verve&verse

An Echo of the Gospel

2012-01-27T06:28:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-21T05:00:00.004-05:00

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

2012-01-18T05:00:00.005-05:00

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

2012-01-16T05:00:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-12T05:00:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-03T05:00:00.016-05:00

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!

2012-01-01T05:00:00.001-05:00

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

~ Henry David Thoreau

the experience of You

2011-12-31T05:00:00.002-05:00

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...

2011-12-30T08:38:00.000-05:00

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

2011-12-25T05:30:00.002-05:00

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

In the practice of Advent...

2011-12-20T05:00:00.016-05:00

I think - in the practice of Advent - we all become Quakers. For it is the particular practice of the Quakers - silence, stillness, attention, waiting - that we engage in this season.

One of the most precious gifts of grace that I get glimpses of over the years is how the long-term pattern of my life is changing by engaging these practices...these disciplines.

I liken my own practice to be very similar to an experience maybe we've all had. So imagine with me that you have taken a walk in the woods in the late afternoon. It's beautiful, it's peaceful, it's mostly silent.

As the shadows lengthen and the colors of the setting sun deepen both the silence and the texture of it, you lose track of time. After a while, you realize that it is getting rather dark, and you need to make your way back through the woods to your home. As you walk along the path in the gathering dark, you suddenly hear something, like the crack of a branch on the floor of the wood. You stop and still all inner life, and with all the discipline you have you bring your focus and attention to sensing what has made that noise.

This stillness in silence and focused attention is like what I have sensed that has grown in me. This is what Quaker unprogrammed worship is like, as John Punshon in his wonderful and reflection-rich book Encounter with Silence observes, "It is a state of great attentiveness, not of abandon. It involves an awareness of one's being, not one's doing. That is why it is still. Silence is defined from the outside, stillness from within...when Friends practice it together, there is a great release of God's power into their worship and their lives."

The power of Advent - as the power of the Quaker practice of worship - goes beyond the simple act of waiting. It helps give texture and depth to a community of the called/gathered and bonds them together in a unitive experience. There is such a deep, transforming power in this Presence together that is a crowning of what we seek to experience day-to-day in our ordinary, sacred lives, isn't it? For it is indeed living that is most precious, most sacred...even in the waiting for something impossible-yet-true.

In the stillness of this morning, a new name or metaphor emerged for the Spirit. Weaver.

You see, almost like a bird who gathers separate twigs and weaves them into a unified, integrated and strong home for herself and her hatchlings, the Weaver mysteriously, sacrificially, sacramentally, searches my depths - the best and worse in me, the complexity and simplcity...the noble and the vindictive...these separated twigs of my existence and being. Yet bringing those into the Light, this wondrous Weaver integrates and heals me, instead of leaving those shadows to populate my heart in a subversive and destructive secrecy. My weakness become my strength because the Weaver makes it so. This also is true for all of us together as the Weaver threads a diverse community together...

Thus in this last week of Advent, I say: Come, O Weaver!...shine your Light and search me...and if there be any twisted way in me, weave me in the way everlasting.

Peace, Tension and Impossibly-True-Wonder be yours this season, my friends!

Something is on the Horizon

2011-12-18T05:30:00.001-05:00

“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before…What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God's [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.”
~ Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions

I'd Rather Be Significant Than Relevant

2011-12-16T07:54:00.005-05:00

Below is a link to the latest post at the Out of Ur blog. I've been ruminating on this one, because - it resonates with something I have sought before: I'm aiming to go beyond relevance...into a deeper significance.

Fred Shuttlesworth and Steve Jobs died on the same day. One was very relevant to many people, the other greatly significant for many people. Guess which-is-which? Shuttlesworth was gravely significant, Jobs merely relevant.

Guess which one people know more about and think has shaped their lives more? Jobs, of course, and while he has had a tremendous impact that is currently relevant, in time it will not measure up to the significant impact Shuttlesworth made upon humanity.

In considering this, it strikes me that in this Advent season, what we wait upon and deeply embrace is a child whose birth and life was attended with great significance, yet little relevance for the wider world at that time.

[aside: my friend Andy Campbell has some good reflections toward the fact that there was no room for them...]

All of this also reminds me of a quote from Henri Nouwen: “The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation...”

Father, I want to follow you into your deeply significant work in people's lives...show me how to join your revolution! Help me to go beyond relevance to a deeper significance...O come, Emmanuel!

Here is the link to the Out of Ur blog: Christian Saints versus Cultural Celebrities.

Be Awake to the Divine Mystery

2011-12-11T05:30:00.001-05:00

"Take time to be aware that in the very midst of our busy preparations for the celebration of Christ's birth in ancient Bethlehem, Christ is reborn in the Bethlehems of our homes and daily lives. Take time, slow down, be still, be awake to the Divine Mystery that looks so common and so ordinary yet is wondrously present."

~ Edward Hays

La Noche Oscura

2011-12-08T05:00:00.003-05:00

Just read through this article that briefly explores what St. John of the Cross called la noche oscura, or dark night, that difficult invasion of God's astringent grace that opens us to new realms of spiritual experience. Chuck DeGroat says that the purpose of the dark night, of course, is to strip us of our futile attempts to find God on our own terms, and to awaken us to a much simpler desire for intimacy with God. I find in my work that this is exactly what people want. Time and again, pastors tell me that they'd just like to know God, more purely, more simply, more deeply.

Having experienced a few dark nights, I wholeheartedly agree with Chuck.

I spoke of this a while back, but these dark nights can be extraordinary moments of grace and opportunities for a deeper...knowing? Experience of Love? I'm not even sure how to put it, but DeGroat is right, there are just so many dimensions to it.

But I do know that each time it just scares the crap out of me, but paradoxically it also engenders hope. I have come through these seasons of dryness – wilderness experiences really – closer and more in touch with Jesus as a real person. Y'know, what we really believe - that Jesus is alive, right here, right now - is pretty damn disturbing, exquisitely so...and yet I am still along a journey of living the questions more fully, more faithfully...

Iconoclast: Calenthia Dowdy, Race and Intentional Community

2011-12-06T05:00:00.001-05:00

I've been listening to the Iconoclast podcasts for some time, so I thought I would finally share with others. In this 38th podcast, they have some seriously great conversation as the Iconoclast hosts interview Calenthia Dowdy. Calenthia Dowdy is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in urban youth culture(s) and Afro-Brazilian life. She teaches youth ministry and cultural anthropology at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Calenthia was born, raised, and continues to reside in the city of Philadelphia. She’s a Philadelphia Mennonite affiliate and has a keen interest in intentional discipleship community living and various expressions of the emerging church movement. Since 2003, Calenthia has been an antiracism trainer with Damascus Road, an antiracism education and organizing program.

Recently, she contributed a chapter to Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship, where she addresses issues of race in intentional communities.

Click HERE for the podcast.

Stoking the Fire of Advent

2011-12-04T05:30:00.002-05:00

"Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent. If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time."

- Edward Hays

The Revolution is Love

2011-11-30T07:44:00.002-05:00

One of the papers I am writing for the Society of Vineyard Scholars conference in 2012 is on our relational-orientation and the practices thereof. Say what you will about the Occupy Wall St. movements...redemption and traces of the Kingdom can be found everywhere if we're looking. I think Eisenstein is seeing the Kingdom:

A living love hurts

2011-11-28T06:08:00.001-05:00

A living love hurts. Jesus, to prove his love for us, died on the Cross. The mother, to give birth to her child, has to suffer. If you really love one another properly, there must be sacrifice.

~ Mother Theresa of Calcutta, A Gift For God - Prayers and Meditations

NTRT Guest Post: Toward a Centered-Set....Holiness?

2011-11-23T06:00:00.002-05:00

Today I'm guest-blogging at the Not-the-Religious-Type blog with Dave Schmelzer (Dave is also lead pastor of the Greater Boston Vineyard).

Feel free to check it out and join the conversation!

My post today explores some centered-set thoughts and perspectives as well as Stage 4 Faith trajectories regarding issues brought up in Richard Beck's book Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality and Mortality.

See you there!

I desire mercy, not sacrifice

2011-11-21T07:05:00.001-05:00

"Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’"
from Matthew 9

Below is Richard Beck talking about his book Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality and Mortality. I used a bunch of material from Dr. Beck's book in one of the sessions at the Justice-intensive with the HLI students a few weeks ago. I highly recommend you read this book! Dr. Beck will be involved in the Streaming conference at Rochester College in New York in summer 2012 along with Walter Brueggemann...it's going to kick some serious theological assonance!

I believe in the Kingdom Come...u2 edition

2011-11-19T10:04:00.001-05:00

a once-mighty marvel

2011-11-18T06:53:00.003-05:00

i am worn and paper-thin

a once-mighty marvel

yet such has become my skin

all the while i see

postured for indifference

they carve upon me like a tree

with a nonchalant persistence

the words stutter and stumble

sharpness like a blade

wielded with the barest tremble

sometimes in a tirade

yet how should i endure

retreat or advance

bearing a cross unsure

hence unseen at first glance

a hidden wholeness welling up therein

the once-mighty marvel

yet such has become my skin

We need to stop putting the Cart before the Horse...

2011-11-16T05:00:00.001-05:00

I just really appreciate Donald Miller for keeping it real like this...Here are some actual characteristics of the disciples I think we can safely trust. If you resonate with any of these, you’re in a good spot and likely following Jesus:

1. You think Jesus wants to take over the government so you cut off a soldiers ear in order to get the fighting started. (The neo cons are definitely disciples!)

2. You keep pestering Jesus about who he will give more power to in heaven.

3. You have no theological training but own a small fishing business which somehow makes you qualified because you “get it.”

4. The Holy Spirit crashes into one of your mini sermons so everybody can speak different languages and outsiders think you’re drunk.

