mexico prayers

It is impossible to capture all that God did in and through our team while in Mexico City but I want to share with you a some thoughts i had after an amazingly exhausting day working in Zapote Ariba.

I felt like i was a part of the life of Jesus/story of the church in Acts. We gathered together to eat pray, worship, sit under the Word and fellowship and then like the 70 sent out by Jesus we we went out to proclaim: good news to the poor; freedom for the prisoners; recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19). As we gathered in the center of the village with teachers, doctors, pastors, nurses, children from Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Ahuatitla, speaking English, Spanish and Nauat. Some sorted medicine, preparing to see patients others dispersed into the village while I stayed behind to preach from Mark 2, in English, and then translated into Spanish and then into Nauat. After that our tri-lingual team offered pray for the sick and broken-hearted. We listened to stories of incredible physical and spiritual pain and oppression. We prayed together in the unity of the Spirit even though we never spoke in the same language. We saw God's power and authority in very tangible ways - people were healed, principalities and powers were battled, tears were shed, hearts were mended and the kingdom of God was advanced all through PRAYER in the Spirit. Not the normal way I do ministry. I saw and felt the power of God go out through me and the others in our prayer team. I saw hands used to bring healing to other people's bodies and spirits. I heard discernment and insight into the lives of people that could have only been given by God. By mid-day I was completely depleted, exhausted and amazed. I experientially understood why Jesus often withdrew to a quiet place and connect with his Father - replenishing power, strength and wisdom. There were people waiting in line to meet with the doctors and nurses and to be prayed for. My spirit was weak and in need of renewal. The work that God had prepared me to do I had never done before (praying for people for 4 hours straight) and after lunch we headed back for more miraculous work of God healing peoples bodies, minds and spirits through us, his wounded healers on their knees.

How am I translating this back into the USAmerican world that, to quote Nacho Libre, "has it's faith in science?" I believe that we need to learn about the power of prayer and the reality of the spiritual world. We modernistic USAmerican Christians tend to live in our minds, depend on rationality, human ingenuity, the scientific method, technological development, medicine, and what we can explain. I certainly believe that God is in the technological advances of science and medicine to heal can be used for his glory. I do not want to create a dualism of body and spirit, mind and emotion or prayer and science - God is in all and sovereign over all. But it seems to me that more faith in humanity's ability to progressively heal through technological advancement than in God himself. God is pushing me and prodding me to trust him more, to ask more boldly in prayer and believe that God can and will break in through his Spirit to bring healing to his world.

• If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
• ...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
• And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.
• Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make them well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Lord help us to pray!

Brendan the navigator in Mexico

On Saturday my daughter Kyra and i and 8 others from the Open door leave for Mexico to work along side one of our partner churches in Mexico City. We will be doing medical work and relational evangelism in a remote village called Ahuatitla where they have planted some house churches. The highs will be between 100-110 degrees!!!!!

My main man John Creasy sent out this prayer to our team of the Celtic wanderer, Saint Brendan the Navigator. Please pray it with us as we journey to and from and all around Mexico over the next week.

Shall I abandon, O King of Mysteries, the soft comforts of home? Shall I turn my back on my native land, and my face toward the sea?

Shall I put myself wholly at the mercy of God, without silver, without a horse, without fame and honor? Shall I throw myself wholly on the King of kings, without a sword and shield, without food and drink, without a bed to lie on?

Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Christ's yoke? Shall I pour out my heart to him, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks?

Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land? Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict?

Shall I take my tiny coracle across the wide, sparkling ocean? O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?

O Christ, will you help me on the wild waves?

i love my presbytery

Pittsburgh Presbytery asked to fund ongoing development of new churches

Saturday, June 14, 2008

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Over the past year Pittsburgh Presbyery has made news for the churches it lost to another denomination. But at its most recent meeting there was unanimity and celebration when the 214 commissioners voted to ordain seminarian Jeff Eddings, who has already co-founded the fastest-growing church in the presbytery.

Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community on the South Side was founded in 2003 with $237,000 from the presbytery's New Church Development Fund. Now that fund is nearly out of money, and its overseers plan to ask the presbytery to build it back up. They hope one source will be money left by churches that are leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA) for a more conservative denomination.

