Frost and Hirsch: Mainline Applications

In the parts one and two, I complained about Frost's and Hirsch's shallow theology and extolled the examples they offered. Evangelicals can be like that; poor theology with excellent practice.

Mainline churches have it the other way. Solid theology with poor practice. In fact, we mainliners tend to look down our noses at churches who are actually effective at making disciples of Jesus, and who show creativity and innovation in outreach and mission.

We tend to be happier with our noses in a three volume system of theology than with building new churches in bars or boathouses. We like READING and TALKING about new forms of mission. We're just not good at leaving the safe confines of our offices and studies to actually, with God's help, CREATE something new and effective.

Of course, this is an overstatement. But those who've hung around mainline churches know what I mean.

But, this is changing. In fact, I see a convergence happening between evangelicals and mainliners. A slow convergence, but it's there.

Mainliners are starting to think more creatively about how we do mission. We don't really know how to go about this, and we're floundering about, making each minor success look like an earth-shaking move of the Holy Spirit. But we're changing missional directions.

The Church of the Apostles in Seattle. Spirit Garage in Minnesota. The “postmodern” ministry in Saskatoon (with all its attendant problems of youth). A house church network in Winnipeg organized by a United Church minister. Presbyterians (of all people) doing “theology on tap.” Good Shepherd having a chili lunch for the neighbourhood. These are all off the top of my head. But this is just the beginning. God is moving us mainliners in new directions.

And some evangelicals are starting to read theologians like Walter Brueggemann, NT Wright (kind of a crossover figure), and Stanley Hauerwas, while also (re)discovering liturgy.

Many are disengaging from some of their right-wing (notice I didn't say “conservative”) political stances and are reflecting biblically and theologically on the Christian response to social issues: third world and inner-city poverty, the AIDS pandemic, climate change and stewardship of creation, unbridled capitalism, etc. They are starting to see God's redemptive activity as more than saving souls. Mainliners now have partners among some evangelicals in proclaiming and working in God's kingdom of mercy, justice, forgiveness, and peace.

Some cynics might say that mainliners are more open to innovative mission opportunities because of declining numbers, that this is just the last gasp of a dying church.

Maybe. If that's true then we're not going out without a fight.

But I think we need to learn that churches are not to do mission out of a need WE have, but out of a need OTHERS have. Too much of mission is to get people into church, keeping the institution going, providing fodder for the organizational machinery, rather than loving them as Jesus loves them.

In other words, mission becomes about US. Not about God, Jesus, or a sinful, suffering, world. To remain faithful to our baptismal calling, Christians need to remember that Jesus came to redeem and heal a hurting world, not to maintain an institution.

More on this in Part Four.

Sermon: Pentecost 6 - Year B

Back in May, National Bishop Susan Johnson and a group of other national church leaders flew up to Ft.McMurray to take a look at the oil sands. She was part of the Kairos delegation (Kairos being the Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, an umbrella organization for various church groups to engage social issues from a gospel perspective. Good Shepherd is a member of Kairos. Corrine Jerke is our representative) that went to see first hand what was happening in northern Alberta.

According to the Kairos website, they went “To explore the theological, social, and ethical implications of fossil fuel extraction in the Athabasca tar sands. To listen, discuss and learn more about the Alberta tar sands projects and their impacts on all involved communities: society at large, workers, Indigenous peoples and communities, and the environment.

“The delegation’s week-long tour included meetings with church and community members, Indigenous peoples, civil society groups, government and industry representatives” (www.kairoscanada.org).

You might have seen the article about their trip in the Lethbridge Herald. And you might have read the letters to the editor the week following their visit up north.

One letter, specifically, was from someone VERY upset at church leaders sticking their noses where he believed they didn’t belong. He was angry that the churches were getting involved in social issue, instead of just sticking to our mandate of “preaching the gospel”and teaching the things of God.

