There is an acute and desperate need for creating genuine, authentic and missional Christian communities. The state of so many churches today is lamentable. Churches exist in abundance, but many thinking people today are fleeing them, or sitting on the sidelines about to give up their faith. Searching and perceptive Christians are becoming refugees in what should be the land of the living, but which rarely offers anything worth living for. When God – role play, buildings, programs, and events replace people, we’re losing the path.
In order to reverse our spiritual impoverishment we need God’s help. It is imperative to move in new directions. Our churches ought to first be true communities. People are the priority. Hospitality, love, and forgiveness are to stand out, and our communities should be places of alluring grace. Christian communities are not to be other-worldly, but to be this-worldly. We’re to be down-to-earth. We’re to share life together. We’re to be real people, living in the real world, and doing real things. And Christ is to be Lord of it all—of all life. Others are to come first—through washing feet, laying down lives, loving as Jesus has loved us. This extends to all we say and do as we live in this wild, wonderful, and broken world as broken people. Our actions will never be perfect, but nevertheless we are to continue to seek to demonstrate love in the midst of sin. This is living spirituality for the church, as it will result in further transformation into the image of Christ, empowering for mission, and diminishing spiritual impoverishment.
Churches have failed in their obligation to teach relevant, interesting, and insightful map-reading skills. There are more and more Bibles and more and more translations, but we have little encouragement and direction as to how to read the map—this precious word, this Word of God. This is not just a pastor’s, a scholar’s, or seminary student’s task, but it is the responsibility of all Christians. We have, generally speaking, become unskilled and illiterate map readers, and this is bound to carry with it grave consequences for our spirituality and our churches.
Many, many times, those who claim to be the most biblical among us are more interested in dogmatically protecting their particular interpretations, rather than carefully studying, contemplating, and being open to the map’s direction—a direction they claim to hold so dear. Whatever the map means to me is what it means has widespread influence today, and this lack of biblical understanding can and does create serious problems for love and unity. If there is no community, no teaching, and no interest in developing good map reading skills, then we lose the path and will die. Churches are dying. Tombstones fly from steeples. The unreal, impersonal, and dying all too often characterize us. Such a portrayal of Christianity is not accurate, is not of God, is not following the map, is not the path to life, and is certainly not the journey of living spirituality.
True communities will refuse to practice a narrow sectarianism by engaging in a variety of levels of intense map reading and interaction with culture. Exhibiting the imprint of love should be dramatically specific to who we are and what we do. May God grant us map reading skills and careful contemplation that leads to renewal, along with cautious and wise participation in our cultures for the sake of creation, for Christ, and for love.
As we seek to follow the map and to be living spirituality, our churches should be made up of those that listen, speak the truth in love, are open to dialogue, and are well informed biblically, spiritually, and culturally. Our spirituality is living and to be lived, because it is connected to the source and origin of spirituality: Father, Son and Spirit. This intimate connection provides us with authentic community that can begin to reflect the true community we are to have with each other, and to live out into the world as we seek through the redemption of Christ, in the power of the Spirit, to experience Exodus and bring praise to God.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Exodus Church - Part 6
Friday, October 12, 2007
Stupid Is As Stupid Does
Please read Bill Kinnon's excellent post along with Exodus Church Part 5 here below.
He begins with:
Not Stupid? Well, Perhaps, Maybe They Are...
"I recognize that it's a rather cryptic title. And some folk won't bother to read it because, frankly, it makes little sense. There is a real art to headline writing. This post doesn't reflect that..."
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The Exodus Church - Part 5
Prominent trends in Western culture tend to attempt to give everyone a spiritual and cultural lobotomy – the trite and superficial, silly and absurd, brain dead and uncreative often identify Westerners, and Christians are following close behind. Our inevitable plight seems to be that we’re always following close behind.
We are experiencing the deep psychosis of cultural despotism that is thoroughly soaked into our Christian flesh and blood, leaving us with empty imaginations. Our bones are disintegrating before our eyes, our bowels are exploding, and there is no strength left in our guts. Too much fast food spirituality. Are we stupid or what?
