Enchanted Community

BLOG 9/11/16. TRUE WORSHIP CAN DISTURB YOUR LIFE!

There’s a tradition abroad, deeply entrenched, that true worship is to be a pleasant aesthetic experience that takes place in comfortable locations decorated for such … “candlelight and unreality” as one wry observer described it. Such a concept needs to be seriously de-mythologized. Anne Dillard colorfully described such people in church as seemingly “like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute … having not the foggiest idea of what sort of power they so blithely invoke.” (Teaching a Stone to Talk, p. 40. 1988 ed.)

Stop for a moment and research the source of the most traditional progression of worship in the Christian world, much of which is some kind of a development coming from the Roman Catholic mass (that will surprise some Protestants perhaps). It’s true. Somewhere back there when the church was forming its traditions for that time which the Christian community would spend together as the people of God, the church landed  (maybe morphed ) on the progression which is set forth in Isaiah’s encounter with the Lord “high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple.” (Isaiah 6)

But then, put that in context. Isaiah was evidently something of a significant person in the power structure of Israel—maybe a member of the king’s court. His king, Uzziah, had just died and Isaiah was in grief, and so resorted to the temple. In the larger context the nation was not living out its covenant calling faithfully, and there were all kinds of aberrations and violations in their intended role as a holy nation in the community of nations. So Isaiah, in his grief, resorted to the temple—probably anticipating a time of quiet reflection in the familiar setting.

But the unexpected thing happened: … rather than a time of quiet meditation he is confronted by a consuming, terrifying, and overwhelming vision of the thrice-holy God “high and lifted up,” and as if that weren’t enough there were angelic seraphim flying about crying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” … And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke (Isaiah 6:1 ff.). The purpose of this was to confront Isaiah with such an unmistakable and irresistible calling into a whole new life and mission … that he couldnt’ deny it.. Result? It “blew him away.” It was inescapable and he could never be the same after that.

So the progression that the church adopted (with variations) out of that passage is a progression for our times which we call worship. It begins with 1) a vision of God, then 2) the confession of how far short we fall, i.e., confession. Then, 3) the Lord absolves our sin and cleanses us. Ah! but 4) then the Lord issued Isaiah (and us) an invitation to engage in His mission: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” 5) Then Isaiah responded by giving himself in dedication to the Lord’s mission. And finally, 6) the Lord gives Isaiah his missionary instructions, his teaching for his life’s task. Such is the progression of a very large segment of the worship liturgy in the world’s churches. (Actually, the eucharist is considered an act of dedication to mission.)

But stop and realize that our encounters with God are with a God who is intensely engaged, and never passive, in saving His world, in making all things new, in causing His kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Look at every encounter of human-kind with this God and it always has a mission attached to it, … right down to Jesus calling men and women to follow him, and to whom he ultimately gives to all of them his commission to “go make disciples” in all of the corners and back roads of this creation. We never meet God in isolation from His mission, for which mission he gave His Son. Our worship is never, never to be candlelight and unreality. It is always a time to be in the presence of the Missionary God and to be re-charged, or re-evangelized, and refreshed for our engagement in His mission in the “Monday morning world.” Otherwise, it is false worship! Worship can be dangerous, you see, …it bodes well to disturb your life!

BLOG 9/7/16. AH! THE GIFT OF COMMUNICATION AND GOD’S NEW HUMANITY

Do you know where the message of God’s incredible design, His joyous news of New Creation and a bout Jesus Christ has the most impact and contact with this human scene? It’s not with the church professionals/clergy. It’s not with outstanding Christian writers. Not even close. For instance, the Christian fellowship in which I share has several very gifted teachers, and is a well put-together community, … but it’s not with those pastor-teachers that the fellowship’s primary impact on our community takes place. It takes place, rather, in the ordinary lives of the ordinary men and women, in the ordinary routines of each day as their lives interact with the folk who make up their 24/7 routines—all kinds of people on the social scale. It is as those of us who are taught in our times together, incarnate those teachings in our 24/7 behavior … and in how we use our mouths. Speech and behavior.