"We believe that God is not finished with what he wants to do here," said Vera White, director of new church development for the presbytery.

When the presbytery voted in 2000 to put $1.55 million of reserve funds toward new congregations, "we had gone 40 years without starting a new church," Ms. White said.

During those same four decades, it had closed about 60 churches and lost more than half its members. The presbytery, which covers Allegheny County, currently has about 150 churches with 42,000 members.

"We had lost the skills, and also the culture, of church planting," she said.

But at the turn of the millennium, the presbytery not only voted to spend generously on outreach but to allow the task force in charge to experiment to see what worked. "They showed that they were really serious about this," she said.

Since then, the presbytery has started seven congregations.

Hot Metal, which recently moved into the former Taco Loco restaurant and bar, has grown to 100 members since 2003, but has an average attendance of 200. It is co-sponsored by the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, which gave $300,000 to help purchase the building.

"Church planting has to be the future of the church. Most young people who have been disenfranchised from the church aren't willing to walk into an established church," said the Rev. Eddings. Hot Metal is known for its rock music and tattoed faithful.

"We have to find the funding and more creative ways for denominations to work together, as they have for Hot Metal. Without support from both, we would not have been able to purchase this building."

Having attendance higher than membership is a sign of congregational health. Hot Metal shares that with two other new congregations. Mosaic Community Church, an 8-year-old multi-ethnic church on the North Side, has 47 members but an average attendance of 120. The Open Door, founded in 2005 at The Union Project in Highland Park, has 65 members and an average attendance of 86.

Fountain Park Church in Cranberry was another successful start-up, receiving $330,000 -- the largest grant to date -- in 2001. It has 125 members today. But that congregation was co-sponsored by Beaver-Butler Presbytery and has elected to charter only with Beaver-Butler, Ms. White said.

The newest congregation, the Pittsburgh Vietnamese Presbyterian Fellowship, received $12,000 last year, and draws 30 worshipers at Third Presbyterian Church, Shadyside.

Another congregation for new immigrants folded after two years in 2003, when its pastor returned to his native Brazil. And a start-up in Wilkinsburg left the Presbyterian Church (USA) to become independent when its pastor, a Baptist who had originally intended to become Presbyterian, changed his mind, Ms. White said.

Commissioners to Pittsburgh Presbytery will be asked to vote on the funding for new churches in the fall.

The task force is looking to five sources for continued support. They would like to receive $20,000 per year from the presbytery's operating budget. They are also asking for half the assets or proceeds of churches that close -- although that typically isn't much, she said.

A third request is for half the settlement money received from congregations that receive permission to leave the presbytery to affiliate with the more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church. So far two have done so, making "mission gifts" of $250,000 and $575,000 to the presbytery as part of the agreement to leave.

"That only makes sense. Something leaves, something new comes to replace it," Ms. White said.

A fourth source of proposed funding would come through the Pittsburgh Presbyterian Foundation, allowing individuals who are interested in local outreach to contribute money to start new churches.

The plan also calls for at least four existing congregations to support each new one with both finances and volunteers. This not only helps the new congregation but "it benefits the existing church by creating an energy and an evangelistic spirit that can bring a lot of hope and excitement to that church," Ms. White said.

apostolic presbyterians????

Thanks to Alan Hirsh who's blog pointed me to this quote which i think summarizes well some the the role i feel called to take on and the open door embodies in the PCUSA.

"The apostolic role within established churches and denominations requires the reinterpreting the denomination’s foundational values in the light of the demands of its mission today. The ultimate goal of these apostolic leaders is to call the denomination away from maintenance, back to mission. The apostolic denominational leader needs to be a visionary, who can outlast significant opposition from within the denominational structures and can build alliances with those who desire change. Furthermore, the strategy of the apostolic leader could involve, casting vision and winning approval for a shift from maintenance to mission. In addition the leader has to encourage signs of life within the existing structures and raise up a new generation of leaders and churches from the old. The apostolic denominational leader needs to ensure the new generation is not “frozen out” by those who resist change. Finally, such a leader must restructure the denominations institutions so that they serve mission purposes.” - Steve Addison

eucharistic people

I got an email from my friend Carlos Delgado, who just moved back to California two weeks ago. He is a wise sage and a deep, reflective writer who even at a distance regularly encourages me in my journey as a follower of Jesus.

