Enchanted Community

BLOG 7/22/13. ‘PEW ZOMBIES’ … OR INTERACTIVE LEARNERS?

 A few years ago in my own denomination, the Presbyterian Poll discerned that we were a denomination of “Biblically and theologically illiterate laity.” Consider that we’re talking about some 11,000 congregations consisting of something like 1.2 million persons, and it should have gotten some attention—but it seems not to have. I raised this bit of data with a curriculum revision committee of one of our major seminaries. They had asked me what I had observed in my engagement with some twenty or more seminaries across the country, so that they could consider my input when they engaged in taking a fresh look at their own curriculum.

My point to them was that if the Presbyterian Poll was in any way accurate, and if 95+% of the church was composed of the laity, then no matter what they were teaching it their seminary … it wasn’t coming through to the laity-folk in the pew. That reality has two dimensions that need to be looked at: 1) What is the expectation of the folk in the pew of the influence of their teaching-pastor (preacher), and 2) What is the understanding of the pastor-teachers (preachers) of their responsibility to form Christian communities in the Word of Christ?

Let me take an initial stab at the first of these questions. My observation is that there is a very large component of many congregations, with which I have been familiar, that has no sense of intention to become literate in, or formed by, the Biblical, theological, and missional foundations of the church. The attend church because it, somehow, is part of the social fabric of their lives, and gives them some sense of connection with their innate ‘spirituality’ so that whatever takes place in the church’s worship or preaching is probably acceptable. They listen to the sermons hopefully, and assume that it must be OK, since the preacher is trained and ordained and should know what he/she is talking about. They are accepting of the ecclesiastical life so long as it doesn’t make too many demands on them (to become responsible disciples?). They can inhabit the pews of the church for long periods without becoming Biblically or theologically literate, or sensing any responsibility for being obedient to Jesus in the missional mandate of the church.

I will define such folk as pew zombies.

Now consider that the demographic reality is that about 50% of the worlds population is under thirty years of age, and that these are generations (millennial generation, and 20/20 generation) that are products of a whole new digital culture that is both interactional and relational. Consider that studies show that a one-way lecture/sermon is the least effective method of communication, so that even educational institutions and their teachers are both increasingly putting information on-line/posting it on a web-site with provocative questions, and then also processing that same information in person in a classroom as the most effective means of communicating. This in itself raises issues for our understanding of worship and teaching.

Consider also that these generations are not all that committed to traditional church institutions, but many are also expressing a desire to understand the Christian faith in depth. Consider that they have access to informative sources on their iPads, and will often sit in Christian congregations accessing good sources to see if the preacher is coming across accurately.

This is just the tip of the iceberg! We have at least these two incompatible components existing in Christian communities: pew zombies and interactive learners. And the sooner church leadership, pastors, etc. become aware of this and engage it, the better of the missional health of the church. To be continued …

BLOG 7/18/13: CONSUMER CULTURE GOES TO CHURCH

I believe it was missiologist Robert Coleman who made the point that: “If you can’t relate your life to the Great Commission, then your life is irrelevant to history.” I frequently reflect on that as I observe the fairly common phenomenon of that large segment of church-goers, who are marvelous members, have wholesome and orthodox Christian beliefs, discern good sermons, participate in worship services and the Eucharist, love Bible studies, etc. … yet, outside the ‘in house’ church culture seem to go mute, or incognito until the next church meeting. Their lives seem to have no dynamic, or thrilled, connection with the mission of God in Christ, or with all of those sojourners out there with whom they rub shoulders every week.

That puzzles me—that disconnect between beliefs and praxis. Such, while in so many ways commendable inside the church culture, are hardly contagious sons and daughters of the Light, hardly the living demonstrations of the One who came to seek and to save the lost.

