It’s a Dance link
Was happily excited this morning to see that Glen Reynolds of Instapundit has mentioned my book. Not a big mention, mind you, but I really, really appreciate the note.
He noted a couple of things. One that the cover letter made reference to his book, An Army of Davids, and the second that the book is about the topic of the Holy Spirit in a pub.
Of course, as friendly emaily Todd let me know, this wee bit of attention came when the book site happened to be down. I’m taking care of that right now and in the meantime have forwarded links to my personal site here. While that site has a bit more info, I want to include a bit more here, for those who are new to It’s a Dance.
Glen’s book, and his efforts online, have emphasized how an “army of Davids” can bring radical change to all kinds of fields. This is no less true for religion, and my book touches on two very important aspects of this in Christianity. The first is the topic of the book itself: the Holy Spirit. What Glen Reynolds has emphasized as the many banding together to bring challenge and renewal to human systems is an inherent part of Christian theology. That is the work, we say, of the Holy Spirit. However, discussions of the Holy Spirit have consistently been relegated to the back of the theological line. Reasons for this are many but one big one is that a thorough theology of the Holy Spirit undermines hierarchical patterns and empowers all Christians to take a vital role in shaping both local and global Christianity. In pushing for a renewed examination of the Holy Spirit theologians and ministers are opening the door for what can really be called ‘open source’ Christianity. Those interested in how this affects broader culture might find chapter five especially interesting as it deals with a critique of the religious right and how a thorough understanding of the Spirit leads Christians towards different expression of public interaction and personal understanding.
The other aspect is the particular form of church that I have chosen to highlight in my book. Called the ‘emerging church’ it is a renewal movement that has taken off in the last ten years. There is a de-emphasis of buildings and structure and settled form emphasizing instead characteristics that seek to best reflect the mission of Jesus in bringing hope and renewal. The leaders of this movement have utilized technology in all its forms from the beginning, with blogs, podcasts, and other internet tools helping to bring many from around the world into a shared conversation. It is, in effect, the Christian expression of what Glen has emphasized in other fields.
This is a source for both the setting and the approach. While it is a theology book, it’s not a dry one. Rather, it’s a conversation set up between a reporter, a pastor, and some others, taking place in a pub. Essentially, as I was writing it I had my own questions and objections that came to mind. Instead of ignoring these I made them part of the whole. And thus made it an open, and hopefully continuing, conversation.
Thanks for having a look at it. And thanks again to Instapundit for highlighting it.
Being Missional: Practicing the Presence of the Holy Spirit
It’s all the rage in this postmodern age to be missional. In fact, the words ‘missional’ and ‘postmodern’ go together quite nicely. Not just because one reflects the other, and vice versa. Also because they are the sorts of words people use without really knowing what they mean. Oh sure, people generally use those words with a meaning in mind, but oftentimes it’s a vague sort of meaning, riding the zeitgeist of the paradigm shift, so to speak.
It might be nice to just toss out the term–let it be adopted by church planters and the major presses as being a synonym for what’s new–but that doesn’t satisfy me. It is an important word and a descriptive word that gets to the heart of what we need to do.
In fact, I think this is such a big term that I don’t want to devote just one post to it. But for now I will, because I’m joining in on a big ol’ synchro-blog where a bunch of us are asking “What is missional?“
I’ve read my Newbiggin, and have some interesting quotes from the 17th century Baptist Roger Williams on the evils of Christendom. But there are better folks to lay out those things. I’m going to focus on my particular interest. And with that particular interest I’m going to go ahead and throw out my definition.
Missional means practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit.
For some that might bring to mind images of dancing around to lively music, speaking curious phrases that most no one can understand, and other attributes of Pentecostalism. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Pentecostals are fine, don’t get me wrong, and their global explosion over the last century certainly suggests an empowered mission far beyond most other representatives of Christ. Yet, being missional is a lot more than empowered worship. Because the Holy Spirit is about a lot more than putting on a show for us. Being missional means participation in the mission of God, and the missionary of God to us now, to all of us in the church and outside the church, is the Spirit.
