Covenant Thinklings

Afganistan strategy and Generations

2010-06-27T05:32:00.000-07:00

I read an informative and level-headed article about the firing of General McChristal, and what the Rolling Stone article reveals about our military and counter-insurgency strategy.

What the McChrystal flap is about

David Kaiser is an historian who writes extensively about generational theory using Strauss and Howe's theory from their book

Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069

I have recently been re-reading parts of Generations and finding some helpful insights into the current generation of national leadership as well as my son's rising millennial generation.

Thanks, Everyone--We're Taking a Break

2010-05-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

We seem to have discussed everything about which we had something to say, so we're going to take a break/go on hiatus. Thanks to everyone who has contributed. Check back from time to time and see if something new is sprouting here...

WWJT?

2010-05-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

In a blog piece about the National Day of Prayer controversy, Mark Roberts opens the question, “what would Jesus think?” about the National Day of Prayer. Would he approve of the government bringing prayer into the public square? Or would he say “my kingdom is not of this world?”

My purpose in this post is not so much to talk about the National Day of Prayer, but to talk about how we interpret the life and teachings of Jesus for contemporary public issues. Below is a portion of Robert’s comments about WWJT (What would Jesus think?)

You can access the original blog article at

MARK D. ROBERTS

[Roberts] “You name the issue and Jesus is brought forth to endorse it . . . or to denounce it . . . or both at the same time. So Jesus is pro-life and pro-choice, a Democrat and a Republican, a free market capitalist and a big government socialist, a supporter of traditional marriage and an advocate for same-sex marriage (or even a gay man). Though I haven't bothered to look for it, I'm quite sure a few minutes of Internet browsing would lead to a website that uses Jesus to say about church and state the opposite of what Jon Meacham believes Jesus would say…

…If you've studied biblical interpretation, you know that I have vastly over-simplified the process of trying to understand ancient texts and the characters within them. But just about all credible scholars, no matter their personal theological convictions, would agree that a faithful appraisal of a person from the past requires seeing that person in the context of his or her history, culture, and language.”

So ... WWJT about immigration? Health care reform? National security and war in Iraq and Afganistan? More importantly, how do we go about translating his teachings (such as the Sermon on the Mount for example) into contemporary policy?

Why is it So Hard to Get Christians to Focus Outward?

2010-04-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, it isn't, at least for some/many Christians. And we have to make clear what is meant be "focusing outward" and how that gets assessed. So let's do that.

What do you think "focusing outward" means/looks like? Where you observe Christians having difficulty in "focusing outward," what observations would you make about them (us)--the kind of people, ethnic group, age, other demographic, church type, etc.? And conversely, where you see good examples of outward-focusing Christians (regardless of the "size" of what they're doing), what do you see serving, motivating, sustaining that outward focusing?

Creative ideas for connecting with people in the real world

2010-04-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

Let's change gears and talk a little about how to connect with people outside of church services.

here is a recent post from JESUSCREED ... do you like this idea and do you have any other creative ideas for getting out of the church box?

..........................

I am a pastor and had spent nearly a decade in our community pastoring a
congregation full-time and doing what churches normally do related to outreach and the like. I became acutely aware that I didn't know the folks in our small (about 1,000) neighborhood/community. Eventually frustration grew to a tipping point (the Jesus Creed helped with that) and we decided to do a really crazy thing, we opened a pizzeria. The whole idea behind doing this was to get to know our neighbors. We got a lot more than we bargained for.

My wife and I and our four kids jumped in with all 12 feet. We knew more people in our small town after six months of making pizza, than we did in 10-years of pastoring the church; we've been at it three and a half years now. We're just serving them and being kind -- it was the sole purpose of the venture, to just be with the people in our community that we can't seem to get to.

On the Emmaus Road

2010-04-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

One of the "best known" of Jesus' resurrection appearances is described in Luke 24:13-35. Take some time to settle into the account and then share what you find. What caught your attention? What questions were raised--and what questions do you think the account is answering? What does it mean for us today? You might be familiar with some artistic interpretations (song, painting, etc.) of this story; if so, please let us know about them!

I Doubt It...?

2010-04-06T10:08:00.001-07:00

"Doubting Thomas" makes his annual appearance at about this time every year. Thomas is famous, or infamous for his "Unless." When told by the other disciples that they had seen Jesus, alive again and in the flesh, Thomas replied, "Unless I see his hands and put my hands on the nail prints, unless I place my hand into his side (where the spear went in), I will not believe."

So ought Thomas be honored as the patron saint of our modern, rationalistic-scientific world? Is doubt intrinsically an enemy of faith, or is it possible for doubt to be the friend of faith? We're familiar with having doubts about aspects of faith; is there ever a place to have doubts about our doubts?

Witnesses to the Resurrection

2010-03-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

The first church was, to put it mildly, galvanized by what happened on the Sunday following Jesus' death. As the apostles put it shortly after Pentecost, they understood themselves called to be "witnesses to his resurrection." They understood this to include their bearing witness to an event in history... but there seems to be more to it than that.

What might it look like for us to live as witnesses to his resurrection? Are we seeking to communicate merely what happened two thousand years ago, or are we called to witness to what that event means today, in our here-and-now.. and its implications for our future there-and-then? The poet Wendell Berry has a great line in one of his poems ("The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front Manifesto"): "Practice resurrection." What do you think that "practicing resurrection" might, or could, mean for you and for us all?

"Forgive? Are you kidding me?"

2010-03-13T14:29:00.000-08:00

Jesus tells a vexing little parable about a farmer who sows good seed in his field... then, at night, an enemy comes and sows weeds. Upon realizing what has happened--wheat and weeds now growing together, side by side!--the farmer's servants ask, "You want us to go pull up the weeds, right?" Puzzlingly, the farmer replies, "No, because you'll uproot the wheat along with the weeds. Let both grow until the harvest..." (Matthew 13)

The Greek word for "let" (allow, permit, or "suffer" as in the King James' "suffer the children to come unto me") has the same root as "forgive"; it's the same Greek word in the Lord's Prayer, "forgive us... as we have forgiven." Can Jesus possibly be saying that our response to the presence of evil (weeds) in the world is to "simply forgive" it? Isn't that a stupid approach for a farmer with weeds in his field and for all of us who live in a world dogged by evil? Do we skip into situations of bloody conflict and say, "Hey, everybody--you're forgiven! You can put down your guns--it's all OK!" After all, in every garden we know, the weeds always win, unless the farmer takes "strong measures" to combat them!

There may be connections with an earlier post about hope...

AVATAR

2010-03-08T07:50:00.000-08:00

Hi guys,

Ed suggested a month or so ago that we talk about movies sometime. Lets talk about Avatar. All of my young friends LOVED it… I though the special visual effects were spectacular but the story line was ho-hum (Dances with Wolves remixed).

My friend Ray Ciervo critiqued the pantheistic theology behind AVATAR.

rayciervo.com/reviews

Several movie critics strongly disagreed about the movie,

Critics argue

Tell us what you thought? What is the message? What is the philosophical or theological worldview? Did you like it? Are views of the AVATAR influenced by generational issues?

Finding Our Way in an Indifferent World

2010-02-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

How does hope "work," how does it happen? How/where can we find strength to recover, to be resilient, when our hopes--for good relationships, for good work, for internal healing/peace, for a sense that our lives matter, that they can go somewhere good--just seem to keep getting squashed? The "world" around us doesn't seem to offer much support ("dog eat dog" and all that), and "the universe" certainly doesn't give a flyin' flip about us... Nothing, no one, appears to be able to stick together (in good ways), so now what? How can we overcome our own pessimism and remain hopeful?

LUST!!!

2010-02-18T06:28:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that the Jesus warns us against interior lust as well as exterior actions of sin.

It also seems that God has given us a natural born sexual attraction to the opposite sex (at least in 97% of the cases).

Here is a question for discussion: What is lust? And how do we know the difference between lust and normal sexual feelings? Is there a difference? Is it always wrong to notice and appreciate the attractiveness of others? Or just when it includes lust? Should we feel guilty everytime we notice an attractive man or woman? Where do we draw the line?

SEX!!!

2010-02-08T05:37:00.000-08:00

Now that I have your attention... Let's start with this: what is sex for?

I think it's fair to observe that we livie in a culture that tells us that sexual expression and fulfillment are necessary condition of both personal identity and of a full and complete life: I cannot be fully and truly who am I without the freedom to express my sexuality in whatever ways seem best to me (as long as there is no harm or coercion involved). Whether we want to talk about marriage, hook-up culture, friends-with-privileges, affirmation of and support for GLBTTQQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning) neighbors, pornography, masturbation, and wherever else we might want to go, issues (and questions) around sexuality are at the core of the conversation. So: what is sex for? The amazing pleasure it can bring to me and my partner, or partners? As the ultimate expression of love and commitment--or are love and commitment no longer a necessary part of our various sexual equations? Is my sexuality a purely private matter, or does what I do in my bedroom (or wherever!) have any impact on my neighbors? And what do I do when I'm so horny I just can't stand it?

♫ Oh when the saints--go marching in ...♫

2010-02-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

I would visit regularly and participate actively if we could discuss _______.

2010-02-03T14:13:00.000-08:00

"And there was silence in heaven for about half an hour" (Revelation 8). Seriously, what's on your minds? What are the questions, topics, issues that are currently most engaging to you?

The Sower and the Seed

2010-01-30T17:19:00.001-08:00

Capon Sower

Capon, p. 26-27 - Trusting Jesus

2010-01-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

Continuing our discussion on Capon, I am embeding pages 26 and 27 here. Comments?

Capon 26

The Kingdom in Parables

2010-01-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

Joseph got me thinking about Robert F. Capon's The Parables of the Kingdom. I'd read it many years ago, but got it off my shelf and have started to revisit it. So, over the next coupla posts, I'd like to offer for your comments and reflections a paragraph/passage from Capon. Here's the first, from the first chapter "A Word About Parables":

"In the Bible, as a matter of fact, God does so many ungodly things--like not remembering our sins, erasing the quite correct handwriting against us, and becoming sin for us--that the only safe course [for studying the Bible] is to come to Scripture with as few stipulations as possible. God used his own style manual, not ours, in the promulgation of his Word.
"Openness, therefore, is the major requirement for approaching the Scriptures. And nowhere in the Bible is an un-made-up mind more called for than when reading the parables of Jesus. Indeed, if I were forced to give a short answer to the question 'What is the Bible as a whole about?' I think I would ignore all the subjects mentioned so far [it's about God, Morality, Religion, Spirituality, Salvation] and base my reply squarely on those parables. If they have a single subject at all, it is quite plainly the kingdom of God.. I would say that the Bible is about the mystery of the kingdom--a mystery that, by definition, is something well hidden and not at all likely to be grasped by plausibility-loving minds" (5).

humor

2010-01-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

ok, getting kinda quiet in here. While we continue pondering the value of listening to those we desire to serve, go check out some of the new humor I have posted on my humor blog

kickbutthumor

I continue posting funny stuff (at least for me) and very occasionally Billy Long posts one of his gems. If you have any good material, send it along to me. It is amazing the power that good humor has for healing and restoration.

speaking of which, did you hear about the old Calvinist who fell down the steps? After he got up and dusted himself off, he said "I'm glad that is over with."

On Listening

2010-01-13T12:40:00.000-08:00

I'm also in the middle of Greg Mortenson's Stones Into Schools, which is the follow-up to his first book Three Cups of Tea. I recommend both highly! Permit me to provide some background before posing a question.