I found it interesting that the...(whole thing here)

Censorship Sucks

Since when does CBC claim copyright on YouTube (if you clicked on the video on an earlier post you know what I'm talking about)? Here's a raw version of the video. Censorship sucks:

Frost and Hirsch Part Two: Stories and Examples

Real world examples are what makes these books good reads. Especially if you're someone who thinks that churches need to think much more creatively in how to effectively do mission. Even with poor theology as the backdrop, Frost and Hirsch excel in digging up stories of faith communities acting creatively, pushing boundaries of what it means to be “church.” Even redefining evangelism.

Exiles by Frost alone, without his accomplice, Hirsch, is the better of the two. But again, he beats the “Christendom is dead” drum that he and Hirsch hammered in The Shaping of Things to Come. Those of us who would read these books are probably well aware that Christianity is no longer the dominant cultural religion, and applaud Christianity's cultural demise.

But I liked the stories of the “churches” themselves. I hesitate to put “churches” in quotes because these are biblically valid forms of church. They just don't look like anything you or I would think of when we hear the word “church.”

For example, he tells the story of a would-be church planter in San Francisco who attempted to start a typical, evangelical, purpose-driven, mega-style church, but couldn't get anywhere in such a “tough” mission field.

So, instead of planting a church, he indulged his love of shoes and opened a fancy shoe store and creates Christian community at the store. He says he connects with more non-Christians in a the store in one day, than he would in one month as a typical church planter.

Also, there's the fellow with ADD who couldn't sit still in church. So one Sunday he decided to go waterskiiing instead. Feeling guilty that he wasn't in church. He asked his waterskiiing buddies if he could read some scripture and say a prayer before they started. He did. And in the months after, a group gravitated to him and he started a make-shift “church” among the boaters and waterskiiers, even creating a mission to help tow broken down boats back to the boat ramp.

In Vancouver, two young women, Marian and Kellie created a community of unwed young mothers, helping them with prenatal care, providing employability skills, as well as listening to their hopes and fears. They also offer the women opportunities to minister to others. They tell them about Jesus. But most importantly, the model the Christian life for these women.

The books is filled with these types of examples. Churches meeting in booths at karaoke bars or in refugee camps. Churches incarnating God's kingdom of love, mercy, justice, and forgiveness in their own, local, communities.

While I had deep theological concerns, the stories and the examples redeemed the book for me. I'm a sucker for a good church story. Especially one where people are thinking creatively, listening to the Holy Spirit's voice and following the Spirit's lead. As Frost rightly points out, God is already in these places. Our job is to get on board with what God is already doing.

In part three, I'll reflect on what these books can say to mainline Christians.

Part One here.

Overheard at our house

Our Five-Year-Old: Daddy, your belly's shrinking.

Me: It is?

OFYO: Yeah, you're getting thinner!

Me: I am?

OFYO: I better say bye-bye to your belly, (patting me on the belly) "Bye-bye, belly."

My Belly: Bye Bye

Viral Blogging: Frost and Hirsch: Part One

A few months ago I was invited to join “Viral Bloggers” (VB). A group of bloggers who are supposed to blog about some books. Since I'm always open to free books, I agreed. I liked this format better than getting books from publishers or PR firms who stop sending books if you write a bad review (which I learned the hard way). VB just want me to write about the books. They want to get a conversation started. So don't expect a traditional book review. Just random thoughts on what I read.

Here's my first post for VB. I'm supposed to discuss these two books together:

Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture by Michael Frost & The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century by Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch.

I don't like self-styled and self-proclaimed revolutionaries, which Frost and Hirsch are. Right out of the gate they warn that then reader will “encounter revolutionary ideas that will sometimes unnerve you” (Shaping, p.ix). Really. I almost put the book down right there. They assume much.

Yes. In both books, they challenge current church practices and provide examples of people creating missional communities. But so do countless other books. Books they quote.

From that beginning they launch into a tirade about the collapse of “Christendom” or the decline of the cultural dominance of Christianity in the west, as if this were new information. Frost and Hirsch aren't the first to discover that Christianity is in decline in west (paging Soren Kierkegaard) or the first to celebrate the shift (Douglas John Hall, Lesslie Newbigin, et al).

