a thousand things it is not… October
Can we admit our failings? Can we admit that we are guilty of making this way of Jesus about thousands of things that it is not about? Can we admit that our blogs and our comments and our opinions have failed us? Can we admit that our children have seen in us a bogged down contentious religion? Let me say that again: a bogged down contentious religion.
a reasonable level of health… October
I will be one of the first to agree that we have made this way of Jesus ridiculously more complicated than it truly is. But, at this point because of our over complication, we find the need to work back through the complicated mess. What I mean is that we can't just declare this way of Jesus to be simple while we ignore the tangled mess we have people wrapped up in. We must address the “knots” and work to undo them. I see a lot of people who have maybe grown tired of the knots or have untangled from them personally, but for one reason or another they keep sitting in their pew almost blatantly ignoring the knots all around them.
open doors and walls… September
Maybe if we were less concerned about our institutions and more concerned about truly being like Jesus, than we would see the need for each other. The institutions don’t need to die tomorrow and those within it should be respected for who they are and what they do in so many ways. Yet, those who find themselves stepping away are not “apostate” nor simply “narcissistic coffee house babblers.” Instead maybe they are explorers in a way. Maybe true experimentation needs to happen outside the walls of the organization. Maybe if our doors were open to each other, the institutionally loyal minded and the emergent could then work together seeing a need for each other, at least in this moment in time.
becoming un-churched… September
Many are shifting to conclusions that the church body is not defined by individual congregations and that given the paradigm and its’ inclination to miss the point, one’s commitment to it (the congregation) is not equivalent to one’s commitment to Jesus. The shift in theology that continues to force this divide looks something like this: It sees making a sandwich for the poor as a posture of worship equal to that of singing songs of praise or adoration to God in a gathering of other followers. It sees spending time with friends over dinner as viable as mingling with them in a church building. It sees teaching your kids through bringing them along to give clothes to the needy as valuable in spiritual formation and learning as sending them to a classroom for an hour.
hand lickers and new beats… September
What this means, and I have mentioned this in a previous post, is finding a new rhythm. We can’t just tweak what we are doing here or there and expect any kind of substantial results. If we want people to truly act and live missionally, then we have to re-set our schedules and efforts around the real priorities of Jesus. It is like any other kind of rhythm – once you get going it is hard to stop. We (our churches) have so many people in a rhythm of work, home, small group, personal reading/prayer, church service, nap, football, work….that when an opportunity to be missional arises we kind of lose ourselves in the music and go bouncing on by as we keep the beat we have been dancing to for years. What I am saying is that we have to end this dance and start a new one.
first and foremost… September
Overtime and maybe sooner than later, congregations, leaderships and individual Christians are going to decide “consciously or simply by default.” Is “church first and foremost an experience of communal bonding… or first and foremost an institution?”
the role of humans with vaginas… August
This blog post is just a start in the discussion of our failed theology in regards to women. You cannot tell me that our gatherings would not be richer if we could hear from the hearts and minds of our wives and daughters as opposed to the same men over and over with the same prayers and the same rehashed thoughts. You cannot tell me that women are good for children’s ministries, fellowship meals and filling out the parts during singing, but when it comes to sharing what they have seen, heard, learned or experienced in this way of Jesus, we have no room for them.
the quad-rinity… August
But, just because I believe the Bible that we have now is a much more human book than my heritage would like me to believe, that doesn’t mean that it is of no value –quite the opposite. Some would argue that if we accept the Bible has errors then we are left to only place value in what we pick and choose. As Ehrman purports and I concur, we do that anyway. We zero in on some points and completely act like others don’t exist no matter how much we claim to believe in the unquestionable authority of the Bible.
mostly Irrelevant… August
Did you catch the quote in the description where he asks “What good were all my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall?” It is this mindset that inspires me and what led me to ask in last weeks post, “What could 200 people with roughly a couple hundred thousand dollars a year really do?” My answer: “Well that depends on their theology.” Similar to Yunus’ questioning of his professors and University courses, I often wonder, why do our theologies, our organizations, our classes, our sermons, and our church activities seem to be accomplishing so little?