5. People ask you if you know Jesus and you freak out and say no and run away.

6. You hear they killed Jesus on a cross and you figure the whole thing was a wash and you got duped.

7. You choose other disciples by playing rock, paper scissors.

8. You teach bad theology and have to have somebody else come over and correct you.

So there you go. My guess is there’s a place in there for you. So if you’re confused about theology or power hungry or just an average idiot, take the first step. You’ll get sorted out along the way. The disciples “became” some pretty great guys in the end.

the desire grows in me simply

2011-11-12T05:00:00.000-05:00

"More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them."

~ Henri Nouwen

the Pitt 56: Church-Planter, Interrupted

2011-11-09T08:01:00.007-05:00

I've been ruminating on things that have changed with me over the years, and especially after a significant struggle during a week long fast. One of the things I think God changed for me when I was fasting was my exclusion from "imagining" that I could plant a church. You see, I was excluded from planting a church. Now, I don't think anyone said this to me, but based on how they told me "How to Plant a Church" I was excluded, and so I just lived in this tension of feeling the call of God and not quite being empowered to embrace it. I was interreupted...in an arrested state of development, right? And...it sucked. Seriously.

And a funny thing happened to me...I began to hear voices (well ethereally One Voice, but physically a multiplicity of voices!) that told me I was included. I could do it, and that there wasn't just one cookie-cutter for initiating a church-plant.

Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch, Leroy Barber, Jason Coker...and this is where Hugh Halter and Matt Smay's book, The Tangible Kingdom, spoke so powerfully with resonance to our little team headed to Pittsburgh. They were all saying that there isn't just one way to plant a church, and you don't have to start with "doing church" to plant a church. Well, that's one way, but that's not the only way...it's one way to plant the gospel so that the church grows out of the gospel being planted, but there are other ways of planting the gospel:

Can we imagine planting the gospel in maybe just 2 additional ways, and see the church grow out of that? Then the challenge for each one is to get movement toward the overlap - the Tangible Kingdom - where Christ is more fully realized to all...

Communion: This is the typical way that most churches teach and lead church-planters to do it. You begin by recruiting a team, especially a musician/worship person. Then you do a good Bible study, or a good worship gathering and prayer meeting. This is all good, foundational stuff, but it comes with it's own challenges that we all know fairly well. Example: Most pastors of churches I know, 5-10-15 years down the road, and looking at the people who gather at their Sunday morning services, have this to say: "Can you believe that all this started in a little Bible Study in my living room!?" Awesome, right...yes, it is awesome, and often has led to great churches being built and thriving. Challenges: While getting people to gather for study or prayer or worship is what first formed them as a community, the challenge is always to get these gathered to "do community and do mission". Sometimes that feels like a "Bait-and-Switch" to people. But usually, you have to plan and advertizxe and train "Small Groups" or LifeGroups or Kinships or whatever you want to call them. The tendency is also to have event-centric mission, which while great, can hinder actual relationships between the church and the larger community developing. Also, most pastors tell you about the 20/80 principle, 20% of people do most of the service and outreach in churches. But I believe this 20/80 principle is based on the church being planted in this way, out of this circle.

Community: This is another area where we might expand our imagination for how churches might be planted and especially who might plant them with their own giftedness. What if your gifted leadership is more towards hospitality? The church that grows from this circle is founded in hospitality. Example: This is the circle that Hugh Halter and Matt Smay really invested in when they moved to Denver. Their church grew out of the gospel being planted in the incarnational community circle. How did they do that? They befriended people with purpose, parties and hospitality. In fact, they set the concrete goal of making 50 new friends each when they moved to Denver. But they had a great and particular definition of "friend". Knowing a persons name wasn't enough. Knowing where they lived and worked wasn't enough. Having them over for a dinner party wasn't enough. They decided that the relationship only counted for them as "friend" when that other person invited them into their circle of friends. Adullam, their incarnational community church in Denver grew out of this sort of church-planting. Challenges: While people feel really connected and family one-another and getting people to gather for food, fun and fellowship can be really life-giving, the challenges here include moving into mission and communion circles. Too often community becomes an end in itself and they struggle to include reaching beyond themselves. I have heard that a lot of house churches have this kind of challenge.

Mission: This is the area that we feel God is calling us to plant the gospel in Pittsburgh (well, actually it's between this circle and the incanrational community circle). In this circle, the gospel is planted and people are gathered through missional initiatives in your larger community/city. This is where God's heart for the poor, the least, and the orphan and widow is found. Example: Brandon Hatmaker is probably the best example of this I know of at-present (because I met him and heard his story back in September). His experience is chronicled in his newly released book, The Barefoot Church. You can read his whole story there, but what I want to highlight is that when Brandon left as pastor of a large church, he asked God what He wanted him to do to begin a new church. God's answer?: Serve the poor. Fine good, right? But how do I gather people? Serve the poor. OK, but what about worship and prayer? Serve the poor. Finally, Brandon said, OK, that's what I'm going to do, and starting with just his little family, they began serving the poor and homeless on the streets and in the parks in and around Austin, Texas. And then people got interested in what he was doing...not other churched people, but people who hadn't connected with Jesus, either ever or in a long time. The Father led them to plant the gospel in doing mission, and the church grew out of that. Challenges: There are challenges here, just like there are in all the circles where church can grow. One challenge Brandon faced was, he had a lot of new believers, because they saw how great God's heart was for people. The challenge to get people to gather for prayer or bible study or musical worship was there, because the new community of believers didn't have a grid for that, so they was challenging. Also, in this circle, you get the "doers" but often the doers have a difficult time just "being" together. That's another challenge, here, to get people to just be together without having to always be out serving...to not feel guilty about that, but take time to relish relationship, and get some soul care so we don't just burn out. But what if one of the challlenges here is the opposite to the 20/80 principle under Communion? What is the challenge here is that only 20% of the people make it to communion-type gatherings? That's still a challenge, because we need to pastor, lead and teach everyone in our community...but secretly, I think that might be a little better challenge for me!

Now all of these overlap (see diagram above), and almost every pastor and leader in church I know is trying to get to that center of the Tangible Kingdom, where all three overlap. All three circles are good, and I believe churches that grow out of all three can be really healthy, but eventually we want it all...and in the meanwhile we're all moving toward the center overlap, where a fuller expression of Jesus and the Kingdom is found!

Increasingly, we feel like one of the best metaphors for what we hear God calling us to do is the Jesuits. They were the missionaries and, I dunno, sort-of pre-church-planters of the Church back in the day. They would go into a community and set up "The Mission to Santa Cruz" - or be-that-as-it-may Pittsburgh! - and begin doing missional initiatives and compassionate ministry among the least and the lost.

Now, did they "do church"? They certainly celebrated the sacraments, and they gathered for prayer and worship, right? But really they didn't focus on "doing church", they focused on mission and fostered a faith community, and let the church grow out of that...and eventually Rome would send an official priest to set up the "doing church" stuff way after it was all ready going on there, just not the emphasis.

So, that's where our little band of subversive missionaries to Pittsburgh is at...we think God is calling us to go do mission, plant the gospel and cultivate what grows out of that, moving toward the overlap of the Tangible Kingdom. In fact, we don't even use the term church-planting much any longer, because we've come to know how much of a loaded term it is.

[to be continued...]

Book Recommendation: God in a Brothel

2011-11-08T07:25:00.003-05:00

This past long weekend, the students and leaders from the Heroic Leadership Institute got to visit with Daniel Walker (author of God in a Brothel) and hear his own story and testimony firsthand. It was a touching and hope-filled testimony full of both the darkness that we fight against, counting the cost of being involved and redemption in the midst of our lives.

This is the true story of an undercover investigator's experiences infiltrating the multi-billion dollar global sex industry. It is a story of triumph for the children and young teens released from a life of slavery and the rescuer who freed many hundreds of victims leading to the prosecution of dozens of perpetrators. And it is a story of haunting despair for those left behind in corrupt systems of law enforcement.

It is the personal story of Daniel Walker, one man who followed a path of costly discipleship, agonizing failure and unlikely redemption.

And it is a challenge to God's people to join in the battle that all might be freed.

Check it out here!

Justice-intensive with the Heroic Leadership Institute

2011-11-03T06:06:00.003-05:00

Consider me psyched....today 12 students from the Heroic Leadership Institute arrive to join us here at the Central Maryland Vineyard for their "Justice-intensive". HLI is a boot camp for young (aimed at 18 to 35-ish) leaders in the body of Christ. It is a 9-month full-time training program currently based in Lewiston, Maine at the Pathway Vineyard.

The dream of HLI is to create a path within the Vineyard movement for our young leaders to be trained and released into significant ministry and as life-long lovers of Jesus and people. The hope is to create a green-house affect where the students are exposed in an intense way to three strategic venues of training. The rest of this week, I get to be their main guide, faciliator and instructor...so this is going to challenge me (and hopefully them as well!). It's going to be intense: filled with both serious hands-on justice training and experience on the street, formational prayer and soul care for a sustainable life of "Doing Justice", as well as some in-depth teaching and conversational reflection on Jesus' heart for the justice of the Kingdom!

As a way of preparation and focusing our attention on what God has given us to do, we've been meditating on this verse from Isaiah 30...why don't you join us throughout the rest of this week in praying through and meditating on this with us: “Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!”

Insurrection and Pyro-Theology review

2011-10-31T07:03:00.002-05:00

Today, my friend Jason Clark - lead pastor at the Vineyard Church Sutton on the outskirts of London - reviews Pete Rollin's underlying 'pyro-theology' that moves in Bonhoeffer's direction of a "religionless Christianity", asking whether religion is necessary to follow Jesus and participate in His Life. I have talked in this direction a bit previously at the Not-the-Religious-Type blog. So make sure to check it out!

Would we recognize them?