This is the kind of intellectual sloppiness and, dare I say, dishonesty, that I often find among evangelicals. Not that we mainline folks are exempt from intellectual ethics violations. But I find it more among evangelicals.

Also, both these books are shallow theologically, but attempt to go deep. Like most evangelical thinkers, they see the world, church, and mission through Calvin's penal substitution atonement theology. Their gospel is mainly about saving people from their sins, rather than seeing God active in redeeming the whole creation.

Furthermore, they use a fundamentalistic biblical hermeneutic, but don't realize it. For example, they came up with the acrostic “APEPT” to describe what ministry needs to look like in 21st century. “[APEPT is] the term we use to describe the fivefold ministry formula found in Ephesians 4. APEPT is an acrostic for Apostles, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher.” Other than the fact that this “formula” has been used by the charismatic movement for almost a century, and notwithstanding their self-professed “genius” of their model, a close reading of the Ephesians passage does not provide a “formula”for organization. It simply describes what was happening in the Ephesian church.

But they DO try to broaden the Christian response to what God has done for us in Jesus. They talk about mission as action, and they critique the consumerist takeover of Christianity by business-savvy pastors. Those are excellent chapters. But, again, they present the material as if they're the first ones to say it.

However, for me, the most glaring problem with this book is that they assume the problems of Christendom are simply problems of organization, structure, and strategy. They don't ask whether their theology was shaped by Christendom, since it emerged from that paradigm. They assume that theology is eternal, untouched by social forces. As much as they talk about being “contextual” they try to pour old theological wine into new contextual wineskins. Much of what they describe as their missional goal is really a return to Christendom.

For example, they whine about the fact that people in Sweden no longer have a “Christian worldview.” A term they don't define, and assume that the reader will be on board with this concern. Once we get into issues of “worldview” we get into meta narratives, which falls into questions of power (my metanarrative can beat up your metanarrative), it gets weighed down by all sorts of philosophical baggage, baggage that the authors fail to consider.

The greatest weakness of these books is that the authors can't break out of their theological shell, although they seem to want to – and think they are. A broader theological reading might be in order for Frost and Hirsch. Good places to start would be Douglas John Hall's trilogy, and Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God and Church in the Power of the Spirit. Not easy reads, but will help them think more deeply about God's activity in the world and how Christians can faithfully respond.

I'll share what I liked about the books in Part Two.

Harper Pockets the Communion Wafer

As a clergyperson, and especially as a Christian who takes the sacrament with great seriousness, I'd find it troubling if ANYONE came to communion without the intention of receiving Jesus' body and blood, and put the wafer in his/her pocket. So, this isn't a partisan jab.

Why would Harper come up for communion if he didn't want to receive the sacrament? Did he think that NOT coming up would be dis-respectful to both Romeo LeBlanc and the Catholic Church? Did he think his absence at the altar would be unnecessarily conspicuous and that as PM he should participate in the sacrament since all eyes would be on him? Is this a gluten issue?

Whatever his reasoning, it looks like he's trying to hide something. And this action is disrespectful.

UPDATE: Harper responds and Archbishop defends him.

UPDATE II: Since when does CBC claim copyright on Youtube (if you clicked on the video above, you kn ow what I'm talking about)? Here's a raw version of the video. Censorship sucks:



h/t

Sermon: Pentecost 5 - Year B

“Jesus ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.”

What do YOU pack when you go on a trip? Are you that person who drags a 6-piece Samsonite luggage set through the airport, carrying everything from a hair-dryer, to formal wear, to 3 sets of swim attire?

Or do you throw a few odds and ends into a backpack so you can glide smoothly from one destination to the other?

Or somewhere in between?

While I’m not a seasoned traveler, I’m told that the more you travel, the less you know to bring. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes a lot of sense.

Three years ago when our young adults went to Mexico for 10 days we decided that we were only going to bring whatever stores snugly into an overhead compartment or securely under the seat in front of us. We didn’t want to get bogged down waiting at the baggage carousel.

