Different in a Good Way
To be ‘in the world but not of the world’ is a phrase we have become so comfortable with that we might be in danger of ignoring it altogether. I wonder if one reason we have become so comfortable with the consumerism, individualism, and the other ‘gods’ of our age because we have lost our sense of being ‘a body of people sent.’ Do we see ourselves as a missional community?
Part of being missional is identifying the places where the good news of the kingdom of God challenges the assumptions and practices of the other would-be ‘kingdoms’ of the age. We might ask, “In what way is God calling us to live differently than our culture?” We might ask, “What ‘normal’ ways of living does the gospel call into question?” We might ask, “What ‘alternative’ ways of living does the gospel call us to embody?”
Being an alternative community means that we are to be different—to offer a different ‘way of being’. In doing this, we cannot settle for the superficially different ways (i.e., ‘Christian’ versions of ‘secular’ products & entertainment, t-shirts, bumper stickers, & wrist bracelets). We need deep and fundamental difference in the quality of our character & of our lives together.
We need to be different, but being different doesn’t mean being weird in the superficially weird ways that we usually think of being different.. It means we might need to take a hard look at the ways we value privacy and autonomy over the good of others and seek ways to involve ourselves in the practices of hospitality and confession. It means that we might need to take a hard look at the ways we relate to other people in economic, transactional ways (i.e., “how can this person help me get what I want?” “what do I need to do so that we’re even?”) and seek ways we can both give generously and receive graciously. It might mean that we need to take a hard look at the reason we feel we need to ‘own’ everything we use and seek ways we can share our possessions with others.
These are not easy things to do, but I believe that they may be some of the most important things we must do as students of Jesus. We need people who will get together and ask the tough questions of each other—not just to make new rules to prevent us from having what we want to have and doing what we want to do, but to free us from the compulsions and addictions that enslave us and prevent us from faithful life in God’s kingdom.
Will you be a part of a group of people who are different in a good way?
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Friday, July 23, 2004
Thursday, July 22, 2004
On a Mission from God
a study led by Joel McClure and John West
Missional Spiritual Formation
As we interact with each other we will:
- recognize that we have been called not only as individuals, but more importantly as a people
- understand our Mission as a people
- recognize our need for training for the mission
- begin training together
- begin setting outposts of the Kingdom in our normal everyday lives.
Tuesday Nights in August, starting August 10 at 6:30pm (we will have a meal at 6:00pm) at Jenison Christian Church.
We are asking that you sign up for this study by July 30. You can sign up by emailing Joel here.
Dinner and childcare (up to age 3) will be available.
Returning to our leased space... we are unofficially returning to 'the space' for a gathering time on Sunday night. Munchies will start around 5:30 p.m. Potluck worship stuff will begin around 6:00 p.m. (Hopefully all of the remodeling, permits included, will be finished before the end of August.)
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
For those of you who have not yet read this recent Brian McLaren article.
(remember this is the sole property of Brian)
Bless This House? Why efforts to renew the church are often misguided.
by Brian McLaren, Leadership columnist
I often hear someone say, "We're exploring new ways of doing church." Or "We're seeking church renewal." Or even "We're developing a postmodern church service. It's very cool. We're very innovative." In all these ways, my colleagues and I, for all our good intentions, show that we may not be likely to succeed.
These efforts overlook one small detail. Whatever we change (style of music, style of preaching, use of art, candles, incense, etc.), we're not changing the thing that needs changing most.
Which is? One might recall Jesus' words about saving our lives and in the process losing them. Could it be that the church is as it is in so many places not because of a lack of effort or a lack of sincerity or a lack of spirituality (or even a lack of money, commitment, or prayer), but rather because our sincere efforts, passionate prayers, and material resources are all aimed in the wrong direction—the direction of self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, self-improvement?
What if saving the church is a self-defeating mission?
Lesslie Newbigin often spoke of the greatest heresy of monotheism (in its Jewish, Christian, and Islamic forms): cherishing Clause A of the Abrahamic call while conveniently suppressing, forgetting, or ignoring Clause B. So, we want to be blessed (big, exciting, vibrant, wealthy, healthy, wise). We want to be great (a great nation, a great denomination, a great congregation). To this end we pray and pay and read and plead and strive and strain and yearn and learn and groan and labor. And we give birth to wind.
