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Today was “one of those days.” My daughter Danielle (7 yrs) and my son Christopher (5 yrs) both won “Student of the Month” in their classes at school. It was fun watching them being surprised at their respective assemblies by having their names called out as this month’s recipient. They received their certificates, bumper stickers and banner and had group pictures taken with the other November Student of the Months. I’m a very proud dad!

But about an hour after Danielle won her award, she slipped off the monkey bars and fell hard on her side. One trip to urgent care later and we discovered she broke her arm. So for the next four weeks she’s sporting a soft-cast on her left arm. (Fortunately she’s right-handed.) She handled the entire crisis very well. Like I said, I’m a proud dad!

This verse was The Refrain during the Midday Office in The Divine Hours:

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go; I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding; who must be fitted with bit and bridle, or else they will not stay near you.”

It reminds me that the Lord’s training is very intimate and requires my attention. He’s not a trainer, guiding me by force. He’s not a coach, guiding me by yelling. Rather, he communicates with but a glance. Imagine knowing God and his ways that intimately, where a silent glance speaks volumes. And imagine being that attentive to God through the day, where I actually see that silent glance in the midst of my noisy and distracting daily circumstances. Imagine having that kind of understanding. That would be the mind of Christ.

I came across this verse in the Midday Office in The Divine Hours:

“I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him.”

Psalm 85:8

I think that’s probably the best news I’ve heard in awhile — the Lord is speaking peace to his people. What better word is there in the midst of a scurrying, hurried world? What better prophetic utterance is there in the midst of a war-torn, life-stripping, global community? May we, as God’s people, hear the soft word he’s speaking.

The Prince of Peace comes, bringing his kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy. And he is reconciling all things in heaven and on earth to himself by making peace through is blood. May he be welcomed by his peace-filled followers. May our lives be the soft voice of Yahweh’s shalom.

Peace.

Bring the breaking in me

Reduce me to love

Let Your life now be lived through me

And the walls come down

Bring the breaking

Please bring the breaking

Jesus, be my one desire

Purify me with holy fire

Let my life bring glory to Your name

Please change my heart

And make me more like You

Casey Corum [1998]

I was listening to this song this morning. Man, the words caught me right on my heart. I love the verse:

“Bring the breaking in me; Reduce me to love. Let Your life now be lived through me; And the walls come down.”

Lord, during this Advent season, reduce me to love so that you can live through me.

I was reading “A Godly Meditation” by Thomas More and a line stood out:

“To think my most enemies my best friends,

For the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred.”

I’ve been thinking a lot this Advent about Jesus being the Prince of Peace, the King of Shalom. It is no mere coincidence that the first dimension of the human life Jesus addresses in the Sermon on the Mount is anger and contempt. As followers of the Prince of Peace, we must become people of peace as well. God’s shalom must penetrate to the deepest parts of who we are so that when we are struck by injustice or stung by harsh words or frustrated because we simply do not get what we want, sweetness, forgiveness and grace naturally flow out of us.

When it’s all said and done, I want to be remembered as a man of peace who looked a lot like the Prince of Peace.

Finally someone has figured out the real reason behind all the political hubabaloo this past election. I find the statistics very interesting. I guess those who actually consume at both businesses are fence-sitters.

I’m reading a novel called Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.

Berry is a brilliant essayist and poet. Eugene Peterson, author of the The Message, has been reported to have said that every pastor needs to read every work written by Berry. Wow!

The novel is set mostly in the small town of Port William, Kentucy in the 1930’s. The story is about a young man named Jayber Crow and his life’s search. His search begins as a ‘pre-ministerial student.’ While in seminary, he realizes that he has questions that do not have easy answers. In fact, he has a conversation with a professor who tells him, “You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers.”

Jayber ultimately becomes the barber in Port William. It is there that he lives out his questions and discovers that while the answers don’t come easy, they are embedded in the life of the community. There is a very poignant section when Jayber talks about how he also became the town’s gravedigger and how it impacts his life:

“Barbering is a social business; it involves conversation just about by necessity. For me, grave digging was a solitary business… It was hard work, and often it was sad work, for as a rule I would be digging and filling the grave of somebody I knew; often it would be the grave of somebody I liked or loved.

“It was a strange thing to cut out the blocks of sod and then dig my way to the dark layer where the dead lie. I feel a little uneasy in calling them ‘the dead,’ for I am as mystified as anybody by the transformation known as death, and the Resurrection is more real to me than most things I have not yet seen. I understand that people’s dead bodies are not exactly them, and yet as I dug down to where they were, I would be mindful of them, and respectful, and would feel a curious affection for them all. They all had belonged here once, and they were so much more numerous than the living. I thought and thought about them. It was endlessly moving to me to walk among the stones, reading the names of people I had known in my childhood, the names of people I was kin to but had never known, and (pretty soon) the names of people I knew and cared about and had buried myself. Some of the older stones you could no longer read because of weathering and the growth of moss. It was a place of finality and order. The people there had lived their little passage of time in this world, had become what they became, and now could be changed only by forgiveness and mercy. The misled, the disappointed, the sinners of all the sins, the hopeful, the faithful, the loving, the doubtful, the desperate, the grieved, and the comforted, the young and the old, the bad and the good – all, sufferers unto death, had lain down there together. Some were there who had served the community better by dying than by living. Why I should have felt tender toward them all was not clear to me, but I did.

“There were a lot of graves of little children – most of them from the last century or before – who had died of smallpox, cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria, or one of the other plagues. You didn’t have to know the stories; just the dates and the size of the stones told the heartbreak. But all those who were there, if they had lived past childhood, had twice in this world, first and last, been as helpless as a little child. And you couldn’t forget that all the people in Port William, if they lived long, would come there burdened and leave empty-handed many times, and would finally come and stay empty-handed. Seeing them come and go, and come and stay, I began to be moved by a compassion that seemed to come to me from outside. I never said to myself that it was happening. It just came to me, or I came to it. As I buried the dead and walked among them, I wanted to make my heart as big as Heaven to include them all and love them and not be distracted. I couldn’t do it, of course, but I wanted to.”

I think whenever we stand before something larger than ourselves – being immersed in a small, yet majestic corner of creation, watching a child being born, standing in a graveyard where loved ones are buried, hearing about oppression – we feel the tension that Jayber speaks:

“I wanted to make my heart as big as Heaven to include them all and love them and not be distracted. I couldn’t do it, of course, but I wanted to.”

I think Berry has captured the essence of being God’s image-bearers. Daily we are part of something much larger than us. And it makes us yearn to become something much larger than what we are. And that’s the rub – we bear the image of a great God in frail bodies of mud. We are dust enlivened by divine breath. We bear the contradiction of embodying both heaven and earth – earthen mirrors reflecting God’s glory. So we long to be like the one we reflect, but find ourselves limited by who we are.

Ultimately, that’s okay, because that’s what was intended from the beginning. Our small reflections do illuminate the lives we live with. And we find that for them, our hearts may become as big as Heaven.

A memory came to mind during my morning walk today. It took place when I was of elementary school age. I remember waking up one Saturday morning to find my parents busy making preparations for a family outing. My mom told me to put on some nice clothes. When I asked where we were going, my dad said, “We’re going hiking on a mountain.” That didn’t make any sense. Why would my mom tell me to put on nice clothes to go hiking. But I did what I was told.



After my parents piled my brother and I and an ice chest into the car, we started off. We drove on the freeway for a while, but away from the hills to the north of us. In fact, I couldn’t see any mountains ahead of us. Confused, I asked again where we were going. “Hiking on a mountain,” was the answer. This time I pressed further, “What mountain?” I remember my dad grinning at my mom and saying, “The Matterhorn.” Even back then I knew the Matterhorn wasn’t a mountain in southern California. So I sat back and tried to figure out this little mystery.



A little later, I noticed signs stating, “Disneyland.” Could it be? We’ve never been to Disneyland before. Nah. But then we passed another sign, “Disneyland: Next Exit.” And we exited the freeway. No way! Excitement, laced with uncertainty began to build. Was it just coincidence? Several miles later we came to a sign saying, “Disneyland Parking” with an arrow pointing toward a driveway. And we turned in!!! My brother and I went nuts. “We’re going to Disneyland!!” The entire time, my parents were smiling.



Mystery. Hints. Signs. That’s life in God’s kingdom. We never know the full Story, mostly just shadows. In our culture, knowledge is power. But Job 12:13 states, “True wisdom and real power belong to God.” I find it interesting that the original sin was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Again, knowledge is power. It fosters independence and when used improperly, it can subjugate and oppress.



Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think God ever asks us to shut down our minds and reason. He has given reason as a gift to explore and ponder great mysteries. It is a powerful attribute that we wield in our stewardship of creation. But our reason has limits and cannot penetrate very deeply into the mysterious and unfathomable. There are things that can only be known by revelation. And for many of us, myself included, that is a painful fact to live with. I want to know.



There are many theories of epistemology. Modernity taught an epistemology of certainty. If we tried hard enough, dissected small enough, explored long enough, we would know. And by knowing we would be able to control. But that has proven to be a pipedream. Postmodernity, in many ways, reacts to modernity with an epistemology of doubt. No one can really know much of anything. Knowledge is simply individual perspective. But I think we will soon discover that this will run out of gas as well.



I like what N.T. Wright calls an epistemology of love. We know by entering into a relationship of love and trust. How do I know my friends and family love me? As factual as their love may be, my knowledge of their love flows from relationship and not from pure demonstrable cognitive knowledge.



So as we journey in our formation, our community and our mission, we may not have all the answers. We may not know everything we want to know. In fact, knowing myself (I won’t even get into that one right now), there will be times when I am dead-wrong. But we walk in relationship with One who does know – One to whom belongs all wisdom and power. We can trust his leadership and care. In fact, perhaps depending on him is actually more formative than the gaining of knowledge.



So in the midst of the mystery, we see hints and signs that catch our attention and evoke excitement of something unseen but wonderfully imaginative. And when a sign finally evokes understanding and awareness and passion, we discover something greater than knowledge. We discover character. And we see our Father smiling.

I came across the concept of Triple Bottom Line today. I’m hoping that it might provide some further thought to my blog on Psalm 67. As an apprentice of Christ and as a missional faith community, how is our Triple Bottom Line? Or would it be a Quadruple Bottom Line — personal, social, political, & ecological?

Cool quote by the late Lesslie Newbigin. Got this from the Off the Map newsletter. (By the way, Off the Map has some great stuff for evangelism.)

“Jesus manifestly did not intend to leave behind him simply a body of teaching. If that had been his intention he simply would have written a book and we would have something like the Koran instead of the book we have. What he did was prepare a community to be a bearer of the secret of the kingdom”

I’m listening to a great lecture by Peter Harris, the Director of A Rocha, which is a Christian conservation organization. In the lecture he quotes Psalm 67:

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.”

He argues that in this Psalm, we observe four movements of God’s mission to the world — personal, social, political and ecological. I would add that these movements may best be understood as concentric circles. In fact, Peter Harris states that the best ecological change occurs when individuals and communities change.

I think this is an appropriate topic for Advent. As we again anticipate the coming of our Lord — the climaxing of God’s mission in a human life — we need also to visit our understanding and participation in God’s mission.