2011-10-28T05:23:00.000-05:00

Perhaps what we need…is a new wave of prophets, people willing to speak God's truth into action in our current world. We are not short on secular prophets - their prophecies of everything from the financial future to the globalized world line the bookshelves of our stores.

But if we are to get back to living in rhythm with God's heartbeat and finding answers to our questions of what is enough, we must find the farmers and shepherds, or in our case, the lawyers and Starbucks baristas and stay at home moms or dads, who are willing to speak prophetically as followers of Jesus back into our culture and especially into the church. Would we recognize them? Who knows? God’s people did not always see or hear the prophets, unless they walked naked through the streets. (That wasn’t a suggestion, by the way.) How would God speak through the prophets today? What would that sound like? What would prophets look like today?

It seems that we constantly need prophetic reminders, ways of calling ourselves back to the narrative. We need to be reminded, in fresh and contemporary words, what kind of people we are being called to become.

~ Will Samson, Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess

the Pitt 55: "Our practices are often smarter than our ideas"

2011-10-26T04:58:00.000-05:00

As we've talked about several times in this journey - we've been in a Quaker State of mind; and we've been digging at the Quaker roots of the Vineyard; we've listened to Carol Wimber's reflection on our Quaker roots and the counter-cultural ways of worship; as well as the embrace of living the questions with our lives.

Ok...OK, so I've talked a lot about this, but have we done anything about this?, because as Miroslav Volf said at the Vineyard Seminarians Summit: "Our practices are often smarter than our ideas."

Well, recently I have been secreting away to attend some Friends meetings in Annapolis, Maryland. Some simple words of immediate reflection: refreshing. sincerity. humility.

My experience has been really great, and while I don't want to hype or glamorize these experiences in any way, as I reflect on practicing these ways of following Christ, of worshipping Christ and honoring others, Volf's statement about how practices are smarter than our ideas keeps ringing in my head. The practices I am referring to primarily include communal silent worship, an orientation toward deep listening, and honoring the Imago Dei inside each one of us.

Equally, the 'spiritual-formation-nerd' in me leans back and says: "Wow, what kind of people do you become by gathering in sheer silent expectation of the Divine with others every week...? It must deeply affect people." And I see that it does, or at least my perception is that it does...from my new acquainatnce Mardi, who when we talk, deeply listens to what I say. And Phil, whose intensity for seeking first God's Reign and His justice/righteousness burns through his easy, laid-back manner.

There just seems to be a...depth...a simplicity...a joie de vivre that resides with and through these people. And when I think of that, this electricity crawls up and down my spine and I just desire that so much for our community in Pittsburgh...

Have you ever been to a Friends/Quakers meeting? What was your experience?

[to be continued...]

Praying by Mary Oliver

2011-10-22T06:27:00.000-05:00

Praying
by Mary Oliver

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but a doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak

the Pitt 54: threading our lives through the eye of the needle

2011-10-18T09:44:00.000-05:00

Our friends who are all moving to Pittsburgh were gathered in prayer recently, and reflecting on prayer times and sacred conversations, I just really feel like God has given us really good instincts...and I want to continue to ask God to bless those good instincts!

Yet our instincts are taking us in risky trajectories.

it's. just. not. easy.

In fact, it's terribly difficult, especially in this transitional time...and to be honest I have moments where I think: just go with the flow...but Something won't let me!

Thus, my instincts tells me that this cruciform-way of authenticity will witness to a deeper complexion to our shared reality, just as Jesus witnessed to and enacted this and called it the Realm/Reign/Kingdom of God.

If we can just open ourselves together so that God can thread our lives through the eye of the needle and weave a tapestry of hope for the people of Pittsburgh, that's what we want.

The reality of the world we see via the media and wrestle with every day is shallow and in many ways denies the true depth of reality in our world. The deeper reality is touched upon and flows out of self-giving love together - just as Jesus taught us - and the way to let this reality wash over into the shallower level is not through violent political upheaval, but through re-orienting our minds and our lives - by living according to the deep reality, being transformed and a catalyst of transformation;

I like what Jacques Ellul once said, "[The Christian] is one who already lives it, and already makes it actual and present in his own environment. Consequently it means bringing the future into the present as an explosive force…it means understanding the present in light of the future..."

I also love how Walter Wink dovetails with that in saying, "Hope envisages its future and then acts as if that future is now irresistible, thus helping to create the reality for which it longs."

[to be continued...]

homeric quote

2011-10-16T05:30:00.000-05:00

...from the wedding invitation of myself and Chaundra 12 years ago, a Homeric quote from The Odyssey:

There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.

how a man loves a woman

2011-10-15T05:30:00.003-05:00

words of agur ben jakeh:

there are three things which are too wonderful for me,

yea, four which I do not comprehend:

how an eagle glides through the sky,
how a snake slithers on a rock,
how a ship steers on the oceans

...and how a man loves a woman.

echo of our life

2011-10-14T05:30:00.002-05:00

the echo of our life lived as one

is heard across the mountains of joy

and resounds in the valley of the shadow of lamentation

pretense has been undressed in our very presence

eyes that have witnessed our best and our worst

yet in loyalty and laughter we are tangled – naked but unashamed

who knows the lives that have listened to this echo

wisdom gleaned from wisdom given and lived

in a life bound from a beginning in simple flirtation

O, one day, in wrinkled eyes will we see

each other in a new light to appreciate

but for now - as closer to beginning than end – we revel in the journey of our redemption

generous beauty

2011-10-13T05:26:00.000-05:00

…a blue-green sea

…flecks of amber sunlight

inviting eyes highlight your generous beauty

outer banks

2011-10-12T04:58:00.001-05:00

as the setting sun sighs its last

and tumbles over the precipice once again

i lap up the gentle break of the surf

from my sandy cloister of quiet

the thought of you occurs to me

as my face is embraced by a gentle wind

swirling off the sea and salt

i think of you and then

revealed by a most delicate tremor

as if the gentlest breath has kissed my neck

awareness of your approach descends upon me

as if you were drawn to me thinking of you

in the blue tone and silhouette of dusk

have you come to witness the fading illumination

upon the ever deepening shadows of sea

notice the white crests of waves

how they strike the shore

displaying such a deep contrast with easy rhythm

that refuses to be banished in the encroaching darkness

just like your simple presence now nestled close

as a salty breeze discovers our hidden haunt

touching with approval

our instance of evocative connection

cafe au lait

2011-10-11T06:27:00.001-05:00

there are times

that i sit there and steam

like a mug of French roast

dark and brooding

yet you

beautiful you

like rich smooth cream

you temper my bitterness

and turn our life from

a cup of joe

into
café au lait

a little golden finch

2011-10-10T06:22:00.000-05:00

On this coming Sunday, Chaundra and I will celebrate 12 years together...we go to 12 now! In celebrating that, I will be posting some wordcraft this week reflecting on our life lived as one...

_________________________

a little golden finch

joined me this morning

as i sat outside

deeply embracing

my first cup of coffee

she looked at me

this way

and that

sizing me up

it seemed to me

then she chirped at me

so as to get my attention

as if i was ignoring her

and there was a moment

as we looked deeply

at one another

a breathless moment

when it came down to just us

we saw each other

in reflection

the moment with my finch

was much like so many moments

between my wife and i

breathless

mysterious

curious

looking at each other

waiting for the other

to speak our heart

before the moment

flies away

like that little finch did

encounter with an old oak tree

2011-10-06T08:12:00.004-05:00

early one morning

I came across death and life

in an old oak tree

who seemed so gravely stricken

as he looked straight into me

with a windy, ever-so-slight shrug

and a firm grip, deeply rooted as it was

ever-reaching, ever-searching

for the rations delved out

by a wayward earth

yet I could have sworn

I heard it groan

with an ancient etched-wisdom

of an old bluesman:

‘O, reveal thyself bastard son’

the hairs standing

on the back of my neck

knew it to be true

just as I felt the stone roll away

with a shout

I was freed from the shackles

in that moment

a liberation

confirmed by the

breaking dawn

redemption drawn near

for the old oak tree

through a revelation of me

always getting ready

2011-10-03T06:30:00.000-05:00

We are always getting ready to live, but not living.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

a season of discontent

2011-09-29T11:34:00.001-05:00

grey clouds languish lowly
billowing to no one in particular
bearing down
with such potential
on a day opaque and
hidden in obscurity

the jury is out
as each thought i have
clinks like dominoes falling
leading me back
to my weary contemplation
in a season of discontent

push back

2011-09-26T09:12:00.003-05:00

Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when it is, of course, the cross.

~ Flannery O'Connor

the Pitt 53: Miroslav Volf on missional engagement with the world

2011-09-22T05:01:00.001-05:00

Below, Miroslav Volf - professor at Yale Divinity School and the primary lecturer at this year's Vineyard Seminarian Summit - talks about how Christians have mis-engaged the world, and in his new book A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good, he wrestles with a missional engagement with the world that God sent Jesus (and Jesus sent us) not to condemn the world, but through Jesus to save it:

the Pitt 52: Easy Overview of Missional-Orientation "Back to Basics" series

2011-09-20T04:55:00.001-05:00

So, over the past few months, we've winded our way through quite a journey on the missional-orientation of worship and the missional-orientation of prayer.

I thought it might be nice for us to have a reflecting point on those two rather large conversations, and a central point to link to all of those. This is it, so here goes, and feel free to join our conversation in the comments:

The Missional-Orientation of Worship:

The Missional-Orientation of Prayer:

[to be continued...]

being deeply implicated in the practical existence of this world

2011-09-16T06:35:00.001-05:00

"[B]ecoming and being a saint does not mean being perfect but being whole; it does not not mean being exceptionally religious, or being religious at all, it means being liberated from religiosity and religious pietism of any sort; it does not mean being morally better, it means being exemplary; it does not mean being godly, but rather being truly human; it does not mean being otherworldly, but it means being deeply implicated in the practical existence of this world without succumbing to this world or any aspect of this world, no matter how beguiling. Being holy means a radical self-knowledge; a sense of who one is, a consciousness of one's identity so thorough that it is no longer confused with the identities of others, of persons or of any creatures or of God or of any idols.

