Reviewing the Journey

I keep thinking about this journey we've been on for almost three years. What I mean is that I reflect on where God has been leading us, how in general terms it is what we vaguely imagined, but how in specific ways we have moved along in ways I didn't imagine.

There are at least two reasons this keeps churning over in my mind: 1) as a congregation we continue to talk about what we are to be, reviewing and adjusting our sense of community and mission to hopefully tune our walk to the Spirit's rhythm, and 2) we've had and receive opportunities to discuss with others how they might embark on a similar trek through non-institutionalized Christian life.

Our general idea of being a congregation that does nothing to further its own existence but only seeks to be involved in God's Mission in the world has been an interesting goal. This value has led us to have no weekly contributions, to abolish any sort of church membership, to de-emphasize the Sunday gathering so as to not let it be the penultimate mark of faithfulness or Christian life, to remain largely unstructured and unorganized, and to choose to meet in a leased building.

This concept has also entered into our reluctance to do much with having signs. Anything that moves our focus off living for Christ daily and onto building up "our church" has been suspect. By implication all marketing is out. So is any proselyting of people to come to "our church."

This is not to suggest that sharing this vision has been all that easy. We've all had to struggle with tendencies to fall back into institutionally-focused ways of thinking and acting. It is easy to want to ensure our own existence by planning for our corporate future, and harder to allow God the freedom to do whatever He wants.

One leader of another church in town, on hearing of our original vision of being a church that welcomed and accepted marginalized people, remarked that one couldn't build a church with people like that. In other words, you need resources to build a church . . . and when you focus on the needy - they "consume" resources rather than provide them.

Interestingly enough, our congregation - which continues to try as best we can to simply do what God asks and not to think of our own institutional needs - is having no trouble finding resources to do whatever is needed. Obviously, God really is faithful even when we aren't planning our own path.

What I take away from my review is not a prideful "pat-on-the-back" for how well we are doing, but a gratefulness for God's faithfulness and a sober realization that we must continue on the difficult path of being willing to lose everything - even our community - for the sake of God.

A few weeks ago I came to the decision that my role is not to "defend" the journey we are on, but to simply be on that journey. A non-institutional community won't try and preserve its non-institutional character. Such defensiveness is an institutional trait. A truly non-institutional group will remain such by staying focused on life in God rather than the nature of its own existence. As soon as I start defending rather than simply being - I've become more concerned with how we exist in this world rather than how we participate in God's Reign.

So . . . when we lose it, we gain it. And if we try and keep it, we lose it. Imagine that!

More on 'Leadership'

We rejoined the Christian calendar - actually at the end with "Christ the King" yesterday. I am looking forward to the rich movement of Advent through Easter.

Don Hill led a good discussion class yesterday about what it is like when people exist together as an organism of life rather than a static organization.

One of the real challenges that came out was the tension between being a Christian within the hierarchies that exist in the world and the lack of such among believers. Since I do not long for a utpoian Christian society, I think that as believers we live counter-culturally in a world that will continue to need hierarchies, and yet the Kingdom will come among us when we have only servants and no positional leaders. That cannot be replicated in the world, and cannot by definition be forced on others. Only a group that chooses this may experience it.

We do have giftedness which encourages us to fulfill different roles in the Christian community, but there is no gift of telling everyone else what to do. There is a giftedness of suggesting creative ideas, and even visionary possibilities, . . . but each responds to these as the Spirit directs and not as the visionary instructs.

Again . . . leadership is about the willingness of others to listen.

Epistle to Dothan

First, the text from a seminar on being missional for those who are thoroughly modern:
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Advanced Consulting Skills for Missional Transformation: August 1-12
This specialized 2-week training is for those who wish to increase their diagnostic skills to work out of a missional framework with church systems. Participants will learn how to probe more deeply and productively into the complex theological, interpersonal, and organizational dynamics of the church.

Discover and learn to use a powerful diagnostic model in your consultative role that will help churches to -
* clarify the end-results they are seeking,
* identify the multiple factors at work,
* put complex situations in perspective,
* integrate and apply a variety of concepts and theories,
* define and evaluate progress on a missional journey.