Our community, the Open Door, is regularly wrestling with what it means to be an authentic community living among the urban poor. How does pursuing the true religion the God accepts not become a paternalistic handout that perpetuates white middle class privilege? How do we, like Jesus move into the neighborhood and journey with the marginalized?

Carlos in reflecting on Henri Nouwen’s journal Gracias: A Latin American Journal, from the six-month mission he took down to Bolivia and Peru gave us some encouraging words that speak to this incarnational mission with our neighbors. In Carlos' words: "May it remind us all that gratitude and celebration and sharing meals fit together naturally, even though only in Christ do they make the most sense."

Henri Nouwen, (from Gracias: A Latin American Journal, pp. 146–147)

Gratitude is one of the most visible characteristics of the poor I have come to know. I am always surrounded by words of thanks: “thanks for your visit, your blessing, your sermon, your prayer, your gifts, your presence with us.” Even the smallest and most necessary goods are a reason for gratitude. This all-pervading gratitude is the basis for celebration. Not only are the poor grateful for life, but they also celebrate life constantly. A visit, a reunion, a simple meeting are always like little celebrations. Every time a new gift is recognized, there are songs or toasts, words of congratulation, or something to eat and drink. And every gift is shared. “Have a drink, take some fruit, eat our bread” is the response to every visit I make, and this is what I see people do for each other. All of life is a gift, a gift to be celebrated, a gift to be shared.

Thus the poor are a eucharistic people, people who know to say thanks to God, to life, to each other. They may not come to Mass, they may not participate in many church celebrations. But in their hearts they are deeply religious, because for them all of life is a long fiesta with God.

A few of us reading Mark Gornick's book, To Live in Peace in which he similarly states, “Building communities of grace in the inner city entails creating spiritual and social spaces of freedom and acceptance where relationships of honesty, support and encouragement are sustained in the grace of God.... A central task of the church in the inner city is to learn how to build communities of reconciliation that express the newness of the kingdom in social, economic, political and gender relationships.”

May the Lord continue to shower us with his grace to become such a people!!!!!

MLK the prophet

The prophet Martin Luther King Jr. wrote this in April 1963 and it is still true today.

From A Letter from the Birmingham Jail,
In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

What is the church?

An exert from Michael Frost’s book Exiles,
Tom Sine has said, “We will need to aggressively work for the ‘re-monking’ of the church to enable followers of Jesus Christ to intentionally set the focus and rhythm of their lives out of biblical calling instead of cultural coercion.” Similarly, Stuart Murray suggests that, as a church we need to reimagine ourselves as, “monastic missionary orders, communities of encouragement, support and training from which we emerge to live as Christians in the workplace and to which we return for reflection and renewal.” (p.150).

Jan_Feb Relevant Magazine interview with Rob Bell:
"Church is when you are sitting around in your living room with people who would give their lives for one another... Church is the people whom you are journeying with, and I think we are already seeing what that looks like. It has nothing to do with the building you meet in, it has nothing to do with the name, it has nothing to do with how great your website is - its about new humanity. It's about people connecting with each other at the deepest, deepest levels of our being."

Your thoughts?

yogi missiologilist

I love my wife for many reasons and most recently (the past year or so) because she teaches me what it means to do and be be a good missiologist. She is a yoga instructor and has been working hard and wrestling to integrate her her faith in Christ into her work and the world of yoga which is predominantly New Age in the West and Hindu and Buddhist and the East.

This past Sunday she taught our community on the surrender of Mary and offered 2 prayer stations that related yoga postures and surrender to God. She is wise sensitive and brilliant at what she does and I am thankful for her witness to me and others in her passion in following in the way of Jesus.

Check it out or better yet try it out.

Here are some suggested poses that may help us get our bodies into a posture of surrender.

Corpse pose: lying on your back, focus on your breathing for 2 minutes: breathing in and out, becoming aware of the breath expanding your ribs and belly. With each exhale, surrender to gravity, feeling the heaviness grow in your muscles as gravity pulls you to the earth. Ponder these questions as you rest, imagining yourself in the palms of God; surrounded by His glory, love and grace all at the same time. Ask Him to help you trust Him; to stay in His palms and rest in His love.

