Winnipeg last year. He had the opportunity to personally meet Richard Gere. His comments, "What a gentleman. He had time for everyone, a smile for anyone, even the janitors and truck drivers."
Wow. Gere is a Buddhist.
"Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man.
Perhaps naively, we tried to define "local church" this past Thursday (see below). But what if the church exists in several modes: gathered, empowered, scattered.. What if, like light itself, the church can appear as a particle or a wave depending on the observer... The church is a living paradox, a fire that burns but is not consumed.
Ralph Winter says the church exists as both modality and sodality, and lacking one of these states of being is incomplete.
Btw..anyone out there who has read The Wisdom of Crowds and would like to share a short review with us?
What are the best movies you have seen in the past few years relating to the postmodern transition, new modes of being the church, alternate ways of knowing, and emergence? Post your finds in the comments..
Alan Creech writes:
Whew.. what a relief! I have been wandering about in my own dark night thinking that there were actually TWELVE things to learn.. and I had no idea what the other two were..
If you are like me, you can now heave a huge sigh of relief. Like me, you assumed there were twelve things to learn.. you know, same as the number of the apostles.. and try as you might.. read all the latest books, attend the big name seminars, correspond with the right people.. you could only identify ten things.
Now.. EUREKA.. we KNOW there are only ten things.. oh.. but we still don't know what they are.. because Alan is refusing to share with us.
Come on, Alan.. spill the beans. Now that we know that you know.. and now that you know that we know that you know... it's only right.
What.. "arbitrary number?" how postmodern can you get.
PS. Please note that I identified ten characteristics of Missional Spirituality in my recent article, so I am definitely on the right track ;)
Alan's real point.. and a very good one, I think.. is that some of us have become addicted to knowledge (as opposed to learning, which isn't necessarily related to books or information). Addicted to knowledge.. who, me? Just because I order a new book or two each month? Just because I resent it when someone has read a new "emergent" book before I have? Just because I would rather cozy up with the latest blog than give my neighbor a hand with his broken down truck?
Ok, maybe Alan has a point there. It's a lot easier to talk about vision or values than to live them. It's much more comfortable to pray for my neighbors than to engage them in conversation. Could it be that the post-modern church will struggle with authenticity as much as the modern one?
My sincere apologies to anyone who has attempted to contact me at my next1 address in the past few months. When my IP upgraded their servers and moved all the content to the new equipment, I neglected to check to see if my email forwarding was still ON. Unfortunately, it was not. If you have mailed me and wondered why I did not answer, it's because your mail never reached me. Now fixed...
Apostles of the New Order, or False Apostles?
"There's a transition taking place and hardly anyone is noticing. The model of the church is being changed, from a single-building/church-programs model to a home-based/body-ministry cell-structure.
This, you might think, is a very good thing! After all, the traditional man-at-the-front lecture-style meeting is, many feel, not what God originally intended for believers. Couldn't this move liberate pew-level Christians from what has become in many cases a dictatorial leadership and open up opportunities for them to exercise their God-given ministries in an informal setting?
"The short answer is NO. The name of the game is CONTROL and the cell-church system is designed both to control and to monitor church membership and to achieve the ultimate goal of the apostate religious empire: to bring planet earth under the government of the Global Church!"
This quote is from a much, much larger article that critiques the Church Growth Movement and the new Apostolic movement. If you can get past the apocalyptic overtones, there is some good information here, including a needed warning and some valid criticism.
The Transforming Church by Tricia Tillin
See also my thoughts on Five-fold Ministry
I dislike definitions, but the exercise of attempting to create one has some usefulness. Let's start with the Reformed definition: "The church is present where God's word is preached and the sacraments are administered. The Anabaptists thought that definition incomplete and added, "and where believers are discipled in the way of Christ." That is no small addition, and I think the Reformed definition is woefully limited. In part, these old ways of thinking were limited because they did not understand the distinction between the church and the kingdom of God. Only now are we shifting from church-centered mission to a mission-centered church.
Here is a short definition I was playing with in my head this morning:
"An ekklesia is God's people doing God's work in God's power."
Another you may have heard is something like this:
"The church is God's people created in community to do the works of the kingdom for the sake of the world."