Mortenson, after a failed attempt at K2, the world's second tallest peak, became separated from his climbing partners and somehow managed to wander, half-dead, into the tiny Pakistani village of Korphe. While recovering, he noticed that the children of the village had no school building or supplies, and what little learning went on, went on outside. Partly in gratitude for their hospitality, and partly out of a desire to help, he pledged to build them a school building. Incredibly, despite unbelievable obstacles, he succeeded--and these efforts have grown into the Central Asian Institute, which has now built over 150 schools throughout rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

What has really captured my attention is the way that Mortenson, a thoroughly "non-professional", has learned to listen to the people he seeks to serve. He is clear in his mission--to build school buildings, especially for girls, throughout Pak and Afg; no school is built unless the local elders guarantee that girls will be welcomed--but has also learned to ask questions and really listen to the answers people give.

End of introduction. The question/s: what have you learned from asking/listening to people whom you desire to see come to be followers of Jesus? What have you learned about how they see themselves, their circumstances, and "spiritual things"?

Back to natural law for a minute...

2010-01-12T06:52:00.001-08:00

I've been doing some more reading in natural law, specifically J. Budziszewski's Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (IVP, 1997), which is a helpful primer on the topic. Here's my question: because Protestants have tended to see human reason as being thoroughly distorted, defaced and degraded by the Fall, has that caused them/us to be less able than our Catholic brethren to engage with neighbors on issues of public policy and the common good? Doesn't the concept of a natural law--that there are things that we simply can't not know--serve as a helpful way of finding common ground with our neighbors on public issues?

The Gift of Friendship

2010-01-07T05:32:00.000-08:00

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. It is a bond stronger than sexual union can create, deeper than a shared fate can solidify, and even more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly. Blessed are those who lay down their lives for their friends. (from Henri Nouwen)

Will 'Get What You Want' Leave A Cultural Gap?

2009-12-29T11:29:00.001-08:00

Hi guys, lets talk a little about culture. Fragmented hyper-modern culture.

I heard the following story on NPR this morning about the loss of a cultural commonality using the contrast between Seinfeld in 1994 and American Idol in 2009. I thought it was a fascinating idea of increasingly fragmented, hyper-individualism. What do you think?

Will 'Get What You Want' Leave A Cultural Gap?
by Laura Sydell
December 29, 2009

Get what you want, when you want it. That's the phrase that has dominated the entertainment industry over the past decade. New technologies have given us access to countless channels for music, television and film — and we can sample them whenever we find it convenient. But as the options multiply, are we losing our sense of a common culture? …

… "In history, as far as we can tell, there have never been cultures or societies in which there weren't a very large set of shared ideas — norms, values, stories" and so on, says Nass. "We've just never seen that before."

As the monoculture fragments, social-media platforms and other wired and unwired communities are creating new kinds of connections — connections that are building bridges between people in ways that watching Seinfeld never could. But Nass says they're not likely to be the kinds of connections that will hold a nation together.

5 min. Audio version

Immanuel

2009-12-24T14:11:00.001-08:00

God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man (C.S. Lewis)

The mystery of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding (Martin Luther)

Infinite, and yet an infant. Eternal, and yet born of a woman. Almighty, and yet hanging on a woman’s breast. Supporting a universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother’s arms. King of angels, and yet the reputed son of Joseph. Heir of all things, and yet the carpenter’s despised son. (Spurgeon)

Isaiah 7:14 (Amplified Bible)
14Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the young woman who is unmarried and a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God with us]

John 1:14 (New International Version)
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,[a] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Thoughts? Comments? I am more and more awed and impressed by the miracle and significance of the incarnation of God in Christ. Merry Christmas to all!

Thomas Aquinas and Christian realism

2009-12-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

I found this Scot McKnight’s web site:

Jesuscreed

“Why study Thomas Aquinas? By almost everyone's admission Aquinas was the most important philosopher for almost 2,000 years between Aristotle and Descartes. But Peter Kreeft of Boston College has another answer: 'My personal answer is that I believe Aquinas was simply the wisest and most intelligent philosopher in history. And I want to show you why.'

In 14 CD's just released (2009), Peter Kreeft introduces listeners to the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas
Peter Kreeft introduces listeners to the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas

The CD's and accompanying Course Guide appears in a prestigeous series called "The Modern Scholar: Great Professors Teaching you!" by Recorded Books. Your local library likely has this series so its free to the public.

Some of Kreeft's lecture topics are: "Aquinas's Importance and a Short Biography," "Philosophy and Theology, Reason and Faith", "Can You Prove God's Existence?", "The Case Against Aquinas's God and Proofs" "Aquinas's Cosmology: Creation, providence and Free Will," "Aquinas's Metaphysics" and other enticing subjects.”

………………………………..

(Joseph) My personal favorite ‘believing’ philosophers of the twentieth century are French Catholics who drank deeply from the wells of St. Thomas and Aristotle: Jacques Maritain who authored Intregal Humanism in 1936 and Emmanuel Mounier, the author of the Personalist Manifesto in 1938. Both Maritain and Mounier had a huge influence in the Catholic student movements of the 1950s in the Caribbean and South America.

What do you know about Thomism? How might it provide a philosophical framework for believers in a postmodern age? I have invited Ray Ciervo to comment on this. He is more familiar with Thomism than most of us.

Are you saved? - an Orthodox Christian answer

2009-12-02T21:55:00.000-08:00

Voice for Sanity

2009-11-29T06:07:00.000-08:00

Interesting perspective on the 'meltdown' of pentecostal-charismatic Christianity ...

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/november/33.42.html

'A Voice for Sanity'

This article gets the fire going in my bones ... we are presently in the early stages of a huge housecleaning of religous nonsense and 'Christian' narcisism ... was it Stokley Carmichael who said "burn baby burn" ?

StrengthsFinders 2.0

2009-11-28T05:09:00.000-08:00

While we are pondering what to say about God’s presence and anxiety (see below), let me mention a new tool for discovering the strengths of our personalities.

Deb and I are part of a couples group that include two former church planters, one current church planter/pastor, a prison chaplain and a retired pastor who is the regional overseer for the Dutch Reformed Church (eclectic group!). The group also includes a model, a former airline stewardess, a children’s book author, a psychoanalyst, a jazz pianist and a PhD student (that last would be me--it is a fun group).

The interesting thing about this group is that it was not started by the men but by our wives, with Dr. Sam’s wife Jane taking the lead. This means that rather than being task or agenda oriented, the group is much more relational with a focus on community.

Anyway, someone recently suggested that we take a personality profile test and mentioned “Strengthsfinders 2.0” by Tom Rath.

There is a web site associated with the book, and each new book contains a sealed access code which allows you to go to the web site and take a strengths profile to find what your five top “themes” are out of a total of 34 themes. Such things as Achiever, Activator, Adaptability, Analytical, Arranger, Belief, Command, Communication, Connectedness, Consistency, Context, Deliberative, Developer, Discipline, Empathy, Focus, Futuristic, Harmony, Ideation, Includer, Individualization, Input, Intellection, Learner, Maximizer, Positivity, Relator, Responsibility, Restorative, Self-Assurance, Significance, Strategic, etc.

It took me about 30 minutes to take the profile and I was amazed how accurately it nailed my personality.

Here is the home page:

strengthsfinder.com

Anyone who knows us care to take a wild guess at which characteristics were in my top five, or Debbie’s top five?

On becoming a God-defined, non-anxious presence

2009-11-23T04:28:00.000-08:00

Robert Grant shared this phrase with us during his recent visit here. The phrase is not original with Robert; I believe it comes from his work with coaching/mentoring and leadership development, but perhaps he can speak to that more specifically. In any event, I have found it packed with layers of meaning. What would I be like if I were becoming increasingly a God-defined, non-anxious presence? What would the life and work of the church look like? How do I move from my "current reality" towards the kind of future reality that is God-defined, non-anxious, and fully present, to God and to the people I happen to be with?

So please weigh in on this. What does "God-defined" do for you, or where does it take you? Any connections to make between anxiety levels and what is defining you? We're not hunting for some kind of "right answer," but want to see what kinds of conversations this phrase kicks up for us.

Deep Church IV: Worship

2009-11-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

Belcher writes that, when it comes to their understanding and practice of worship:

"... the emerging and traditional churches have the same Achilles heel--a faulty view of tradition. Both are committed to the same low-church view of church tradition ["no book but the Bible, no creed but Christ"]. This has locked them into a model of worship that is dated and severely influenced by the Enlightenment. They are handcuffed by a style of worship contextualized during the Reformation that no longer connects with postmodern people. The goal is not to simply contextualize or become more like the surrounding culture, but to first adopt church tradition that would give them the resources to connect with the culture without becoming syncretistic.

"Even though the emerging church's views allows them to adopt some ancient practices, this is done in a way that is cut off from the Great Tradition that birthed them. It is as if the emerging churches want the fruit but not the roots from which it came. So in their attempt to be culturally relevant (which they are doing very well), their traditions are not strong enough, I fear, to resist being absorbed by the surrounding culture" (p. 133).

Remember that, in the above quote, Belcher is critiquing both traditional and emerging worship. What do you think of his analysis, and, more broadly... what do you think about the "art and science" of worship?

Deep Church III: Belonging and Believing

2009-11-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

Traditionalist churches tend to emphasize believing before belonging, and use doctrinal agreement as a gatekeeper to identify who's "in" and who is "not yet in" (also known in some circles as "out"). Emerging churches tend to emphasize "belonging before believing," partly for missional reasons (postmodern folk need to experience the reality of a community before they can embrace membership in it) and partly because they feel that this approach tracks more closely with what we see in the NT. Belcher describes an interesting situation in his own church. In the following quote, he refers to Joe, an openly gay man who has been attending Belcher's church regularly for two or three years:

So simply declaring that belonging precedes belief is not always helpful. What should I say to Joe tomorrow when he asks about membership? Can he officially join the church even if he can't subscribe to our four basic requirements for membership? What about the Lord's Supper? If he can't become a member because of his lifestyle, should he be able to participate in the Lord's Supper? How do I communicate our views? I want him to be increasingly drawn to the Well [i.e., to Jesus himself]. But I want to follow my conscience on biblical matters. I struggle with what to say. [Belcher, p. 97]

Belcher never makes clear how his subsequent conversations with Joe went. How would you have responded--or how have you in fact responded--to folks like Joe (not necessarily around the issue of homosexuality, but more broadly with a 'community member' whose life is either significantly heterodox or heteroprax [wrong belief and/or wrong living])?

Deep Church II

2009-10-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

One of Belcher's proposals for a way forward out of the impasse between "traditionalists" and "emerging church" is to restore the three great ecumenical creeds (Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian) to the center of what "orthodoxy" means and looks like. He does not intend these to be walls keeping people out, but rather doors and windows into full participation in the people of God. In the debate between "believing before belonging" (more of the traditionalist posture) and "belonging before believing" (emerging), Belcher isn't settling for either pole, but rather attempts to clarify what is to be believed in order to belong, without determining the order in which they are to happen. How do you see this proposal possibly being fruitful... or misguided?

Deep Church I

2009-10-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

We begin our discussion of Jim Belcher's new book, "Deep Church." In the first part of his book, Belcher describes the current impasses or areas of significant disagreement between evangelical "traditionalists" and members of the "emerging" church movement. He also describes his personal quest to find a "third way" between these two perspectives, a way that maintains the strengths that each has to offer, while avoiding their inherent weaknesses.

So, what struck you as either insightful or off-base or otherwise worthy of discussion? It will help if you could be specific to Belcher's text--we're obviously hoping that you have read/are reading the actual book along with this discussion about it!