For human beings, relief and remedy from such profound confusion concerning a person's own identity and the identity and character of the Word of God becomes the indispensable and authenticating ingredient of being holy, and it is the most crucial aspect of becoming mature--or of being fulfilled--as a human in this world, in fallen creation. This is, at the same time, the manner through which humans can live humanly, in sanity and conscience, in the fallen world as it is. And these twin faculties, sanity and conscience--rather than some sentimental or pietistic or self-serving notion of moral perfection--constitute the usual marks of sanctification. That which distinguishes the saint is not eccentricity but sanity, not perfection but conscience."

~ William Stringfellow, from The Politics of Spirituality

the Pitt 51: Becoming the Answers to Our Own Prayers

2011-09-14T05:00:00.002-05:00

As an addendum to our conversation on the topic of the missional-orientation of prayer - and along the same lines as our conversation about History belonging to the Intercessors - below Shane Claiborne talks toward prayer and action and about becoming the answer to our own prayers:

[to be continued...]

the only adequate explanation

2011-09-11T06:25:00.000-05:00

Live a life so mysterious that the only adequate explanation is the presence of a living, loving God.

~ Dorothy Day

the Pitt 50: A Charismissional Orientation

2011-09-06T08:51:00.000-05:00

So our Pitt team had a really good interaction regarding the missional-orientation of Prayer. There were several great takeaways from our time and the conversation, including being People of the Presence, but in the practices of the Vineyard from the beginning - i.e., the Vineyard 5-Step Prayer Model - we found great coherence with our missional-orientation.

The Vineyard 5 Step Prayer Model from Preaching In Shorts on Vimeo.

We all know that the best way to learn about this is to watch it being done, then just do it! While we were all pretty familiar with this Vineyard prayer model (some of us have been teaching it in seminars, intensives and on the streets over the years), but we found in a quick 4-minute video from J Leman, J has a few nuggets in there about "doin' the stuff that Jesus did" on the streets:

Since the Vineyard National Conference this past May, there are two people in the Vineyard who have been really speaking to the larger Vineyard movement and encouraging the missional aspect of "signs and wonders" and being what we like to call "charismissional", following John Wimber's early direction for the Vineyard movement that "power ministry" is meant to be taken to the streets and not bottled up inside a Sunday service. Robbie Dawkins and J Leman have really been charging us all to practice the Presence of God, notice what He's up to, be 'People of the Presence' and take risks out on the streets of our everyday life, being naturally supernatural as we go. In the video below, J Leman reminds us that even though in the "now-and-not-yet" of our "here-and-now" we risk praying for people, and they aren't always miraculously healed somehow, love never fails (and as Rob Bell claims: Love Wins!):

Lastly, the article below is an strategically important one, in the same vein as Robbie and J, calling for the Missional Church to embrace the Spirit and for us to be Charismissional:

WHY CHARISMISSIONAL?

The word charismissional is defined as Spirit-led missional living. Allow me to explain why I joined the words charismatic and missional.

A Call For Charisma In The Missional Church

We cannot truly be missional without allowing our missional activity to be directed by the Holy Spirit. Our identity as the people of God is dependent on our understanding of the purpose of the Holy Spirit in our life.

Our empowerment for participation in the missio Dei is the Holy Spirit. His role in our life is to make known to us the heart of the Father. How can we live a life of mission without knowing what the Father is doing? We were given the Holy Spirit for this reason - to show us the things we need to know in order to be in step with the Father's heart.

We are to demonstrate, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the present reality of the kingdom of God. In order to do this, we must develop a relationship of ongoing dependence on His guidance and insight into the kingdom realm.

We serve a supernatural God, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit is His supernatural ability made available to us. Spiritual gifts are the supernatural help of the Spirit of God given for the accomplishment of his missional purposes.

I hope that those who are not from a charismatic background would open their heart and mind to the supernatural, divine enablement available to all of us. When we embrace and understand the necessity of the Spirit's role, our mission can be connected to the living power of God. It does not have to look like charismatic hype. It can look like whatever supernatural intervention or grace that we need in the moment.

Let us not attempt to live missionally without a dependent reliance on the participation of the Holy Spirit. This is the missional element that will cause our works of service to be empowered with the life of the Spirit of God.

A Missional Call to the Charismatic Church

On the other hand, we should no longer be charismatic without understanding the missional heart of the Father.

Why aren't charismatics missional? If the function of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the heart of the Father, and the heart of the Father is the reconciliation and restoration of all things, why have we, who claim knowledge and intimacy with the Spirit, missed the missional leading of the Holy Spirit?

I am sorry to say that the charismatic church has not represented the function of spiritual gifts very well. While we pursue the supernatural aspect of our inheritance, eagerly desiring the gifts of the Spirit, for the most part, our expression of the gifts has been self-serving.

As a friend, I would like to issue this missional call to the charismatic church. Let us open our eyes and hearts to what God is doing. I have written this letter explaining the need to reconsider the way we practice our faith.

Dear friends,

Something I have learned outside of the charismatic church is the idea of living missionally. Although this is considered a trendy word in some circles, it is unfamiliar to many people in churches like ours.

We understand the concepts of mission and evangelism. However, missional living is different in that it is unrelated to church programs. It is a lifestyle of involving ourselves in God's mission to the world. Before we too quickly assume or mentally ascend to believing we are already doing this, let me explain further.

Missional living shifts our spirituality to active involvement and participation in God's work of bringing reconciliation and restoration. The love and purpose of God is our motivation, His desire for shalom. We become agents of His grace, His love, and the power of His life. Every situation is an opportunity to bring redemption, healing, and wholeness.

We take what we have and use it for the purpose of the kingdom. This is so simple, and yet it is profound. Rather than having a churchy appearance, it may seem rather insignificant and unimportant. As we grow in understanding the Father's heart, we learn to step into these ordinary moments of ministry as they happen in our life outside of church.

Although the charismatic church has prided itself in revelation and knowledge of the ways of the Spirit, missional living has not been our practice. To know the Spirit is to understand the missional heart of the Father, but we have not lived as people who have this revelation.

Traditional charismatic expression has little connection or relevance to the outside world. Our use of charismatic gifts has not compelled us to go to those to whom we are called. The deeper we went in our quest for the things of the Spirit, the further removed we became from knowing and relating to those who do not yet know Jesus.

We have been especially guilty of dualism, of creating a divide between the sacred and the secular. We focus our attention on creating an atmosphere set apart for God's presence. Our practice of spiritual gifts is dependent on their use within the church.

We are caught up in charismatic traditions and expressions of worship, unaware that we have become an insiders-only, private club. We have our own language and experiences that seem strange to the uninitiated. The things we busy ourselves with are of little importance outside our realm.

As we exercise spiritual gifts among one another, we are like body builders at the gym, flexing our spiritual muscles. The world is not familiar with Who's Who Among Charismatics.

They do not care about the latest, greatest apostle or prophet speaking at the WeAreChangingTheEarth Conference. The world does not know us or care about the status we assume in Christian circles.

Do we know how to be charismatic outside the church walls? Most of our experience is in ministering to one another. In order to move forward, the first thing that will be needed is a season of charismatic detox.

We must step back from our charismatic traditions and be willing to reconsider our motivations and our practice of ministry. We have to rethink the things that we have used to define our spirituality.

We may have to admit that the expression of spiritual gifts within charismatic, prophetic, and intercessory circles fed our sense of importance and need for recognition. We have at times been guilty of using the anointing for our own personal glory.

No longer can we define apostolic understanding as a way of structuring authority and networks while we continue to ignore those to whom we have been sent. How can we presume to be apostolic without leaving the realm of church?

No longer can we pursue prophetic ministry simply for our own gratification, elevating prophetic ministers to celebrity status. Rather than tickling one another's ears, we could use our prophetic insight to speak forth the redemptive purposes of God.

We could use our prophetic voice to call forth the vision and promise of God in the lives of unbelievers. We can do this without churchy language or a ministry setting. We can learn to minister God's words and life in a way that is organic to the situation in which we find ourselves.

We cannot stay bunkered in our walls praying for revival. How can we accept that mentality when Jesus' example and command is to go? We have not been given a blueprint for spiritually mapping revival. Our blueprint is to be among those who need to hear the gospel of the kingdom, befriending them and intertwining our lives with theirs. To continue to pray for revival without immersing our lives among the lost is ridiculous.

Do we dare to take the power of the Spirit outside of our comfort zone? Have we not noticed that we are only surrounded by salt? We are stuck in the shaker. Our light is hidden in the bushel basket of the church walls.

Maybe God will upset the shaker and scatter the salt for its intended purpose. Maybe He will remove the security blanket of familiar charismatic life that we love, allowing us to see the mission He is calling us to. Maybe He will open our ears to hear other voices calling the church to be the church out in the world rather than cloistered behind church walls.

There are other believers already questioning the way church is done. In order for us to participate in what God is doing, we must also reconsider the way that we do church. We would be wise to learn from those who are leading the way in becoming a missional expression of church.

This is why the charismatic church must change. We say we have a heart for the lost, yet there is nothing in our way of doing church that intersects with them. There is a place for exercising spiritual gifts for the purpose of edifying and encouraging one another. However, we cannot stay in our comfort zone, disconnected from the missional purposes of God.

We must redefine what it means to be a spirit-led follower of Christ. We can no longer look for affirmation or validation of our spirituality in the church system, but instead must learn to rely on the Spirit for our ongoing instruction and mission. When we understand our missional identity, we can be a part of advancing His reign and participating in His kingdom life on this earth.