What happens in Acts 2? They are in a room praying. The Spirit comes. Tongues of fire appear over their heads and tongues of men are spoken aloud. That’s where too many people stop reading. However, the chapter continues. The church doesn’t stay in the upper room. They go out, out into the streets where people from all the nations are gathered. Peter preaches, and the church grows. They go out, people come in, a continuing rhythm of transformational growth.
A great chapter. But for this post I want to emphasize two other passages in Acts that even better get at what practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit means.
Acts 8:26-40 and Acts 10.
Have a go at reading these passages. I’ll wait until you’ve read them. It’s quite important, you see, that we not only come up with a meaning for missional but that we let Scripture show us what it’s like.
Done?
Back at it. Don’t get distracted by the visions or the dreams or the curious popping hither and thither. Look at the heart of these passages. That is what it means to be missional. That is the practice of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Where is the Holy Spirit in these passages? Out and about. The Holy Spirit is working in the life of a Roman Centurion. The Holy Spirit is working in the life of an Ethiopian Eunuch.
The Spirit tells Philip to walk towards the Ethiopian. He runs. He not only runs. When he gets there he can immediately understand the passage the Ethiopian is reading and immediately respond to it, with Scripture and teaching. This isn’t a stock script telling the Ethiopian what his questions are. This is having the wisdom and training to respond to exactly where the Ethiopian is at.
Here is the first point of practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit. It insists on a flexibility that is deep enough to respond to any context. Evangelism in the past has catered to the shallow. This is true recently and in history. “Just go to church”. “Here are the five laws of salvation”. Theology and a mastery of Scripture was left to the professionals and almost seen as suspect.
Colossions 4:5-6
Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.
Conduct yourself wisely towards outsiders. Making the most of the time. Be gracious. Be seasoned. Know how to answer everyone. Wisdom. Efficiency. Grace. Challenge. Understanding. This can sound a lot more daunting than just memorizing scattered verses in Romans. But it is the way of the Spirit, because the Spirit has been and is working in the life of people, preparing the way, inspiring others to plant seeds. Being missional is being like Philip, going and responding, built up in our own depth so that we can respond to the depths of others, where they are at, with what they are dealing with. It is a practice of the presence of the Holy Spirit because in doing this we are looking for how the Spirit has already been working in the life of others. We just fill in the blanks and put words to yearnings and answers to sometimes hard questions.
1 Peter 3:13-16:
Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.” But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared. Be gentle and respectful. Be holy.
These are key works of the Holy Spirit in our lives, as I talk about in my book. Philip practiced the presence of the Holy Spirit and was able to participate with the Spirit’s work in the Ethiopian’s life, a work that is credited for the very ancient Ethiopian church. Philip didn’t need to go to Ethiopia. He needed to go to that Ethiopian. And the Spirit continued to work because Philip was prepared internally in his wisdom and character and externally in his fluidity and flexibility.
With Peter we see the same example. He responded to the Spirit, to go and be where the Spirit was already working, and when he arrived he was able to respond to what the Spirit had prepared. Added to this is another key aspect of practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in charge. Being missional isn’t about bringing our culture, or our customs, or our habits or preferences. There are some aspects of a life with Christ which are demanded, but very few of these are the emphases that people think of when they think of evangelism or missionary work.
Our goal is not to make people be like us. Our goal is to help people become who they were always meant to be. We aren’t in the business of taking people’s identity. We are to help them see how their identity becomes alive in the power of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the battery that brings machinery to life, the enlivening presence of God himself. We become alive, really alive, with the Spirit’s work. And so here we see Peter being told to let go of the cultural boundaries, to trust in God’s work that all has been made clean. He is supposed to minister to who they are, where they are, and lead them towards their own fulfillment in God’s work. It is not up to Peter to say whether or not they fit, or to conform them to his own perceptions. It is Peter’s job to go and to confirm what God is already doing.
Being missional means discovering God’s mission in every context. It is not just a telling it is also a listening, and a seeing, and a hearing. By being missional we ourselves become missionized by the Spirit as we learn and grow in understanding God’s work. It is never one-sided. We have our part to share but we always have parts to discover about the Spirit’s pervasive work.