Instead of subverting, challenging, and rebelling, instead of leading our culture into redemptive ways, into release from captivity, Christians tamely and politely do what everyone else is doing: participate in the lobotomy. Hail democracy, church and the free market make for the good life. What a joke. Following the crucified and risen One and not thoughtless, frivolous Western culture is our Exodus.
We’re enchanted by nothing and starving from an overdose of sweetness, indifference and doctrinalitis that blinds us to the task at hand. Our missional strategy, in the best sense of that overused metaphor, and our love for the other, are lying dead in Western streets and churches. Tombstones wave flags to those passing by, directing them in the way to the graveyard. Surrounded, invaded and captured by this spiritual and cultural perspective, our desperate need for Exodus is intensifying by the moment.
God, bring us out and into the land of the living. Provoke a dramatic shift in our taking part in your mission to the world so that we might share in your passion for people, for truth and for saving us sinners, who must all count ourselves lost aside from your mercy and grace, which you extraordinarily seek to bestow upon us. Free us from the cultural and spiritual lobotomizing taking place in our churches and renew and re-shape us in Kingdom fitting ways that confront and expose the allure of Empire glorification.
Where are the churches that promote cutting edge thinking and living before the watching world? They’re few and far between. What is piercing our churched hearts? God’s superabundance? Living spirituality? Mission? Loving others? Not likely.
Too often it seems that what concerns us most is the Empire idol of socio-economic status and prosperity: lobotomy. Such a mesmerizing charade works like a scalpel cutting off vital pieces of our brains and hearts, and will lead us nowhere. Let’s get real and start thinking again. Once we get our brains and hearts back we can join the conversation, and then generate action, powered by the Spirit in alignment with God’s mission. Credibility and authenticity are found in following the crucified and risen One, which creates and culminates in Exodus.
Forging communities drenched in the theodrama of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, where we all have a part on the grand stage of Exodus (social, racial, political, economic, cultural redemption) will enhance missional love and acceptance, illuminating teaching, trenchant wisdom, and hope for the present and future.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
The Exodus Church - Part 5
Prominent trends in Western culture tend to want to give everyone a spiritual and cultural lobotomy – the trite and superficial, silly and absurd, brain dead and uncreative often identify Westerners, and Christians are following close behind. Our inevitable plight seems to be that we’re always following close behind.
We are experiencing the deep psychosis of cultural despotism that is thoroughly soaked into our Christian flesh and blood, leaving us with empty imaginations. Our bones are disintegrating before our eyes, our bowels are exploding, and there is no strength left in our guts. Too much fast food spirituality. Are we stupid or what?
Instead of subverting, challenging, and rebelling, instead of leading our culture into redemptive ways, into release from captivity, Christians tamely and politely do what everyone else is doing: participate in the lobotomy. Hail democracy, church and the free market make for the good life. What a joke. Following the crucified and risen One and not thoughtless, frivolous Western culture is our Exodus.
We’re enchanted by nothing and starving from an overdose of sweetness, indifference and doctrinalitis that blinds us to the task at hand. Our missional strategy, in the best sense of that overused metaphor, and our love for the other, are lying dead in Western streets and churches. Tombstones wave flags to those passing by, directing them in the way to the graveyard. Surrounded, invaded and captured by this spiritual and cultural perspective, our desperate need for Exodus is intensifying by the moment.
God, bring us out and into the land of the living. Provoke a dramatic shift in our taking part in your mission to the world so that we might share in your passion for people, for truth and for saving us sinners, who must all count ourselves lost aside from your mercy and grace, which you extraordinarily seek to bestow upon us. Free us from the cultural and spiritual lobotomizing taking place in our churches and renew and re-shape us in Kingdom fitting ways that confront and expose the allure of Empire glorification.
Where are the churches that promote cutting edge thinking and living before the watching world? They’re few and far between. What is piercing our churched hearts? God’s superabundance? Living spirituality? Mission? Loving others? Not likely.
Too often it seems that what concerns us most is the Empire idol of socio-economic status and prosperity: lobotomy. Such a mesmerizing charade works like a scalpel cutting off vital pieces of our brains and hearts, and will lead us nowhere. Let’s get real and start thinking again. Once we get our brains and hearts back we can join the conversation, and then generate action, powered by the Spirit in alignment with God’s mission. Credibility and authenticity are found in following the crucified and risen One, which creates and culminates in Exodus.
