Here are some of my reflections on mission spurred on by George Hunsberger at the NewForm conference...
On a Mission
I was in a meeting recently where someone remarked that they were so tired of rewording mission statements that they were ready to be done with mission statements altogether. I sympathize with the frustration. Even being the ‘word-nazi’ that I am accused of being, mission statements, purpose statements, vision statements, and the like seem pretty irrelevant if they are as ignored as they typically are. After rewriting them enough times, you ask, “What’s the point?”
More important than having a mission statement is having the sense that you are on a mission—that you are participating in something bigger than yourself and working for a purpose that is good and right and lasting. Mission statements can be very helpful in bringing clarity about our quest—our assignment, our mission—but without a sense that we are actually on a mission (God’s mission in particular), statements are about that mission are meaningless.
So our real challenge is to start seeing ourselves as a people on a mission--and that is to say that we are "a body of people sent" (that was the title and subject of George's presentation). That mission begins by God’s initiative, and therefore it is God’s mission and we are invited to join up with it. We do not have the prerogative of making one up for ourselves. We can certainly talk about the specific ways we will live in and from that mission (mission statements will reflect this), but the mission has already been given. We have already been sent.
The job of leaders is to remind us that we are a sent people—a people on a mission. Being on this mission involves three primary actions. First, it involves representation—simply living as a faithful people. We are sent to ‘colonize’ (see Phil 3:20-21) our neighborhoods and workplaces and schools by simply being ‘heaven-ized people’ together in those places. We are to be the present representatives of what life-with-God-as-king looks like.
Second, being on this mission involves participation—active cooperation with what God is doing in the world. We are not just to talk about what should be; we are to be actively engaging in what God wants done. We look where there is injustice, violence, destruction, and suffering, and we work to bring justice, peace, healing, and wholeness. Being on this mission means that we are pulled forward by God’s desire for the healing of our broken world.
Third, being on this mission involves invitation—calling people to receive and enter into the rule and reign of God. We are not calling people to make travel plans for the afterlife—we are calling people to align themselves with God’s kingdom, and thereby enter into the life that is truly life. We do this as our lives together (representation) and our engagement with the world around us in the reality of the kingdom of God (participation) present a tangible and attractive option to the people around us.
Friday, May 28, 2004
I spent last week in Nashville at the Emergent conference. I'll post more about it later, but it was very good. This week I was part of a conference exploring new forms of being the church. Thus it was called 'NewForms.' More on that later as well.
I've been thinking about the war a great deal lately. I've been seeing church signs stating things such as 'Thank God for your freedom.' Don't get me wrong. I am thankful, but the kingdom on the United States of America will pass away too. Only one kingdom will prevail, and only one kingdom will rule forever. So to whom do you pledge your allegiance?
I've been thinking about the war a great deal lately. I've been seeing church signs stating things such as 'Thank God for your freedom.' Don't get me wrong. I am thankful, but the kingdom on the United States of America will pass away too. Only one kingdom will prevail, and only one kingdom will rule forever. So to whom do you pledge your allegiance?
Thursday, May 13, 2004
I got this email from Randy this morning...
THIS Sunday night we will be meeting at the home of Jerry & Ruth Vanden Bosch! (4372 Shady Oak Ct. Hudsonville, MI 49426) It’s part of our ‘Don’t go to church – Be the church’ thing.
We’ll be eating, enjoying the springtime, maybe singing, and perhaps playing some volleyball or chasing kids around the yard.
Three things I need from you:
1 – If you receive this and are interested in joining us, RSVP back to me by either e-mail or my cell phone. We need an idea for the grill food. J
2 – Take some food thing to share. We’ll be having burger & dog kind of food. So, take something that is good summer food.
3 – Invite friends.
Dog kind of food?
The newform conference is being hosted by Allelon and Journey. I'm going to be there. Are you?
THIS Sunday night we will be meeting at the home of Jerry & Ruth Vanden Bosch! (4372 Shady Oak Ct. Hudsonville, MI 49426) It’s part of our ‘Don’t go to church – Be the church’ thing.
