Enchanted Community

BLOG. 1/10/13: “I’M NOT INTO RELIGION, BUT I AM ‘SPIRITUAL’”

Conversations with friendly folk in coffee shops, or pubs, surface an interesting response when many of these find out that I have had a long career as a pastor and a Christian teacher and author. The response (you’ve heard it, too) goes something like: “O, I’m not into organized religion, or church, but I am very spiritual.”

That intrigues me. Such persons usually don’t want to get too close to a confrontation with the notion of a personal God, or with the Jesus of my own pilgrimage. Many have been too badly burned by some expression of the church, and by some offensive ‘Christian’ persons. I can understand that. But the acknowledgement that they are ‘spiritual’ has some roots down there somewhere, and I would like to know how to help them track down those roots and give them some substance.

New Testament scholar, Tom Wright (in his book: Simply Christian) says that most folk have a desire for spirituality (along with relationships, justice, and a delight in beauty). A psychiatrist friend once shared with me that all folk experience one or more of three anxieties: anxiety of meaning (what does my life mean?), the anxiety over acceptance (does anyone care that I’m here or want to know me really?), and the anxiety over death (is there anything beyond this life?).

My desire, in response to the confession of being spiritual, would be to say: “Oh? Can you fill me in on that? Give spirituality some definition so that I understand what you mean?” Such a request might well provoke a retreat into changing the subject. But I occasionally respond that I would love to hear them out on what such a self-definition implies. I can also counter that I am also spiritual, but that my spirituality is defined by my encounter with Jesus … but I have to be cautious and not hasten to that affirmation too quickly.

Our culture has all kinds of ways of hiding from this sense of spirituality. It creates “designer religions” or “designer gods” that suit its own lifestyle. Or it escapes into social media, on into the false gospels of consumerism and materialism, like: go buy something and you will be more fulfilled! Many seldom let it get quiet enough to reflect on what their desire for spirituality means.

But if we persons are God’s creation, and created by and for him, then there is obviously going to be “an aching void” when God is displaced. I come back again and again to the wisdom of the Westminster Assembly church leaders in giving answer to the question: “What is the chief end (purpose) of man?” And the answer: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to fully enjoy him forever.” That’s the root of this inarticulate quest for spirituality that I meet regularly along the way.

It’s been said eloquently by so many over the ages. Jesus confessed that he was the way and the truth and the life.” Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. Pascal said that there is a “god-shaped vacuum in every heart.” Paul told the Mars Hill folk that the god they worshiped in ignorance he declared to them.” Or, maybe the old spiritual says it best: “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.”

I think next time someone offers to me that they are a ‘spiritual’ person, I’ll simply respond: “Tell me about it!” and see what happens.

Have you discovered something on this that I need to know about?

BLOG: 1/7/13. “OF STAGING AREAS AND BASE CAMPS”

Did it ever come to your attention that neither Jesus nor the New Testament writers give any particular attention to the form of the church? The focus is on the purpose, i.e., the mission of the church. Some missiologists have observed that the church invented and reinvented itself as it was engaged in the mission of God.

In our last Blog we talked about the church not being a place (and I got some pretty positive feedback from that). Somehow we have become captive to the notion of the church as some kind of institution, some kind of sacralized space … but not so in the New Testament. We see Paul meeting with folk in public places and in homes, but his focus is always on equipping Christ’s people for their participation in the mission.

Having said that, it does help to have some kind of image of how this Kingdom community is formed, and how it incarnates itself so that believers can be together in the huge plethora of different congenial or hostile contexts in which it finds itself. In some architectural circles there is an axiom that: form follows function. This could probably be said of the church as a missional community.

One of the best metaphors (?) that I have come across, comes from my friend Bob Slocum, who at one time engaged in some serious mountain climbing (Mt. Rainier as I remember it). He describes the staging areas, or larger gatherings, where experienced veterans of mountaineering orient would-be, or novice, mountain climbers into the physical challenges, disciplines, hazards, necessary conditioning and equipment, team building, and ultimate joys of what lay before them. Those staging areas are the first step in equipping for the ultimate experience of ascending the mountain.