When we are practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit we become dancers. The music is God’s mission in this world, which goes beyond simple salvation and extends into eternal relationship. God is working. Working in places we might never go, with people we might never meet, and in ways we might often not understand. In the dance with the Spirit we become attuned to his movements and as we increasingly dance better with God we dance better with others, teaching and learning, including and discovering in holiness, and outreach, and community.
In other words, when we practice the presence of the Holy Spirit we become truly free and are able to help free others where they are at.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17)
Being missional means participating with this Spirit; the Spirit of hope, and life, and wholeness.
Being missional means practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit so that we become freedom fighters.
Listed below are those who will be participating in this global synchroblog.
Alan Hirsch
Alan Knox
Andrew Jones
Barb Peters
Bill Kinnon
Brad Brisco
Brad Grinnen
Brad Sargent
Brother Maynard
Bryan Riley
Chad Brooks
Chris Wignall
Cobus Van Wyngaard
Dave DeVries
David Best
David Fitch
David Wierzbicki
DoSi
Doug Jones
Duncan McFadzean
Erika Haub
Grace
Jamie Arpin-Ricci
Jeff McQuilkin
John Smulo
Jonathan Brink
JR Rozko
Kathy Escobar
Len Hjalmarson
Makeesha Fisher
Malcolm Lanham
Mark Berry
Mark Petersen
Mark Priddy
Michael Crane
Michael Stewart
Nick Loyd
Patrick Oden
Peggy Brown
Phil Wyman
Richard Pool
Rick Meigs
Rob Robinson
Ron Cole
Scott Marshall
Sonja Andrews
Stephen Shields
Steve Hayes
Tim Thompson
Thom Turner
Funny World
Amy forwarded this to me, and I think it worth posting. From Story People:
He told me about Jesus & Arizona & the best way to make beer & I said you’re a funny kind of preacher & he said it’s a funny kind of world & I still remember his eyes clear as a desert morning.
It sums up for me what emerging/missional folks are trying to get to. Not the ‘make beer’ part, that’s just a random hobby that could be many things–no longer limited to a list of approved hobbies such as golf or fishing or Bible reading. Nor is it he part about Arizona that gets me. That’s an emphasis on knowing a place, being there and able to tell others about it–in contrast to always seeking the elsewhere, and the next ministry model far away from home. Its not even the part about Jesus. Lots of people talk about Jesus. And far too often talking about Jesus isn’t particularly an appealing description. People know about him, but far too many talk without knowing him.
It’s the last part that draws it together. His eyes clear as a desert morning. Suggesting peace and tranquility, being grounded without anxiety or frenzy. He is who he is. Whole. And this reflects back into what he knows. He knows himself and what he likes. He has a place, a location whose geography and personality he has mastered. He then talks of Jesus within that calm and clarity, inviting not through words but through aura and presence and calm.
I want to be he.
Holiness and the Spirit: A discussion on Romans 8
In the post below I mentioned my conversation with Rob Classen at Two Rivers Church a couple weeks ago. Conversation with him and the congregation. They have been spending a long while going through Romans 8, one of the more interesting chapters on the Holy Spirit in the NT. So, this was a nice overview and a chance for broad response to both my thoughts and to the sermons of the past week (which you can hear here). He gave me some basic questions to help spark the talk, and I wrote out some verse references and basic comments to make sure I didn’t sit there staring blankly, with only a little drool coming out my mouth.
When I say basic comments, that’s it. Just a few phrases jotted down. Those who were there so ran with the conversation I didn’t even need most of my basic thoughts. Unfortunately, I don’t have a recording of that.
So, I’m going to post the basic questions and basic answers.
I’ve never started a meme before. But I’d love to maybe start one with this, to keep this conversation going and see who we draw in. If you have a blog post some of your own answers to all or some of the following, and then let me know in the comments you have a post. If you don’t have a blog, just add to the comments here.
So here we go:
- Why do most people not seem to care so much about the Holy Spirit?