Thinking about God’s mission brings my mind back to something N.T. Wright has taught. He states that we are living in the midst of a great Drama or Story. Several acts or chapters have come before us — Creation, Crisis, Calling, and Christ (although he doesn’t necessarily use those labels). We also have significant glimpses into the final act of Consummation, the fullness of a renewed heavens and earth. However, the time we are living in isn’t scripted. We have the preceding movements of the Story, finally climaxing in the life of Christ, and we have the finale of the New Creation. N.T. Wright states that our role is to immerse ourselves into God’s Story so that we naturally improvise our part in this unscripted act of God’s Drama in a way that is completely at home with what has come before and what awaits us in the future.

So, as I try to improvise within this grand Story, these questions come into my mind:

+ How can my personal and our corporate formation and mission engage God’s mission in personal lives, helping each other and others enter into a saving, apprentice-relationship with Christ?

+ In what ways can I/we engage God’s mission in the social spheres — living as a prayerful and loving countercultural resistance-movement community that demonstrates human life under God’s reign and shalom?

+ In what ways can I/we engage God’s mission in the political arena — peacefully pursuing justice, confronting principalities and powers, addressing economic conditions resulting from poor politics, and embodying God’s mercy and hope to the hurting and marginalized?

+ In what ways can I/we engage God’s mission in the ecological realm — following Jesus into his true image-bearing life as co-creators and co-stewards of God’s creation, nurturing and summoning greater goodness in what God has made?

–Father, help me to invest more of myself into living and exploring these questions. Confront me and strip me of my selfishness and false stories that prevent me from entering into your formation and mission in each of these four areas. And as I celebrate Advent and anticipate the coming of Christ, continue to bring my mind and heart back to this amazing mission he embraced and then commissioned me to participate in. Amen.–

I feel like a dope. I came across what I thought to be a cool and easy missional project for our community for Christmas — Operation Christmas Child. So I went on the website, ordered the materials and passed them out on Sunday only to discover afterwards that today is the last day for the pick-up. In the words of the great theologian, Homer Simpson, “Doh!”

Thanks for playing. Please try again.

Oh well. Fortunately, Kerri did her homework and has given us another good opportunity — Santa Claus Inc. They are local and should be a great chance for our family and community to serve.

RobbyMac brings up some good ideas about the need for metaphors that are actually catalysts for change. Simply seeking new ways of describing the same reality of church or leadership won’t help us to redefine what the church “is” or “does.” Instead, new metaphors should invite us into a new Reality, to change stories, to repent.

One of the startling revelations I’ve had while reading N.T. Wright is Jesus’ remarkable ability to do this very thing. He retells Israel’s story in fresh ways and with a surprising and unexpected ending. He redefines old symbols and plants new symbols that are extremely transformative, raising eyebrows, generating questions, and evoking confrontations. As his people, implementing his work on earth, we need to wisely seek the appropriate stories, symbols and praxis that plant the kingdom in our faith-communities, lives and world.

I remember a friend telling me about this quote a couple of years ago. Then I came across it again on Steve Bush’s blog. (Here’s his website.) Okay. Maybe the quote is extreme, but it makes you think about Scripture, North American Christian values and spiritual transformation.

“Most North American Christians assume that they have a right, if not an obligation, to read the Bible. I challenge that assumption. No task is more important than for the Church to take the Bible out of the hands of individual Christians in North America. Let us no longer give the Bible to all children when they enter the third grade or whenever their assumed rise to Christian maturity is marked, such as eighth-grade commencements. Let us rather tell them and their parents that they are possessed by habits far too corrupt for them to be encouraged to read the Bible on their own.

North American Christians are trained to believe that they are capable of reading the Bible without spiritual and moral transformation. They read the Bible not as Christians, not as a people set apart, but as democratic citizens who think their ‘common sense’ is sufficient for ‘understanding’ the Scripture. They feel no need to stand under the authority of a truthful community to be told how to read. Instead they assume that they have all the ‘religious experience’ necessary to know what the Bible is about. As a result the Bible inherently becomes the ideology for a politics quite different from the politics of the Church.”

~ Stanley Hauerwas, Unleashing the Scripture

N.T. Wright argues that this triad should not be separated when we explore Jesus’ summons to life in God’s kingdom:

“It was because Jesus’ agenda was ‘theological’ from first to last that it was ‘social’, envisaging and calling into being cells of followers committed to his way of life. Jesus, like the founder(s) of the Essenes, and like John the Baptist, apparently envisaged that, scattered about Palestine, there would be small groups of people loyal to himself, who would get together to encourage one another, and would act as members of a family, sharing some sort of common life and, in particular, exercising mutual forgiveness. It was because this way of life was what it was, reflecting the theology it did, that Jesus’ whole movement was thoroughly, and dangerously, ‘political’. And to recapitulate, the main characteristic of the cells that Jesus called into being was of course loyalty to Jesus himself. This, I suggest, lies behind the saying in Matthew 18:19-20, ‘If two of you agree on earth about any matter which they may ask, it shall be done for them by my father in heaven. For where two or three gather together in my name, I am there in their midst.'”

Now attach to this idea a 21-century application as discussed by Andrew Jones:

“Worship is justice. And there is a devotional life that is bigger than one’s personal time with God. This is what i am thinking today… To worship is to reestablish justice. To call up and maintain the devotional life is to help establish justice, to shift the world towards RIGHTness.”

Here’s a great quote by Doug Pagitt, the pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis. You can read the entire article here.

“Community is not the endgame for me. The endgame is for us to become a people who are able to live out the aspirations and hopes and dreams of God in the world. I don’t think that’s possible to do without being in community with each other, but ‘community’ is not the goal. We think it’s essential for people to live harmoniously with each other and with God, but that’s not the end of the game.”

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.”

C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

I’ve been reading a few articles by Chad Hall. The stuff is interesting and worth reading. But because they are short articles for Leadership Magazine, the ideas aren’t as developed as much as I would like. (Note: The articles should be read in the order I’ve listed them.)

“Six Ways I Quit Church”

“Rules of Engagement”

“Why Church Isn’t Really a Church”

You can also find more stuff on Chad’s website.

I’ve been reading N.T. Wright’s, Jesus and the Victory of God. This morning I came across some great comments on “faith” regarding Jesus’ summons to “Repent and believe the good news”:

“[Faith or trust] can, in the biblical languages, be subdivided into ‘faith’ and ‘faithfulness.'”

“Faith… is not simply to be understood as a single, miscellaneous religious quality, ‘virtue’, or attribute. It is the distinguishing mark of the true people of YHWH at the time of crisis. It is one of the things, predictably, that will characterize the return from exile.”

“Faith is a crucial part of the definition of Israel at her time of great crisis. Jesus’ call for ‘faith’ was not merely the offering of a new religious option or dimension. It was a crucial element in the eschatological reconstitution of Israel around himself.”

“The ‘faith’ which is the concomitant of so many acts of healing is not simply ‘believing that Israel’s god can do this.’ It is believing that Israel’s god is acting climactically in the career of Jesus himself.”

“‘Faith’, as Jesus invited people to it, carried two particular overtones, one more obviously ‘religious’ and the other more apparently ‘secular.’ The ‘religious’ meaning, stressed at various points in the gospels, focused on the insistence that Israel’s god was to be seen as the ‘father’ of his people. This, it must be emphasized, was not a new thought; it is found in the Old Testament and in a fair amount of subsequent Jewish writings. Nor is it simply a matter of ‘father’ being one miscellaneous appellation among many for YHWH. Nor, yet, is it to be explained solely in terms of Jesus’ ‘religious experience.’ It is particularly associated with his great acts of deliverance, namely the exodus and the return from exile. To invoke this god as ‘father’ is to stir up associations of the great coming deliverance. Jesus, in inviting his hearers to think of their god explicitly in this way, was emphasizing a strand in Jewish tradition which implicitly carried forward his claim: those who possessed this ‘faith’ in YHWH as ‘father’ were defining themselves as the eschatological Israel.”

“‘Faith can also carry the more ‘secular’ meaning… Josephus asked Jesus the Galilean brigand leader [a different Jesus than in the New Testament] ‘to repent and believe in me,’ in other words, to give up his agenda and follow Josephus’ instead. Jesus of Nazareth, I suggest, issued more or less exactly the same summons to his contemporaries. They should give up their way of being the people of god and trust him for his. As with repentance, so with faith: Jesus’ call carried the implication that those who followed him, followed his way of being Israel, were the true Israel whom YHWH was calling into being as the real returned-from-exile ones. The call to ‘believe in the gospel,’ or to ‘believe in me,’ does not suggest the Jesus was inviting Galilean villagers to embrace a body of doctrine — not even a basic ‘theory’ about ‘salvation’ and how they might attain it, nor, again, very much of a christology (though presumably it involved recognizing Jesus as a god-sent prophet like John). Nor does it suggest that Jesus was offering them what we would today call a new ‘religious experience.’ It evokes the historical picture of one who believed that, with his work, Israel’s god was inaugurating his long-awaited kingdom.”

Just got back from a great Sunday night of good food, good friends and good discussion with our community. I don’t think there’s anything on earth that would make me give this community up. I especially wanted to thank Kerri and Dan for brainstorming some good questions to help us to get to know each other better. It’s wonderful seeing your love for Christian community developing in our group. Also, good and challenging questions, Mark! Thanks for letting us revisit John 6.

Also, looking forward to Kerri’s blog sometime this week! 😉

Tonight was good. Real good.

In the New Testament, there are two Greek words translated “time.” The first word is chronos, which refers to measured time, or what can be called “Tick-Tock” time. It’s the normal flow of time that’s a natural part of creation — hours, days, months, seasons, years.



The second word is kairos, which refers to a special moment in time, or what can be called “Ta-Da!” time. You know, like a special moment — “Ta-Da!”



A little girl was asked in Sunday school, “What did Jesus say when he was resurrected from the grave?” She replied, “Ta-Da!”



There’s some truth to that little joke. Jesus’ resurrection isn’t simply a dead man coming back to life. It’s the first day of God’s future New Creation.



For the Jews at that time, God’s New Creation was waiting for them sometime in the future. It was the consummation of God’s Story and purposes at the end of time.



But God catches them by surprise. He pulls his future New Creation into the present. And as God’s future New Creation breaks into the present Creation through Jesus’ resurrection, you can almost hear him saying, “Ta-Da!”



God’s future pulled into the present. It’s the kairos “Ta-Da!” embedded in the chronos “Tick-Tock.” And when that happens, heaven and earth meet and time and space are flooded with new meaning.



Listen to Jesus’ words as he begins his ministry in Mark 1:14-15, “Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time (kairos) has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!'” The good news is that God’s special moment has finally come!



N.T. Wright summarizes Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees by stating that Jesus lived in a different “theological time zone” than those around him. While others lived by the order of the present creation, Jesus lived within God’s new order; while others lived in the Old Creation, Jesus lived in the beginning moments of the New Creation.



Jesus is God’s good news that the “Ta-Da!” — God’s New Creation of the future — has broken into and continues to break into the “Tick-Tock” of the Old Creation of the present. Jesus embodied the meeting of heaven and earth, embedding the future into the present.



But it doesn’t stop there. Paul uses different metaphors to communicate the fact that we, as Jesus’ students, continue this reality. We are Christ’s body (Eph 1:23), God’s temple (1Cor 3:16), and Christ’s icon (2Cor 3:18). In other words, our lives are to become more and more immersed in the “Ta-Da!” as we live our daily lives in God’s future kingdom now. We too must live in Jesus’ “theological time zone’ reorienting every detail of present life around the Reality of God’s future kingdom.