And I’m not quite certain how to engage this widespread phenomenon, or where this somewhat subverted concept of discipleship derives. I do know that unless those ‘in house’ church activities and gatherings and worship of the church community equip and motivate us for that Christ-like mission to those ‘spiritually confused god-seekers’ with whom we associate everyday in our normal course of events … then something is amiss in both the church’s leaders and its participating members.

One of our old gospel songs goes: “Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, joined with power …Come to Jesus, seek and find.”

Question: Where would such an encounter take place today? Where would our daily acquaintances, who are still in the darkness, encounter the Light, so that it sparks their curiosity, and so begin to ask question, to “seek and find?”

Somehow we need to remember that Jesus hung-out with publicans and sinners, that he told the despised and compromised Zacchaeus that: “I must stay at your house today,” that he had no problem violating all the codes of propriety and chatted with the woman at the well, and sparked her curiosity. It was Jesus who was derided for consorting with winebibbers and gluttons (at the neighborhood pub?). Or, in the contested text, that Jesus was the one who sided with the woman caught in the very act of adultery, and offered grace. Even his own twelve disciples were a motley crew, off the streets, composed of profane fishermen, a self-aggrandizing tax collector, and assorted others of ordinary circumstance—but included no ‘religious’ (scribes, priests, etc.).

But with all of these, they saw something in Jesus that made them willing to pull up roots and to be with him. Who serves that role here and now?

Try: “As the Father has sent me, even so am I sending you” … or, are you and I satisfied to be consumer Christians while escaping the requirements of true discipleship? That’s worth pondering. (Like, maybe, skipping church on Sunday and inviting your neighbors over for coffee or brunch and getting to know them and seeing what the conversation produces… or something like that?).

BLOG 7/15/13. (CONT) ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND THE FORM OF THE CHURCH

I asked the question in my last Blog as to whether the church was quite too silent on the subject of economic justice, and I got some inquiries back about what we might do about that. It is my opinion that it has to do with our basic misunderstanding of the form of the church. The church, in New Testament documents, is the community of God’s new creation (kingdom) in which God demonstrates the communal incarnation of that new creation, that in-breaking kingdom.

That communal demonstration has two dimensions that are symbiotic and interdependent as we see them, first, in Acts 2 where the larger church in Jerusalem gathers (probably in Solomon’s porch), and then house to house 2:42ff) around the apostles’ teachings, intimate fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. The same two-dimensional form is evident in Paul’s report to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, about how he did not cease for three years to teach them “the whole counsel of God” in public and from house to house.

My understanding, then, is that there is a significant place for larger gatherings, or communities of faith whose purpose is instruction in the Word of Christ, in edifying music (Col. 3:16), and the celebration of the Eucharist. Here is where the teachings of economic justice, so replete in scripture, would be taught, lifted up and made a part of our understanding of discipleship.

But one does not really understand the form of the church without those other “house to house” or smaller gatherings in which everyone has a name and a face and a story. It is in such church-around-the-table settings that we see the “one another” relationships practiced, i.e., our responsibility for, and accountability to, one another demonstrated. There are no anonymous persons in such a setting. And here is where economic justice is incarnated. “No one considered anything he possessed as his own, but they had all things in common” (Acts 4:32).

The Biblical principles, then, are taught in the larger gatherings of the church where gifted teaching-shepherds unpack the teachings of Christ … but the application of, discussion of, mutual responsibility and prayer about  those teachings is only possible in “one another” settings. This is where economic justice in the church belongs, realistically.

So, if I am in some large, typical institutional church setting where I don’t know that the guy sitting next to me is struggling economically, jobless, too embarrassed to admit it, while I am doing well and have secure income—or vice-versa—then the kind of economic justice we see in the New Testament documents is unrealistic to us.

How to resolve this? This is why the ascended Lord provides the church with Elders/Bishops who are responsible before the Great Shepherd to be both the shepherds and models for God’s people. This would include the goal: that no baptized member, who is identified with the church community, should be able to be anonymous (or autonomous?). Rather there is to be order and exemplary models of personalized, loving, gracious oversight by those Elders/Bishops (I Timothy 3:1-8; Hebrews13:17; I Peter 5:1-5).

