That Thing I Do Every Day

So I’m a campus minister these days. I catalog media, teach research methods, and talk about grace and judgment.* It’s pretty sweet, I won’t lie. So here’s my philosophy and practice of Christian ministry for the first year:

1. Know and love these people well
   
   
2. build a culture of prayer

Since I set foot on campus again in June, I’ve led the Daily Office nearly every weekday. Often I pray alone** but usually one or two other students will join me.

The Daily Office is shorthand for the Christian practice of “fixed-hour prayer.” Office means work. At various times in the day, Christians stop to attend to the presence of the Lord, read Scripture, pray portions of the Psalter, and to offer prayers for the sake of themselves, and others. Each of these regular services is called “an office.” There are three elements to this culture I’m trying to build – all of which are typically given lip service by the Evangelical culture, but not often practiced:

1. Praying the Scripture. Not having, constructing, or sharing options about the Bible. Not deciding what it “means.” Not contriving “applications” to the “real world.” This is about taking seriously the idea that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God by actually listening for the voice of God in the text. This is not about reading the Bible to “get something out of it,” but rather to spend time with the Lord simply for its own sake.
   
   
2. Praying with others. I would surely like to see all Christians raising up holy hands for the sake of the world in the privacy of their “prayer closets,”*** but this practice is only one aspect of Christian prayer. Christians pray together. I meet a lot of disciples who can’t or won’t pray audibly in the presence of others – that tells me that we really need to spend time learning to pray. That’s just fine, because God intends to teach us how through the Scriptures and the ancient practices of his Church.
   
   
3. Regular prayer. Our Master calls us to discipline ourselves for the sake of the Kingdom. One of the most basic ways for disciples to do this is by making the time for regular common prayer. We don’t pray just when we feel like it, and certainly not just because we feel like it. We are called to live lives steeped in Scripture, and to join in Christ’s priesthood offering prayers for the world because this is the stuff of God’s intention for our lives. Not because we feel like it, or even because we want to “grow spiritually,” but because we seek to be faithful to the one who loves us so very much, and intends to heal broken people through our ministries.

That’s my agenda for Year One. More shall be added for Year Two (it's not like I'm going to quit the first two points of the agenda, after all). Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

Oh yeah - and feel free to join me for prayers any week day in the Campus Ministries Lounge at 4:30. We usually pray for 15-20 minutes.



*I’m also a library tech, hence the cataloging and judgment bits.

**Mind you, one never really prays “alone,” since we offer our praises to the Father, with Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and this along with the whole Communion of Saints.

***This phrase alludes to Jesus’ caution against making public prayers for the sake of impressing others with one’s eloquence or piety. He told them to go to their “closets.”

Thinking about Mission

Two questions about mission... any takers?

1. What are the riskiest ventures you see being taken to incarnate the Gospel in a particular milieu, rather than attract people to "church programs"?
   
   
2. Where and how are our people working as missionaries to the undereducated, working class, or poor? What are some contexts in which Anglican missioners are faithfully preaching the gospel and engaging the poor in the worship of God?

Regarding the first question, some of my readers will be familiar with the distinction increasingly made in discussions about Christian mission, between "attractional" and "incarnational" practices of mission. In models of the former persuasion, people set up an attractive program that strangers will find attractive. Normal practices of this might include a "contemporary" worship service designed for people who would otherwise "find church boring," billboard ads, or giveaways. An incarnational model entails befriending people and teaching the gospel from in inside rather than on the outside of a social group.

Regarding the second, Anglicanism in North America finds much of its natural affinity with more educated populations. That's not necessarily awesome.

Thoughts?

Hospitality

A (Very Brief) Introduction to Christian Hospitality

One of the creative aspects of Christian theology is learning the ways that our Jesus stories subvert the stories that the rest of the world is accustomed to telling. When I talk with people about my work, I nearly always use the phrase "Christian hospitality" instead of simply saying "hospitality." When we talk about the subject, there are two normal stories that our alternative version seeks to subvert and replace.

When people hear this word, "hospitality," they often think of the "Southern" version. This is usually understood as the practice of pretending to like people you really find annoying or distasteful, and pretending never to be inconvenienced by even the most outlandish impositions. It has a built-in "martyr complex," in which the most successful (or perhaps godly) host is the one who can suffer the greatest inconveniences with the most convincing show of warmth. This is often called mistakenly called "grace."

The other story is related to the "hospitality industry": hotels, restaurants, and related businesses that cater to traveling businesspersons. Good hospitality in these terms is associated with anticipating and fulfilling the desires of clients and customers, who are often called "guests." While these stories will in some way echo the soundings of the Christian hospitality tradition, they are different stories altogether.