We’ll be eating, enjoying the springtime, maybe singing, and perhaps playing some volleyball or chasing kids around the yard.
Three things I need from you:
1 – If you receive this and are interested in joining us, RSVP back to me by either e-mail or my cell phone. We need an idea for the grill food. J
2 – Take some food thing to share. We’ll be having burger & dog kind of food. So, take something that is good summer food.
3 – Invite friends.
Dog kind of food?
The newform conference is being hosted by Allelon and Journey. I'm going to be there. Are you?
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Your Kingdom Come in Our Creativity
We were talking through the Lord's Prayer this past Sunday night, and I shared some thoughts about how homogenization and commodification steal away creativity which is, I think, a central feature of our identity and life as beings created in the image of God. Okay, now that's going to need some 'splaining.
God creates. God creates human beings. God creates human beings in his image. Now, people have argued about what that phrase, 'in his image' means for years, but part of what that communicates is that in some ways God has made us like him. We bear the marks of personality, capacity for personal relationship marked by love, and creativity. Creativity is the ability to bring into being something which is an expression of yourself. Whether it is an expression of your interpretation of life through art, or an expression of your applied learning through invention or engineering, creativity is about unique expression of the self.
Creativity involves breathing life into something. God spoke the universe into life and life into the universe. God spoke and created plants and animals and fungi and all kinds of living things. God breathed life into human beings. The universe itself is one unique expression of God's being.
Again, creativity is about unique expression and it brings life.
Now, let's look at what is happening in USAmerican culture. We have a giant movement of homogenization--making everything the same. Even the variations have this kind of homogenaic imperialism about them. "Do you want to be a rebel? We have you're wardrobe ready at Hot Topics!" "Do you want to be a sexy teenager? We have your prepackaged life...I mean, look...at A&F." "Do you want the good life at a great price? We've got your Kenmore appliances at Sears."
I think there are many people who sense what all that Mall of America culture is doing--it is stealing life. It is robbing people of any need for creative self-expression. Everything is already color coordinated and pre-packaged. Not only do you not have to make your own clothes (something that even my mom did when she was a teenager), you don't even need to go to the people who make the clothes (in fact, you couldn't if you wanted to!). You have mega-companies doing all the deciding for you. They even tell you what to wear (think of GAP commercials).
No more thinking. No more creating. No more self-expression. Only consuming and advertising for more consumption. Humanity is suffocating itself here in USAmerica.
Now think about art. When art is commodified, mass produced, and mass-distributed, it loses value. There is something about millions of people buying Thomas Kinkade prints that robs them of value. What was art is now wallpaper. Creativity is suffocated by cheap, readily available, mass-produced images. Not only do I not know what that painting or photograph at Target is about, I really don't care as long as it matches my sofa.
This attitude is nowhere more diabolically present than in what we USAmericans call a "worship service." To pick on music alone would be unfair, but let's look at it a minute. How many truly creative, unique, self-expressions of worship in song are shared in believing communities on any given Sunday (or any other day for that matter)? I would guess that the percentage is shockingly low. How many communities have songs that tell of their unique interaction with God and his faithfulness to them? I guess that it is very few. In fact, the good, creative stuff usually ends up in the playlist of thousands of other communities who have abdicated their creative self-expression for the convenient creativity of others. Vamping off of someone else's experience with God is what many communities end up doing. What was art is now wallpaper. (Maybe we'll have a book called "Wallpaper Worship.")
Now, I don't doubt that people can be encouraged and helped by the stories and songs of other communities, but when we completely abdicate our own songs and stories, something is robbing life from us: death is creeping in.
So then, take the next step and think of creative self-expression of worship in things other than songs. The reality that for many people worship is (only) singing betrays the fact that we have lost creativity. Some people told us that worship is singing. Others went further and told us that it was singing in a certain style, etc.
I hope you can see what I'm getting at here. Breathing life into a community happens not when we take on someone else's format, music, teaching style, etc., but when we honor the latent creativity (in whatever forms it takes) in the people who are already there. I think when that happens, God's revolution has come to that people: God's Life floods into that community in refreshing and unexpected ways.