Ah! But such personalized caring and responsibility is so unreal in the typical depersonalized church institutions with which we are all too familiar. So that economic justice can be ignored … and people suffer in silence. Feed me back your questions and we’ll pursue it further.

BLOG 7/11/13. IS THE CHURCH SILENT ON ECONOMIC INJUSTICE: MAMMON?

I grew up in the deeply segregated South, and until I was in my twenties never heard the church speak to the enormous problem of racial injustice (though there were some remarkable voices out there doing so). The church was silent because it was ‘loaded’ and ‘controversial.’ I am now questioning whether the church in these United States is currently far too silent on the subject of the looming problem of economic injustice?

It is not that this is the ‘cause du jour’ of some group of progressives—it is staring us in the face as the vast preponderance of the wealth of the nation is controlled more and more at those with the most, while the middle class struggles to survive, and proud middle-class families are forced to resort to food stamps—it is the context in which the Christian church is to live as the incarnation of God’s New Creation/God’s Kingdom.

Has mammon become the interpretive script that reinterprets Jesus’ teachings? It was he, you remember, who named mammon as the major competitor to God: “You cannot serve mammon.” I’m just raising the question. Before us in the news was the Occupy Wall Street movement which named the crisis and kept it before us for those weeks. Whose responsibility are the helpless poor? Remember that it was Jesus (in the Lukan version of the Sermon on the Mount/Sermon on the Plain) who said: “Blessed are you poor. Woe to you rich.” It was after his encounter with Jesus that the corrupt Zacchaeus said that he would give half his goods he would give to the poor, in addition to restoring anything he had gained by fraud.

Who dares preach on this? When the 1% wealthy are comfortable in a church community that also contains struggling members of the 99%, it is both dangerous and controversial to raise this grim reality.

I quite well remember in my own career as a teaching pastor, when I came to a controversial issue in scripture, hearing that voice of darkness whispering in my ear: “Don’t touch that, it’ll get you into trouble.” But the Christian faith and the Christian community are called out of the dominion of darkness, and economic injustice, to be the demonstration of the light of God’s New Creation. It doesn’t matter that there are ‘members’ who depend on NASDAQ, or the Dow, for their sense of well-being, and who live in fine homes, and support the church budget.

Somehow there is an enormous disconnect from reality in all too much of the church on such issues. Some years ago, friend Ron Sider wrote the book, RICH CHRISTIANS IN A WORLD OF HUNGER, but those who read and celebrated it were not the rich, alas! (It’s still in print!)

I didn’t come across any major Christian groups celebrating the Occupy Wall Street movement, though someone ought to have. And we can affirm with great appreciation Warren Buffett and Bill Gates pledging to give their vast wealth to human need.

But I come back to the church.

About the closest I have come (in my limited exposure) was a pastor friend who tossed out (almost as a ‘throw-away’ comment): “If you’re driving a new Lexus and not tithing, you need to re-examine your discipleship.”

… to be continued (maybe).

BLOG 7/8/13.   “FEAR OF DYING?”

It’s interesting, at this octogenarian passage of my life, to be surrounded as I am by some bright, wonderful and much younger friends, who give me great hope for the future because they are not intimidated by the challenges, and have a “fix it” mentality. But it also gives me some perspective. The other day I was visited by a couple of these iY generation friends, and it became obvious in our conversation that the events that had formed me were ancient history to them—totally off of their chart. We were speaking from two quite different cultures. I am excited and hopeful for my young friends, but let me make a leap here, because adventure is not theirs alone.