That’s Paul’s meaning in Ephesians 5:15-17, “Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity (kairos), because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” We are to live wisely, aligning our lives around God’s will or Story. The more we do, the more the kairos naturally breaks into the chronos.



Ta-Daaa!

I’m sitting here in my little office all by myself. It’s a moment of downtime from a rather busy day. And a lecture that I’m listening to sets my mind whirling…

Mission is the embodiment of God’s good news, which is “the kingdom of God is here” (Mark 1:15). Lately I’ve been wrestling with “What should my missional life look like?” I want my life to be more than just about my personal piety. I am burning with a vision of joining with a missional God in the transformation of the earth and its people.

Yet, as a pastor for 16 years, I’ve been involved in so many “outreach” projects and programs, virtually to the point of burning out as well as to the neglect of my family and my health. I’ve also learned the hard way what can happen when I invest a lot of my time and energy into projects that demonstrate and announce God’s good news with very little actual embodiment of the good news. In the majority of those situations, my demonstration and announcement of life in God’s kingdom wasn’t from a natural overflow of an entire life lived daily in God’s kingdom.

Yet God’s good news — life in God’s kingdom — must be first and foremost embodied. It has to be for it to be authentic. Only then can it naturally flow out of me without depletion.

But this brings me back to the original struggle. What does it look like? I don’t want to throw myself into project after project in an attempt to be “missional.” I’m too tired and busy with the daily routine of life. Don’t get me wrong. I love my life. But does a “missional life” have to be tacked onto an already necessarily busy life — a busy life that doesn’t have a lot of contact outside of a small circle of family and friends?

Yet, something whispers in me. I long for God’s influence in me to spread beyond my family, my cubicle and my faith community to touch the pain of the world around me. I want my small number of days in life to actually be transformative and creative as a cooperative friend of Jesus. I want my life to be a living icon of God. I want my presence to be the tangible presence of God.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner…

A thought just occurred to me. God has given us his plan for participating in the continuing inbreaking of his future New Creation within and through the context of our daily lives. It’s described by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20. We are to help people become apprentices of Jesus’ life by going into the nations, by immersing apprentices into the Trinitarian reality that exists in the community of God’s people who gather and embody Jesus’ life and purpose, and by teaching apprentices to obey and live in the fullness of that life in God’s kingdom as Jesus himself embodied, demonstrated and announced. It’s a good plan. In fact, I would have to say, coming from the eternal mind of God, it’s a great plan.

However, look who Jesus has entrusted to implement his good plan. It’s the two verses before Matthew 28:18-20. “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” (vss. 16-17)

The inner core of Jesus’ community is a very diverse group of people — some worshipped Jesus while others doubted. God’s good plan has been given to this imperfect community of people where some of the closest to Jesus actually doubt. I can understand delegating this world-transforming plan to the worshippers. But, come on. To the doubters?

But then something else catches my eye in verse 16. All eleven men went to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. In other words, they all obeyed. Even the doubters obeyed in the midst of their doubt. Maybe it was the faith of the worshippers that compelled them. Maybe it was their own budding faith in the midst of the amazing and mysterious events of the crucifixion and resurrection. Who knows?

But this says a few things to me. First, the vision of a perfect community of God’s people that carries out God’s plan is a pipe-dream. Jesus knew it would not exist so he didn’t wait for perfection, or even maturity. That gives me hope for my own life and for the community I live with. Jesus has entrusted into our imperfect hands his world-transforming revolution.

Second, and intimately linked to the first, Jesus entrusts his plan to those who obey and show up. Why? Probably because the maturity for the journey comes in the journey. (A great example is the Fellowship of the Ring where the maturity of character needed to complete the task is forged on the journey toward the task.)

I think of Peter who answered for group when asked by Jesus, “You do not want to leave too, do you” by saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67-69). But isn’t that life? Who’s got God’s kingdom figured out? I sure don’t. I’m constantly in a process of deconstruction and reconstruction. But that seems to be good enough for Jesus most of the time.



Third, the entire implementation of the plan requires a community that although imperfect, gathers in the Trinitarian reality of love. Because I bet whether that community is a small house church, a network of communities or a large institutional church, there are people who worship and others who doubt. And we all need each other. Because at any moment the worshippers may doubt and the doubters may worship. Again, that’s part of the journey. But in the process, the Spirit in each of us ministers to all.

I’m sure there’s more to unpack, but that’s all I’ve got time for right now.

I heard a statistic by Regent College professor, Charles Ringma. He stated that a few years ago Christians in North America spent $8 billion on weight reduction programs in one year, while only spending $2 billion on mission efforts. Now combine the $8 billion with the additional money spent on the excessive food to necessitate spending the money on weight reduction. Yikes!

I wonder where programs like this and this fit in the statistics. Just kidding.

Seriously though, it raises the issue of the connection between a less consumerist and even ascetic lifestyle and a missional one. Or as Mark has asked before, “Can a person be a true apprentice of Jesus and live by the values of North American culture?”

What sucks is that I’m neither thin nor very missional…

I was thinking the other day about how the gadgets we possess and how we use them really show a person’s age. I received two gadgets as gifts this year, both which substantiate the fact that I’m now in the upper 30-somethings.

The first was an iPod. I know, I know. iPods are the new status symbol of the young hip musically- dominated pop culture. But, believe it or not, I have very little music on mine. (Plus I can’t dance like those people in the iPod commercials.) Rather, I have almost 12 gigs of seminary lectures which I listen to daily at work. Each day, the likes of N.T. Wright, Gordon Fee, Eugene Peterson and others are my companions, challenging me to think through God’s Story and my place in it. Those much younger than I would view such use of this gadget as a complete waste. I like to think I have found a more mature use that protects my body from any foolish impulse to imitate the dancing on an iPod commercial. (Sheeesh! I must be old.)

The other gadget I received was one of those new electric nose-hair trimmers. Every time I use it on my eyebrows, ears and nose, I’m reminded of how my body is changing. Pretty picture, huh? But believe it or not, this has become a symbolic reminder of how quickly I’m rushing in the river of God’s Story. Although I am an eternal being in Christ, the phase of my life on earth is moving very quickly.

I came across this great prayer on the Northumbria Community’s morning prayer site. It voices the desire to live a “With-God” and “In-God” life for the sake of the world:

A HAVEN

Lord, take this song

and fill it with Your presence.

Let it bring a word of hope

to weary care-full hearts.

Take this song

and fill it, Lord.

Fill it with Yourself.

Lord, take my life

and fill it with Your praises.

Let me speak a word of peace

that Jesus brings in me.

Take this life

and fill it, Lord.

Fill it with Yourself.

Lord, take this place

and fill it

with Your blessing.

Let it be a haven

where the

poor in spirit

sing.

Take this place

and fill it, Lord.

Fill it with Your praise.

I heard an interesting comment by Regent College professor, Darrell Johnson, that got me thinking.

One of the themes in the “emerging church” dialogue seems to be about the marginalizing of the Church in North American society. Granted, as Christendom is fading, North American culture is becoming increasingly dissonant with Christianity. This is especially true when one places Washington D.C. or Hollywood as the symbolic cultural and philosophical center.

But God’s Story, which is the true Reality, seems to have a greater center. Paul writes in Colossians 1:16, “For by [Christ] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” From this perspective, Christ is the center of God’s Story and therefore, is the center of Reality. From that perspective, is the Church really marginalized? If not, then what are the implications of living from this greater Story?

It seems that although the infant Church was culturally marginalized, Jesus, Paul and the early leaders didn’t view that reality as the dominant theme in the Story they were ultimately living in. From their perspective, Jesus was climaxing both creation’s history as human beings and Israel’s history as God’s people. Jesus’ resurrection was the first day of the New Creation. Those who gave their allegiance to Jesus as his apprentices and ambassadors were now part of a new humanity, continuing his incarnation. And as they formed communities, they became colonies of new humanity, both embodying and anticipating God’s future New Creation as it breaks into the Old.

It may just be me, but I think there’s a lot to unpack regarding living in the tension of Jesus (and by association the Church) being the Center of God’s Story and the Church being culturally marginalized.

This weekend, a group of us from our community attended a great Renovare conference called “The With-God Life,” led by Richard Foster and Todd Hunter. The opening lectures on Friday night were worth the price of admission. Basically, Foster and Hunter unpacked Dallas Willard‘s simple paradigm for spiritual formation — vision, intention and means (V.I.M.).

It was also nice to reconnect with people we haven’t seen in over a year — Doc & Leitha Sellars, Larry Watts, and Mike McNichols. It is so good to see friends in the kingdom, knowing that God is at work in all of our lives even though we are separated by either distance or commitments.

I also wanted to say “Thank You” to Dad & Mom Z., Dad & Mom H., John & Mary Egan, and Diane Snowden for juggling our four kids over the weekend so Deb and I could attend this conference together. You guys are great! Thanks for the special blessing!

Mike Bishop has just blogged some much needed insight. Read his post.

Well a new week begins and with it the usual demands of our time, money and energy. Believe me, I know the tugs of multiple obligations. That’s just life. And I also know how easy it is to go through a week being pulled here and there by everything so that a week, then a month, and then more months go by without the realization of our well-intentioned goals and plans. In the midst of everything, it’s so easy to forget why we’re here on this planet — to be God’s missional community that cooperates with him in his global re-beautification process.

One of the people that God used to shape me in my spiritual formation was John Wimber. I can’t count the times I sat under his teaching, crying and saying to myself, “That’s what Church is supposed to be like.” One of the reasons why I loved his teaching is that he taught us that the Church existed for the sake of the world. We were supposed to be “doing the stuff,” just like Jesus and that “everyone gets to play.” Back then it was revolutionary.

For many who heard John, they often equated those phrases to the dramatic and supernatural aspects of ministry, such as healing, prophecy and other spiritual gifts. And that was part of what John was talking about. But John understood that God’s mission was holistic. When he talked about “doing the stuff” and “everyone gets to play” he was talking about the entirety of God’s mission as embodied, demonstrated and announced in Jesus. That also included compassion, care for the disenfranchised and marginalized, and social justice.

Well, I came across a talk that John gave on social justice. And like years ago, I found myself once again saying to myself, “That’s what Church is supposed to be like.” And then I found myself remembering another one of John’s sayings: “I hope I grow up before I grow old.”

Take a few moments and read his lecture.

I haven’t had much time to write anything, but the good ideas are flowing out in blogdom. Check out Len Hjalmarson’s most current blog, “Beyond the Event-Centered Community” and an accompanying paper. Good stuff, Len!

Also, check out Todd Hunter’s blog, “Hunter’s Theory of Learning.”

And Alan Creech’s blog, “Mission: What’s the Point?”

Let me know of other good blogs we can learn from.

One of the things that has been completely filled out for me in the past couple of years is Jesus’ humanity. For most of my Christian life, I have so emphasized Jesus’ deity that I virtually made him “God with skin on.” Like a Superman figure, I envisioned Jesus walking through Israel and when extra power or wisdom was needed, he would pull his cloak back, revealing the magic “S” on his chest. By doing this, I completely disqualified him as a master that I could apprentice myself to in any practical way. I would give verbal assent to follow and obey him, usually followed by the disclaimer, “But I’m only human.” This would provide the “safety net” when my inward and outward life didn’t align with Jesus’.