Participants will learn to use the Systems Model of the Church within the context of a powerful feedback and learning process for the church. An actual intervention with a local church will serve as a significant learning tool. As a result you will be able to incorporate many new skills into your ministry.
---------
Yes . . . this text was accompanied by a diagram of the aforementioned systems model with nice arrows, text, and flow chart flavor.

I'm glad someone is creating charts about being incarnational.

On to the next subject . . .

Our trip to fellowship with the believers in Dothan was a blessing. They have a truly wonderful storefront space which dissallows standard preconceptions about "attending church" or "listening to sermons."

The location and functionality of the area lends itself to multiple uses . . . and they are thinking about ways of letting it be a place of commnity and conversation . . . for whoever. Really good.

What we talked about was not at all sterile and systematic nonsense- you know, the type of mechanistic planning evident in the example I copied above. We ended up in very real-life discussions about sharing faith, building community, setting boundaries, accepting others, clinging to faith in God's mysterious working - observing general principles from our discussions of specific situations.

I was blessed by the opportunity to talk and worship with the Christians there. I am confident in God's working as clearly evident in their ministry to one another. I know that the same care and guidance will be shared with everyone whose lives they touch.

As one of the others who went from our Birmingham fellowship remarked as we were driving home, it seemed like a very New Testament church-like thing to do . . . the sort of thing Paul would write a letter about:

To the saints in Dothan, grace and peace to you, from and through our God, who has richly filled us in our inner being with every gracious gift.

I give thanks every time I think of you, and the joy you have in serving the Lord. May your patience and love be expressed to one another in grace for the sake of Christ, so that you may continue to offer hope and care to anyone who is suffering and discouraged.

For you know that today many are fleeced in churches that seek only their tithes in order to service their debt. Many are promised earthly rewards for their faithfulness, which only leads to a crisis of faith. And others labor under fear, guilt, and shame as they seek to please God believing he will only save those who are worthy. Many have settled for membership in a religious club not knowing the way of a disciple.

All these are the children of God, and need to hear again the Good News of God's grace through Jesus. They need to find others willing to listen and bear their burdens; those willing to be patient as they walk imperfectly on a journey in Christ through the Spirit. Their hearts are sincere and good, but do not know the way of our Savior who gave us life in him rather than a church to attend.

There are many others who search through the confusion of today's culture, unhappy with the religious nature of the churches they have rejected, but struggling to find God. They have an inner awareness of needing the transcendent, and relationship, and hope and love, but the only churches they know seem in their eyes to offer little of this goodness.

You will be the body of Christ to each one you accept, encourage, and instruct in love. Do not worry that your efforts should produce great gatherings of many people, or impressive movements, for God is Sovereign and He will do His work to His glory! It is enough for you to be faithful in offering whatever is in your hand to give. The fishes and loaves feed thousands even when we do not see who is being fed. We should not be limited to wanting to minister in ways where we can see the results. Our work is by faith.

I have seen God among you, and enjoy His presence and be thankful. God is doing much, and all of it will be both glorious and difficult. Rely on the Spirit at all times. Honor everyone above yourselves and others will see God.

Grace and peace to you all in Christ, and may he supply your every need for the ministry to which you have been called. Be content with the mystery of God's working, finding the faith He gives sufficient for your contentment. Live in Kingdom you have received. The saints who meet at Disciples' Fellowship greet you.

Or something like that . . .

Dothan Trip

Several of us leave tomorrow to spend a couple of days with Christians in Dothan, AL who have begun on a journey similar to ours. The similarity is not necessarily in the details, but in the overall values.

I look forward to sharing in conversation, fellowship, and worship with them.

We'll see what the Spirit has in store.

Community and Coercion

One thing that was impressed on me during our years in Africa is that ecclesial power is illusionary. In that situation you realize how powerless you are - and how foolish it would be to believe you can control those people.

I used to tell the Tanzanians "Budula wane buli giki, butogwa wingwe wa kudegeleka" (my power is this, your willingness to listen). I was being honest. They could walk away, do anything they wanted, and totally disregard me. There was nothing I could do to make them do what I wanted or said.