I liken these to the purpose or function of larger church assemblies, whose purpose is to be continually equipping God’s people for their mission in the realities, challenges, cultural contexts, etc. of their 24/7 mission as children of Light in their daily experience. It reminds them that the mountain (or mission) before them is God’s true purpose in their calling.

But then there is the much more immediate and necessary form, which would be those several other persons in whose company you would actually be involved in the climb, and with whom you are all mutually accountable to, and responsible for, each others welfare and safety in the climb. This has to be a group who trust and depend upon each other, and who know each other’s strengths and weaknesses reasonably well. No one would (or should) initiate such a hazardous climb without such a support group. Such a group should welcome others who need such support, and probably should contain an elder who has made the climb before. These are called: based camps.

What with the New Testament’s repetitive references to our one another relationships, I would liken these base camps to the necessity of a smaller accountability group of disciples, who are on the mission of God together, and who meet to share the pilgrimage, to pray, to teach and exhort one another—those fellow disciples with whom you are making the journey.

My sense is that both of these forms are useful for God’s people to be equipped for mission. But it certainly is not God’s purpose for us to hang around the staging area, endlessly telling mountain-climbing stories, while never seriously engaging in the climb.

Are you beginning to connect the dots?

[Some of this is excerpted from a forthcoming book of mine: The Church and the Relentless Darkness, due out in the next few months. Stand by.]

BLOG 01/03/13. NIT-PICKING: THE CHURCH IS NOT A PLACE

Happy New Year! May 2013 be filled with blessings for you.

Having said that, let me begin this new year with what may seem to be a bit of nit-picking, but something which becomes a distorting factor as we look at the New Testament teachings about the church and its divinely given mission. This may be a bit difficult to articulate, but all too much, in our post-Christiana culture, we are captive to the image of the church as a place … we “go to church,” or we say something happens “at church,” or maybe: “Our church has been on this corner for generations.”

This is so common that most cannot conceive of the church other than as some kind of a sacralized place where we attend church, and where certain church activities take place. But this doesn’t fit what the New Testament teaches. The church may have a place to meet, or the Christian community in a city may be referred to as the church in (say) Ephesus. But the church is not a place. Sound like I’m nit picking? Well, I confess: I am. Because with that general acceptance of the church as place there come other distorting factors, such as church-goers being passive consumers of church activities (which while good, may having nothing to do with the kingdom of God or the mission of God).

The church as place, or as institutional form, is certainly not part of the apostle Paul’s understanding, or explication, which are before us in his writings.

Rather, Paul’s vision is of a veritable and visible Spirit-created new humanity that is created to be the demonstration of the communal formation of the kingdom of God. It can gather anywhere: in a living room, on a seashore, in the park, in a ballroom, in a prison, around a table at the neighborhood pub—in the most unlikely places. It is the versatile and mobile and flexible (and perhaps temporary?) recreation of the human community as God intends it to be.

As such it is a critical and contagious component of the glorious gospel of Christ. Its unmistakable sense of identity is that it is a community in which all are self-consciously aware that they have been rescued out of the dominion of darkness, and translated into the dominion of God’s dear Son.

It is to such a calling that all are are to be equipped in order to walk as children of the Light in the midst of the cultural darkness. Yes, and finally it is against such a communal demonstration of the Light that the Prince of Darkness will focus all of his wiles to render it less than that.

Once the church becomes locked into a place and to institutional form its ineluctable tendency is to become ecclesio-centric rather than Christ-o-centric and thus mission-focused.

The church scattered across the community landscape on Thursday afternoon is where the salt and light have their effect, and thus the church is truly the church when it contagiously incarnates its calling while thus scattered. It gathers occasionally for refreshment, equipping, and mutual encouragement for its engagement in mission in the everyday world.