Child’s pose: Getting on all four’s (knees and hands), sink your hips back toward your heels as if curling into a ball. Bring your hands along side your legs. Rest your forehead to a block or to the mat. Take 2 minutes to focus on your breath. Allow deep breaths to fill your whole torso – front and back ribs. Breath into your lower back, imagining your breath surrounding your kidneys and sides of your body. Ponder what it means to be a child of God. Mary was just a child…given such big responsibility in carrying God’s Son. What is He saying to you? Is He telling you to participate in the coming of His Kingdom in some way? Does this seem overwhelming?...challenging?...scary? Are you willing to surrender into His palms, trusting Him to accomplish His will through you?

Missional Adaptive Leadership

I stayed up late last night re-reading a chapter out of Alan Hirsch's book the Forgotten Ways and today had 2 appointments canceled and ended up listening to a podcast by Alan Roxburgh. I was aware of God's Spirit teaching me about my role as a leader, in and through these two people.

Alan Hirsch was saying that leadership, particulalrly apostolic leadership, is taking on the role of midwife. Leaders help birth the dreams and visions of the spirit of God that is already present in the people of God. We as leaders do not create it rather we nurture the environment for it to be birthed and call it forth. Jesus was this way in his use of questions, stories, parables which always helped others dicover the turth for themselves as they pondered and searched the meaning of his midwifery teaching. Secondly Alan used the image of a farmer. "A good farmer creates conditions for the growth of healthy crops by tiling the soil, replenishing it with nutrients, removing weeds, scattering seeds and watering the field" (pg. 166).

Alan Roxburgh said, "If the Spirit of God is among the people of God... the role of leadership is not to come up with answers, proposals and programs... nor to command and control... rather leadership is about creating the table, cultivating the environments and calling into being the spaces where the people of God can begin to dream, imagine and expereiment together... which is a way of life."

I am learning that these thoughts are true especially if emerging missional church communities are to be sustainable. The Spirit of God is indeed among the people of God and sometimes leaders need to get out of the way to allow Him to birth amazing and miraculous dreams. After our worship gathering this week I had 2 people come up to me and say they had thoughts and visions of something God may be calling them to do in and thorugh our community. One was related to adopting children and the other was about dance. Lord may the soil be right for those seeds to grow!! Secondly we are trying to create space in worship for the community to design prayer opportunties and art, read poery, tell stories and ministries to be birthed. I think this is happening. The problem is I cannot control it or manage it or systematize it. Thanks be to God for that!! Why is there always a desire to control, manage and possess what is out of control, unamanagble and not mine to posess? I hope and pray that as a leader I will continue to create spaces and environments for new life and growth to be birthed and get out the way of the work the Spirit of God is doing among His people.

Brimingham day 1

After Arriving in Birmingham yesterday we hung out with a group of folks from B1 (Nick and Lauren's church community) and had some great conversation about church, mission, relevant worship, the importance of relationality in the emerging church structure, belonging as a sense of being valued, networking, authenticity in leadership among many other thoughtful and insightful stuff.

That Aston Villa/Arsenal game was canceled so we hit up Birmingham and doing some pub crawling, seeing the canals, and the city center of Birmingham. It was a great afternoon and evening.

Here are a few pics from the day. I thought the first pic was amazing since there is this ancient Anglican church amidst modern architecture, shopping mall and bustling people. It is really an amazing physical image of the dislocation of the church in the Western world.

England at last

Well Katrina and I fly across the pond tomorrow for my first trip to the UK. We will be doing some study and research, visiting with friends and getting some R & R. Oh and a life long dream of mine I will get to see an English premiere league football game!!! I will be doing some study of emerging churches in the UK and discussing with them the following questions:

1. Why was/is the “emerging church/fresh expressions” movement missiologically essential in England? What was missiologically deficient or lacking in the Christendom model of church in the UK? How is the emerging church addressing those deficiencies?
2. It seems that the “emerging church/fresh expressions” movement is centered on worship renewal; do you see that to be true? If that is accurate what is the relationship between the mission of the church and worship of the church? How do see worship fueling the mission of the church and vice versa?

So you can journey a bit with us here are some of the people and communities we will be visiting over the next 12 days.