Christian hospitality starts with a story about persons, relationships and space. Like all Christian stories, it starts with the Christian God taking loving initiative in the world. In the act of Creation, God made a space brimming with life in amazingly diverse forms. He filled the space with all manner of flora and fauna, and placed people in that space - people who somehow looked like a God who can't really look like anything - in order to live in loving relationship with them. In ancient Israel, the Law required the people to make allowance for strangers, widows and orphans. The prophets railed against those who betrayed the Lord by failing those who could not help themselves. Israel was in a sense meant to be both a physical as well as a cultic/religious space in which outsiders of all kinds could be cared for and taught to worship and live with the true God. This is the same God who made reconciling space and the possibility of new relationship for us by the execution and raising of Jesus Christ, and presents that reality to us continually through the liturgical life of the Church.

This is just a summary, but the point is this: Christian hospitality is the practice of creating safe, healing space for others by which and in which they are invited to move into the abundant, beautiful life that Jesus has for them. It is both a story, and a set of diverse practices grounded in the reality that God has made safe, reconciling space for all of us. It looks like throwing parties, a quiet chat in the coffee house, a beer at the kitchen table, a place to stay for the night, an unexpected phone call: all of these things that are about sharing life and creating space, both physical and relational, in which other people are valued and loved. This is something distinct from being "polite," or doing the expected thing, or anticipating desires. These things can fit into the matrix, but they are not the substance, and they are not central.

What do you think of when you hear the word "hospitality"? What are some memorable ways you've received hospitality from others, or shown it to them?

Vespers

As some of you will recall, one major and public aspect of my mission at Georgetown College is to help the community enrich it's corporate prayer life by engaging the Daily Office. Each weekday at 4:30, I walk to the student lounge below the chapel to lead evening prayers.

I'd decided that using actual prayer books could be needlessly complicated in a context where regular public prayers are an odd occurrence, so I adapted the Office readings from Celebrating Common Prayer, an abbreviated Anglican Franciscan Office. The office begins with an opening sentence from Scripture that introduces a few moments of silent reflection in the Lord's presence. With the invitatory, we invite the Lord to enable us to speak his praises:

Lord, open our lips
And our mouth shall proclaim your praise

Then we say the Phos Hilaron together. This is the oldest hymn in continual use in the Christian Church, and I used the 1979 BCP version. Chris Tomlin has done an excellent interpretation as well, which we'll use from time to time when I can snag a guitarist.

Then we continue our praises by offering a Psalm, spoken in unison.

This is followed by an Old Testament Canticle, or song. We often say this antiphonally. Traditionally it would be chanted, but hey, I want people to come back. This selection varies according to the day of the week, and I've got it in a 5-day cycle. This is followed by a short reading of Scripture that I invite students to hear rather than read, in a meditative fashion. Then we spend several minutes in silent and spoken intercessory prayer for the campus community, Christ's Church, our own needs, and those of the world God loves.

This is always followed by the Song of Mary (Magnificat), often spoken in unison. We conclude with the prayer the Lord taught us, and by giving thanks to God.

There are a few students who regularly attend prayers, and their friendship and participation is a great encouragement. I know it will take a long time to develop a culture of prayer and meditating on the Scriptures here, but I'm ready. I've also been encouraged by the friendships the Lord has given me with a number of students; I was afraid I'd be too isolated back here in my cubicle with my cataloging, but that's not been the case at all.

Saints, Mission, and the Prayers of the People

A long title for a short post.

As you may have noticed by now, our parish's patron is Saint Patrick of Ireland. You may also have intuited by other things I have said, I might well be the only person in the community who refers to the good Bishop as "our parish's patron." I have no problem with that. I have been thinking of late about why it is that we have patron Saints, and what that means for our worship. In the narrative of the Christian Church, we look to particular people who by their lives and teaching give us upstanding examples of how to grow in faithfulness and conformity to Jesus Christ in all manner of instances. We discover in Christ a vision for redeemed humanity at peace and union with God, and we discover in the "Communion of Saints" what it can look like for ordinary people to be healed and redeemed into this new humanity that looks so much like Christ. Essentially, the Church teaches that holiness requires some imagination, and the examples of those who have gone before us serve to fire it up.