But let’s be frank. That’s complete heresy. Without in anyway diminishing Jesus’ deity, we need to come to terms with the fact that Jesus was completely human. In a recent lecture, N.T. Wright commented on Jesus’ miracles by stating:

“If anything, what the miracles show is that Jesus is the genuinely human being who, because he is utterly obedient to the Father, is able to reflect the love and power and creative wisdom of the Father into the world.”

In other words, Jesus’ miracles weren’t proof of his deity, but of his genuine humanity! His character and power reveal what real, day-to-day human existence should and can look like in complete alignment with God.

In this light, we have to come to grips with Scriptures such as 1 John 2:5-6:

“But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”

And 2 Peter 1:3-4:

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

Father, teach me to be truly human as Jesus was truly human. Help me to be utterly obedient to you so that I may embody and reflect your kingdom and fullness to this world. May your new creation break forth from my life as it did in Jesus’. Amen.

Well, the Missional Church Forum took place last week. I’m bummed that I couldn’t go. And all the great summaries are making me regret not going even more. Oh well. Life goes on. And thanks to the blogsphere, I can live somewhat vicariously through those who are posting summaries. You should check them out:

Len Hjalmarson (September 6th, 7th and 8th posts)
Winn Griffin (September 7th post)

A great quote that comes from Winn’s summary of Alan Roxburgh is:

“Leadership is not a person with a plan or vision for the future, a leader is one who forms environments in which the people of God, among whom the Spirit resides, can get in dialogue with others and narratives of Scripture.”

Since it broke, I’ve been following the story about the parents and children held hostage by Chechen militants in a school in southern Russia. I’ve been praying and hoping that it would end peacefully, that somehow life would go back to normal for these little children and their parents.

But it didn’t.

I’m feeling so much emotion over this. I’ve been on the brink of tears every time I think about it today. I think this event is more emotional to me because yesterday was my kids’ first day of school. I keep thinking of how exciting that morning was for them — getting up early, putting on their new clothes, carrying the new school supplies they each picked out. We scrambled to get everything ready. And then we prayed and took pictures and rushed off to a new year of learning.

These Russian children and parents must have felt similar things the morning they woke up and got ready for school. Little kids are the same all over the world. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror and fear they experienced as that morning turned into terror. To be held at gunpoint, to watch friends die, to fear for their own lives.

They’re estimating that about 200 people died and hundreds more were wounded. Kids were carried out cry, screaming, naked and bleeding. The pictures are horrific. Precious lives snuffed out because of someone else’s agenda. It makes me cry. It makes me so angry.

James says “Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.”

And because of this, little children die. God I hate this!

What should my response be to this violence as I follow the Prince of Peace? Is there more I can do than watch, pray and mourn? How can I stand in the place of pain like Christ and bridge heaven and earth? Something in me wants to touch each child and take the pain away. But I can’t. I can only cry.

I’ve been thinking about Qumran the last couple of days… (That’s probably a sentence you don’t hear very often.)

What I mean is that I’ve been thinking about the various “stories” that were being told by the groups in existence during Jesus’ life. Each story was a variation that explained and validated each particular group as God’s people.

The Pharisees believed that being God’s people meant maintaining a distinct ethnic identity by observing the boundary markers inherent within the Torah. Sadducees believed that being God’s people meant political partnership with Rome, who, in turn, allowed the Jewish religious system – centered around the Temple in Jerusalem – to continue. Zealots believed that being God’s people meant a religious war that would expel the foreign oppressors from God’s sacred land.

What I find interesting is that each of these groups and their respective stories, find representation in the contemporary North American Church. Some corners of the Church emphasize adherence to the literal inerrant Word of God above everything. Pragmatic church pastors and leaders look toward the business, athletic and therapeutic realms for identity, worth and insights. Other Christians, in the hopes of making the world a better place (usually by expelling the other political party and their agenda) draw from an arsenal of political candidates, platforms, petitions, ballots and rallies.

Several years ago, if you would have asked me which group I associated with the most, as a conservative evangelical pastor I would have found plenty of affinity with the Pharisees and Sadducees. But my journey over the last few years has taken me down a different path, one which finds affinity with a different 1st century group and therefore poses potential personal problems with living within God’s Story. That group is the Qumran community.

The Qumran community, which is famous for producing the invaluable Dead Sea Scrolls, was part of a sect called the Essenes. The Essenes were a group who reacted against the corruption in the Jewish religious system.

Their story begins around 168 B.C. when a group of Jews, led by the now-famous Maccabean family, revolted against Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king who was forcing his Hellenizing policies on Palestine. After a prolonged conflict of guerrilla warfare, one of the Maccabean sons, Simon, established political independence for Judea in 142 B.C. He was a brilliant leader and diplomat. In a strategic move to bring political unity, Simon was elected to be high priest, military commander, and civil governor of the Jews – a position to be reserved only for him and his descendants.

However, this caused severe theological problems. The Old Testament clearly stated that the high priesthood flowed from Aaron’s lineage. Now, in Simon, the priesthood had been transferred to a completely different lineage. This was completely unacceptable for those Jewish “purists” who believed that strict adherence to the Torah was foundational to being God’s people. In their eyes, the Temple and its practices were now as corrupt as the pagan influences surrounding Israel.

So the Essenes rejected the Temple, its priesthood and the Jewish religious system. Believing themselves to be the rightful heirs to Judaism, they withdrew to a small community in the Palestinian wilderness and established an alternative to the broken religious system. As God’s faithful people, this community focused on spiritual formation through rites of purity and strict asceticism.

As I reflect on the Qumran community in relation to my own journey, I realize how easily I can slip into a similarly mutated version of God’s Story. Although I believe God has led me on this journey, there are three potential pitfalls that I must guard myself against.

The first potential problem is hyper-idealism. As I have read through the New Testament in the last few years, I have become re-envisioned with what God’s people can and should be. In short, we are to be the incarnational presence of God’s fullness, kingdom and life on earth. But if that vision is all that I hold before me, I can easily gravitate toward a hyper-idealism that no one can attain. By doing this, that which should be good news (the kind of people we can become) becomes bad news (the kind of people we never seem able to become).

Like Paul, I must learn to be both prophetic and pastoral. I must couple a biblical vision of God’s dreams with the reality that I live in. Paul, following in Jesus’ pattern, was a master at this. Captured by the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection, he traveled throughout the Mediterranean establishing colonies of God’s new humanity on earth that he envisioned as transformative agents within creation. His letters to these newly founded colonies are filled with metaphors and pictures of what God’s people can be. Yet, with the same quill, Paul also corrects abuses and moral failures in these communities. Merging both prophetic and pastoral ministries, Paul’s letters provide a proper balance of idealism and realism.

In other words, Paul recognized that God’s people are journeying toward the likeness of Christ as they are drawn onward by Christ’s Spirit. On that journey, they face the foibles and failures of the human condition. There is no avoiding that aspect of reality. The people of God are… well, people. But they are also God’s people. Therefore, the journey we are on is one of tension between putting off the old self and putting on the new self.

The second pitfall I face is elitism. Like the Qumran community, I find I can effortlessly slip into the attitude that I’ve got things right while the rest have it wrong. I’ve got the Story right. I’m focusing on what is important as God’s people – spiritual formation, community and mission the way God really intended. And coupled with the obvious inability of the western Church to be the presence of God, my attitude is easily enforced by a continuing critique of the western Church that validates my beliefs and practices. Yikes!!!

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the western Church shouldn’t be critiqued or evaluated. It’s pretty obvious to just about everyone that the system isn’t working as well as it can be. But the motivation behind my evaluation, as well as my “alternative” practices, must be checked. It must never be done with an “us versus them” attitude or as an attempt to validate what I’m doing.

Plus, I think the “emerging” or “missional” church movement has matured enough where we should be critiquing ourselves. I must remind myself that there’s a lot that I’m not doing well. That’s why I love Todd Hunter’s boldness to say things like “we stink at evangelism and leadership” and to be able to step out into a new and surprising direction to explore a proper corrective.

Let’s be honest, we don’t have the corner on spiritual formation, community or mission. Not that anyone is actually saying so. But, again, I can slip into that elitist attitude very easily. My attitude needs to be countered with humility. I’m just a small part of two thousand years of history this side of the resurrection. And that’s not counting the thousands of years of God’s Story that occurred prior to Jesus. And there are lot of people in the institutional church who are doing wonderful things in spiritual formation, community and mission – much better than I.

The third, and potentially greatest, pitfall I face is isolationism. Like the Qumran community, the perceived corruption in the western Church easily makes me want to withdraw into a small alternative community. I will not only disconnect from the world, but I will also disconnect from the world-influenced Church. If the system is broken, then I won’t have anything to do with the system.

But when I look at Jesus, I don’t find him doing this. In fact, I find something very disturbing. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he engages and confronts the various misaligned stories. He had harsh things to say to the Pharisees, the Sadducees and even about the Temple. It is obvious from Jesus’ words and actions that he believed the entire Jewish religious system was broken.

But there is one group that he never engages – those at Qumran. Jesus completely bypasses those who have completely disconnected from the broken Jewish religious system. No mention is made in the Gospels about the Essenes or the Qumran community. We only know about them through sources outside the biblical text. This makes me more than a little nervous since I find so much potential similarity between them and myself.

Here’s the thing rattling around in my head: Jesus selectively participated in a broken system and engaged those who lived in that broken system. He went to the synagogue regularly. He visited the Temple during the various holy days. At the same time he also broke significant boundary markers in the system and established new symbols and stories to communicate what he was intending to accomplish. His was a delicate dance of confrontation and affirmation with a broken religious system. Although broken, the system stood for the very thing he was climaxing and fulfilling through his life, death and new life.

The system was so broken, that it ultimately rejected him and killed him outside of the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple. But three days later, the new Temple was raised (John 2:19-21). The people of God were reconstituted around himself. And they engaged both the world and religious system that rejected their Lord.

Such is the dance for those who are Jesus’ followers. We are not to disconnect from, but to selectively engage both the broken world struggling with hopelessness and the broken Church struggling to bear the much-needed hope. And again, not with a hyper-idealistic vision or an elitist “us versus them” attitude.

Rather, like Jesus, we are to winsomely love and care for all, even to the point of our rejection and death. We are to stand in the middle, at the place of pain, bridging heaven and earth. We do this by incarnating the healing love of God to both those in the Church and those without. In this way we have the same attitude of Jesus, emptying ourselves and becoming obedient to death and so allowing God the room to glorify as he chooses.

This is why I love the paper that Brian McLaren has presented to the Billy Graham Center. Entitled “The Strategy We Pursue,” McLaren’s paper provides a great starting point for a more mature engagement with the Church and our culture by laying out a five point strategy for all of us:

1. Admit we may not actually understand the good news, and seek to rediscover it. (Reboot our theology in a new understanding of the gospel of Jesus.)

2. Redefine what a disciple is. (Change believers into be-alivers and be-lovers.)

3. Do good works, including reconciliation with other Christians. (Recenter the Great Commission in the Great Commandment.)

4. Decrease church attendance. (Deploy Christians into their neighborhoods and communities and world to build relationships with everyone they can, especially the last, the lost and the least.)

5. Start new “hives” of Christianity, without blowing up or stirring up the existing hives. (Create catholic missional monastic faith communities, within the context of a “deep ecclesiology” that honors the Church in all its forms.)

I think this strategy is wonderful because it’s so “big.” It both confronts and affirms. It recognizes both the brokenness of the “system” and the validity of what the “system” stands for. It evaluates blindspots and validates successes.

