Following Jesus into the Culture

I'm currently making my way through An An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones. This volume contains a number of divergent voices from what is known as the "Emergent Church;" a rising tide of individuals who seem extremely serious about the missio Dei "mission of God." For this reason in addition to others I consider myself among their number.

One compelling voice is that of Ryan Bolger assistant professor of church in contemporary culture in the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. In addition to writing Chapter 11 of this volume, he teamed with Eddie Gibbs">in Emerging Churches: Creating Community in Postmodern Cultures

Chapter 11 is titled Following Jesus into Culture: Emerging Church as Social Movement. In this chapter Bolger describes one of the movements of the Reign of God as a communal movement.

He states that:

"Every activity Jesus performed he did in a sociopolitical context.Jesus could have simply sought to transform society at the macrolevel, but instead he created a microsociety to transform culture. This 24/7 community addressed all of life. As a new type of family, they practiced alternative politics, economics, and social structure. The Sermon on the Mount served as their founding charter

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He goes on to suggest that churches involved within the kingdom of God are to embody the message of the good news by learning how to serve, how to forgive, how to love, and how to open up our homes.

When the church stresses the microlevel rather than the macrolevel there truly is a different way to be and live. It calls forth expressions of a living organism that now embodies that for which too long and too often has been proclaimed verbally. We who follow Jesus, as never before have the opportunity to express an entirely different way of life, rather than conforming to either the secular culture or that of Christendom were able to authentically enter into our neighborhoods up close and personal, loving people for Jesus' sake.

Maunday Thursday

Today is Maunday Thursday on the Liturgical Church calendar. A part of Passion Week that has been somewhat ignored by much of the Western Church in recent times. This morning at a meeting I attend the first Thursday of each month my friend Dennis Fuqua reminded us of the significance of Maundy Thursday. He shared that word Maundy comes from the Latin word from which we get our English word mandate. This is the day when we are reminded of and seek to make fresh the new mandate or commandment Jesus gave His followers in the upper room discourse.

John 13:34-35: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

We need to be reminded that this is a command that needs our attention, not just during Passion Week, but through out the rest of the year. May we embody it in a way that "the world might know." Thank you Dennis for the reminder.

The People Formerly Known as The Congregation

Bill Kinnon on his blog wrote the following and I thought it was worthy of our attention -- so I pass it on. Personally this speaks forthrightly to some of the issues that make the Body of Christ out of joint at times.

Let me introduce you to The People formerly known as The Congregation. There are millions of us.

We are people - flesh and blood - image bearers of the Creator - eikons, if you will. We are not numbers.

We are the eikons who once sat in the uncomfortable pews or plush theatre seating of your preaching venues. We sat passively while you proof-texted your way through 3, 4, 5 or no point sermons - attempting to tell us how you and your reading of The Bible had a plan for our lives. Perhaps God does have a plan for us - it just doesn't seem to jive with yours.

Money was a great concern. And, for a moment, we believed you when you told us God would reward us for our tithes - or curse us if we didn't. The Law is just so much easier to preach than Grace. My goodness, if you told us that the 1st century church held everything in common - you might be accused of being a socialist - and of course, capitalism is a direct gift from God. Please further note: Malachi 3 is speaking to the priests of Israel. They weren't the cheerful givers God speaks of loving.

We grew weary from your Edifice Complex pathologies - building projects more important than the people in your neighbourhood...or in your pews. It wasn't God telling you to "enlarge the place of your tent" - it was your ego. And, by the way, a multi-million dollar, state of the art building is hardly a tent.

We no longer buy your call to be "fastest growing" church in wherever. That is your need. You want a bigger audience. We won't be part of one.

Our ears are still ringing from the volume, but...Jesus is not our boyfriend - and we will no longer sing your silly love songs that suggest He is. Happy clappy tunes bear no witness to the reality of the world we live in, the powers and principalities we confront, or are worthy of the one we proclaim King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

You offered us a myriad of programs to join - volunteer positions to assuage our desire to be connected. We could be greeters, parking lot attendants, coffee baristas, book store helpers, children's ministry workers, media ministry drones - whatever you needed to fulfill your dreams of corporate glory. Perhaps you've noticed, we aren't there anymore.

We are The People formerly known as The Congregation. We have not stopped loving the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor do we avoid "the assembling of the saints." We just don't assemble under your supposed leadership. We meet in coffee shops, around dinner tables, in the parks and on the streets. We connect virtually across space and time - engaged in generative conversations - teaching and being taught.

We live amongst our neighbours, in their homes and they in ours. We laugh and cry and really live - without the need to have you teach us how - by reading your ridiculous books or listening to your supercilious CDs or podcasts.