Forging communities drenched in the theodrama of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, where we all have a part on the grand stage of Exodus (social, racial, political, economic, cultural redemption) will enhance missional love and acceptance, illuminating teaching, trenchant wisdom, and hope for the present and future.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Refiguring the Missional Church? - Part 5
This will be the last post (see Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4) on Darrell Guder’s stimulating chapter, “The Church as Missional Community,” in The Community of the Word.
Darrell points out, “The theology of the missio Dei defines the church within the framework of the doctrine of the triune God.” p124
Here's another salient reminder.
“The theology of the missio Dei is making clear that our ecclesiology, if it is truly to be a doctrine for the church that is continuing the apostolic witness, must be rooted in God’s nature, purpose and action.” p125
And to finish off.
“God’s incarnational action in history provides the church the content of its witness and defines how it is to be carried out.” p126
Living before the watching world the church is not insulated or isolated from the world, but stands as an alternative community, and I might add, subversively shaped by the biblical text, a creational spirituality, the person, actions, and mission of the crucified and risen One, and the holy power the Spirit.
Refiguring the church means, at the very least, to understand that the church is not to be inwardly focused on itself, and to recognize that it is part of the mission of God to the ends of the earth.
What are your thoughts about Refiguring the Missional Church?
Friday, May 25, 2007
Refiguring the Missional Church? - Part 4
In his thought provoking chapter, “The Church as Missional Community,” in The Community of the Word, Darrell Guder thinks that the Western church has to now come to grips with living in a post-Christian culture (see Parts 1, 2 and 3).
At the heart of our plight, says Darrell, is the fact that the world has changed. A maintenance mode church fails to adapt to a new task in a new world that is now post-Christian. Past assumptions of a Christian culture have long been fraying and coming apart. Was anyone paying attention? The reality is that consumerism, entertainment, fame, fit bodies, and empty minds steer current Western interests. When and if the traditional Western church awakens from its slumber, it will no doubt find itself at a loss to speak into its own culture.
Urgent attention to the notion of church and the need to grapple with basic questions are upon us: “Who is the church of Jesus Christ and what is it for?” p124
When the majority of Western time, energy and resources are focused on institutional survival and the provision of benefits for its members, the church will have to confess that it is miserably bankrupt and unable to face the missional challenge that should be at its heart.
Darrell surmises, both our theology and ecclesiology cry out for refiguration.
There are three questions for today.
1) Do you agree that the West is post-Christian?
2) And if so, how does this practically affect your view of church and mission?
3) Any suggestions as to how to refigure Western cultural chatter that so often captures our hearts and minds, our theology and ecclesiology?
Monday, May 21, 2007
Refiguring the Missional Church? - Part 3
We’re with Darrell Guder as he continues in, “The Church as Missional Community,” in The Community of the Word with some excellent thoughts. Today, I will focus on Darrell’s two sides of the same story. You may want to check out previous posts (see Parts 1 and 2).
In the West, at least generally speaking, there has been a marked trend towards a consumerist and self-centered church. While this is currently the state of much of the Western church, there is also a long and important missional history that is not to be neglected.
“We are heirs”, Darrell maintains, “of human reductionisms and divinely empowered resistance to such disobedience.” p120
Darrell suggests that we need to read the history with this double lens in order to see where God has been faithfully at work in converting, shaping, and forming people through missional vocation in spite of p120, “the unquestioned fact that so much of modern mission history is a very mixed and even questionable story.” Human failings have been numerous, but God is on the move and the message has gone and is going far and wide.
What are your thoughts? Should we to be more open to two sides of the same story? In spite of what we often rightly see as the lamentable condition of today’s Western church and its neglect of mission, is the message somehow getting through?
Friday, May 18, 2007
Refiguring the Missional Church? - Part 2
Today, I’m going to be re-visiting (see Part 1) Darrell Guder’s chapter, “The Church as Missional Community,” in The Community of the Word, and I want to highlight a couple of things that will hopefully give rise to thought.
