Church

Canada Day Rawdon St. Block Party 2008, originally uploaded by senor diecast.

I love my church.

Every year we block off a section of the street in front of the church (legally) and throw a block party on the Canada Day weekend. This year there were easily over a couple hundred people from the church and neighborhood filling the street where we had a barbecue, great conversation, a wee bit of frisbee, a multitude of sparklers for the kids, and a great fireworks display. We never advertise ahead of time – just block off the street, fire up the grill and welcome anyone who might happen by.

Rawdon Street Baptist Church has been a light in this corner of the city for a long, long time. Sometime soon I’m going to write out a bit of our history here for you. It’s never been that large of a family and it may never be, but it is far from anemic. I hope this little missional family continues to infect its neighborhood with the Kingdom of God for a long time to come.

We’ve all heard politicians saying that America is the world’s greatest hope. While that is certainly not anything close to truth I have also heard some Christians saying the same thing about the Church. But is it?

Tags: America, hope, church, obama

This post is a contribution to the Missional Synchroblog organized by Rick Meigs.

It held promise. Honestly, I had held out hope. As much as I had had issues with the direction of the place in the past, I had never heard a blatant rejection of the type of Christianity that I hold dear. In all actuality this is a place that for me holds a high place of honor when it comes to mission. A church with a proud missionary tradition of going to the farthest reaches of every continent, and even to our own indigenous people groups. They had sent people into the “darkest” places on earth. Those who were sent were known in every context to be people of great love and compassion. I know many of them personally and can attest to these claims.

Like I said, regardless of any other frustrations I have had with leadership, committees, programs, structures, and style, I had always said, “These people get mission.” I’m not sure if I still believe that… Let me explain.

What I heard today was a point by point upholding of the old ways. The “take Jesus to the dark places where they didn’t have him, and tell them the message that will save their soul from flames” way of doing mission. It wasn’t all bad, but much of it was downright horrible.

Things started off well enough. We sang songs (you can’t go wrong with a good old hymn sing). We sang and prayed about the importance of getting into God’s streams – of following Him where ever He may go. After all, it is true that “people need the Lord”. (He’s the open door)

The first lines of the sermon were pretty much great. “Your mission cannot fail because it is God who has ordained it.” Oh, but wait… what was that? As we walked a hop-skip-jump Roman Road for the next 30 minutes I found myself frantically searching for the context surrounding the cherry-picked verses that outlined a lot of stuff that did seem to be in that context…

• how knowledge about Jesus was what people need to be saved
• how if there is anything we need to include in a gospel message it is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus – anything else we may do or say can just get in the way
• how people first need to know that they are doom to eternal hell (I had a hard time finding the word eternal in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man — but no doubt it was somewhere in Romans)
• we heard how the biggest prayer meeting in all the cosmos was going on in Hell right now
• we heard how when Jesus said to GO he added on the “make disciples” line as a secondary command. Sort of a “while you are going and saving souls you might should probably make a few disciples along the way as well.”

All of these statements trouble me to various degrees, but their were two things that troubled me more than anything. I heard today that God has given us a mission. We as people have a mission to reach people. Our mission is crucial because it is the way God has chosen to work in this world. God has chosen to limit himself to using people to accomplish the gospel. Over and over it was Our Mission. God didn’t seem to have much to do with it at all, outside of giving us the power to accomplish it. So, the question that arises is, “What is God really up to then?”

How did we miss it? Being a church that has stood on its head for mission for the last 50 years, where have we been looking that we have missed the most crucial aspect. How did we not hear anything about the fact that GOD has a Mission in this world? Did I miss something? Has God completed what he is doing and now he has chosen to sit back and watch us do our thing? Not a chance! Our God is active. He is present. He is at work. He is reaching out to the broken and hurting. He is sitting patiently and moving actively with the stubborn and stressed, the hungry and suffering, weak and afflicted.

Yes, we are part of this. God wants us to be a part of this. God wants us to find our place in His mission. Our God is a Missioning God who has called us to partner with Him for His cause. That cause being the restoration and completion of ALL THINGS. The redemption of all sin (disintegration from God). The patching up of broken dreams and relationships. The patching up of wounded knees and hearts.

We are also called to proclaim the message of God. We are called to proclaim the message of Jesus, our hope of a life lived in the glorious reign of God. His Kingdom here on earth. Our Saviour who would could not be beaten by the powers of this world. But who was resurrected as fully aligned with the Kingdom of God as ever before. Our Saviour the fully integrated person of God, moving and active in our world then just as He is today.

Today, in that church service, the question repeated over and over was “do you know where you are going after this life?” The question I believe God would have us ask is much more Missional, much more Incarnational. God’s question to us is, “do you know where you are living Today? Are you living in My Kingdom, or are you living in the Kingdoms of this world?”

The second thing that bothered me is very much tied into the first. Since we are called to participate with God’s Mission in the world we have to ask ourselves, what is God’s Mission? I believe He is doing the same thing Jesus was doing. Proclaiming peace in the midst of war, healing in the midst of sickness, hope in the midst of despair, subversion in the midst of Empire, and life in the midst of death. As missional Christians we are called to live a life that is marked by our Master. A life drenched in Kingdom values. We are not called to lead people toward an intellectual understanding of how they are sinners, need Jesus, and can have Jesus come and save them so they can have be given life after this life. Jesus’ intellectual conversations on the metaphysics of salvation were few in comparison to his many interactions with “the least of these”. Interactions where he provide immediate healing and hope, not just a hope for tomorrow or the next life, but a glorious hope for today. Coupled with this hope was the call to “go, and sin no more”. Jesus called those he had healed into a life in the Kingdom.