Got it? Stand by …

BLOG 12.20.12: ADVENT AND OUR PARTICIPATION IN THE MISSON OF GOD

When we get beyond Advent, beyond the “Lessons and Carols” of the Christmas celebration, the inevitable question ought to come to us: Alright, what does all of this have to do with me, and how does it equip me for my own participation in what God is doing in this neighborhood, and in this real world? What does my attendance on church activities, my service inside the church, my assent to the affirmations of a worship service … have to do with what God calls me to be and do and think in God’s mission?

Here goes …

Advent has to do with “the word made flesh,” the incarnation of God in human form. OK? Jesus would later say: “As the Father has sent me, even so do I send you” (John 20:21). Do you begin to make the connection? Then he would make a later enigmatic statement about his building of his church, implying that somehow that was vitally connected with his mission, that somehow it (we) would be the agent of his mission, and that the gates of hell wouldn’t be able to prevail against it.

Hmmm!  What is that all about?

Does that mean that it involves you and me? Are we also, somehow, to be God’s word made flesh to our neighbors and co-workers and friends? How would we be equipped to realize such an incredible calling? What does the church community have to do with that equipping of us? Paul will make the point that it is God’s predestined purpose that those whom God calls will be conformed to the image of his Son, and that the Son is the firstborn of a new humanity (Romans 8:28 [sorta]). He will later put ‘meat on those bones’ by saying that the way we are to be recreated into Christ’s likeness, is into true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24); then recreated in knowledge after the image of our creator (Colossians 3:10).

This points us to the fact that the purpose of our calling by Christ is to be made like God (reflecting the divine nature) in our behavior, in our relationship to and communication with the Trinitarian community, i.e. holiness, and in our thinking.

So what does that say about what is the purpose of the church that Christ is building? What is its function? How is it instrumental in equipping and encouraging me and us in the calling we just looked at? And then, how is it that it seems to have drifted so far into something “religious” and unrelated to the mission of God? If my participation in the church community doesn’t affect my life deeply and realistically for my mission in the “Monday morning world” … then it is essentially irrelevant to my Christian calling!

I’m heartened by the growing evidence that the emerging Millennial (or iY) generation is a generation not simply willing to be passive consumers of church activities, but want to be seriously engaged and imaginative participants in what God is doing in the world, and will be either looking for or inventing church communities that equip and energize them for that thrilling mission. But … that also means that more and more of this emerging generation are likely to by-pass venerable church traditions and forms that don’t have that same focus on Christ’s mission, and our calling to it. Fascinating? Scary? Exciting? … Yes, but inevitable.

Merry Christmas!

I’ll see you again after the first of 2013. Peace!

BLOG 12.17.12: THE FORGOTTEN (AND CRITICAL) DIMENSION OF ADVENT

What is all too often forgotten (if indeed it was ever remembered by most) as the church’s Advent celebration has been taken so captive by the consumer culture in which we live … is the fact that when the church established the liturgical year, Advent was not only to be a celebration of Christ’s first coming, but also of his second. Happily, some faithful pastors and worship leaders remember this.

What we need to be reminded of, again and again, is that at one end of Matthew’s gospel is the record of Christ’s birth, the coming of the wise men/scholars from the East, etc. … but at the other end of his gospel, as a conclusion, are two sermons on the end signs (chapter 24) and on the final judgment (chapter 25). Those two sermons are followed by the capstone of the whole document, which we call: The Great Commission. That deserves a second look. That commission is not a casual postscript!

I think it was missiologist Robert Coleman who said to a group of Christians gathered, that if they could not relate their daily lives to the Great Commission then their lives were irrelevant to human history. Sobering. That commission was given to the whole church. It was given to the twelve first of all, but they were to make disciples in every neighborhood and to every people group in the world. That was and is God’s great eschatological purpose in the coming of the Son of God.