One of the reasons our community has Saint Patrick as a patron - as a model of discipleship to Jesus - is that he was a certain kind of missionary in a particular culture. We believe that we need to be a similar kind of missionary in a similar kind of culture. I'll talk about just what I think that means later on. I've been thinking how we can put the life of Patrick more "up front" in our life together as a parish, so I've decided to add this collect adapted from the BCP to our intercessions at Mass:

O Almighty God, who has compassed us about with so great a cloud of witnesses: Grant that we, encouraged by the good example of thy servant Patrick the missionary, may grow in love for those with whom we share our lives, and earnestly work and pray for their healing and salvation. Make us faithful and fruitful like Patrick, and cause us to persevere in running the race that is set before us, until at length, through thy mercy, we may with Mary, Patrick, and all thy saints attain to thine eternal joy; Lord, in your mercy -
- hear our prayer.

Or, "...through Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

So great a cloud of witnesses The language here is from Hebrews 11, which invites us to see those who have gone before us as companions and fellow travelers. These brothers and sisters in Christ enjoy the full presence of God now, and as we worship, we join our own prayers with theirs and Christ's. Their companionship should be seen as encouraging, and the example they offer teaches us that holiness is something that we can know and experience - it's not just a pipe dream; we really can belong to God in every aspect of our lives.

healing and salvation We have a proclamation - a story - about how the Creator God has saved and healed the world through Jesus Christ. that work of healing and restoration is ongoing, and we mean for everyone in the Christian community, as well as our "neighbors" who are not part of that community to experience the benefits of same. Jesus seeks to make us into a people who fervently desire abundant life - a life that is cleansed and healed of bitterness, addiction, and fear - for everyone.

Mary, Patrick, and all thy saints We look to our Lady as a model of discipleship. As she said to the angel, "Let it be unto me according to your word," so we also learn to say to God, "Let the good news of your dominion so form my own life, that I might also become a God-bearer, a conduit of healing and restoration for my friends and enemies alike." Like Patrick, we wish to be missionaries who approach our culture lovingly, nurturing a counter-culture that engenders (are you getting this yet?) healing and restoration.

Father, send your Spirit upon your people, that we might burn with love.
Lord Jesus Christ, continue the work of new creation in us.
O Creator Spirit, come and draw forth that creation in our lives.

O holy Theotokos, pray for us sinners, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Patrick, bishop and elder brother, pray to the Lord for us, that he would continue to form us as healers, teachers and apostles.

PASSways, Day 3: Rules for Youth Ministry

If a kid is getting on everybody's nerves because he doesn't know the difference between good and bad attention, the best course of action is to completely ignore him.

Kids respect you more if you're aloof, so it's best not to smile around them, or laugh.

It's important that praise mean something, so it's best to use it sparingly. (Ecumenical note: Baptists often use the same logic for Holy Communion.)

Believe it or not, kids actually do a pretty good job of policing themselves. Allowing the bigger kids to lock the irritating little ones in closets is a really effective way of calming everybody down.

PASSways, Day Two

Okay, so it's not really fat camp. I'm glad nobody chose to comment on that one.

It's an ecumenical Christian camp (but primarily consisting of CBF-type baptists) that's a spin-off from the Passport camps that many of my fellow Georgetown College alums will remember. This is the first time I've worked in a ministry project with Baptists since that ill-fated Kosovo trip in 2002. (I have snarky things to say, but I'll hold back.)

I've been quite pleased with the liturgies so far: meditating on scripture, responsive readings, Ignatian meditation, and centering prayer. Yes, I know. I'm really getting on well with the students, and it's wonderful to spend time with Josh and Jessica. We've been talking about the "monastic future" and Josh and I have been working on "Christian-baiting," wherein I invite Josh to lead the kids in the Pledge of Allegiance, and he invites me to explain to them my "snack-pak" theology. The bumper sticker version: "If Jesus can't smell himself on your breath, he's not letting you into heaven."

I will probably murder him in due course.

My afternoon ministry project is to visit an assisted living facility to make crafts and sing hymns with the residents. There was a little bit of unpleasantness this afternoon when in spite of being warned previously about racist jokes (never mind that today's camp theme is acceptance and inclusion) a couple of the students stepped in front of me and sought to amuse me with certain behaviors that would have been right at home in a WWII propaganda film. I didn't expect to become so angry, so quickly. I addressed all the students in a very loud voice and told them that racist jokes were not funny and would absolutely not be tolerated. The kid quickly apologized. I spoke briefly with him later and apologized for being so harsh, and felt better about it. That kind of behavior cannot be tolerated to any degree or in any fashion, but I didn't mean to publicly humiliate the kid, either. It doesn't make much sense to talk to the students about treating other people with respect and as brothers and sisters in Christ if I can't treat a student with respect even while chastising him.