And you know what. Missionaries get this. In spite of the bad focus that I heard from the pulpit today, those who are really going out into the world have the heart of Christ guiding them into acts of compassion that far exceed their drive to provide personal conversions by intellectual understanding. Missionaries are far more easily found in hospitals tending to the sick or in service garages fixing some chap’s car or on the streets of some megacity playing with the street-kids, than in pulpits and seminaries and libraries.

So today at the commissioning service of two people who I adore and who I know have a desire to join in with God and His work in the world I found myself torn in two directions. Every thing preached from the pulpit spoke of the modern assumptions of a world that is run by a distant, removed God who touched humans and sent them on their way to reconnect with Him, eventually, in another life. Everything in the faces of those two people spoke of a God who resides with his people. A God who would not be traveling across the ocean with them in a few weeks, because he would already be there when they arrived. A God who is doing mighty things in this world and who has called us all into FULL participation with Him. Not as an afterthought to salvation, but as a way to be involved in God’s work toward the redemption of ALL THINGS.

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I definitely urge you to explore the rest of the participants in this missional synchroblog. All 50 are linked below.

Alan Hirsch Alan Knox Andrew Jones Barb Peters Bill Kinnon Brad Brisco Brad Grinnen Brad Sargent Brother Maynard Bryan Riley Chad Brooks Chris Wignall Cobus Van Wyngaard Dave DeVries David Best David Fitch David Wierzbicki DoSi Doug Jones Duncan McFadzean Erika Haub Grace Jamie Arpin-Ricci Jeff McQuilkin John Smulo Jonathan Brink JR Rozko Kathy Escobar Len Hjalmarson Makeesha Fisher Malcolm Lanham Mark Berry Mark Petersen Mark Priddy Michael Crane Michael Stewart Nick Loyd Patrick Oden Peggy Brown Phil Wyman Richard Pool Rick Meigs Rob Robinson Ron Cole Scott Marshall Sonja Andrews Stephen Shields Steve Hayes Tim Thompson Thom Turner

I would love to get some feedback on this passage from Pete’s book.

“To develop a healthy community, the best approach can actually involve being clear that one is not starting a community at all and that there will be no pastoral support, that no one will be charged with the job of taking in money and distributing it on people’s behalf, and that no one will be responsible for calling you up if you stop attending events. In short, it must be clear that the group does not care about people’s needs in the slightest. While this may sound deeply uncaring, the reason for stating this is precisely in order to help provide a healthy soil for real pastoral and financial support to grow.

“Providing a space with no welcoming team or pastoral support group means that individuals need to take responsibility for welcoming and caring for others themselves. Here the role of those setting up the group is not to create a new priest/laity divide but rather to refuse to act in the role of a priest precisely so as to encourage a priesthood of all believers, offering relational, mutually dependent, pastoral support. This does not mean that there is no place for leadership, for here the leader is the one who attempts to prevent any one person, including the leader, from taking over the space and taking on the role of some high priest. In such a space there is a radical refusal, by those who organize the gathering, to take on pastoral responsibility. for by refusing the place of power, the ‘pastors’ equip everyone to be a pastor, simultaneously discouraging an unhealthy dependency in those who attend.” (Rollins, pp. 177-178)

This is where I’m at somewhat in my own thinking. Questions of how it happens practically in our own context naturally surface. I’m not the best at asking the practical questions. I’m much more the dreamer, and luckily I have friends that can come alongside and provide the ground under my feet. I think our small gathering of friends, as unformed as it is, are somewhat heading in this direction already. The question is how to continue it once others join in that may naturally think of the “pioneers” of the group as the leaders. Throw in…

“The God we affirm is then, at its best, inspired by the incoming of God and born there, but it is never to be confused with God.” – Peter Rollins

You know those times when your thoughts are building and changing so quickly that you barely have time to reflect on each of them and give them the brain time they deserve? Those times when all you can do is pound your hand on the table or attempt to suppress a squeal of excitement? Yes. Those times.

You know those times when thoughts start to crawl beneath your skin and into your eyeballs amidst the most queasy of itchiness? When you find yourself only able to think about how you need to stop thinking about these concepts because they are burning worse images in your head than those Faces of Death videos from grade seven? Yea…

Admittedly, three years ago the ratio of the first to the second would have been entirely reversed, but still, Pete’s latest book had me in both regions of anxiety. When reading The Fidelity of Betrayal the table pounding squeals far outweighed the eyeball squirms, but they were still there.

Pete takes us through three (four) aspects of our experience of God that we possibly need to be ready to betray in order to avoid mistaking these objectified realities for the creator God we worship. These being the Word, the Name, and the Act of God – the fourth being Truth itself (himself).

My biggest pauses came when I heard myself saying things like, “Aw that snake wasn’t such a bad guy,” Even though my beliefs about the story of the fall have changed drastically in the last while, I was still believing that the person-hood of God was contained in the words written about the encounter between God, Eve, Adam, and the Serpent (poor snake). Pete’s intent is not to pull us into a sympathy for the devil but to pull us from a loyalty to our words about God as contained in the Bible. We need to search out a deeper devotion to our creator born out of that betrayal. So while I’m not ready to run off to join some serpent cult, I am more ready to embrace the ambiguity of God’s nature within the Biblical narrative and try to see past my simplified ideas about a knowable personality of God.

Skipping ahead to the end of the book, Pete prompts us to consider a betrayal of our secured church boundaries in favor of a communal encounter with a God that we find in a religion without religion. A religion founded on the movement of God in miracles of love and reflected on through sacraments and then third and least made knowable through a set beliefs and creeds. I’m still to find a church institution that doesn’t try to downplay 1 John 4 in some way – to attempt to house the “of Gods” first within a church structure, system, or belief net.