Uncomfortable Ideas

2009-10-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

What's an idea that makes you uncomfortable? (We're trying to be serious here, OK?) We all tend to prefer the company and conversation of people and ideas that affirm or support what we already think and believe, but some of our best steps forward can come through interaction with ideas and perspectives that call some of our cherished convictions into question. So what's rockin' your boat and rattlin' your cage these days? Or what's an example from your past of how a significant forward step emerged out of a shaking or even shattering of what you thought you knew?

McKnight on the most "influential books"

2009-09-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

Hi: I'm not posting this to necesarily to start a conversation -- I just thought you might find McKnight's discussion of the most influential books in his life interesting. After you watch this, we can return to the previous thread about influencing culture. McKnight is a voracious reader as well as prolific writer.

... By-the-way, McKnight started out teaching at a seminary, but decided to move to a liberal arts college in order to have greater influence on unchurched young people ... a good example of what we were talking about in the previous thread.

One-by-one or Aim for the Top?

2009-09-23T04:32:00.000-07:00

I heard a presentation a while back during which the presenter called into question our usual approach of seeking to extend the kingdom one person at a time. His point was that, by failing to significantly engage with the "culture-formers" of our world, we always end up being "behind the cultural curve"--the culture's effectiveness at "making disciples" outstrips the church's more one-by-one approach.

OK, OK, nobody's saying it has to be either/or, and nobody's arguing that most of us will generally enjoy ready access to culture-makers. But from a strategic point of view, have we put ourselves at a significant disadvantage by failing to engage our culture at its formative levels (e.g., schools and universities, the media, the arts, government [uh oh]... and what else do you see as primary culture-makers/culture-shapers)? Are you aware of good examples of Christ's people entering into this kind of engagement? Do you think the presenter I referenced was missing The Point (and, if so, what might The Point be)?

What About Women?

2009-09-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

No disrespect intended in the post title. How are you thinking about "gender roles," "women in leadership" and related issues? Are those who argue for equality/mutuality (e.g., evangelical "egalitarians") in roles simply aping, or conforming to, the culture? Does "in Christ there is neither... male nor female" nevertheless encompass role distinctions based, solely or primarily, on gender (more of the "complementarian" or "traditonalist" position)? Does any kind of "flexing" on gender roles--e.g., having women preach/teach (including preaching/teaching to men) represent a "slippery slope" that will ineluctably lead towards endorsing homosexual behavior or a denial of the uniqueness of Christ in salvation? Is this an area in which "the church" (however we understand it) is called to take an unpopular, counter-cultural stance (which would clearly be the case for those who argue for traditional gender roles)... or would we be shooting ourselves in the foot, from a missional perspective, by insisting on traditional gender role distinctions?

Labor day prayers

2009-09-07T07:11:00.000-07:00

Lectionary Readings from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer

Ps 41, 52 * 44; 1 Kings 13:1-10; Philippians 1:1-11

Mark 15:40-47. ...waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.

Commentary on Anglican lectionary readings

Daily Meditation from Henri Nouwen:

Living in the End-Time

We are living in the end-time! This does not mean that creation will soon come to its end, but it does mean that all the signs of the end of time that Jesus mentions are already with us: wars and revolutions, conflicts between nations and between kingdoms, earthquakes, plagues, famines, and persecutions (see Luke 21:9-12). Jesus describes the events of our world as announcements that this world is not our final dwelling place, but that the Son of Man will come to bring us our full freedom. "When these things begin to take place," Jesus says, "stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand" (Luke 21:28). The terrible events surrounding us must be lived as ways to make us ready for our final liberation.

Finding Faith by Flory and Miller.

2009-08-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

I took a break from doing heavy lifting with history books and read a 2008 book on dominant trends within current evangelicalism based on a study by two sociologists of religion, Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller. Their book is called Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation. They are specifically interested in finding the religious or spiritual trends among the under 40 crowd. To do so, they spent two years interviewing 100 people and visiting a dozen significant congregations around the country.

They build their analysis around 4 types of trends or styles that they see among evangelicalism: what they call Innovators, Appropriators, Resisters, and Reclaimers. The innovators are represented by people like Brian McLaren and Leonard Sweet, and, according to the authors, prefer smaller congregations with a high level of engagement with the larger community and social issues. The Appropriators are the large Mall type mega churches that offer hundreds of programming choices to the religious consumer. The Resisters are those who are critical of postmodernism and resistant to any accommodation to current cultural changes and who keep a strong focus on rational faith and careful exegesis of the scriptures and ultimately desire to move young people back to a rational, text-based faith. Finally the Reclaimers are those evangelicals who are leaving evangelical churches in order to associate with strongly liturgical churches such as the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Anglican. They are reclaiming the ancient traditions of worship of the early or Patristic church.

What do you think of these four types of response? Are there any responses that you might feel that they left out? Which response do you most identify with?

"Searching" and "Seeking"

2009-08-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

Search engines, bots, apps, information... information overload. Is there an app for seeking God? We go a little nuts if we can't get google to display what we're really looking for... ever seeking but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. How do search technologies shape the way we think about, or don't think about, seeking God? How can digital technologies help us seek and find God, and how can they get in the way? With so many access points into our lives--cell phones, social networks, pings and pokes, and on and on--how do we create time and space for God to find us, and us to find him?

SIGNS OF CESSATION

2009-07-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

New topic. This below is taken from Charles Simpson’s June 2009 letter. You can find it online at http://www.csmpublishing.com/pastoral.php.

SIGNS OF CESSATION

When the Holy Spirit begins to lift the intensity of revival, our own misunderstanding of what He is doing can lead to burn out, disappointment, and burned over fields. How do we know that the Lord is saying the revival season is over? Here are some signs:

-Real Revival usually comes suddenly in power and spontaneity. When that electric sense of spontaneity ceases or subsides and attendance at special gatherings declines, it’s over.

-Real Revival brings dramatic testimonies. When testimonies are more forced and less significant, it’s over.

-When leaders have to work harder to get a response, it’s over.

-When leaders try to export or duplicate the experience, it is probably over.

-When leaders fail to exercise discernment and allow obvious moral problems, excessive displays, or unbiblical error, it will soon be over.

Mixing Metaphors

2009-07-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

As we think about this entity we call "church," we have several metaphors operating in our minds and imaginations. We begin with Scripture: church as body of Christ, as people of God, as branches of the vine, as the living temple of the living God, etc. These are foundational; my purpose here is not to call them into question, but to ask if there are some additional, contemporary metaphors that might get us "seeing" in a different way, or from a different point of view. I'm particularly interested in missional metaphors (whatever you think that means!). So do some imagining, and then do some writing!

Reading list

2009-07-14T14:56:00.001-07:00

ok, this thread still has a little life in it. John Meadows asked who recommended which books and who wrote the annotations. I got most of the annotations from reviews on amazon because only Laurel and Brian actually sent me annotations?

Here you go … do any of you lurkers want to add any book suggestions?

Brian Emmet:
Wright, N. T. Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009.
David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale UP, 2009)

Robert Grant
Finke, Roger, The Churching of America, 1776-2005; Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008.
Lencioni, Patrick. Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable. About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Books, 2004.
------. The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and Their Employees). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Books, 2007.
Noll, Mark A. The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2009.

Laurel Long
Durant, Will and Ariel. “The Reformation.” The Story of Civilization, Vol. VI. Great NecK, N.Y., 1935.
Hayek, Fredrick A. The Road to Serfdom. Edited by Bruce Caldwell. 2007. The University of Chicago Press, 1944.

Traditional Pedagogy in peril?

2009-06-25T12:43:00.001-07:00

Traditional Pedagogy in peril?

this is from Scot McKnight's blog today, Jesuscreed.org... regarding the future of universities as learning styles and the knowledge base are changing.

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"Meanwhile on campus, there is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University -- the model of pedagogy. Specifically, there is a widening gap between the model of learning offered by many big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital best learn.

The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is still a fixture of university life on many campuses. It's a model that is teacher-focused, one-way, one-size-fits-all and the student is isolated in the learning process. Yet the students, who have grown up in an interactive digital world, learn differently. Schooled on Google and Wikipedia, they want to inquire, not rely on the professor for a detailed roadmap. They want an animated conversation, not a lecture. They want an interactive education, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their peril."
................

to me, the "The old-style lecture" and traditional pedagogy sound a little like a Protestant church service. In our weekly God-parties, I found it true that non-churched secular young people want "animated conversation, not a lecture."

so ... as we look at books like the "Great Emergence" and such themes as the collapse of the Evangelical church and possibly even the "great falling away" as young people abandon church services, what implications does the above information have for the task of reproducing the faith in a new generation?

PS: if you want to contribute some books to the summer reading list (annotated bibliography) please send them to me with a paragraph or two describing the book at josenmiami@yahoo.com

Summer Reading List

2009-06-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

summer is almost here... tell us what you are planning to read this summer and why. If possible, rank your book selection by priority.

I~ll have to contribute my list after I arrive back in Miami on Wednesday.

ok Laurel: go! You too Biiilly....

500-Year Rummage Sale

2009-06-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, lets try to rewind this conversation again and refocus using Phyllis Tickle’s book, The Great Emergence. I heard about this book from Robert Grant, and then saw a series of reviews on Scot Mcknight’s blog, I tried to be satisfied with following Mcknight’s reviews but finally had to break down and buy it. I thought it was an excellent book, although I was a little dissatisfied with the last chapter. She tried to indicate Calvary Chaple and Vineyard as “emerging” or postmodern churches, which I really don’t buy into.

Which of you have the book already? Has anyone already finished it?

Her basic thesis is that about once every 500 years, the church holds a rummage sale and reorients itself to whatever current cultural condition it finds itself in. She believes were are approaching one of those 500-year junctures and that the rummage sale has begun. This is similar to what others such as Bob Mumford have said.

What do you think? Shall we read the book together?

Spiritual Heritage Part 2: "The Church Holds a Rummage Sale"

2009-06-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Lets start fresh with our discussion of Spiritual Heritage. Here are a couple of highlights from John Meadows that kicked off our discussion in the first place:

“But what we're trying to do is to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit in this moment, in this era of social, cultural and political history, with events that come at us as like a fire hose. In the late '60's and early '70's God was moving sovereignly. I am so grateful to have been caught up in that move. But many of those leaders are dead (including three of our five teachers), and the others are in their 70's and 80's.

Of the two who are living, neither Charles nor Bob are doing what they were doing in the '70's and '80's. Both have continued to move with the Spirit. And when you hear them speak these days, they are still fresh and relevant. I was amazed at the prophetic insight that Bob still carries (not of a by-gone era; reminiscing about the good old days, but of our present context). When he spoke at ACM a couple years ago, he was totally up to date on current trends, theological and social movements -- probably more so than most of the rest of us in the room.

Most of us are attempting to maintain and value our historic relationships without trying to continue, restore or duplicate the past. No one can "go back", we can only move ahead. "What is God saying and doing now?" is our question.
On a more popular level, we're all theologians if we're interested at all in God, and knowing him. Here's how dictionary.com defines theology: "The field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God's attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth." So with that definition, you and I are also "theologians", although without letters.

I love the ancient Orthodox definition of a theologian, "He who prays is a true theologian."

And speaking of "Fathers of the Faith", Christendom as we know it would not exist without the theologians who hashed out the creeds and endured much hardship and suffering. We can deconstruct them and see their failings and clay feet, just like our own brothers, but we can't forget that we are here because of them and their struggles and scarifies to follow our God the best they knew how in the age and context in which they lived -- to serve God's purpose for their generation.”