Today an older black woman requested a couple of songs that weren't included in the 1975 Baptist Hymnal, so she was kind enough to sing them for us. It was a blessing - I was reminded that we weren't just being "charitable" toward these folks, they are (many of them) our brothers and sisters in Christ, and they were welcoming us into their home to share in common worship.

Thanks be to God.

Joshua Hearne: "On the Gospel of Niceness"

My friend Josh, a third year student at Duke Divinity School, was recently ordained a Baptist minister. This is his contribution to a recent discussion on Mormonism, and whether it's "Christian" to be "nice"... His blog, Not Quite Getting It, is high-quality, but currently on hiatus.

One of the comments that I quote most often is a paraphrase of Kyle: “When you become a Christian, you give up the right to be a jerk.” I absolutely agree with this. I think that you’ll agree with it, too, if you really think about it. When we convert from the systems of the World to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, something important happens as we are transformed into the image of our crucified and suffering Lord. As we remember that Jesus reigned from a cross, we must constantly forfeit our rights to ourselves.

If you’re a Christian, then you don’t have the luxury to escape the commitment when you want to.

But, on this thought we turn to what Kyle asked me to write about: Is our Gospel a Gospel of “niceness?”

We have to understand that there are many stories and many “gospels” in the world. They and their tellers are competing for our belief, assent, and commitment. Some gospels and/or stories admit the possibility of believing in others, as well. To make myself clear: When somebody tells you something like: “You have to look out for number one” or “If you don’t take care of yourself, who will?” then they’re preaching a gospel of self-interest. They’re telling you a story about how you should view the world. When they talk about how “what the World really needs is…” they’re telling you a story that narrates their life. They’re telling you a gospel. When they tell you what you need or need to do to be happy, they’re telling you a story. They’re telling you a gospel. There is a multitude of stories and gospels in the world.

“If you are financially stable, then you’ll be happy…” “What the people of America really need is universal healthcare…” “What those Iraqis really need is democracy…” There is no shortage of ways to describe and explain the world.

I have a fear, however, that the Christian Gospel has become a gospel of “niceness.” If we’ll only be “nice” enough, then people will get along. I’ve heard people describe “nice” people as acting “very Christian.” I’ve heard people talking about a conversation with Mormons and commenting about how “nice” they are (which they are, typically). Because of their niceness, I know people who believe that Mormons must be Christian because they’re nice.

They’re buying into a gospel that isn’t the Gospel.

Furthermore, I’ve met people who respond to my insistence that this isn’t the Gospel with a response of: “The Gospel is hard to define, isn’t it? What do you think it is?” Typically, I find this question hard to comprehend but, usually, I respond by saying:

“…that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

It’s right there in 1 Corinthians 15:3b-8.

What does all this mean for us? Let me put it in a language that makes sense to me (it’s the best I can do, probably). If you’re a Christian, then you will be nice (at the very least, you’re being redeemed into a nice person). I’ll express that as: If C, then N or C>N. If you know any logic (I applaud you, by the way), then you know that just because C>N does not mean that N>C. In other words, you can’t say that being nice is a sign of Christian-ness. So what does it mean? Yes, Christians are “nice” (or are becoming “nice”) but this is not their Gospel. The gospel of niceness won’t do. It isn’t salvific. It isn’t Jesus’ message. It isn’t the Kingdom. In other words, it’s an idol.

We have to dump idols, even when they’re nice and make us feel good about ourselves. Admit it, part of the appeal of a gospel of niceness is that it makes us feel good about ourselves. If the story is that niceness is the solution, then we’ve missed the point. This argument isn’t an excuse to be a jerk (see my first paragraph) but it isn’t a false gospel, either.

Niceness won’t save you. The life, suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of a crucified God will. Anything else is an idol and a false gospel.

Imperial Lifestyles

The Church is different from that which is not the Church. While this has not been true in all times and places, it seems to be an important aspect of the Church's identity that it serve in some way as a contrast society. The first Christians professed that Jesus is Lord and this meant that Caesar was not. The ancient manual of Christian ethics and church discipline, the Didache (from the late 1st and and early 2nd centuries) taught that "there are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways." Christianity was not - and is not - a matter of being dedicated to some grand ideas or particular theories about the way the world really works, but rather "the Way." Belonging to Jesus looks like some concrete commitments that mean something in the real world of human bodies and the way our lives are organized.

This has been the understanding that has driven the monastic impulse for the greatest part of the Church's history. When the Church at large in a particular culture gets so comfortable with its relationship to the state or the values of its host culture that it begins to lose the distinctive contours of its own story, some Christians will set out and ask themselves - and God - the question, "What does it mean to concretely belong to Jesus and live according to his story at this time and place in history?"