So, I finished this book angrily and over-joyed. I’m angry because I feel alone. I feel alone among a sea of churches and Christians. I feel an insecurity in my beliefs that somehow fills me with a wonderful desire to fill the absence with love. I’m angry that I believed for so long that doubt and insecurity would be my enemy in life – that I needed to make sure I built my house on a church-rock. The problem being that the church-rock lately has felt much more like quicksand. Quicksand that pulls down anyone that doesn’t fit in order to make room to stabilize those who would do well in that system. And the thing is, I have a vision of Jesus jumping right off that church-rock too. Not to pull people back up on top, but to be present with those who have been sucked down.

It seems scary, and right now I feel alone, but I am going to try to stop squirming and go down too. I’m thinking that’s where I’ll find God. It seems that’s where heaven is.

A big part of why Missional living really resonates with me is because of a fresh understanding about Spiritual Gifts. Something I read the other day really summed up my new direction really sweetly…

“Our motivation for having spiritual gifts is not our own reputation, or desire for recognition or position, but rather the common good of the rest of the body. The gifts are given to the body, expressed through us as individuals, but the focus remains the body.” – Rob McAlpine, Post-Charismatic?

Over-individualized ideas of spiritual gifts has in the past resulted in a fractured body. Pastors and elders over here, Sunday school teachers over there, long-term missionaries in yet another corner. If our systems and positions worked in a previous setting we assumed that God has meant for us to do the same job wherever we find ourselves.

I am Missional because there seem to be much more important things than finding fitting into our structures. A missional call to find out where God is at work and to join him there means we need to forget for the time being whatever individual aspirations or giftedness we may think we are carrying with us. Not that we will never use them again, but for the good of the Kingdom we first need to forget ourselves and our mission and find God’s.

Missional living in this culture is perhaps, as Brother Maynard has suggested about the gift of prophecy, post-certainty.¹

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This was part of a missional synchroblog started by Jonathan. Here are the other participants:
Ben Wheatley – WWSBD What Would Shepherd Book Do?
Bryan Riley – Jesus is the Way and He Was Missional
Jonathan Brink – Why I Am Missional
Blake Huggins – Missional Synchroblog: Why Am I Missional
Alan Knox – Demonstrating the Heart of God
Tim Jones – Participation or Observation?

At the beginning of the year I set a goal for a certain number of books I was aiming to read this year. I think I am fairly far behind it right now. The goal was more to encourage me to continue to search out voices to hear. I don’t really read a book just to get through it. I’ve found myself slipping into an old habit of reading more than one book at a time and taking a while to finish any of them. Therefore, I am proposing to myself that I grab one book this weekend intending to read the whole thing in one go. I haven’t done such a thing in many years. I think the last time was grade nine while reading a fantasy series by David Eddings called The Belgariad (fantastic, as I recall – which would be why I read the whole five book series in one week).

So, tomorrow I’m going to turn pages in Post-Charismatic? by Rob McAlpine (aka RobbyMac). I’m not from the charismatic stream officially, but have interacted with the local Pentecostal and Vineyard churches quite often throughout my life. I’m especially interested in learning to engage more fully with this stream of Christianity to move forward into a more generous and spiritually expressive future. I’m excited about the opportunity to look both look backward while facing forward into a hopeful future together with my charismatic and post-charismatic sisters and brothers.

Oh, and Rob, I’m really sorry about the absence of picture on the amazon.ca page. That’s actually my fault and it will be corrected next week!

Pax

Tags: reading, charismatic, postcharismatic, robbymac,

So what exactly is a faith community? As far as I can tell what is meant is a church. But what is with all this faith business? Doesn’t a hockey team have faith in each other and their strategy and their coach? Don’t the kids in their science project group have legitimacy as people of faith? It takes tremendous faith to let half your grade rest in three similarly irresponsible 10th graders. Are these not likewise faith communities?

Why do Christian communities feel this need to proclaim faith as their distinctive tie that binds? Do we really think that faith exists inside church and there is a faith vacuum outside? Of course not.

And no, it is not just a handy witnessing tool. You are not so sly when you say, “Oh, I was just hanging out with my faith community today.”

“Oh, yeah? A faith community, you say. And where did you get this foreign substance known as faith? I wish I had some faith that I could place somewhere. Spill the beans of faith!”

“Jesus gave me some!”

Yes, Jesus. The fella that blesses the Christian with the mutant superpower of Faith. Oh, if only the world would realize how awesome it is to have faith in something – anything! Surely, if there is one thing our communities can bless the world with it is faith. Maybe we should open up our faith storehouses and let the faith roll down the hill into the faithless valleys of darkness.

I need faith in something more than just having some.

***Disclaimer*** I am neither a viticulturalist nor a climatologist by any stretch. I’m not deluded enough to believe I have enough information to fully buy into the facts I state, but they are helpful in proving my point – such as it is.

Disclaimer out of the way, lets look at some trends and stats. I will leave most of the numbers out to avoid boring myself.

Viticulture is a very fragile thing. Prime grape growing conditions exist within a thin temperate sliver. Average temperatures can not deviate too drastically during the growing season. Too many cold nights or scorching days and the crop fails. Too short of a season and harvests are thin. These strict requirements have meant that areas like Napa Valley in California, much of France and Italy, and many other temperate climates around the world have been wonderful places to plant vineyards. But this is swiftly changing.

In the 21st Century two words scare viticulturists witless. Migration and Elimination. Climate change and global warming especially have resulted in prime grape growing zones moving further toward the poles and higher into the mountains. France, which has strict laws in place governing the types of grapes that are allowed to be produced in specific areas, is being forced to readdress these laws to allow their vineyards to succeed in growing quality grapes. Places like Germany, and Ontario and British Columbia in Canada have been some of the very few winners in the midst of these climactic shifts. California is poised to be a big loser.