- Why do you think Romans 8 is such a key passage to teach us about the Holy Spirit?
- In It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit we read, “Now I realize the Spirit is the only way to move past sin” (p. 114). Can you elaborate on that?
- Some more quotes to consider and discuss:
- “Holiness is about the Spirit” (p. 115)
- “Keep your eyes on the prize and holiness happens” (p. 115)
- In Romans 8:26 we read, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express”. We are told the HS is our intercessor, our translator, and that he prays for us when we can’t. Do you agree that this an important part of the HS’s role in our lives? How do you think this all works in us?
Here’s what I wrote down as brief responses:
Why do most people not seem to care so much about the Holy Spirit?
Don’t know that much. A lack of church teaching. Don’t want to let go and let the Spirit work. The Spirit is elusive to understand and is hard to categorize and put into a handy box.
Why do you think Romans 8 is such a key passage to teach us about the Holy Spirit? In your book you say, “Now I realize the Spirit is the only way to move past sin.” Can you elaborate on this?
The law tells us what sin is but doesn’t empower us to do anything about it (Romans 7). Focusing on sin, whether by sinning or by focusing on not sin or other people’s sins, leaves us trapped in the Law. The Spirit comes to us. And God leads us to what we can do.
Some verses:
Romans 8:12-17
Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
1 Peter 1:13-16
Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
Romans 8:28-30
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, whohave been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
”Holiness is about the Spirit” What does this mean to you?
Ephesians 4:17-24
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Romans 8 says this is the work of the Spirit to make us new.
1 Thessalonians 3:12-13
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
Romans 8 tells us this is the work of the Spirit.
”Keep your eye on the prize and holiness happens” Can you elaborate on this?
First we ask what the prize is.
Colossian 3:1-4
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
I think of an analogy with running [on my sheet I just wrote 'running analogy', but I'll fill it out a bit more here]. When running up a hill I look ahead, at a spot at the top or at a marker far away. If I’m exhausted and feel like I can’t run anymore I keep my eye on what is ahead, and then say I’ll just go to there. When I get there I find another marker ahead and get to there. Always keeping my focus on some point in front instead of each wearied step.
Philippians 3:12-14
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
The path is walking with God, following the Spirit in our gifts and fruit. 1 Corinthians 12. As we focus on our calling, our hopes, our positive contributions, on Father and Son and Spirit, on the Kingdom, we increasingly have our very instincts and drives changed by the Spirit we’re working with.
Romans 8:5-11
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Last Sunday we talked about Romans 8:26 –the Holy Spirit being our intercessor, our translator, and that he prays for us when we can’t. Do you agree that this is an important part of the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives? How do you think this all works in us?
We don’t know God. And we don’t even really know ourselves. We don’t know language to speak or to hear. The Spirit knows us fully, and knows God fully, so we can learn the language of our reality in asking and hearing.
Psalm 42:7-8
Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
The Spirit is the counselor. Teaching us about ourselves and about God. Leads us to all truth.
John 15:26-27
”When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. 27And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”
John 16:5-15
”Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”
This is participation with God, with others, with ourselves in an increasingly holy way. Or rather, leading us to be wholly who God has made us to be.
God is the whole God, and holistically leads us to true wholeness.
So that’s what I wrote down. Play along if you will. I tag everyone reading this. Here’s the quick questions again:
- Why do most people not seem to care so much about the Holy Spirit?
- Why do you think Romans 8 is such a key passage to teach us about the Holy Spirit?
- In It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit we read, “Now I realize the Spirit is the only way to move past sin” (p. 114). Can you elaborate on that?
- Some more quotes to consider and discuss:
- “Holiness is about the Spirit” (p. 115)
- “Keep your eyes on the prize and holiness happens” (p. 115)
- In Romans 8:26 we read, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express”. We are told the HS is our intercessor, our translator, and that he prays for us when we can’t. Do you agree that this an important part of the HS’s role in our lives? How do you think this all works in us?
on religion
I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that what traditionally marks religion isn’t devotion to God, but rather a strong belief that God doesn’t really know what he is doing.
