lifeasmission
exploring the mystery of life and mission as one and the same
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Archive of "stories" Category
Attractional/Missional: From Pragmatics to Formation
Beginning with Dan Kimball’s “Missional Misgivings,” there has been a recent flurry of discussion over the whole missional/attractional thing in the blog-o-sphere. Responses by Hirsch here, Cole here, Fitch here.
A good bit of what is being said in response to the topic (much by patently reformed folks) has to do with “cultural appropriateness.” Some seem to be suggesting that the seeker-sensitive/mega-church model of the church was a culturally appropriate model within Christendom and in a modern framework. By implication, this would then be the preferred model of church for areas which still fit this description. There is also an addition to the discussion pertaining to models for preaching and gathering. Again, the argument seems to be that we need to allow the culture to determine the right model. I submit that this the wrong approach to this discussion. It may appear to be an incarnational approach, but it is anything but.
My friend Sam reminded me of a quote by Lesslie Newbigin recently,
…if we begin with culture we are never taken back to gospel, if we begin with gospel, we ourselves are transformed and enter into culture to put flesh on the gospel.
This is the way we need to understand what it means to be incarnational – gospeling a culture, not culturizing the gospel.
The primary question church leaders need to always be asking is not, “What is the culturally appropriate way to be the church?” but “What is the most formational way to be the church?” The first question lends itself to our ingrained consumeristic tendencies and begets attractional churches; the second invites us to consider a different goal altogether and serves to cultivate missional communities.
We ought to always do what we do as the church specifically because it helps people to become more like Jesus. Willowcreek was probably the best example ever of a church that did everything right in terms of cultural appropriateness only to announce to the world how horribly they had failed to actually help people become disciples (my thoughts on their REVEAL study here and Fitch’s here).
I hope this makes sense. It is not my intention to question the motives and hearts of my well-intentioned brothers and sisters, but I beleive this to be a pivotal conversation for the future of the Church in the West and when the questions we seem to be asking have more to do with cultural pragmatics than faithful formation, I get nervous.
Let me end with a quick story. I recently attended a church planting conference where a supposedly “missional” church planter told those in attendance,
…the south is home to some of the greatest preachers in the world. If you are not a great preacher or teacher, you have no business trying to plant a church in the south.
I can’t even dream up a better illustration of what it means to so completely miss the point of everything missional is about. For this guy, it’s the culture, not the gospel that determines what you do, how you do it, and who exactly it is that does it. I just don’t think this is the best way forward for us.
No Conviction
I have a hundred things in my head to write about, but no time, it would seem, to get them down. So, in the midst of my own blogging silence, please enjoy a penetrating parable from a favorite theologian/pastor/author of mine, Peter Rollins.
The following parable will be included in my forthcoming book The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales (March 2009). A compilation of 33 parables and commentaries. This parable is called, ‘No conviction’,
In a world where following Christ is decreed to be a subversive and illegal activity you have been accused of being a believer, arrested and dragged before a court.
You have been under clandestine surveillance for some time now and so the prosecution has been able to build up quite a case against you. They begin the trial by offering the judge dozens of photographs which show you attending church meetings, speaking at religious events, and participating in various prayer and worship services. After this they present a selection of items that have been confiscated from your home: religious books that you own, worship CDs and other Christian artefacts. Then they step up the pace by displaying many of the poems, pieces of prose, and journal entries that you had lovingly written concerning your faith. Finally, in closing, the prosecution offers your Bible to the judge. This is a well-worn book with scribbles, notes, drawings, and underlings throughout, evidence, if it were needed, that you had read and re-read this sacred text many times.
Throughout the case you have been sitting silently in fear and trembling. You know deep in your heart that with the large body of evidence that has been amassed by the prosecution you face the possibility of a long imprisonment or even execution. At various times throughout the proceedings you have lost all confidence and have been on the verge of standing up and denying Christ. But while this thought has plagued your mind throughout the trial, you resist the temptation and remain focused.
Once the prosecution has finished presenting their case the judge proceeds to ask if you have anything to add, but you remain silent and resolute, terrified that if you open your mouth, even for a moment, you might deny the charges made against you. Like Christ, you remain silent before your accusers. In response you are led outside to wait as the judge ponders your case.
The hours pass slowly as you sit under guard in the foyer waiting to be summoned back. Eventually a young man in uniform appears and leads you into the courtroom so that you may hear the verdict and receive word of your punishment. Once seated in the dock the judge, a harsh and unyielding man, enters the room, stands before you, looks deep into your eyes and begins to speak,
“Of the charges that have been brought forward I find the accused not guilty.”
“Not guilty?” your heart freezes. Then, in a split second, the fear and terror that had moments before threatened to strip your resolve are swallowed up by confusion and rage.