You see, I know how old I am, and I know that the next great adventure for me is that of dying, which as a follower of Jesus Christ, I find marvelous to contemplate. But many of my friends rebuke me for talking about dying … but I don’t accept that rebuke. I think of the New Testament word (Hebrews 2:14-15):

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

and deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

This whole subject was exacerbated for me in a conversation recently with a medical professional, who deals primarily with elderly and dying individuals, and how that so many medical professionals and family members twist themselves into pretzels to avoid talking about death and dying. So sad. Yes, and even many who profess to be ‘Christian’ seem to totally disconnect this from their Easter faith.

I am reminded of Martin Luther King’s statement, when their were so many threats against his life, that when he accepted the fact of his own death: “ a huge freedom came over my life.” Yes, and amen! I long for all of my friends to have this freedom. And back to the Hebrews passage above, one of the huge gifts of Jesus and of the gospel is to free us from the tyranny of the fear of death.

In my 86^th year it is this wonderful door of hope, this Jesus in whom I believe, who promised: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:24-25), that fills me with anticipation. My young Millennial and iY friends have a thrilling array of challenges and adventures before them … but so do I have that ultimate adventure before me. I don’t mind talking about it at all.

It is so beautifully stated in the hymn verse: “The golden evening brightens in the west: Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes the rest; Sweet is the calm of paradise the blest. Alleluia! Alleluia!”

Is that gospel/good news, or what? How can we believers not talk about it and share it with our friends wherever they may be in their human adventure?

Peace!

BLOG. 6/5/13. THE CHURCH IN ITS ESSENCE: COUNTER-CULTURAL

This week, the obituary of Will Campbell has been in major papers. For my generation he was a colorful, controversial, and maverick—but insightful—prophet. He was of the opinion that most churches in the South, where he lived, were the last places on earth one would go to really hear the teachings of Jesus. It’s easy for us, at this distance to eulogize Will Campbell, but not always so.

Out of my mainline, and Southern, church experience in those days of the 1950s and 60s, to express any affinity or approval or appreciation of Will Campbell (or of Clarence Jordan) was to invite immediate suspicion of one’s evangelical orthodoxy, or ONE’S credibility even.  Will’s prophetic words were to the white church in the South—the black church was a different scene.

Somehow, perhaps especially since the time of Constantine, the church has had a continual proclivity to conform itself to—or better to become captive to—it’s dominant social order, and in so doing to forsake its calling to be the communal demonstration of God’s New Creation (Kingdom) in Christ, i.e., counter-cultural.

This is obviously still true. We have created a church that is comfortable with its cultural context, and is perhaps populated with (what someone described) “baptized pagans.” We have created such a church at the price of forsaking any call to repentance, or to invite folk to participate on the basis of faith, but without repentance, and so to (as Bonhoeffer observed) to preach cheap grace.

Face it: Christ’s calling is quite radical. It is a calling out of the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. It demands radical change. Christ never downplayed this: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Or, as Bonhoeffer explained: “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die!”

The Sermon on the Mount describes the radical lifestyle of God’s Kingdom people, and includes his blessing on those who are reviled and persecuted, and this because New Creation folk are not conformed to the patterns of this present age—we are witnesses of a new and reconciled and recreated, and present reality that exposes the distortions of what is dominant in culture. We may well be considered weird. In Will Campbell’s eyes, the destructiveness of racism was glaringly obvious in the church.

The church is radically counter-cultural. It only ceases to be that when it truncates (or bastardizes) itself into a comfortable, religious, aesthetically pleasing, and sociable community with activities to justify its existence and your participation. So, to espouse any of Christ’s teachings that would upset, or estrange folk, is hardly imaginable. The true gospel, or the demands of Christ for Kingdom obedience are eclipsed. The church, then, becomes the religious expression of the culture of darkness (racism, environment degradation, consumerism and greed, etc.) no matter how we attempt to equivocate that distortion of Christ’s purpose for his church.

This is true of every generation and age. But God continues to raise up those faithful communities and voices, and build his church that is faithful to his teachings … while many venerable, so-called, ‘church institutions’ rock along oblivious to how irrelevant they are to the mission of God, or the teachings of Jesus. Occasionally, God sends along a Will Campbell to stick a pin in their unreality.