All Christians are volunteers. In Tanzania the word for believers also meant "agree-ers". What binds us together is uncoerced agreement. We agree to submit to one another. We agree to follow God's leading. None of this can be forced.

So often guilt, shame, and fear are used to wield power over people even in matters of faith. "Jesus gave us the power to bind on earth and in heaven so if you don't do what we say we will consign you to hell." The threat of excommunication kept medieval kings in line, if not because of their own fear, because their subjects would rise up in revolt against an excommunicated sovereign.

Spiritual blackmail has no place in spiritual formation. No fellow believer rules over me spiritually, and I rule over no one. We are all brothers. And yet I willingly submit to the instruction, guidance, and interests of others.

Trying to live out this reality in a community is challenging because all models that I am familiar with, have a hierarchy at the core. That hierarchy is based on illusory power, but those at the top of the structure attempt to wield it nonetheless.

Being free to pursue God, and yet indebted to love others, is the tension that keeps us in relationship without the coercion of human power.

My Moment in the Academy

I got to talk about Africa yesterday to 23 Master of Divinity students at Beeson Divinity school. They are taking Introduction to Christian Missions and I was a guest lecturer on church planting in Africa.

I was amazed that no one raised their hands when I asked who was familiar with current discussions of the church needing to be missional. That's where I started in an attempt to show the relevancy of what I would be sharing - that it wasn't just how to live in the Kingdom somewhere else, but how to be participating in the Missio Dei here.

The rest was basically about how everything is God's, and our best work is to not screw up what He is doing. The Spirit of God will lead and work if we don't try and control everything out of our patronizing and ethnocentric tendencies.

All in all I enjoyed the experience. Without a context of knowing the students, or much about what they've already studied, I shared what I shared and have little idea of how it agreed/conflicted with what they've already heard. The damage may be irreparable.

Seeing . . .

Imparting vision. I know God does it . . . but is there anything we can do to help someone else see?

While I know that all spiritual insight is a divine gift, I do believe that God wills also to give such revelation to us through one another. I am reformed in my persistent desire to trace every impulse and good gift back to God - while affirming the role of willingness on our part to submit and accept God's working.

However, given our human nature of self-will, our culture which has enshrined that tendency in individualism and independence, and the protestant idea of sola scriptura that has sometimes been hijacked by individualism to make each one his or her own spiritual authority, little room remains for submitting to spiritual direction.

There is a difference in accepting spiritual instruction - a more educational situation - and spiritual direction. We will readily accept teaching in a classroom setting, but to accept individualized spiritual guidance which cuts to the root of our problems is foreign. And threatening to individualism.

When people approached Jesus as a Rabbi they expected spiritual wisdom more than intellectual information - due to their tradition of spiritual mentoring. We see people coming and asking for guidance. Obviously, many turned away from the personal prescription he gave when it didn't suit them . . . but at least they expected such. Were I to speak so boldly to identify spiritual maladies and point out the remedy to people individually, the resistance would not only be to the diagnosis but to my apparent audacity. I would be "overstepping" my role religiously.

Which is one spiritual vision I have - that of people seeking mentoring and wisdom. But how do I share that? Can I do anything to impart it? How can believers move from consumers who want to be served to seekers who want to be formed?

(Okay . . . that last sentence just popped out there, an insight from my writing process).

This is one of the core problems. As Christians we are consumers who believe we are the customers in the motto the customer is always right . . . and therefore our needs ought to set the agenda. How can we make a fundamental shift? The task is a revolution against the culture and human nature.

All I know to do is talk about it . . . and let those who have ears to hear, hear it.

Sunday

This past Sunday we heard from several about how their creative pursuits are reflections of their spirituality. Kara posted about her experience and the text of what she wrote/read and you can read it here.

One of the passages we read was from Exodus 35:30-36:1 where Moses said that God had given his Spirit and skill in crafts and artistry to those who would build the tabernacle. Beauty and creativity have always been inherent to spirituality, but unfortunately not always to our practice of church-ianity (at least for some protestant churches).