First a little theology and background:
In antiquity religion denoted the cultic veneration of God. Cicero defined it as the cultus deorum. Religio could sometimes be used of the relation to other people to the degree that a comparable veneration was owed or paid to them. Cicero distinguished religio as moral duty from the taboo-fear of superstitio. This distinction differentiated the Latin term from the Greek threskeia, which embraces all forms of cultic veneration, even those that are excessive or erroneous, and which occurs also in the NT in this sense. Closer to Cicero’s religio is theosebei, which is not closely tied to the cultus. In Cicero pietas is an attitude of soul which in relation to the gods finds expression in cultic acts. Yet Cicero does not equate piety and religion. He relates the latter term much more to rites and their observance. Nor does he call the knowledge of God religio. In his work on laws he describes this knowledge as the mar of differentiation between human beings and animals, but he does not call it religion. Nevertheless, he regards a knowledge of the matter of the gods as necessary to bridle the expression of cultic veneration.
Unlike Cicero, August in his De vera religione (c. 390) stresses that the knowledge of God and the worship of God are inseparable in religion. For him, then, there is a close relation between religion and philosophy. Doctrine and worship belong together. In this regard he appeals to Plato, but he finds the supreme example of the connection of doctrine and cultus in the church. The true religion is to be found where the soul does not worship creaturely things but the one eternal and unchangeable God. IN his own time this perfect religion was identical with the Christian religion whose teachings Almighty God himself had set forth. These consist of the prophetic intimation and historical recording of the saving provisions of divine providence for the renewal of the human race.
By tying together worship of God and knowledge of God Augustine sought to do something very honorable which was to essential combine thought and practice. However, the problem comes in the perversion of this that happens because we really, at our cores, don’t think God knows what he is doing. We invert this order, making our worship of God become a source of knowledge about God, thus making how we want to serve God become the criteria for what we think God wants.
In other words, we tell God what we will give him and then expect him to applaud our service.
Or we think that God has really left a lot out, forgetting maybe what he wants, and that we need to fill in the blanks, and make others follow our lead in doing that.
This is true from the earliest days and is at the heart of alienating religion. That’s why I think Cicero was right to separate the two. If we truly know God we will likely respond to him as we should. But, far too often we want to serve him without really knowing or trusting him. We create forms of worship he never mandated, and then make this worship the criteria of inclusion among his proclaimed people.
Sometimes God does tell us how he wants to be worshipped. He told Moses the clear guidelines. And he laid out who was to be included, how they were to be included, what they were supposed to do and not do on what days. God can be quite specific when he wants to be.
When he’s not specific we can’t be specific for him. Because it’s showing that we don’t know, like, or trust what God has done when he has freed us from those specific forms and giving the Holy Spirit to be the true marker of who is and who is not part of the people of God.
Worship becomes then not only separated from the knowledge of God, it becomes a barrier to the knowledge of God, creating a false knowledge, and false attributes, always enforcing the forms of worship rather than the fruit of the Spirit and the reflection of Christ.
It’s easy to not trust the Holy Spirit’s work in people. Peter could have rejected Cornelius because Cornelius did not match the liturgical patterns of Jewish Christianity (the true Apostolic form). In fact there was a movement in the early church to do just that, something that was addressed in Acts 15. However, Peter would not have been part of the church any longer himself had he done so. The Spirit forms the church, and Peter followed.
So too today. Which is why I have such trouble with so many forms of leadership which mistake form for knowledge and enforce non-Scriptural patterns as being somehow authoritative for God’s demands. That’s why I have trouble with contemporary emphasis on leadership development that emphasizes roles and organizational structure far beyond what Scripture indicates. It creates a cult of personality and emphasize non-Spirit charisma over and above spiritual gifting and Spirit leading.
Religion that doesn’t trust God is found in both the newest and the oldest forms of the Christian faith, and we see this even in the New Testament letters. Paul is writing to churches who don’t trust God and so created their own misshaped patterns that had to be rebuked or adjusted.