[Personal note: I’ll be out of pocket for about a week. Getting a new knee. Back soon.]

BLOG. 5/3/13: “YOU’RE A WRITER? OH!”

I get this response frequently from acquaintances, who know that in my misty past as for forty years  I was a teaching pastor (among other things) in the Presbyterian Church, but not as a writer. I am obviously not a very well know writer, alas! But my story goes as follows. The Biblical focus that lies at the center of my understanding is that Jesus came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. This being so of me, I was a participant in a denominational council, decades ago, whose assignment it was to assist the denomination in understanding its evangelistic task. There I was able to articulate that central gospel of the Kingdom theme in a definition, which became an official document of the church. And because of that, I was prevailed upon to become the denomination’s staff person in the field of evangelism for four years. That role, then, engaged me with scores of congregations, and in conferences, seminars, training sessions, lectures in seminaries, ecumenical discussions, etc.

What was almost frightening to me was how absent was any significant thinking about the gospel, or of the gospel task, much less even any fringe understanding of the meaning of the dynamically present Kingdom of God, and its critical place in the gospel which Jesus heralded and taught. The church used a whole lot of gospel ‘code words’ but nothing connected them with that Kingdom essence.

That being so, a savvy editor from the denominational press prevailed upon me to write a book on the subject, which became Joy to the World: An Introduction to Kingdom Evangelism (long since out of print).

A decade later, out of numerous conversations with spiritually hungry young adults, who were God-seekers, I wrote another book with and for those young adults in a semi-fictitious journey with one of them into an understanding of the breadth and depth of that same gospel of the Kingdom of God. That book was: Subversive Jesus, Radical Grace, which contained some of the radical and counter-cultural components of the gospel of the Kingdom. (It has recently been re-published by my friends at Wipf and Stock.)

More recently, I have written, what is actually a trilogy, on how that gospel of the Kingdom demonstrates itself in a community called the church, which is intended to be the community of the Kingdom of God. These are: Enchanted Community: Journey Into the Mystery of the Church (the what, or essence of the church), Refounding the Church From the Underside (the why, or purpose of the church in the gospel enterprise), and The Church and the Relentless Darkness (a study of the forces that cause the church to drift away from its calling). These are all in print and available from Wipf and Stock, or Amazon.

That said, you cannot imagine how thrilled I have been at the writings of two quite well known theologians who have raised this Kingdom theme to new visibility. Dear Howard Snyder has been working on that kingdom theme almost as long as I, and has just done a new work dealing with the environmental implications of the Kingdom of God (Salvation Means Creation Healed). But more recently, N. T. Wright, with his marvelous writing and communications skills, and massive Biblical scholarship, has done: How God Became King. Wow! Blockbuster. I heartily commend these writings, along with my own to those who want to pursue this awesome central theme of Jesus.

BLOG. 5/30/13. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS CHURCH MEMBERSHIP ALL ABOUT?

For the Traditionalist Generation, in which I grew up, no one ever questioned existing institutions much; we simply accepted them as ‘givens’. And growing up in church institutions generally meant that one would at some point be expected to “join the church.” It was something like a rite of passage.

The emerging generations are formed by entirely different set of influences, and are asking healthy questions—not about the advantages of a particular church and its activities, but about how it will equip them to function in the larger context of their lives. They look at ageing congregations, and observe parents and grandparents who seem unwilling to ask the critical questions about the meaning of the Christian faith, about: What is the purpose of the church? How is it important to the Christian message?  How does it relate to their 24/7 lives? What is the true content of the Christian faith? What are Christ’s demands? What are his promises? Is it good stewardship of my time and calling to discipleship to engage in church activities? Does it deserve a  place in my set of priorities?

