MY GOD,

Thou hast helped me to see,
that whatever good be in honour and
rejoicing, how good is he who gives them,
and can withdraw them;
that blessedness does not lie so much
in receiving good from and in thee,
but in holding forth thy glory and virtue;
that it is an amazing thing to see Deity
in a creature, speaking, acting,
filling, shining through it;
that nothing is good but thee,
that I am near good when I am near thee,
that to be like thee is a glorious thing:
This is my magnet, my attraction.

Thou art all my good in times of peace,
my only support in days of trouble,
my one sufficiency when life shall end.
Help me to see how good thy will is in all,
and even when it crosses mine
teach me to be pleased with it.
Grant me to feel thee in fire, and food and every providence,
and to see that thy many gifts and creatures
are but thy hands and fingers taking hold of me.
Thou bottomless fountain of all good,
I give myself to thee out of love,
for all I have or own is thine,
my goods, family, church, self,
to do with as thou wilt,
to honour thyself by me, and by all mine.
If it be consistent with thy eternal counsels,
the purpose of thy grace,
and the great ends of thy glory,
then bestow upon me the blessings of thy comforts
If not, let me resign myself to
thy wiser determinations.

From The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions

The church read this together today. Such a powerful statement of our
receiving and giving all to God: from Good, to Good, for Good. This, I
think is maybe what folks really mean when they assure you that “It’s
all good.”

Tags: prayer, thanks, good, blessing, puritan

“A missional ecclesiology challenges the church to be intentional about its unique social potential. Congregations should reflect the full social mix of the communities they serve, if they are truly contextual. In like manner, denominations as larger communions of congregations should seek to reflect the broad social reality of the North American population. Taking this approach will require substantial changes on the part of many congregations and most denominations. But it is in taking such an approach that congregations and denominations with rediscover what it means that the church is ’sent’ into a particular context. If the North American church is to regain a public voice for the gospel, it must address this issue.”

Tags: missional, church, context, multicultural, ecclesiology, emerging

In my dreams about our future local church community I continually return to the vision of a multi-cultural church. When in Grand Rapids a few weeks ago I was conversing with a local pastor, boasting about the wonders of living on the doorstep of a place like Toronto, where the world is present in a very real sense. While I expressed to him the incredible beauty inherent in such a rich tapestry I also had to confess the deep sadness I have for the place. I passionately love the diversity of Toronto and its surrounding communities, but my heart aches for the deep divisions between cultural communities. It isn’t so much a division of animosity or dislike – although I’m sure there does exist a certain mistrust and fear – but they are more-so divisions of convenience. Folks tend to stick to their own and remain disconnected and unconcerned with what goes on in the communities surrounding them. This apathy and tolerance breaks my heart.

Cultural tolerance is a huge step up from racial cleansing and war, but I am so tired of being content to trade an evil for a lesser one. I believe Jesus when he says that the Kingdom is here. Every day I long for a larger bit of the “not yet” to appear before us. In Toronto that bit of the “not yet” includes a truly Mosaic community.

So, to my friends that are engaged in this church-planting with me and to all that find themselves in these diverse yet self-segregating places, I pray we can grab hold of this dream together. It needs to be intentional. DJ Chuang said it well: “It doesn’t happen by accident. If it just “naturally” happens (i.e. without intentionality), we’d see a lot more diversified church, wouldn’t we.”

Finding Connections

Reading Tom Sine’s fantastic book, The New Conspirators, I was greatly encouraged by the pictures of Mosaic church communities around the US and elsewhere. I’m wondering if anyone knows of an example of such places in the Greater Toronto Area? I would love to connect, learn and dream with folks that are moving in a similar direction.

Tags: mosaic, multicultural, toronto, church, kingdom,

– Hauerwas & Willimon, Resident Aliens, p. 161

We camped a couple nights at a local campground and spent most of Sunday touring the revitalizing downtown core. Revitalized though it may be, it was the most eerily quiet downtown I have ever been in. On many of its red cobblestone streets we were the only car – or people for that matter – about. We also ducked into the Grand Rapids Zoo for a couple hours. Zoos in the middle of a city are fairly odd. I’m not sure what else to say on that at the moment so I’ll leave it.