But note that the Great Commission goes on to flesh-out what it means to make disciples. Jesus tells his followers that they were to teach those who were discipled to: “ … observe all that I have commanded you.” Christ’s followers are to be the living, breathing incarnations of his new creation. Sound simple? It’s not.

The birth of Jesus is heralded as the inauguration of God’s great search and rescue mission, as this “Jesus” (Yahweh saves) is to save his people from their sins (1:22). Or as the angel said to Mary: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David … and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33).

Paul would frequently refer to this as “the mystery hidden from the ages, now made known.”

But that New Creation, that inaugurated Kingdom, is not some kind of incidental ephemeral spirituality. It is radically earthy and incarnational. Matthew spells out what Jesus commanded by recording at least six discernable sermons in his gospel, the best known of which is the Sermon on the Mount, but is followed by sermons on mission, on the congregation, etc. God’s eschatological purpose is the inauguration of God’s new creation–all things made new, God’s new humanity, the reconciliation of all things in Christ.

That being so, we need to seriously reclaim the other piece of Advent, namely, that we who have received this incredible gift of God’s grace and love in Christ, are also responsible for incarnating it in the totality of our lives … all of the realities, all the tragedies (Newtown, Connecticut for instance), all the “stink and stuff” of our lives. We are accountable for being the light of the world, and the salt of the earth. That is what Christ is doing here and now in our world. His church is to be the dwelling place of God by the Spirit, and his people will stand before the judgment throne at the end to give account.

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come” … and “joy to the world” he is coming again to consummate that which he has begun and has assigned to us as his agents of New Creation.  This season, remember that Advent has two thrilling dimensions. Got it?

[If you are stimulated/provoked by these blogs, recommend them to your friends to subscribe.]

BLOG: 12/13/12. THE NECESSITY OF THE EQUIPPING GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT

In my most recent blog, I was quoting the prophetic Jacques Ellul on the displacement of the spiritual gifts whenever the church intrudes with the notion of “clergy” (church professionals, etc.). Such a distortion, or subversion, of the Biblical pattern for the communal life of God’s New Creation (Kingdom of God) people is so entrenched in so much of our Christendom patterns of church institutions (with which we have lived for a millennium and a half) that most cannot imagine any “church” without such. We speak of “going into the ministry” as if that were the calling of a special few, alas!

The New Testament, however, is built upon the assumption that every follower of Christ is to be a dynamic and functioning member of a missional community, and that every believer is to be equipped to function maturely in all of the vicissitudes of his or her 24/7 missionary context, whatever that might include. It certainly includes our domestic settings, our neighborhoods, our workplace or school, all of the social and cultural and political and economic pieces of that realistic context (all the ‘crap’ that may be present) of our daily lives.

In the New Testament documents there appear a clear pattern, which is that the ascended Lord gives particular necessary gifts to the community for its fulfilling of its calling to be the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity (See Ephesians 4:11-16 especially). My observation is that these gifts emerge almost invariably in any smaller and healthy Christian community—any authentic household of Christ’s followers. I’ve watched it happen. Frequently they express themselves in the most unexpected and unlikely persons, persons whose lives demonstrate what they are talking about.

I want to put my Bob Henderson interpretation on these four equipping gifts and challenge my readers to check them out (most commentaries, I find, deal rather unconvincingly with these four gifts). They are:

• APOSTLE. There are apostles everywhere in the New Testament, and not only the twelve original ones. It appears that every believer is to be equipped to be a missionary and a church planter, and that with the potential of every home becoming the base for a new church community. They are to be equipped for their marketplace mission.
• PROPHET. My understanding of this is that part of our necessary equipping is to understand the real (existential) culture in which we live, and operate, and engage in mission. So this gift would be like a cultural analyst, who would equip God people to be knowledgeable about all of the pieces of the cultural scene of their daily incarnation.
• EVANGELIST. Who equips God’s ordinary people to know how to live and converse in the marketplace of life winsomely, thoughtfully, lovingly, knowledgeably, and effectively as we communicate the awesomeness of our gospel to those with whom we are in regular contact? How do we become contagious incarnations of what God has done in Christ? Who shows us how? Who are our models?
• PASTOR-TEACHER (or teaching shepherd). Somehow all of Christ’s followers are to be so equipped in the word of Christ that they can teach and admonish one another. They are to be renewed in knowledge after the image of him who calls. This is a unique gift.