And this from Brian: The church of Jesus Christ, as happens from time to time, gets confused. When confused, she tends to hold a big rummage sale, putting both her treasures and her accumulated junk on the block for bargain prices. (Well, they're bargains if they are truly treasures!) So here we are, sorting through the piles and piles of ... stuff. What will we gladly pay top dollar for? What are we willing to let go to the recycle facility?

Our Spiritual Heritage

2009-05-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

John Meadows wrote a personal email letter to one of our blog friends about his appreciation for his spiritual heritage, but also affirming the need to “follow the cloud” today. When the apostle Paul said that he was “forgetting what lies behind” was he including forgetting good things in the past as well as the bad?

John’s thoughtful letter can be accessed here as a google doc. What do you think about the points he is making?

Robert Grant has also pointed out the need to appreciate our heritage, not only as Reformation Protestants going back 500 years, but also our ENTIRE spiritual heritage going back to the patristic age and the early church.

How do we combine the tension of remembering and cherishing our history and heritage (including learning form the mistakes of history) in dynamic tension with the apostolic example of “forgetting that which lies behind, and pressing on”?

By the way, here is the link to the excellent interview with Richard Foster and Dallas Willard that John M. mentioned near the end of our last discussion:

Where is the “upward call of God” leading us to press on toward now? Why is important to let go of the past in order to receive the future? How can we “let go of the past” without forgetting our heritage?

What aspects of your heritage do you appreciate?

John’s letter about his spiritual heritage can be accessed here on google docs

PS: by-the-way, please lift up Brian Emmet in your prayers. His father past away 9 weeks ago, and last week his mother went home to be with Brian’s father. That is a lot to process in the space of two months.

New book by Dallas Willard

2009-05-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

In my humble opinion, one of the true spiritual giants in our time has been Dallas Willard. Not only does he have a profound biblical message for the church in our generation, he has grown and developed his character and thinking outside of church ministry, in a philosophy department of a secular university. I sincerely hope there are some young men and women coming up in university settings that will replace him when he is gone.

Have any of you read his newest book yet? I have not, I just became aware of it this morning when I went to Scot McKnight’s web site and saw this overview of the book.

I believe that the greatest weakness of the current church in the United States is the underdeveloped spiritual formation. Dallas Williard picked up where Robert Coleman (Master Plan of Evangelism) left off, and has been calling followers of Christ and the church to in-depth discipleship to Jesus for a generation –.
he has been a voice in the wilderness, crying out to the church to prepare the way of the Lord through spiritual disciplines and spiritual formation.

His new book is called Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge

Here is a brief selection from today’s post on Jesuscreed:

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“The third part of the book, which shifts slightly in style to less philosophical argument and more to Christian exposition, concerns knowledge of Christ in the spiritual life -- and here he enters into what for many of us is the classical style of Willard's form of a more mystically-shaped Christian life. The seventh chp enters into a spirited but reasonable form of Christian inclusivism, which he calls Christian pluralism where final redemption is ultimately shaped by whether or not a person -- Christian religion or not -- has a heart that is properly oriented toward God.

Finally, he has a chp in which he expands the meaning of "pastor" and argues that it is pastors who have the responsibility of making this "knowledge of Christ" known today.”

...............
Which book by Willard has been your favorite? What do you get out of his writings as the central theme?

Books
The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives.(1988). San Francisco: Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-069442-4 (you can buy this for as cheap as $3.75 online now)

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God (1998). San Francisco: Harper, ISBN 0-06-069333-9

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God (1999). Intervarsity Press (USA), ISBN 0-8308-2226-7

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (2002). Colorado Springs: NavPress, ISBN 1-57683-296-1

The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship" (2006). San Francisco: Harper, ISBN 0-06-088243-3

The role of the Spirit in salvation

2009-05-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

Here is a possible topic for conversation. What exactly is the role of the Holy Spirit in the work of salvation? Is anyone aware of any theological works on this subject? I know that this is one of the significant differences between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology -- I'm guessing that Protestantism is more "Western" having thrown out a lot of 'pre-modern' Catholic tradition but did not add back in a profound theology of the Spirit -- at least not until the rise of pneumacentric protestantism (Pentecostal and Charismatic) in the twentieth century.

Deb was reading to me this morning from Matthew 12 and I was struck by a passage I have read many times, but had not heard before in The Message version:

Matt 12: 31-32 "There's nothing done or said that can't be forgiven. But if you deliberately persist in your slanders against God's Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives. If you reject the Son of Man out of some misunderstanding, the Holy Spirit can forgive you, but when you reject the Holy Spirit, you're sawing off the branch on which you're sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.

What struck me in this is the part about someone rejecting the Son of Man. Such a one can be forgiven. Hmmm…. What does that mean?

However, if someone rejects the Holy Spirit, how can they be forgiven? By rejecting the Holy Spirit, they are rejecting the dynamic active agent of God … the one who draws them, convicts them of sin, imparts faith to them and teaches them the things of Christ. The one who gives the revelation that Jesus is the Messiah, the Holy One of God (Peter, the Rock) The one that is the active executor of forgiveness of sins.

Does this mean that an honest Hindu or Muslim with a good heart, who rejects or neglects the divinity of Christ out of “some cultural misunderstanding” but who continues to respond affirmatively to the inner workings of the Spirit can be saved? (through the redemptive work of Christ of course, but perhaps in cognitive ignorance of that work). It is certainly worth considering and discussing.

More to the point, in my own dealings with agnostics and deists in our weekly god-party, most of them do not affirm the divinity of Christ, but they keep coming to our hang-out, and in a couple of cases, I see unmistakable traces of the work of the Spirit in their lives. So is it more important that I work to overcome their intellectual resistance to acknowledging that Jesus is the Christ?, or rather should I set that aside (temporarily) to affirm the work of the Spirit in them and to extend the ‘friendship’ of Christ in me the hope of Glory to them? In the second approach, I choose not to try to persuade them to believe a set of propositions about Christ, but instead I attempt to facilitate the work of the Spirit in them until they reach the point that St. Peter did, where the Spirit reveals the truth about Jesus to them.

What do you think? Is this a possible area that needs some theological re-formation?

Justification and New Perspective

2009-05-04T04:46:00.000-07:00

Scot McKnight posted a topic about some current theological debate regarding justification and atonement on his jesuscreed blog today. Some of it revolves around something called the “new perspective on Paul” and includes a debate between John Piper and Tom Wright.

My apologies to those of you that do not like substantial theological discussion but let’s talk about this. Brian and I have been chatting off and on about various perspectives of the atonement and this post by McKnight makes a good springboard into that discussion. For the more activist oriented, you can check out of this and go to skunklings.com and participate in some possibility thinking for mission.

I am pasting in some of McKnight post. To read the entire post or to participate in the discussion on jesuscreed click here. Even if you are not very familiar with 20th century theologians, if you click on the links below you can get a quick overview of the development of this area of Pauline studies.

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…How do you understand the "new perspective on Paul"? What do you think is its primary contribution? Which of the new perspective writers do you read the most and why and what do you like about them? How significant do you think this debate is?

First, there is no such thing as the new perspective if one think it refers to some body of doctrine. The New Perspective, therefore, deserves a brief sketch as to how it arose and what it means.

….McKnight gives a brief historiography here of the development of the new perspective leading up to N.T. Wright….

Then along came, and only then did along he come, N.T. Wright. Wright built upon Sanders and Dunn, to be sure, but he paved his own ground -- building in important ways upon C.H. Dodd and GB Caird -- by pursuing the "end of exile" themes in his early Pauline studies and then his Jesus studies, and then returned to Paul when the New Perspective had taken hold -- and he added to it, supplemented it, and has taken much of the heat by the critics. Wright has refashioned justification less in terms of personal conversion and more in terms of "who is in the people of God." And he has now added to all of this a new dimension, an anti-imperial reading of Paul and earliest Christianity -- and that had little to do with either Sanders or Dunn.

But at the bottom of these folks is a belief that Christians have misunderstood Judaism as a works religion and at stake is a profound (changed) orientation to the human problem in much of Reformed and Lutheran thinking: namely, that humans want to earn their place before God, that their fundamental problem is the attempt to establish themselves before God. The New Perspective, in one way or another, does not see this as the problem Paul himself faced and therefore to read Paul in light of this problem misreads Paul in important ways. I call this traditional reading the Augustinian approach to Paul, and I wish more of the critics of the New Perspective would give this Augustinian basis, which most of them think is actually Pauline, more attention. The New Perspective says, "well, yes, perhaps" but that is not what Paul was going on about when he was engaged with his opponents. The issue was not anthropological but both salvation-historical (more Sanders) and ecclesial (both Dunn and Wright). That's how I see things.

The issue then is how to read Paul in his historical context. This is the Protestant approach and many of us think that far too many of the critics of the New Perspective, instead of re-examining the Bible in its historical context, have appealed instead to the Tradition as established by Luther and Calvin. This leads me to another point...

Bibliography:
1976, Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentile.
1979, E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion.
1982, James Dun, Jesus, Paul and the Law.
.....................Paul Among Jews and Gentile.
Tom Wright, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision.
John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright.

Dave Dunbar "Everything Changes"

2009-04-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

Dave Dunbar, president of Biblical Seminary in Pennsylvania, publishes an excellent ezine called “Missional Journal.” Biblical Seminary seems to have a mission to integrate mission and theology in a way that helps to shape and engage culture. There is a great article called “Everything Changes” about the paradigm change that a ‘missional’ outlook brings to a local church or church association. It listed under 2009, vol 3, no. 2. Below are some key paragraphs from the article:

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"…But in reality the church in the West has not always been concerned for missions, or for The Mission. In fact when we focus on The Mission our perspective on many things changes. Let me give some illustrations…

"…What is crucial here is that mission is not first and foremost a job description for the church, but a reference to what God is up to in the world--God is on a mission! So the Father sends the Son, and subsequently both send the Spirit to empower Jesus' disciples to join in the world-wide mission. The church is sent into a harvest that God has already initiated.

“…The critical point here is that mission is not an after-thought in the divine agenda, and so it cannot be an after-thought in the church's agenda. It is not something we try to get to once we are finished with the real business of "doing church." As someone cleverly put it, "God's church does not have a mission in the world; rather, God's mission has a church in the world!" Think about it--there are far-reaching implications to this. So we say this in our convictions statement, "...the mission of God should constitute the unifying motif of theological education."

"…A missional approach to the church reminds us that God is already at work outside the building. It emphasizes that the kingdom is larger than the church and it invites us to look outside the walls and ask: How we can join God in his mission? This question leads to others..." (Dave Dunbar, 2009, vol. 3, n.3).
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ok - if you agree with Dunbar (don't forget to read the original article) what do you think are the other questions that he refers to? If the question is "how we can join God in his mission?" what other questions do we need to ask ourselves?

Also, don't forget Brian's "Skunk works" creative project: 63 comments/ideas so far!

Skunklings

Bono on Easter: "It’s 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?"

2009-04-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

hi: John Meadows sent me this article from the New York Times, written by Bono with some reflections on the significance of Easter in our current cultural context.
jh

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I AM in Midtown Manhattan, where drivers still play their car horns as if they were musical instruments and shouting in restaurants is sport.

I am a long way from the warm breeze of voices I heard a week ago on Easter Sunday.
“Glorify your name,” the island women sang, as they swayed in a cut sandstone church. I was overwhelmed by a riot of color, an emotional swell that carried me to sea.

Christianity, it turns out, has a rhythm — and it crescendos this time of year. The rumba of Carnival gives way to the slow march of Lent, then to the staccato hymnals of the Easter parade. From revelry to reverie. After 40 days in the desert, sort of ...

Carnival — rock stars are good at that.