Gregory Jones, along with other notable viticulturalists, predicts that potential premium winegrape production area in the United States could decline by up to 81% by the late 21st century.¹ In response to these trends many vineyards are turning to geneticists to protect their crops. Hardier grapes that are able to withstand greater temperature fluctuation are being explored. Imported wine varieties from as far away as Australia are more and more common here in North America. Massive amounts of energy is being expended in attempts at preservation, forced adaptation and modification.

So how does this have anything to do with practicing the Eucharist?

This seemingly bizarre connection was sparked by a conversation between a mainline pastor and a congregationalist in which I got to be the fly on the wall.

The first said, “I’m as open to doctrinal and structural reform as the next guy, but I draw the line at the eucharist. Milk and cookies is not sacramental.” Various attempts at reconciliation were bartered and a non-unanimous conclusion was reached. Anything semi-fluid containing “fruit of the vine” was acceptable for the Lord’s Table. Milk is out, but grape jelly is in. We didn’t get to debate percentages, but I believe there are allowances for fruit cocktail as well.

Anyone who will hold to such an absolutist position on a topic is just begging for hypotheticals to be lobbed at them – “holy hand grenade” style.

So now, let’s get hypothetical!

What if warming trends continue and temperate grape growing zones disappear  from much of Europe and all of America? Let’s say that 200 years from now the bulk of winegrapes are grown in Canada, Russia and China, but less stable temperatures at these extreme locales result in much lower yields. Demand outgrows supply and wine prices begin to become prohibitive. Just to get a little crazy let’s assume that much of China and Russia has been wiped out by nuclear war and rendered unharvestable by radiation levels. Lay off me… this is my hypothetical situation!

How does a church in the 22rd Century deserts of Georgia support spending a large chunk of their resources on supporting their Eucharistic habit duties? Will we one day find the predominant feature of church buildings to be a greenhouse housing the holy vines of the communion cup? Will pastors be taught viticulture in seminary? Will the Vineyard Church become more than a biblical metaphor?

My point is not to prophecy doom, but to question our affection for a particular “wineskin” (oh dear) in the face of changing realities. I for one do not want to be the guy decreeing that churches in poor and non-vined areas of the world need to work on their importing or face divine judgment. I just can’t help but think that such an assertion really misses what it is to come together around a common cup.

Drink ye all of it, in remembrance of Him!

Tags: eucharist, wine, viticulture

Tony Jones has uploaded the first in a series of videos based on interactions found in his book The New Christians. Say hello to Trucker Frank!

Tags: emergent, emerging, trucker frank, tony jones

scott: i have been pondering over the weekend about the word ‘missional’

scott: i find that defining terms is not something that i excel at, but i have sort of narrowed it down to 3 bible passages that make the term work in my life

david: right. i’m hoping we can all help each other to understand it better

david: i have yet to put something together too.. i use it often, but I think i use it differently

david: on different days

scott: haha

scott: it seems to be the kind of word that can have more than one meaning to it

david: ya… well that’s part of it.. i wan to get beyond the missionaries/normal people way of thinking about it

scott: i am on board for that

scott: i have been seeing it as a ‘team-working’ (if you can’t tell, i just made that term up) of the greatest commandments, the sheep and goats being judged, and the great commission

david: cool

scott: for me it focuses it on the main aspect of loving people, and because of that love, taking care of their physical needs and sharing the gospel

scott: i like looking at it like that because it can work on a micro and a macro scale

david: you mean, it is about individual relationships and also relates to the call of the church as a whole?

scott: yes… to the individual and to the body. also, it relates the day to day with the long term

david: or the whole mission of god

scott: yes

scott: the mission of taking care of spiritual and physical needs in an ongoing way, based off of the love that we have for others

david: i think that’s one of the important distinctions

david: we tend to think of our mission as first and foremost shouting on street corners

david: forgetting that jesus said that the gospel is good news to the afflicted

scott: for sure… and going that out of obligation and not as an act of love

scott: going = doing

david: right

scott: so yeah… that is what i have been thinking about the word ‘missional’

david: i believe mission has to absolutely foundational to a group of people that would call themselves part of the church

scott: i would have to agree with you, sir. for most of my life, the word mission dealt with profession

david: right

scott: that is all the word was to me, but i think that it should be a purposeful lifestyle

scott: a sincere one, at that

david: i believe that is why people leave churches

david: they have not been given a chance to be missional

david: it is fairly unfulfilling to just take up space

david: many times we take away the job of everyone and give it to the professionals

scott: that is a very good point, dave

scott: and when people can’t pitch in, then they aren’t actually a part of a family, they are a guest

david: the majority of the church is told that their job is to fund the professional christians

david: which is great, but comes up short

scott: haha… for sure, which makes it a business relationship more than anything

david: share holders

scott: exactly

Tags: missional, church, jesus, incarnational

I attempted to distill this list down to some absolutely peerless
resource connections. If anyone has something to add please do!

This 50 minute clip should absolutely be seen first:
Michael Frost on Youtube

After that these are all excellent places to search through:
Shaping of Things to Come, Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch (Book)
Missio Dei, Fred Peatross (Book)
Allelon.org reading list
Resonate.ca
Resonate Audio Podcast (features some great talks by Michael Frost)
Friendofmissional.org
Missio Dei (Wikipedia)

Then there is also the little project that this blog is part of that is trying to add more story and understanding to our missional lives.
Missional Synchroblog

Tags: missional, emergent, emerging, church

Right now I am engaged in conversation with friends. Tuesday night church it has come to be called. We are collected from a variety of backgrounds (city and country, pastor and student, business world and outdoors enthusiasts) with a shared thirst for true community and mission.