These are necessary gifts given to the church, to the community. They are never given to a special class of “clergy”!! This necessary equipping is done by those to whomsoever God gives gifts—whoever they may be. Process that until next time we meet. Peace!

BLOG 12.10.12: THE GOSPEL (AND THE CHURCH) “OUT OF CONTROL”

I need to raid the writings of Jacques Ellul once more in that, to my mind, he is a giant prophetic voice who needs to be heard as we move into a new generational culture, and into all of the ramifications of the cultures of post-modernism, of social media, and of all the demise of past patterns that are now upon us. My bottom line persuasion is that the church needs to reinvent itself for each new generational culture (I never saw that in a theology book!).

I may be infringing a bit on copyright laws, but in his classic The Subversion of Christianity Ellul argues that when you are dealing with the authentic New Testament message of Jesus Christ that it defies organization, i.e., “it cannot be organized” (p. 156). “We can have neither stability, routine, collective permanence, association, nor group cohesion if we want to live by revelation. We are told that the Holy Spirit constituted the church at Pentecost, and we like that. But when we are told that the Holy Spirit is like the wind that blows when and where it wills and we do not know where it comes from or where it is going, we do not like it. The church may say that it has the Holy Spirit, but if it does it betrays its truth and legitimacy. When we are told that the church consists of those whom God calls, we applaud, but who are they? Who can trace the boundaries? We can say that the church has a center, Jesus Christ, but it has no circumference. We can give assurance to none and exclude none.”

Or, in another vein, Ellul is not very high on professional clergy either: “When we are told that the church has ministers, and its life is organized around them, well and good. But at once we have to remember that these ministries are a gift of the Holy Spirit and not a permanent or organized thing. This leads us to invert the biblical movement. We set up pastoral positions or benefices with rectors and bishops, etc.” [Or: pastors and ‘reverends’]. “We then fill these posts with people we think are suitable. But this is the opposite of the movement presented in the Epistles, in which the Holy Spirit gives to the church people who have gifts of love or the word or teaching, and the church has to find a place for them even if it had not anticipated doing so. If, after a while, the Holy Spirit does not give someone who has the spirit of prophecy but gives someone who has the gift of miracles, then the church must change its form and habits. …God’s order is not organization or institution (cf. the difference between judges and kings)” (p. 157).

All right! Ellul is not safe, but you’ve got to admit that he is provocative, not to mention that he is pretty well on-target. He prophetically saw that the church has got to have a wineskin adequate for each new cultural reality if it is to be faithfully and fruitfully engaged in the mission of God in each emerging generational culture.

Mix that dose of Jacques Ellul in with Colossians 3:12-17 and it would be a heady bit of tonic for the church that is waiting for us around the corner of tomorrow.

To be continued …

BLOG 12.06.12: THE CHURCH AUTHENTIC, OR “ALMOST?”

In my last blog, I was quoting from Jacques Ellul’s classic work: The Subversion of Christianity, which is such a devastating critique of the church that it is usually shelved. Let me “un-shelf” it and recommend it. In that he does the unusual, and uses the word Christianity as a description of the distortion, or subversion of the New Testament message of Jesus Christ by some subtle addition to it, or some elision of a critical piece, etc. He (humorously?) speaks of the church that is “almost” Christian.

I am often asked what my description of an authentic church would be. That might be another way of asking whether the particular church community was evangelized, or only partially so. I would insist on beginning with the individuals who constitute that community by asking: Are the particular members of the community authentic? Are they formed by the teachings of the New Testament? Authenticity begins at the grassroots of the community. If the particular members are not significantly formed by the word of Christ, and contagious with it, and reproductive of the next generation of disciples … then I would question the authenticity of that church (though it may have many good attributes, and be “almost” Christian).

