Thoughts

I was hit with the biggest of contradictions today. For all the wonderful initiatives being carried out to promote a sustainable future for North America there is still a large chunk of the population that really hasn’t paid attention. And most of us who are trying to live lives that are in some way ecologically-minded often find ourselves making the occasional decision that goes against our larger goals. I’m certainly not one to judge anyone at all. My consumptions habits range from decent and moderate to excessive and wasteful, all in one afternoon.

But today I was really struck by a disparity. I was sitting, eating lunch in a local diner (not a chain) and reading Tom Sine’s book The New Conspirators (a very important book, fully recommended). I was in the chapter talking about ways to live sustainably and locally when I over heard a conversation at the next table.

Just as I was beginning to pledge allegiance to the colour green I heard a couple of ladies discussing their plans for a shopping trip to Buffalo, NY – roughly 3 hours from our present location. Cross border shopping is very common in Ontario, especially with the American dollar in the state it is in. So the women were discussing the best route to take to hit all all the great bargains. The one thing they were really keen on was the thing that really struck me… A foaming coconut soap from some big American box store. Now, once again, I am not judging these people at all, I am equally guilty. If anything their conversation opened up to thinking honestly about my own addictions to all things exotic and trendy, such as certain European crafted beers and spirits. Just think about it, traveling three hours by car, to Buffalo – to another country – to get soap scented with milk from the tropical coconut; the ingredients for which probably came from 3 or 4 different countries, almost all of them tropical.

Is the pressure we place on our natural world and infrastructure really worth saving a few dollars on coconut soap?

Tags: green, environment, local, dollar, consumption, habit, border, tom sine, new conspirators

This dirty laundry needs some airing out.

This week Out of Ur blog hosted a bit of a discussion between reviewer Chad Hall and authors Mark Driscoll and Tony Jones. Chad reviewed the books of both men and then posted responses from Mark and Tony.

The whole concept was bad from the beginning. Pit two authors and their books against each other to see which one is more like Jesus. Baptize one at the expense of the other. Call one humble and the other Egotistical. Label them as insignificant or impotent or trendy. It’s a replay of a tired and aging Right and Left (aka, Right and Wrong) political drama that doesn’t really exist unless we need it to. There is no matchup between emergents and new reformers unless you want there to be one. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would want such a fight, although I too am weak and am easily persuaded to believe in these lines.

Predictably, the match-up lured out the proponents of both factions, myself included. Folks rallied behind their superstar and accused the other of lacking humility and Christ-like-ness. Trenches were dug even deeper and viewpoints were caustically hurled through the virtual air.

I really appreciated the responses by the Tony and Mark. Yes, even Mark. (I don’t say that to say that Mark is less capable of graciousness, but to expose my own bias). Dare I say that Jesus just might have gained the upper hand here. Tony was true to his character as he brazenly defended his friends in the Emergent sphere while not personally attacking Chad. I’ve had the opportunity to meet Tony and I was struck by his clear desire to build relationships but not with sugary words or the right Christian idioms. There was much grace in his biting responses.

I also really appreciated the response by Mark. He was gracious and humble even as he tried to convince us that Chad labeling him as humble was a mistake. Folks are trying to claim that Mark is “turning over a new leaf” as of late with a less caustic attitude. And maybe he is. I hope so. And I hope that as such a thing emerges that those of us who have been offended by Mark in the past (with good reason) will be able to forgive. Such forgiveness will always move us in a good direction. I say that in a small voice because I am far from being one who has been hurt most by his words. I’m not calling on anyone to make any such move of forgiveness, but hoping that it can be a future reality.

I may not agree with Mark’s theology as much as I agree with Tony’s, but I will always agree with grace. Following Jesus is ultimately about giving off a fruity aroma and not about falling in line with a doctrinal team.

Tags: christianity, jesus, jones, driscoll, emergent, emerging, reform

Brant is a genius. If you haven’t read his thoughts, go there first and then come back.

I want to take his connection one step further. Brant says, “If you view this as the typical eco-sermon, you didn’t really watch the movie.” His interpretation of Wall-E as being about sexuality, companionship and procreation from a pro-life perspective is absolutely on point. But I wonder if there is another connection here that we are intended to draw, and one that I believe we NEED to draw.