These questions were partially provoked by my reading of a book: The 20/20 Workplace: How Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today. As I read this provocative book, I found myself wondering the same thing about Christian communities, and observing how some church communities seem to ‘get it’ and are able to attract, develop, and keep the emerging adult generation. There are parallel patterns. There are factors that attract, etc. that should be true in vital church communities: 1) the sense that I am part of a community in which I can be in collaboration with, and inter-related to the other components of the community beyond myself; 2) That there is authenticity in the very essence of the community so that it reflects the core values of Christ’s gospel, and is transparent in such an incarnation; 3) That there be personalization, so that I am not just some generic “church member,” but rather a unique person at a particular life-stage, with differing needs and differing daily engagements and mission in my calling to Christ; 4) That the community be open to innovation and to new ideas and forms, and in which I am allowed to offer innovative practices—able to “turn traditional practices on their head” (to quote the authors of this book); and 5) a community which embraces the social connection which is so much a part of my culture in the use of the social media.

This opens the door to all kinds of fresh and creative understanding of what Christ came to be and to do, and for which he creates his church. Folk have a right—even as the enterprising younger adults with the business community—to know how they, as persons, fit and how the church equips them to live joyfully, meaningfully, and authentically in their daily incarnation as Christ’s New Creation people.

I am convinced that such an understanding of Christian community is loaded with all kinds of positive potential. Wow! What do you think?

BLOG. 5/27/13: THE INEVITABEL REDEFING OF CHURCH LEADERSHIP

On this Memorial Day and Monday morning, allow me to convey a very strong impression which comes as a result of my 5/13/13 Blog on: “The Liability of Being Called ‘Reverend.” To my surprise, I received a near record number of visits to that post—which says something. It has been reinforced by a number of comments both on line and in person having to do with that reality.

These comments reinforce my conviction that there needs to be something of a substantial (radical?) redefining of the role of church leadership. One of the primary factors coming inevitably down the track is that we will soon have five distinct generational adult cultures present in church communities, if they are at all representative of the demographics of our population. The Millennial Generation, and the just-now-getting-ready-to-emerge 20/20 Generation, will constitute the majority of the adult generation. They will be a dominant factor.

… And that is precisely where there is going to necessarily be a significant redefining of what constitutes church leadership. The older generations will probably ‘rock along’ content with the traditional understanding of a custodial, institution-keeping, “reverend,” spiritual figure. But it is already obvious that this kind of a figure is unreal and archaic to the Millennial Generation, and more so with the emerging 20/20 Generation.

What these generations will require is a redefining from a custodial, from-the-top-down, and managerial role of church leadership … to an accessible, equipping, mentoring  person with whom they can have authentic engagement and dialogue. They will require participation in the process of being equipped for their part in the mission of God, and in the church as the community of the mission of God (missio dei). They will be inclined, probably, to tip their hats to traditional clergy … and then ignore them.

It’s already happening.

These generations will, I believe, create new forms of church, and redefine church leadership to require seasoned practitioners of Christian discipleship as models, mentors, and wisdom figures. What these emerging generational cultures absorb on-line, from the vast available sources of Christian and Biblical material … they will want to see, and interact with, in actual models of those teachings. This will be a very healthy redefinition since it will take us back to the model Paul set before us: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Phil. 4:9).

A seminary degree, or an ecclesiastical title, simply is not going to make it with such a creative and pragmatic new generation. Most will want to be free to ask questions, challenge, collaborate, question, and have a significant relationship with such mentoring church leadership.

Having said that, there are going to be a lot of traditional ecclesiastical traditions that are going to be disrupted, and a lot of entrenched ecclesiastical interests that are not going to like it!

… And that will be no great loss to the Kingdom of God, or to the mission of God. It, rather, portends a much more fruitful future of the God’s community of the New Creation, i.e., the church.

A correction on today’s post, in the last line shoud read: each without the other is incomplete. (No matter how many times I proof read these posts, errors seem to creep in, alas!)