What is a Missional Church anyway?

I've been posting a lot about Missional Church lately. Here's a little bit of clarification about this model I'm strongly resonating with.

What Will Consume you?

     Our cohort is taking a look at the impact of economics on culture. Of our reading material, I was so interested in the concept of consumption. What consumes you and what do you consume? I appreciate the potential Christians have to speak to this issue. Check out these videos. 

What challenges you about the concept of our consumer culture? 

This week my cohort is looking at economics and social justice issues and we will do some processing together about ways the church can speak to these issues. This is one of the first quotes I came across in my assigned readings.

Mother Teresa said, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.”
Arloa Sutter (2010-09-01). The Invisible: What the Church Can Do to Find and Serve the Least of These (Kindle Locations 448-450). Wesleyan Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

"Radical Alternative"

I forgot where I found this, but it showed up in a file I clipped from my studies.

Stanley Hauerwas and William Willmon propose a "confessing church" model as a "radical alternative" to the "activist" (Constantinian) or "conversionist" (privatized) models that are current. What they envision is the church as "an alternative polis, a countercultural social structure called church." Such a church has its overriding political task "that again asserts that God, not nations, rule the world, that boundaries of God's kingdom transcend those of Caesar, and that the main political task of the church is the formation of people who see clearly the cost of discipleship and are willing to pay the price." They invite us to see ourselves with the exilic eyes as "resident" aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief."

• The privatized church model is centered too much on the individual for me. The church is not a provider of goods and services. It is something so much more than that. 

• Whether we like it or not, we are "resident" aliens in our surrounding culture.  

What if we (as the church) viewed our apartments, homes, or where ever we live as foreign embassies, representing another kingdom? 

How would this change our church programs? How would this change the way we work, go to school, and interact with our neighbors? 

Risky Improvisational and Experiment

A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling. . . . [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, live by improvisation and experiment. —Hans Küng
Frost, Michael; Hirsch, Alan (2001-01-01). Shaping of Things to Come, The (Kindle Locations 34-38). Baker Book Group. Kindle Edition. 

This is the type of life I know the Collins' family is called to. This is the kind of church community I dream of, one that lives like performance artists and functions like a light in the darkness. Have a great week!

What thoughts have challenged you recently?

Awareness

Today, may you have the courage to "be." Be still. Be yourself. Stop for a moment. Notice God in your life. God's all around.

 

Matthew 11:28-30 NIV    ²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Book Review: Jesus and Community

About the author: Gerhard Lohfink grew up in Germany in the midst of rising national tensions as nations built up to World War II forcing him to move many times. He excelled in the field of academics gaining permission to pursue higher degrees while serving as pastor and chaplain in various posts. His perspective as a German, a priest, and college professor uniquely qualify him to make bold claims with his thesis and to support it with evidence from scripture, early church history, and first hand experience.

About the Thesis: His thesis claims that Christian Community’s form must come from the practices of Jesus that we have in the form of the gospels, which was uniquely focused on Israel, gathering it together so that the world my experience the kingdom of God, bringing God’s reign into the earthly realm, standing out in the midst the dominant culture, and acting as Christ’s agent of change.

About the Structure: He supports his thesis using a 4-section structure. First sections define Jesus’ model of Community as implied by his actions on earth and Old Testament precedent. The final sections outline how Apostles and early followers continued the important aspects of community instituted by Christ. These practices include but are not limited to: praying for the sick, living as a contrast society, bearing the identity of “God’s people,” passively resisting the kingdom of this world, and cultivating a community of equals that serve each other.

Personal Reaction: Lohfink’s repetitious structure aided my understanding of his thesis. With out the repetition of a claim, a scripture, an explanation of the passage, and conclusions, he would certainly have lost me. Thankfully we did not have to read it in German. From my perspective these insights are valuable, but perhaps too familiar. This may be a byproduct of the generation I’m a part of and the generation of people I work with, but I found myself too easily agreeing with Lohfink’s highly authentic, communal, egalitarian, peaceful, and accountable version of Christian community. After reflection, I find myself asking, “Why don’t more people in my stream of Christianity know about this book?”

About Application: As for application to my ministry situation, I think this book will find it’s place in a stockpile I’ll return to in a search to provide Shoreline’s youth an alternative to consumerism. The image I found most vivid was in the introduction. It talked about a priest, a counselor, and physician roaming a city “on call” (Location, 84). This vivid picture illustrates a tension I currently feel in ministry to a large church. We want to help people, but Lohfink challenged my thinking about the way Mega Churches serve congregations. There certainly isn’t anything wrong with serving a parishioner, but what if the structure of a community actually encourages individualism? If Jesus was in charge of my youth group, (a bold thought, I know) what would he say about our programs and the impulses they feed? How would they compare to the picture of Christ’s community provided by Lohfink?