So bottom line, what does this mean? God has lead me to a wonderful alternative community where I have experienced profound healing, fresh vision, authentic formation, and intimate community. As Barb has stated in her blog, “there is no way I’d want to give that up.” But it also means I need to think further about how I, my family and my friends can engage and bless all forms of the Church as well as the world with the fullness of Christ being formed in us. If I simply withdraw into my own little world of personal piety, I believe I risk Jesus bypassing me just as he bypassed the Qumran community. That’s because as broken as the current religious system may be, the people within that system are God’s people. So I must embrace them with the incarnational presence of God as I would the world, even at the risk of misunderstanding, rejection or worse. As Jesus’ apprentice, my life is to engage and not withdraw; to bless and not disconnect; to dance as Jesus danced.

Okay, I’m more than excited… I’m pumped! I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in this blog, but last year I was approached by an editor (Jenny Ashley) from Relevant Books.

Relevant Books is a publishing company aimed at “the spiritually focused young adult audience.” It seems Jenny had read my article, “Detoxing from Church,” and felt I would have something constructive to say to this group.

So I and fourteen other pastors and writers penned our visions of what it means to be God’s people — the Church. Well, when I came home today, there was a package waiting for me in the mailbox! My very own copy of The Relevant Church! Suh-weeet!

Alright, I’ll settle down now.

I ran across the Regent Radio, a ministry of the Regent College’s bookstore. It streams four lectures a day by the likes of N.T. Wright, Eugene Peterson, Gordon Fee, Bruce Waltke and others. The site plays the various series that are available for purchase at the bookstore in their entirety. This is especially cool if one wants to buy all the various series but cannot afford them. Believe me, it’s the next best thing.

I’ve been listening to and thinking through some ideas by N.T. Wright in regards to mission. He’s got a great quote regarding mission, “What Jesus was for Israel, the Church is to be for the world.” The Church is implementing the phenomenal reality of humanity’s return from exile, accomplished uniquely in Christ. We are calling people back to be the image of God as he originally intended, to embrace their vocation of bearing God’s creative stewardship into the world.

One of the implications that Wright unpacks from his quote is the power of symbol and story. He says that Jesus’ parables were answers to questions evoked by his actions as he redefined the symbols and story of God’s people.

Therefore, as part of the contemporary Church’s mission, we should not spend so much time trying to make Jesus’ parables relevant for our generation. Rather, God’s people should be living in such a way that we draw questions from those who live, work and play with us. And as these questions are asked, we must answer with fresh parables that retell the ongoing story of humanity’s return from exile.

Wright also cautions Christians from underestimating the power of symbol. We have been so immersed in modern Enlightenment thinking that we buy into grandiose ideas of transforming our world with sweeping and momentous projects. We might feel that symbolic living isn’t worth our effort unless it affects widespread change. But there is power in symbol and story. We should be living our lives in symbolic ways, or as Wright puts it, planting flags in hostile soil. These symbols – little ways in which we incarnate God’s Story and bring his creative stewardship and redemptive love to the world – are as powerful today as in Jesus’ day. They raise questions. People want to know why we have chosen to live by an alternate way. And these questions provide the opportunities to tell stories and parables that point to the reality that is in Christ.

As these opportunities occur, we cannot throw doctrine, principles or “spiritual laws” at people. Those are foreign to the gospel. We must offer story, safety, community and a new praxis of life. This can only flow from a Spirit-driven missional life of creative goodness. It can’t be found in structure or lack of structure. It can’t be found in program or lack of program. It’s found in the creative and missional heart of God, intentionally sought after and implemented through an incarnational lifestyle.

Tonight we looked at the wedding at Cana in John 2. This is a perfect example of Jesus’ ability to plant those symbolic flags – wine from purification jugs, a Podunk town in Galilee rather than the temple in Jerusalem, a wedding rather than religious ceremony.

Jesus’ symbols are transformative in that they are completely redefining God’s Story. Everything the 1st century Jews have known is correct, but now taking a completely different direction than they expected. They are hearing a very familiar in a very unfamiliar way.

Jesus’ symbols are subversive in that they require faith to see. Jesus never gives any kind of sermon or explanation for the sign. But it is pivotal moment for his students in that they put their faith and loyalty in him. I heard one person refer to Jesus’ signs as “manhole covers.” They are very subtle, revealing something deep and subterranean and easily missed if not looked for.

Jesus’ symbols are winsome in that they touch real life. Who could look negatively at the generous and overflowing heart of God toward a young newlywed couple?

Jesus’ symbols are scandalous. Why purification jars? Why not use some other vessels to hold the wine? I mean, what would the neighbors say when they found wine in those purification jars? It was risky, yet part of the renewed Story Jesus was telling.

So here are some questions I’m asking myself: What are relevant symbols that I can plant in my normal daily life that will evoke the proper questions from those around me? How can I intentionally live so that I embody, demonstrate and announce God’s Story of humanity’s return from exile? How can my time, my money, my family, my home, my work, my play, my interests, my neighborhood and all the other facets of life be used symbolically? Can it be done in a way that is winsome and not “weird?” And am I willing to take the risk of being completely misunderstood, even by those who should understand?

Lately, my mind has been occupied with the idea of what it means to be a missional people of God. It’s something that has been simmering on the back burner for about a year. But now I feel God is bringing it into a growing place of prominence in both my thinking and hopefully my practice. I don’t have time to write a concise paper on it, so I’ve decided to throw some ideas on the table. Here are a few things that I’m thinking about:

First, God is a missional God. There is a constant motif throughout God’s Story – God’s interaction with humanity is one of revealing and reaching out to us. As James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” A consistent theme of God’s Story is his initiative toward us.

Second, being God’s people means being a missional people. This was clearly formulated with God’s calling of Abram to become the father of a new nation dedicated to being God’s people among the other peoples. This nation would be blessed by God’s presence in order to be a blessing to the other nations. Blessing the nations is part of the DNA of God’s people, whether it is the nation Israel in the Old Testament or the Church in the New Testament.

Another thing that has captivated me is how Jesus is the model of a missional life and community. His mission isn’t simply to do “great things” for God. Rather it is to “incarnate” or “embody” the fullness of God. Jesus stated in John 14:9, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” He’s referring to who he is – to the fullness of God that abides in him – not just the deeds he’s accomplished. Jesus embodied God in conversations, at meals, while playing with children, working alongside others, walking on the road, telling stories and in everything else he was and did. His incarnation never turned off. Therefore, mission is more of who I am, and then as an expression of who I am, what I do and say.

That’s why I love the phrase borrowed from Todd Hunter – “to embody, demonstrate and announce” God’s fullness and kingdom. It’s got to be in that order. We can only talk about what we are genuinely doing. And we can only do what is genuinely an expression of who we are. All three must be in sync or our lives become hypocritical.

Let’s be honest, how many times have we done things for God with a cruddy attitude? Can God’s incarnational mission flow from envy, unforgiveness, anger, competition, greed or anything else that’s not part of God? God is light and in him there is no darkness. The same thing can be said generally about his mission to the earth and its people and specifically about Jesus’ expression of that mission. Therefore, we must be growing so that the same thing can be said about our mission.

This means that incarnational mission, by nature, must flow from spiritual formation. In Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard has a great working definition of spiritual formation. He says it is the “Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.” So if incarnational mission flows from this process, maybe we should have a corollary definition for mission. It should be something like, “Incarnational mission is the Spirit-driven process of forming the outer world of human life in the same way that Christ transformed his outer world.”

This definition implies three things. First, it implies presence. We must be present in the world in order to influence and transform it with God’s fullness and kingdom.

Second, it implies embodiment. We must actually be people who are poised to routinely embody, demonstrate and announce God’s fullness and kingdom. Both the inward and outward aspects of human existence are in sync with each other and God’s purposes.

Third, (and this ties the first two together) it implies that daily disciplined engagement with God’s grace is necessary for the forming of our outward lives as much as it is essential for the forming of our inward lives. In other words, I must learn to practices disciplines of incarnational mission. I must practice both disciplines of presence and disciplines of embodiment. These disciplines, like any other spiritual exercises, engage God’s grace in the shaping of who I am. Therefore, these “missional” disciplines, like other spiritual disciplines, must become a natural part of my daily spiritual rhythm.

Jesus stated in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” As Jesus apprentices and ambassadors, we are sent into our world just as Jesus was sent. By being an incarnational presence of God’s fullness and kingdom in our world and among its people, we join God’s Story of re-beautifying a world vandalized by destructive self-indulgence; of restoring portions of our earth that have been dislocated by exploitation and evil; of re-creating what has been devastated. As we call people to follow Jesus back to their purpose as the image-bearers of God, despair is replaced with hope; selfishness with compassion; destruction with beauty; exploitation with stewardship; oppression with servanthood. And the entire cosmos is drawn ever forward to its final re-creation into a world and society of love.

The sun had already gone down and the darkening sky seemed to magnify the voices and laughter coming from the house. Jesus stood outside, soaking in the fresh air and trying to catch his breath from the last round of dancing. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, he couldn’t help smiling. Today was significant. Today was his first miracle.

He was reluctant at first. Now was not the time to go public. Not everything was in place. He only had about half of his students gathered. And after this there would be no turning back.

But now in hindsight, it was a good decision. Good call, Mom! What happened today set the pattern for the very message he would be proclaiming. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.”

The kingdom of God. How many times had he heard that phrase as a young boy? It was always talked about as something far, far away. But now it was here! And it was breaking into the lives of God’s people. But like everything his Father seemed to do, it was coming in unexpected ways.

So why not here in Cana? What better place for God’s kingdom to display itself than at the wedding of an obscure young couple in some backwater village in Galilee, miles away from the temple in Jerusalem where everyone would expect such a show. But isn’t that like the Father? Choosing obscurity over publicity; a party over a ceremony; the boondocks over the religious center. It’s as if the Father enjoys revealing himself to little children rather than to the wise and learned.

And doesn’t it show how involved the Father is in human life? Aren’t even the little sparrows in the sky important to him? So wouldn’t this young man and woman, who are beginning their lives together, find greater importance in the Father’s heart?

Certainly, some might criticize Jesus for pettiness. There were always critics. The way to hell is paved with them. Weren’t there people in greater need – the sick, the dying, the destitute? But that’s the beauty of today. God’s kingdom encompasses them as well. There’s nothing or no one too big or too small for the Father’s embrace.

Jesus almost laughed out loud. There’s over 120 gallons of wine! In purification jugs no less! I hope no one tries to wash their hands in them. That’s going to raise some eyebrows. But again, isn’t that like the Father? Transforming the bland water of purification into the crisp wine of celebration. It just seems right. Like listening to a story you’ve heard over and over, and then discovering it ends in a completely wonderful and unexpected way!

That’s the way it has to be if there’s any hope. Sure, there would be people who would try to force him to tell the Story they had heard over and over. And they would want their particular ending on it. Messiah would cleanse God’s people of their sins with adherence to the Law and cleanse God’s land of the foreign oppressors with power and might. What an ending – God’s people vindicated with their self-righteous foot on the throat of the nations.