The behavior of God’s people probably gets a lot more attention, but I want to make a case for the use of the Christian mouth, i.e., how our daily talking, our  communication is to be an art form in the service of God’s design to seek and save this wandering human scene. Again, I’m not talking about lectures or oratory, … but about warm, sensitive, conversation. The deterioration of language in so much of our media and socal-media culture, and the subsequent prevalence of uncouth street language, sexual slang/innuendo, and trash talk have significantly demeaned too much of our daily communication as though it were “cool.” But it’s not “cool” for God’s New Humanity people.

Language is an art form, and good sensitive communication is a gift. And for those of us who are indwelt by Christ, though faith, it is an expression of that very Christ who lives in us. The evidence of that will be significant expressed in our speech. For that reason, it deserves regular attention. For one thing it not only offers to others a window into our lives, … it can also (unfortunately) be used to hide whatever is the ‘real us.’ We can hide behind our talk, and remain strangers to each other. Good communication is a skill, and those who use it well are remembered (but not those who engage in the lowest-common-denominator street language).

Consider the wonderful references in scripture. From Proverbs: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” Or, “A gentle tongue is a tree of life.”  Or, “A soft answer turns away wrath, … the tongue of the wise commends knowledge.” From Ephesians: “Let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up.” From Colossians: “Let your speech be seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Or Matthew: “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Are you getting the message? The lifestyle of God’s New Creation folk includes the use of the mouth as an instrument of blessing. The sword of the Spirit is the capacity to gently live out and to talk so as to communicate the word m ir the reality of Christ, of the gospel in real life.

The ordinary conversation and language of a person unveils the character of the speaker. … I’m not talking about anything dramatic or ‘spiritual’ … whether we be talking about the economy, or giving some description, or something witty/humorous,  or  engaged in sensitive listening, and we engage with others in our daily routines.

I am always grateful for those who are especially gifted with words, like good authors, poets, etc. … but most of us are not so, but we are the ones who in the ordinary settings of daily life are the salt and light of God’s New Creation and are engaged with the most people. It is an unbelievable calling and to be developed in quiet over coffee conversations where the authenticity of Christ-in-us, and God’s love for them becomes incarnated.

For my perspective on the calling of the church in more detail:

http://wipfandstock.com/what-on-earth-is-the-church-14083.html.

BLOG 9/4/16. WHAT IF YOUR LIFE HAS NO FINAL GOAL? (Labor Day Special)

Here’s one to chew on over this Labor Day weekend: What if your life has no final goal? Oh, maybe it has some immediate purpose such as doing your job well, making a profit, being a good student, or an exemplary family person, …  but I’m talking about the meaning of life. There are those that say that every person ultimately needs five things if his or her life is to be fulfilled: 1) a center, 2) an authority, 3) a creative source, 4) a guiding line, and 5) a final goal. Got it? It’s easy to push that to the back of one’s mind in the press of immediate responsibilities, but it lurks there.

OK, so a final goal is some kind of an ‘act of faith,’ so be it. But without it one is ultimately adrift on the boundless, bottomless sea of chance. To have some kind of a convincing final goal is unbelievably extraordinarily liberating. That is one of the huge existential claims of Jesus as he comes as God’s saving Word into the human community: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Again, OK, either he is, or he isn’t. But it doesn’t stop there. As the reality and message of Christ exploded into the world in the first generation after his earthly life, … it was the consciousness that Jesus had come to tune us into God’s design for the whole creation so engaged in its rebellion and brokenness … and search for meaning.

So there is an interesting teaching (usually overlooked) in the teachings of Christ’s apostle and teacher, Paul, that says worlds (at least to me). Check it out (Romans 8:28 ff). It says that God does, indeed, have a purpose for our lives and this world, and that everything is working irresistibly toward the fulfillment of that purpose, i.e., God does have a final goal. Then it goes on to say that to those who respond to his call, the works everything ultimately for good—but to those who are called to be a part of his ultimate purpose. … But it doesn’t stop there. It is to say that to such folk (you and me) who are called are part of his predetermined plan that they should—here goes— “be conformed to image of his Son.” That can sound like a lot of “churchy” gobble-de-gook, but look closer. What God is up to in the world is to created all things new: a New Creation (or the Kingdom of God), and that an essential part of this is the creation of a New Humanity, i.e., humanity as God intends it to be.