For some reason, in our society we are largely told that one side of the debate cares about protecting the earth while the other side of the debate cares about protecting life; and somehow we are supposed to believe that these are incompatible. The fear is something along the lines of - if you affirm the other side’s position then you are compromising your own.

Wall-E gives us another landscape all together. Care for the earth is a Pro-Life position.

And, hug.

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Oh, one other thing. I think the film also speaks about the stuff we are made of. We need to be creative. Our first directive is to care for God’s creation. Similar to  Jesus stating that if we fail to worship the rocks will cry out … if we fail to take care of the earth the robots will cry out? or something. When the opportunity to recapture that creative, garden tending impulse arrives the ship captain will overcome any obstacle to make sure we take hold of it.

And, hug, again.

Tags: wall-e, movie, pro-life, earth, eco, politics, religion, creation, jesus

An extended quote from the truly prophetic (think call for repentance, not fortune telling) book by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw:

Today the logic goes something like this: “Calling a ruler ‘Son of God’ is out of style. No one really does that nowadays. We can support a president while also worshiping Jesus as the Son of God.” But how is this possible? For one says that we must love our enemies, and the other says we must kill them; one promotes the economics of competition, while the other admonishes the forgiveness of debts. To which do we pledge allegiance? Surely, one of them must have the wrong idea of how to move history. Can a servant serve two masters? To say that we must kill our enemies and join the popular project to “rid the world of evil” is to call Jesus unrealistic. And that is possibly desirable for many; surely his ideas do not resonate with any common wisdom. But can you call Jesus the Son of God and say, “He just doesn’t understand the world today”? How ironic is it to see a bumper sticker that says “Jesus is the answer” next to a bumper sticker supporting the war in Iraq, as if to say “Jesus is the answer – but not in the real world.” Remember, Jesus’ followers were burned alive, beheaded, or fed to lions. They knew evil and the “real world.” They would meet it face to face. If there was anyone who tried to deal with evildoers and terrorists, it was certainly first-century Christians.

When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God. After all, what is the point in calling anything God if it does not also hold sway in every part of one’s life – especially one’s politics? (Haw/Claiborne, p.166)

Instead of worshiping flags and rulers and constitutions let’s start putting our hand over our heart in salute when we ask for forgiveness or when we say “thank you” to the provider (think sunshine, not Costco) for our daily bread. Maybe the act of saluting our creator will stop us in our tracks when we start to worship any other master.

Tags: politics, jesus, shane claiborne, chris haw, jesus for president, books, iraq, war

(Where does that phrase come from?)

Also, I’ve been thinking and have decided to head somewhere else. I’ve got to figure it out the details still, but I’ll let you know as we get closer.

Are you brimming with anticipation? No? Well, I don’t really care, because I am!

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

Check with me in a few days. We’ll see if I really believe myself here or not…

I thought I might post some of my reflections so far from my reading of the various posts on missional. My intent here is not to generalize or dismiss anything that I disagree with, nor to fully endorse anywhere I might find myself agreeing. This is an exercise in sorting. Doing consciously what our brains are doing subconsciously at all times.

Do More

I need to address what I think is a grave error. We have missed a step. The worthy opinion is that to be missional is to get off your ass more often. By all means, YES, but that isn’t the road to a more healthy worldview or community. The ingenuity and servant movement of many of those who are living missionally is very much in tune with what it is to be a follower of Jesus. Faith has to be lived out, but the wonderful thing about the concept of missional is that we can stop believing that it is up to us to run the course while God cheers us on from the bleachers. Missional isn’t just action, it is action with, resulting from, in response to, in the wake of, in the footprints of, in the arms of our missioning God.

I recognize that we need this kick in the pants because of our tendency to, more often than not, go the opposite way. But missional focus reminds us that ultimately it is our God who moves. With a spirit of watching the movement of God we can truly rest. Sabbath will cease to create anxiety because of our inaction.

As I mentioned in my last post, we have not simply been set loose by God to complete a task that has been laid out for us. Instead we are called into participation with Him as He recreates and renews creation. While our feet will be quickened to respond to his call when we truly live into this relationship, it is not our duty to march on and do what we believe God wants done.