It was a wise decision. And when I travel, I usually do the same. I hate waiting at the airport. I like to just grab my stuff and go.

But Jesus says that we already bring too much with us if we can fill a small suitcase. If we are going to be traveling from place to place in Jesus’ name, then all we need to bring is that which hides our nakedness.

“Jesus ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.”

To be honest, I don’t know what to do with this passage. I DO know that...(whole thing here)

It's Not Easy Being a Christian

On the way home from convention, I was thinking about how hard it is to be a Christian. Not because an unbelieving world hates us (they don't. At least, not really), or because our numbers are dwindling.

I find it hard to be a Christian because of other Christians. We fight a lot. When Christians fight, it feels like the outcome has eternal significance. We talk about life, God, the meaning of creation, and somewhere in there lies the idea that, whatever we say about the Divine must be Absolutely True. No other truths need apply. And so, the church becomes one of the most political organizations on this beautiful blue planet fighting for the One Big Truth.

Visiting with a friend during convention, a friend who one would not call a believer (at least not in the classic, Christian sense. She can correct me if I'm wrong), but who is deeply perceptive of the things of the Spirit and of life, commented that she was surprised by the political goings-on at convention. The factions. The infighting. She thought that Christians might make a better effort to get along, if not actually love one another.

One would think.

For me, the biggest challenge of being a Christian is believing that God called this fractiously diverse group of people together and stamped God's name on its collective forehead. The challenge of believing that this is what God really wants for the church. That the church, as presently expressed is how God wants Christians to gather.

Apparently so. The earliest Christian documents were Paul's letters. And each of them were about how to deal with church fights. And these little churches could scrap. If these churches had noses blood would gush from them. They weren't any better at getting along than we are.

I guess that's why we live by grace. If God demanded perfect behaviour from us then we'd all better load up on cosmic sunscreen.

So, I suppose the real challenge is to live by this grace, forgiving others, being forgiven. I hate that part. I'd rather look down my nose at other Christians, believing I'm better than them. I'd rather fight the good fight against others, believing that, because my cause is just, I can behave against others any way I want to.

But that very act, that very impulse, tells me I'm not any better than them. And I fall back to grace.

Like I said. It's not easy being a Christian.

Happy Canada Day

One of the only countries that defines itself by what it is NOT:

We HAVE to add this song to our Church Repertoire

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

I got an unsolicited advance review copy of Donald Miller’s new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Apparently I’m supposed to blog about it. Of course, I will. The title intrigues me. Look for a review in the next couple of weeks.

But I’ll be upfront. I didn’t like his first book Blue Like Jazz. I know it’s almost heretical to admit that, and I have to turn in my po-mo, hipster credentials, but the book bored me into a coma.

He didn’t say anything new. For Miller, drinking beer and dropping the occasional f-bomb was evidence of a rebellious Christianity. It felt like he was trying WAY too hard to put his conservative past behind him, without really knowing what to put in front of him.

People compared Miller’s writing to Anne Lamott’s. He could only hope. Lamott has been to alcoholic hell and back. Miller simply grew up in a rigidly conservative church. Lamott is a poet, creating worlds filled with pain and grace, often in the same moment. Miller writes well, has a good turn of phrase here and there, but is still tethered to the world he came from. Lamott made a clean break. Miller has trouble cutting the cord.

But I have hope for this new book. It’s not that I think he’s a bad writer. He’s not. Just a touch over-hyped. That’s all.

What I REALLY wanted from Blue Like Jazz, was more righteous anger, more spitting bile, more fury at authoritarian Christianity. And growing from that anger, a broader vision of what his faith meant for his life.

I guess I’m reacting to my own frustrations with Christianity, specifically the church. And projecting them on to Miller. For me, my faith life often lacks passion, joy, life. Church becomes a matter of running an organization well. And faith becomes either a set of dry doctrines, or a system of behaviour, rather than a fiery encounter with Jesus and the kingdom he proclaimed.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Miller comes up with.