What does that mean? Well, in two other of Paul’s writings it gives us a clue: in one place it says that such New Humanity is recreated in a fantastic new way of life—true righteousness—life whose lifestyle is like that of Jesus in love of others, and servant-hood, and joy … the very life of Jesus living itself out in each of those who are His. Then it says such people of God are recreated in holiness, which simply means that they will be living in harmony with the Divine-Trinitarian community … they will be “at home” with God. (This is in Ephesians 4:24).

The next clue is that these who respond to God’s call are to be-being recreated in knowledge. Their minds will begin to think again as they are intended to think, and to use their minds to accomplish God’s purpose for His creation in whatever circumstance or existential reality that is theirs.

Such a final goal, is I indicated above is wonderfully liberating, and had been demonstrated in innumerable lives over the intervening centuries in a huge plethora of human accomplishment. But what those who are called have experienced is the liberating reality of knowing what it is that is beyond their human accomplishment, and to what the whole thing is about: meaning.

Chew on that!

[These Blogs are read primarily by a lot of wonderful folk with whom I have crossed paths, and walked with over many years. If you think they would be helpful to others, then suggest that they subscribe. That would be cool!]

BLOG 8/31/16. “FOLLOWING CHRIST—CHANGING THE WORLD”

One of the perennial challenges that any Christian community faces is: How to keep its weekly gatherings for worship from dissipating into predictable spiritual entertainment disconnected from anything to do with the mission for which Christ has called his church. Having been the pastor of several congregations over many years, it is not difficult to discern when folk attend with a desire for predictable religious observance that doesn’t make too many demands on them—from those congregations that come with anticipation. It is a challenge for me personally. After all, … our essence as the church is that God has sent his Son to reconcile the world to Himself by his blood, and to inaugurate a whole New Creation built up this work and mission of Jesus the Son of God. Got it? And then … that Jesus calls out a people to the mission of being the ongoing presence and incarnation of that New Creation in the world. By virtue of one’s baptismal vows, one vows to be a part of the discipleship that makes the church (as a Latin American brother so graphically describes it): … the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity, … which would mean that whenever the Christian community gathers, its ostensible ‘worship’ would somehow equip and encourage and refresh that vision and equip for that mission week-by-week.

How do we keep such from drifting into traditional observances, that may be helpful to a degree but do now call us again and again to be workers together with Christ? (I Corinthians 3:9)

Let me share an experience. About twenty years ago I was a participant in a gathering of graduate students and faculty folk from across the nation and from many parts of the world. They were gathered under the sponsorship of the large and effective campus ministry: Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. There were about 1200 such folk together for several days in a large hotel in Chicago. It was skillfully planned to make the very most of that time to equip and motivate these men and women from many disciplines for their role on the campuses of scores of college and university campuses.

Still sealed in my mind is the banner that hung across the platform in that ballroom of the Hilton: “Following Christ – Changing the World”. Under such a statement of purpose the sponsors, knowledgeable of the gifted folk assembled there, had invited the paradigm New Testament scholar N. T. Wright to do the daily Bible exposition (note: awesome). Then they had regularly those Christian men and women who had distinguished themselves as excellent in their fields to give a witness about their engagement with their sense of calling into such fields as: scientific research, environmentalism, poetry, etc. Each afternoon there were more intensive break-out sessions into many different disciplines led by those who had distinguished themselves in a particular field.

But … it was always back to the motivation expressed on that banner: Following Christ, Changing the World, with its vision of those men and women being the very presence on God’s New Creation with excellence on their campus mission fields. It was intense. And it came to an unexpected conclusion when the last presenter had given her witness, as the lights dimmed in the ballroom, followed by silence, and then the worship leader softly began to sing: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty …” and all joined in. A holy moment. When the hymn was concluded there was silence, and when I looked around, most of the assembly were on their knees in devotion, and many in tears, … but the motivation for their being there was not lost. They had been encouraged and equipped.