1. We fly into London and then take bus up to Birmingham and stay with our dear friends Nick and Lauren Burdette.
2. We will visit with their community B1 in a variety of settings
3. See Arsenal play Aston Villa
   
4. We will visit another church outside of Birmingham called Sanctuary
5. We will hook up with an organization called Faith to Faith which is a national Christian organization which supports Christians and Christian mission in the context of our multi faith society
6. Next is an amazing missional thinker Martin Robinson who works for Together in Mission, which works to equip churches to plant other churches and helps churches reorient around mission.
7. After some sight seeing with Nick and Lauren we head to London to visit with Gareth Powell from Moot
8. We will worship at All Souls Church and Moot on Sunday the 4th
9. And finally visit with Steve Collins from Small Ritual and Jonny Baker from Grace

It should be a blast!

Newbigin!!!

Leslie Newbigin in 1982 prophetically spoke of what is still true in the church today -a kind of assumed split between evangelism and social action. He states that “the dichotomy that opens up in our perceptions at this point is part of the deep going dualism that we inherit from the pagan (Greek) roots of our culture and which the biblical witness has never been able to eradicate.”

"...The church that invites men and women to take refuge in the name of Jesus without this challenge to the dominion of evil, [structural justice] then it becomes a countersign, and the more successful it is in increasing its membership, the more it becomes a sign against the sovereignty of God. An ‘evangelism’ that seeks to evade this challenge and this conflict, which‑for example‑welcomes a brutal tyranny because it allows free entry for missionaries rather than a more humane regime that puts difficulties in their way, becomes a sign against the gospel of the kingdom. We have, surely, the authority of the Lord himself for saying that church growth that does not bear fruit is only providing fuel for hell (Jn. 15:1‑6)." OUCH!

As a pastor I find it terribly difficult to mend this fundamental rift of the gospel. I think we do hold a fundamental dualism that is Gnostic and Greek in it's roots not biblical. I am sure we can think of lots of churches where this is true. BUT... The goal of this post is not to pull out the spec in another's eye but to take notice of the log in our own. Where is my church community fundamentally truncating and reducing the gospel in this manners? Lord help me to see!

the structure of church

Let me just say that my missiology class has been kicking my butt. Here are some notes from Thursday.

How does placing mission in the very being of God shape the way we do mission?

The problem was and is “that the very forms of congregational life were a major hindrance to the Church's evangelism.” “There are evidently structures which make it difficult or even impossible for the Word to reach the congregation, for the congregation to reach others and for others to reach the congregation. The congregation preaches not only with its proclamation but also with its structures and these can have and effect which is practically hostile to mission.” Dr. Werner Krusche

“The Church‑centred missiology of the 1950s [and today] had[s] inevitably raised the question of the forms of the Church's life. To be convinced on biblical and theological grounds that the Church not only has a missionary task but is itself the form of God's mission (‘As the Father sent me so send I you’) was to be driven to acknowledge that congregations as we know them are not structured for mission. They reflect the assumptions of the Christendom era that the whole of society is already baptized and therefore within the Church. They invite people to come out of the world into the Church: they do not themselves go into the world as those who are sent by God.”

Ecclesiocentrism, in other words, presupposed that the form of the churches were correct. Rediscovering the missionary nature of the church demanded a corresponding stimulation of missionary structures. “What changes in the external structure and self-understanding of the local congregation are needed for it to be able to witness credibly to the message of the kingdom of God in a secular world of rapid social change?” These questions were being asked in the 1950's and we are largely still int he same place 50 years later and the question is still out there.

