hybrids and cross-polinations

I have not read Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren yet but I feel as though our church, the Open Door and my theology is a generously orthodox. This happens in many strands of our life but most often visible in our worship gatherings. This past Sunday I preached a sermon that was rooted in Reformed covenant theology, we had prayer stations that involved interceding for justice in Kenya, lighting prayer candles, meditating on the significance of the civil rights movement as a "church", we sang an 2 old gospel hymns, had an altar call where 3 people renewed our baptismal vows and anointed with oil and served made to order coffee drinks. I think this is a generous orthodoxy. This "third way" community called the Open Door has an important role to play in the PCUSA presbytery . Call it emergent, postmodern, eclectic, contradictory or schizophrenic the realty is that I/we often find ourselves partnering with churches and people who are very different from one another. I think this is part of our calling to bring seemingly divergent folks together around the common mission of the Gospel and making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We are partners with two PCUSA churches in our neighborhood. One is a classic liberal community and the other classically conservative. I am both comfortable and uncomfortable in certain regards with both communities. I find myself in a unique place in a unique time where I tend to embrace this generous orthodoxy which includes all sorts of hybridizations of seemingly contradictory thoughts and practices. I told someone the other day that we practice contemplative activism, denominational/monasticism, reformed/ecumenicalism, conservative/liberalism, liberal/conservatism, ancient/future worship, evangelical/justice, and other such third way cross-pollinations. I see my role as a faithful subversive or a loyal radical within our presbytery/denomination and am still figuring out what that looks like, but am sooo... thankful to have friends who are charting out this new territory with me.

Postmodern Celts???

In my class on Celtic Christianity Dr. Purves listed some characteristics of Celtic Christianity that he is discovering i his reading. I was struck how the mindset and worldview of the Celts lined up with many postmodern Christians. I have heard it said before that the premodern (the Celts) era is very similar to the postmodern era. Could these not also be characteristics of an incarnated church in a postmodern and post-Christendom, 21st century culture?

• Embodiedness, for the Celts life was whole; there was no split between body and spirit
• They had a strong sense of the immanence the nearness of God especially on earth
  
• The believed in and depended on the Power of God and the supernatural
  
• They were Penitential
• Incarnational
• They had a Sacramental world view
• They were Ascetics – they like it tough and with self denial
• Strongly affective, relational and communal
  
• Trinitarian
• Non-dualists
• Liminality – the distance between heaven and earth is very thin
• Missional
• They were Perepatic people or wonderers, journeyers; yet for whom home was important
• They were non-hierarchical and communitarian
• They were oral people, story tellers
  

Man I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Sea spray

Thanks to Maggi Dawn whose blog I stole this quote from.

The author C. S. Lewis once wrote that there is all the difference in the world between reading a map of the coastline and feeling the spray of the ocean upon your face. People come to church, he said, not to be taught to read maps [about God], but to feel the spray.

Thanks to my community the Open Door who helps me feel the sea spray upon my face every day.