The stories we tell and seek to embody in our common life are Jesus stories - stories of a man who was God, who healed, exorcised, forgave, and prophesied. A church that does not do these same things begins to lose its coherence as a community that has continuity with the Jesus story. Telling and practicing this story will present lives that are lived in contrast to the stories and bodily practices of the Empire.

The Empire says that it's politics are all important, and that appropriate participation in them will save you. So does the Church. They aren't both right.

The Empire - and I'm not talking about the U.S. Government, but rather the entire Western consumerist construction - tells a story about abundant life that includes a spouse, 2.5 kids and a white picket fence that surrounds a house that looks like a Pottery Barn catalog. I live in the promised land of the Empire - the suburbs.

Why is it that people who are coming out of there and going back - the educated people, the ones with good jobs - just as lonely and unhappy as everybody else?

I'm out of time this morning - tomorrow I'll write on how and why this story is failing the people around me, and what we're doing about it.

Evangelism and Marketing

Third Sunday of Easter

Argument:

To discuss evangelism without an explicit ecclesiology is to reduce Christian proclamation to marketing tactics.

Explanation:

The bottom line of an "instrumental" ecclesiology is that whatever form "church" takes in a given culture is nothing more than the best means to a particular end. The problem with this is that if "the church" has a particular existance as an institution created and upheld by the Trinitarian God, there are bits of its "DNA" that we will lose if we can't find it in the goals we have constructed.

Example:

If celebration of the Eucharist a key component for the very being of the Church, but a particular congregation cannot see how it contributes to its goals for ministry or spiritual formation, they will drop it just because they don't "get it."

Recapitulation:

A church with an instrumental ecclesiology will engage in faithful, formative practices only insofar as its leadership can give rational account as to why those practices are "good ideas." There can be no such thing as taking anybody else's word for anything, and the Spirit can never offer the Church a provisional "just because."

Instead of being shaped by the Christian tradition, such a church will only be shaped by those bits of it that it has deliberately picked out and reshaped in terms of its own rationality.

That may or may not be a problem; I see at least two valid opposing arguments in such a discussion...

Quote of the Day

Eastertide

"Sadly, I find that when I give potential converts the thirty-second Jesus spiel (to save them from hell) and then release myself of any long-term commitment to spiritually disciple them, they become victims of shallow root syndrome. Human life goes on - cursed as it was before, dysfunctional as it was before, painful as it was before - and this simple sentence, minus the transformation that comes from internalizing God's truth over the long haul, sets them up for spiritual failure. Their roots do not go down deep enough; their roots don't know how to find or drink water."

- Sarah Cunningham, Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation (Zondervan, 2006), p.85.

And of course, the real crisis is realized when we find the courage to ask the question, what if the people who are offering the spiel and doing the work of discipleship don't know how to internalize and live the truth over the long haul?

Patriotism and Your Church

Ordinary Time

Of course it's no news for a church in this country to encourage patriotism in its people as some kind of Christian virtue. I wonder - how many of you have ever been part of a church that did not actively encourage patriotism or actively discouraged folks from considering particular values (freedom, stuff like that) as American virtues that the Kingdom of God somehow shares?

To rephrase, many churches have maintained the Puritan sense of the United States being a "city on a hill," having a particular theological vocation in the world as a nation. Others have not, and their ministers might go out of their way to say that America is a nation like any other - some are good and some are bad, but they are still just nations.

I want anecdotes!

Seeker Sensitive?

Ordinary Time

Marcus has posted a thoughtful response to my challenge against "seeker sensitive" church models. I like his bottom line.

One Punk Under God

Ordinary Time

So Liz has put me on to the "free view" section of our Insight digital cable menu. One of the options is the Sundance Channel's documentary series, One Punk Under God, which chronicles aspects of the life and ministry of Jay Bakker, the son of Jim and Tammy Faye.

Jay leads Revolution Church in New York City, and the documentary offers a great look at that work as well as Jay's personal struggles with family and teaching the faith. I've sat down to view the first two episodes, and I'm going to blog a little about the issues raised by each one. Today's topic: ecclesiology. (Next time: gayness!)

Okay, so here's the deal with Revolution Church as its depicted in the documentary: to a considerable degree, people in the United States experience Christianity as a religion that is determined to label some people as good and others bad, and to treat them accordingly. I have no quarrel with this, and it gets especially bad when some Christians start getting all hot and bothered about the "culture war." By the way many Christians and church leaders behave, one would never ever get the idea that the God of Jesus Christ actually loves sinners (which he does, by the way).