We are dreaming about and beginning to participate in a community that we have decided to describe as missional. Missional was the FIRST word that we chose as a point of connection. It came before church, baptist, relevant, emergent, postmodern, purpose-driven, subversive, or biblical. All buzzwords begin to lose immediacy through our careless useage as characterized by the grandfather of buzzwords: Christian. Before the followers of “The Way” were labeled with the first-century buzzword of “Christian”, they were engaged in mission.

Every successful buzzword has action at its core. Christians were those in communities that were following the mission of God as perfected by Jesus, and living it within a cultural mission flavoured by the Jewish and Greek customs of the day. But somehow the perfect example of Jesus didn’t finish the mission. He sent his followers onward to continue to live this mission. To be missional is to be in transit. In the past there was a bestowing of mission. That comission is then acknowledged and acted on. We are now Missioning.

To be missioning is to live intentionally restorative reflections of God’s creative purpose into every part of our lives. Every relationship, every endeavor. Our missioning community is aiming to create connections and space to empower each other to live these lives of deep restoration. We are determined to not build walls, but instead to plant gardens. We are determined to go kayaking and laugh together in the woods. We are determined to cry with each other. We are determined to never wear our “Sunday Best”.

Since friendship and strategy just don’t seem to fit together, we are determined to avoid every 4 step evangelism strategy. In the words of Brian McLaren, we are counting conversations, not conversions. Instead, we commit ourselves to knowing each other’s strengths. We commit ourselves to listen to the purposes of God in the people we don’t yet know. We commit ourselves to our commission beyond our allegiance to any buzzword. Christian, Postmodern, Emergent, or Missional.

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This post is part of a Missional Synchroblog organized by Jonathan Brink

Synchroblog Participants
Jonathan Brink - Meeting God Where He’s Already Working
Ben Wheatley - Are Things You Are Living For Worth It
Blake Huggins - What Does Missional Living Look Like
Alan Knox - Living in the love of God
Dave DeVries - The Missional Challenge
Bryan Riley - What Does Missional Living Look Like To Me
Jeromy Johnson - What is missional living to me
Tim Jones - Living Like the Word Says
Nathan Gann - Inevitability?

Tags: Missional, Emerging, Emergent, Church, Christianity, Jesus

“Recognizing the story of the gospel is planted within the very culture that it is destined to transform accounts for the story’s own transitory nature. Our story is en route. As the gospel story is being finished in our midst, so are the practices of the gospel community. Jürgen Moltmann writes: ‘The restless world corresponds to the restless hearts of the children of Abraham. All transitory creatures are, along with Abraham’s children, on the way to that future in which the restless God comes to rest and finds his home in the house of the completed creation.’”

Troy Bronsink, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, 67

This is a thought stream triggered by our recent movements into a new local church community. The question deals with the concern that an open-source community church structure could perhaps devolve into an ugly patriotism.

I don’t think that Ubuntu Philosophy fully describes the Kingdom of God and our part in it, but it is very helpful in opening us up to the ‘other’ and not fearing the differences among us.

The major difference between patriotism and Ubuntu philosophy is that patriotism is a deep commitment to an ideal community rather than to a real community. Patriotism kills community by being married to the idealism of the nation and the notion that it is superior to all others. It is a devotion to conformity rather than community. Ubuntu, on the other hand, is the spirit of listening to those around you and trusting in the wisdom of the community more than listening to your own ideals for that community. It is not that we all abandon our uniqueness and become one homogeneous blob, but that we bring all that we are into community and trust each other with our whole selves.

I would liken Patriotism to brand loyalty. In the ‘church as a business’ model brand loyalty became really important. Your denomination held all the ideals and the pastor took on the role of CEO. The Western church became a bunch of patriots, both to the country (which was portrayed as Christian) and to their right interpretation of Scripture above all others (or in the mainline church to the power structures, institutions, and sacraments).

In the model inspired by Ubuntu/Open-Source philosophy there is no ideal other than what beauty comes from the togetherness of the community itself. It is a remarkably flat structure. It’s not that there is no longer power or structure, but that structure is defined by the relationships. It changes and shifts depending on the needs of the community. A pastor is no longer CEO but takes a role fully integrated in the community. Ideals and right interpretation are not handed out from above by a superpower, but are formed in community. There is no brand or ideal to be loyal to. In its place is a community of people who all put each other before themselves. A community that takes seriously the care and support of and from all members. I love that line in the New Testament “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”

This is an intense belief that there really is a priesthood of ALL believers. It is a system that gives voice to the margins, believing that since God always seems to speak from the most unlikely places we should posture ourselves to better listen for that still small voice.

Maybe this is again why we need to be “intentional” about this thing. never forsaking the actual community for an ideal community. Because our ideal will always neglect important aspects that our individuality will miss.

Tags: Church, Emergent, , Emerging, Ubuntu Philosophy, Patriotism, Community

“We do not need more Christian leaders building church empires at a time when our culture is dismantling other such structures around us. We must deconstruct ourselves in love. A postmodern context requires leaders who instead of seeking to dominate the environment are willing to become environmentalists – people who create spaces that allow God’s people to have the possibility of an encounter with God and other people. Such an environment allows people to discover a future together under God instead of reducing them to mere pawns serving some larger agenda that comes from outside themselves.”

Tim Keel, Intuitive Leadership, 111-112.

Tags: leadership, emerging, church

Today I continue and complete my lately read summaries. There is not nearly as much of a theme with this bunch as there was with the previous list. However, each of these four books were no less formative. Let’s dive in.

1. Pagan Christianity - George Barna and Frank Viola

Straight into the fire. First, the airing of grievances. Frank really diminishes his very important points in two big ways.