We don't deny Paul's description of APEPT leadership - Ephesians 4:11. We just see it in the light of Jesus' teaching in Mark 10 and Matthew 20 - servant leadership. We truly long for the release of servant leading men and women into our gifts as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. We believe in Peter's words that describe us all as priests. Not just some, not just one gender.

We are The People formerly known as The Congregation. We do not hate you. Though some of us bear the wounds you have inflicted. Many of you are our brothers and our sisters, misguided by the systems you inhabit, intoxicated by the power - yet still members of our family. (Though some are truly wolves in sheep's clothing.)

And, as The People formerly known as The Congregation, we invite you to join us on this great adventure. To boldly go where the Spirit leads us. To marvel at what the Father is doing in the communities where He has placed us. To live the love that Jesus shows us.

A Unique Kind of Conference

I attended a conference March 23-25th in Los Angeles, California which was something of an anomaly. Let me take a few moments and give you a heads up – because it is one of the best I’ve had the privilege of participating in.

The conference is titled “Wineskins” and occurs twice a year; once in the spring and again in the fall. It is sponsored by The Church of the Servant King who reside in the Gardena area of LA in intentional community. They have faithfully and missionally incarnated the good news of Jesus in this area for nearly thirty years.

The only similarity this conference has with others I’ve attended is that they invite someone from the outside to be the main speaker. This Wineskins, the speaker was Lee C. Camp, professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, and author of Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World. (A book I would highly recommend to anyone serious about their faith).

The Conference begins on Friday at 6:00 p.m. and ends around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. Here are some features of Wineskins that make it unique as a conference. 1) They ask that all participants commit to being present for the entire conference. If for some reason an individual is unable or unwilling to make that commitment they are encouraged not to attend. 2) Wineskins limits attendance to 44 people. 3) Spouses are encouraged to pack separately because they will not be rooming together. They have men rooming with other men and women rooming with other women. Even the speaker rooms with others. These three things are done in order to achieve the objectives of koinonia and dialogue amongst the participants. Another unique feature is that the speaker does not receive an honorarium, but his travel and other expenses are covered. The desire is that the speaker is attending more out of a calling or mission than just for monetary reasons.

The speaker is allowed to share on anything he/she chooses. The only criteria for subject matter, is that it challenge and cause the participants to think and ask questions; both on individual and corporate levels.

At the outset, each person is assigned a small group with three others. These groups meet regularly; about 8 or 9 times during the conference to answer pre-scripted questions for the purpose of getting to know one another. Groups are also encouraged to discuss the subject matter the speaker presents at the teaching sessions. And they go to lunch together once during the conference. The small groups, in addition to small number of people in attendance seemed to facilitate “koinonia” at an extremely high level.

As one who has attended multiple church conferences, it was amazing to observe and experience the high degree of participation when a conference is limited to just 44 people. Each person was able to be fully engaged throughout the conference even when time restraints became an issue.

I left the Wineskins knowing I had experienced connection with most of those attending as well as the speaker. And in the process of connecting I learned not only new things, but made new friends who shared in the experience with me. I felt I had experienced something of koinonia as opposed to another big event. Rather than leaving thinking; “been there, done that,” I left thinking, “I’d like to do that again.”

What is Missional?

There are many things being said and written about what it is to be missional as a church both individually and corporately. I'm currently reading Dan Kimball's new book They Like Jesus But Not the Church, which I find extremely refreshing -- particularly from his perspective as a pastor of a larger congregation. On page 20 he writes the following regarding the question, "what is Missional?"

He begins by stating that "to be missional is more than just to evangelize." And offers the following in ways of thinking concerning this term..

• Being missional means that the church sees itself as being missionaries, rather than having a missions department, and that we see ourselves as missionaries right where we live.
• Being missional means that we see ourselves as representatives of Jesus "sent" into our communities, and that the church aligns everything it does with the missio dei (mission of God).
• Being missional means we see the church not as a place we go only on Sunday, but as something we are throughout the week.
• Being missional means that we understand we don't "bring Jesus" to people but that we realize Jesus is active in culture and we join him in what he is doing.
• Being missional means we are very much in the world and engaged in culture but are not conforming to the world.
• Being missional means we serve our communities, and that we build relationships with the people in them, rather than seeing them as evangelistic targets.
• Being missional means being all the more dependent on Jesus and the Spirit through prayer, the Scriptures, and each other in community.

Much of the above thoughts we've discussed earlier, but to have listed together helps our overall perspective. This is not an exhaustive list for sure, and maybe you might want to add to this list. Feel free to add to and make comments as we dialogue together in what it is for us to be a "missional" people.