Initially, I think we have a long way to go as a contrast society. We have a gathering, but I wonder about how much of Lohfink’s community we experience. There are brilliant moments that punctuate our program, that come in Small Groups, Retreats, and Summer Camps where young people catch a glimpse of what God’s Kingdom might look like, but this rarely translates into the day to day life of our community. This issue cannot be solved with a sermon series or a small group study. Perhaps I need to look at my own life and ask if I’m buying what I’m “selling?” My gut level hunch is that young people will not do it until they see it, so perhaps what our group needs is a contrast society within our community.

Book Review: A Community of Character

A bit about the author: Stanley Hauerwas plainly says that he identifies strongly with the (Southern) Methodist tradition, but is open to ideas from other streams of Christianity (Page 6). He’s the son of a workingman from Indiana, who pursued higher education instead of staying close to home. He taught at Notre Dame and currently teaches at Duke Divinity School. He’s a prolific author and thinker, whose books are required reading in many theology programs.

Thesis: Hauerwas claims that the Church is to be a group of people who view life through the lens of Biblical Narrative and live in such a way that is true to those stories (Page 1).  That is the main way that Christians will “reassert” their relevance to culture (Page 1).

Structure: This book is a collection of essays grouped into three sections. Part 1 explores and explains what Hauerwas means by a narrative and it’s implications for community. Part 2 builds upon the definition of narrative and broadly traces it’s development and usage historically and ends with implications for spiritual formation. Section 3 takes advantage of the stage set by previous definitions and explorations and delves into critical areas in Christian Social Ethics. These issues are a definition of family, politics, how to talk about sex, and a response to the issue of abortion.

Personal Application: I am grateful for the way the thesis challenges the Church to be different from the world without withdrawing from it. Growing up in the height of the Religious Right’s popularity, left me questioning if the church’s main responsibility was in the arena of social policy, especially politics.  He supports his arguments and even includes many ideas contrary to his own position. This made his ideas more credible, even if it was hard to stick with the overarching thoughts in each essay. It was a stretch for me to read. I found myself agreeing with his positions, but perplexed as to how to apply it to my discussions with teenagers and parents.

The biggest challenge for me is how to apply these thoughts to my own family. I found myself without a quick answer to why I want children (Page 157). I’ve wanted to be a Father as long as I can remember, but I found myself without a vocabulary to explain why. After this read, and a little bit of thinking, I can say that I want my family to be ambassadors of another kingdom. I want us intimately involved in our neighborhood and church community. Now comes the hard part, doing this on purpose. Marie and I used to dream of taking our daughters to outreaches, doing things for our neighbors, and modeling a different way of life for them. However, much of this fervor gave way to the daily pressures of life. Hauerwas gives hope to this as well, as we can even see the mundane as “heroic”  (Page 174).

Jesus and Community

     I just read somehting in this book that really struck home. In the introduction Lohfink talks about a mobile pastoral unit that operated in West Berlin in the 1980's. It was comprised of a car, a short wave radio, a priest, a psychologist and a physician. They would patrol around ready to serve needs of various individuals.

     The author didn't see this as a good thing because it nurtured peoples consumerist attitude toward Churches. I'm not even finished with the introduction. I had to stop and ask myself what the main thrust of my ministry efforts is going towards. Am I in customer service or am I interested in the Kingdom of God? No doubt the two are held in tension. The Church (big C) should take care of people for sure, but I'm really interested in this new layer that Lohfink suggests: we can do it in such a way that encourages people to participate in community, rather than leaving them in the gutter of individualism. Thus we will avoid being a supermarket church where people can come in, shop, grab what they need, and then go back on their merry lonely way?

How have you seen a church help someone in a way that nurtures community? Ideas?

Youth Pastors and their Weight

I'm thinking that the only more dangerous thing for my health than being a youth pastor is a week in New Hampshire with Marie's family. I thought there was a lot of pizza around doing youth ministry, but wow.

A quick word about pizza:
The pizza in New England is amazing. I came here for Christmas 2005 and ate nothing but pizza. No joke. We were living in Japan at the time and I was seriously craving pizza over all foods we left behind in America. I knew I was in trouble when even my fat jeans didn't fit well anymore.