I came home and recorded that motto in my own personal weekly prayer notes, which I re-read every Sunday morning … Following Christ, Changing the World, so that when I gather with my own community of faith, no matter how its worship time unfolds, I have before me the vision that in my modest presence in this place and at this time, my sense of mission is clear.

I commend this to you as a model of what worship should provoke in each of us.

BLOG 8/28/16. WHERE DOES THE CHURCH ENGAGE THE REAL PEOPLE OF THE WORLD?

Oh, I’m going to get in trouble for this, … but here goes: One of the tragic distortions, or subversions, that also has become one of the sacred traditions (that became a sine qua non) of the church’s definition of itself … was that of a sacralized class of humanity designated as clergy. Hey! I’m one of those. I was told as a youth that if I really wanted to show my profound Christian faith, that I should consider—get this— “going into the ministry” (or ‘full-time ministry’). That involved getting the blessing of the regional church authorities, then fulfilling certain educational standards, etc. The fact was, that though the proposal sounded reasonable to an innocent young adolescent, … I didn’t have a clue what a clergy was, or what he/she did besides lead worship and preach a sermon on Sunday morning. But they were ostensibly the super-Christians who guided the church. Along the way there were many disillusioning realities. These seventy-plus years later, and watching the demise of the ‘Christendom’ culture, and the traditional church expressions, I am working on re-conceiving our understanding of church leadership, and how such leadership surfaces, and what their role is.

After going through the proper theological training and being ‘ordained’ into ‘ministry’, I was tossed into the cold water of reality, and began to discover, early on, how out-of-it so many of the church folk were about the essence of Christian discipleship, or of any responsibility that might be theirs in the mission of God to communicate the thrilling reality of his New Creation into the corners of the human community–they were ‘anything but’ contagious practitioners of  God’s New Humanity. My initial engagement as a campus pastor was the beginning of my real equipping for that which my own heart wanted to be and do in carrying out Christ’s missionary mandate. Students have a delightful way of demolishing idols, asking all the dirty questions, being unimpressed with my ‘clergy’ credentials, and keeping me close to reality. But it was when I was plunged into the pathological reality of a church community that was a classic mix of some true faith on the margins, but mostly community of fractured people trying to practice a superficial form of religious Christianity, … that I had to get real, and to admit to myself that almost nothing that I had learned in theological school prepared me to engage and equip the real people and their difficult daily lives (it was a blue-collar, low-wage industrial neighborhood). This is to say that I came to my present understanding the difficult way—like: making mistakes and learning from them, of having to deal with huge and traumatic social upheavals, economic injustice, tragic national policies (like the Vietnam War).

It was in that ‘cold water’ of reality that two phenomena came across my mind. One was that there were a group of young Roman Catholic priests in France who realized the same thing I was seeing, namely, that in their traditional priestly role, they weren’t in contact with the very industrial workers they were supposed to be ministering to. So what did they do? They got permission from their bishop to become industrial workers, and to take jobs in industry so that they would be in daily contact with the secular workers they wanted to reach. It was a controversial and fruitful, but brief, movement and soon was terminated by the dominant ecclesiastical order. But I liked it. Those worker-priests got the message. Where does the church reach real people and contagiously communicate to them the love of God? The other phenomenon was that in Latin America, when there were not sufficient priests to reach into the villages, … there emerged small communities of faith which would gather at the end of the day, or week, and the literate participants would read to the folk in their modest homes/huts from the gospels, and they would discuss it, and pray about how to implement it. Those Base Ecclesiastical Communities were incredibly fruitful, because every person saw himself or herself as a priest. The leaders were chosen because they were the practitioners. See where I’m going?