Meanwhile, might God be otherwise occupied, scanning the earth for people who will also cherish Clause B: to be made into a great blessing, so that all people on earth can be blessed through us? Are we seeking blessing so as to be a blessing to the world God loves?
Do you see the difference between renewing the church as our mission, and blessing the world?
Our persistent "bless-me" bug, like a nasty flu into which we keep relapsing, creates what some of my friends have called "the great commotion," a close approximation of the Great Commission, but a miss nonetheless. Seminar junkies accumulate plastic-covered notebooks that could fill an oil tanker. Authors like myself write books whose combined gross weight may exceed the weight of our congregations after a pot-luck dinner. But not much changes.
Our efforts are all bent to renew or strengthen the current systems, which are perfectly designed (as Dallas Willard has said) to deliver the results we are now getting.
So if we are a self-centered church in America, it is because our systems—including our theological systems—are perfectly designed to produce such a church. It has been said that the greatest obstacle to the coming of the kingdom of God is the church, preoccupied with her own existence. Could our preoccupation with making better churches rather than better blessing the world be the heart disease that plagues us? And could our Clause-A theological systems be the high-fat cause of that heart disease?
This is what's really going on beneath all the superficial talk of "emerging church." Far more than cosmetics are under consideration: the very purpose of the church, the gospel, and the pastorate are being re-thought. If that doesn't disturb, surprise, or excite you, you don't understand what is being said.
Everywhere I go, on the fringes and in unexpected places (including in all the wrong denominations where this sort of things shouldn't happen), I discover churches and leaders who are grappling with these deep questions. They want to be blessed in order to be a blessing to the world. Their dream does not stop with the church. They're thinking about God's kingdom coming on earth as in heaven.
These are good signs. Hopefully, the early signs of even better signs yet to come. How ironic if the church were to find life by losing it, by giving it away.
Brian McLaren is pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland.
(remember this is the sole property of Brian)
Bless This House? Why efforts to renew the church are often misguided.
by Brian McLaren, Leadership columnist
I often hear someone say, "We're exploring new ways of doing church." Or "We're seeking church renewal." Or even "We're developing a postmodern church service. It's very cool. We're very innovative." In all these ways, my colleagues and I, for all our good intentions, show that we may not be likely to succeed.
These efforts overlook one small detail. Whatever we change (style of music, style of preaching, use of art, candles, incense, etc.), we're not changing the thing that needs changing most.
Which is? One might recall Jesus' words about saving our lives and in the process losing them. Could it be that the church is as it is in so many places not because of a lack of effort or a lack of sincerity or a lack of spirituality (or even a lack of money, commitment, or prayer), but rather because our sincere efforts, passionate prayers, and material resources are all aimed in the wrong direction—the direction of self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, self-improvement?
What if saving the church is a self-defeating mission?
Lesslie Newbigin often spoke of the greatest heresy of monotheism (in its Jewish, Christian, and Islamic forms): cherishing Clause A of the Abrahamic call while conveniently suppressing, forgetting, or ignoring Clause B. So, we want to be blessed (big, exciting, vibrant, wealthy, healthy, wise). We want to be great (a great nation, a great denomination, a great congregation). To this end we pray and pay and read and plead and strive and strain and yearn and learn and groan and labor. And we give birth to wind.
Meanwhile, might God be otherwise occupied, scanning the earth for people who will also cherish Clause B: to be made into a great blessing, so that all people on earth can be blessed through us? Are we seeking blessing so as to be a blessing to the world God loves?
Do you see the difference between renewing the church as our mission, and blessing the world?
Our persistent "bless-me" bug, like a nasty flu into which we keep relapsing, creates what some of my friends have called "the great commotion," a close approximation of the Great Commission, but a miss nonetheless. Seminar junkies accumulate plastic-covered notebooks that could fill an oil tanker. Authors like myself write books whose combined gross weight may exceed the weight of our congregations after a pot-luck dinner. But not much changes.
Our efforts are all bent to renew or strengthen the current systems, which are perfectly designed (as Dallas Willard has said) to deliver the results we are now getting.