“Carne” is flesh; “Carne-val,” its goodbye party. I’ve been to many. Brazilians say they’ve done it longest; they certainly do it best. You can’t help but contract the fever. You’ve got no choice but to join the ravers as they swell up the streets bursting like the banks of a river in a flood of fun set to rhythm. This is a Joy that cannot be conjured. This is life force. This is the heart full and spilling over with gratitude. The choice is yours ...

It’s Lent I’ve always had issues with. I gave it up ... self-denial is where I come a cropper. My idea of discipline is simple — hard work — but of course that’s another indulgence.

Then comes the dying and the living that is Easter.

It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need. Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of “a peace that passes understanding” as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads. Whatever your religious or nonreligious views, the chance to begin again is a compelling idea.

For the rest of the article, click here.

The Church must stop trivialising Easter

2009-04-19T07:24:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite theologians these days is Anglican bishop Tom Wright. I found this article that he recently wrote in the Times Online about the importance of faith in the physical resurrection of Jesus. What do you think? Do you argee with him? I am posting a paragraph from the article below ... to read the entire article, go here. JH.

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Christians must keep their nerve: the Resurrection isn’t a metaphor, it’s a physical fact
Tom Wright

Private Eye ran a cartoon some years ago of St Peter standing in front of Jesus's Cross and saying to the other Disciples: “It's time to put this behind us now and move on.” It was a satire not on Christian belief, but on politicians and counsellors, and their trivialising mantras. It depended on Jesus's death being not just an odd, forgettable event - and that it was His Resurrection, rather than a shoulder- shrugging desire to “move on”, that got the early Christians going.

Easter was the pilot project. What God did for Jesus that explosive morning is what He intends to do for the whole creation. We who live in the interval between Jesus's Resurrection and the final rescue and transformation of the whole world are called to be new-creation people here and now. That is the hidden meaning of the greatest festival Christians have.

This true meaning has remained hidden because the Church has trivialised it and the world has rubbished it. The Church has turned Jesus's Resurrection into a “happy ending” after the dark and messy story of Good Friday, often scaling it down so that “resurrection” becomes a fancy way of saying “He went to Heaven”. Easter then means: “There really is life after death”. The world shrugs its shoulders. We may or may not believe in life after death, but we reach that conclusion independently of Jesus, of odd stories about risen bodies and empty tombs.

But “resurrection” to 1st-century Jews wasn't about “going to Heaven”: it was about the physically dead being physically alive again. Some Jews (not all) believed that God would do this for all people in the end. Nobody, including Jesus's followers, was expecting one person to be bodily raised from the dead in the middle of history. The stories of the Resurrection are certainly not “wish-fulfilments” or the result of what dodgy social science calls “cognitive dissonance”. First-century Jews who followed would-be messiahs knew that if your leader got killed by the authorities, it meant you had backed the wrong man. You then had a choice: give up the revolution or get yourself a new leader. Going around saying that he'd been raised from the dead wasn't an option.

To read the entire article, click here

The Decline And Fall Of Christian America... Yes... but No.

2009-04-13T07:34:00.001-07:00

the article that we posted previously from newsweek about the decline of Christianity in America is coming out on the cover of Newsweek. Dan Kimball wrote a very positive and uplifting response on his blog:

Vintage Faith

I am posting some highlights from Dan's blog below:
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[Dan Kimball]
I just read the cover story article of Newsweek which is coming out on the 13th. It is titled " The decline and fall of Christian America The cover looks gloomy almost like a horror film with an all black background and red letters.

So I think maybe there is a decline of a certain shape and sub-culture(s) of "Christian America" as the article states. But at the same time, there is a rising and surging of missional church leaders, church planters, and Christians who have already recognized that we are in a "post-Christian" America as the article states. But that recognition has simply fueled creativity, prayer and passion for mission and because God is God, people are coming to a saving faith in Jesus.

I am so optimistic for the future and have great hope. Yes, there is a "decline and fall" as the article states of certain types of "Christianity" and church perhaps. But there is also a rising and churches and Christians who are rethinking what it means to be "be the church" and to be the church on mission.
Perhaps in 5 years or 10 years we will see another article "The Rise of Rebirthing of The Church In America". A different kind of church perhaps. But oh my, what wonderful, crazy and hopeful times we are actually in.

Go here to read the entire post by Kimball

The End of Christian America?

2009-04-07T05:37:00.000-07:00

An interesting article was published in Newsweek about the apparent decline of Christianity in America. You can access the article at the link below:

Newsweek: The End of Christian America

Below are insightful email comments from pastors Dennis C., Michael M., and occasional troublemaker John M. regarding the significance of the demographic trends:

[Dennis C.] I found in it a lot of confirmation regarding the thrust of our conversations over the past weeks. Her understanding of the church/state separation issue and the religion/politics integration issue is important. She really has a grasp of the issue in American history since the colonial era and up through the founding and the reason for the thought that went into the first amendment. I find her analysis of the current dilemma in the evangelical world and the recent history of getting into bed with a political party to be very persuasive also. By reaching back to Augustine, Paul and Jesus she is really promoting a kingdom perspective re: the mission of the church throughout the ages.
Dennis

[John M.] Below are a couple quotes that stood out to me:
"The American culture of religious liberty helped create a busy free market of faith: by disestablishing churches, the nation made religion more popular, not less."
"Let the religious take their stand in the arena of politics and ideas on their own, and fight for their views on equal footing with all other interests."

For me the fact that fewer Americans are claiming a specific religious affiliatioin and tend to identify more with "spirituality" than "religion" is actually encouraging. Ultimately, truth will stand in the "free market of faith".
Also, the survey results can be interpreted in more than one way. It may depress Dr. Mohler, but it also means that the harvest is ripe and getting riper. The last time I filled out one of those forms regarding religious preference I gripped to my wife that I could not find a category that I fit into. I was very tempted to put "no religion". Apparently, I'm not the only one...
John

[Michael M.] John & Dennis, Hearty “Amen” to both of your observations, I could not agree more. [This is one of the better articles I have read commenting on the Survey.] Perhaps another “need” illustrated by the study is the lack of historical understanding both within and without the church. [I know, a real surprise opinion coming from a historian.] I believe it illustrates that along with our call to develop, teach and implement an “orthodox-relational-practical-cross filled” theology, we should probably add “historical.” Doing so will produce believers who understand that his kingdom comes, his will is done regardless of the friendliness of either our culture or government. In fact, we have ample illustrations (China?) of the faith exploding even when governments attempt to stifle the market place of ideas. Michael M

ok, so what do you think? Is this troubling or encouraging? How can or should we respond?

Did You Know 3.0

2009-04-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

Ya gotta watch this video ... this is something we need to be talking about, especially in the light of the massive generation and religious changes taking place right now and in the next 10 years.

taking this information along with the article on the collapse of the evangelical church, where do we go from here? Church planting will simply fall further and further behind (assuming we were even doing it). A friend of mine talks about the need for an explosion of some new kind of air-born "Jesus-virus". What do you think? are we sufficiently infected to be contagious?

Covenant Skunklings

2009-03-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

hey guys,

Brian had a "God-idea" about starting an innovative group to come up with some fresh ideas and new initiatives to reach out to the younger generation. It is called the "skunk group" or the Covenant Skunklings -- I'll let him explain why. Go to this url to read his post and contribute ideas ... anyone with really GOOD ideas and faithful participation MIGHT get a trip to Boston ...

While this forum will continue to be more oriented around theological discussion, the Covenant Skunklings will be more oriented around practical ideas for outreach to youth and the young adult generation. ALL IDEAS ARE WELCOME!

jh

A Blibcal Approach to Economics?

2009-03-22T06:27:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I found an excellent theological analysis of our current economic mess written by Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggeman, professor emeritus of Columbia Theological Seminary. I am pasting in the first part of the article below. You can access the entire article HERE.
........................
So far as I know, the Bible says nothing explicit about subprime loans and the financial implications of such risky economic practice. There is a great deal, nonetheless, that the Bible has to say about such a crisis as we now face. I will comment in turn on a biblical perspective of an analysis of the crisis and a biblical perspective for an alternative economic practice.

While the specifics of the current market collapse are peculiarly modern, biblical perspectives are pertinent because the fundamental issues of economics are constant from ancient to contemporary time, constants such as credit and debt, loans and interest, and the endless tension between haves and have-nots.
We may identify three dimensions of the theological-moral foundations of the current economic crisis:

AUTONOMY. A sense of the isolated, self-sufficient economic individual is deeply rooted in modern rationality and comes to full expression in U.S. “individualism” that resists communitarian connectedness and imagines the individual person to be the primary unit of social reality. Such an individual is completely autonomous, owes no one anything, is accountable to no one, and can rely on no one except himself or herself.

Such a self (perceived almost exclusively as an economic self) is without restraint and is self-authorized to enact Promethean energy to organize life around one’s own needs, issues, and purposes. The autonomous, self-sufficient self takes as the proper venue for life “the market” and understands the market as a place of self-advancement at the expense of all others who are perceived either as rivals and competitors or as usable commodities.

This same autonomy is articulated in the Bible under the rubric of “the fool” who says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). The capacity to live without the gift or summons of God has immediate practical implications, for autonomy sets the fool over against the neighbor, most especially the poor neighbor. The one who says in Psalm 10:4 “There is no God” is the one who seeks out neighbors for exploitation: “They lurk that they may seize the poor; they seize the poor and drag them off in their net. They stoop, they crouch, and the helpless fall by their might. They think in their heart, ‘God has forgotten, He has hidden his face, he will never see it’” (Psalm 10:9-11).

.... continued at www.wondercafe.ca

Youth Ministry 3.0?

2009-03-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Scot McKnight started a discussion about youth ministry, called Youth Ministry 3.0, today along with a brief intro to a book by a guy named Marko. It seemes like an appropriate focus for discussion considering recent emails about the coming collapse (or decline?) of contemporary evangelical church.

Here is the post:

.....................
I sat down the other day with a youth pastor and asked a direct question that I've asked a number of youth leaders: "What percentage of your youth become adult, mature Christians?"

His response: "You want the truth?"

I said, "Of course."

His answer: "About 25%."

We both sat there, fumbling our coffee cups, looking at one another, nothing said and nothing to be said. In grief and wonder we searched for what we might do together to change the course of the church. His numbers are about average for evangelical churches. I wonder if some youth pastors would sit down, think for 15 minutes or so over the last few years and what has become of their youth. What "worked" and what "didn't work"? Listen to these ruggedly honest words from Mark Oestreicher:

"The way we're doing things is already not working. We're failing at our calling. And deep down, most of us know it. This is why we need an epochal shift in our assumptions, approaches, models, and methods."
...........................

The book the quote is taken from is called:

Youth Ministry 3.0: A Manifesto of Where We've Been, Where We Are & Where We Need to Go.

Dead and Gone

2009-03-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

This post has been re-written from a different angle and moved to UNCHURCHED
JH

Mannin' Up II

2009-03-05T04:13:00.000-08:00

What does it mean to "be a man" and how do you get there? Is there any truth to the idea that "real men love Jesus and hate church?" If men (together with women) are called to "rule," and if Jesus is the way God accomplishes things, what does "masculine" ruling look like... and what helps men to get there?

THE SHACK: Heresy or an inspired metaphor?

2009-03-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

hi friends, we continue to have a great discussion on masculinity in the previous thread below ... however, several people were interested in discussing the merits and the theological content of the recent best seller, The Shack. We invite you to bring the discussion to this thread.
jh

Man Up!