But Jesus had a different story to tell. Messiah would cleanse God’s people and the land, but with the righteousness, peace and joy of the Father’s kingdom. Carrying a cross and turning a cheek have far greater cleansing power than a scroll or a sword. Wine over water any day! And what began today in obscurity in the hills of Cana would eventually find its full expression in public on the hill of Jerusalem. For out of this living vessel of purification would one day flow the red wine of celebration for everyone…

But that’s not for awhile. Today is today. Tomorrow will worry about itself. One thing is certain: Today his new students looked at him differently. They believe. He saw their looks. He heard their whispers. “Is he the one? Is this the time?” Yes and no! Right story, wrong ending. And like any good story, the ending will actually become the beginning. Like wine springing out from jars of water. But they would have plenty of time to figure it out.

Jesus emerged from his thoughts as music and cheering erupted from the house. He was ready for another dance and another drink. He wanted to dance and drink the wine of joy.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark and I had the privilege of hanging out with Todd Hunter and a small group of people to discuss “kingdom” issues. First of all, a huge “Thank You!” to Jason and Brooke Evans for once again doing a great job of hosting us. They are quite adept at creating a warm and hospitable environment to support relationship building and discussion. Also, thank you to Todd for coming out here to “stir the pot.” Several things he said have bounced around in my brain and helped me to think through some issues.

Downloadable notes of the discussion have been posted by Danny Goeree in his May 2nd blog entry. So rather than producing additional notes, I wanted to offer some response to the things that were discussed. I’ll probably do this in parts over a couple of weeks.

Todd broke the day into discussions on three fairly large topics: kingdom of God, Spirit of God, and leadership. In the conversation about the kingdom of God, Todd stated that we need something huge to drive our imaginations about the Church. Without a new imagination, we are simply tweaking how we do Church. Todd proposed that the driving force behind our imagination must be the kingdom of God. Theologically, the kingdom creates the Church. This must be true in our communities of faith as well as the “emerging church’ as a whole.

I wholeheartedly agree with Todd’s statement. The kingdom of God must fuel our imaginations about what it means to be God’s people. But the question that needs further development is, “What is the kingdom of God?” The simple answer: the activity of God or the extension of God’s will. However, in my opinion, while one-sentence answers may give us a fresh perspective, by themselves they rarely ignite enduring imagination. That’s because reduced definitions extracts meaning from its rich context and dilutes it beyond recognition.

Or let me put it this way: When a 1st century Jewish crowd heard Jesus state, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news,” they probably didn’t think to themselves, “Oh how nice, the extension of God’s will is finally here.” Rather Jesus, his listeners and the phrase “kingdom of God” are all part of a staggering Story or worldview that spans centuries. So when Jesus made his statement, it was like opening up the floodgates of a huge dam. Centuries of meaning came cascading over his listeners, sweeping them away in a torrential river of new imagination.

If we want a grand imagination for being the people of God, it must be found in the kingdom of God. And if want an even grander imagination of the kingdom of God, it must be found in the Story of God. God’s Story reveals the “extension of God’s will.” God’s Story concretizes our identity and place in an age-old saga. God’s Story compels us to reconstruct our theology and practice.

Having been formed in a culture so removed from this Story, we must immerse ourselves in the same river that swept Jesus’ listeners away and resist the urge to swim to the shores of practicality too quickly. We must be permeated with the ideas and images of God’s Story so it reshapes how we see God, ourselves and the world. That is not a quick and easy task.

Dallas Willard states that changing the ideas that govern us is probably one of the most difficult and painful things in human life. “It rarely happens to the individual or group except in the form of divine intervention, revolution, or something very like a mental breakdown” (Renovation of the Heart, 98).

To me, this reason alone means our communities must stay immersed in the Story for a long, long, long time, until it becomes a part of who we are.

So what is this Story? It can’t be defined by a one-sentence answer, nor should we attempt it. Like any good story, reducing it to a quick summary perpetrates terrible injustice upon creative genius and goodness. Instead, any synopsis must act as the text of a good book-jacket does – to stimulate imagination and interest, to catch the reader off-guard and draw him or her deeper into the river of imagination so he or she is swept away and immersed into a startlingly new, yet familiar world.

For me, I think N.T. Wright is probably one of the best people in the world who can do this. Combining years of immersion in the Story at both an academic level and at the “street-level,” he captures God’s Story in a way that draws us in:

“Reality as we know it is the result of a creator god bringing into being a world that is other than himself, and yet which is full of his glory. It was always the intention of this god that creation should one day be flooded with his own life, in a way for which it was prepared from the beginning. As part of the means to this end, the creator brought into being a creature which, by bearing the creator’s image, would bring his wise and loving care to bear upon the creation. By a tragic irony, the creature in question has rebelled against this intention. But the creator has solved this problem in principle in an entirely appropriate way, and as a result is now moving the creation once more toward its originally intended goal. The implementation of this solution now involves the indwelling of this god within his human creatures and ultimately within the whole creation, transforming it into that for which it was made in the beginning” (The New Testament and the People of God, 97-98).

This is the kingdom of God! This is what Jesus was proclaiming to his contemporaries. This is what we must live in if we want an imagination for being God’s people.

Imagination is key to immersing ourselves, our communities and the contemporary world back into the kingdom of God. I think that’s why Jesus used stories to redefine the kingdom to his contemporaries. He took familiar metaphors and symbols from centuries of Jewish culture and teaching and retold the age-old Story with a new twist. And he did it naturally and easily because he himself was fully immersed in the very Story he told.

I know it’s a few weeks past Easter. But I wrote an email to our community members that I wanted to share. Thanks, Mark, for encouraging me to post it. Also, next time, I’ll begin sharing some thoughts about our time with Todd Hunter.

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Hi Everyone,

We’re only days away from celebrating the most important event in human history — the resurrection of Christ. As we’ve been talking about on Thursdays, Jesus’ resurrection climaxes both Israel’s history, being God’s people blessed with God’s Word, Spirit and presence in order to bless the world, and human history, being dependent co-creators with God in nurturing goodness from creation.

On that remarkable day, God raised righteous Israel as had been anticipated in the Old Testament. But rather than resurrecting all of God’s righteous people at the end of history, God resurrected the one person who was truly God’s people smack-dab in the middle of history. In other words, God has begun his future new creation and age in the middle of this current age in one person — Jesus. And that new age is moving ever-forward and outward through Jesus’ apprentices toward its final revealing and transformation when Jesus returns. At Jesus’ resurrection, God’s new creation began! And like anything in God’s kingdom, it began as a tiny mustard seed, anticipating its transformation into something much larger and glorious.

What a statement the resurrection is about the goodness of creation. God isn’t scrapping creation, he’s liberating it by implanting his divine life into it through the resurrected Christ. Rather than letting creation self-destruct with the evil that has invaded it, God has “re-injected” his goodness into it. Through Jesus, he has planted his life — his resurrection life — back into creation.

Remember, Jesus didn’t just come back from the dead. Just like Moses and the Israelites went completely through the Red Sea into God’s new life, Jesus went all the way through the “Red Sea” of death into a new kind of life. In this way, Jesus’ resurrection isn’t just life after death. To borrow a phrase from N.T. Wright, the resurrection is life after “life after death” as Jesus went all the way through death into God’s new life. When Jesus re-emerged from the grave, he was not just simply alive (as if that were simple). Rather, he was alive in a new and radically different way. He now has a transformed physical body that is fully animated by God’s Spirit and capable of living in God’s new creation. And by resurrecting Jesus in the middle of human history, God plants his transforming life in decaying creation so that it will ultimately transform creation into the new heavens and new earth.

This is why Paul states in Colossians 1:18-20 that Jesus “is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

To use a simple metaphor, Jesus is like God’s anti-venom injected into a corrupted and decaying creation. Jesus himself is injected with the evil and death that is destroying creation. That’s what the cross is about. Evil takes its best shot on God and God’s love and life transform it. But evil has its full effect on Jesus. He dies. But he doesn’t just die. Alive after his physical death like all of God’s people who have died before him, God brings him all the way through death into a new life after “life after death.” In this way, he leads the first among God’s people to enter into this new life after “life after death.”

So the venom that kills Jesus is transformed by God’s life and then injected into decaying creation for it to take its effect. And as God’s life enters into other people as they choose to align their lives around Jesus, the kind of people they are becoming and the resulting change it brings to the world around them become the eternal materials from which God will build his final kingdom and new creation from.

To change metaphors, like Adam and Eve, we become the gardeners of God’s new creation right now where we live, nurturing and growing the goodness from it. And the results of that work are, according to Paul, eternal.

As Jesus’ apprentices, we are a colony of God’s new humanity on earth. We are glimmers of God’s new world in the middle of this one. We are gardeners of God’s new creation at work, home, and everywhere we are.

As we celebrate Jesus’ unique death and his glorious resurrection, let’s think about how it should move us to an authentic spirituality, a transforming justice and expressions of beauty in our lives.

Jason

Over the last several months, our community has been exploring the large Story of God that spans from creation to new creation. I feel this time of immersion into God’s narrative has drawn a large and detailed map for our understanding of God’s creative purposes – something I have been disconnected from throughout most of my Christian life and ministry.

But extended immersion in God’s Story has allowed me to emerge not only with a map for our journey, but with the essential “You Are Here” marker that allows me to live my life in greater alignment with God’s movement. Perhaps this is what Paul meant when he wrote:

“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”

In an effort to understand what the Lord’s will is, I have become gripped by one particular aspect of God’s lengthy and complex Story — Christ is the climax of both human history and Israel’s history. By his life, Jesus embodies, demonstrates and announces God’s intentions for humanity, made in God’s image, to be the cooperative and creative care-givers of creation, dynamically nurturing further goodness from a his creation. And by his life, Jesus embodies, demonstrates and announces God’s intention for Israel as God’s chosen people, those called to incarnate the fullness of God’s transforming presence among the nations so as to move original creation, now broken and disjointed, to the new creation by dealing with the sin and evil introduced by Adam.

This climax finds its fullest expression in Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. By his crucifixion, Jesus lets evil take its best shot. All of the shame and evil in the world concentrate upon the true Adam and the true Israel. And it works its fullest consequence on him – death. But the crucifixion is not God’s final statement. Jesus presses through the “Red Sea” of death to the other side – emerging into a new kind of life that death can no longer touch. By his resurrection, Jesus emerges as the full expression of God’s new creation. N.T. Wright states that the resurrected Christ is the “full flowering of God’s new creation.” The resurrection doesn’t simply redefine death as “life after death.” Rather, the resurrection destroys death. It is life after “life after death.” It is the life of the new heaven and new earth that neither sin nor death can ever touch again. As such, Jesus’ resurrection is the first day of God’s new creation!

As a follower of Christ, this puts me on God’s map — You Are Here.

First, of all, my understanding of God’s Story is completely rewritten. I now understand that God’s new creation has already dawned. And although I live between its inauguration at Jesus’ resurrection and its full consummation at his return, I am living in God’s new creation now! Not only that, but Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that anyone who is living immersed in Christ has become a “new creation.” In other words, our lives have become part of God’s new creation as well. So by following Christ, I am also in Christ, participating in his crucifixion (Gal 2:20) and his resurrection (Col 3:1-4) today.

With this lens, I am now blown away by how much of Paul’s practical instructions to God’s people are anchored in Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. I’m discovering that Christian ethics differs completely from other ethics. Why? Because Christian ethics is not about following a code or a set of rules. Nor is it the goal of following Christ. Instead, Christian ethics is learning to live our future lives in God’s new creation right now. It is about learning to become incarnational — to live a life of divine love as displayed fully by the crucifixion (Eph 5:1-2) and a life of divine power as displayed by the resurrection (Eph 1:19-21). Incarnational life as God’s new creation is easily and naturally ethical as a byproduct.