I pray that we will humbly move forward in participating in God's mission, co-laboring with others of like purpose.

Sincerely,

emerging grace

Our inheritance is to know the mind and heart of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the downpayment of that inheritance. He is our constant companion and teacher in walking according to the purposes of the Father.

In the story of the prodigal son, the son who stayed and the son who left both misunderstood the Father's heart and intentions, especially concerning the inheritance. There are things we can learn from one another as we learn to move forward, by the power of the Holy Spirit, into the missional task set before us.

We were not created to just be church-goers. The people of God are to co-labor with God, incarnating His life, hope, love, and redemption in all that we are and do. It is only by walking with the Spirit that we are enabled to live according to our true identity and purpose.

[to be continued...]

where the Kingdom is most powerful

2011-09-02T06:59:00.002-05:00

“Everyday life is the place where the kingdom is most powerful and has the most potential. Every day of the week matters.”

~ J.R. Briggs

the Pitt 49: Fast Worship

2011-08-30T12:19:00.001-05:00

As I was reading a recent post from my new acquaintance, Matte Downey - from Montreal! - I couldn't help but think this was right in line with our own recent blog series on the missional-orientation of worship. So, I thought I'd share her post on Fast Worship:

Yesterday Dean and I went to see a film called Senna, a documentary about the legendary race car driver from Brazil. Quite a fascinating and moving story. Of course, filmmakers choose what bits of someone's life to showcase and what parts to leave out, but the overall sense was that we were seeing the man not only as a great racer, but as a man who had one passion and a remarkable instinct for it.

He spoke freely about God, read his bible regularly, was referred to as a humble man by his colleagues, and obviously loved his family and his country. The racing world was not always kind to him, yet he showed great restraint in how he dealt with those in his profession.

After he won one of his first Grand prix races, he recounted that near the finish line, he went into a kind of otherworldly zone. He felt the presence of God, a sense of peace. Dean leaned over to me halfway through the movie and said, "This was worship for him." And yes, in some ways it reminded me of Olympic runner Eric Liddell who said that he felt the pleasure of God when he ran.

The intersection of doing something we love, something we have a talent for, something that requires us to give all we are capable of and then some more, and the humble acknowledgment of our need for God in that very place - this is where the presence of God can often be found.

It made me look at my own life and wonder, what is that place for me? Where I have a desire to do well, a genuine instinct for something, where I bring everything I have to the table because nothing less will do. And most importantly, where I feel God's nearness and his pleasure. In this place, I am offering myself to him, I am receiving and giving a gift at the same time. I am a worshipper.

[to be continued...]

NTRT: Faith Beyond Social Marginalization

2011-08-26T06:13:00.000-05:00

Today I'm guest-blogging at the Not-the-Religious-Type blog with Dave Schmelzer (Dave is also lead pastor of the Greater Boston Vineyard).

Feel free to check it out and join the conversation...my post today explores the newsest research presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, which explored the trends of those with less education trending out of church and those with more education into church...

the Pitt 48: History Belongs to the Intercessors

2011-08-23T05:08:00.000-05:00

So in our on-going conversation about the missional-orientation of prayer, a few friends have asked about intercessory prayer, that's missional, right? Yes, definitely, I say...but possibly not in the way you're thinking of it. My take on this perhaps comes at this from a different angle vis-a-vis what we typically envision when we say "intercessory prayer..," which among many friends means gathering for worship and prayer in a private room and beseeching God for others. Nothing particularly against that, but what exactly do we mean when we say "intercessor"? The dictionary says this: the act of interceding (intervening or mediating) between two parties. Thus, to me, intercessors (aka advocates) represent two parties to one another and facilitates the two parties coming together. It's active, it's patient, it's intervention. OK so far, but what's my angle? My angle is posture matters, positioning matters and place matters. So, maybe in terms of intercession, the church in our worship/prayer represents God to the world and the world to God, seeking to be about the reconciliation of the two? That sounds a lot like the Mission of God, huh?

But how exactly are we doing this if we think of intercession as only gathering with other Christians and "praying together"? To me, we posture ourselves via humility before both parties...and of course, we've positioned ourselves between the two parties we are seeking to intercede with to bring together, right? Yet we cannot forget Moses and his type of intercession with YHWH for the Hebrew people: a took the side of the people who had less power while at-the-same-time seeking to uphold the reputation of God, didn't he?

So positioning can be an interesting endeavour, but that affects our placement, because if we aren't in a place to intercede if we aren't actually between them, right? What I mean is what Walter Wink works toward in the quote below, but this quotes comes from the humble placement Wink took in actual situations in the Apartheid-era of South Africa, where - in an utterly Jewish-way - he is lamenting and complaining to God about the situation at-hand and seeking God intervention between people and the powers-that-be and all of them and God. This is where I'd see our basics of Worship and Prayer overlap in something we might call creative, active intercession. Perhaps we might even go so far as to say that the church offers on behalf of all the world what is due God. The church, in this sense, worships as representing (or "in proxy" for you lawyers out there) the people of our city/community/nation and how we imagine the future of it. Yet we as priests aren't separate, it's not an "us/them" dichotomy, it's a "we". Thus, here is Walter Wink speaking for himself:

Walter Wink: History belongs to the Intercessors.

(An excerpt from “The Powers that Be: Theology for a New Millennium” by Walter Wink.)

“Intercessory prayer is spiritual defiance of what is in the way of what God has promised. Intercession visualizes an alternative future to the one apparently fated by the momentum of current forces. Prayer infuses the air of a time yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere of the present. History belongs to the intercessors who believe the future into being. This is not simply a religious statement. It is also true of Communists or capitalists or anarchists. The future belongs to whoever can envision a new and desirable possibility, which faith then fixes upon as inevitable. This is the politics of hope. Hope envisages its future and then acts as if that future is now irresistible, thus helping to create the reality for which it longs. The future is not closed. There are fields of forces whose actions are somewhat predictable. But how they will interact is not. Even a small number of people, firmly committed to the new inevitability on which they have fixed their imaginations, can decisively affect the shape the future takes.

These shapers of the future are the intercessors, who call out of the future the longed-for new present. In the New Testament, the name and texture and aura of that future is God’s domination-free order, the reign of God.

No doubt our intercessions sometimes change us as we open ourselves to new possibilities we had not guessed. No doubt our prayers to God reflect back upon us as a divine command to become the answer to our prayer. But if we are to take the biblical understanding seriously, intercession is more than that. It changes the world and it changes what is possible to God. It creates an island of relative freedom in a world gripped by unholy necessity. A new force field appears that hitherto was only potential. The entire configuration changes as the result of the change of a single part. A space opens in the praying person, permitting God to act without violating human freedom. The change in one person thus changes what God can thereby do in that world.

All of Jesus’ teachings on prayer feature imperatives. (See for example, Luke 11:9 “Ask…..search…..knock.”) In prayer we are ordering God to bring the Kingdom near. It will not do to implore. We have been commanded to command. We are required by God to haggle with God for the sake of the sick, the obsessed, the weak, and to conform our lives to our intercessions. This is a God who invents history in interaction with those “who hunger and thirst to see right prevail” (Matt. 5:6, REB). How different this is from the static god of Greek philosophy that all these years has lulled so many into adoration without intercession !

Praying is rattling God’s cage and waking God up and setting God free and giving this famished God water and this starved God food and cutting the ropes off God’s hands and the manacles off God’s feet and washing the caked sweat from God’s eyes and then watching God swell with life and vitality and energy and following God wherever God goes.

When we pray we are not sending a letter to a celestial White House, where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaged, rather, in an act of co-creation, in which one little sector of the universe rises up and becomes translucent, incandescent, a vibratory centre of power that radiates the power of the universe.

History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, is a means of focusing for action and of creating action. By means of our intercessions we veritably cast fire upon the earth and trumpet the future into being.”

[to be continued...]

alive with the love of God

2011-08-19T05:26:00.000-05:00

Often we are preoccupied with the question "How can we be witnesses in the Name of Jesus? What are we supposed to say or do to make people accept the love that God offers them?" These questions are expressions more of our fear than of our love. Jesus shows us the way of being witnesses. He was so full of God's love, so connected with God's will, so burning with zeal for God's Kingdom, that he couldn't do other than witness. Wherever he went and whomever he met, a power went out from him that healed everyone who touched him. (See Luke 6:19.) If we want to be witnesses like Jesus, our only concern should be to be as alive with the love of God as Jesus was.

~ Henri Nouwen

the Pitt 47: People of the Presence

2011-08-17T05:35:00.002-05:00

As I seek to go deeper with my own 'practicing the Presence of God' ala Brother Lawrence/Frank Laubach, I have been reminded of something Robby Dawkins said recently, that we want to be People of the Presence. At the Vineyard National Leaders Conference in Phoenix back in May, they showed a video of Casey Corum talking about how we seek God to meet us and be among His People when we gather and sing together. The thing is, we are not about to jettison this rich heritage, but we do see that it cannot remain stagnant...our expectations grow and mature and we seek to experience and share His Presence in worship times, in prayer, on the streets as we seek to practice the Presence of God in this Missio Dei-oriented way. Can you see how what the Father began grows and expands into all aspects of our lives, without removing the special beginning, the honored and treasured remembrance of a place that God initially met us. Thus we want to be a People of the Presence of God, for His Presence is His Power and its His Renown, as we act as humble, faithful stewards of the mysteries of God in the here-and-now of the now-and-not-yet of His Agenda.