I wonder what a Trinitarian definition would look like? Seems to me it would also have some usefulness. Perhaps something like,
"The church is the covenant people of God constituted by the Spirit of God into the Body of Christ by the love of the Father for the sake of the world."
I like the use of "covenant," for reasons I'll talk about below. But this last one lacks something that connotes a faithful and authentic expression of the transforming work of Christ. So how about,
I like this last one the best in some ways. I like it because it contextualizes into the real world an idea that exists in the heart of God. Apart from that contextualization the church is gnostic and lacks the power of the incarnation.
The use of the word "covenant" does something important also. It expresses a theological idea that runs like a powerful river through all the Scripture, both old and new testaments. It expresses the reality that the covenant originates with God, but carries us all into the story, and it expresses that reality not only toward God but in our lives with one another.
I know that the word and reality have been abused, like many good words. But I can't think of a better word to convey the idea that the Lord asks us not only to be committed to Him, but to be committed to His people also. We are invited into a family, for the purpose of showing forth the glory of God in the world. That purpose is not accomplished easily, as any of us who are married or who have attempted to make a serious commitment to growth can tell. David Watson once compared christian community to a group of porcupines huddling together for warmth :) One of the purposes of covenant is to help us get rid of our spines. We discover that the way forward in community is not by virtue of strength, but by virtue of weakness. The ekklesia becomes our 12-step group where we can shed our false selves and put on the true self, created in the image of Christ.
So.. which definition do you like best so far? Have you got an alternate one to offer? Here are more questions to help you think...
"When is a church not a church?"
"What would a definition look like it if was expressed in cultural and non-biblical language?"
"What happens when we add 'emerging' to the definition?' (and here is the Wikepedia definition of "Emerging Church")
A thoughtful pastor friend writes this morning and asks,
"What is a local church? How do you know when you have one? In other words, what are the defining traits of a local church? What is the difference between a Christian small group, a Christian mission outpost in the inner city reaching street people, and a "House church?"
Ok, let's have some answers people..
Centered Sets, Bounded Sets
Somewhere around 25 or 30 years ago, anthopologist Paul Hiebert proposed a new way of understanding social groupings. He divided them into centered sets, bounded sets, and fuzzy sets. More recently two books have renewed the discussion on this way of understanding social groups in terms of the way we understand faith communities. Frost and Hirsch use the centered set/bounded set model ("The Shaping of Things to Come"), and Guder et al use the model in their book Missional Church.
The concept is REALLY helpful for me personally, and is being used in a threaded discussion at ALLELON. Here is an excerpt from that discussion:
* * *
"Chapter 7 in Missional Church is "Missional Leadership: Equipping God's People for Mission." If anyone is reading this thread and hasn't read this particular chapter, borrow the book somewhere and read it. It's an insightful and helpful discussion.
"Frost and Hirsch are coming from a similar place, using a similar model, but they don't use the language of covenant as does Missional Church. But there is no contradiction in the two uses. Guder et al are really fleshing out the concept in application by arguing that a covenant model can be overlaid with the centered set model.. in fact they argue that it must be so if we are to be faithful and missional communities.
"Remember I said that Frost and Hirsch describe the centered set as "soft at the edges, hard at the center" and the bounded set as "hard at the edges, soft at the center." David, when you comment that centered set communities seem to become "fuzzy," I wonder if this occurs because we are reacting against the closed and bounded set experience, or maybe those who were trying to flesh out a new paradigm were in fact fuzzy about what they were trying to accomplish?
"The questions I am asking, as you can tell, are these:
** do centered sets drift because they lack definition?
"But obviously, it needn't be that way since you are saying you like the centered set approach, but with a more defined center. Missional Church makes a good argument in that direction. Ok, I'll risk a summary now for those who haven't read the other stuff.
"Guder et all in their chapter on Missional Leadership essentially argue that at the center of a missional community is a bounded set. This set resides within the centered set, which defines the larger community of faith. Leaders move within both circles, but the direction for those growing in faith is toward the bounded set... toward covenant relationships and greater definition, which paradoxically will also imply greater freedom. The analogy of marriage works well and if you know the "Church of the Savior" they are probably a good example of all this.
"Personally, I like their conception very much. I think some will find the model scary if they have recently come out of places that use covenant language as a means of control, or where leadership was otherwise not very healthy or well individuated.