For myself, I have discerned within the New Testament eight essentials, which I call: Signs of Authenticity. (I spell these out in detail in a recent book of mine: Refounding the Church From the Underside.) I make these a daily check list in my own spiritual disciplines.

Here they are (they are interanimating, and all are equally critical … all are priorities):

1. Doxological. The Christian person (and community) must be focused heart and mind on the glory of the Triune God. This is the purpose of our calling. We are to be the incarnation of the divine nature, which is given to us (II Peter 1:4).
2. The Dynamic Presence of the Holy Spirit. Our calling is not to human religion, but to New Creation, and is humanly impossible without the dynamic presence of the Spirit. Gordon Fee says it beautifully: We do not even begin to understand the New Testament message (discipleship, church, etc.) apart from the dynamic working of the Spirit.
3. The Centrality and Glory of Jesus, the Lamb of God. The Father glorifies the Son. The Spirit glorifies the Son. So Jesus is to be our passion. His life, ministry, teachings, death, resurrection and triumph over the destructive powers of darkness must always be our focus.
4. The Word of Christ Dwelling Richly in and among us. Authenticity is the life of Christ’s followers, individually and corporately being not only knowledgeable of, but formed and transformed by the teachings of Jesus. This is to be a living reality for all of us who are Christ’s followers.
5. A Priority on the Ministry of Prayer. This is our dynamic communion with the God who has called us. Note that the New Testament church didn’t have huge organization, or worship services, etc. They knew that they could not do what they were called to do without constant communion with the God who called. They prayed without ceasing.
6. One Another Love. “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples in that you love one another.
7. The Radical and Subversive Thinking and Living of God’s Kingdom People. The teachings of Jesus (Sermon on the Mount, et al) are not optional, or safe, but rather counter-cultural and disruptive of the present order of things.
8. The Mission of God. “This gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the earth …” The authentic Christian person (and community) is reproductive and creates ineluctably the next generation of disciples who are authentic.

BLOG 12.03.12: JACQUES ELLUL AND THE CHURCH’S DRIFT INTO DARKNESS

God’s people are called out of darkness, out of the dominion of darkness, and into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Colossians1:13). They are called out of darkness into the Light of the gospel, and into new creation. This is the church’s calling. But such a calling requires that God’s people also have a very clear grasp of that out of which they have been called, and (even more) that into which they have been called. They need to know what the New Testament teaches.

The reality is that the darkness out of which we have been called is not passive. The darkness has malicious personality. The darkness is relentless in seeking to truncate or trivialize this radical calling. The warning of the apostle is that we are to be on our guard about conformity to this present order of darkness, and always being transformed into conformity to the life and mind of Christ (Romans 12:1ff).

The New Testament message is one that is utterly transformational and disruptive of status quo religion. And yet the church almost ineluctably forgets it radical calling, drifts back into the darkness, conforms itself to the dominant order, creates comfortable religion, and with it a church that is socially acceptable and makes few demands

The tragedy is that no one seems to notice. Few within seem to have ears to hear or eyes to see what is happening. The prophetic voices are there … but unheeded. Those voices can be as diverse as Annie Dillard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Folk read them, acknowledge that what they are saying may have merit, but not serious enough to change.

In the past couple of centuries there have been several major voices that have challenged the church in its complicity with the dominion of darkness most pointedly. In the mid-nineteenth century there was Søren Kierkegaard, who found the church’s pastors and bishops in Denmark had trivialized the New Testament message unforgivably. His insightful essays are collected in a volume: Attack on Christendom. More familiar to our generation was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a leader in a minority, a witnessing church in Germany during the reign of Adolph Hitler, and in which the German church had sold its soul to the Nazi regime. You can find his pastoral protest in his key work: The Cost of Discipleship.