Emerging communities need to be careful that they are not vamping the experience of other communities. Yes, we can learn from others. Yes, we can share and benefit from the creativity of others. But let's not do it without expressing the unique creativity
that flows from our own experience with the Creator and his creation. Let's respect our own unique vocation as creative kingdom agents and help each other to discover and embody our particular expression of our calling.
We were talking through the Lord's Prayer this past Sunday night, and I shared some thoughts about how homogenization and commodification steal away creativity which is, I think, a central feature of our identity and life as beings created in the image of God. Okay, now that's going to need some 'splaining.
God creates. God creates human beings. God creates human beings in his image. Now, people have argued about what that phrase, 'in his image' means for years, but part of what that communicates is that in some ways God has made us like him. We bear the marks of personality, capacity for personal relationship marked by love, and creativity. Creativity is the ability to bring into being something which is an expression of yourself. Whether it is an expression of your interpretation of life through art, or an expression of your applied learning through invention or engineering, creativity is about unique expression of the self.
Creativity involves breathing life into something. God spoke the universe into life and life into the universe. God spoke and created plants and animals and fungi and all kinds of living things. God breathed life into human beings. The universe itself is one unique expression of God's being.
Again, creativity is about unique expression and it brings life.
Now, let's look at what is happening in USAmerican culture. We have a giant movement of homogenization--making everything the same. Even the variations have this kind of homogenaic imperialism about them. "Do you want to be a rebel? We have you're wardrobe ready at Hot Topics!" "Do you want to be a sexy teenager? We have your prepackaged life...I mean, look...at A&F." "Do you want the good life at a great price? We've got your Kenmore appliances at Sears."
I think there are many people who sense what all that Mall of America culture is doing--it is stealing life. It is robbing people of any need for creative self-expression. Everything is already color coordinated and pre-packaged. Not only do you not have to make your own clothes (something that even my mom did when she was a teenager), you don't even need to go to the people who make the clothes (in fact, you couldn't if you wanted to!). You have mega-companies doing all the deciding for you. They even tell you what to wear (think of GAP commercials).
No more thinking. No more creating. No more self-expression. Only consuming and advertising for more consumption. Humanity is suffocating itself here in USAmerica.
Now think about art. When art is commodified, mass produced, and mass-distributed, it loses value. There is something about millions of people buying Thomas Kinkade prints that robs them of value. What was art is now wallpaper. Creativity is suffocated by cheap, readily available, mass-produced images. Not only do I not know what that painting or photograph at Target is about, I really don't care as long as it matches my sofa.
This attitude is nowhere more diabolically present than in what we USAmericans call a "worship service." To pick on music alone would be unfair, but let's look at it a minute. How many truly creative, unique, self-expressions of worship in song are shared in believing communities on any given Sunday (or any other day for that matter)? I would guess that the percentage is shockingly low. How many communities have songs that tell of their unique interaction with God and his faithfulness to them? I guess that it is very few. In fact, the good, creative stuff usually ends up in the playlist of thousands of other communities who have abdicated their creative self-expression for the convenient creativity of others. Vamping off of someone else's experience with God is what many communities end up doing. What was art is now wallpaper. (Maybe we'll have a book called "Wallpaper Worship.")
Now, I don't doubt that people can be encouraged and helped by the stories and songs of other communities, but when we completely abdicate our own songs and stories, something is robbing life from us: death is creeping in.
So then, take the next step and think of creative self-expression of worship in things other than songs. The reality that for many people worship is (only) singing betrays the fact that we have lost creativity. Some people told us that worship is singing. Others went further and told us that it was singing in a certain style, etc.
I hope you can see what I'm getting at here. Breathing life into a community happens not when we take on someone else's format, music, teaching style, etc., but when we honor the latent creativity (in whatever forms it takes) in the people who are already there. I think when that happens, God's revolution has come to that people: God's Life floods into that community in refreshing and unexpected ways.