2009-02-20T05:24:00.000-08:00

On a previous thread, Patrick asked, "What makes a man a 'man'? What are the defining characteristics of masculinity? Of a godly man? How does that differ from what the American society would define as a man? This is an important issue for me, as I am coming into 'manhood' (marriage, responsibility, etc.). In your journeys, what are some of the walls and battles that you have had to overcome and conquer? And how did you do it?"

So let's have at it! And yes, any women listening in should feel free to contribute!

Why Jacob?

2009-02-13T14:53:00.000-08:00

This is in the now-for-something-completely-different category... a "Bible study" question. Why are God's covenant people named after Jacob/Israel? Why not after Abraham, who after all, is the father of the faithful; or after Isaac, who is the "son of promise"? There's not a whole lot about Jacob that is... exemplary. What is it about Jacob... or perhaps better, what is it about God?

Learning From Our Friends, and Their Friends

2009-02-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

From the abstract and theoretical and argumentative, to the practical and lived: as we think about the "friends, and friends of friends" model/paradigm, what have you learned? How have your interactions with various folks who don't neatly/nicely fit into current christian paradigms taught you some things that you think are important for ministry in the world we actually live in? No need to be any kind of expert about this--we're more interested in learning from one another's "field notes."

Friends, Friends of Friends, Friends of Jesus

2009-01-31T14:37:00.000-08:00

Jesus has called us his friends; he was known also as "the friend of sinners." Friendship seems to be something we take for granted but don't really understand. What roles do you think friendship can play in the life and work of Christ's people? Please read through the article [linked here]--thanks to Patrick Currie for finding it and bringing it to us--and then share what you think of the author's analysis and prescription.

thinkling and camping in the Florida Keys

2009-01-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

hi guys

We have just returned from our weekend of camping in the Florida Keys. This weekend grew out of a blog conversation we had a year ago about the importance of building our relationships around non-agenda-driven and unstructured time together. Jamie Johnson pointed out the shortcomings of building relationships around ‘conferencing’ … so we planned an inexpensive ‘unconference’ with no speaker, no meetings, no agenda – only fellowship around meals and a campfire.

Here is the question for those of you who attended: did we succeed? Did you enjoy the fellowship? Did you learn anything? What were the conversations that were most meaningful. Those of you who were unable to be there, please jump in with comments or questions.

Parakeet Practice

2009-01-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

McKnight identifies "blue parakeets" as those sections of Scripture that don't seem to fit into our [personal, denominational, churchly, etc] organizing schema for the Bible. Of course, the identity of a "blue parakeet" can vary by observer! For some, the violent OT passages where God judges the Canaanites in the harshest possible terms are blue parakeets; for others, passages that [appear to?] teach female subordination are blue parakeets; for still others, passages that teach God's intention to save everyone (various kinds of universalism) are parakeets, just as graphic descriptions of hell are parakeets for others.
So let's try a case study together: consider these lines from Psalm 8: "What is man that thou are mindful of him, the son of man that you care about him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor." Let's set these lines alongside Job's complaint, "What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment" (Job 7:17-18, but it's a good idea to read all of chapter 7 to get the flow).
Question: which passage [if either] is the blue parakeet for you? Why?

Smokin Joe's Emerging Swamp Thang

2008-12-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

Hi guys,
we are going camping with some friends and a couple of out of town guests in January. The idea for this camping trip came up a year ago in a blog discussion about the importance of building our friendships around – non-agenda drive time together rather than structured meetings. We originally talked about calling this an ‘un conference.’ No speakers, no meetings, no agenda, just hanging out around the tents and near the beautiful Florida Bay with some good friends (with cigars and your favorite bev) doing some cool "thinkling."

If you are interested in joining us, we will start Friday afternoon, January 16th, and end about mid-day or afternoon Sunday (although those who desire can stay on another night) at Fiesta Key at mm 70.

I already have some camp sites reserved, please let me know as soon as possible if you are coming. The individual tent sites are $45 per night, if two adults share a tent, that comes out to $45 for the two-night weekend for the camping, and food should only be about another $40 per person. The entire weekend should cost about $90 per person – a little more if you are bringing your son (or sons) and want to have a tent site to yourself.

You can email me at josenmiami@yahoo.com ~Joseph

Birdwatching I

2008-12-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

Scot McKnight (see his jesuscreed blog on beliefnet) recently published The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How you Read the Bible. John Meadows recommended it, so I picked up a copy and was helped and challenged by reading it. I propose we spend a couple of conversations discussing it. I'd recommend you read it, but will provide a short summary of each section so that you can participate in the discussion without having to read the book ("Covenant Thinklings, where you can talk big without actually having to do any work!").

To get us into things, here's an assignment from the book:

Read chapter 19 in Leviticus (the subhead in your Bible may say something like "Various Laws." After reading through the chapter, make a list of the "laws" that you think are still "for God's people today," the ones that "no longer apply," and the ones that make you say, "Huh? No idea what to do here" (which likely means that it "no longer applies," so maybe you only have to make two lists after all!)

Now: on what basis did you assign various "laws" to the first or second (or third) list? It would probably be best to pick one example from each list and tell us how you made the call.

Appropriate humor is to be encouraged.

Topics for discussion? (asking for directions)

2008-11-29T06:27:00.000-08:00

ok ...

...no one is interested in talking about mission and evangelism, or the massive exit of young adults from the church. Its ok -- really -- it doesn't hurt ... at least not much ... Brian, please through in some gentle irony here ...

Let's open up a thread to take suggestions for topics for discussions ... what would YOU, dear blogger, like to talk about?

or have we talked about everything and run out of things to say? What think ye? Anybody know any good jokes?

What will we do about it?

2008-11-26T10:12:00.000-08:00

hi all: I found the article below in Scott McKnight's Jesuscreed (now on belief.net). I want you to remember that I said this a couple of days ago, and I have been saying it for the last several years in this blog and by email ... I didn't get it from McKnight, or McLaren, or even Gallup or Barna. We can see it with our eyes if we look around. There is urgency about this. Sorry to start another discussion thread -- you can keep responding to the previous thread, but this allows me to insert a link:

What will we do about it?
...........
Research from a number of angles says the same thing: 20 somethings are not attending church. There is nothing less than a crisis in the church, a crisis that is far greater than most church folk know about and care to confront with the energies and focus that are needed. Here are the two facts:

1. The elderly people are exiting the church's back door.
2. The younger people are not entering the front door.

This means the numbers are declining. If something isn't done about it soon, the church will be facing a crisis in the next twenty years unlike anything the American church has ever seen. At a pragmatic level, it will mean a dramatic reduction in budgets ... I could go on. The more pressing issue is speaking the gospel to a new generation.

What will we do about it? Call for a conference. What are we doing about it?
............
jh

mission and evangelism

2008-11-19T05:41:00.001-08:00

Ok, we seem to have run out of steam on the spiritual transformation topic, at least temporarily. When we discussed what needs to change in contemporary Christianity a couple of months ago, we came with 17 points that we later divided into roughly 3 areas. One of those areas we called ‘spiritual transformation’. Another one we called apostolic mission.

Lets switch over to that topic and discuss it. There were three points under apostolic mission. Here is what Sarah said:

“there needs to be greater missional engagement with the secular world”

Do you all agree with this? If yes, what are some practical ways that can happen? Are there any ideological or paradigmatic blinders that prevent us from properly engaging people in the world?

conversation on Ventrilo

2008-11-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

ok, John and I are now on Ventrilo .... it is not all that hard to set up. Here are his instructions if you need help (especially in the middle of the night) give John (the Musician) a call:

786-395-2507I

so ... how can we use this tool for spiritual transformation? or just simply friendship? Also, is there anyone else we should include in this? Any suggestions about how we can use it or when we can all meet?

.....instructions........

1. Go to your local walmart or another equivalent store and buy a pair of headphones with a microphone. These usually run about 20 bucks depending on quality. Make sure they are for use with a computer, usually it will say that on the package.

2. Go to www.ventrilo.com, go to the "download" link on the left side, download the Ventrilo Client that best fits your operating system (most likely the first option for windows 2000 and newer)

3. Once you've download the client program and plugged in your headphones (headphone jacks are usually color coded as well as the computer jacks so you shouldn't have a problem there =OP) Open the Ventrilo program (you'll probably have an icon on your desktop.

4. Once you open Ventrilo you should see a couple options the answers are as follows:
>Click the arrow pointing to the right on the right side of the field "User Name"
>Click "New" and enter your user name into the pop-up (you can also enter a phonetic so that you can hear the name being said when logging into vent or switching channels)
>Click "Ok"
>Next click the arrow pointing right at the right side of the field entitled "Server"
>Click "New" and add the name that you want to call the server (i.e. Covthinklings)

>Next You'll fill out the "Hostname or IP" field with 66.228.127.220
then you'll fill out the "Port Number" field with
5013
and finally you'll fill out the "Password" field with
covthinklings1

>At this point all information needed should be filled out and you can simply press the "Connect" button on the right side of vent in order to connect to the server, there will be several different channels and you will see if there is anyone in one of the channels and you will be able to join in if you like. =O)

Tools for Transformation II: Repentance

2008-11-06T05:08:00.000-08:00

As with humility, repentance can be easier to discuss or describe than to practice. But as we reflect together on how God works to shape us a whole persons in Christ, there's no avoiding repentance--and not just as a one-time event, but as a way of life. We can also confuse repentance with contrition, regret, or saying "sorry." Repentance embraces those, but is really about changing the way I think, feel and behave. So, what have you learned about repentance? Where and how has it been transformative in your own life? What makes it hard, and have you discovered some ways that make it "easier"... or even a joyful undertaking?

Tools for Transformation I: Humility

2008-10-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

We want to focus our conversations on spiritual formation, and try to get down to some practicals and some specifics. To start, then, let's ask, What is humility--what does it actually look like, how does it "work" for you in practice? And as we "practice" humility, how does God's Spirit work to make us more like Jesus? Let's keep it as real as we can, even if that means discussing more of our failures than successes!

(IMAGE: Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles by Meister des Hausbuches, 1475 Gemäldegalerie, Berlin)

Spiritual Formation, Digitized...?

2008-10-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit I not sure I really get it, and I'm asking for help: how do you see digital technologies being powerful tools in the development of a new generation of Christ followers and Christ communities? Will virtual communities begin to replace traditional face-to-face gatherings, or enhance them? How might we use these technologies to disciple Christ followers or serve the poor? What might we gain when we no longer "open your Bibles to John 4:such-and-such" but instead have our faces lit by the glow of tiny individual screens on which the words appear? Are there any downsides to the increasing digitizing of more and more of life, and if so, how would you suggest Christ followers might guard against them? And Joseph, could you post a cool picture for this conversation?

