Theology After Google is a whole lot of awesome. There are some incredible folks gathered together to discuss today’s theological currents. Check the schedule and follow the conversation on Twitter or on live streaming video.

Tonight I’m outside smoking a cigar and drinking cider and beer. And I’m reflecting on the decade that has lead me here.

And at the beginning of 2000 I was taking a course on Psalms at Heritage Bible College and playing on the college basketball team (2000 Champions!). I was preparing a portfolio presentation for my application to go to Sheridan College for Illustration.

Reaching further back, I had grown up in the church. I attended a Christian private elementary school from Kindergarten to Grade Eight. After highschool I spent two years at the Bible College. I cemented my faith with certainty and arguments to prove myself against the unbelievers I would surely meet in art school.

In 2001 those two planes crashed into New York. My certainty and argumentativeness rose to a fever pitch. I believed that America needed to blow up Islam in order to save Jesus. In class I debated evolution. I became a young earth sciences scholar of the first degree.

Then one of my dearest friends told me a story about a wonderful woman who had died. She loved others and treated them as she would have them treat her. Her son was devasted by the loss of his loving mother so early in her life. And my sure, certain, and rocky foundation crumbled and sifted down into sand.

I used my influence to encourage our campus Christian group to engage issues that we could invite everyone to converse about – not just other Christians. Our topics included God Hates War, What Is Love? and What Is Religion?. We invited an Iraqi ex-pat to come and tell us what was really going on in the lives of people in former-Mesopotamia. And it worked. We were able to engage with atheists and muslims on these topics without worrying about protecting our own message too tightly.

I left art college and went back home. I became clear to me how much I had moved. I no longer was living in the rocky shore of certainty where my parents lived. I was living fully in the river. After a few months living in this frustrating mixture of truth cultures I moved to Toronto to live as I felt I needed to live. Five months later I was broke and broken (the good kind of broken). I moved home again, only to find that I was no longer at home. I was an adult, and needed to move out again.

Two jobs and one cross-country-roadtrip later I found myself out of the house, working a career graphic design job and involved in a relationship that would become a marriage.

Through my job (in Christian publishing) I found things. Postmodernism, Emergence, Conversations, Brian D. McLaren, tall and skinny Kiwis, Simple Ways, and a whole community of deeply committed spiritual folk who I never could have dreamed to have existed.

I discovered a love of God that didn’t revolved around a need that every brick in my truth wall be perfectly fitted. I could engage with people that believed differently than me and not feel threatened that my faith would be fragmented, nor that my own views would necessarily unjustly impact them.

I’ve talked with these people, I’ve read more books than is healthy, and I’ve begun to find ways to live what I believe again. Not everything is as it should be, but love is there. Hope is there. The Kingdom of God is here (and to come).

And now I need to get to sleep so that I can adequately serve our church community tomorrow.

Thanks to Jon and Mindy Hirst (and Dr. Paul Heibert). This wasn’t really a review of their lovely book. And unlike their writing seems to suggest, I don’t think I’ve arrived at any sort of final destination, but I do love the progression that happens in one’s life when you make that daring dive off the rocky cliffs and swim through the river to the valley beyond. Goodnight.

(I’m seriously devastated that I have cut a decade of my life down to a few paragraphs. There is so much I wanted to say, but I also wanted you to read this. Much love.)

TransFORM: Missional Community Formation from TransFORM on Vimeo.

Missional pastors and practitioners talk about the joys and struggles of forming missional communities of practice

I LOVE this! And Stephanie Shepherd’s birthing analogy really hit where we are right now. Awesome.

ht: Mak

Today is Blog Action Day. The topic that thousands will be discussing is Climate Change. The focus of the day is on Action not simply words. So I have a very simple call to action for you. This isn’t really about Climate Change directly, however, the most direct way to deal with it is to find ways to change our daily routines. Others will do a much better job informing you of the dangers and impacts, so I will just offer a lifestyle option.

Think about distance and look for ways to reduce it.

If you are heading to the shops, remember the costs in transportation, wages, waste disposal, environmental impact and other social factors that may not be reflected in the cost of the items you are buying. Food is easiest to consider when trying to buy more locally. Head to the Farmers Market instead of the big box supermarket. Just remember that even at the Farmers Market it is a good idea to check out where and how the food is grown. Just because it is in the Market doesn’t mean it is automatically local. Form relationships with the sellers. Get to know the food growers and producers in your area.

When buying foods that are not grown locally, such as coffee, check out an organization like Ethical Coffee Chain, where transparency and connection is apparent through all the processes, from farm to grinder.

I hope you spend a little bit of time surfing some of the many contributors to Blog Action Day 2009. Let’s increase our environmental imaginations and take seriously our primary and original responsibility – to live in harmony with and take care of this incredible planet.

Oh, and because I’m a bit of a podcast geek, I transcribed a bit of what was said by Mr. Franke. The simplicity of his statement here is really important.

“A student came up to me because I had mentioned that I am an evangelical and been involved in leadership at evangelical gatherings, I’m a mainliner and been involved in leadership in the mainline church and some initiatives in the Presbyterian church, and I’m an Emergent and I’ve been involved in leadership in Emergent Village – and these things work together well for me.