Despite the surroundings, you stand defiantly before the judge and demand that he give an account concerning why you are innocent of the charges in light of the evidence.
“What evidence?” he replies in shock.
“What about the poems and prose that I wrote?” you reply.
“They simply show that you think of yourself as a poet, nothing more.”
“But what about the services I spoke at, the times I wept in church and the long, sleepless nights of prayer?”
“Evidence that you are a good speaker and actor, nothing more.” replied the judge, “It is obvious that you deluded those around you, and perhaps at times you even deluded yourself, but this foolishness is not enough to convict you in a court of law.”
“But this is madness!” you shout. “It would seem that no evidence would convince you!”
“Not so,” replies the judge as if informing you of a great, long forgotten secret.
“The court is indifferent toward your Bible reading and church attendance; it has no concern for worship with words and a pen. Continue to develop your theology, and use it to paint pictures of love. We have no interest in such armchair artists who spend their time creating images of a better world. We exist only for those who would lay down that brush, and their life, in a Christ-like endeavor to create it. So, until you live as Christ and his followers, until you challenge this system and become a thorn in our side, until you die to yourself and offer your body to the flames, until then my friend, you are no enemy of ours.”
From faith (as an idea) to Faith (as a way of life)
This past Sunday I had my first opportunity to address the Living Hope community. I must have had a thousand different thoughts on what to share. Ultimately, I really wanted to share some of my story and highlight something that I found relevant for where we’re at as a community of faith.
What I decided on was the way in which God used grad school to change me from someone who placed their faith primarily in a system of belief, to someone who tried to practice faith as a way of life and to put my trust in God as one who could never be contained or exhausted by my ideas or beliefs.
We looked at the Exodus story and the way in which even after being rescued and redeemed by God, the people of Israel wanted to relate to God from a distance, wanted to avoid the fear and unknown of continuing to follow God, and opted to worship a idol created by their own hands rather than worship the living God by living in the way he had directed them.
These were all reactions I was tempted to embrace during some of the tumultuous times of grad school and more importantly, reactions which I often fear the average church in the United States facilitates. To be a church which refuses to allow for a two-tiered model of discipleship (leaders and the rest of us), which constantly asks, “what’s the next fearful and risky adventure God is calling us into,” and is more concerned with passing on a way of life than a system of belief, doesn’t exactly lend itself to our individualistic, consumer-driven, instant-gratification-seeking, culture. Yet, this exactly the sort of future I hope for our community.
Over and above merely having the opportunity to share my story and what was on my heart and mind, I also enjoyed being able to invite some friends to participate in the service along with me. Liz led a responsive reading, and Mike and Zach led the congregation into the Exodus story, by reading Scripture. I shared an excellent quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that my friend Eric reminded me of, and offered our community some questions to stew on as we concluded.
Anywho, it was a great time. Thanks Living Hope for being awesome.
Emotional Culture
Emotions are tricky little buggers.
I want to tell 2 short stories and try to weave them together into a theological reflection.
Dodger Baseball. Or, What Sporting Events Have In Common With Hell
A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a Dodgers game where Barry Bonds was expected to tie to break the home run record – I am not a huge baseball fan, but I thought it’d be cool to be a part of that sort of history. I was jolted almost to tears when Barry came up to bat for the first time and the group of 25 or so 10 years olds behind me were led in refrains of, “Boooo. Barry sucks. We hate Barry.” My first thought was, “My God, we are teaching these kids to hate for no good reason – just flat out hate people completely indiscriminately.” It was sad in the truest sense of the word and I’d venture to say that this is very much what we might expect Hell to be like – unbridled, shallow hate.
Enslaved to Emotions
Last night I was hanging out with my good friend Ryan and we were talking about the ways people tend to engage one another. Ryan pointed out the tendency we have to either build people up or tear them down in our minds based on our emotional reaction to who we understand or perceive them to be. By that I mean, we have emotional responses to peoples ethnicities, religious or political stances, their social status, or just the way they look. And it’s out of these emotional (and therefore supercharged) starting points that we tend to look for things to confirm our emotional perceptions. For example, if I initially have a negative emotional response to someone, for whatever reason, not only will it be easier for me to point out their character flaws, but I will associate those flaws with my initial emotional response. It works the other way too. If I begin with a positive emotional perception of someone, I will be more inclined to notice good things about them and attribute those things to my positive emotional perception of them. All this leads me to the conclusion that in different ways, we are slaves of our emotions.