First, the word PAGAN. From various interviews and responses to critics it is clear that Frank’s argument in this book is not that Pagan = Evil. The discussion goes along great until the inevitable mentions of the P word. It’s gets to be just about as bile-inducing as Heretic, or Biblical, or American Beer. I wish the title of the book was something like “The Fossilizing of Christianity” or “Calcified Christianity”. I don’t know. The idea that the God of the universe would be concerned with paganism is so daft to me.

Second, there is a lot of rigidity in the way Viola and Barna present this organic dream of church. Josh Brown’s misgivings after hearing Frank speak in Florida speak a bit to this. I really was taken back by the idea that someone so infatuated with an organic church model could be so rigid in how that works itself out. I just don’t understand the New Testament community as being meant to be prescriptive to all eras. Certainly Jesus’ reminder to make love of our neighbor on par with our love of God (indeed the two should be and must be indistinguishable and inseparable) is a very really need in every faithful community, but not the skins that we wrap around it.

Viola’s warnings to avoid deifying our church structures that are not “biblical” (ew!) are very important to heed when these structures obscure a picture of loving, worshipping, formative community.

There are a few opportunities for imagination that I have taken from the reading of this book:

• Full understanding and implementation of the priesthood of all believers.
• Movement toward every member functioning, and given space to contribute in our meetings
• Imagination with regards to compensation to staff (bi-vocational pastorate, etc)
• Revisiting giving
• Communion in community (Party!)
• Reworking Christian education and programs

I am very glad to be done with this book though. It was not a pleasure to read. I did not leave it feeling positive, but I am determined to work with it and leave behind the foulness and build love and creativity from Frank’s work. Not in an effort to be more biblical or less pagan, but in an effort to be a fuller representation of Christ’s body and Kingdom resident.

2. The New Christians - Tony Jones

Two words sum up this book for me. Inviting and Hope.

This is a book that is very inviting to anyone who has questions about the bold frontiers of Christianity in America and the world. This is not a harsh book. Tony is gracious in his arguments and easy to engage throughout the work. He is honest when it comes to past criticisms of Emergent and even includes a fairly even handed early history of the friendship. Incidentally if anyone was skeptical about that word choice (friendship) to describe emergent, I think TNC does a great job of laying bare just how much this really has grown out of friendships. And it continues to evolve new kinships and conversations. Discussions with Jewish communities who also find themselves in this emerging landscape gush with grace and honesty.

The New Christians helps us to understand that we can’t pigeonhole emerging into a Christian phenomenon. This is just one part of a world wide shift. We can either embrace the changes and live fully into this moment God has given us, or we can continue to recede into our caves of comfort and modernity. One thing is clear, the God’s world will not stick around to wait for you.

I really appreciated the final chapters where Tony engages with a variety of emerging communities and developing philosophies (wikichurch). The beautiful messiness of these communities really draws me. These communities are nobody’s attempts to be trendy or relevant, they are just the only way we know how to do things. Sitting in church structures that were normal for our great grandparents just doesn’t make sense anymore. This is the Hope. God is not done yet. See, he is doing a new thing. Even now it springs up. Can’t you see it? Our hope is fully in him as we march on into the frontiers of now.

Man, now that was meandering…

3. What is the What - Dave Eggers

I don’t know how this book pulls it off! And I don’t know how I’ll explain that exclamation without giving away too much of the story!

One day, around 10 years of age, I was deep in my own dreamland as usual. I miss-judged the edges of my bed and summersaulted right out into open bedroom air and landed squarely on my upper back. I felt that horrible woosh as the last pockets of air jumped from my lungs and I wheezed and cried feebly for them to come back inside. This book is that experience, but repeated every 10 minutes for 350 pages.

The plight of the Lost Boys of Sudan make me wonder if I will ever experience life. How could I really know what a good day is when I have been able to avoid seeing my friends snatched away in the jaws of lions. Or had to walk past children barely old enough for school as their life leaked away from starvation. Reality is too real. My selfishness inside wishes this book was not around to confront my fat belly and overextended credit.

It seems that great stories of life aren’t read so much as they read us.

4. The Shack - William P. Young

A book that opens up a possibility of what it means to claim you can say anything of substance about what God does or doesn’t do. Secondarily this book imagines possible dance steps of a God who is Three in One (Father, Son, Gardener). William Young seems to have provoked the wrath of all those critics who just can’t stay away from their keyboard long enough to wait for Brian McLaren’s next book. Personally, I loved it. This book claims nothing about truth, but rather dreams a dream. I haven’t studied trinitarian thought enough to say anything about the theology in this novel. So I will end here. It didn’t change my life as some have said, but I won’t deny the tears on my cheek near the end. Good stuff.

Listening in on a conversation among professors at Dallas Theological Seminary as they discuss the points of the various expressions of the emerging church movement. I am so fantastically excited by this dialogue! It is so fair and non-confrontational on all fronts. Honestly, there is a level of respect I honestly did not expect from a conservative, evangelical institution. During the conversation they bring up many diverse aspects of the movement and deal with them all fairly. Often they first applaud the work of various folks in the movement and then offer a word of caution against the dangers that, may or may not be real right now, but could be if certain paths are followed without enough foresight.

The profs affirm the health and balance that the emerging movement is bringing to the many parts of Christianity. Perhaps a conversation of this level coming from this corner of evangelicalism will spur on some more responsible debate from others in that tradition.

HT: TSK

Tags: emerging, emergent, christianity, theology

The Top Ten Paradoxes That Will Rule the Future – by Len Sweet
I’ve heard it stated somewhere that Len is a gateway drug into the emerging converstation.

Here is a collection of a few Emerging Taxonomies that have surfaced over the last while, starting with one of the latest:

Four Models of Emerging Churches by C. Wess Daniels
His four categories/families/networks are Deconstruction, Pre-Modern, Open Anabaptism, and Foundationalist.