The student asked, ‘How do you do that? Theologically, how do you pull that off?’

I said, ‘The truth is, it doesn’t have much to do with theology. Treat people well, treat them respectfully, care about what they’re doing, want to get to know them, be friendly and hospitable with them. What I find is that if you take that posture you are pretty welcome wherever you go – whether it is a more mainline context, whether it is a more conservative context, or with people that are trying to do some different things. And there is a part of me that says that is kind of what Jesus is calling us to do.’

Which doesn’t mean you don’t sometimes say something that challenges folks in different settings. But people are more likely to hear that more when they feel that you are respectful, that you’ve taken the time to listen and understand, and you offer your challenge in a generous way. And my experience has been that a lot of these boundaries can be crossed if we take a posture of discipleship to Jesus on the personal ways that we engage with people.

If you think that somebody is wrong and your response is to blast the hell out of them, do you think their response is more likely that they will listen to you or less likely that they will listen to you? It’s less likely. So if you want to help, why do that?”

So maybe this is closer to what Paul meant when he talked about “being all things to all people.” Maybe he didn’t mean so much that we are to be relevant or versatile or able to converse in Patoi-infused English. While helpful, all those things are really way too surface-level to be “scripture” (if ya know what I mean). Maybe he meant that we are to genuinely care about everyone. All people and all things. That we are to remember to love our neighbour before we remember to have a right theology. I believe Paul was less concerned with converting the “Gospel message” into the religious and philosophical language of the Athenians and more concerned with loving the Gospel to them. And, POOF, he got a two-for-one deal.

I dig it.

I decided to make my “Quotes” notebook public and link it over there –>

I might possibly open up my Class Notes and other notebooks as well. It seems like a great way to make my thoughts available for the community without depending on my remembering to post and upload things.

And randomized iTunes took me (probably by the leading of the Spirit or something) to part of a conversation between a couple of the “big bad wolves” of what is wrong with Emergent Village according to some folks. Doug Pagitt was relating an experience he had at an Emergent Cohort meeting to Tony Jones.

Speaking about his frustrations with some of the conversation at the cohort, Doug said, “nobody benefited from it because we ended up talking about “Emergent” as an entity rather than being these people who are part of the Emergent relationship, having conversations about things that matter. We ended up talking about Emergent and so it was like a bad version of relationship counseling where instead of letting your relationship be the dynamic in which you talk about life together and live life together, you focus all your energies of that life on defining and analyzing the relationship.”

Nailed. It.

And while that sort of self-reflection and wrestling (I hesitate to call it true deconstruction) is necessary, I think the fact that it leaves us in a temporary limbo of eating our own feet is why it makes me so agitated.

One of the main things I appreciated about this book was how comprehensive it was in only about 200 pages. They moved through philosophy, theology, ecclesiology, story, and encouragement, tying all chords together under an overarching focus on the mission of God.

Christology informs Missiology informs Ecclesiology

Moving mission from being a program within church to being that which directs how we gather is the focus shift that most needs to be understood when interacting with all things Missional.

Where are the people in your neighbourhoods? What are their passions? What are the rhythms of their life? How have our traditional conceptions of what a church needs to look like interfered with our joining of those communal rhythms? How can we reorganize ourselves to shape our church life in a way that does not conflict with and even repulse the community we are living in?

Practical example time. My buddy Tim is a pastor at a small town church. The church has come to be involved with an annual charity run which is held on a Sunday morning. The Ecclesiology to Missiology form says that we go to church on Sunday mornings and miss the charity run (Pastors especially!) We show ourselves being uninterested in the causes that are important to our surrounding community. Yet Tim went to the run to hand out water. In fact, he was sent to do just that. It is a seemingly small step, but the Mission of God that always is directed outward dictated a different sort of shape for Sunday Gatherings. For Tim, the communion table became the water he served to these runners. Missional does indeed mean that people might not show up. But that’s because they are out doing their Father’s work.

This book has been out there for a few years now, and is still one of the most highly recommended texts on opening up to the beauty that is the Missional Church. I fully recommend you read it. If you are somewhere nearby I’ll lend you my copy. It’s underlined and scribbled in like crazy, but if you don’t mind a bit of mess I would love for you to take it.

From the Facebook event page:

Join us for an event to change the face of Christianity for the coming century, as we bring together 21 of the most important voices for the future of the faith.

Presenters include Alise Barrymore, Alyce McKenzie, Carla Barnhill, Danielle Shroyer, Debbie Blue, Denise Van Eck, Diana Butler Bass, Elaine Heath, Jenell Paris, Jeanne Stevens, Julie Clawson, Kelly Bean, Lauren Winner, Lisa Domke, Makeesha Fisher, Mimi Haddad, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and more. New voices will be added for 21 days…

Ideas Include:

Concentric circles of Christian compassion
The past takes us forward
Confession: a relief from righteousness
Interspiritual/Interfaith Dialogue and Collaboration
Treating Women Jesus-Style!
Blur: The Cultural Disappearance of Dualism
The Boundary Breaking God
Jesus’ Body is Hot Again
Save Your Receipt Right Now!
Praying in Color
Your story must be told
Missional, emergent, monastic, Methodist, newday
New Tribalism
Coming Out of All Closets
A Rummage Sale Every 500 Years
HUMBITIOUS – Women & Ambition, Power, Humility
Writing saves my life
Jesus Is Not Only Anything
Theology of the open hand
The Power of Small….
Seeking justice in the everyday
Doubt is the new faith
Authority; Authenticity and A**holes

I really hope I can make it. We’ll have to see how things align.