In the Western church mission has, by and large, fallen into a deep dark hole. Darrell points out what he sees as two principle reasons for this:
1) An over emphasis on being part of a Christian culture – focus more on insiders than outsiders – p118: “the savedness of the saved.” Individualistic salvation, and the personal destiny of the afterlife, has shrouded the significance of the bigger picture in Scripture, that is, the corporate and cosmic scope of God’s salvation to the ends of the earth.
2) An under emphasis on eschatology and the in breaking reign of God, saturated in Jesus’ person and proclamation and the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. Christians looked to and had confidence in God’s future to such an extent that it radiated in their present existence. They were living cutting edged transformed lives while awaiting the renewal of all things. There was a “living hope” p.119 that was deeply connected to living in the “now.”
Here are a couple of questions for us:
- Do you think the over and under are helpful for understanding the state of much of the Western church, and its lacking a missional core?
- What would you want to add?
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Refiguring the Missional Church? - Part 1
Darrell Guder has treated us to a sharply focused and well written, “The Church as Missional Community,” in The Community of the Word. In the next days, I will be doing a number of posts on this chapter.
Darrell maintains that the term “missional” was relatively unknown prior to 1998. The research project that he was part of around this time searched for a term that would emphasize that the church was at its core, missionary. As most of us might concur, the term “missional”, as those like the KOG, spirituality, and heaven, to just mention a few, has now taken on a life of its own. The term has become so popular, and there are so many meanings of missional today, that it is difficult to know when and if we’re talking about the same thing.
Here’s a tip from Darrell p116: the term missional aims to move us “beyond narrow definitions of mission as merely one among the various programs of the church, and to find ways to think about the church’s calling and practice” in what is now “the multicultural global church.” Mission is not just an extra add on, but essential and central to the purpose and action of the church.
The point here, in Darrell’s perspective, is that a description of the church should be missional – the widely held, but also broadly neglected goal of the church.
Let’s pause to ask two questions. 1) If church is missional at the core – what makes it so?
2) Would you agree with Darrell on the widely held, broadly neglected?
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Exodus Church - Part 4
There has been a tremendous outpouring of interest and support of several previous posts. Hopefully, they will make a contribution towards cultivating mission and renewal in our churches as we awaken to the stark reality of the power of stagnation and death surrounding us on many fronts.
Mass Exodus is taking place. Lamentably, there are churches that have fallen into spiritual adultery; the intercourse of legalism, manipulation, self-service, consumerism, and arrogance controls their essence and message. Clearly, not all churches should be viewed in this manner, however, and it must be said with tears, there are far too many who fit into this woeful description. Many people in spiritually adulterous churches have had enough and are coming out. A renewed searching for truth, spiritual survival and direction is underway.
As for us, we confess our own sin and long for release. We are being liberated out of the cycle of slavery in Egypt, but the wounds of enslavement run deep and we are limping through the wilderness with God carrying us along as necessary. We’re grateful to be here. Bring us healing, dear God.
In our wilderness wanderings we experience freedom and are learning to find our way ahead as we begin to break loose from the chains that enslaved us. Mind things, heart things, spirit things, prayer things all cry for restoration. We are better now in the wilderness – at least we’re free – but we need direction for the journey in order to reach our destination. We face the challenges of spiritual impoverishment and attractions to the dying. To be sure, we’re exposed to many paths, and Lord we ask that you will lead us together into life – to forming and being real communities of life. Feed us, oh God, with the manna of your word and through the power of the Spirit, so that as we seek to follow in the footsteps of the crucified and risen One, we may be transformed and radiate your missional presence in the world.
Facing the plight of indifference in church and culture, we promise to make an effort to embody the biblical mandate of living a greater consistency between our words and actions. This is crucial and hugely relevant. Words, words and more words go nowhere. It is our words and actions together that count. Let’s seek to be places of refuge - shelters in the wilderness so that we find the way together in unity. Following the Christ into the power of redemption and the personal agency of the Spirit unlock the door for this to begin to take place. That is, who we are, what we say, and what we do are all relevant to mission and being the Exodus church.
