the Pitt 59: the Missional-orientation of Development

Recently, I've been dropping some D's on all of you.  I just wanted to tackle here what has been the fruit of some of the various conversations of late with our Pittsburgh team, especially around the issues of Discipleship, Diversity and Development.  So, today, a shot at Development - as in Community Development.

I want to start with the relational-orientation of community development.  Let me ask you a question, the same question I asked the Heroic Leadership Institute students at their Justice-intensive: what is poverty?

Every time I hear the church and para-church agencies trying to promote “development” as defined by the United Nations/World Bank/NGO’s, they try to overcome a specific definition of poverty that is based on income, home ownership and consumption capacity.  These concepts are based in the world of ideas that spring from capitalism and materialism and individualism and consumerism - these Zeitgeists of our time (which also pretty much describes our American way of life that is unsustainable, given our basic lifestyle of consumption...America – less than 5% of the world population - consumes close to 30% of its production). 

Question-within-the-Question: When we respond to the compassion of the Spirit in us, who is setting our agenda for how we respond?

Brazilian theologian and activist Claudio Oliver observes that the programs and solutions typically proposed by American churches and agencies usually accept the capitalist-markets and international development gurus definitions and standards uncritically.  So it isn't necessarily a question of good motives, it's more of a question of "what exactly are we talking about?"  Probably worse still is when these uncritical attempts seek biblical, theological and spiritual justification in support of their efforts to help, including concepts such as “helping those more primitive,” and the reaching the “underdeveloped.” Yet many such proposals in the Global South and Third World are made to “educate” and “liberate” these other people from traditional (and perhaps sustainable) lifestyles.  As a result, money, professionals and unwitting “good Samaritans” start swarming like bees to help “backward” people enter into our version of the modern world through connection to global capitalists markets and systems they may very well be unprepared for and thus vulnerable to the Powers-That-Be, like “market forces.” 

So what’s the point I’m making here?  Well, poverty is usually understood as a lack of something: housing, jobs, education, money, clothing, cars, iPods…But what if we redefine poverty not as the lack of possessions that market economies can provide for a price or even the lack of goods that a consumer society creates?  What if we can think of poverty as something else?

Claudio Oliver can help us understand the root issue of poverty beyond the ideas of capitalism:

“Once I was in Germany giving a lecture and I asked the audience a simple question: What is poverty?  The answers were typical, like the ones I mentioned above.  Then I invited them to carry out the following thought experiment: “Imagine that you just lost everything you have.  How much time would you need to find a place to sleep, or to find something to wear or to get some food for your family?  How much time would you need to “start over” to “start anew”?  And what would you do to start fixing the situation?”

They said, as most of us would probably say, that they could meet their immediate needs in a matter of hours if not minutes for some, and that they would need just several days, or perhaps a few weeks, to start over from scratch.  They said they would deal with the situation by calling or finding some of their friends, by calling a relative, or by finding a person (an advocate) who could help them access public programs for basic things they need. 

Then I asked them: “Why do you think you could do this so easily or so quickly?”  Their answer was simple: “Because we have friends and family.”

“But imagine,“ I said to them, “if you were alone and nobody wanted to talk to you or receive your collect calls.  What would happen?”  My point was this: poverty is not fundamentally the lack of things or of stuff, but rather the lack of friends to help.” 

Poverty is fundamentally a relational issue.  There are personal, economic, social and political consequences surrounding it, but at essence it is relational.  By the way, I also think this insight from Claudio applies to almost everything, especially back to our previous meditation on diversity: what is the primary issue of racism and lack of diversity?  It’s a relational issue also. 

[to be continued...]

An Echo of the Gospel

To be concerned with the outcast is an echo, or course, of the Gospel itself. Characteristically, the Christian is to be found in his work and witness in the world among those for whom no one else cares--the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the misfits, the homeless, the orphans and beggars. The presence of the Christian among the outcasts is the way in which the Christian represents, concretely, the ubiquity and universality of the intercession of Christ for all men.

~William Stringfellow, My People is the Enemy

A Discerning Fellowship

The path is too deeply hidden to be traveled without company: finding our way involves clues that are subtle and sometimes misleading, requiring the kind of discernment that can happen only in dialogue.

~ Parker Palmer

the Pitt 58: The Missional-orientation of Diversity

As mentioned last week, there are several D's that have been coming up a lot in conversations and mission: Discipleship, Diversity and Development. 

One issue that we haven't spoken to directly yet is diversity.  Of course, when we first hear the word "diversity" we Americans immediately (and almost exclusively) think: ethnic and racial diversity. Which is a good thing!  But there's more to diversity than the racial and ethnic aspect, but we'll get to that in a minute. 