I listened to Mars Hill’s 10th year anniversary service from their podcast today. I was in tears as Rob Bell was in tears reading a letter sent by a pastor who was let go from his church simply for listening to some of Rob’s teaching. So sad…

As you can see from my twitter feed to the left, I stumbled on some very extreme language coming from Southern Carolinian church leader Perry Noble. Perry proclaimed to one of the myriad “how to church” conferences that the Emerging Church was putting people in hell and that Missional was code for “nobody showing up”. Perry is apparently attempting to severe from the church’s body some organs and appendages that he feels are not needed.

I deleted about 15 twitter responses to Perry. Each one was an attempt to be more loving, but in the end I just figured I wasn’t the person to speak to him about this. My words will mean nothing. I’m quite positive.

Just… why, oh why can’t we see beyond our ideologies and work together.

In Perry’s own words, “a movement of God is messy”. YES YES YES! IT IS!

So how comfortable will we be with the mess that is not our own? How loving and understanding will we be? Tonight I don’t feel very enthusiastic about our chances of improving our respect for each other’s messes.

I’m tired and on the verge of over-reactive, so I’m just going to leave it there.

They forgot a crucial one… The backrow blogger/twitterer

Tags: evolvingchurch, amidst the powers, conference

“Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.”

Henri J. Nouwen, “Listening as Spiritual Hospitality.” In Bread for the Journey

Tags: listening, quotes, nouwen

Quite the day. I really don’t have very many words for it yet. Unfortunately many did… And, you know, it’s not that all those jabberers were necessarily saying things I didn’t agree with. It was just the verbal diarrhea that comes with such a cornerstone event in our history. I understand the wanting to put your mark on it (not so unlike a dog) but often the timing just plain sucked.

I wish I had searched harder for a viewing location that resisted the temptation to provided blathering commentators between every speech, prayer and song; and along every step of the Inaugural Parade route. I just got comment overload.

So today I thought I might try to cover some of that commentary with a selection of voices that I would much rather have had in my head yesterday. There is no shortage of opinion out there, but here are three people who say things that really settle in my joints as real, honest and prayerful.

Julie Clawson – Hope

C. Wess Daniels – Witnessing History

Erika Haub – My Country, My Lifetime

Technorati Tags: 2009, inauguration, obama

Tags: emerging, emergent, pagitt, jones, tickle, hitler, humor

I don’t really want to delve into a full review of the book right now. I just have two questions that have been bothering my since my reading.

1. Is emergence really primarily a question about epistemology?

2. Does Carson really think that anyone who would suggest an atonement model other than or in place of penal substitution is a heretic?

Sheesh!

Tags: emergent, emerging, postmodern, carson, greer, bolger, gibbs, atonement, epistemology, philosophy

As long as Pete continues to publish I will continue to need to find gainful employment in order to purchase what he produces. There just might be no one else in out there currently writing that I would stop everything to sit and read. (Not) and Fidelity are books that I have promised myself to read once a year for the next little while. There is only one other book on that list currently.

From Pete’s website:

For so many the Christian faith is viewed as little more than a drug that enables the weak to escape reality. An opiate that helps its users to avoid facing the injustice of the world and making a stand against it. In short, the Christian faith is perceived to be a counter-revolutionary ideology that keeps people passive, infantile and ineffectual.

In contrast Rollins has created a series of parables that shatter this popular perception. Parables that demonstrate how radical faith has never been concerned with escaping the world we inhabit but rather with engaging in it more fully. That genuine Christian faith has never capitulated to injustice but rather fought against it at every turn.

Tags: philosophy, parable, theology, peter rollins, emergent, postmodern, reading, metaphor, faith

Tags: church, emergent, emerging

What if I were to say that I yearn for this poverty? We must fight against poverty that is not simple. We should strive for poverty that is simple.

Perhaps embracing a poverty of simplicity is the answer to ending systemic poverty. My frustrations all circle around the issue of my affluence. I’m rich enough to be a magnet that attacts all kinds of garbage.

Richard Foster says, “Experiencing the inward reality [of simplicity] liberates us outwardly. Speech becomes truthful and honest. The lust for status and position is gone because we no longer need status and position. We cease from showy extravagance not on the grounds of being unable to afford it, but on the grounds of principle. Our goods become available to others.“ ¹

Jubilee, Redistribution, Ending Your Affluence, Simplicity, Freedom.

(This is an addendum to my previous post for Blog Action Day. I just could not end with simply complaining about my lacking. Now I’m going somewhere!)

Tags: poverty, simplicity, blog action day, affluence, jubilee