More so, our duty is to notice. Notice the things that God is doing in our lives and the lives of our neighbors. When we really begin to notice what is going on we will see better the actions that are called for. Love notices, then responds. Love listens and then, perhaps, answers.

I fear that too often we believe that just because we have read a few books, including the Bible, that it is our job to be the Avengers; that by our actions the world will be a better place. This idealism is something I battle against in my own life and it never seems to work out all that well in history.

Let’s be less quick to just do it, and quicker to listen. Perhaps that posture of prayer and waiting is also a part of a missional life. Then, having regained our proper footing, we will be more ready to leap into action.

To everyone who has posted about our need to get out and do, know that I am not disagreeing with that at all, I just wanted to add one more spice to that recipe.

I’m probably going to post a few more reflections over the next couple days.

Tags: missional, missional synchroblog, prayer, gospel

I had a quick follow-up thought after putting up my Missional post last night. The thing that I find invigorating about a missional Christianity is that there is only one mission.

God’s mission is our mission.

Let me explain:

In the modern paradigm there seem to be two things going on.

One: There is God’s mission, which was to send Jesus into the world to die for our sins and then to prepare a heavenly home for us post-resurrection.

Two: There is our mission, which is to tell people about what God accomplished and will accomplish (note the past and future emphasis with nothing to say about today)

In a missional Christianity God’s mission is very much different. Yes it includes the sending of Jesus, the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. But those events are embedded in the thing that God has been doing all along. The past, present, and future work of the reintegration of all of creation with the purposes of God. In a missional Christianity we are called to be full participants in the work of this God on a mission. A God who most often has shown himself to us as He who is active and involved in His creation.

One mission. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Tags: missional, mission, creation, god, jesus, missioning

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

This diagram by Len Hjalmarson has done a lot of great things for my brain.

Len says, “Each brings their own renewal dynamic to the broader church, and I’m convinced that the convergence zone is where some of the most creative experiments will occur.” I too believe in the convergent zones being the places where the really good stuff happens. And from my own experience, this convergence is inevitable (as I pray all healthy happenings should be).

Len’s doodle reminds me of a whirlpool, or one of those big funnels in the mall where you can roll a coin down into the center. When you enter one of these three worlds (Missional, Emergent, Monastic) you get pulled into the others. In my experience, the more excited I became about the movements and ideas circling within Emergent thought, the further I was pulled into the ideas proposed by the Monastic and Missional movements. I find myself swirling around from one to the other and being pulled toward the inside of the funnel where I am more and more influenced by all three simultaneously. Relationships in one sphere lead to relatioships in the others. There is no sense of having to pick one camp over and above the others. In this way the center is not a crushing place that squeezes all things into one thing, but a broad place where more depth and variety of experiences just seems so much closer and accessible. The closer you get to the center there is more energy and more movement. Life seems to flow even more vigorously.

The center is really a non-center. In my experience it has been like the classic idea of a blackhole that opens up into another world on the other end. There has been a lot of spinning and confusion and joy and sadness and question and answer and question and in the midst of it all a broad horizon is becoming visible. An environment that is experienced and felt, and yet is far off. Allow me to indulge in some quick and dirty photoshopping…

The disappearance of the previously contentious issues is so refreshing – another thing that Len hits on. Gone are the squabbles over musical choice, emotional faith or intellectual faith, dispensational gifting, sheep stealing, or denominational representation. These sorts of squabbles seem to have been left on the other side of the squeeze. The further we all travel into our future, the more these things fade into the past. No doubt there are other issues arising that our children will distance themselves from in time. That’s just humanity. But maybe our journey down the slippery slope will provide a better vantage point for our future to deal with these emerging issues.

“We’re in a racketball court here. Knock the thing around!”

– Doug Pagitt

(love it)

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.

Reading The Fidelity of Betrayal on a dripping Saturday afternoon. I’m now into Part Two and his exploration of the Name of G–D through ancient mythologies such as Lilith, Isis, and then the Moses narrative. Reading Part One where Rollins explores how a faithful reading of the text of the Bible may involve our betrayal of the words we find has already lead to some fascinating and rich discussions with friends. I’ll leave you with a passage from Part One while I continue on myself.