So what if somebody started a church based on the idea that Jesus Christ loves sinners? What would that look like? In the documentary, Revolution meets in a bar, and people come to hear Jay talk about the love of God. I should go back and double-check, but I believe that Jay said at one point, "if you walked through that door, you're a member of this." People come and listen and meet people and make friends, and they come back. They are offered a sense of belonging as soon as they show up. It is made clear to everybody that Revolution Church isn't there to judge them. From the website:

To show all people the unconditional love and grace of Jesus without any reservations because of their lifestyle or religious background, past or future. This love has no agenda behind it (I Cor. 13:5). This grace sets no timeline on personal change or standards for spiritual growth (Romans 4:4-5). The idea is to be a part of people’s lives because we truly care for them rather than to fulfill a religious duty; to walk with them through all their struggles as a part of their life, not as a religious outsider.

Jay takes a cue from Brennan Manning, noting that this church seeks to love people "just as they are, and not as they should be, because nobody is as they should be."

I want to say something about the pastoral and ecclesiological problems that will arise from this, but first let me be clear: it's a wonderful thing that these folks are trying to do and be, specifically a people who take the love of God seriously.

When somebody has this view of church discipline up-front - that there is none - when does one's faith commitment get 'round to teaching how to live? I think there are two wrong things that can be done here: insisting that God requires non-Christian people to live like Christians before he loves them, and insisting that God does not require Christians to behave like Christians.

God expects sinners to be sinners. The rest of us ought to, as well. Nobody ought to have to meet some kind of "moral standard" in order to hear and experience the reality of Jesus' love mediated through the Church. At the same time, salvation involves a Christian commitment, following in the Jesus way. That requires a lot of long-haul lifestyle change, and if people are going to be invited to be Christians, they need to know that up front. I think it's okay for people to take a long time to sort that out, and to be loved on and cared for by Christ's Church while they do that. However, let's not make the category mistake of calling interested seekers "Christians" or "members" of Christ's Church until then.

Some liberal Christians (and I use that word very carefully, and not as a pejorative) want to invite people to consider themselves as "belonging" to and being part of a church in every possible significant way before any kind of commitment to the Jesus way occurs (never mind Christian baptism!) because this is thought of as being "loving."

This is not loving, it is a failure of love, and a failure of imagination.

If we as Christians have to call somebody "one of us" in order to love them well, we have a huge problem. If I insist on saying somebody is "just like me" and part of the same thing I'm part of, when this is clearly untrue because otherwise I can't lavish them with love and care, I've got a big problem. Pretending someone is part of Christ's Church to get around my problem of not loving the people who aren't is just a great big cover-up, don't you think?

It's also interesting (Alan points this out, so I'll let him talk about it) that Revolution is very traditional in the sense that it talks about "members" and the liturgy includes Jay sitting up front and delivering a sermon. I don't care if he is smoking a cigarette, that's still pretty "traditional."

It's also an attractional model of the Church's mission; I'm not suggesting that the Revolution people aren't getting alongside folks in their real lives and seeking to love them well - surely they are - but I find it interesting that with their other concerns, they want to get "not yet Christians" to come to a religious meeting instead of having the meeting for people who are already "in." But I guess that's consistent with the notion of not having "insiders" or "outsiders."

I think there must be in a sense "insiders" and "outsiders" or else there's no clear idea of Christian identity. Of course, Christian identity requires loving and caring for outsiders as if they were insiders. We gotta remember that.

Technorati Tags: one punk under god, sundance, jay bakker, revolution church, mission, christendom, evangelism, mission, emerging church, postmodern christianity, ecclesiology, church, sin, discipleship, brennan manning

House Church: Misconceptions

Advent
Ambrose of Milan

Lots of people think that "house church" automatically means "a bunch of people prancing around like hippies and doing whatever the heck they want." I've been doing a little reading (and the Abbot has been explaining some things to me very slowly) and have discovered, much to my chagrin, that in many, many cases, those folks are right.

I had no understanding that when I say, "I'm a part of the Vine and Branches Christian Community, and we also happen to meet in a house," we are hyper-protestant, and think that each one of us is fully qualified and called by God to throw off all ecclesiastical "authority" and interpret the Bible, our only text, in the way that seems "right to the Holy Spirit and to us," and that, generally speaking, we believe the same things, like the same things, are the same ages, and do all the same stuff - a completely homogeneous group. (Check out a recent post by a friend of this blog, Darrell Pursiful, which opened my eyes to this: "When is a House Church Not a House Church?")

Holy cow! I had no idea!