BLOG 8/24/16. THE CHURCH: RETRIEVING ITS RAISON D’ETRE

I am continually intrigued by that Silicon Valley bunch, and all of the stuff they have created that couldn’t have even been conceived a couple of decades ago, … and how they keep coming up with almost unimaginable innovations that will become the norm for tomorrow’s world. Let’s take Apple as a case in point: Steve Jobst and now Tim Cook are unique dudes. If they had, or do become content with ‘what is’ and so crank out more of the same, … or if they become content with their current profitability and ‘rest on their oars’ … they will wake up one morning and find they have been left behind. But the reality is that they have something like 20,000 employees (according to my sources) who are all fully alert to the company’s purpose and are recruited to throw themselves into anticipating and reconceiving tomorrow’s world and its needs. In small working units of 10-12 they each invest their intense focus and creativity on that as-yet-unknown world, and are fully and intensely invested in the company’s raison d’etre. And they are in communication. They purportedly have some kind of a Friday gathering of all the units in which there is communication between the working units, and up and down the corporate structure from executives to working groups. But note: nobody is passive or uninformed or totally un-invested in the reason Apple exists. (Granted Apple can choose the brightest and recruit the budding geniuses, and the church doesn’t have that luxury.) And every employee is accountable and regularly evaluated as to their value to the company.

But then I look at at the church, and the plethora of books that have come off the press in recent decades trying to conceive the church for this emerging post-Christian culture, and the baggage that it continues to carry somehow lacks a basic and dynamic sense of the church’s dynamic raison d’etre in God’s design for the salvation of the world. Frankly, it comes off as pretty ‘fuzzy’ with pockets of articulate vitality here and there, but over all it is all too passively dependent on its its executive-clergy domination, but with little grass-roots creative engagement in the church’s purpose in the design of God.  It tends to have a weekly meeting, but who, then, equips its participants for the other six days? And with which others do I engage in enabling it to challenge tomorrow’s world?

Like: when persons encounter the church in its multiple forms, exactly what do they perceive to be its consuming reason for being? When the church invites / recruits folk to ‘join’ what does the person being recruited / invited comprehend about the demands of being a participant of that particular church? What are its core values? To whom is one accountable for his/her faithfulness to the community’s fruitfulness in the Mission of God? What does baptism commit them to?

Or when is a ‘church’ even a ‘church’? What makes a church contagious and irrepressible in its calling to be God’s salt and light in the midst of a culture with so many episodes and persons captive to an alien agenda?

That much for my teaser questions for today. But let me leave you with this: Early on God made known through the early prophets that he was going to make all things new. There would be a New Creation / Kingdom of God invading this old and fallen creation, and it would be expedited by God’s anointed messenger. So Jesus came on the scene announcing that God’s New Creation was at hand, and that it would be present and growing, … until it would ultimately come to total fulfillment. Meanwhile Jesus called out a new community, the church, and gave it the raison d’etre of making that reality known to every people group / ethne in the world with that ultimate ‘tomorrow’ in view. All of its presence was to make this a reality, and it would be empowered by God’s Spirit. Question: Does every person who is baptized realize that they are personally to be engaged and responsible for this divine mandate, and for tomorrow’s world? Do they know that by virtue of their baptismal vows they become responsible for this ministry? Hardly. So this is a basic challenge in reconceiving the church for tomorrow’s world.

BLOG 8/21/16. “FORSAKING RELIGION”? NOT REALLY

A recent issue of Atlantic Magazine reports that the generation of college students today are (in its words) “forsaking religion.” Indulge me if I challenge that. I’ve been hearing that kind of appraisal for years. It is true, however, that the culture has changed dramatically as the dominant order of Christendom which existed for a millennium-and-a-half is rapidly disappearing. What is true is that each generation, when it comes of age, has to ask the questions about life and truth and ultimate reality. What many of the persons to whom Atlantic refers are forsaking is more likely the ‘dry wells’ that define so many ostensible churches which they have experienced and been disappointed. Or maybe they are reacting against that phenomenon of zealous folk who (mistakenly, in my mind) label themselves ‘conservative Christians’ as they engage in so many questionable causes, social and political—raising the wonderment of whether they have ever read the actual life and ethical teachings of Jesus. Yes, there are a lot of wacky counterfeits out there, and it is no wonder that thinking young adults would want to distance themselves from such. Then too, if one has encountered some really uncomfortable or negative engagement with something that pertained to be ‘religion,’ that they would  understandably forsake such.