“The words of the Bible, wonderful as they often are, must not be allowed to stand in for God’s majestic Word, as if the words and phrases have been conferred with some sacred status and the phonetic patterns given divine power. Rather, the Word of God can be described as that dark core around which the words of the text find their orbit, the unspeakable Source within the text that cannot be reduced to the words themselves but that breathes life into them.” (Rollins, p. 57)

I had a nice present arrive in the mail late last week – the latest album by the supreme dream team, The Cobalt Season. Fragile Iconoclast has been a steady road companion for me this weekend. Three hour drive up and down from the cottage was sound-tracked by this and Ryan’s prior album, But I Tell You. They held up quite well to the pine trees, lakes, and rocky outcroppings of the Haliburton highlands. I’m very appreciative of music that welcomes the imagery of journey. Especially when that is context within an actual journey through such stunning and wild scenery.

I’m not alone among my friends when it comes to a conscious reconsidering of my surety in religion and God as previously understood. Fragile Iconoclast provided some great points of discussion and a hopeful way forward in our conversations on what it is to worship in the place that we are. Such depth and devotion has been found in the searching and unsteady steps of life. I’ve been very appreciative of the artistry of Ryan and Holly and company in this season of un/faith.

I really did not intend to see the world this way. When I was a teen I knew so much more about the way God works. Seriously, all my questions were answered. The Baptist way was the way of God through the millennia. No doubts. I did not intend this to change. If I stumbled upon myself then as I am now I would have instantly judged me to be outside of God. I’m so thankful that God has pulled me outside. I hope that 10 years from now I am still in a place that 10 years previous I did not intend.

We often interpret child-like faith to mean simple and unspoiled – pure and singular of focus. But maybe a more truly child-like faith is the openness to being held in an infinitely uncertain place. A place absent of our knowing and a place of being deeply known, as a mother whose voice is an unknowable comfort to her infant.

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?

All of us, every day of our lives, are influenced by a certain set of outside works. This list evolves continually. As we change and are changed by our surrounding canon we adopt new strands and discard older strands. There is an interesting interplay here between what is adopted as we grow to need a new canon and the influence that our canon has on our need to change its very self. It’s an odd chicken/egg thing.

Here are the texts that are creating me today. The rules for creating the life canon were found here via Trip Fuller of number 6. (no particular order). I added one thing to the setup – formative community. I just wanted to get away from the thingness of the list. Not that the authors and artists mentioned here are things, but my interactions with material output of individuals does not fully comprise my life canon, as I see it.

1. The Cobalt Season, But I Tell You (music)
2. Intuitive Leadership, Tim Keel (book)
3. Preaching Reimagined, Doug Pagitt (book)
4. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Brian Eno and David Byrne (music)
5. Twitter
6. Homebrewed Christianity Podcast
7. missioning.ning.com (community)
8. Juno (Film)
9. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, Ed. Pagitt and Jones (book)
10. Rawdon Street Baptist Church (community)

So what is your life canon?

Spirituality may seem like shallow waters to many religious and devoted Christians, but those who are finding freedom to explore these new pools of spirituality find a deep place with bottoms still unseen.

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.

Why bother telling a story if you can sum it up with simple moral?

Tags: art

***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

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.

——————————————————————
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

I’ve been browsing around GapingVoid today, thinking about Hugh’s concept of emerging marketing being driven by the Social Object. Here is a great quote by Seth Godin about emerging marketing:

“You make what my friend Hugh MacLeod calls “social objects”—things that people want to talk about. That’s what the iPhone is. People say the iPhone was superhyped, but Apple didn’t hype it. People hyped it to each other. The challenge is not “How do I spend $50 million on advertising?” The challenge is “How do I spend $50 million on product development, so I can make a product people will talk about?”

The premise here is, in a hopeless quest for relevancy, many companies believe that if they digitize their products they will find new market shares and be validated to continue to make the same product they have always made. Money is poured into new marketing streams, but renovations to the product itself do not receive similar funding. The goodness and usefulness of the product is seen as timeless once it has been validated using one marketing method. Seth Godin again:

“First, companies have to decide: Either they’re in or they’re out. You either make meatballs, or you’re part of this new regime. But if you only want to use the regime to just sell more [meatballs], you’re going to fail. Gillette invented the safety razor on the back of two things: a really good factory and aggressive mass marketing. And they’re really good at it. The question is: Why do we think Gillette deserves to succeed in this new medium? My answer is: They don’t. There’s nothing about what Gillette does that makes them worthy of conversations online, that makes their ads in Google clickable, that makes you want to visit their website.”