money and theology… August
Yet so many congregations find themselves in grid lock because those with the money won’t let the theology shift. Maybe that should tell us something (or even smack us in the face) about the way things are set up. Maybe money has had way too much of a voice in our paradigm and instead of being a commodity that we use to do good, it has become a leader that calls way too many shots.
only the losers win… July
Unfortunately, the honored in our congregations often resemble more closely the valued of the kingdoms of men then they do the valued in the
question and humility… July
It is a questioning of our very purpose. I want to hear our current conclusions debated. I want to hear a sense of doubt in our voices about where we are. I want to hear that we are the problem and not just everyone else. I want to hear that we are searching. I want to hear silence in place of words that explain it all away. It is only in that humility of questioning ourselves that we can truly be brought to conviction and repentance. Before the changing of the paradigm comes conviction and repentance. Before conviction and repentance comes question and humility.
considering arrogance and pride… July
This shift won’t happen without conviction and repentance. Unless we have been hungry, unloved, exploited, chained or unless we are willing to form relationships with those who have, we will lack the sufficient conviction to truly turn away from our current paradigm and search for a new one. The Pharisees in John 9 thought they could see clearly. They weren’t willing to rethink anything but instead worked to force everything else to make sense within their current world-view. It turned out that a blind beggar with no education nor redeeming quality was the one with better vision (ahh, what a great church/business word, vision – I can see God mocking us now)
welcome withdrawals… July
That is a strong statement indeed, but one that I believe to be entirely accurate. Here is another strong statement: We need to remove these worship services from the center of our paradigm. Everything we do centers around these times and everything else usually takes a back seat. We are so focused on our own personal piousness and securing our own personal salvation (usually motivated by “an unpredictable grace” theology) it is no wonder we have isolated ourselves in Bible classes and worship services feeding off the sound of our own voices week after week.
the ties that bind… July
Some fear that we are all just becoming less religious and blame society for their lack of interest in church stuff. I wonder if that is a bad thing if “losing my religion” means moving away from unwavering acceptance of our institutions and towards a more authentic pursuit of this way of Jesus.
somewhere in the middle… June
At the heart of things, this is not an exercise of theological musing and banter. To me this all matters. These ideas are not just about tweaking our church paradigm here or there. I don’t think everything is generally ok because, after all, nothing will ever be perfect. I think that so many absolutists have not only gotten some things wrong, but that they have been downright destructive in the conclusions that they refuse to honestly reflect on. I can’t just ignore it or just play along and accept it.
narrowing the margins… June
In so many ways our churches are shallower because we have overlooked people or unnecessarily tried to make them look like us. I often look at those of us who do “fit the part” or who do posses the “valued” skills in our churches and wonder what would happen if that changed. What if we for some reason stopped fitting the part or our skill began to fall short? Would we loose value? I also wonder what would happen if the paradigm shifted. What if we weren’t “worship service” centered? Would who we value become more inclusive? What if we didn’t have everyone clap for the Christian college president visiting our church, but we worked harder at including the easily overlooked?
my good is better than your good… June
I hear a lot of Christians wanting to make sure that we all understand that “goodness” in itself is not enough. They want us to be sure that you can be good, but if you don’t have Jesus its’ not enough. I understand matters of faith and belief, but as I have said before, I think we have grossly compartmentalized things calling these things “spiritual” and these other things “worldly”. It is as if we say “Sure, there is “goodness” outside of church, but it lacks value because it is not placed in the right context.” In essence, my goodness is better than your goodness. Why? Because I am doing it aware of God and you are not.
the way to the way… June
Sometimes I feel we are actually working to get people committed to our “church stuff” instead of “the way of Jesus.” Undoubtedly, our “church stuff” is a reflection of the way of Jesus, but it is often much more complicated. We have countless books on church dynamics, models, programs and ministries to prove as much. I think the way of Jesus is much more simple and, as I have been saying, organic. Yet it is as if the church has stepped in the middle and said “Jesus is the Way and our institution (and all that comes with it) is the way to the Way.