Emerging communities need to be careful that they are not vamping the experience of other communities. Yes, we can learn from others. Yes, we can share and benefit from the creativity of others. But let's not do it without expressing the unique creativity
that flows from our own experience with the Creator and his creation. Let's respect our own unique vocation as creative kingdom agents and help each other to discover and embody our particular expression of our calling.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Evangelism, Not Conversionism
Evangelism is a word that is thrown around quite a bit, and what we usually mean by it is “converting people to our way of thinking.” Biblically speaking, that is not entirely what evangelism is. Simply put, evangelism is proclamation of good news. The good news that we are to proclaim is not that people can go to heaven when they die (I know that may sound shocking to you!), but that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is King over the whole earth and is inviting everyone to live cooperatively under his ruling and reigning (his ‘kingdom’) by following in the Way of Jesus the Messiah.
What we are calling people to do is not to simply agree with our way of thinking, but to enter an entirely new order, or way, of life. We are saying that this world and its present order, or approach to life, is on the way out; and that anyone who implants their life in the present order is not only headed for a ruined life, but disconnecting themselves from the very Source of life. We are saying that there is a new order that is breaking into the present order, and will one day completely replace it. In this new order, people of all nations, races, languages, and cultures can live connected to the very Source of life by placing themselves in the Way of Jesus—becoming his students and partners in God’s mission of healing all of creation.
We are saying to people who are in captivity to the present order that "God isn’t mad—he’s sad" (thanks Jim). We are saying that God misses them and searches for them like a shepherd searches for a missing sheep, or like a woman searches for a missing coin, or like a father searches for a missing son.
For far too long, we have trivialized the gospel. We have allowed our message to be truncated into a message about making arrangements for death. We have turned evangelism from announcement of God as King over the whole world and calling—both through our words and the quality of our lives together—for the world (individuals, communities, societies, etc.) to live accordingly, into a neat little formula for securing eternal self-preservation in unending, non-embodied, spiritual bliss.
God wants every part of his creation to experience the goodness of his rule and reign. Right now, much of creation finds itself in the situation of the prodigal son: the inheritance has been spent (or nearly so), pig food is passing for meals, and the faded memories of a life long past are stirring up a longing for even the lowliest place in the father’s house. Our task is not to point out the terrible state of the prodigal—he already knows that—but to join the father in his search and join him in his embrace and celebration when the prodigal does come home.
Evangelism is a word that is thrown around quite a bit, and what we usually mean by it is “converting people to our way of thinking.” Biblically speaking, that is not entirely what evangelism is. Simply put, evangelism is proclamation of good news. The good news that we are to proclaim is not that people can go to heaven when they die (I know that may sound shocking to you!), but that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is King over the whole earth and is inviting everyone to live cooperatively under his ruling and reigning (his ‘kingdom’) by following in the Way of Jesus the Messiah.
What we are calling people to do is not to simply agree with our way of thinking, but to enter an entirely new order, or way, of life. We are saying that this world and its present order, or approach to life, is on the way out; and that anyone who implants their life in the present order is not only headed for a ruined life, but disconnecting themselves from the very Source of life. We are saying that there is a new order that is breaking into the present order, and will one day completely replace it. In this new order, people of all nations, races, languages, and cultures can live connected to the very Source of life by placing themselves in the Way of Jesus—becoming his students and partners in God’s mission of healing all of creation.
We are saying to people who are in captivity to the present order that "God isn’t mad—he’s sad" (thanks Jim). We are saying that God misses them and searches for them like a shepherd searches for a missing sheep, or like a woman searches for a missing coin, or like a father searches for a missing son.
For far too long, we have trivialized the gospel. We have allowed our message to be truncated into a message about making arrangements for death. We have turned evangelism from announcement of God as King over the whole world and calling—both through our words and the quality of our lives together—for the world (individuals, communities, societies, etc.) to live accordingly, into a neat little formula for securing eternal self-preservation in unending, non-embodied, spiritual bliss.
God wants every part of his creation to experience the goodness of his rule and reign. Right now, much of creation finds itself in the situation of the prodigal son: the inheritance has been spent (or nearly so), pig food is passing for meals, and the faded memories of a life long past are stirring up a longing for even the lowliest place in the father’s house. Our task is not to point out the terrible state of the prodigal—he already knows that—but to join the father in his search and join him in his embrace and celebration when the prodigal does come home.
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