What say you?

advent after Christmas

I am almost finished with Kester Brewin's book, The Complex Christ, Signs of emergence in the urban church. It just came out in the US under the title, Signs of Emergence. Kester is from the UK and writing in and from the UK experience but reflecting upon trends he sees as crucial for churches emerging in a post-Christendom and postmodern culture. (Not Emergent churches that have been typecast but churches that are emerging out of this unique cultural shit and time.) He uses James Fowlers stages of development to talk about how the church needs to develop or evolve past its enlightenment, rationalism of naive simplicity (Stage 3), characterized by Fowler as "loyalists with deep convictions, yet critically unexamined". Many Christians and churches never move beyond this stage of development. He is calling the church to move into Stage 4 where we realize that faith and truth is more complex than previously understood. This stage often leads to "dark night of the soul" kind of experiences where doubt and uncertainty reign. Many churches since they themselves have not moved through this stage, often cannot handle others within their community who are going through it. Brewin sees the church as a whole moving into Stage 4, due to the cultural shift from modern to postmodern and the shift from a centralized Christendom church status to a mariginalized post-Christendom status. Our place in the world is not what it has been and were are experiencing dislocation. The hope is obviously that one 9and the church) moves through Stage 4 to Stage 5. This according to Brewin and Fowler this is a place of deep simplicity, a place where one realizes the richness, ambiguity and multidimensionality of truth and faith. This conjunctive stage (5) allows one to hold opposites together in a single frame, it is what some call a dialectical tension. Though we cannot force people or churches to move from one phase to another we must create space for that movement and allow for diverse developmental stages within our churches. If we allow for this it will necessarily change the organization of our churches which Brewin sees to be essential for our missional context of postmodernism and post-Christendom.

And here is the beauty that drew me into this book. The first chapter is about a hopeful waiting - Advent. It is incredibly rich. He calls the church to wait. I love this because it as an activist doer it challenges me to my core!! Listen:

"We will be required to wait. To be acted upon gently and gracefully and peacefully. Shaped, not crushed; guided not dragged... The task is urgent but if our response is to be anything more than another flash in the pan or botched attempt to become culturally aware then we must avoid haste... Genuine change cannot be about haste, or about playing for time. It must involve the depth of us, and must have something of us in it... In other words, for our own health, we need change to occur not at revolutionary speeds demanded by power-wielding dictators or company board rooms, but at the evolutionary speeds of the empowered human body... If we are to transform the whole [church] and truly alter the very nature of things for good, then the mode of change can not be revolution, but evolution. A gradual development over a long period of time... The perception of the new step will come to those brave enough to stop dancing the old... We fear that if we stopped for a week, a month, a service, a moment we might appear forgotten, or lose our momentum... We must be brave enough to stop if we are to see change... In other words our structures must serve us not us serve our structures... We must bear fruit, Christ tells us. But outside our genetically modified globalized supermarkets, fruit trees only bear fruit once a year and then their branches are stripped of leaves in the cold winter of advent... The Church is destined to live in a perpetual advent as we wait for Christ's return... No matter how impatient we get as a society, with processing speeds rising and our whole cultural velocity increasing ever faster, we cannot speed up pregnancy... We must have the courage to stop. To prepare the ground for the new and wait."

What a breathe of fresh air!!!!!

What is hard about the waiting of this advent?
What are you seeing and hearing in this period of waiting?

the Celts

From Celtic Christianity by Timothy Joyce:

"To follow the spiritual world view of the Celtic Christians is to embrace a way of life that is a real commitment to the belief that the Trinitarian God is alive in this world, that Christ remains incarnate in his church, that each Christian is called to active discipleship in building up the kingdom of God. Celtic Christianity opens up to us a viewpoint that cannot separate Sunday and the rest of the week, this world and the next, the spiritual and the secular, the individual and the community. It would have great difficulty understanding the privatization of religion that is now characteristic of Western culture and American life in in particular. To wish to learn from Celtic Christianity is to wish to sense the passionate presence fo God in all of life. It is to find God in the ordinary events of life, love, eating, working, playing...

In addition to logic and reason, poetry, song, art and beauty were the tools of knowledge... To follow the Celtic spiritual way we modern Christians will have to do a lot of 'soulwork' to develop our unused imagination, our neglected senses, to complement our rational minds.

The church of today is more similar to the church of the fifth century than to many other eras... Today culture largely ignores the real Christian tradition. In fact, at times, it is hostile and antagonistic to Christian claims. Western civilization is decaying as once the Roman empire did. A new type of Dark Age gathers around us. that was the scenario for the blossoming of the Celtic Church. Might it not be the way again today?"

Do you think Joyce is on to something?

A relational understanding of truth

My boy Jacob Wobbrock is this weeks Emergent pocast on Relational truth.

Check it out!