So if we are a self-centered church in America, it is because our systems—including our theological systems—are perfectly designed to produce such a church. It has been said that the greatest obstacle to the coming of the kingdom of God is the church, preoccupied with her own existence. Could our preoccupation with making better churches rather than better blessing the world be the heart disease that plagues us? And could our Clause-A theological systems be the high-fat cause of that heart disease?
This is what's really going on beneath all the superficial talk of "emerging church." Far more than cosmetics are under consideration: the very purpose of the church, the gospel, and the pastorate are being re-thought. If that doesn't disturb, surprise, or excite you, you don't understand what is being said.
Everywhere I go, on the fringes and in unexpected places (including in all the wrong denominations where this sort of things shouldn't happen), I discover churches and leaders who are grappling with these deep questions. They want to be blessed in order to be a blessing to the world. Their dream does not stop with the church. They're thinking about God's kingdom coming on earth as in heaven.
These are good signs. Hopefully, the early signs of even better signs yet to come. How ironic if the church were to find life by losing it, by giving it away.
Brian McLaren is pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Just being Real...
As we talk about kingdom, heaven, and life, I was reminded of an e-mail I got from a friend a month ago. She is an American who I call Mega; she is currently living in Greece as she is involved with YWAM.
She wrote: One evening while we were together, Theodore told me that he felt like there was a part of me that I was holding back, a side of me they hadn't seen from me or that I wasn't letting them see. That statement really made me think about myself, about the person I am, about the person I show to other people. I've always been mindful of being respectable, of being careful not to offend others or make a spectacle of myself (usually). And why? Because I care about what others think of me. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it can be sometimes if I care too much and act in ways that aren't true to myself. I wonder if I have unknowingly lost a part of who God has made me in my endeavors to be respectable. Have I hidden a part of God’s original design because I fear what others might think? Do I miss out on great moments in life because I’m scared of looking silly? Though I haven’t yet figured it all out in my head and my heart with God, if I am truly honest I’m afraid my answer to those two questions might be yes.
As we talk about kingdom, heaven, and life, I was reminded of an e-mail I got from a friend a month ago. She is an American who I call Mega; she is currently living in Greece as she is involved with YWAM.
She wrote: One evening while we were together, Theodore told me that he felt like there was a part of me that I was holding back, a side of me they hadn't seen from me or that I wasn't letting them see. That statement really made me think about myself, about the person I am, about the person I show to other people. I've always been mindful of being respectable, of being careful not to offend others or make a spectacle of myself (usually). And why? Because I care about what others think of me. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it can be sometimes if I care too much and act in ways that aren't true to myself. I wonder if I have unknowingly lost a part of who God has made me in my endeavors to be respectable. Have I hidden a part of God’s original design because I fear what others might think? Do I miss out on great moments in life because I’m scared of looking silly? Though I haven’t yet figured it all out in my head and my heart with God, if I am truly honest I’m afraid my answer to those two questions might be yes.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
All this talk of heaven... just got a phone call from my mother. She's in the 'know.' She's a mom. Anyway, called to tell me that a young man, a 23 year old, a former student at the church where I was a youth pastor for a while. He was fighting cancer, and his fight came to an end a couple of days ago. My heart breaks. It breaks with the kind of tension that likely caused the temple curtain to break in two as the Christ died.
This isn't the way things are meant to be. No. It's been years since I've seen Josh. He was a good man, a young man with athletic ability, a great football player. He was a blond haired kid with looks that likely melted many girls hearts, and yet he possessed a compassionate heart. The little I knew of Josh - he was a lover of people. That likely came naturally, or at least with the love of God. His parents are both sincere lovers of people as well - reflectors of God's love.
Two weeks ago another friend, Laurie, 46 years old and mother of two boys, ages 20 and 14, and an incredible wife, also found goodness in death. Still, at that funeral as well, my soul was thankful but restless. This isn't the way things are fully meant to be.
Let us long for a better tomorrow. Let us seek passionate friendships. Let us be lovers of people, and let's allow our hearts to continue to break in the midst of the pain and brokenness of creation. For when this creation is fully restored so will be the bodies of Josh and Laurie. I long. I long. (Hear me from the depths of my soul!!! YES, MY SOUL IS SHOUTING.) I long for that day.