I am thankful that God is helping us to rediscover how our creative impulses reflect the image of God, and can become pathways for nurturing our spirituality.

Confession about Idols

A personal observation: The favorite idols of natural man are his fleshly appetites; the idols of church-going man are his preferences. It is as difficult to wrest self-indulgence from a person in the world, as it is to tear personal religious preference from the grip of someone accustomed to living a religious life. Neither can imagine life without these, and therefore both resist every attempt to find God as one's sole sufficiency and comfort.

In fact, one might say that the problem is one and the same; the personal preference of the person of faith is a form of self-indulgence transferred from more fleshly pursuits to religious ones.

I can assert this with the confidence of having seen, and am now seeing, that I have idols of both kinds. I am in some ways still very much a natural man, and I cannot imagine living without my self-indulgent sins. How can I let go of the fleshly sins that give me comfort? My possessions, pride, and lusts all give me some pleasure and sense of self. Can God alone satisfy me?

Can I let go of my preferences concerning my faith, and let God do whatever, however, and wherever? Can I trust God enough to have no conditions about my faith? I don't want to go "back" to certain things - but does that make spiritual growth an idol?

Selfishness is at the heart of this - not wanting to let go of some level of control or my idea of what I need - whether in sinful indulgence or religious faith. It is all the same - dying to self is the answer, and it will erase both my sinful indulgence and religious preference.

Questions to Suggest Direction

What if . . .

worship was an expression of the whole of our lives of faith rather than a disconnected event where people try to correctly perform a checklist of activities to keep God happy?

we really stopped worrying about who is first and how to get others to see/do everything our way, and instead pursued servanthood and enjoyed the diversity of the Spirit within one another?

no one had ever taught us to concentrate on inconsequential matters and make those the bedrock of faith, and we simply enjoyed whatsoever is good, pure, lovely, noble . . . wherever it may be?

we followed Christ as if he is teaching and showing us how to live rather than how to be saved?

we understood the word church as refering to people who've received a different way of living rather than a place where we go and an organization in which we have membership?

we knew what Jesus meant when he said his Kingdom wasn't of this world, and we stopped trying to contradict him?

we lived by an ethic of love of God through faith instead pleasure through selfishness?

. . . how different would we be?

Ramblings . . .

Here I sit.

I feel like I should blog - basically because I want to do something, but don't feel like doing anything else. Blogging seems to be legitimate ministry, don't you think? I'm not being lazy if I'm blogging.

Bill got a job - and an offer to come fill out paperwork for another - so he's going to end up with a choice of jobs. Looks like Stanley got a job too! If everything comes through he will be helping take care of animals at a local veterinary clinic!

I am genuinely rejoicing for them . . . but selfishly I am glad for this progress because it takes a burden off me (see the last post). Self-interest is always in the back of my consciousness even if I don't want it to be.

When I think of Jesus being tempted in every way like us, I imagine that he knew what it was to think of everything from an economy of selfishness.

Oh, Father! Why did you give me these 12 losers?? Keeping James and John from destroying people with divine fire is a constant drain, and the in-fighting . . . ! 'I want to be first!' all the time. Maybe if I heal these people they'll go away and leave me alone!

No way . . . not Jesus! No person's need was too taxing, no request the last straw, no day too long.

Yeah, right!

But what am I talking about . . . today I am actually seeing progress! Just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is that too pessimistic?

Okay, think about the good stuff.

I really am enjoying the Thursday morning group I've joined. We are focusing on prayer. Our biweekly meet-up of emergent-ish/ancient-future believers is rich. This faith community is a constant blessing as we share life instead of doing church. My lovely wife, Marsha, and two great kids are extraordinary blessings. Aaron was reading me his favorite lyrics from an Alter Bridge song last night - what a blessing to have a 16 year old that shares his own thoughts with me.

Enough rambling . . . got to spend some time thinking about worship this Sunday.

Where Selfishness Lives

We started housing some evacuees from the coast in our building- and in the process also began more intensely walking with others who are in recovery. This new challenge has highlighted some spiritual garbage in me that has always been there - but is now just more apparent.