Ah! But that doesn’t verify the diagnosis that the whole generation is ‘forsaking religion’. There are always those ultimate questions that lurk subliminally in the human breast. I love to sit over coffee in my favorite hangout and have attractive and successful and thoughtful young urban professionals engage me in conversation—and so often when they find that I’ve had a whole career as a teaching-pastor in the Christian church will cough-up the subliminal dissatisfaction with their not finding ultimate satisfaction in their remarkable accomplishments. Or, some will, in that friendly context, vent their hostility toward anything having to do with religion, and vehemently deny that there is anything there. I love it.

The Protestant reformers in the Christian church spoke of a sensus divinitatus, i.e., a sense of deity that exists subliminally in the human psyche. Or perhaps one could refer to Pascal’s comment about the God-shaped vacuum in the human heart, or Augustine’s classic that went something like: God has made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.  That reality doesn’t go away when one forsakes the institutions of religion, or with the identification with religion. And that reality is so present in the diversity of wonderful conversation partners I encounter these days. Probably the majority have no connection with the Christian church as an institution, nor even have it on their screen, … but this doesn’t mean that they have forsaken religion. Along the way, in my life, some of the most dramatically true conversions that I have witnessed were in the lives of those who appeared to be the most hostile to anything that smacked of a Christian reality. It was when I proposed something as simple as taking a look at the primary documents of the Christian faith that they became conscious of how hungry they were to know the truth, and to be set free, and to find life abundant as Jesus promised.

This was dramatically spelled out in the conversion of C. S. Lewis, when he was a bright star on Oxford’s faculty, and an aggressive agnostic, and who was continually challenged by a few of his colleagues with whom he regularly drank beer. His testimony is almost humorous: “I will never forget that night in the winter semester at Magdalen College when I heard the footsteps of him whom I so desperately did not want to meet. Even the prodigal son rose and went of his own free will back to his waiting father, … but I was dragged, kicking and screaming” (to Jesus).

Forsaking religion? Not really. But really looking for viable answers to the questions: ‘Who am I?’ ‘What does my life mean?’ I see a younger generation not forsaking religion, but looking for authenticity in finding their heart’s true home: explanation, hope, freedom, love, … for God!

BLOG 8/17/16. BREAKING WITH TRADITIONAL ORTHODOXY ON CHURCH INSTITUTIONS (continuing the conversation from the last blog)

The response to my last blog on: “the sons of the world being more shrewd than the children of light” was interesting. For at least a millennium and a half the traditional orthodoxy made the focus of the church’s role in the world to be church institutions, i.e., sacralized places to which one resorted to participate in the rites of ‘Christian worship’. This along with the dominance of a sacralized class of persons known as ‘clergy’ insofar as history records was the traditional orthodoxy.  Its focus was not so much on the missional raison d’etre of the church, that purpose for which Christ calls out a people and sends them into this world to be in incarnation of his New Humanity in recreated community, … but rather on the proper form and operation of church institutions.

So whenever one departs from that traditional orthodoxy some folk get quite uncomfortable. And there is no moment in which all of that traditional orthodoxy changed, no 9/11 Twin Towers, or December 7^th Pearl Harbor moment. Rather it was a gradual and almost imperceptible cultural diastrophism in which such institutions began to lose their dominance, especially in our western culture. Lesslie Newbigin was the prophetic voice who sounded warning signals in the latter half of the 20^th century. What ever-so-subtly there began to take place is what his disciples call: a period of liminality, like a ‘cultural whitewater’ in which we have been forced from the stability of the traditional orthodoxy (Christendom) and are being carried along in forces beyond our control into the unknowns of a post-Christendom cultural scene that is still unfolding before us.