This isn't the way things are meant to be. No. It's been years since I've seen Josh. He was a good man, a young man with athletic ability, a great football player. He was a blond haired kid with looks that likely melted many girls hearts, and yet he possessed a compassionate heart. The little I knew of Josh - he was a lover of people. That likely came naturally, or at least with the love of God. His parents are both sincere lovers of people as well - reflectors of God's love.
Two weeks ago another friend, Laurie, 46 years old and mother of two boys, ages 20 and 14, and an incredible wife, also found goodness in death. Still, at that funeral as well, my soul was thankful but restless. This isn't the way things are fully meant to be.
Let us long for a better tomorrow. Let us seek passionate friendships. Let us be lovers of people, and let's allow our hearts to continue to break in the midst of the pain and brokenness of creation. For when this creation is fully restored so will be the bodies of Josh and Laurie. I long. I long. (Hear me from the depths of my soul!!! YES, MY SOUL IS SHOUTING.) I long for that day.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:18-21)
Today, as flags wave and fireworks blast to celebrate the independence of this land, we gather together as citizens of another realm. And so we must ask ourselves this morning, What does it mean to live as a citizen of heaven in America? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus in this country?
Today, as we celebrate the independence of our country, we must firmly state that we are Americans second, and students, apprentices, and disciples of Jesus first and above all else. We have only one non-contingent allegiance, to the Creator—all other allegiances, professed or otherwise, are, and must remain, contingent upon that.
Further, we must declare that we are citizens of heaven, first and above all other citizenship. To declare this is not to hate this or any other nation, but to love all peoples and desire good for all nations.
It is to say that we have been de-nationalized for we find every human being to be our brothers and sisters and fellow countrymen.
It is to say that we desire God to bring healing and blessing to America as well as Mogadishu, Somalia; Astana, Kazakhstan; Karbala, Iraq; Port au Prince, Haiti; and Darfur, Sudan.
It is to say that the hopes and dreams and rights and liberties of Americans are no more important to us than those of all people of all nations—that we desire all peoples to have a future and a hope, and to live under the shalom of God.
It is to say that we long to see the world as it one day will be: a place with no borders, no security fences, no hatred or violence against our fellow human beings, for “for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea,” and “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD ,' because they will all know [God], from the least of them to the greatest.”
It is to say that the value of the life of an American is no greater or less than that of a Somali, an Afgan, or an Iraqi. We love all men and women equally for “there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
Paul’s words to a small group of Jesus’ disciples in the Roman colony of Philippi challenged the claims of Caesar and his Rome upon the peoples of the Roman Empire. They echo through the centuries to call all disciples of Jesus to worship no nation or ruler, but to live to announce the coming kingdom of God that all nations and rulers and all people might enter into and receive it.
Today, as flags wave and fireworks blast to celebrate the independence of this land, we gather together as citizens of another realm. And so we must ask ourselves this morning, What does it mean to live as a citizen of heaven in America? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus in this country?
Today, as we celebrate the independence of our country, we must firmly state that we are Americans second, and students, apprentices, and disciples of Jesus first and above all else. We have only one non-contingent allegiance, to the Creator—all other allegiances, professed or otherwise, are, and must remain, contingent upon that.
Further, we must declare that we are citizens of heaven, first and above all other citizenship. To declare this is not to hate this or any other nation, but to love all peoples and desire good for all nations.
It is to say that we have been de-nationalized for we find every human being to be our brothers and sisters and fellow countrymen.
It is to say that we desire God to bring healing and blessing to America as well as Mogadishu, Somalia; Astana, Kazakhstan; Karbala, Iraq; Port au Prince, Haiti; and Darfur, Sudan.
It is to say that the hopes and dreams and rights and liberties of Americans are no more important to us than those of all people of all nations—that we desire all peoples to have a future and a hope, and to live under the shalom of God.
It is to say that we long to see the world as it one day will be: a place with no borders, no security fences, no hatred or violence against our fellow human beings, for “for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea,” and “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD ,' because they will all know [God], from the least of them to the greatest.”