‘wiki’ updates for the church - 17 theses summary

2008-10-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Ok… the ditty is now

♪♫ 17 theses to discuss on this thread…
17 theses to process!
take one down, discuss it all around,
16 theses to discuss on the blog….♫♪

1) there needs to be greater emphasis on spiritual formation (Joe -57).
2) there needs to be greater missional engagement with the secular world (Sarah -32).
3) there needs to be greater humility among Christians and respect for others(Sarah - 32).
4) there needs to be a deeper engagement with Scripture as God’s word (Brian -56).
5) there needs to be a deconstruction of church growth thinking: churches limited to under 250 people. Over that, churches should reproduce a daughter church (Brian -56). Move from church growth to church multiplication.
6) greater emphasis on “Real Church” as micro-church of 10 to 12. Big God parties less frequently (JohntheMusician - 23).
7) Repent of judging the lifestyles of outsiders (JohntheMusician - 23).
8) Greater focus on the role of the Holy Spirit (William - 20).
9) Move from a corporate model (with buildings) to a household/family/tribal model centered on the headship of Christ (William - 20).
10) Move to a 'kingdom' focus rather than a 'church' focus; a 'sowing'/scattering mentality rather than a gathering/building mentality. An 'outward' focus rather than inward (Joe - 57).
11) Eliminate badly composed, theologically vapid or erroneous "worship music." (Brian - 56).
12) All "senior leaders" (however defined) will have a grounding in all 2000+ years of church history (Course title: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). (Brian - 56).
13) Congregations (however defined) will creatively and meaningfully celebrate (however defined)Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday (however named)every year, because these events are at the center of our faith (Brian - 56).
14) Greater emphasis on bi-vocational, tent-making ministry in local congregations and in apostolic mission (Patrick - 24) Pat: I reworded it for you in a less inflammatory way ;-) joe, the low-key guy
15) The Evangelical church needs to regain a proper, biblical appreciation for the apostolic and move from a primarily 'pastoral' mindset to a primarily 'apostolic' mindset (Joe - 57).
16) The "church" should cease being congregations primarily defined by "religious" meetings and "services rendered," and to return to our calling -- to be the people of God who manifest and proclaim the kingdom of God in our way of life together (Steve H.- 58)
17) every "church" (however defined) should have a poet-in-residence, along with one other non-musical artist-in-residence (Brian, the ironic poet - 56).

Memorable comments:
(John M. - 59) "The Evangelical Church would do well to make a constructively critical and intentional evaluation of it's understanding and practice of ecclesiology; understanding from the outset that radical reform may be indicated and that the current, popular structure of the church is not sacrosanct or absolute."

(Patrick: - 24) "I would recommend disbanding Sunday morning congregational meetings, breaking into groups no bigger than the size of your living room and begin building relationships with people 'in the world' start in small steps."
Meeting together in worship
Maturing together in discipleship
Missioning together for the harvest.

95 'wiki' theses for Reform?

2008-10-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Ok guys, here we go with another discussion thread. It seems to me that we have come to agreement, that while holding to the creeds and the whole history of the church, there is a need for ‘wiki’ reformational updating in the Evangelical wing of the church.

I mentioned 5 things I think need a ‘wiki’ updating in the last thread. In this discussion, lets come up with a comprehensive list of things that need reforming in the current U.S. Evangelical church. I’ll start with repeating one area I think that urgently needs to be reformed. Let's look for "change you can believe in." (ok, sorry, just kidding!)

I composed a little ditty for this discussion…

♪♫ 94 theses to post on this thread…
94 theses to post!
Write one down, discuss it all around,
93 theses to post on the blog….♫♪

(click below for musical accompaniment ... these guys remind me of us talking theology in our blog... or of me and John Meadows on our way to the Kansas City Shepherds conference with Frank Dawson in 1975!)

The 'wiki' nature of the church: Why not convert to Catholocism or Orthodoxy?

2008-10-01T07:00:00.001-07:00

While there is a bit of a lull in the previous thread, i thought I would post a couple of paragraphs from a great post today by McKnight in jesuscreed. He is answering a letter from someone who is asking him if he admires the historic communsions (RCC and EO) why he does not go all the way and convert to one of them from evangelicalism. His response is classic ... I recommend that you go do jesuscreed.org and read the entire post ... It is called Why I am not Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.

Here is a portion of his response:

"Third, the reason I think this way is seen in how Tradition plays itself out in each Church: for each of these communions the Tradition becomes massively authoritative and, in my view, each of these communions has become un-reformable. They read the Bible through Tradition and I believe in reading the Bible with Tradition. (my emphasis, not McKnight's)

And reformability is central to the “wiki” understanding of how God speaks: God spoke in the Bible in ongoingly fresh ways; that reveals the importance of returning to the roots in order to gain fire for the present. Return for reformation is the very essence of my “wiki” understanding of the Bible and of how God speaks.

I believe both the RCC and the EO, even with routine observations to the contrary by its adherents, are un-reformable.

I value, and value with profound respect, the great traditions of the Church, including Nicea and Chalcedon and Wittenberg and other moments as well. I check interpretation against these; but that does not mean I don’t think fresh light emerges or that something could be improved or modified (COMMENT: thats what I'm talking about! Let's have that conversation...)

Fifth, what this means — if you are still with me — is that I believe in ongoing discernment of what the Spirit is saying to the Church, and I believe this discernment is a function of church leaders and churches in communion with one another. Discernment for the day is different than infallible teaching for all time. Therein lies a major difference." (COMMENT: this 'discernment' is what I have been calling for along the lines of the Sons of Issachar...but there is a lot of pushback)

How do we define the ‘kingdom of God’?

2008-09-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

Scot McKnight points out the need for a clear definition in his article about Brian McLaren and the ‘emergent’ gospel in Christianity Today.

McLaren Emerging

[CHRISTIANITY TODAY] “Kingdom and Church Kingdom talk has become trendy and fashionable among emergents, and God be thanked that they are one group among many that are forcing us to reexamine what we think about Jesus' kingdom vision. But the lack of a thorough definition of kingdom is a major concern. On my blog, I spent several months slogging through what the Gospels say about the kingdom, text by text. I have discovered two points that cannot be denied: There is no kingdom without faith and attachment to Jesus Christ, and there is no kingdom without attachment to Jesus' followers. In other words, Jesus' kingdom vision is not that far from Paul's church vision, yet there is little ecclesiology in either Secret Message or Everything Must Change.

So my second question for McLaren is this: What is the relationship of kingdom to church? Can his emergent view of the kingdom lead to the New Testament picture of the church?”

[joseph] Here are two of my own favorite scriptures regarding the KoG:

Luke: 17:22 - "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

Romans 14:17 - "For the kingdom of God is … righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,"

I define the KoG as “The heavenly father’s loving leadership in our lives through the authority of Jesus and the daily guidance of the H.S. “ The kingdom becomes manifest in our lives through our moment-by-moment inner surrender to his life and initiative which inevitably result in inner righteousness, peace and joy which exercise a gravitational pull that changes the external world around us."

So .. .how do you define ‘the kingdom of God’?

Barn-builders or kingdom movements?

2008-09-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

The following is a compressed version of some of Steve Humble's thoughts; any misrepresentations are due to Brian's editing!

The primary purpose of God has always been to have a people on earth who recognize him as king over their own lives, over all men, and over all things. This people of God are to be formed in God’s character and to live on earth the way God lives in heaven; that is they are to represent (re-present) their king and manifest his kingdom on earth.

After the Fall, God began to build this people when he called Abraham and made covenant with him and his descendants. God’s people, the children of Abraham, were called to be the blessing of God and his reign for all the nations. However, once God had dealt with Israel’s propensity to serve the gods of other peoples, most of Israel turned the focus inward, believing that they were the center and epitome of God’s interest.

But God’s purpose, unveiled in Christ, was to have a people—the followers of Jesus consisting of both Jews and Gentiles—who would represent God throughout the whole earth, a kingdom people dispersed into all nations, manifesting God’s kingdom in their individual lives and in their community with one another. This call to be communities of the king and his kingdom is the substance of the new covenant.

The people of the kingdom are to follow the pattern of life modeled by their King; that is, we are to lay down our lives individually and corporately for the life of the world (John 6). We, the sons of the kingdom, are seed. Seed does not exist to be stored in barns, at least beyond the short run. Some seed goes through death and resurrection like the First Seed and thus the seed is multiplied. Other seed serves as food, giving life to other creatures. The issue is not to build big barns but to sow out the seed.

Like Israel, “churches” can become ends in themselves, whether on the local or the denominational level, often times using their resources to build bigger and bigger barns. The “churches” tend to be self-focused to a great extent, rather than to offer themselves up (individually and corporate) as living sacrifices of worship. A kingdom movement is focused on giving life. A “church” movement tends to be a consumer of life.

Manifesto II

2008-09-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

Continuing our conversation on "An Evangelical Manifesto" (www.evangelicalmanifesto.com), here's the next section (from the Executive Summary of the full Manifesto):

Third, we are concerned that a generation of culture warring, reinforced by understandable reactions to religious extremism around the world, has created a powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people. If this hardens into something like the European animosity toward religion in public life, the result would be disastrous for the American republic and would severely constrict liberty for people of all faiths. The striking intolerance shown by the new atheists is a warning sign. We call on all citizens of goodwill and believers of all faiths and none to join us in working for a civil public square and the restoration of a tough-minded civility that is in the interests of all.

Fourth, we are concerned that globalization and the emerging global public square have no matching vision of how to live with our deepest differences on the global stage. In the Internet era, everyone can listen to what we say even when we are not speaking to everyone. Global communication magnifies the challenges of living with our deepest differences.

As the global public square emerges, we warn of two equal and opposite errors: coercive secularism and religious extremism. We also repudiate the two other positions. First, those who believe their way is the only way and the way for everyone, and are therefore prepared to coerce them. This position leads inevitably to conflict. Second, those who believe that different values are relative to different cultures, and who therefore refuse to allow anyone to judge anyone else or any other culture. This position sounds tolerant at first, but it leads directly to the ills of complacency. In a world of such evils as genocide, slavery, female oppression, and assaults on the unborn, there are rights that must be defended, evils that must be resisted, and interventions into the affairs of others that are morally justified.

Discussing "An Evangelical Manifesto"

2008-09-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

The following is excerpted from the "Executive Summary" of An Evangelical Manifesto (www.evangelicalmanifesto.com). I encourage you to read the whole document, if you can. After first staking out a theological understanding of the term "evangelical" ( a definition I found sound and unremarkable), the document goes on to say:

"Second, we wish to reposition ourselves in public life. To be Evangelical is to be faithful to the freedom, justice, peace, and well-being that are at the heart of the good news of Jesus. Fundamentalism was world-denying and politically disengaged at its outset, but Evangelicals have made a distinguished contribution to politics—attested by causes such the abolition of slavery and woman’s suffrage, and by names such as John Jay, John Witherspoon, Frances Willard, and Sojourner Truth in America and William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury in England. Today, however, enormous confusion surrounds Evangelicals in public life and we wish to clarify our stand through the following assertions:

"First, we repudiate two equal and opposite errors into which many Christians have fallen. One error is to privatize faith, applying it to the personal and spiritual realm only. Such dualism falsely divorces the spiritual from the secular and causes faith to lose its integrity. The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, Christians become the “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology. Christian beliefs become the weapons of political factions.
Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, economic system, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, or nationality. The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness.
"Second, we repudiate the two extremes that define the present culture wars in the United States. On one side, we repudiate the partisans of a sacred public square, those who would continue to give one religion a preferred place in public life. In a diverse society, it will always be unjust and unworkable to privilege one religion. We are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths. We are firmly opposed to theocracy. And we have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose beliefs and behavior on anyone. We believe in persuasion.
On the other side, we repudiate the partisans of a naked public square, those who would make all religious expression inviolably private and keep the public square inviolably secular. This position is even less just and workable because it excludes the overwhelming majority of citizens, who are still profoundly religious. Nothing is more illiberal than to invite people into the public square but insist that they be stripped of the faith that makes them who they are.
"We are committed to a civil public square – a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well. Every right we assert for ourselves as Christians is a right we defend for all others. "

Romans and Revelation

2008-08-29T05:47:00.000-07:00

Joseph provides a quote from NT Wright's book, "Surprised by Hope":

"Maybe what we are faced with in our own day is a similar challenge: to focus not on the question of which human beings God is going to take to heaven and how he is going to do it, but on the question of how God is going to rescue the world through human beings ... if we could reread Romans and Revelation...in the light of this reframing... I think we would find much food for thought" (p. 185).