The church is struggling with the same tension. Certainly, almost eveyone has recognized that the forms and structures are changing and need to change, but we have been very slow to pick up on the fact that these changes are actually compelled by a need for a reinterpretation of the Gospel itself. Otherwise we end up looking just as silly as Gillette.

The Gospel was a compelling social object in Jesus day. It was Good News to everyone. It drew crowds. It breathed hope into a people that had been demoralized by empire. It wasn’t the relevancy of the packaging that drew people.

The Gospel is a compelling social object in our day. It is not a timeless truth that simply needs to be given a new slogan every decade. It is a fully incarnated, integrated reality, necessarily different in every way, every day, but never diminishing in goodness through each incarnation.

Tags: Gospel, Marketing, Social Object, Seth Godin, Gapingvoid, emergent, emerging

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

I can understand folks being annoyed at people calling this an American Empire when it really isn’t intended to be. But does not the actions of the American Republic negate the ideals by which it is named? It may be called a Democratic Republic and there may be bits of this entwined in the structures, but surely the worldwide footprint of American movements tell a very different story.

Tags: imperialism, foreign policy, america, iraq, war

Ever have a thought that you thought was your thought but then you read or hear someone else thinking that thought and you realize that there are very few good thoughts that are held by just one person? Yesterday morning I was pondering the difference between being a friend and just being friendly. Really it is the difference between truly loving and simply tolerating.

So, I was thinking this thought and then Amy and I walked in to a bookstore to find some reading material for the second leg of the vacation. I purchased the Emergent Manifesto of Hope and, lo and behold, in the very first pages the authors used the same exact phrasing to explain the atmosphere of friendship and mutual affection that is the very blood of emerging Christianity.

And I want to go so far as to say that it is not just a perceived or desired position, but it is the very real posture. It is the thing that allows the Baptists and the Episcopalians and the Anabaptists and the Wesleyans to all claim their place in this emerging Christianity. We want this posture of friendship. In our own lives and in those with whom we interact. And when we find it it is infectious!

A couple days before we had the opportunity to share a meal with Doug Pagitt. His own posture of friendship probably spurred me on to the thoughts that I would later learn had actually been penned by the very fellow that inspired them in me. This was a conversation that has truly inspired me to carry on conversations with my local neighbors and co-conspirators. I have an further-increasing excitement about where we are headed as friends in Ontario.

I am more convinced than ever that we are moving in a very worthy direction. A Holy direction.

How do you keep your mind focused on your job when you are going to be going away on vacation in a week? I don’t remember having this much trouble before the wedding and honeymoon. Difference being that I was ridiculously busy then. I was working 14 hour days for two weeks before the wedding. Now I’ve barely got enough to keep my going for six hours each day.

Anyway, coming up this week:

1. I’m finally going to blog a review of Tim Keel’s Intuitive Leadership. (Absolutely fantastic book!) I’m almost done this. I was hoping to have it posted on Friday, but life is more important. Today was a great day of hanging out with the family, Easter weekend style. Probable ETA of blog post is Sunday night.
2. On Tuesday we will be missioning… (more on that later)
3. The Christian Trade Mission logo will be done this week as well.
4. Dang, that’s about it…. my mind is already in Florida.

To end, here is one more quote from Intuitive Leadership. (so good!)

“Theology is always the by-product of an implicit or explicit dialogue that churches (personally and communally) are having with the tradition from which they arise and the living culture in which they reside.”

There is an amazing tool out there called the Instant Message (IM). What follows is an IM conversation distilled into an essay and a dialogue. The colors define which side of the conversation the ideas emerge from. When the conversation is lumped together into paragraphs it is because we are forming a cohesive thought through our individual voices. Contradictions will almost certainly live within the same paragraphs, but they will be less frequent. When disagreements emerge the form changes into more a distinctive dialog/IM style. Ideas will flow in and out of the writing and meanings will shift. Disagreement and Agreement flow in and out of each other. In essence I am trying to capture some great ideas, but more importantly the nuance and beauty of conversation…
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The Kingdom of God and Jesus’ work of atonement on the cross… Are they separate? Do they accomplish different things? Is one superior to the other?