The world needs the church to show it how to live with diversity. The diverse, multi-cultural nations of Europe and America certainly need this, and probably are most in need of it. And I am not saying "The Caucasian/White people of these nations need it," ...we all need it. The Black community, the Hispanic and Asian communities, women and men in these countries need to witness it...they need to see where unity in diversity happens - and according to scripture the communities of Christ should glow with this! Yet as LeRoy Barber points out, Sunday morning is probably the most segregated time in our country.

We have issues with diversity.  I mean one British historian is blaming "Black culture" (practiced by both black and white alike) for the riots in London last year. He needs the church to witness to otherwise. And there was the recent Black mob violence that Philadelphia's Mayor Nutter chastised.

How can we live with ourselves?

One sad fact of diversity is that one poster-child church that was thoroughly diverse and multi-cultural has closed (although it didn't close because it was multi-cultural, there was a variety of other issues, see Ramon Mayo's sharing about the closing for more.).

When I say "diversity" when I talk "church", most people think of what we might call the attractional-orientation of diversity, but I want to explore another trajectory.  While finding it's impetus in the same Jesus, the missional-orientation of diversity takes us in a different direction from the attractional-orientation of diversity. I want to emphasize at this point that I'm not saying attractional church isn't a valid form of church, of course it is, but typically they plan to be resource-rich as well, and many churches and faith communities aren't, but can still practice diversity.

In the good attractional churches that I have been to - like Vineyard Columbus highlighted recently in this article - the way diversity happens is usually through recruitment in leadership and ministry positions, then those diverse people are put on stage before people and also manage and initiate the programmatic endeavours of the church to bring the community into their space. 

The missional-orientation of diversity happens differently, and perhaps more organically (which I hope we realize isn't jusy haphazard, but carefully intentional as well) and it happens 'out there'. 

The missional-orientation of diversity doesn't ask "who have we gathered?" but "who are we among and who is among us?"  Who counts me as their friend?  Who has invited us into their home...their community....their heart?  And these kinds of questions might challenge us to go beyond the racial/ethnic diversity aspect and ask: are the poor among us?  are we multi-generational?  are we multi-gender? Without embracing this diversity, we may miss some of what God is saying...but in embracing these, we move toward wholeness.

Maybe the faultline of the good news of the Reign of God in Christ Jesus in our cities lies along the lines of self-imposed segregation so evident on Sunday morning worship gatherings, where like gathers with like unless you are more intentional; yet what about the humble diversity of those embodying Christ to their neighborhood and city, out among the community, the city? If we inhabit this faultline and 'cross over' perhaps the Spirit will move at a plate-tectonic level to quake some souls and bring light to the diverse communities with whom we live...

[to be continued...]

Power, Justice, Love

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

- Martin Luther King, jr.

Join the Revolution

Many of our structures and venues for religious education are set up to be passive and cognitive rather than active and participatory. Most people, for instance, think of a church as a place to sit and listen--not a context in which they will be coached and stretched to practice new skills. How do the schedule and programs of a church reveal what is thought to be most important? (Too frequently by attendance, buildings, and budgets.) Even home groups are often just smaller venues for knowledge and study. We might ask, Did Jesus give his life on the cross so that we could sit around reading and discussing books about him, or so we could join the revolution?

 ~ Mark Scandrette, Soul Graffiti

the Pitt 57: the missional-orientation of discipleship

There are a few D's that seem to be popping up in lots of conversations we have been having lately.  D...as in discipleship, diversity and development. 

Our conversation around discipleship was stirred by our friend (and Texan!) Aaron.  He had happened upon this blog post by Mike Breen about how the missional movement will fail.  I've read and seen a few video interviews with Breen, and I appreciate his critique, mainly because it is coming from a guy who fosters missional communities - as he said in his post, he's an insider regarding the missional movement.

What I hear him coming against is a lot like what my friend Jason Clark came against within the Emerging Church conversation, that is: now that people are doing this and it seems to be catching on, here come the poseurs. In other words, here come the people who miss the heart of what missional really means, and they take it, read all the books, and like to talk about it and pose as missional people, all the time never joining God's Mission.

While only having one major beef with what Mike is saying (see #2 below - although I would also say that Mike is trying to hype and sell his new book, so there's that too!), I would make a few distinctions - and have some personal perspectives - that Mike doesn't seem to make in the article:

1. The Missional Conversation. In re-reading Breen's critique, I think he sets up a strawman when he uses the term "missional conversation". The "missional conversation" is just that: talk. It's good talk, there are plenty of fights and stuff and plenty of "Yeah, let's do it!" going on, but it isn't actually what is happening in communities and on the streets in missional communities of faith. He tends to set up the conversation as a punching bag, which in one sense he rightly does, because the poseurs never make it past the conversation to actually "doin' the stuff that Jesus did" as John Wimber used to say. All to say, while conversation is important and wrestling through and discerning what the Father is actually up to is really important for all of us, we actually have to go do the stuff!