So let’s revisit Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 5:15-17:

“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”

This statement, along with many others in the New Testament, is the “You Are Here” on God’s map. My life matters because of who I am and who I am becoming as I live immersed in the crucified and resurrected Christ – the climax of humanity’s and Israel’s history and the flowering of God’s new creation.

But living “in Christ” requires effort on my part. As Paul states in Ephesians 4:22-24:

“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.”

My old self is corrupted by deceitful desires. My new self is created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. I must put off one and put on the other. And the bridge between the two is being renewed in the pneuma – the attitude or spirit – of my mind. And this occurs by “making the most of every opportunity.”

The Greek word used in the NIV for “opportunity” in Ephesians 5:15 is kairos – God’s special time. But it’s not just special time, it’s the consummation of time, again, God’s new creation. In other words, in each moment of my life I must make the most of living in God’s new creation. I have to intentionally live my real daily life as God’s new creation and in God’s new creation – living interactively in God’s grace, which “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12).

I began reading Walter Brueggemann’s book, Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation. I’m still in the introduction and he’s laying out his argument in fairly large concepts. However, he says a few things that have drawn me in so far:

“The gospel is thus a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane. Partly, the gospel is simply an old habit among us, neither valued nor questioned. But more than that, our technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, revises quality into quantity, and so takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes” (pp. 1-2).

“To address the issue of a truth greatly reduced requires us to be poets that speak against a prose world. The terms of that phrase are readily misunderstood. By prose I refer to a world that is organized in settled formulae, so that even pastoral prayers and love letters sound like memos. By poetry, I do not mean rhyme, rhythm, or meter, but language that moves like Bob Gibson’s fast ball, that jumps at the right moment, that breaks open old worlds with surprise, abrasion and pace. Poetic speech is the only proclamation worth doing in a situation of reductionism, the only proclamation, I submit, that is worthy of the name preaching. Such preaching is not moral instruction or problem solving or doctrinal clarification. It is not good advice, nor is it romantic caressing, nor is it a soothing good humor. It is, rather, the ready, steady, surprising proposal that the real world in which God invites us to live is not the one made available by the rulers of this age. The preacher has an awesome opportunity to offer an evangelical world: an existence shaped by the news of the gospel. This offer requires special care for words, because the baptized community awaits speech in order to be a faithful people” (pp. 3-4).

This sounds good. I would exchange the the words “preaching” with “communication” and “preacher” with “follower of Christ” because I think every disciple is called to communicate God’s kingdom in winsome and wondrous ways. It’s definitely not the task of just the professional few.

I’m definitely not looking for a technique — four easy steps to communicate God’s kingdom. Nor am I abandoning technical language as I’ve discussed in the previous blogs. What I am looking for is something that recaptures the imagination and then puts some wind in the sails as it were.

Eugene Peterson, author of The Message and many other well-known books, tells a story of when his grandson jumped into his lap and said, “Grandpa, tell me a story and put me in it.” In essence, that’s what Christians are supposed to be – people who know and live their place in God’s story so they can retell the story and put other people in it as well.

The challenge of telling God’s Story is two-fold: first everyone thinks they already know the story. The Christian message is part of our western culture, albeit in a distorted form. Telling God’s Story is like trying to tell the original story of Pinocchio when the only version the audience knows is the Disney version. The audience is shocked by the original, responding, “That’s not how it goes!” (Think about all the Disney remakes of classics. Although entertaining, they are complete distortions of the original tales. Yet, for the average person, the Disney version is the one that comes to mind.)

In many ways, the average Christian in North America has grown up with a “Disney version” of God’s Story – reduced to “Four Spiritual Laws” or “How To” sermons or a myriad of other stylized presentations. Please understand, I’m not questioning the good intentions behind these presentations. I’m simply observing the challenge we face when we discover that our current Christian culture’s understanding of God’s Story is very different from how the Story has been told by God’s people for generations upon generations. And how we understand the Story – either the original version or our culture’s version – determines how we live our lives.

What ends up happening is as the Story is retold, the audience reacts to the original version with “That’s not how it goes!” And not with just the overall plot, but the layers of sub-plots and symbols as well. So words like “Gospel” or “Church” or “Salvation” or “Heaven” have different meanings depending on which version of the Story one embraces.

That’s where the real challenge occurs. Ultimately when one retells the Story, one has to choose whether or not to use the loaded words and symbols or attempt to find different language altogether. For example, do we use the word “Salvation” although the current understanding is flawed (ask forgiveness from God and have a personal relationship with God so I can go to heaven when I die)? Or do we choose a term from another tradition that is more accurate (“theosis” from the Eastern Orthodox understanding of participating in the divine nature – 2 Peter 1:4)? Or do we find altogether new language to communicate this part of the story?

As Mark pointed out in his comment in the last post, whichever way we choose, deconstruction of faulty storylines, sub-plots and symbols must take place. And because the current version has so defined who we are, this deconstruction is not without sometimes intense emotional response. Mind you, that’s not necessarily bad or wrong. When worldviews clash, there is always internal turmoil.

I also want to be very clear: I’m not saying that the North American version of God’s Story is completely wrong, just flawed by the way we have retold the story over and over in our context. Bottom-line, the flawed story causes most Christians (myself included) to live their lives in wrong ways. That’s why the Story must be retold in new ways to recapture our imagination and ultimately lead us toward proper life as Jesus’ people.

The second challenge is that God’s Story is just so dang HUGE! It’s hard to tell such a large story. Think about Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. It’s an awesome version of Tolkien’s work. But Tolkien’s work is so large that a retelling cannot capture its fullness and grandeur.

God’s Story began ages ago. And although centralized for a good portion of time in Israel, it remains a huge task to retell it. Each layer of story-line is tightly woven with generations of developing ideas, sub-stories, and symbols. And being so removed from that time and culture, we completely miss most of the nuanced imagery and read it or hear it from a 21st century perspective. That’s why scholars like N.T. Wright, Gordon Fee, Stanley Grenz and a list of others are necessary to help put on the necessary “glasses” to read the story clearly.

Gordon Fee also makes an interesting remark. He states the usually narrative or story-telling is used by us on a micro level and not the macro-level. In other words, we use stories illustrations for a specific point or to tell a very small sub-plot of the larger Story. Yet, we rarely use narrative to actually tell the Story. Yet, most of the Bible is narrative.

So what does all of this mean? Like I said in the last post, I’m not really sure. I think technical language has a necessary place in retelling and explaining the Story because it helps us to think more accurately and concisely about aspects of the Story. The average person — Christian or non-Christian — exerts more effort thinking about his or her job, finances, relationships, school, and other areas of life than they do about God and his Story. For some reason, we seem to want to simplify spirituality. But Jesus, Paul and the New Testament community were thoughtful theologians. It would do all of us well to follow their lead and think more clearly and concisely about God.

But as I have learned the hard way, technical language is not the best way to actually tell the Story. Something more is needed, something that I lack but am willing to explore and search for as I try to know and live my place in God’s spectacular Story.

A man, newly convicted of a crime, arrives at the prison that will be his home for a large portion of his life. An older inmate soon befriends him and begins to acquaint him with prison life. One day the two inmates join a group of others sitting around the courtyard laughing. The new inmate was intrigued by what he saw.

As they sat in a group, an inmate would call out a number, followed by laughter from the other inmates. “Seven,” one would say, evoking hearty laughter from the others. “Twelve.” Again, laughter. Over and over, for about a half of an hour, seemingly random numbers would be called out punctuated by bursts laughter.

After it was over, the new inmate asked his friend, “What in the world was going on?” The older inmate responded, “Oh that. Many of us have been here so long that we’ve told each other the same jokes over and over. So we eventually numbered the jokes and instead of telling the joke, we just say its number.”

This baffled the newcomer, but he figured if he was to fit in this new environment, he needed to learn the ropes pretty quickly. The next day, he and his older friend joined the same group in the courtyard. And like yesterday, the group was engaged in “joke-telling.”

“Seventy-five.” Laughter.
“Thirteen.” Laughter.
“Twenty-one.” Laughter.

Finally, the new inmate worked up his courage and called out, “Ten.” He was mortified by the silence that followed. All the inmates stared at him. After further awkward silence, another inmate called out “Ten,” evoking more laughter. And the inmates carried on like before.

The younger inmate leaned over to his friend, “What did I do wrong?” who responded, “Oh, you just told it wrong.”

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That story reminds me of most of western Christianity and especially of myself. We are guilty of reducing a beautiful and incredible Story to overly-simplified and virtually irrelevant doctrinal bullet points. Rather than telling and re-telling God’s Story in fresh ways that capture the imagination of our hearers, we use catch-words like the inmates used numbers. “Gospel.” “The Fall.” “Salvation.” “Covenant.” Or if we feel really impressive, we’ll use “Eschatology” or “Pneumatology” or other words that end with “-ology.”

However, the answer isn’t to simply abandon these concepts for a more “practical” style of communication. Many corners of Christendom have attempted to make Christianity relevant to their modern audience. For a while, it seemed like every church marquee advertised a “How To” sermon. The problem is that although it may be relevant to the felt-needs of one’s audience, this solution extracts us from the Story that has been told and retold for ages and generations. The result is a new generation of Christians who know how to have a good marriage, how to raise good kids, how to be a good employee, how to be a good steward, etc., but have no idea of where or how their lives fit into God’s Story other than “Jesus died for me so I can go to heaven when I die.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m guilty on all points. For awhile I had adopted the same techniques and could preach “How To” messages as good as the next guy. But as I’ve shifted from that style in an attempt to understand and communicate God’s Story, a realization has come crashing down around me – I haven’t developed the necessary abilities to tell the Story. This was especially driven home over the last couple of months as our community has been exploring the sweeping movements of God’s Story from creation to renewed creation.

It’s kind of sad. I’ve paid thousands of dollars to get a degree to simply throw words around like the inmates threw numbers around. I have found myself cast in the role of a Story-teller, yet I’m unable to craft the right words to stir the imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for my education. I’m glad I have been trained to think technically and critically about theology. There is a necessary place for it. But it’s not the primary place.

I’m not even sure what I’m grasping at. All I know is that concepts must be coupled with imagination and vision. Not in cute little stories, but in ones that open windows into a mysterious and majestic realm where an eternal God cooperates with animated dust to usher in a new creation unlike anything we know; where eternal fullness is displayed through human hands, eyes and mouth; where the baton of incarnation is passed from perfection to imperfection, from one person to a community that struggles through the ages.

I just finished listening to one of my favorite novels, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I’ve read it a couple of times, but this was my first time listening to it on CD. There’s something captivating when a great story is told by a skilled narrator.

I’m also amazed at how a story can speak in different ways depending on the reader’s place in his or her life journey. Being where I am today, I found Lee’s story confronting me with issues about the cultural influences on Christianity.

Set in the 1930s, Lee explores southern culture in a small Depression-racked Alabama town from the perspective of an eight year old girl named Scout. Throughout the story, you feel like you’re always “looking up” as a small child would in an adult world.

What gripped me during this reading was the embedded critique of the Church. You cannot help but shake your head in dismay as you read about “Christ-fearing” people who are more often drunk than sober, filled with hatred, driven by gossip or motivated by racism.