I think they go hand in hand. You can’t get in to the Kingdom without the work on the cross, and the work on the cross finds it’s meaning within the context of the Kingdom. It seems, in the context of “the kingdom of God is among you”, that there is a slightly different emphasis on the meaning of the cross… and resurrection. I’m not so sure the main point is saving from sins they way we usually think of it. Perhaps it is a way in to what God has been doing since the beginning of time – introducing the Kingdom.

And that creates another question. Does the kingdom exist outside the church or Christianity as a whole, or is Christianity the boundary of the kingdom? If it does exist on the outside, what does it mean for the cross to be the entrance?

Perhaps it depends on how you define Christianity. Is it what we know… or what it was intended to be… and are those the same thing? Now, I don’t really think they are the same thing in a “for all time” sense, but we really can only work with what we live in… what we know. And that brings us back to the original question. If the kingdom really is defined by the work on the cross, and the cross can only be understood in the context of the kingdom, then what came first? The work of Jesus on the cross must find its fullest meaning in the kingdom, but is the kingdom entirely held up in the cross? Held up in the sense that the cross only has something to say about the defeat of sin or fixing our fallen-ness.

Partially, I think the cross is about restoration. About restoring us to the Kingdom. But I also feel that leaves a lot out. I mean, it’s just that there is a whole lot of Bible in between the “fall” and the “restoration”, and then there has been a lot after it too.

Let me sum up: Jesus life and ministry was a Perfect example of living in the kingdom of God. By necessity this example was contrary to the system of the roman rule and the Jewish religious system. Both groups saw this difference and had to try to end Jesus’ influence to keep their kingdoms in place. Jesus died at the hands of those kingdoms. BUT, that wasn’t the end. As Paul says, we preach Christ both crucified and RISEN. The risen Savior shows that there is ultimately a victory in the Kingdom of God.

FRIEND TWO: Right, but all of that fits in to the framework of Fall and Restoration. They are the bookends of the bible. And, everything, I think.

FRIEND ONE: Well, the beginning is people trying to sort out how we got ourselves in the messes we are in.

FRIEND TWO: Right… because we have fallen away from God.

FRIEND ONE: And the end was hope to those Christians living in the horrid conditions of Roman Empire.

FRIEND TWO: But I think that extends to us as well…we live in horrid conditions that are far from God’s kingdom, or what it is supposed to be. We have a taste – a hope – of things to come… ala Romans 8… â€?All creation groans.â€? It knows things are screwed up – we know things are screwed up. The cross gives us a way to be restored. The resurrection gives us hope of this restoration.

Kingdom restoration has been God’s plan all along. Kingdom living was God’s plan before “originalâ€? sin (whatever that means). And the cross is our hope. It’s a way back to the kingdom, to how things should be. But our hope is not just the cross. Jesus’ whole life and ministry is the gospel of the kingdom – the hope of restoration.

FRIEND TWO: The cross is a means to that end

FRIEND ONE: Wasn’t his life also the means?

FRIEND TWO: It was the example of what the kingdom really is. The cross makes it possible for us to enter in to it.

FRIEND ONE: That’s where I get hung up

FRIEND TWO: Hung up on the cross, eh?

FRIEND ONE: I don’t know. There is a bit of incongruence.

FRIEND TWO: What is incongruent?

What is incongruent is the idea that the cross is the way. Jesus never said that. Jesus said, “I am the way.� HE brought the good news of the kingdom with him. HE made a way for us to be restored.

… to be continued.

“Our organizations have tended to value control, stability, and the ability to quickly resolve tension with a solution. However, one of the dominant currencies of creativity is tension – the ability to hold seemingly opposing forces in dynamic relationship without privileging one at the expense of the other or too quickly resolving it. New life is messy and doesn’t always fit neatly into preexisting categories . . .

“. . . Creativity values tension because it creates possibility.”

Tim Keel, Intuitive Leadership, 200-201

Often we jump to answers before we have even asked the questions. We live in the assumption that until we have so