You see, I think we get our humility and faithfulness from Him; He is that way and we are seeking to be like Him. Too often my own default and disappointment is that this must be some sort of super amazing demonstrative event. But perhaps that is mostly borne of my own arrogant ways. Most of scripture and our own heritage in the Vineyard (from the Quakers) is that God mostly acts in a naturally supernatural way, and so we should expect that as well. In Isaiah 25, it tells how 'the ruthless' are like a biting winter rain storm driving against a wall, like a sirocco or just the beat of the sun down upon the weary in the desert wilderness. But what does it say that YHWH is like? A super-storm coming against that? No, His action is like a cloud, quietly interposing itself between us and the beat-down of the heat of the sun. Like a quiet, smooth, seamless action of a cloud providing relief. Quiet, subtle, yet powerful.

I love how Richard Rohlheiser talks about the Presence of God being like a season. In an analogy that comes from Jesus - "take the fig tree as a parable; as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near." Bearing the Presence of God can be like a tree undergoing the presence of summer. A tree is brought to bloom and fruit in season. The tree doesn't understand summer, nor is it able to project what will happen next moment-by-moment in summer; but it simply acts under its presence. Like the tree, we want to undergo the Presence of God and live in openness to the mystery of His Presence without having to totally understand or figure out too much. Like the fig tree, we just want to act under the presence, in a way that doesn't try to overanalyze it, but celebrates it and simply moves under its influence upon us. That's not to say we don't want to have our faithfulness seek understanding, but that process is in the afterglow, or like a photograph. We live the moment, but we take pictures, and afterward, gazing at the pictures remember and reflect on it. To me this is the interaction of what scholastics and theologians call Theology and Praxis. To me, it seems really profound theology comes in the wake of faithful praxis...in deep authenticity. To me, this also connects with the missional aspect of 'signs and wonders': we join Jesus on His Mission (and incarnationally gathering locally, whatever that looks like where you are planted), it's not about Power so we can get God to bless our stuff, but: if we spend ourselves on behalf of the lost and least, if we break the yoke of oppression, if we provide for the poor and clothe the naked...then our light will break forth like the dawn, and our healing will come quickly...then we will be like a well-watered garden...my heart yearns for these things. This also moves toward a theology of prayer, presence and peace that Eldon Villafane outlines in his book Seek the Peace of the City: Reflections on Urban Ministry.

Yet issues remain, and my friend Chris Marshall - reflecting upon Psalm 18 - moves in a great direction to expand our horizon about being people of the Presence: "If you are prone to believe in and listen for the voice of One who is the creator and sustainer of all things, sometimes it is just flat out hard to hear it. Our preoccupations, our anxieties, our muchness, our manyness, our unbelief, our rebellion. . . we are a people who tend to stray. And when the darkness comes, when it seems all hope has passed, when it feels as if the walls are closing, when light has left the room of your heart; you perceive that you are alone in that darkness. Reading this Psalm today raises a new question for me: What if darkness is his covering? What if he is cloaked in that dusk? What if that lonely place is actually the canopy of his presence? Often when we least expect it, often when we think all hope is gone, often when we come to the end of our rope . . . we find there is more. Look to the clouds of your heart, your mind, your soul; see if there is not a radiant light waiting to break through, see that you were never alone. Listen for that voice in the thunder, for darkness is often his covering."

I can say that this has been much of my experience of the missional-orientation of Practicing the Presence of God and seeking to be part of the People of His Presence.

[to be continued...]

to be interrupted by God

2011-08-12T07:57:00.001-05:00

‎"We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.....We must not.....assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God."

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

the Pitt 46: the Missional-orientation of Prayer

2011-08-10T07:01:00.002-05:00

So after our sojourn together considering the missional-orientation of worship, we now turn to prayer. To my thinking, I suppose the most missionally-oriented prayer practice is the practice of the Presence of God. Our emerging Pittsburgh core have taken up re-reading some chapters from a Practicing His Presence book that has both Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach's journal entries on their own movement along these trajectories in how to start practicing and what to do when we encounter difficulty. You can actually check our the book complied in Lawrence's name here for free.

For myself, our endeavour in this conversation has helped me re-discovered one of my favorite habits. I just have to shake my head sometimes that I get off track on what I consider the basics...but no condemnation, I change my mind and return back to it. If you aren't familiar with them, Brother Lawrence was a 17th Century monk in France. He lived a very godly life by walking in what he called "The Practice of the Presence of God." Part of his walk was connection to Christ in the midst of all circumstances and activities. Frank Laubach was a missionary in the Philippines in the 1930s and 40s and took up the same endeavour.

Now, as I have sought to practice this myself, I have a few admissions.

Admission #1: I feel like a fail a lot in this.
Admission #2: It can be difficult!
Admission #3: I have done it and given up and taken it up several times, yet conviction remains that practicing the Presence is quite possibly the most foundational discipline a follower of Jesus can engage in.
Admission #4: My perspective is that God has changed me/shaped me and continues to form me and my life with His very Presence.

Both Laubach and Brother Lawrence is very forthright that 'practicing His Presence' is hard, at times clumsy, yet so enriching. Also, Lawrence was so humble and really it wasn't until he was 55 that he began practicing the Presence. So, it's never too late to devote yourself to Him, to relate to our Living God with your whole being, your whole life, every detail. I love how this connects a kind of mindful-prayerfulness and even if it is at-times difficult, it's actually pretty simple, targeting a refreshingly simple awareness and attentiveness outside of our self which can enable us to notice and act for others in the mundane, everyday way that's not flashy.

I've been reading a book this summer from the Jesuit priest William Barry called Seek My Face. Barry makes the point that increasingly intimate conversation is only a manifestation of something else that underlies it - prayer as relationship; which moves toward something we've wrestled with recently: the relational-orientation of God. So, obviously, I think this is worth exploring and embracing.

OK, some questions: How do you connect/relate with God? What do you do that makes you feel most connected to God? If prayer is relating you God or the activity of a relationship with God, and conversation is only one manifestation or consequence of that, can we imagine what other manifestations of our relationship with God might be that would connect and be understood as "prayer?" What does God being intimately present with us mean for us? Can it mean that "mere conversations" that we have between 2 or more of us are infused with or manifestations of a greater prayer, i.e., can our conversations with each other be "prayerful/prayer-filled" without reverting to a now-we're-praying and now-we-aren't-praying queues? Have you ever practiced Frank Laubach's "flash prayers"? Brother Lawrence notes that he was more at home and at one with God in the every day things of life, than even when he was doing “religious things”. Have you ever felt that way? If that is true, then what is the role of “religious things/times” in our lives? What kind of hope comes from seeing God as always being present with us?

[to be continued...]

what God gets out of me

2011-08-05T06:52:00.001-05:00

“What God gets out of me isn’t what I do, it’s the person I become.”

~ Dallas Willard

the Pitt 45: Worship Forms Us!

2011-08-03T06:00:00.005-05:00

I think it's next to impossible to wrap up this exploration of worship, so maybe I won't try to do that. Today, I just want to dig a little deeper into what happens when we gather to sing songs to God together. To say it simply: Worship Forms Us.

Why does worship form us? I'll let Jamie Smith - author of Desiring the Kingdom - say it much, as he says it better than I: "Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices of the mall – the liturgies of mall and market – that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world.”

Therefore, there are all kinds of liturgies in our lives - from liturgies of the Nation-State, to cultural liturgies (the topic of Smith's book Desiring the Kingdom) to liturgies that announce, embrace and demonstrate the Kingdom of God, and all of these life-forming habits are vying for the hearts of humanity. This moves toward the mysterious, transformative power of gathering together to sing songs to and about God or as in ancient monastic orders, chanting the Psalms.

But take heart parents! Jamie Smith is also simply saying that the simple fact is that as we sing in worship together - no matter the level of our engagement cognitively! - we are shaped and molded, as is our perceptions of God, His Mission, the Church, and the World. Whether we realize it or not, the songs we sing can shape our thinking and reflect our collective understanding of God’s work in our lives and the world, and as that becomes a regular practice in our lives (think: spiritual formation) it is somehow seeping into my bones and slowly stirring our spirit. When we sing, we give God praise and thanks for what he has done – that’s the vertical component of what we’re doing (or aspire to be doing). There’s also a horizontal component to our singing and speaking, that is, how our worship (not just the music) impacts each other when we gather. How do we gather is another great question that follows all this. George Hunsberger claims that in the New Testament communities, “life together ’in Christ’ was purposeful, intended to manifest before the watching world the promise and possibilities of the coming age.” “The church as a community, the church’s message, and the church’s worship are all cast in the most public of language. Worship is public witness.”

Our songs, hymns and spiritual songs that we are encouraged to sing in the context of worship and personal devotion deeply reflect the embodied and abiding truths of the good news in living our lives 'outloud' so-to-speak, whether we come with something or nothing at all, like Mama McMasters shares regarding a devotional time of singing around a campfire recently.

There is some profound stuff to be discovered in the missional-orientation of worship...and the exploration goes on, but I'd like to give Carol Wimber the last word here, as she talks about worship and the context for Vineyard worship:

[to be continued...]

plunged into mystery

2011-07-29T08:08:00.000-05:00

“The moment we find ourselves unexpectedly in the presence of the sacred, our first response is to stop in silence. We do nothing. We say nothing. We fear to trespass inadvertently; we are afraid of saying something inappropriate. Plunged into mystery we become still, we fall silent, all our senses alert. This is the fear-of-the-Lord.”

~ Eugene Peterson

the Pitt 44 - ...and then there were Worship Arts

2011-07-27T05:01:00.004-05:00

So finally, after what? - six posts on worship - we finally arrive at singing songs to and about God together. So by now maybe some people think I've thrown 'gathered worship singing' out, but most certainly not! What I think we have done thus far is seek the greater context - and that context is often the main point in scripture - because too often we limit 'worship' to the musical arts, when that actually happens in a context, interacting with other worship activities that are all a response to something.