Authenticity is essential. Being real, hopeful, vulnerable, and even sacrificial is now up to us. We long to be every-day people living in the real world – wilderness though it may be. To both stand for and live the truth in love in the most subversive of ways and deeds. Far too often we fail to express love to those both inside and outside of the Christian community – release us, oh Lord, and create in us a new heart. Through renewal and transformation we will be able to show Christ’s love to each other and fellow wanderers. The beauty of active Christian love is compelling, and it helps others to acknowledge that God is with us. Love is one of the chief characteristics of mission and without it we shall surely fail. We desire to be a testimony and demonstration that we love each other and all people.
We look to the Spirit and the reality of being wilderness wanderers to translate the crucified and risen One’s words of love, hope, compassion, honesty, and integrity into actions. This looking and translating is a key characteristic of living spirituality. Of course, this is never perfect, and at times it will break down. Still, as we live in the wilderness, there is to be a continual attempt to demonstrate a transformed life for the sake of—and to the glory of—God.
We see more clearly now that in our wilderness wanderings a biblical spirituality desperately needs to be taught and lived in deep, loving, cutting-edge ways within the wilderness, if we are going to begin to reverse spiritual impoverishment and the allure of the dying, as we take God’s mission to the world. May God bless our efforts for Jesus’ sake.
Friday, April 20, 2007
The Exodus Church - Part 3
Several previous posts have struck a chord with so many. Delighted. The response has been astounding. Something’s going on here. We look around to get our bearings.
We see myriads of churches have gone the way of the institution. “Christian” becomes institutional, or a lukewarm religious definition too often characterized by an indifferent “pop-spirituality” that seems far from engaging with people and their real issues and problems. Churches can be, and it must be said with tears, primarily interested in propagating their programs, building their buildings, even manipulating some of their own, in order to achieve social status and accomplish their goals and aims. Even as Christians today desperately strive for the authentic, they have never been so captured by that which is inauthentic. Thwarted by “shopping” and “shuffle” spirituality, cultural materialism, and the syrupy sweetness of comfortable idealism, living spirituality becomes a mirage and Christian credibility wanes.
We are extremely suspicious of whether there is even a link between the words Christian and spirituality – alas, so much talk and so little action. The large gap between words and actions strikes us as problematic. In engaging with those who call themselves Christians, we observe hollow and superficial ideologies and practical lives that fail to reflect the face of Christ. A lamentable lack of the reality of love, of authenticity, and the “real” become reasons for avoiding all things and people labeled Christian. Life’s important questions go unanswered, and the reality of holistic, interactive, and interpretive living spirituality is acutely absent. Cold, mechanical, forced religiosity or warm, fuzzy, superficiality will rightly bring forth suspicion, apathy, and rejection by those who have valid concerns about what is authentic and true.
We see the land is still arid here, Lord, and our hearts are parched. We can’t stay in the desert for we shall die. God is liberating people, thousands of people, who thirst for more. Leaving the graveyards and tombstones behind, we are longing for the kingdom of God and the renewal of all things. We readily confess our sin and cry out for redemption. We are on our way to new beginnings. Please Lord lead us forward. Exodus.
We are pierced as the Exodus Church and part of the people of God. We are seeking to move closer to our destiny of being transformed into the image of Christ, leaving behind the wounds of promising words that give the pretense of care and concern, but translate into intolerable levels of neglect and inconsistent waffling.
We desperately cling to being in community with God and others, and long to participate in and live for God’s mission to the world through Jesus and the power of the Spirit.
Something’s going on here. It’s already taking place. Theodrama. The Exodus journey has begun. We are on our way to new beginnings, following in the footsteps of Christ. The power of redemption and the personal agency of the Spirit open the way for this to begin to take place, and we’re grateful.