Calling, vocation and ordination

This past week I have finally finished answering some questions that will (hopefully) enable me to move from one who is inquiring about ordination in the PCUSA to one who is a candidate in the PCUSA. So I thought I would share some of my journey with you over the next few posts. I would love to hear your feedback.

I was asked to write a statement of my understanding of Christian vocation and calling in the reformed tradition and how it relates to my own sense of call. Here it is...

In Stanly Grenz's book "Theology for the Community of God" he states, “As Daniel Migliore noted, ordination is properly understood missiologically rather than ontologically.’ Ordination does not facilitate an ontological change in the clergy, elevating them above other Christians. Instead, the act commissions a person into leadership for the sake of the mission of the entire people of God." The reformed sense of calling is that all are called to ministry. Since all of creation is Gods and Christ is Lord over all and the Spirit gives gifts to everyone in the church then each person ought to have a sense of call to exercise dominion and stewardship as a co-heir with Christ, in the world. There is no one inch of creation that God does not claim as his one and therefore each follower of Christ is called to exercise sovereignty over that sphere of life, be it, politics, medicine, education, family or the church. The particular call to ordained ministry in the church of Jesus Christ is to equip and empower the priesthood of ALL believers to exercise their authority and rule in God’s good creation. I am called to the pastoral work of equipping others for the work of ministry in the church and in the world. One of my greatest joys in life is seeing people begin to understand the connection that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has in their vocations and callings. I am an encourager and take great pride in pointing out the strengths, gifts and passions of others so that they might use them in service to the King and the kingdom. Secondly my sense of call to professional ministry has been affirmed in my teaching and preaching gifts. I love to unpack and relate the story of scripture to the life of our community. It is an aspect of my call where I clearly experience God’s pleasure. I feel like Jeremiah who stated, “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot (20:9). My call is confirmed by the continual desire to teach and equip others to be faithful followers of Jesus in word and deed.

I am excited to begin to practice this perspective in our community, The Open Door, as we begin to regulaly bless, pray for and comission people in their respective callings. Tomorrow night we will be comission our teachers to exercise their gifts in the sphere of education, from pre-school to master level TA's.

the Great Giveaway

I read this in David Fitch's book The Great Giveaway and it is still inspiring me. It paints a captivating picture of the church as an living, missional, transformative community. I wrote in poetic stanzas so you can read it slowly and drink it in:

It can only be that God begins in a small way,
at one single place in the world.
There must be a place,
visible
tangible.
Where salvation of the world
can begin
that is,
where the world becomes what it is supposed to be
according to God’s plan.
Beginning at that place
the new thing can spread abroad
but not through persuasion
not through indoctrination,
not through violence.
Everyone must have the opportunity to
come and see.
All must have the chance to behold
and test this new thing.
Then,
if they want to,
they can allow themselves
to be drawn up in the history
of salvation
that God is creating.
Only in that way
can their freedom be preserved.
What drives them to the new thing
cannot be force,
not even moral pressure,
but only fascination of a world that is changed.

- taken from Does God Need the Church? by Gerhard Lohfink

my first podcast

So today I did my first podcast with my friend Brian Wallace to talk about the conversation I am going to lead with Marlena Cochran at The Heart of The Missional Church Conference on October 5-7. Check it out, http://www.emergentpittsburgh.org/Podcast.

above-the-line solutions

Brain McLaren has done it again. In his most recent post he is calling the Church to live "above-the-line" instead of mapping out a position at either end of us/them or either/or conflicts, or even choosing some moderate point in between poles. Instead he pushes for a humble recognition that we are all journeying together with faith that continues to seek understanding. It is helpful to no one to define ones self or ones community by where they are on some spectrum (theological, political or otherwise). Nor is it constructive to define ones self or ones community by what we are opposed to or against. Brian says these positions "tend to polarize people into binary positions" on a continuum of sorts. So what if we sought above-the-line solutions attempting to affirm honor the good on both extremes while seeking to avoid at least some of the problems bifircation creates. In reality some of what Brain has suggested is just good contextualization. In some communities and cultures a certian ethic, theology, action, ritual, structure, politic etc... will be emphasized and others deemphasized.

Anyway... I just wanted to get you to read it... so check it out if you are at all intrigued.

You can find it here.