2. Being Missional. Most of the missional leaders who I read and have been connecting with in this new missional movement [alert: boring background: David Fitch, helpfully I think, distinguishes where the emerging church conversation has lead, and it's basically come to a three-way split: 1. The Neo-Reformed/Neo-Calvinist way; 2. Emergent Church way; 3. The Missional way; I think Fitch did a good job of distinguishing how things are developing, even though it's still happening, which is much more like journalism as opposed to history]. These people lament that fact that Mega-churches and the Church Growth/Seeker-sensitive churches haven't particualrly made many disciples, but just gathered a big crowd (they are usually nicer when they say it, but I'm trying to be brief, although Willow Creek owns up to this fact after it's Reveal Study.) In fact, guys like David Fitch, Alan Hirsch, Michale Frost and Hugh Halter, most of their material is about actual discipleship. Let me unpack that for a minute: Most traditional, emergent, mega and (insert adjective) -churches run "discipleship" courses/classes, which teach a lot and talk a lot about being a disciple and things that disciples do. This "discipleship" is basically modelled after how we have engaged to teach High School and University students: through classroom lecturing. What I love about Halter, Hirsch, Frost, et al, is that they say actually that's putting the cart before the horse. We need to have discipleship modeled on how Jesus did it. 

Jesus took people out on Mission with Him, and then after teaching and learning in the streets, they came back for meals or went away for a retreat and framed what they had been doing into a more sit-down teaching kind-of-thing. This is what Michael Frost (and all the others following South African theologian David Bosch or British theologian Lesslie Newbigin) are saying when they say that Mission (that is the Mission on God) should be the organizing principle of the Church. It causes us to organize ourselves (in things like core issues such as discipleship) to get on the Father's Agenda. This is probably the biggest difference I have with what Mike is saying, in that disciples are made on Mission - just like we read about in Matthew-Mark-Luke-John and the rest of the New Testament. But I do think I understand that Mike might have in mind here churches who are seeking to re-orient themselves around Mission, and if he is talking about an existing church that hasn't been following the Father into His Mission, and has only been doing classroom discipleship and gathering lots of seekers and not tranforming them into disciples, then that word is definitiely for them, because people just might feel like they got bait-and-switched.

3. Mike Breen gets lots of poseur pot-shots at him because he has a big church. I know Mike gets a hard time from people outside and inside the missional movement, just because he has a big church (by UK standards). Personally, I think any church can be missional (be it Mega-church, traditional church, emerging church, et al), but it is how we are missional that is the question of discipleship, isn't it? 

4. Use of Language. I think Mike is using older, more classic, distinctions when he talks of "disciples" and "missionaries", and most of the missional leaders I read and have connected to, merge those two things, in that we are disciples of Christ and at the same time missionaries wherever we are, whether that be Texas, Washington, DC, or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania!

[to be continued...]

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify!

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify!

~ Henry David Thoreau

the experience of You

Majestic and Indwelling Presence

i want wonder!

to marvel

at the smallest snowflake

caught in my eyelashes

i want awe!

to admire

the power

and humility

witnessed

in God Most High

living inside

astonish me

with Your seductive invitation

confound me

with this rare emancipation

woo me

into a wondrous celebration

beyond all imagination

in awe and amazement

unspeakable

incredible

breathlessly i wait

for innocence anew

the experience of You

People are veritably besieged...

People are veritably besieged, on all sides, at every moment simultaneously by these claims and strivings of the various powers each seeking to dominate, usurp, or take a person’s time, attention, abilities, effort; each grasping at life itself; each demanding idolatrous service and loyalty. In such a tumult it becomes very difficult for a human being even to identify the idols that would possess him or her…

~ William Stringfellow

DaySpring

when the day springs early
and darkness is eclipsed;

there is a moment of eternity
at the edge of daybreak
at the point where light peals back the thick darkness
[seeking to linger in silhouette]

i wait amidst the flecks of first light mingled with shadows
witness the march of radiance stalking persistent gloom

as the cresting wave of brilliance splashes over the horizon,
aglow…faint memories of a rumour intersect

[mercy cascades from upon the summit
with the hush of avalanche
compassion visits iniquity
threatening darkness trampled in the encompassing surge]

as the DaySpring shines forth wielding light upon those sitting in darkness
[in the shadow of death]

O, come forth DaySpring…shine Thy radiant splendor