Vine and Branches is quite probably the most "structured" house church you're going to find. We pray the Psalms together, discuss the lectionary text appointed for the day, make intercession for the Church and the world, and celebrate the Holy Eucharist at a small altar. We do this three weeks out of four; the other week we invite our friends for a party. See more details on Alan's blog, where he discusses "the liturgy of a small catholic church."

I'll let the Abbot speak for himself (oh, and he will!), but for my part, not having a church building has nothing to do with either throwing of the vestiges of an "institutionalized" church (that's not a dirty word to me), and certainly nothing to do with believing the ownership of a church building to be an intrinsic evil. It's about mission: in my considered judgment regarding this cultural moment (the time and place of the post-Christendom American South), having a "church building" makes us too reliant on a model of mission in which we try to get non-Christian people to come to the Church to receive religious goods and services that can make their existing lives as they already understand them to be more pleasant and happy. It's a bloody Jesus vaccine. It doesn't have to be that way, but it's very tempting for the church in this culture to do, and we gotta break out of that and instead go out and take Jesus into the world and be salt and light, not some kind of deranged religious version of a public utility.

Instead of focusing on programs or getting people to "come to church" to hear the good news, we see our mission and ministry and way of evangelism as going out to be with people who aren't believers (or apostate Christians, but that's another story) and taking the presence of Christ with us. We believe our greatest tool for spiritual growth, a gift of Christ to the Church, is learning to live together as the Church with a mission in God's world for it's redemption and recreation. We are agents of redemption and change in one another's lives, and unless we live close to one another, on purpose, in regular ways, our Christian growth is terrifically stunted. Full stop.

Can you have a building, and do that, and be about those things? Yeah, I think it's possible, but I'm not sure many pre-existing churches/congregations are really trying to do that or know how to invest the theological and relational capital. I think that Saint Patrick's Church does it, and work to do it. That's a big part of why I hang out with them. They rock. And so do we. I'm sure there are some other communities out there (and around here) that are like that as well, but these are the ones I know.

Technorati Tags: emerging church, christian community, lexington, house church, anglicanism, mission

Just Things

Ordinary Time

The CatholicGeek has some thoughts on silence today.

Ditto.

I'm working at LTS today until about three in the afternoon, if any of you BSK critters want to say hello.

My dad doesn't like to wear his glasses. As a result, he can't tell the difference between chapstick, a sharpie pen, and a highlighter. Think on that for a moment.

My family Thanksgiving was fun.

You might have seen the recent article in the Louisville Courier-Journal about the city's evangelical megachurches. Something I wish they'd discussed more was the emerging practice of creating megachurch franchises out of existing smaller churches. A friend told me a few months ago of how his parents' former church (they now attended the megachurch) had been given an "offer they couldn't refuse" - they didn't have enough money to keep full time pastors, so the megachurch was willing to buy out their property and give them a full-time minister, so long as they dissolved their governing board, let their deacons go, didn't baptize anyone. All baptisms would take place at the megachurch's main campus.

It's franchising. Seriously.

And don't get me started on Witherington's "cult of personality" comment. He's dead on.

Update 1. Oh, and check out this glowing review of Tom Wright's Simply Christian and The Last Word in the Christian Century.

Update 2. It gets better. You want to read this interview with Barbara R. Rossing, author of The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation.

What should Christians be saying about eschatology and what should ministers be teaching?

There is a sense of an end in the New Testament. I don't think the New Testament affirms a world without end. To the extent that that notion has crept into our hymnody it's a mistake. Nonetheless, our job is to care for the world and to believe that this physical earth is not about to be destroyed.

What is it that is coming to an end? That's the question. In Revelation what is described as coming to an end is primarily the oikoumene, which I translate as "imperial world," the world under Roman rule. Rome laid claim to the whole oikoumene—the lands and the seas, world without end. It's the word that's used in the Gospel of Luke's Christmas story, for example, in which Caesar Augustus decrees that the whole world should be enrolled in a census. Revelation proclaims that this imperial world must come to an end.

If we translate oikoumene as "imperial world" in a verse such as Revelation 3:10, then the "hour of trial that is coming upon the whole oikoumene" is not at all what rapture proponents claim—a general end-times tribulation that God will inflict during the earth's final seven years—but rather a courtroom scene in which God puts the empire on trial.

Two other Greek words, for earth (ge) and world (kosmos), are used more positively in the New Testament. A key verse is Revelation 11:18 in which God says, "I'm going to destroy the destroyers of the earth," not "I'm going to destroy the earth." The word for earth there is ge, which is used some 80 times in Revelation, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. God created the earth and still loves it, even though it also falls under judgment. The passages that refer to oikoumene in the New Testament are all negative. That is not case with ge or kosmos.