For many people - especially in the Vineyard movement - this is actually where things begin when they hear the word "worship." But, as our journey of discovery has borne out: Worship art (like gathering to singing together) happens in the greater context of worship and is a response to the God who loved us first. I actually like the term 'worship arts'...and there is a very good article by Scott McElroy about the Role of Arts in the Vineyard.

So I wouldn't deny at all that God visited the early Vineyard gatherings as they worshiped and healed people and moved among them with gracious words and insights and Presence, but it happened in a context, and for the historian in me, that's what I've been reaching for so far. Thus, it seems to me that our early forebearers in the Vineyard movement were mindful of God-at-work in their everyday lives - exactly what we've been talking about up until now - and were responding to God by gathering to sing simple, intimate love songs to Him. And this was new and exciting and radical for them and God blessed this whole thing and a movement of the Spirit was birthed.

Vineyard USA History from Vineyard USA on Vimeo.

But perhaps over time some significant perspective was lost, as Galadriel says in The Lord of the Rings: “…and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost”…

Singing together to God happens in a context, and I suspect if we actually talked to those early adopters in the Vineyard, we'd find the greater context we've been mapping for ourselves that permeated their lives. I think it should permeate our on-going worship as well, and so instead of copying what I've previously written, I'll merely link to it, but Worship and Mission are responses to God loving us first...they are the consequences of God that we bear as we encounter Him.

Speaking of worship as art, my friend, David Linhart, up at the Greater Boston Vineyard has some great thoughts on leading centered-set worship music, in which not only does he tackle our previous wrestling with living the questions, but equally moves toward this greater context for worship and authenticity impact your art: "People relate to authenticity over righteousness. It’s ironic when someone who loves Jesus and also Led Zeppelin decides to become the Christian Led Zeppelin. Meanwhile, the original isn’t trying to be the secular Led Zeppelin, they are just being themselves. They live out who they actually are through their music. People get into them for their authenticity more than their binge drinking and partying, and the authenticity is exactly what can make the latter attractive to someone who isn’t into those things in the first place.

That’s why it can be awkward when musicians clean themselves up for church and try to do the right thing by playing traditional worship, but then reserve the night clubs and listening rooms for letting their hair down and making the music that is most sincerely who they are. That disconnect can make for unconvincing worship leading. Even God might say “Wait a sec—show me your best, bring all of your passion and talent, live out your love for me through the music.”

OK, next time we'll wrap up our current missional-orientation of worship series moving toward music and spiritual formation...(you had to know I was going there, right!?!)

[to be continued...]

closer to God

2011-07-25T05:01:00.004-05:00

We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.

~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

NTRT: Of Lucky Charms and Super-Powers

2011-07-22T05:06:00.003-05:00

Today I'm guest-blogging at the not-the-religious-type blog with Dave Schmelzer (Dave is also lead pastor of the Greater Boston Vineyard).

Feel free to check it out and join the conversation...my post today explores metaphors for spiritual power and gifts in a mostly secular conversation...also be sure to check our my friend Bill Sergott's post on his own struggles with "manliness" and recent comments by some "man"...the conversation for that has been really good, with Brent really getting things moving in the Jesus-centric, redemptive sort of direction.

the Pitt 43: Living the Questions

2011-07-20T05:00:00.006-05:00

Last time we dug into our Quaker heritage in the Vineyard and the Friends practice in a worship meeting. I want to pick up where I left off in terms of a life of faith being more like a guided inquiry than a settled issue. Among the Society of Friends, in their life of worship, rather than writing creeds and statements of beliefs, they write queries, that is questions that they want to explore together. This is definitely counter the church cultures I've been involved in, and it seems so good and right to me.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1

It also reminds me of when I was in 4th grade (Miss Logan’s class! Go locomotives!!), I volunteered to be one of several students to be ‘blind-for-a-day’. We were blind-folded as soon as we got to school and paired with a classmate with sight, who would be our guide. This experience left quite a lasting mark on me. I vividly remember having to ask my guide for everything and about everything, and through our interaction, I learned that I could trust my guide. I learned it through asking and then living the questions I was asking, like:

· where is my pencil (like I could actually write anything, seriously, I was blind-folded?!)

· where exactly were we in the hallways? (and where was the restroom…?)

· what was for lunch? (I trusted them to help me sit down in a seat at lunch time and that the seat was there…and that it was my lunch in front of me.)

…but probably my most vivid memory is of my other senses coming alive in Miss Howell’s music class as I experienced music without eyes and only with my auditory and feeling senses…I could feel the music! It made me realize that something that I could not see even with my eyes open had substance and verve and delved deeper inside me than merely my ear-drums. And while I was utterly dependent for almost everything from my guide to live this one day in a disoriented fashion without sight, I discovered something: there was substance to things I could not see, like music and fresh air and even closed air inside the building felt different than outside at recess; I could live by faith (trust) only as I allowed myself to risk trusting my guide and then actually step into the experience that hobbled some of my senses but activated others.

“…for we walk by faith, not by sight…” - 2 Corinthains 5:7

The eternity in that teachable moment in my life has had a formational effect that echoes in my journey of faith. As I have reflected on it since that time, quite possibly because of that profound experience, I am comfortable with mystery and living out questions that I may not fully answer completely. I love this quote from Henri Nouwen:

“…we need to live the questions of our lives, both alone and in community, as we seek our mission in the world…frequently, we are restlessly looking for answers, going from door to door, from book to book, or from church to church, without having really listened carefully and attentively to the questions within…Without a question, an answer is experienced as manipulation or control. Without a struggle, the help offered is considered interference. And without the desire to learn, direction is easily felt as oppression.”

Pat answers are seen for what they are: unreal and unloving. Instead, as we interact with people who are truly struggling, I find this piece of advice from the prophet Jeremiah– as translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message at Jeremiah 23:25 – to be essential: “Instead of claiming to know what God says, ask questions of one another, such as ‘How do we understand God in this?’ But don’t go around pretending to know it all…”

My intuition tells me this is going to be significant for us in urban Pittsburgh. I'm going to begin looking into a thought I had: Faith as Guided Inquiry.

So having studied and practiced spiritual direction for a few years, I have come to realize not only how important being non-manipulative is, but also how important the questions are – and following those questions by living in them, toward them in a centered-set kind-of-way; this means I need to trust Jesus. I think we need to trust God in our endeavours to live the questions. The advice the poet Rainer Rilke once wrote to a younger poet seems to ring true for us today:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

[to be continued...]

the friend of silence

2011-07-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.

~ Mother Teresa

the Pitt 42: In a Quaker State of Mind...again

2011-07-13T05:00:00.005-05:00

I have talk about my own endeavours to exegete my community - or what will be our community: Pittsburgh! – as we felt lead by the father into joining with His Agenda in the city. This has led our team to re-connect with the Quaker roots and heritage in our tribe. In a recent article, Carol Wimber reflects back on the emergence of the Vineyard movement,

" I believe our foundation, how the Vineyard was formed was by Quakerism. Most people don’t realize that; in fact they believe the Vineyard came from Calvary, when in fact, we’re Quakers. When we look back and see Gods presence moving on us; forming us; worship had such an intricate part through all this. Over the years we’ve seen things change-shift, but from the very beginning we understood that worship wasn’t “for” anything, except for the Lord. Sometimes I get the feeling that we’ve shifted a bit too, “We worship in order for this to happen.” Whatever “this” is —a great move of the Spirit perhaps. But that truthfully is the opposite of what we’re doing in those early days. We were worshipping simply because God is worthy of worship. The wonderful things that happened were as a result of his presence. But we didn’t worship so that his presence would come; we just worshipped! In the Quaker worship, they have what they call “communion”. It’s a time of silence, where they just wait and soak in God, unless someone felt like they had a song from the Lord, or a word, or even a teaching. If they felt like they had received something, they were supposed to speak it out. Every once in awhile someone would sing out some beautiful song or have a short teaching or some sort of revelation—though they wouldn’t have called it that.”

If you have attended an unprogrammed Friends (Quaker) worship gathering, you’ll recognize what Carol’s talking about here. Unprogrammed worship meetings! This seems to me so intriguingly counter-cultural, as in our culture we tend to pre-program almost everything! But we have been asking ourselves, what would this be like if we took up this part of our heritage and let it emerge within our gatherings? To just gather in silence, and wait for God’s leadings, the guidance and direction of the Spirit, for the power of Christ to just be in us and among us together; because as He said, “where two or three are gathered, there I am with you.”

There is something of submitting ourselves to live towards the mosaic of the Imago Dei in this practice. To let the Spirit of God, the Inner Teacher, move us and shape us and guide us. According to Douglas Steere, there are two common understandings and guidelines for this kind of unprogrammed worship circle:

1. Come with heart and mind prepared. This time that we set apart will be more significant if we seek to enter with a relaxed and calm frame-of-mind rather than racing off the exit ramp of the frenzied rat-race. Preparation is merely a life lived through-and-through with prayer, contemplation, reading and other interconnectivity woven into the fabric of our ordinary lives.

2. Determine neither to speak nor to always remain silent. A radical middle if there ever was one. If you offer and spoken message or testimony or sing a joyful or mournful song, it should arise from the Spirit’s prompting that happens during worship time and possibly flows from previous practice and experience.

What is so down-to-earth and filled with authenticity in this practice, is that while audibility is appreciated, rhetorical polish is not expected. If our words are awkward or halting, they will simply be accepted as authentically coming from you. Come as you are, and be with us as you are. And when inspiration of the Spirit ends, simply stop. Not all messages run smoothly to a perfect 3-points and a conclusion, and some of the most meaningful ones may seem to break off in the middle or lack a nice-and-neat closure…and that’s OK!

This unprogrammed practice seems so simple, but I am convinced that simplicity requires integrity. It requires truth-telling, honesty, where faith is practiced as communal guided inquiry. In fact, inquiry is where we’ll pick up next time!