In the evening we trotted on over to Fellowship Covenant Church for the Roadshow. Blazing (see below). The three fellas really brought it, and the crowd fully caught the revival spirit. There have been reports of people who have misinterpreted the 1908 Revivalist schtick as mockery, but I’m not sure anyone who came out that night left with that impression. I’m fairly convinced that if you expected to find mockery and are determined that that is what it was then you will hold to that conviction. Otherwise, you will see it for what it really is. A wonderfully whimsical and poetic homage to an era that was being as faithful to the gospel in its day as we are trying to be in ours. (again, see below)

John Frye, pastor at Fellowship and his partner in crime, Jeremy Bouma were fantastic hosts to everyone that came that night. Also, we are incredibly thankful for the generosity and hospitality of Randy and Kathy Buist who are part of the Water’s Edge community. Randy invited us over for breakfast on the Monday morning and we had only met them the previous night. We ended up talking with Randy, Kathy and Wendy Eason around the breakfast table until around noon. As we drove back to Canada that day both Mike and I were quite high on the beautiful emerging picture of a church community that really cares for each other. All the theologizing in the world can’t compare to the Church being the Church, caring for and conversing with each other. So amazing!

So, back to Brother Duke, Professor A. B. Hawthorne and Preacher Withee. These three grandest of gentlemen and their “great grandsons” are here to tell you about a man they called Truth. His other name is Jesus. And they are calling all y’all to join in a healing and restoring, sanctifying and rectifying, purifying and death-defying good news message we call the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But don’t take my word for it. Emergent Village has posted a recording of the Church Basement Roadshow in its entirety as filmed in Birmingham, Alabama. So stand up, get your healing balm of Gilead in hand, give it a Whoop and Pushhhh, and get ready for a Rollin’ Gospel Revival!

Church Basement Roadshow from Steve Knight on Vimeo.

Tags: emergent, grand rapids, church basement roadshow

Anyway, today I was listening to an old Emergent Village podcast from December 2006 that was hosted by Melvin Bray. (Incidentally, why isn’t Melvin doing more podcasts for Emergent Village? And what is with the lack of podcasts lately? Surely there isn’t an absence of possibilities for content. Sorry, no more erratic questions.)

Back to the podcast… Melvin spoke of looking forward to 2007 as the year of “Justice.” No doubt that was largely the story. Prophets such as Brian McLaren and Shane Claiborne as well as many others, both contemporary and historical, liberal and conservative, led us artfully and with wisdom into a revitalized World Christianity that took seriously the question of stewardship and justice. In the larger global neighborhood both inside and outside the Christian church people turned their attentions to the need for a greater compassion.

This discussion has only just begun, and in many places our churches are only beginning to realize the greater significance and calling. Throughout a myriad of contexts the church really is emerging from her interior programs and ministries to see a world literally starving around her. I’m fairly certain I heard that there is an Emergent Manifesto of Justice being published sometime next year. (Does anyone know of a list of contributors to the project?) This rally surely must continue.

Coming around to the reason for this posting…
What are the conversations that you see being sparked around you as we are now into the second half of 2008.

What are the questions you foresee being asked in the coming year?

What will be emerging at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century?

What will emergent phenomena will we see in the year 2010? What will be the world’s questions a decade on from 9/11? Am I getting too far ahead of ourselves now?

May we never lose our sensitivity to the anxieties and questions of that which is other to ourselves.

Tags: future, emergent, emerging, justice, brian mclaren, shane claiborne, melvin bray, 2009, podcast

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.

—————————————
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…

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.

“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

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

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?

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,

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

Tags: emergent, emerging, trucker frank, tony jones

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

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

Troy Bronsink, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, 67