An Emotional Sanctification and an Emotional Culture
I don’t for a second consider this a detriment or a bad thing. Quite the opposite, I think that in much the same way as Paul implores communities of faith to become “slaves of God,” we ought to aim for a sort of “emotional slavery” that is actually liberating and filled with joy. Christians ought to be those who are seeking, not the abdication, but the sanctification of emotions. Sanctified emotions are those which are brought into harmony with the character of God in Christ. Feeling love toward enemies, feeling a righteous jealousy for the good of others, feeling passion for justice and righteousness, these are some of the things I mean by sanctified emotions.
Like anything else pertaining to the cultivation of a particular way of living life and engaging others, this is a matter of communal practice. These sanctified emotions do not materialize out of thin air and they are not brought about (thought perhaps helped) by individual prayer, study, and reflection. Just as our emotional responses are what they are on account of our upbringing, experiences, and cultural conditioning, it is as we live out a particular vision with others in specific contexts that our emotions come to be sanctified. It is to this end that I think churches are quite justified (and responsible) for attempting to create a certain kind of “emotional culture” as they seek a holistic discipleship which encompasses the emotional dimension of what it means to be human. Maybe it’s better to say that, in fact, all church communities already do this, it’s just a matter of awareness, intentionality and vision.
A Memorial Week at Home
Attention: Long Post Ahead – For your own safety please consult bold headings and pictures
Home to Ohio – Thursday, May 24
I am in Cleveland airport returning from a week home in Ohio. I was home to spend time with family, to be with my community of friends who were taking advantage of the long weekend to be together, and just to plain break the monotony and have a change of scenery. My travel schedule wasn’t the best as I left at 12:30 am last Thursday (LA time) and I’ll be arriving at 1 am tomorrow. However, on the way out here the flight was overbooked and though I volunteered to step off, I was instead assigned a seat in first class. I didn’t put up much of a fight. I got to spend my first day at home with my mom. We had a nice afternoon and dinner together and then she deposited me down in Canton as she was leaving the next morning to spend a few days with my grandma up at Pelee Island in Lake Erie. I went out with Babs and Jay for some wings and to watch a disappointing loss by the Cavs.
My Worship Gig – Friday, May 25
No sooner was I home than I got an offer from my friend Nicole to help with a Kindergarten graduation by playing guitar for a song the kids were gonna be singing and dancing to. I was thrilled to help. So, Nicole and her husband Johnny came over to Sarah, Jay, and Wendy’s where I was staying and taught me the song, “Ain’t Nobody.” It was a camp sort of song with a funky rhythm, which, I forgot 5 minutes after I mastered it. We rehearsed with the kids on Friday morning. After I left rehersal I stopped off to see Sean and Julie who had just gotten in town and visited with them for a bit as well as Ryan and Christina and the rest of the Savage clan. I was set for a nap by the time I got back, but made the mistake of asking Jay if he wanted to go for a run. I pretty much relaxed after that until the actual graduation that evening. After that, we just waited for Cris to get in town from D.C., and we watched a movie together.Lindsay’s, Angle Ball, & Bonfire – Saturday, May 26
Saturday morning began with a visit to famed breakfast spot, Lindsay’s in Massillon. Lindsay’s is a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that, between the clientèle and cheap breakfasts, is a must-do. Heather and Ryan made it in that morning and joined Jay, Wendy, Sarah, Cris, and I. We hung out for a long time just chatting, catching up, and laughing.
The mandatory game of Angleball was slightly delayed due to some revolutionary construction on Babs’ part, aided, of course, by his trusty sidekicks (Sean, Josh, and I).
We played Angleball in the rain which made it way more fun. Sean, in true Sean fashion, played barefoot and amused several with a punt which landed him flat on his back. Jason, who was able to play as well, appropriately wore his Under Armor, and toasted all of us all over the field.
We went home and cleaned up and then reconvened at Babs and Carrie’s house for dinner and a Bonfire. Babs and Carrie were extremely gracious as hosts and I was so happy that a whole slew of people showed up. Besides the hosts, I got to see Jay, Wendy, Sarah, Ryan, Heather, Sean, Julie, Jess, Trisha, Nate, Shawn, Sarah, Branden, John, Greg, Natalie, Josh, Rachel, Cris, and maybe a few others I am unfortunately forgetting right now. It was a really good evening together.
My Favorite Lunch & Then to Chargrin Falls – Sunday, May 27I was able to visit my friend Dave who serves as a campus pastor in Hartville on Sunday morning. He was preaching and it made me nostalgic for the days when we served together.