There is a powerful scene when Scout attends a meeting of the women’s missionary society and listens to Christian women discussing over coffee and pastries how the pagan natives in Africa need to be civilized and how the “blackies” in their town need to learn their place. Being two generations removed from the story’s context, the reader is easily appalled at how cultural evils of the time could infiltrate the Church’s life.

But then it made me think, in seventy years what will my grandchildren be appalled with when they read about the church of my generation? What evils and abuses spawned by our contemporary culture and embraced by the Church will they shake their heads at and ask, “How could they have done that?”

I’m sure we can all come up with a list. As a friend reminded me last week, critiquing the church is easy. Just close your eyes and heave a rock and you’re bound to hear the shattering of stained glass. So I won’t indulge in making a list of the ways our society has found entrance into the Church’s life.

The question I’m asking myself and anyone who reads this is what can we do to escape the cultural entanglements that plague the church in every generation and actually become the eschatological people who live God’s future kingdom in the present?

Although I think I have suspicions of an answer, I know I don’t have the complete answer. But there’s a couple of things I do know. First, we need to avoid restorationist theories. Throughout the ages, parts of the Church in any given generation sought reform by longing to return to an earlier manifestation of the Church. If we could only go back to pre-Industrialization or pre-Reformation or pre-Constantinian times. Or the elusive, if we could only become like the first-century Church. My question is, “Which one?” Do we want to be like the church in Galatia, on the verge of embracing a false gospel? Or the church in Colossae or Philippi, battling Judaizers? Or the church in Corinth with all of its issues? Or how about the seven churches in Revelation? None of them heeded the prophetic warnings and so none of those churches exist today. As Gordon Fee has stated numerous times – too much water has gone under the bridge to go backwards.

Another thing I know is that structural models are not the answer. Whether we belong to a denomination with a lengthy history or are part of an emerging “organic” movement, structure by itself is not the answer. That’s because structures are the institutional expressions of people. And it’s within people that the problem lies. For example, in To Kill A Mockingbird, racism is built into the Church because the people are racist. In our contemporary times, consumerism is built into the Church because people are consumerist. Structures reflect and enforce what already exists in people. And even if a different structure is developed to avoid or even combat institutional evils, the structure will inevitably fail if the problem isn’t addressed in people. People are notoriously adept at working their agendas into any system or structure, be it simple or complex.

No matter how I approach this issue in my head, it always seems to come back to my personal responsibility to authentically follow Christ in my life and in my Christian community with my brothers and sisters. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch stands out because he chooses to lead by example. He is a lone figure who is at home in his small town, but also lives courteously, graciously and boldly by a standard much different than his surrounding culture. It is a beautiful picture of being culturally relevant and simultaneously counter-cultural. It wins him respect, yet gets him in trouble and ultimately endangers the ones he loves most. But it is so ingrained into who he is that he cannot help but live in such a noble manner. And in subtle and subversive ways, it changes people. I think Atticus Finch has many valuable lessons to teach us.

What makes the “good news” good? I’ve been reading a really cool book called StormFront: The Good News of God. One of the things the authors argue is that our North American consumerist context has distorted our understanding of God’s gospel or good news. We tend to view the good news of God as a message directed to our needs, describing the gospel in terms of its impact on human life – forgiveness of sins, relationship with God, personal fulfillment, happiness, freedom, comfort, healing, peace, and heaven when we die. All of these things and more make the good news good.

But here’s the authors’ point, one I’m willing to accept: “The Bible doesn’t speak about the gospel primarily in terms of its impact upon human life” (p. 36). Read that again and let it sink in. The good news of God isn’t about me and my needs! Instead, it’s about God and what he’s doing – the kingdom or reign of God.

They continue by stating:

“Now this is a tricky distinction, and we need to be precise here. Certainly, the New Testament proclaims the gospel as something that has profound significance for human life. Yet it does not speak about the gospel primarily in those terms. If you survey the data in the New Testament, a very clear pattern emerges. The focus falls not so much on what we experience, but on what God has done and is doing in the world” (p. 36).

I think this distinction is a hefty one, because ultimately the good news of God that we live and proclaim should be “God is reigning and will reign over the cosmos eternally and you and I get to join in what he’s doing in the world.” Or to quote the authors of StormFront again, “The gospel sees our humanity not in terms of needs to be met, but in terms of capacities and gifts to be offered in God’s gracious service. We are created not to consume but to know God, not merely to meet our own needs but to participate in God’s life and mission” (p. 34).

This thinking seems much more in line with Jesus and Paul than our modern forms of Christianity. For example, Jesus’ entire ministry can be summarized in Mark 1:14-15:

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’”

Paul also provides a definition of the gospel in Romans 1:1-4:

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God – the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In other words, the good news of God is “Jesus is the Jewish Messiah as foretold for ages AND he is the Lord of the cosmos!”

Wow! There’s nothing in either Jesus’ or Paul’s statements about my personal happiness, contentment and fulfillment. Again, God’s good news is about God and what he’s done and doing.

My interaction with the gospel is faithful and obedient allegiance to the king — Jesus Christ. Notice that in the Romans 1 passage, the gospel results in Paul’s calling to be a servant of Christ — his entire life set apart by and in service to the gospel. Likewise, my response to God’s good news then, is to follow Jesus as his student or apprentice. And according to him, that requires learning to die to my self-will:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple… In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:26-27, 33

This is such a different good news than what is usually communicated today – “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life…”

Now I know some of you reading this might be thinking, “But that is the gospel!” I admit, there is truth to the statement, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” However, such an individualized and egocentric version of the gospel is much different than what Jesus, Paul and the New Testament people of God embodied, demonstrated and proclaimed.

And the discrepancy between the good news in the New Testament and our modern Christian culture’s version is more than mere attempts at relevancy for a modern audience. Rather, it exposes how much our culture has actually infiltrated and distorted the Church’s life and message. And if the dismal statistics are correct, the North American church is beginning to reap the fruit of such sickened seed.

The heavens declare the glory of God, the vault of heaven proclaims his handiwork, day discourses of it to day, night to night hands on the knowledge. No utterance at all, no speech, not a sound to be heard, but from the entire earth the design stands out, this message reaches the whole world.

I came across this site in another person’s blog. The panoramic shot of Mt. Everest is breath-taking. So is the one of Mars from the Spirit rover. God is an amazing artist!

Be warned: You’ll probably need a high speed connection to really enjoy these pictures.

Here are some more thoughts about God’s Spirit.

God’s Spirit (ruach in the Hebrew and pneuma in the Greek) is the “breath” of God. As God breathes out, he breathes his very “essence.” Since God is love, his Spirit – his breath, his essence – is personified love.

Stanley Grenz states in Theology for the Community of God, “God is love within himself: The Father loves the Son; the Son reciprocates that love, and this love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.”

The Spirit is also the creative Spirit. He hovers over the waters in the opening verses of creation. And in each moment of divine declaration, “God said,” is the implied reality that God’s word is accompanied by God’s breath. So creation is not only formed by the Word of God, but given life and movement by the Breath of God, who is love. The personal, dynamic love between the Father and Son, who is the Spirit, is the personal power behind the entire act of creation and the means by which all things exist. In other words, creation is a living expression of God’s love and goodness. That’s why at each phase of creation, God can proclaim, “It is good.”

But the Spirit is also the consummating Spirit. The cosmos was created good, but not complete. It is dynamic, created with a divine design to go somewhere. The Spirit’s task is to bring about the Father’s designs for creation, moving and drawing it toward its finale as the new creation.

What does the new creation look like? It will be the complete renewal of the cosmos into the fullness of true community, with the divine community of the Trinity at is center. Creation will become community in its complete and truest form, participating and reflecting the Trinitarian community.

Stanley Grenz offers three characteristic about the renewed creation. First, the renewed creation will be a place where God is fully present. Second, it will be a place of complete fellowship in peace, harmony, love and righteousness – not only between humans, but every living being in the cosmos. Third, it will be a place of glory. God will fully reign and his glory unleashed upon the earth. And all aspects of life will in turn, glorify God.

So the Spirit, who is God’s love personified, forms creation, fills creation and moves creation toward its finale. In the midst of this sweeping ministry, the Spirit establishes a beachhead of the future new creation/fullness of community through God’s people, as embodied in the life of Jesus.

Jesus is the climax and model of humanity living fully in God’s kingdom according to the Spirit. To borrow language from Colossians, he is the “firstborn” or the prototype of God’s renewed creation, the fullness of community.

We must remember Jesus’ place in God’s Story. He wasn’t just empowered to live his individual life in God’s future kingdom. That’s a contradiction in terms since life in God’s future kingdom is the fullness of community. Jesus lived in God’s coming age while embedded in the present age to inaugurate the renewed creation in the present. God’s future fullness of community climaxed in Jesus in the present age. Therefore, his entire life was transformative to everything it touched. Healings, confrontations, teaching, friendships, compassion, etc. were the establishing of God’s coming age in the present – the formation of God’s full and future community in the here and now.

Jesus sends the same Spirit to his followers so they may continue in what he established. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus is present when two or more gather in his name or nature. In other words, Jesus is continually incarnated in the communal life of his people when they gather to live in the order of God’s future renewed creation now.

Much more can be said, but I want to emphasize one crucial point regarding the Spirit. We are blessed with the Spirit not just to have a guarantee of our own ticket to heaven. That’s the same heresy we’ve possessed about salvation in Christ. Salvation in Christ and the presence of the Spirit are more about life on earth than admittance to heaven. Both are parts of a larger plan – the journey of the entire creation toward God’s renewed creation.

Nor are we blessed with the Spirit just to have great church meetings, either in a sanctuary or in a home. Nor are we blessed with the Spirit just to have power to live our individual “Christian lives.” Nor are we blessed with the Spirit just to assist in evangelism or other “functions” of the church. The bigger Story is that the Spirit enables the people of God to be the eschatological people of God — people who live in the order of God’s future renewed creation now, and by doing so, lead the rest of creation in the same direction.

Like Abraham and the nation of Israel, we are blessed to be a blessing. We are blessed with the Spirit so that the very nature of God, who is love, can transform us personally and corporately into the likeness of Jesus so we in turn can lead the entire creation into the same reality. That’s the message of Romans 8.

But the Spirit’s task of leading creation toward renewed creation focuses on the followers of Christ. That’s because Christlikeness is God’s future age, the new creation, in human form. Since humans were created to govern creation, as we mature toward Christlikeness we can increasing govern creation properly. This will naturally be in synchronization and cooperation with the Spirit, who is leading humanity and creation toward the new creation.

When you look at Jesus, you see the truest human expression of the future age, the fullness of community in a human life. He is God, who is love, incarnate. He is life in the kingdom of God in human form. He is the human expression of the renewed creation. He is the prototype for humanity’s existence in that renewed creation, which is full community.

Jesus is all of this through the Spirit in order that we too may live according to the Spirit and participate with him in his life. Jesus, in the Spirit, transforms alienated human life into redeemed communal life. Every conversion is by the consummating Spirit, bringing one more alienated human into redeemed community. Every healing is by the consummating Spirit, transforming brokenness into true community, whether it is physically, emotionally, socially, structurally, etc. Every step in spiritual formation is by the consummating Spirit, transforming the human person into one who can adequately and properly live in God’s renewed creation and community. To be in Christ is to live according to the Spirit, who is love. And every aspect of life according to the Spirit in God’s people is the further re-creation of that specific aspect of the cosmos toward the new heavens and the new earth, the fullness of community.