Youth ministry can be harmful to a person's health. Everywhere you turn around there is ice cream, pop corn, pizza, and other things covered or busting with trans fats. Be careful youth ministry friends. We not only model behavior for our family, young people, but also our congregations. Connecting with kids does not mean we eat like a teenage boy again. I've got my waistline work to do in 2011 for sure, but here are some ideas that keep me from doing too much damage.

• Kick soda. You don't need to drink your calories.
• If you meet people at star bucks, don't ge Frapuccinos. More empty calories. You might as well eat a big mac. 
• If you must eat at McDonald's only order their fresh fruit...no matter how hungry you are. 
• Chipotle vegetarian burrito bowls are the lesser of the evils at this chain. 
• If you have a smart phone download an app to help you keep track of what you are eating. The simple act of capturing everything you eat helps you see poor eating habits. 
• Realize the simple equation: if you put in more than you burn, it has to be stored somewhere!

More than any quick tip you must realize that you cannot earn God's love or lose it. If your motivation for trimming your waist is anything other than health, you will most likely deeply struggle in this area. These are little tips to help you resist the youth ministry belly bulge, but they do not address the deeper emotional issues that youth ministers foster. May you crave healthy food, enjoy life, and may you do it in healthy ways!!!

The story of Stuff

I first saw this video a few years ago and thought it was pretty cool. Then Marie and I had a short run small group based off of the trade as one curriculum and this video showed up again. It has profound statements about what it means to be a person of worth and value of this world that every Christian should take seriously. It's a little on the long side to use in youth groups, but it makes for great small groups. If you are looking for something to start a conversation about consumerism and being a Christ follower, this video is a good start.

Wanna be cool?

Bret McCracken just wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal. It talks about the image makeover that evangelical christianity is trying to achieve.  He takes potshots at people all over the spectrum, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, and several other churches. He advocates his point of view as a "true-er" or more authentic version of following Christ. I agree with his premise, that following Jesus is not trendy, easy, or always popular. I had difficulty with his tone toward other authors, pastors, and Christ followers. He lumped them all together with the assumption that a catchy title or an idea was meant to first and foremost make Evangelical Christianity popular again, or worse yet...more palatable. There are many perils of "wanna be cool" christianity for sure! I'm not so sure that the examples in his article highlight people who are trying to be cool. 

Perhaps his book offers a better solution, but his article didn't. He made no attempt to differentiate between contextualizing communication and giving into the culture around us. I have a hard time believing that all the pastors and ministries he mentions in his article are as shallow and narcissistic as he makes them sound. I'll read the book for sure. I just wish his article included a clear alternative for the people he mentioned. Are they supposed to come up with ideas that are offensive and boring? Are they supposed to purposefully create barriers to others hearing about Jesus? Hmmmm...that might be a catchy idea!!! (insert smily face)

Random Twitter Observations

I like Twitter, but I'm not sure why. Here are some of my observations. What do you think?

- More "boomers" tweet than teenagers.

- Young people think twitter is for movie stars, athletes, and retail stores.

- You are more likely to get a retweet if you leave at least 20 characters.

- In general, Pastors LOVE twitter.

- Pastors brag via with twitter, without really bragging. "I'm so well connected." "I have an epic life etc etc." This is nothing new to social media though.

- If you only know pastors from their tweets, you would think that all they do is go to big fun conferences during the summer.

Sunday's Coming - Satire on church

I sent this video to our church staff after seeing it on Marko's blog, to look at the culture we create at Shoreline. I'm not saying our culture is bad, right or wrong.I'm saying that we should be able to laugh at ourselves and then ask, "why are we laughing?" I wonder if sometimes the massive efforts the Church makes to be relevant, hip, and effective unintentionally create a sub culture? 


It's ironic that the attempt to do away with cumbersome ineffective models of communication, legalistic messages, and poor perception have created a culture in itself. Brilliant! In College, I took an intro to theatre class with Dr. Laura Holland and I'll never forget her saying, "an artist cannot not communicate. I believe that statement was more about communication that just theatre and it applies to the way churches as well as artists communicate.


There was a point in my life where I would have jumped all over this video in order to make mega churches look bad. I'd point out how shallow and cold big churches can seem. I'd pick out a few examples and judge them. Looking back, I freely admit that I was merely jealous of other people's "success." What is success anyway? I don't think a church is healthy or unhealthy based on size alone.  My definition of success is different than it was 5 or 6 years ago and that let me watch with an open mind. It helped me laugh without judging. Make no mistake, this is a funny video, but why is it funny? If you don't go to church, does any of this even make sense? Thoughts?  