But a third voice that is resisted by all too much of the church’s leadership is that of the post-World War II sociologist Jacques Ellul. He was a member of the French resistance army in the war and then became a major voice as a sociologist. But Ellul was also a major theological voice, and so acknowledged by the giant of 20^th century theologians: Karl Barth. Ellul is not gentle with the church’s drift. His work: The Subversion of Christianity, in my own thinking, ought to be required reading for anyone in a position of leadership in the church in the 21^st century. The problem is that Ellul believes that the New Testament teaching by and about Jesus Christ are quite too radical and disruptive to be acceptable or contained in our over-organized, clergy dominated churches. To accept Ellul’s thesis is to reclaim the integrity of the New Testament faith, but at the cost of disrupting our comfort-zone, success-oriented churches of the present generation.

He nails the church’s drift back into the darkness with uncanny accuracy and skill. “ … if the church wants to be faithful to [Christ’s] revelation, it will be completely mobile, fluid, renascent, bubbling, creative, inventive, adventurous, and imaginative. It will never be perennial, and can never be organized or institutionalized.”

For starts. I’ll be revisiting Ellul again because he is a voice exposing the relentless darkness that emasculates Christ’s church. Stand by.

[Again, if you find these blogs helpful, encourage your friends to subscribe. Thanks.]

BLOG 11.29.12: “THAT TRAIN NEVER LEFT THE STATION!”

I was leaving a Sunday morning (what was called a) worship service with a friend, a while back, when he commented: “That train never left the station.” I was both puzzled and curious about what he meant. It had been what is typical of such church gatherings, i.e., familiar music, Christian jargon aplenty, sermon, announcements, etc. I asked him to fill me in on what he was referring to. So he did:

“It just didn’t come from anywhere, or go anywhere. There was a Biblical text for the morning that was hardly referred to, and certainly not unpacked as to its context, the meaning of the words and concepts, and scarcely even referred to in most of the sermon. I guess it was just spiritualized, or trivialized into unreality. It didn’t go anywhere that I could relate to my life. It was like looking at an impressive train sitting in the station, but never going to any discernable destination. Does that make sense?”

I had to ask him what he had anticipated. I was surprised and impressed when he told me that he always checked out the pastor’s sermon title and text from the church’s web-site, and then did serious study of the text out of his own collection of Biblical commentaries. When he didn’t understand Biblical terminology, or understand the context into which the passage was written, he checked it out.

Then, as we stopped by the coffee bar, he also explained to me all of the weekly realities that he encountered in the several contexts of his own incarnation: neighbors, coffee shops, workplace, journals, research projects, things present and future that impinge on his thinking, and how he hopes taking time to participate in the Christian community on Sunday morning will do to equip and refine him in his own Christian presence in the social and cultural realities of his week to come.

What he had just experienced in the church’s ‘worship service’ left him frustrated and a bit depressed. Happily, he was also part of what our Christian forebears described as an ecclesiola in ecclesia, or “a little church within the church,” which also met on Sunday morning, and in which fellow-travelers met to encourage each other in their quest for faithful discipleship, seriously studied scripture, and shared engagements that illustrated the implications of such texts. That fellowship my friend found most valuable. So he left me and went on to meet with his ecclesiola.

I pondered this conversation as I left. I wondered how many folk make the effort, and spend a perfectly good Sunday morning participating in a familiar church, only to find that what is offered is like that train that never left the station, i.e., totally unrelated to New Testament Christianity, or to the Monday morning realities in which they are to be the incarnation of God’s new creation in Christ.

The answer is that while there are a host of faithful Christian communities “equipping God’s people for their works of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12), there are all too many who are dishing out (what has been described as) moralistic therapeutic deism.

Which raises the question: When is a church authentic? After all, New Testament Christianity is both radically transformational and radically incarnational. That’s pretty strong stuff!

We’ll work on that. Peace!