Five Streams of the Emerging Church by Scot McKnight
“Key elements of the most controversial and misunderstood movement in the church today”
You simply must be following along at Scot’s Jesus Creed blog. Absolute must reading.

Emerging Church – Three Classifications by Darrin Patrick
Disclaimer from Patrick:

Now, let me be clear that these classifications are only so helpful. For instance, many emerging attractional types also do a ton of incarnational ministry. Likewise, many incarnational emerging types are not opposed to large group worship gatherings. Also, both of these groups love to engage in conversations with regard to theology, church and culture. These classifications are simply my attempt to help bring clarity for those who are peeking over the fence and trying to understand the emerging church. I know my categories are not perfect, but I hope they are helpful for those who are seeking to understand the emerging church.

Finally, and for my own amusement, here is Scot’s series on the Kingdom of God, condensed here because Scot makes you do far too much scrolling to find the pieces to his series. The man is an absolute monster of a blogger!

The Keys to the Kingdom
Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

I will add to this list as Scot continues the series.

Tags: emerging, emergent, kingdom, paradox

Adam, Yoani and Mike are off to Nicaragua this weekend!

From Adam:

Hi Everyone!

Yoani, Mike (our cameraman), and I will leave with the Innerkip Mission of Hope group early Monday morning from Pearson Int’l in Toronto, lay over in Atlanta and then head on to Nicaragua! Although we’re still a few hundred dollars short of our full needs for funding for this trip, through some creative thinking and some steps of faith, we’ve managed to come up with some arrangements so that this trip will go forward! Thank you to everyone who has given toward the trip - without your generosity this would not be happening.

We’ve got a blog/informational site up which we’ll try our best to update while we’re on the road. We’ll also put updates there after the trip as we work to get the Christian Trade Mission project up and running. You can also now sign up for our bonafide newsletter. Please sign up for our newsletter using that page if you’d like to get continual updates.

We’d appreciate your prayers, and if you could remember especially my wife Autumn and little baby Ebony who I’m leaving back here in Canada, for their peace of mind and safety while I’m gone. Please forward this to whoever you might think would be interested (or to whoever you forwarded previous emails, if you did.) Thanks! I’ll talk to you guys again in two weeks!

Tags: missional, mission, coffee, fair trade

I found a couple books on Darryl Dash’s blog that it looks like I will want to place in the front of my reading queue.First is a novel called The Shack that I don’t know much about, but sounds quite intriguing based on Darryl’s description.

The second is a book on church history and practice that makes me absolutely salivate. I am a massive believer in constantly looking to the first century church to see where we could in improve in our “Body of Christ-ness” and this book, Pagan Christianity does this like few books dare.

This time of year we get so up in arms about people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, but the majority of Christians don’t even know why we celebrate Christmas anyway. Well, we know a good reason to celebrate it (Jesus is the Reason for the Season), but we don’t know when or how or why we began this tradition in the first place. Ditto to almost every church practice. These pagan incorporations along with classroom / seminary incorporations have tag teamed, to create a church environment that is faily unsuitable to the mission of community and neighbourly love that we were commissioned with in the first place.

I hear critics of postmodernism saying that deconstruction is bad and eventually we have to start reconstructing. This really comes from a poor understanding of what deconstruction is. It does sound like a negative or destructive venture. Until you disengage yourself from the rewards of your actions. Oh dear. Now this is really straying from my original topic of conversation. I will leave my connections between Jesus and Hinduism for another inflamatory post…

Here is an excerpt from a questionaire I filled out for my friend Tim. The questions dealt with differences and points of conflict between traditional, evangelical Christian beliefs and emerging Christian beliefs. I spoke as someone who had some emerging views and another fellow represented a more traditional stance.

What follows is part of my answer to this question:
How would you classify the predominant Christian thought that stands in contrast to the Emerging Church, as you understand it?

The idea that the Christian’s mission is to get as many people as possible to convert to Christianity by praying a prayer and/or verbally affirming (in the witness of other ’safe’ people) that they subscribe to a set of dogmatic statements so that one day when they die they will go to heaven and be with Jesus is terribly unbiblical and is the single most unhelpful cause we could possibly be a part of. The Christianity that on one hand says that Jesus only saves those who turn to him, but then will try to defend some fluffy belief that babies that die will be in heaven is absurd. It really misses the point of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus never commended anyone for having his or her doctrine right… that was the role the Pharisees wanted to play. He commended those who had an awareness and love for those around them – their enemies and friends alike. He commended those who gave away their belongings to live in balance with the rest of their community. He commended those who practiced love and the Christian ethic of intentional community before they knew anything about the fact that they were supposed to believe Jesus was the one the prophets were pointing toward.

Here is a portion of my summary statements:

Proverbs 3 sums it up. We do not worship our understanding of God… we worship God. We leave it to Him to reveal what he will reveal. We are not called ultimately to understand God and find our eternal security in our knowledge. We are certainly not called to judge the eternal souls of those who do not find the answers we have found. We are called to do justly, to give away the first of our harvests so that no one will go hungry. We are to trust above judging. We are to converse above arguing. And above all we are called to LOVE.

Feedback? Do you connect with these statements? Are there big questions that you are left with? How could I have stated things better?

Tags: emerging, emergent, christianity, god, gospel, religion, church

I’ve started working on a website for my church.
Rawdon Street Baptist Church

I’m hoping this can add to our community’s vision to reach our neighbours with love. I dream of it being a hub through the course of our week where we can refocus on our shared goals and experiences.

c/o the Tall Skinny Kiwi

Keep reforming! Continue the counter-cultural subversive movement toward the message and reign of Jesus. Babylon may be all-pervasive, but love is certainly the “greatest.”