Help us, oh God, to live the truth in refreshing and life-giving ways. We hope that our wilderness wanderings will contribute to greatly diminishing spiritual impoverishment and to dramatically increasing love for you, each other and the world.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The Conversation Continues
The dialogue begun by Bill Kinnon in his post, The People Formerly Known as the Congregation, has continued with part six being added this week. A rundown of the contributions to date:
Part 1: Bill Kinnon - The People Formerly Known as the Congregation
Part 2: Emerging Grace - The Underlying Issues
Part 3: Jamie Arpin-Ricci - We are the Community Coming to be Known as Missional
Part 4: John Frye - The People Formerly Known as the Pastor
Part 5: My post - The Exodus Church (Part 2)
Part 6: Heidi Daniels - The Girl Formerly Known as a "Normal" Christian
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The Exodus Church - Part 2
This post is connected to those of Bill Kinnon, John Frye, Jamie Arpin-Ricci, and Grace. It should be read with their concerns in mind as they seek to define The People Formerly Known as the Congregation. Their four posts seem to form a nucleus around the themes of lament, of disappointment, of betrayal, of pain, of renewal, of hope and redemption. Exodus continues. The journey of wilderness wandering, in the company of God, will lead toward new beginnings, and one fine day we will all arrive in the Promised Land. In the meantime, this time in-between times ….
A Plea from the Battle Torn and Worn
who are longing for New Beginnings
Conflicts are brewing at an alarming pace between Christians who are emerging and those who are not. Fine – let’s get at what we have in common and where we disagree. But please, for the sake of Christ Jesus, let’s do this with grace, love, humility, and a flair for holiness, as we live before the watching world. There has been too much, and it must be said with tears, spiteful innuendo, anger, disrespect and injustice in the past. Let’s not repeat that in the present. These battles get ugly and there is no winner. The numbers of wounded merely increase and the love of Christ pales into obscurity. We are torn and worn by the wars. Release us, oh Lord, and give us a new beginning.
Give voice to those who long to be free; let us speak of some important matters.
We believe it is essential to love God, each other, and all people.
We believe it is crucial to turn our hearts and minds to God, and in so doing to worship, to encounter God, not just to talk or read about God.
We believe we are actors in the great drama of God’s global mission of redemption and the renewal of all things, centered in and upon the crucified and risen One.
We believe Scripture and Spirit reveal God, refresh our memories, empower our imaginations, and direct our lives into increasing and ever deeper community with God and each other.
We believe that Jesus is Lord and that churches or Empires are not.
We believe the focus on and drastic slippage into church activities, committees, buildings and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo being central results in deep spiritual impoverishment. Tear down the walls – let the people go – let us go – following in the footsteps of Christ will bring freedom for the oppressed and disenfranchised. People are where it’s at.
We believe the arts, and cultural participation and analysis, are vital.
We believe in church as community, as a Scripture reading and living community.
We believe in hospitality and a compassionate welcoming of strangers.
We believe that the Christian life is an expression of living spirituality. Living spirituality is both verb and adjective. It is to be lived and it is living. Living because God is a living God and lived because we are spiritual people.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
The People Formerly Known as the Congregation
Bill Kinnon has written a dynamic and fitting epitaph that will be nailed on the tombstone of dead and dying churches. In The People formerly known as the Congregation he laments about the condition of churches that have unfortunately fallen far from following the crucified and risen One. While so much of the Christian world seems to stand for and be committed to the personal peace and affluence of our times, we may ask in sorrow; whatever happened to love, sacrifice, being led by the Spirit, and living in community? When material possessions, buildings, and numbers become central, instead of God and people, we've fallen deep into the clutches of death.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Exodus Church
What I’m calling the Exodus church may be another way of talking about the Emerging church. Here’s why I refer to it as an Exodus church. This church is a body of people that belong to Christ, which is fleeing from mainline and fundamentalist churches. It is emerging out of the arid and stifling atmosphere of Egypt and towards the living water of the Promised Land, but needs the map of Scripture and the directedness of the Spirit to find the way. Living in Egypt enslaves God’s people, while following the crucified and risen One brings release and eventual entry into the Promised Land. There are several characteristics that begin to identify this body/church and its concerns. Here are five. Can you think of others?
1) missional
2) community
3) searching
4) environment
5) spirituality
Friday, March 16, 2007
Exodus from the Church
There are so many people getting torn up and moving about as far away as they can from churches. What’s going on? Lamentable teaching, practical impoverishment, and have it your own way so often characterize us that many have no interest. When the narratives of churches are having less and less to do with the narratives of our lives how should we respond? Do we drop out, seek to reform, start something new, or what?