God tells us what we need to know and sent the Spirit to teach us all things. That’s not always answering the questions we might have, however, even as we are taught what is necessary. We can in response either trust God and be free in the freedom he has brought, free in diversity and free in expression, worshiping in manifold ways out of the particular knowledge and gifts the Spirit has bestowed. Or we can betray God, enforcing rules not his own that we attribute to him, thinking that our contrived worship is in fact knowledge rather than whim and habit.
Signs of Life
A couple weeks ago I had the chance to preach on the topics in my book It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t recorded, as far as I know. However, this morning I sat outside and got it on video. It’s about 27 minutes long.
Not as Forgotten Ways
Alan Hirsch has a very interesting interview in Christianity Today talking about small groups and touching a bit on his book The Forgotten Ways.
Very much worth reading. This part stood out to me this morning:
I’d like to look specifically at the disciple-making element for a moment. You mentioned in the book that disciple making is a crucial, pivotal element in the process. What makes it so important?
It seems to me that if we fail to make disciples—that is, people who can become like Jesus Christ, which is a very simple definition of discipleship—if we can’t get that right, then in doesn’t matter what else we do because there will be a fundamental weakness in our ministry. The lack of disciples will always undermine any effort beyond that. But if we succeed in developing and creating an environment where people really can become more Christlike, it seems to me that the movement is on, and everything else will have a substantial basis along with it.
The problem is that we are being discipled every day by our culture, and it’s done very profoundly and very well—and I say this with a background in marketing and advertising. There are billions of dollars going into advertising, which is not just selling us products. There’s much more of a religious dynamic going on. So if we as a church or a small group don’t disciple in the way of Jesus, then the culture gets to have the primary say. And I have to say that, despite our best efforts, the culture is winning at this stage.
If I can be a little subversive here–one major, absolute barrier for real discipleship making has been, in my estimation, the significantly higher emphasis the church places on leadership development. Finding and developing leaders has become the primary task of training and pastors in today’s church world, whether in established or in avante-garde settings.
Leadership is about organization. It is about communicating, deploying, managing, inspiring, and otherwise getting people to where you think they need to be in order to do what you think they need to do.
However, leadership does not in any way mean discernment. Meaning that the greatest leaders can lead a whole mass of people into a morass. Discipleship, however, means becoming close to God, restoring the likeness of God in our lives so that we increasingly pursue the Holy Spirit in instinct. When we pursue leadership and leaders, however, we are looking at organization as the world understands it. That’s a big reason the culture is winning. Our best efforts have gone into playing its music and dancing its steps rather than letting go our demand for control and really learning how to trust the Spirit in our lives.
Leadership emphasis has undermined discipleship, even as leadership emphasis seems to be so, so potent in creating enthusiastic participants with passionate ideas. Leadership development mimics discipleship, as often it emphasizes those who are already the most dedicated to evangelism and ministry. It confuses passion for depth, and misses out on the deeper level pervasive impact that the less glitzy discipleship brings along.
Jesus, however, didn’t talk about organizational principles. He discussed the kingdom. He didn’t pick those with the most leadership potential. He chose those who were willing to be disciples.
The Spirit came upon them and led counterintuitive people to do all kinds of counterintuitive things.
claiming the Spirit
Kirsteen Kim, writing about the views of Indian theologian Stanley Samartha, intrigues me with the following:
Similarly, he cautioned Christians against assuming that they could always claim to have the Spirit of God, insisting that such a claim is not for us to make but for our neighbors to recognize. Christians, therefore, encounter their neighbors of other faiths with humility, not knowing how the Spirit will blow, but in anticipation that the Spirit will work to lead the participants further into “all truth”. Discernment is intended to recognize the activities of the Spirit, not to control them, and therefore, he argued, the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit must be given greater weight than prior doctrines of the Spirit.
So Brave, Young, and Handsome
Got a nice selection of items from the Amazon Vine program this month. One I especially want to feature here. The novel So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Lief Enger. Here’s my review:
“I said, ‘Most men never have the chance to be both things at once, the hero and the devil.’
‘That is ignorant. Most men are hero and devil. All men. That is what ruins it with wives.’