My selfishness makes itself evident in the ways I minister to others when I try to find easier and quicker ways to help people - desperately wanting their problem or struggle to be resolved without too much personal cost to me. Secretly I don't want their struggle to be too big a burden for me.

I know . . . that attitude really sucks. But I think it is what is often lurking around backstage and subtly influencing me.

The reality is that I can neither be the savior for someone else, nor should I hope bandaids can be a substitute for discipleship in community. Being in community does impose itself on "personal" space - and may call into question whether there is anything really like "personal" space in Christ's way.

If I think about it, not only do I not want ministry to become inconvenient, I don't like it to be without obvious "progress." Sometimes what makes another person's burdern something I don't want to share is that it can't be "solved." So I end up treating persistent struggles as temporary ones - hoping in vain that without too much effort it will go away.

So I really do have a selfish attitude. Somehow, by God's grace, I also have a true desire for ministry - to see God's working and participate in it. I am a contradiction: wanting to administer God's grace into the lives of others (in my regenerate self) and being selfishly concerned with how much of me that process involves (in my sinful self).

A little more death comes creeping in.

New Community

Todd and Teresa Thomas started "being" a new church - Disciple's Song - and you need to check out their website.

Awesome guys! Who gave you permission to do that??

More on Good News

continuing . . .

Given the fact that the first century was a target rich environment for anyone wanting to blast away at false religions, we should be amazed to realize that none of those gods and deities are named and criticized in the letters of the New Testament. Criticism of wrong belief and behavior and false religion was leveled at those within the Christian community rather than at those without. The consistent proclamation from John the Baptist, to Jesus, to the apostles was God's reign. That was the Good News. They didn't start with "Zeus is false."

Could it be that all human pursuits of the divine, however misguided and fundamentally flawed, are a pursuit of God? Could this be why Paul, in his pluralistic environment, criticized flawed ideas of God instead of disparaging anyone's pursuit of God no matter how incorrectly conceived, parsed, and executed. Surely there was graciousness and generosity involved in not taking easy shots at the piety of those who aren't following Jesus.

The other side to this discussion goes beyond the way the believers we read about in scripture didn't go around tearing down other religions and shows that what they did proclaim didn't require proving other religions wrong. When the Gospel is seen as a set of propositions to be accepted, of course there must be a competition with every other set of propositions. When Christianity is reduced from a way of life to a religion of beliefs, then it has to fight with other religious ideas.

However, when the Good News is that God is near, and that He reigns, the proclamation isn't about the clash of propositions. In fact, everything doesn't hinge on those - and the Gospel can be communicated through a cup of cold water. Of course, the story of how atonement was accomplished in Jesus is part of the nearness of God's reign, but not the only part. It is not even the first part for the person whose throat is parched.

Exclusive Good News

With the on-going collapse of modernity and Christendom, there is a mix of those who will readily engage in discussion, and others who won't. If one engages in discussion, not like we see Paul and Jesus, but from a Christendominal (can I make up words?) mindset there will be resistence among those typically willing to share in metaphysical dialogue. In other words, there is a willingness today for many to talk about spiritual matters, but often the way Christians try and have that discussion results in closing down the dialogue.

It is amazing to me that in Christianity where the foundation of our identity is in grace we often can't seem to speak about our faith without coming across as intolerant. We are so certain that the Good News means asserting our exclusive claims on truth we are perplexed when others don't hear any Good News in what we have to say. We attribute the problem to their relativistic leanings, rather than asking ourselves whether we know what the Gospel is. Maybe the Good News isn't "you're wrong and I've got the only real answers . . . want to hear them?" Maybe if we learn the Good News of the nearness of God's Reign then we will be able to speak readily without always coming off as intolerant of others.