Sunday was also Nate and Trisha’s 1-year anniversary. Thanks for the reminder Trish
I visited with Dave and his wife Tami for a bit after the service and then I was off to my most favorite lunch that I have each time I am home, when I get to reconnect with the students who are still so dear to me. I was able to share a meal with Josh, Ryan, Adam, Nate, Olivia, Lauren, Marci, Alex, Shawn, Sarah, and Leanne at Chili’s. Of course I wasn’t able to spend as much as time with each of them as I would have liked, but it was great to get a glimpse into what’s going on in their worlds and to fill them in on what’s going on in mine.On my way back to the house, I ran by and said hello to my friends Ryan and Sarita, Sarita’s sister Rachel who was home from college, Sarita’s folks, Nate and Trish, and Ryan and Sarita’s new-born, Kayla. They were hanging out at Cici’s for Ryan’s birthday.
Then, it was up to Chagrin to hang out at Heather’s for the day and to hit downtown for a Hot Air Balloon launch. Sarah and Ben Drenik as well as Amy Smith came in town for the afternoon and Jason, Sarah, Josh & Rachel, Jay & Wendy, and Cris were there as well. We tossed the football around the back yard, had a great lunch, spent some time at the launch and then had the chance to go to Josh’s parents’ house for a bonfire. It was really a sweet day just being with everyone.
Making the Rounds – Monday, May 28
Monday was designated “see-as-many-people-as-possible-day.” I met up with Sean & Julie and Ryan & Christina at the Savage’s house in the morning. Julie and I taught Sean and Ryan how to play euchre and had a good time as always. From there I went over to visit Nick and the rest of the Snavely clan for a while. It was good to catch up with them as well. I got to meet up with Gina after that at Panera – our usual meeting place and she filled me in on her life at college, plans for the summer, and nervousness about finding a job in the “real world” after she graduates next year. We walked down and said hi to Leanne who was working her first day at Old Navy, and then I had to take off. The Gougler’s had me over for an awesome dinner and I got to meet Liv’s new boyfriend Steve. They just have to be about one of my most favorite families in the world. We were only missing Krysta who is over serving in Africa. After dinner I got to meet up with probably my most favorite person in the world, (also a contemporary Jonah) Jordane. We walked a few laps around Jackson park talking about life, love, God, and everything inbetween. We parted and I closed out the day of visits with some time at a d-group meeting with some of my favorite guys. I got back to the house where Jay, Wendy, Cris, Sarah, and I played a little game called, “Tell Everyone Your Most Embarassing and Private Secrets.” If you have (or want) really good friends, I highly recommend this game! We started to watch Stranger Than Fiction, but one by one, we all faded away.
Winding Down – Tuesday, May 29
Tuesday was nowhere near as exhausting, but fairly packed and fun nonetheless. I met up with Dave in the morning at Starbucks and had a good chat and visit with him. I envy so much his character and desire to be used by God. I ran by the alumni office at Malone basically just for the heck of it and it was good to connect with Deb and keep her informed of where I am at and what I am looking to do. You just never know what connections God might make through who. Later in the afternoon I spent sometime with Jason and Suzi and their awesome kids Caris and JJ.
After that Babs and I went to check on some stuff at my house. My mom came down and I got to have dinner with her and Ken, my best friend from high school and his girlfriend Emily. After dinner my mom and I went to see Reign Over Me, which we both enjoyed (me for the 2nd time – great soundtrack) and then we got some ice cream with Ryan and Christina. I said good bye to my housemates for the week and headed back to Stow.
On My Way Back – Wednesday, May 30
Slept way in this morning. Today was the only day that I didn’t have to get up for anything. I helped my mom with some stuff around the house, we took lunch and visited with my grandma, and watched a movie together in the afternoon. I caught my plane back and now I am sitting in the Las Vegas airport wondering how that week went so dang fast. My buddy Sam will be picking me up at the airport and then it’s back to work tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone who made my trip home a sweet time. I miss you already.
Some Good Readin’
For those of you who read my posts through email or an RSS feed, I though I’d mention that I added something new on my sidebar – a widget which displays a constantly updated list of various blog posts, articles, news headlines, etc., that I will be tagging through del.icio.us (a social bookmarking sight that you should definitely check in to if you haven’t already). Alternatively, if you don’t expect to be actually going to my site all that much, but would like to stay up on the stuff that I think is worth a glance, you could just subscribe to the feed. Just my little attempt to scatter abroad the stuff that I think is worth some time and attention. Hope you enjoy.Incidentally, I also regularly tag things as…
mac
social
webtools
theology
wp (wordpress)
music
imaging
books
blogsYou can subscribe to any one of those feeds, or to everything I tag through delicious here.
Hi There…
Hey, I'm JR - welcome to the blog.
I'm just an average guy trying to shape his identity around God's dream for the world and his place in it. This blog is a place for me (and you!) to reflect on and discuss all that might mean. Looking for a bit more on me? Check out the about me. Peace.
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