The post-World War II generation of Boomers were the first blush of some restlessness with the whole scene, but though they produced the ‘Woodstock culture’ and episodes of generational rebellion, they were still very attached to their parents’ traditional orthodoxy of Christendom. They were followed by what is known as Gen X’ers. (Sociologists Strauss and Howe have written several great explanations of the generational cultures.) The Gen Xers where skeptical about the whole scene but were not generally an activist generation, but they were emerging ineluctably into the whitewater/liminality for which they and the church were unprepared. They became more detached from Christendom and the church. They were followed by a very creative, ‘fix-it’, ‘create something new’ Millennial generation. The whole digital culture became their native soil, and the traditional church faded more and more to the margins. Now is emerging into full influence Generation i-Y, almost totally formed by the digital culture.

So back to my thesis of the last Blog: Over 50% of the world’s population is now under 25 years of age, and for most of them the church and its Christendom form hardly registers anywhere in their consciousness—and meanwhile those traditional church institutions with their steeples, and organs, and in-house religious activities are vainly trying to regroup themselves to reach the Boomers, … which Boomers are still somewhat wedded to the structures of Christendom, but which Boomers are now moving off the cneter stage and into the AARP.

Astute observers, such as Bill Easum saw this several decades ago and wrote his book: Dancing With Dinosaurs. So also missiologist Howard Snyder very accurately stated it in his The Problem of Wineskins. This all doesn’t mean that the church is dying or losing its dynamism, only that there has emerged a whole new generation of creative, and culturally aware church planters who are motivated by their mission, the mission for which Christ calls the church. These colonies come in all kinds of forms, and are indigenous to their neighborhoods, and keen in communicating their message—of faithfully being the children of the Light, agents of Christ’s love and hope right in the midst of the vicissitudes of this culture, and negotiating the ‘whitewater’ … this period of ‘liminality’ into the culture of post-Christendom. They are creative and very encouraging to me. Stand by.

BLOG 8/14/16. “THE SONS OF THIS WORLD ARE MORE SHREWD IN DEALING WITH THEIR OWN GENERATION THAN THE SONS OF LIGHT.”

Fact #1. A couple of years ago the local media made a huge deal out of the opening of the Ponce City Market in a humongous building that had stood empty for a few years, and had gone through a couple of failed ire-ncarnations since it was Sears-Roebuck’s southeastern distribution center in the early-middle part of the 20^th century. When it was built it was on the edge of the city, and was contemptuously referred to by locals as: Sear’s folly. But in those early days Sears was the giant mail-order merchandizer of the time. The country was emerging out of it primarily rural culture where most shopping was done in small general stores. Sears provide almost anything one could want and almost every home looked forward to receiving a summer and a winter catalog, which became a mainstay in merchandising. It was the Amazon.com of its day. And to facilitate the efficient distribution of its orders, it had these huge regional distribution centers.

But the culture changed, as did its shopping habits. Mail-order firms such as Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery-Ward became history. The younger generational culture never even heard of them. So what do you do with a huge empty multi-storied distribution center?

Fact #2. Generational cultures are very real and very distinctly different cultures. This has been especially true as the 20^th century unfolded, especially after World War II. The citizenry and generations were no longer isolated, or out of communication with the larger global scene. The whole plethora of influences globally, culturally, economically, socially, racially, and especially technologically were inescapable. Cultures were no longer formed only within families. That’s a whole study in itself. Sears-Roebuck was a victim of this transition, and they were shrewd enough to realize that their diminishing market was in its twilight. They were part of a generational culture that was passing.

That didn’t mean that the populace was not still in need of a wide range of commodities, but that they were procuring them in a different form. And the neighborhood in which the Sears building stood was in the middle of a rapidly developing, dynamic neighborhood made up of a generation of young urban professionals who loved food and entertainment, coffee shops, and specialty boutiques. It loved to live in the city and in the neighborhood. So some shrewd developers purchased the Sears building and created this exciting, colorful locus formed for a new and prosperous generational culture: Ponce City Market. Shops and condominiums, etc.