The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch, Brazos Press: 2006

The Forgotten Ways was birthed in the trenches of the author’s own experience as a church planter and denominational leader. In the throws of ministry he was confronted with questions concerning the early church in regard its overall growth and expansion. How did as few as 25,000 adherents in AD 100 go to as high as 20,000,000 by AD 300? This led him to ask the same questions regarding the Church in China from 1950 till the mid 1980s; from 2 million adherents to 60 – 80 million.

Delving into this dilemma the author discovered what he calls Apostolic Genius or mDNA (the built-in life force and guiding mechanism of God’s people) and the living components or elements that comprise it. The general assumption in this book is that just as the human body carries its genetic code within a DNA strand so God’s people carry within themselves the same potencies that energized the early church and are currently manifest in the underground Chinese church. The problem is that we have simply forgotten how access and trigger it.

As Howard Snyder has said, “Hirsch’s analysis is on target historically, biblically and theologically,” as he describes and clarifies in practitioner language the Apostolic Genius in contemporary context. For those who are serious about being a part of a church planting movement in the 21^st Century this book should be considered a must read.

In the back of the book the reader will find an addendum and glossary extremely helpful in clarifying both current terminology and practice regarding the missional paradigm we find ourselves in. For some this volume will offend, but for most it should be a refreshing wind propelling us forward in these emergent times.

My Life Lessons as I turn 60

Today November 23, 2006 I awoke to the reality that I was sixty years of age. Turning sixty seems somewhat strange and surreal; with a tinge of significance. I recall a time when trusting anyone over thirty was not cool and now at 30 x 2, is just plain weird. Because of this monumental milestone there is something within that compels me with mixed emotions to take assessment or inventory of life itself; my life to be specific.

Celebrating a birthday on Thanksgiving is nothing new, every seven years this has been my experience. But that my “60th” birthday is Thanksgiving Day 2006 has something of economic or ecological dimension. So here goes a fallible attempt to at least place in written form some lessons I’ve learned over the course of my life, considering them worthy of mention to those closest to my heart.

Lesson One - Life is Not Fair.

The first lesson is that life is not fair. I didn’t really understand this one until later in life. But by observation over several years I noticed that we humans spend a great deal of time consumed trying to make life equitable for ourselves and those around us. If you think about it, most of the tension we face in life is our futile attempt to make things fair; first for ourselves and then if we have any energy left, fair for those around us. I’ve noticed that most (not all) of life’s conflicts spring from this very tension. The thing we refuse to accept is the reality that life is not fair. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. People die young and prematurely. They are diagnosed with cancer having never smoked. Thousands of innocent children are abandoned and orphaned on a daily basis, and people treat us rudely after showing them kindness. And list goes on.

The truth of matter is that God never intended life to be fair. If fairness was God’s intention, He wouldn’t allow the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. If life were fair, Jesus would not have had to go to the cross and die for our sins. But He did, and one result from this huge unfairness is the blessing of living in the midst of an unfair world. The good thing is that we possess spiritual potential (because of Him) to live in this place of tension; a place of simultaneity, of being in the world and yet not a part of it. We are able to be in the midst of it all and yet above it all at the same time. Although most of the time it feels nothing like that.

One thing that provides me hope is the reminder from Scripture that one day God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. In other words, God will one day make everything fair and just, and make all the wrongs right. (Ecclesiastes 12:14)

Lesson Two - Everything in Life Occurs in the Context of Relationship. And the most valuable relationships rarely occur on your terms –

I wish I had known this truth long ago, for much of life my relational skills have been skewed by the culture I was fashioned in. Everything really does happen in the context of relationship, and it’s usually in relationship with other people, although it can be with places and things.

To help us understand this truth it helps to understand that God’s number one agenda item is reconciliation. This is the reason Jesus came to earth was to provide a way for us to be reconciled to God through his death on a cross, his burial and resurrection and have a relationship with Him. Because Christ is our peace, he has broken down all the dividing walls that we erect that separate and divide us from one another.

It is in this context of relationship that we learn what it means to be a Christ-follower, because 90% of what God teaches us occurs in relationship to and with people. We learn from God what it means to love Him, by loving others. The Apostle John said; “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” The same thing goes for all the other disciplines we are encouraged to practice such as serving and encouraging one another.

Our skewed culture says, relationship happens with people who are like us. Those individuals who act, think, and even dress like us. And oh yes, those who agree with us and those we choose because they fit within our perimeters of comfort. But life has taught me that the most valuable relationships are with people who are not like me and I might not like and would probably not pick as friends for the very reasons listed above. And in most cases are people I didn’t choose. Sometimes they are chosen for me through circumstances, situations, crisis, and the crucibles of life. I’ve learned that people who significantly impact me are those who are unlike me culturally, socially, racially and theologically. Their impact comes in ways that add richness to my life.