‘She wanted just the hero?’
‘Bad men or good she would’ve had me either way. She couldn’t endure both, however. She said to pick one and to be that thing only so that she might trust me until the day of Jesus.’”
There is a perspective in some ancient cultures about in-between places and times. Dawn and dusk, which lie between night and day. The seashore, that lies between water and land. Halloween, that time in which the spirit world and the physical world are perilously close. During these moments, in these places, it is both and neither all at once, indistinct and undefined. So too human life encounters these moments in identity. People are often caught in this nebulous middle, seeming one thing and another all at once. Sometimes this is being caught between their actions and their ideals, or their sin and their virtue. They are half-people of a sort, unrealized and unformed, without an identity of their own.
Some stay in this place their whole lives, never becoming, and never discovering themselves for who they really are. Others cast off from the dock, refusing to settle any longer for what was, and yet not yet knowing who they can or should be. It is a journey of becoming a whole person.
So Brave, Young, and Handsome is this story told of three primary characters, with a few others thrown in along the way. It is a road story telling of a physical journey that brings out the metaphysical of each of the characters, but not in a mushy, spiritualistic, heavy-laden way. And that’s what is so brilliant about the book. It’s not philosophy. It’s a great tale in the tradition of great American writers from decades past.
This is a book about in between times and in between people drawn with immense clarity and insight, while retaining a direct and sparse prose. Enger tells us of an era and certain characters, a story not a message. It is in this story, however, that we see so much of real life as it so often is: in between.
We are between the old and the new, the good and the bad, the honest and the false, the artist and the laborer, the young and the aged, the adventurous an the prosaic. The characters hope, but don’t know how to find this hope. What they do is carry on, having tasted something of who they know themselves to be they won’t let themselves go back. As Enger says in his acknowledgments, “Sometimes heroism is nothing more than patience, curiosity, and a refusal to panic.”
What I like so much about Enger’s work is that it is so hopeful. Absolutely honest, mind you, there’s no false hope to be found here or sentimentalism seeking to manipulate our emotions. These are real people, faults and all. But unlike so much contemporary literature and film Enger doesn’t feel a need to obsess with corruption or ruin. His is a book that shows people who are not handsome, or young, and rarely brave. But they want to be, and be such in ways that matter to them, not to others around them. They are seeking wholeness for themselves.
Not all succeed. Some do, but not in the expected ways.
“For at the same time he lost everything–the very direction of his own steps–he won the thing he held so precious he wouldn’t approach it in words.”
It is a story of real life. Not gritty, corrupted, malformed caricatures. Real people, or at least characters who are desperate to become real people, who learn what it is to be a real person.
With all this depth and insight it might sound ponderous. But it’s not. It’s very gentle and easy-going. It moves along at a varied pace, with enough movement to never seem tiresome and enough twists to never seem predictable. My only slight irritation is that sometimes Enger jumps ahead a bit and is so eager to bring a slight twist that he breaks the moment with unnecessary foreshadowing, sort of a “you’ll love what comes next!” moments. I wish he just let us experience the story as it happened a bit more. But this is a minor qualm and he does even this within the contexts of a fitting narration.
It’s a brilliant book, in craft and theme and insight. It’s the best work of contemporary fiction I’ve read in a very long time and guess it will be my favorite book of 2008.
Stations of the Resurrection
Christ is risen.
Happy Easter!!
The Stations of the Cross are an important meditation. But focusing so much on that leaves out so much of what we really are about. We’re not only forgiven, we are now free to really begin to live, live free now and through eternity.
In thinking of this, after several years of focusing on the Stations of the Cross as both a physical experience at the church I worked at and as a written exercise I thought it worthwhile to have a go at the Stations of the Resurrection. I’ve heard since there are other forms of this, but as I was going by my own inspiration and couldn’t find guidance at the time I have chosen these fourteen emphases, beginning with Easter and ending on Pentecost.
Someday, given the space and opportunity again, it might be fun to put these into some kind of physical, sensory, experience.
For now… writing and art. Enjoy these Stations of the Resurrection.
He is risen indeed.