looking in the wrong place… May
We so often work hard to bring people in and help them find their spiritual shape within our congregation so they can determine what ministry they could play a part in. I think we should show them the door and say, “Find your shape in the world. See if you can find God out there. Then, come back and tell us about it. Come back and take others with you to that spot where you met God and to that spot where He changed you.”
the manufacturing of Jesus… May
Now we find ourselves sitting in pews on Sundays eating a tiny pinch of a cracker and sipping from a little plastic cup of juice hoping we can conjure up some memory of Christ in our heads in order to avoid “eating and drinking judgment” on ourselves because we have “done” it wrong. We have taken this simple gesture of a man asking His friends to remember Him even in the everyday common things of their lives and made it another tradition to do right.
the non-religion… May
Yet, there is an increasing number of people, especially in their 20’s-30’s (although by no means exclusively) that are finding themselves becoming more and more disconnected with what we know as church. Some of them still fill the pews, but find themselves leaving church angry or frustrated even if they can’t articulate why. Others have stopped “going” altogether. Most of what I am writing is for them. My hope is that they can find ways to articulate their frustrations and more importantly so that they can see that their disconnectedness with church doesn’t equate to disconnectedness with the way of Jesus.
The gravity of what we have created… April
Is there a way for Christians to gather together, to encourage one another in this way of Jesus, to be spiritually and relationally formed and yet not be entirely isolated or wrapped up in our own organizations? Can we find a paradigm that affords us the good things of Christian community and the benefits of the pooling of our resources and yet fosters our engagement in the world and not our isolation from it? Can our list of “intramural religious debates” be traded in for at least a more relevant list?
finding proportion… April
Personal Piety vs. Producing Formation – “Personal piety” is a righteousness that benefits you. It is rooted in a “think right + do right = be right” mindset. This mindset allows you to sing the song “Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or
the force of Recovery… April
Brain McLaren says it well in this quote from The Secret Message of Jesus :
“What if Jesus’ message was not just about avoiding hell and going to heaven, but it was one with political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual, and spiritual implications that could give birth to a new world – a new Kingdom - the Kingdom of Heaven now?" Do you see what he is saying? What if this gospel doesn’t jump over life from the cross to you and from you to heaven like a person hopping on stones to avoid the mess of the creek? What if this gospel, working through various forms, is seeking to channel into every inch of our very existence and break up our hardened, un-plowed ground not just as individuals, but as groups, communities, and countries? What if the gospel is secretly at work in ways we have not plotted, planned or approved by committee?
reviving desire… April
A few months ago I was asked, “What do you think is the biggest problem that teens in your group face today?” After talking through it a while, I realized that their biggest hurdle was the result of what may be our biggest failure. I was able to sum it up like this: We have worked harder at teaching them restraint than we have at fostering aspiration. Maybe this isn’t just limited to youth groups. Maybe on a whole, Christianity has been watered down to abstaining from sin to the detriment of the second half of this verse. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 2Timothy
the weight of the uninspired… March
I often wander what Jesus would say to those limiters of freedom who leave no room for individual faith expressing itself through love outside of their predetermined acceptable practices. Probably the same thing he said to the Pharisees who were concerned by the actions of the sinful woman who through her creativity gave even more meaning to the tradition of washing feet and expressed her faith through love by doing it with her tears and hair.
how stupid we sound… March
These moments of beauty that open my mind to the smallness of what we claim to know in one hand, cause me to turn to the other hand full of possibility. The possibility that we have no idea. The possibility that we will all be proven wrong. The possibility that we will look at each other with faces of amazement and confusion because we did not see this coming. I am convinced that God will do with this world and the souls within it something that has yet to be articulated with our little words.
God will die if you don’t sing … March
While singing and such can be called worship, it is just one small part of the bigger picture. The problem is that our so called worship services are the main product of most of our American business model churches. Having a worship service (and doing it the right and biblical way for some groups) seems to be the primary focus of modern Christianity. We use them to market, attract and grow our businesses. I propose that this wasn’t the focus of Jesus’ teachings nor of that of the rest of the New Testament. (or really, for that matter, what God was after in the Old…read Isaiah 58)