When we consider the posture of Paul in conversation with Greeks in Athens (Acts 17) he doesn't say that he's got the truth and that they don't. He doesn't condemn the Greek gods, tell those philosophers that they are lost, or try and accuse them of being guilty of sin. Instead he compliments their spiritual orientation and devotion while seeking to expand their thinking about God. He proclaims the nearness of God and the grace of God in history. He manages to talk about Jesus without maligning their gods. I think if he'd been able to keep going, the grace of God through the resurrected Christ would have been where he would have gone - calling people to accept this outrageous gift.

Is this a aberrant behavior on Paul's part, or did he go around sharing Good News without trashing the beliefs of others? What about the riot in Ephesus (Acts 19)? Surely the artisans who started that were upset because Paul had denounced their religion - right?

Read carefully: even those who were angry with Paul had only this accusation - "He says that man-made gods are no gods at all." They didn't say "Paul has denounced Artemis as a false god." Why didn't Paul preach clearly that their god was false?

I can't believe that these artisans were missing an opportunity to accuse Paul. Seems that he wasn't denouncing their faith in Artemis, but only pointing out that graven images could never represent that which was truely divine. It seems from what he's accused of that Paul was doing in Ephesus what he'd done in Athens. He is talking about God's nature being beyond the conceptions of idolatry - that God needs our service or that he can be represented physically - in other words, that he's just a bigger version of us. But vilifying the beliefs and faith of pagan people, Paul doesn't do that.

Of course, to people of faith, he can speak bluntly that the there is no communing at the tables of demons and of Christ. But sometimes I think we have missed the difference between how we are able to speak to one another and to those who are unaware of the Good News.

I'm not done - but gotta go . . .

In Celebration of Chaos

For those wanting to keep up with the insanity of how our dysfunctional fellowship continues to make bad choices which keep us from ever becoming a respectable church . . . you can read a recent article from our website on how we are An Unorganized Church.

Supposed Prophets

The usual chorus of some who believe they are following a biblical prophetic model can be heard pronouncing that Katrina was God's judgment on New Orleans.

Some facts they miss:

1) Biblical prophecy of doom almost always preceded the event of destruction in order to bring about repentance - rather than following it as a way of heaping abuse on those who have suffered.

2) This was the position of Job's friends who insinuated that his calamity was due to his sinfulness. They were wrong, God was angry with them for misrepresenting him, and ultimately Job was the intecessor for them.

3) When Jesus encountered those who were suggesting that the Galileans were slaughtered by the Romans because of their sinfulness, he turned the conversation back on those making such suggestions. He denied that these after-the-fact claims were right in asserting that the Galileans were greater sinners. Seems those making such accusation ought to heed Jesus' warning.

Todd's Blog

A good friend (and fellow mal-content with the status quo - why can't it be better?) recently started a blog. More accurately . . . I recently discovered the blog he started several months ago!

Anyway, Todd is a good friend from way back. He and his family followed us to Tanzania - coming in as we were leaving.

Maybe it is the being missionaries thing - but we share a spiritually adventurous bent which pursues God without tremendous regard for sacred cows.

So I encourage you to visit his blog and read his confessional post about being tired of the idea of strategy.

blessings.

Called to be . . .

I came across a good quote from Soren Kierkegaard:

"It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression "follower." He never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents. No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for."

Down to the River to Pray

We went down to the river to pray yesterday. Not just any river, but a particular place on a particular river. Stanley wanted to be baptized and had a very special place in mind.

Since I come from a baptizing tradition - I mean serious as hell about baptizing, or maybe it is serious as heaven. Either way, we were baptizers in a big way.

But Steve's baptism last week and Stanley's yesterday were not the result of "a sit down Bible study" which ends up with a dissertation on proper Christian baptism (with all the proof texts in tow) and the question "so do you want to be baptized and go to heaven or stay like you are on the road to hell?"

No, they asked for baptism as part of their continuing journey of being drawn to God. Their participation in fellowship and through being loved and accepted is what moved them to ask for baptism. Their faith was ready to be expressed in this new way, a declaration of accepting Christ and his way even more fully.

This new acceptance wasn't based on new understandings of modes and the meaning of baptism, but on their changing lives and deeper understanding of the need to rely on God. Conversion isn't a point in time like their baptisms, but a process over time with many "points" of newness and change.