It is to say that the value of the life of an American is no greater or less than that of a Somali, an Afgan, or an Iraqi. We love all men and women equally for “there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
Paul’s words to a small group of Jesus’ disciples in the Roman colony of Philippi challenged the claims of Caesar and his Rome upon the peoples of the Roman Empire. They echo through the centuries to call all disciples of Jesus to worship no nation or ruler, but to live to announce the coming kingdom of God that all nations and rulers and all people might enter into and receive it.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
I Don't Believe in Heaven
I don’t believe in heaven—not the heaven that many people seem to believe in today. A recent article on heaven in ‘The Lookout’ (a weekly publication of Standard Publishing) betrays how far off we have gone from a biblical imagination of the future. The author writes some very good stuff about how our citizenship is in heaven. I was reading it and thinking, “Right on, man!” But then I read this: “When Jesus returns, it will be to take us to our real home.” Huh? What about resurrection? What about the renewal of all creation?
What bugs me about that ‘this-earth-is-not-my-home-I’m-just-a-passing-through’ kind of thinking is that it is just not consistent with what the prophets hoped for. It’s not what Jesus hoped for. Jesus didn’t pray, “Father, take us off of this dirty old planet.” He prayed, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The prophets never looked ahead to some distant, beyond-the-stars existence, but rather a this-world-put-to-rights kind of existence.
When Jesus returns, it will not be to “take us to our real home.” It will be to make this creation the home of God himself. Read Revelation 21 and you will see that the bride (also symbolized as the holy city or New Jerusalem) comes down to the earth—-not up, up, and away from the earth. And the great hope of that chapter is found in the statement, “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God” (Rev 21:3, The Message, italics mine).
Heaven is the 'realm' of God. It is the 'realm' in which God’s will is completely done. It is not a place somewhere beyond the edge of the universe. It is the unseen reality that is all around us. It is hidden, or veiled, at the present, but one day will be un-veiled. The Apostle John had a word for this: Apocalypse, or Revelation. John’s Revelation does not break camp with the prophets of Israel. He alludes to them over 500 times! His hope, therefore, was consistent with their hope—that God would ‘return’ to heal and restore his broken and wayward creation. He did not imagine the end of the space-time universe. He imagined the restoration and healing of it. He imagined our new place within it as resurrected, re-embodied people.
I am convinced that we need to re-think our thinking about heaven. We need to get off the escapism-train and start listening to the hope of the prophets who looked forward to a time when “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them…. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11). I’m looking forward to that.
I don’t believe in heaven—not the heaven that many people seem to believe in today. A recent article on heaven in ‘The Lookout’ (a weekly publication of Standard Publishing) betrays how far off we have gone from a biblical imagination of the future. The author writes some very good stuff about how our citizenship is in heaven. I was reading it and thinking, “Right on, man!” But then I read this: “When Jesus returns, it will be to take us to our real home.” Huh? What about resurrection? What about the renewal of all creation?
What bugs me about that ‘this-earth-is-not-my-home-I’m-just-a-passing-through’ kind of thinking is that it is just not consistent with what the prophets hoped for. It’s not what Jesus hoped for. Jesus didn’t pray, “Father, take us off of this dirty old planet.” He prayed, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The prophets never looked ahead to some distant, beyond-the-stars existence, but rather a this-world-put-to-rights kind of existence.
When Jesus returns, it will not be to “take us to our real home.” It will be to make this creation the home of God himself. Read Revelation 21 and you will see that the bride (also symbolized as the holy city or New Jerusalem) comes down to the earth—-not up, up, and away from the earth. And the great hope of that chapter is found in the statement, “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God” (Rev 21:3, The Message, italics mine).
Heaven is the 'realm' of God. It is the 'realm' in which God’s will is completely done. It is not a place somewhere beyond the edge of the universe. It is the unseen reality that is all around us. It is hidden, or veiled, at the present, but one day will be un-veiled. The Apostle John had a word for this: Apocalypse, or Revelation. John’s Revelation does not break camp with the prophets of Israel. He alludes to them over 500 times! His hope, therefore, was consistent with their hope—that God would ‘return’ to heal and restore his broken and wayward creation. He did not imagine the end of the space-time universe. He imagined the restoration and healing of it. He imagined our new place within it as resurrected, re-embodied people.
I am convinced that we need to re-think our thinking about heaven. We need to get off the escapism-train and start listening to the hope of the prophets who looked forward to a time when “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them…. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11). I’m looking forward to that.
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