EDIT:
Perhaps “happy” isn’t the best term to put in front of a date recalling Luther’s grief over the infiltration of earthly values in the church of his day. It might be a happy day if that one Reformation was enough. We need to grieve along side our brothers and sisters of history and continue to push ourselves to repentance. Perhaps what we need today is not merriness and pride over our past righteous acts, but fasting, prayer and reflection for our current struggles.

Thankyou, Martin. We won’t stop.

Question:
Is the main concern of the church its own expansion? Is the main concern of the church the discipleship of its members? Is the main concern of the church the protection of truth? Is the main of concern of the church to be a beacon in its community? A little bit of all? Maybe.

Where am i going? Well, that’s my question. What is our direction? Where do the currents go? Are we sucking people into the doors of the church building? Or are we pushing people out the doors to help the neibourhood surrounding us? How exactly do we benefit the needy in our community by simply getting them to come to Sunday services? Are those living in God’s blessing not there to be a blessing in turn?

“Jesus never says to the poor, ‘Come find the church,’ but he says to those of us in the church, ‘Go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned,’ Jesus in his disguises.” – Tony Campolo

Here is another possibly (not) off topic quote…

“We are trying to shout the Gospel with our lives.” – Sister Margaret

Read it here at IonWorship.org

He doesn’t update often,
He should though.
Doug Pagitt’s Podcast contains some great thoughts on faith and community. I just finished listening to the sermon/conversation about conversions of Peter and Cornelius. Do you want to be challenged? Listen hard. Think this stuff out. Wow. Who really needs the Gospel? The “wicked” pagan or the wayward and stubborn “righteous” believer?

Seriously. check it out. Let me know what you think.

Took me long enough.

Well, here is a quick rundown. I don’t think there will be many of these in the next while. Amy and I will be partnering and building relationships with a new bunch of people (church). A month from now, or so, we will begin to attend Rawdon Street Baptist Church. A much smaller community than where we currently are. Not a hip emerging community or anything like that, but a real place, with people living lives. My friend Shawn is the lead pastor at Rawdon. I really respect the guy and look forward to serving under his pastoring under Christ.

So… here we go.

I lead at our satellite (not really a satellite, much more of a church plant) in Waterford. Small church (50 or so adherants) with a big heart and which could have a massive impact in their neighbourhood with a more committed, full-time leadership team.

_________________________________

Service Order:
{WORSHIP IN SONG}
Song of the Redeemed Charlie Hall
God Is Great Hillsong

{FELLOWSHIP} (we have a break in our look forward/read your Bible/sing time to get up and talk for 15 minutes or so. INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY>>> nice!)

{WORSHIP IN SONG}
Enough Tomlin?
{OFFERING}
I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous) old hymn

{MESSAGE} (Josh spoke on Jesus’s call to discipleship rather than simply conversion>>> nice!)

{RESPONSE}
Song of the Redeemed (reprise)

_________________________________

Song of the Redeemed opened up our corporate time together. It was a new song to our community and we played it as a band to sort of introduce the theme of the morning. The theme being… us as Christ followers redeemed not because of our works or a prayer we prayed when we were 9 or whatever, but by the blood of Christ… Really, we aren’t even redeemed by choosing to be Christ followers. That is our response after recognizing the fact, isn’t it… I digress.

We played the song very uptempo and rockin’. I personally really enjoy singing that song. It really allows me to sing LOUD, which I love. And I think we did alright, considering we learned the song as a band just that morning. (Band consisting of, Marco on bass, Kurt on drums, me on guitar and vocals.)

We followed Song of the Redeemed with God Is Great… and we butchered it. I could not sing in key, I could not play the right chords and as a band we just were not together, but the people gathered still sang, because they knew the song. We had repeated it for about 3 weeks at that point. So I am glad it did not all ride on us nailing the song as a band. The song itself is just a straightforward, praise God becuase He is God sort of song. Holy is the Lord, sing it loud, sing it proud.

Next, we had our community time. No one felt like moving for the most part. Everyone just stayed in their seats and chatted quietly. That happens sometimes. On other mornings it is hard to get people back into their orderly rows of chairs and get things rolling again.

When it was time to get moving again with the “show” I just started playing a quiet finger-picked intro to Enough and everyone quickly joined in and sang along. Beautiful song. Classic.

Then Josh came up and prayed with the children and sent them on their way to kids church where they coloured two of every creature, or something.

Then as a church before Josh came to deliver his sermon we sang I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous). I took my time leading this one. We repeated verses and choruses. A wonderful hymn that everyone sings out on. That is one of the many beautiful things about this congregation. THEY SING. When they know a song, they don’t hold back. On most mornings they are way louder than our similar gathering of 250 or so people back in Brantford. I love it. We ended acappella and I prayed and Josh came and PREACHED, HARD!!! It was a convicting sermon for me anyway.

Josh concluded and prayed and left time for people to meet quietly with God and assess whether they were actively walking with their Saviour or were resting on their past decisions and prayers of conversion. During this time I began to quietly play the chords to the chorus of Song of the Redeemed Then I broke into the chorus lyrics and powerfully but slowly and invited the gathered people to join me in the confession. “We sing to You the song of the redeemed. You beautify our hearts and make us clean. You rescue us from death and set us free. We sing to You the song of the redeemed”. Then we repeated for a little while in chant together, “We are Yours, We are Yours” and let that sit and sink in. I don’t remember if I prayed at the end. I think so. I think I prayed a prayer to send us out and See for real what God would have us do as we walk hand in hand with our Saviour. To see who Jesus would like to heal and serve this week. Then we concluded our time together with Josh coming up to deliver some announcements and dismiss the church.

So that is my first Worship Confessional. I my have flew past some stuff that may have been important. I don’t know. Basically, I was trying to keep things concise. Also I was trying to stay balance as far as technical approach, spiritual and worshiping intent, and congregation involvement. So there.