"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Missions

I just got a message via facebook about this discussion going on with Fuller's Youth and Family institute. A mission trip with lift is going to happen some day, but that doesn't mean that we should jump into the first thing that comes along. A short term mission trip changed my life for sure. I am grateful that the work I did supported the local people groups that I was working with and did not center on me or my team. When lift does go on missions, I want to make sure that we are assisting the local church in whatever place we go to and that our youth have their perspectives challenged and broadened.

Check out the link below and contribute to the discussion.

1. Materialism and Missional Living Post-Trip:
Many of us have returned from mission trips with kids who vow to be less materialistic and live on/consume less stuff. Then next week happens and they’re back to their old patterns and lifestyle. What effective strategies have you seen work in helping kids’ drive away from materialism stick beyond the STM experience?
Respond:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=8545&uid=23898203591

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Secondhand Jesus: A book Review

I just reviewed this book on Amazon, but thought I'd repost it here.

I appreciate Glenn Packiam’s perspective as a pastor, musician, theologian, and worship leader. He currently lives in the context of western Christianity, and recently weathered one of the biggest church scandals to ever come along, with perhaps the exception of PTL in the late 1980’s. He also has a unique perspective of Jesus from outside the Mid-Western church box since he is from Malaysia. In the tradition of Donald Miller and Mark Steele he writes in a memoir story style that is perceptive and easy for the reader to digest.

As a youth pastor in a mega church in the Southwest, I ask questions along the line of Packiam’s thinking. I’m grateful for the way he articulated his questions. It wasn’t bitter or snobby. I can tell he genuinely loves the Church (with a big C). At our church, we have great volunteers, a supportive pastor, more than adequate meeting space, and a genuine desire to help youth in our community. However we as a youth ministry, feel like we are missing something. Glenn puts his finger on many areas youth ministries need to work on.

Specifically, Glenn highlights Jesus teachings about the “good life” dismissing the rumor that God just wants people to have “easy” lives. Glenn Packiam also observed the propensity for many churches to become a “one-stop spiritual shopping” church. We have groups for everything that you can think of and if we are not careful churches can point people to themselves instead of Jesus.

I’m thankful that Glenn Packiam didn’t attempt to wrap everything up in a nice little bow with trite formulas and cheesy slogans. He doesn’t set himself up to have all the answers. Instead, he leaves these rumors open for dialog. This is a great book for conversation and to read in community. I look forward to adding this book and its ideas into the curriculum of our ministry to teenagers and young adults and recommend it without reservation.

Book Flood

I've been going through a dry spell when it comes to reading. Part of me really misses the time I had in Japan to absorb so many ideas from books and pod casts. My grandmother gave me some book money, so I went wild on Amazon's used books. Thanks MIMI!!!!!! I've eyeballed most of these since Rob Bell's Poets//Prophets//Preachers conference in 2004. It's taken me since then to get through his suggested reading list. I'm a little more than 3/4 through it.

Here's what I bought.

If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Phillip Gulley

Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel by Brian McLaren

Exodus: The Traditional Hebrew Text With the New Jps Translation

Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler

Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill

Sketches of Jewish Social Life by Alfred Edersheim

Fundraisers

One of the things that I came away from the ILM conference with, was an awareness of the opportunity ministries in America have to raise funds and get them to the people who need stuff.

I dislike the vibe of people raising funds for the sake of getting rich. Unfortunately, I've let that limit my thinking. There are lots of things we'd like to do at lift, but don't because we don't have the funds. I'm thinking of starting an Amazon store for lift student ministries so that we can have the funds to help ministries overseas, do mission work, and take youth to camp.

Have any good fund raising ideas?

Blogging While Driving

I'm coming home from work listening to NPR's podcast "All Songs Considered."
I'm realizing that I like to learn about music as much as I like to listen to it.

How I misjudged Joyce Meyer

I'm pretty skeptical of televangelists and politicians. When I found out that Joyce Meyer was going to be speaking at the INTEGRITY Leadership Ministries conference I was a little confused, but I also have a bigger distrust of the media. I thought I'd just listen to her for myself and I was not prepared for what she had to say.

She gave a passionate call to action in the area of social justice. She encouraged local churches to address the CAUSES of poverty, slavery, and the sex trade (human trafficking).

I was prepared for her informal style and some nuggets of wisdom from her many years in the ministry. I didn't think I'd be challenged and moved to act.

I am a fan now...not an uncritical one though. In the future, I will not be as quick to offer my opinions.