Lesson Three - It is better to Be Kind than Right.

I have come to a season where I’m quite bored with Christian apologists who claim to possess the right doctrine. With all due respect to evolutionists and intelligent designers- your arguments are incredibly uninteresting and boring and do not have much to do with the beauty of God or the mystery of life. The perception of being right probably provides an important sense of security to those of us who have become uncomfortable with the discontinuity of life but it also makes many of us proud, arrogant and mean spirited.

Jesus was an artist and poet who happened to be a scientist among other things. This is how I make sense of life and one reason I follow Jesus. He was right but that isn’t what made him so incredible and difficult to ignore. His kindness is what made him interesting, attractive and surprising. It is time for those of us who say we follow him ought to focus on becoming like him, particularly in this area of kindness.

A long time ago, I quit being surprised by how often I fail at being kind. It usually occurs in the process of making myself seem right in my own eyes and those of others. Reflecting back on life, I now grieve concerning the multitude of occasions I was unkind to others; and to those who hold the place of significance in my heart – specifically my wife, children and grandchildren. I agree with the words of Abraham Heschel (a Holocaust Survivor); “When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.” And Albert Schweitzer who said; “Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.” I sincerely want to be that kind of person.

Paul speaking to the Romans asked this question “…..do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? (2:4 NIV) This verse suggests that when I withhold kindness from another I demonstrate my contempt for the richness of God kindness that I’ve personally experienced. Too often my experience with someone who disagrees with me is to dismiss them as “less than” and move on with little consideration toward being kind. Unfortunately, the result is an outward manifestation of my own arrogance and insensitivity to God’s kindness both in my life and that of one I disagree with.

Lesson Four – Humility is the Path of Real Life

Every time God does a work of significance in our heart or takes us to a deeper relational level with him, he always places us on a path of humility. Humility is an essential attitude for success in one’s spiritual life. Any self-centeredness, whether nurtured by intelligence, wealth, position, or the praise of others, is an obstacle on the path. Genuine humility is not posturing. It requires a constant willing-ness to deny oneself, an openness to call ourselves into question, and to welcome Heaven's guidance even when it differs from one's own preconceived ideas.

Lesson Five - Gratitude is the Attitude of Humility

Officiating at numerous funerals has forced me to face my mortality. This is a good thing, because I’m accustomed to taking experiences and blessings of life for granted. I’m not saying I have completely stopped doing this, but I’m more appreciative for each new day that God grants and for special gifts like friends and family. I’ve discovered or better put realized how rich I am in both family and friends. And I want to give voice to this renewed understanding of coming to terms with living in a realm of blessing; with a multitude of great, good, faithful, and inspiring friends. Thank you Lord!!!

Gratitude is a mark humility. It is the recognition that One greater than myself is responsible for the benefits and blessings you experience. Without the recognition of His great love, mercy and provision, we will always be less than we could have been.

I’m most grateful and proud of is my family – which I feel personally I had little to do with. The person most responsible for our family is your mother and grandmother – I refer to her as my “Annie.” For nearly 40 years she has been the “wind beneath my sails.” For her, many times it’s been cold in my shadow as she has been content to let me shine. And any shining I’ve been able to do, is due completely to her willingness to sacrifice herself for her family – which she does on a moment by moment basis. I’ve been able to fly only to the extent that she is the wind beneath my sails. I have come to the place of realizing that I would have a difficult time functioning to any degree whatsoever without her. Though she may not realize it, she is at least 75% of who I am. God really knew what he was doing when he brought us together. Unfortunately it took me years to catch on. Annie, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the Lord for the special person you are how He has blessed our family with your presence. All of us: Andrea, Jimmy & Karen, Jason & Charlet, and Joy & Matt are thankful for you more than we can express.

Lesson Six - Family is Everything

Family is a great instructor in all the things God wants to teach us in our life time. Over the years I have reflected with sincere gratitude concerning the children God has blessed me with. Each one of them is unique and wonderful gifts from His hand. I love you all!!

In 2 Corinthians 5:15 says: “those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” I have no other choice as a Christ-follower. Indepted to Jesus Christ I live for him, as my consuming passion and the driving life force. This requires that I die to my own desires daily by crucifying the continuous urge that measures every action and decision around what is best for me.

Since this is the kind of life I have chosen, the life of the Spirit, I need make sure that I do not just hold it (the Scriptures) as good ideas in my head or as sentiment in my heart, but work out its implications in every detail of my life. In so doing my desire to live passionately for my Lord, loving more, giving more, and showing kindness to those in my world.