The ‘sons of light’, however, were not so shrewd. Right down the avenue from Sears there were those several magnificent church buildings, erected for an earlier generation for whom such church buildings were a status symbol for polite church folk. They came with steeples, dominant clergy, pipe-organs, elegant stained windows, and all of the accoutrements of the Christendom era so embraced by the older generations. But the generations changed and passed, and the church was not shrewd enough to recognize that such buildings did not necessarily meet the spiritual hungering of the distinctly different emerging generational cultures. They kept trying to attracted disinterested generations by more ‘churchy’ activities, but the emerging Generation X, Millennial Generation, and its present information age  successor (Generation iY) had no interest in more ‘in house’ churchy activities.

The generational cultures still had that quest for meaning, for relationships, for hope in their lives … but not in maintaining tall steeple church buildings. So the population of those churches down the avenue diminished, some closed, some sold off part of their property for condominiums. The Boomer generation may vainly try to preserve them. But meeting the spiritual hungerings of Gen. X, the Millennials, and their successors by them is not likely so long as they are wedded to, and idolatrous of buildings that are relics of a past Christendom culture. Happily, new an indigenous and creative forms of church are emerging to meet this need, and in unexpected forms. Fact #3.

BLOG 8/10/16. WHERE DOES ONE LEARN HOW TO LIVE AS A CHILD OF THE LIGHT?

The other evening, by chance, a gentleman, who is a very influential official in local government, learning that I was a retired pastor came over and introduced himself to me and seemed eager to tell me that he was the son of a pastor and that he and his wife aspired to become pastors and to plant a church. I was polite and affirmed my appreciation for his role in the local governmental scene—but in my mind thought what a subversion of the Christian doctrine of vocation it was that becoming clergy trumped being God’s child of light in such a position of civic influence.

We really need to reconceive the church’s leadership. In New Testament documents there is no such category as clergy. There are elders/overseers who are defined as those in whom there is a mature understanding of scriptures, but who are essentially the living-breathing practitioners of those New Testament teachings. It is to these that the folk in the church are to look for leadership and to whom they are to subject themselves.

Yet, it ultimately comes back to a basic principle: We are called to “… walk as children of the light” (Ephesians 5:8). So, comes the question: Where does one learn how to walk as a child of the light? One can participate in endless Bible studies, and still be clueless as to how to walk as a child of the light in the often grim and realistic vicissitudes of daily life in this present scene, (which that same scripture passage describes as the darkness). Our calling to walk as children of light is a call to walk as redemptive, reconciling demonstrations of God’s intent to incarnate His New Creation right in the midst of the “stink and stuff” of our daily scene. Where does one look? or to whom does one look to learn the disciplines and the realities of being children of light in all of the ambiguous and complex relationships?

My conversation with this local official uncovers this quest. Here he is, in a most influential position in a county with a very speckled political history. To have a child of the light in that position (to my mind) is vastly more strategic than being called “reverend” and even planting a church (of course … he could do both, and that may be what he has in mind). One learns how to walk as a child of the light by having models. Paul told the Philippian Christians: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9). Or: “Be imitators of me even as I also am of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1). Got it? God’s people need models of his New Humanity in all of the realities of daily life—and it is possible that ‘clergy’ totally subvert that by forming their people to only be comfortable in the church’s in-house activities. This is such a tragedy.

At one point in my life I became acquainted with a gentleman who was vice-president for marketing of a major steel company in its heyday. His lament was that because of who he was, his church wanted him on every official board and position of church leadership … but he lamented (with some anger, he being a highly motivated and red-headed person): “In all of those years, no one ever asked me what I did during the week? I had to assume they didn’t give a damn.” Wow! His passion was to be an excellent executive and a Christian influence on the whole global sales-force over which he presided. (cf. Thank God It’s Monday, by William Diehl.)

God’s people in the “Monday morning world” of realities, however humble or influential, learn to walk as children of light from those mature practitioners who live out the teachings of Christ in the ‘warp and woof’ of this dominion of darkness. And such are seldom those who are clergy, alas! And unless the teachings of Christ get out of the Bible study group and into the Monday morning world, they avail nothing. What is your response?

http://wipfandstock.com/subversive-jesus-radical-grace.html