What do my Greek-reading readers think?

Technorati Tags: louisville, christianity, megachurches, baptists, thanksgiving, spirituality

On Hospitality

The Hospitality of God

God welcomes exiles, and creates places of safety and care for those who are lost. God provides a home. Canaan was the first promised land, and now it is and will be the whole earth. Hospitality isn’t just about parties (though parties are important signs of the Kingdom), but about reconciling with enemies and creating safe spaces for those who have none. Being a community of safety and real life restoration is the primary way the Church should understand evangelism, because it is as such a community that it embodies the news about Jesus.

The Hospitality of the Church

What does it mean to be a community? What are the best books about contemporary appropriations of the Benedictine traditions? What do the Benedictines have to teach the Church about showing hospitality? Who are the people for whom the Church is called to make safe spaces?

Living the Good News...

... as a counter-imperial metanarrative.

What does it mean to embody the news that Jesus is Lord of the whole earth? Particularly against our individualistic consumer society, it would mean that we understand ourselves not as individuals seeking to make our way in the world, but members of the Body of Christ. What are the deliberate practices of belonging to one another that post-modern American Christians are engaging in?

What are some of the ways that Christians are telling that story as a holistic, life-changing movement rather than just another way of thinking private thoughts about God?

More on Evangelism

What does it look like, and what does it mean to share the news that God has reconciled the world to himself through Jesus Christ? What do we say, and what do we seek to look like when we proclaim with our lips as well as our lives that Jesus is King? What are the good and bad ways of understanding truth as an experience?

Much of what passes for ‘evangelism’ at the present time assumes that persons should place high value on personal decisions, are minimally influenced by their social relationships, and if a foundationalist argument for the existence of a personal god can be made to “make sense,” people will “accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior.” If you’ve met me, you know I don’t have a lot of use for that. What is the goal of such modernist evangelism? What version of the Jesus story is put on offer? What are the philosophical foundations that such evangelists want people to believe, and what do they want their converts to do? Can any part of it be good?

I think any post-modern evangelism that is consistent with the biblical witness and the life to which God calls the church is going to present itself as an invitation to the Kingdom living that the Church is actually embodying: in essence, that some of the benefits of God’s ultimate salvation is being experienced and shared by the Church here and now, and that in friendship with the Church, individuals can see the goodness of life with Jesus in his Church.

I’m going to talk about God’s mission for his world, and how the Church fits into that. Lots of you are familiar with how this works already.

I also believe that when the Church understands that the Church is the most important medium for the Gospel message, it will place a higher value on the spiritual formation of its members as part of its commitment to evangelism.

Church and Witness

Leo the Great

If you've not read the little post I wrote on Christian community yesterday, do check it out. Following that discussion, I've been thinking about just what witness my own community of Vine and Branches offers the wider church and the culture at large.

I think it offers a witness for the community of Christ, and against religiosity. We meet in a living room. We involve ourselves in one anothers' lives and learn to care for one another, and to be a blessing to our neighbors. We don't have big religious events. We don't offer free turkeys to the first 200 families, or whatever. We seek to be a cohesive Christian community that steadily offers the gift of presence and care to the people around us as well to each other. No big worship services or pep rallies for Jesus. And there is absolutely no chance that 150 new people are going to come to our liturgy next week to "get excited about the Lord" in some vague way. But what we are - and I think this is far more important, or else we wouldn't be this - is a group of people that will know your name. When people visit, they're going to be spoken with. Folks get to know us a little, and we get to know them. There can be no slipping in to for the dispensing of religious goods and services, and then slipping out again anonymously. It's a big risk, and it's very deeply real. I think that's one of the reason what we are actually intimidates many Christians, whether they're lapsed or not. It's not the "big things for God" that make or break churches or the Christian life as a whole: it's the little ways that we dedicate ourselves to our common discipleship and God's ongoing redemption of his world. The little things are an every day thing, not special occasions - that's why it's a real transforming experience, and not merely a religious high.

As for the wider culture, we are a Christian community that seeks to love others well. It's important to me that folks who are not Christians (or who are lapsed Christians) to see us as a blessing to the world around us. I'm not sure if we've got that wired, or if we ever will, but it's a matter of process.

Do come back at me on this; I'm interested to know what you think. Also, you might talk to me about your own church experience, and even introduce yourself if you've not done so before. Are you involved with a Christian community? What's the biggest reason you're involved with the community you are? If you aren't, what's the primary reason you aren't? And no, I'm not going to harass you, but I'm curious.

Peace be with you all, and thanks for reading.

Technorati Tags: church, ministry, witness, house church