Let's accept the invitation/challenge: what parts of Paul's letter to the Romans, or John's Revelation, would you cite to support or challenge Wright's contention? Those who are reading "Surprised by Hope" should feel free to add material from that book to this discussion.

One favor/request: can we try to point to specific sections in Romans, Revelation, other NT documents, or Wright's book in making our comments?

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society - intro.

2008-08-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Cambridge and Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.

Here is a passage on page 9 that adjusted some of my own thinking:

“In the famous story of the blind men and the elephant, so often quoted in the interests of religious agnosticism, the real point of the story is constantly overlooked. The story is told from the point of view of the king and his courtiers, who are not blind but can see that the blind men are unable to grasp the full reality of the elephant and are only able to get hold of part of the truth. The story is constantly told to neutralize the affirmation of the great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth. But, of course, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite. If the king were also blind there would be no story. The story is told by the king, and it is the immensely arrogant claim of one who sees the full truth which all the world’s religions are only groping after. It embodies the claim to know the full reality which relativizes all the claims of the religions and philosophies.”

I move the rest of this post, Newbigin's bio and some introductory comments over to my blog http://c-far.blogspot.com/ for the sake of brevity. You can go there if you want to read the whole thing and come back here for comments.

ok -- my new copy of McLaren just arrived as I was writing this ...I'll hit it this week.

Everything Must Change II, Chapter and Verse

2008-08-01T08:52:00.001-07:00

We're continuing our look at Brian McLaren's book Everything Must Change. In order to focus the discussion just a bit, let's try this: please cite a specific section that either (a) says something you strongly agree with, (b) says something you strongly disagree with, or (c) says something that raised some questions (e.g., "I really didn't get this--can someone help me understand it?" or "Hmmm... I hadn't thought of it like that before... now I'm wondering if... ?") One passage could serve for all three kinds of responses.

Everything Must Change I

2008-07-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

We're starting a book discussion on Brian McLaren's book Everything Must Change. We'll take it in chunks: after "Everything Must Change I, we'll have EMC II, EMC III, etc. If you're reading the book, skip the next section of this post and go directly to Comments. The following will attempt to summarize the first two sections (roughly the first 70 or so pages) for those who haven't been reading.

McLaren begins with the two questions that have preoccupied him for years, What are the world's biggest problems? and What does Jesus have to say about them? His main contention is that, while the Gospel of Jesus has in fact has a lot to say about these matters, the Western Church has largely proven to be a failed religion in responding to the world's present distress (e.g., environmental degradation, hunger, violence, slavery, addiction, etc).
In the second part, he develops the metaphor of a Suicide Machine to describe the impact of modern Western civilization on the Creation and the human community. All societies have legitimate needs for prosperity, security and equity, and all have a "framing story" that meshes these three areas of need into a coherent whole. (One example would be the way in which the framing story of the pax Romana justified the Empire's manner of providing prosperity, security and equity.) He contends that our current societal "machine" (using the term metaphorically) has become suicidal in the way it attempts to resource prosperity, security and equity in a manner that ravages the ecosystem in which it is necessarily embedded. He further argues that the Church has been largely complicit in the development of this suicide machine, either because of a deficient theology that assumes God has no interest in his Creation but only in "saving" people out of it, or because the Church in the West has tended to enjoy and depend upon the blandishments of the modern enterprise (or some combination of the two).
McLaren concludes section two as follows: "... we have raised the possibility that Jesus' message might be seen as an alternative framing story that, if believed, could save the system from suicide. To test this possibility, we will need to consider the possibility that "Jesus" as we have understood him has... been domesticated and made part of the dominant framing story. For Jesus to save the system, we must first, in a sense, save Jesus--by reframing him outside the confines of our dominant and largely unquestioned assumptions" (page 73).

Charging batteries?

2008-06-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

while we continue talking in the other thread about books to read, and while Brian gets ready to lead us in a new topic, I thought I would ask you guys what is your favorite way to charge your emotional batteries? What do you do for re-creation? Any hobbies?

An Implausible Scenario?

2008-06-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

As resident aliens living in the semi-secularized West, we are finding that it's becoming harder to gain a hearing for the Gospel because it is considered implausible from the get-go. For example, "Jesus is THE (i.e., only or exclusive) way" strikes many as implausible as "The earth is flat." So two questions: what are the features in our culture that support people in finding the Gospel to be implausible? What might be good ways for us to respond?

Do not judge... its a boomerang!

2008-05-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

In the teachings of Jesus, there are parables, principles, and imperatives. Among those things that Jesus spoke in the imperative form is his admonition to “judge not!” (Matthew 7:1-3). And yet, the apostle Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 6:5 if there is not anyone spiritual enough to ‘judge’ a dispute among believers and in chapter 5, verse 12, Paul seems to imply that we are to ‘judge’ those within the church, at least in terms of morality. Again in 1 Corinthians 11:31 Paul seem to encourage us to ‘judge’ ourselves before taking communion.

So when do we follow the clear command of Jesus not to judge others? And we do we apply the teachings of Paul about judgment of ourselves and of other believers within the church? And what about the ‘spiritual man’ who makes judgments about all things but is not himself subject to any man’s judgment? (1 Cor. 2:15).

What is the difference between judgment and discernment?

Irreconcilable Differences?

2008-05-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

"Irreconcilable differences" is the primary reason given for divorce (with "incompatibility" perhaps a close second). Given the curse that divorce is and brings to marriages, children, families and society in general (you may dispute this if you desire), why is the church in the mess that it's in in this area? When divorce rates for "bible-believing Christians" mirror those of the culture at large, we are clearly approaching the status of salt that has lost its saltiness and which is now no longer good for anything. So two questions: what might it take to get our own house in order? (Feel free to define "house" however you'd like.) And assuming we are graced to move towards that goal (and even while we are moving towards it), how can we minister redemptively to people whose views of human relationships are increasingly divorced from God's good intentions?

Wisdom Needed?

2008-05-04T12:58:00.001-07:00

Here's a hypothetical for discussion: a single (never married) woman in your church (and here we allow as wide a definition of the term as you like) who understands herself to be gay wants to adopt a child. Let's posit that she (a) has made a clear, orthodox profession of faith, (b) is living that out consistently as an active member of your "church", and (c) currently committed to chastity (although has not closed the door on entering into a same-sex relationship "at some point"). She desires her church to support her in undertaking to adopt. How should/might you and the congregation respond? By the way, there are no legal barriers to a single person adopting.

The Next Thing

2008-04-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

The following comes from my favorite section of my favorite periodical, First Things. The section, While We're At It, consists of short "clippings" from books, other periodicals, etc. I have compressed the following item considerably, so if you'd like the full text, visit the May 2008 issue of First Things, p. 69, or visit firstthings.com.

Part of the vitality, and the vacuity, of evangelical Protestantism is the unending and frenetic search for "the next thing." Whether it produces more vacuity than vitality is a disputed question. It is a question addressed in Telford Work's critique of Reformed and Always Reforming by Roger Olson... The next thing, the newest thing, the coming thing, according to Olson, is "postconservatism." Good riddance to conservatism, which is marked by "slavish adherence" to an "incorrigible" tradition. Let's replace it with theology as "a pilgrimage and a journey rather than a discovery and conquest" ... The sad fact is, says Work, "from political activism to the church-growth movement to the allegedly postmodern 'emerging church,' evangelicals are borrowing more than ever from late modern liberalism." Once again, the excited discovery of "the next thing" turns out to be the result of rummaging through a pile of discards in the used theology shop.

Favorite books?

2008-03-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

I'll toss out a possible topic for discussion.
What has been your favorite book of the last two or three years? Let's say that it does not have to be theologically or religiously oriented -- it could be humor, novel, historical, devotional or any other genre. I have several books in mind that have had a formative influence on my thinking. I'm not sure yet which one I would pick as my favorite. I'll get back to you on that.

A secondary question might be which genre is your favorite? I am currently a fan of macro-historical books dealing with early modern European empires. Probably my favorite was C.R. Boxer's "Four Centuries of Portuguese Expansion, 1415-1825" (1969). It is only 100 pages long and written in simple English but brilliantly covers four centuries of European colonialism.

here are a couple of more questions:
-What book have you read twice, and might read again?
-What book do you have on your shelf to read that you are most looking forward to?
-Have you ever paid more than 50$ for a book?
-Do you have any written notes or summaries of books that you might share with others?

Remember Brian's suggestion that we keep our comments to 500 words or less...

Future-Visioning

2008-03-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

I think most of us agree that we are experiencing a cultural tsunami that is having a profound effect on the church. Alan Hirsch in his book, “The Forgotten Ways”, says that the church is in a state of “liminality”. Liminality is an “in-between, marginal state in relation to the surrounding society, a place that could involve significant danger and disorientation…” (p. 220).
The question we face is how will we as “church leaders” respond to the place we find ourselves in? Critiquing the present state of the church comes naturally to many of us. Could I suggest that we move beyond criticism, beyond deconstruction, and attempt to voice a constructive vision for where we are headed, for where God might be leading us?
Hirsch goes on to say, that, “holding a definite sense of vision (a preferred future) and mission informs and alters how people think and how they will behave in the present. Viewed this way, the future is a means to alter behavior… One does not creep up on a big future. Rather, the future is boldly declared in a vision and serves as the catalyst for all that follows.” (p. 233)
Can we dream the future? What is God’s dream for His Bride as she hurtles toward mid-term of the “new” Century? Can we allow the Holy Spirit to breathe wisdom, discernment, vision and direction about where God wants us to go? Which way is the wind blowing? What does He desire the “church of the future” to look like? How does He want us to function, to “be” his Body in the earth? How can we concretely be the light of the world and the life of the world as we continue into the 21st Century? Be concrete. Be specific.

Worship?

2008-03-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

Liturgical or digitized? Ancient or future? Cutting edge or 'old faithful'? Mainly individual or expressly communal? A function that determines its own form, or a given form that functions in particular ways?

I've put the post title and its first line in question form, as a way of getting after what our current questions might be about worship: what is worship? Why is it important, and how is it important? What does it mean to be a "21st-century worshipper" or a "21st-century worshipping community" and how is that different from previous centuries? And of course the "or" in the first group of questions is a red herring, but perhaps a provocative one...

THE GREAT (GENERATIONAL) WALL

2008-02-26T06:35:00.000-08:00

We are discussing generational walls and barriers. There was a huge divide between the baby boomer generation and our parents in the late 1960s ... and corresponding cultural change as well as massive ecclesial change. The "Jesus" movement reshaped the face of the Evangelical church, the style of worship and the music.

S.S. sent me a statistic by email from Barna research which indicates that 36% of Americans today are Evangelical, but within the next generation, should current trends continue, that number will drop to 4%. It is routine for most churches to lose their graduating high schoolers as they go off to college (It would be interesting here to discuss the temptation for Evangelicals to go "instransitive" to use Mumford's phrase).

The question to be considered in this discussion is two-fold: 1) how can we be more effective in handing off our baton of faith to our own kids in our churches? (evangelical or otherwise).

2) How can we effectively engage millennial young people (secular) with a serious communication of the good news of Jesus?

Both questions lead to a third question that most be considered in order to answer #1 and #2: what are the generational and cultural differences that require a change in missiological methodology to reach these kids? Some say, there is no difference, others say we need to go back to historic Christianity, and yet a third group wants to throw out everything and start completely fresh. Which is it?

Trial Balloons

2008-02-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

Despite our many grumblings about "politics" and "the system", we do have the amazing privilege of voting. So who you like for the OO (Oval Office) in 08? You get to name your (current--subject to change) candidate, and please provide the one or two reasons behind your choice. The hoped-for give-and-take might change some minds or sharpen some convictions!