"I don't particularly like the way that Missional Church diagrams this..
"While the diagram is directional and well represents process, it feels too focused and immobile at the right hand edge. For me it loses its dynamism. Well.. there you go, metaphors and models have different appeal to different personalities and diagrams are by nature static. Maybe this is my reaction to what feels like the loss of paradox and tension in most models. On the one hand we need to know who is part of our community and the strength and health of their gifts and personality.. on the other hand we want to retain maximum flexibility so that we can respond to changing context and needs and allow people themselves to grow, change and discover.
"David, you write "When I am leading a church I hope my vision is clear enough to make some people not want to be apart but I also hope I have enough of Jesus in me to say to someone who doesn't feel my ministry style matches theirs .."
"A missional community must be contextualized. A contextualized community is by nature limited, that is the strength and weakness of contextualization and so we can appear "exclusive" or cliquey to some people who don't share our vision. That bothers me, and I wonder how we can minimize that effect?
"We want to have maximum diversity and flexibility while shaping our lives together in a covenant. Covenants aren't always written down, and covenant itself is a process that first occurs in relationships, so we hope to take the summer to just hang out and dream together and get to know each other. When we begin to add structure this fall we will look for a way to love and care for one another as house church elders while allowing a high degree of independence in individual church expressions. Maybe we can be a "chaordic" group.
"I wish I was more familiar with chaos theory, because I think we are talking about chaordic and organic life and the analogies coming out of chaos theory would likely be helpful. In part this is because we are talking about something that cannot be merely structured into existence.. we are talking about dynamics of spirit and life.. I like to use the word "ethos" to describe this.
"Last year I heard that the physicists who are researching quantum dynamics and who are working with the very smallest particles came up against another mystery. It seems that while there were some things that were definable, one of the largest questions remaining was about the power in matter. No one knows where it comes from. This caused one scientist to theorize that, "Perhaps the power is in the blank spaces."
"Blank spaces are what we lose when we organize. Blank spaces are those elements of community that remain shrouded in mystery. In fact, community itself IS a mystery. You can plan it, organize it and pray for it and still not get it. It requires something spontaneous and unreachable by human effort and thought alone. It requires more weakness than strength, and we aren't very good at weakness. Leadership coach Margaret Wheatley wrote in "A Simpler Way,"
"There is a simpler way to organize human endeavor. It requires a new way of being in the world. It requires being in the world without fear. Being in the world with play and creativity. Seeking after what's possible. Being willing to learn and to be surprised.
"This simpler way to organize human endeavor requires a belief that the world is inherently orderly. Life seeks organization. It does not require us to organize it."
|
 Allelon / Cutting Edge / Relevant Magazine / Shoot the Messenger / Vine and Branches / Jesus People USA / Sacred Future / Tribal Generation / Reality / Waves Church / Matthew's House / Sacramentis / Praxis / Post Boomer / FutureChurch / MethodX / TheOOZE / ginkworld / The Landing Place / ::seven:: / emergent village / Highway Video / emerging church / Sojourners / Ship of Fools / Beyond / Next-Wave / Small Fire / ThePowerSurge / dtour
|
• © 1999-2004 Len Hjalmarson.•
Last Updated on
We're off on an adventure. This isn't a journey for lone pilgrims. You are coming with us...
Still others embrace the mystery, seek a sense of purpose, and are wanting to wade. These pilgrims go beyond the boundaries of sand into the endless sea, letting the water come up to their ankles (Ezek. 47). As they get accustomed to the feeling of the water on their skin, some will wade out further until they have to swim. These ones will discover the joy of being carried by the waves in directions unknown. While they started with a sense of purpose and perhaps even some clarity about the meaning of sea and tide, now they learn surrender as the water washes and the tide moves them according to its own will.
I was reminded of a dream I had a few months ago. I was standing in front of a group of leaders along with my wife. We were sharing something. I saw a man I recognized seated to my right. He asked, "So, do you have a plan?" I answered, "No, but we have stories."
Yesterday I asked for some definitions. Is it possible to define the church? If so, what are its defining characteristics in the local expression? Notice the qualifier, "local." Robert Banks, the New Testament and early church scholar, says that the word ekklesia almost never occurs in the New Testament in reference to anything other than a local, visible expression.