[to be continued…]

Vineyard Urban Underground

2011-07-11T06:44:00.000-05:00

As most of you who've been follwoing this journey for a while realize, we are in the midst of following the Father into what He is calling us in urban Pittsburgh. To that end, we've been praying a lot, and researching a lot regarding urban studies and urban ministry and urban communities. I've been thinking about starting a blog for city/urban churches and ministries that posts resources and articles and stories from our contexts and encouragement, etc. Thus, with the help of a few friends, the first few posts are up:

Vineyard Urban Underground seeks to be a place to connect and resource urban churches, communities and ministries. We hope you'll find encouragement in the stories, wisdom and psalms from the street. We also hope to resource those working in this area, so don't forget to check out our Resources Tab. If you have stories or wisdom or art from your own streets, please share it and e-mail me.

I think it might also be a good online connection point for those of us to connect with each other and encourage and get to know one another. Hope to see you over there!

recalling the vocation of worship

2011-07-08T08:08:00.000-05:00

“The categories of popularity or progress or effectiveness or success are impertinent to the gospel. . . . ‘Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them’ (Rom 12:14). As has been mentioned, this is no adage prompted by sentimentality. It is a statement of the extraordinary relationship between Christians and the ruling principalities radically constituted in the discernment of the imminence of the judgment of the Word of God in history by which Christians are authorized to recall political authority to the vocation of worship and reclaim dominion over creation for humanity. It is a statement about the implication of the Lordship of Jesus Christ for the rulers of this age. To bless the powers that be, in the midst of persecution, exposes and confounds their blasphemous status more cogently and more fearlessly than a curse.”

~ William Stringfellow, Conscience and Obedience, 110.

the Pitt 41: We Are the World/Priesthood of Believers

2011-07-06T05:00:00.009-05:00

One of the intriguing things about the missional-orientation of worship for me is the impulse to re-discover the public dimension of our faith. But what does that mean beyond getting good Christian ideas and music in the "marketplace"? It seems to me that the discussion of the missional aspect of worship has to take us beyond the discussions of differences in our preferences for the style of music we use and a marketplace/herd-mentality.

First, it's interesting to me that the earliest Christians used public-oriented, non-religious terms regarding their identity and relationship with the world. 'Gospel' was not a religious term in the 1st century. They could have found plenty of religious terms with an insider-orientation to name what it is they were to be to the world. But they chose a socio-political term, a word that was expansive and in the culture of the day: "good news", from the Priene Calendar inscription. As you might know, the way they used 'good news' was actually really, really subversive. Of course, the same is true for ecclesia, "church." Ecclesia is not a private affair, but a public gathering of the wise and good on behalf of their city. So maybe we can say the earliest Christians imagined their life as public and open to all and they lived their everyday lives and their everyday faith experiences "out loud" and in public and on behalf of the public.

What I like about the perspective of seeing "church" as a gathering on behalf of the city, is the resonance with the biblical image of a priesthood of believers. The priesthood of believers also goes beyond Christians serving as priests for one another. In fact, the term is consistently used in Scripture to define the relationship between the people of God and the world.

So, let's ask the obvious question: What does the priesthood do? It represents two parties to one another as it is also facilitating the two parties coming together. So, maybe the church in our worship represents God to the world and the world to God? This is where our basics of Worship and Prayer overlap in something we might call active intercession. Perhaps we might even go so far as to say that the church offers on behalf of all the world what is due God. The church, in this sense, worships as representing (or "in proxy" for you lawyers out there) the people of our city/community/nation. Yet the priests aren't separate, it's not an "us/them" dichotomy, it's a "we".

Also, Priestly worship - as witnessed in the Psalms - includes lament and complaint, supplication and confession. As a worshiping priesthood, we represent the cries of all creation to God. But we cannot do that with any authenticity if we are not experiencing the problems and solutions, the joy's and sorrows of the world. We cannot stand apart, but as Jesus in the incarnation, we have to go get into life and live in it in order to represent its cries and shouts of joy to God. This has to do with the integrity of worship that we talked about previously.

The church's worship is public because the relationship between God and the world is the primary concern of a "priesthood of believers." Worship was not first for the benefit of the priest, but for the sake of others, again as I said, a "we". It is not simply for the sake of its own priestly membership either, but for the sake of the stranger and the sojourner as well. Did worship benefit the priesthood? Of course, but that was a built-in consequence and secondary. Thus maybe Michael Jackson was right: We Are the World!

Benefits abound though, right? It surely benefits us to gather and hear that our sins are forgiven, to seek the healing and comforting Presence of God, to have a share in the goodness of community, to be inspired by words of blessing and challenge, and to sing songs together. We enact these realities, however, in the presence of and for the sake of the world.

Since we've noticed Worship and Prayer overlapping here, it also seems to me this priesthood of believers overlaps with our other basic category: Stewardship (which we will talk much more about in a few months) as well as Hospitality, which we talked about previously also. When it comes right down to it, worship feasts in the Hebrew scriptures are described like big, sacred BBQ's. Seriously. You gather your family and those of your household, and you go to partake in a joy-filled sacred meal together in the Presence of God. The priests there welcome you, cook your food in a prescribed manner, have a bit for themselves, and then serve you and your family and your household. Can we not imagine serving/mediating sacred meals that seek to connect God and sojourners and the poor and the marginalized and any 'others'? This is where the connection of all three take place, the deeply missional, communal and theological character of shared meals.

But a missional-orientation regarding worship, and the imagery of a priesthood of believers takes us toward new horizons, doesn't it?

So more questions for us: What would it mean to be the church in this humble position of representing the world to God and God to the world? How do we as the people of God connect with and serve our neighborhoods? How do we get the church into the world? What does it mean to follow Jesus' example of emptying Himself and living among the people? Or more specifically, if God is calling us to incarnate in Pittsburgh and "seek the shalom of the city He sends us, for in it's shalom, we will find our own shalom," how do we create public spaces in our neighborhoods that are invitational without being privatized and exclusive without it breaking down and being compromised by commodification and consumerism?

[to be continued...]

their songs never cease

2011-07-01T05:16:00.001-05:00

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.

~ John Muir

Blue Ocean Summit 2011

2011-06-30T08:46:00.001-05:00

Our friends at the Greater Boston Vineyard are hosting the Blue Ocean Summit 2011 on August 1-3, 2011, in Cambridge, MA, where you will hear about new and developing ways to engage your church communities in a “faith discovery process."

You will also have the chance to engage with several Blue Ocean Faith practitioners and speakers, nationally recognized church and cultural experts as well as other “Blue Ocean Faith” churches from across the country that are developing new and innovative models--such as the proven Seek program--and pathways for their church to introduce Jesus to an ever-increasing secular society.

Seek & Blue Ocean Faith from Dan Littauer on Vimeo.

The church family of the Greater Boston Vineyard Church will be our host for the summit and their team will share their Blue Ocean Faith story.

the Pitt 40: Worship, Warfare and World

2011-06-29T05:14:00.001-05:00

My acquaintance, Matthew Self, wrote a provocative piece a while back on worship that has turned me in this direction of reconsidering worship, and I wanted to take time now to share it. His full post can be found here, but there are several pieces that really coincide with what God is calling us into in Pittsburgh.

Matt quotes the senior pastor of the Gilbert Vineyard in Arizona, Jack Moraine:

"When we worship, we are in warfare whether we realize it or not. Everytime we worship, we are declaring which side we are on. The reason there is an intimate relationship between worship and warfare is because the warfare between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness is all about worship. You don’t have to study the book of Revelation very deeply to see that both God and the devil are seeking worshippers (Revelation 14:7; 7:11; 13:4; 14:11). Time and again the line is drawn between those who “worship the beast and his image” and those who worship God."

This is exactly the issue of James K. A. Smith's book Desiring the Kingdom, and what we talked a lot about at this past year's Society of Vineyard Scholars conference in Seattle. The practice of every day living and the cultural formation regarding what we worship that is going on all the time can distract us and can create false trails and influence us off to actually worship other things without our brains noticing. Matt points out that this is the ongoing temptation against the church today. The enemy through all sorts of means continually seeks to distract, pervert, or dilute worship or even promote a misunderstanding of worship. As the Church becomes more aware of God's presence in today's world, many Christian authors have taken up the topic of spiritual warfare. There are no shortage of books on the topic telling you how to pray down those dark principalities that impact everything from angelic battles taking place in Middle East or your school or your neighborhood or your marriage and your household.

The best example of spiritual warfare Matt found in the Bible is in 2 Chronicles 20. As nations prepared to make war against Israel, this text outlines the whole process of Israel's heaven-approved response:

Worship God before the trouble starts.
Worship God in the midst of trouble, and wait on His word.
Have faith in God's desire to fight your battles
Witness and Give thanks to God for his love, grace and mercy

As it turned out, the kind of warfare that was fought was not a bloody battle against other human beings. For the people of God, worship was the warfare. They turned to God and chose to acknowledge his worthiness. They turned to God and said, no matter what happens here, we are submitting to You and Your judgement, but we are asking for Your mercy. God responded with mercy and fought the battle for them. God does not want our songs, our intricate musicianship, or well-trained voices. Those are fine devices of worship, not worship itself. God wants our hearts, our submission, our confession of weakness, our acknowledgement that He is worthy of worship and we are not.

This is the missional-orientation of worship that integrates all of life, sees it – in all its audacity – that God is not the neutral, inattentive God, but rather God is alert to the specific realities of any situation, and does not flinch from taking sides, usually the side of the marginalized, and realizes in great trust - with Jurgen Moltmann - that the deeper purposes of God's justice work redemption to liberate the victims and seek repentance from the perpetrators in this now-and-not-yet age. Thus mysteriously we embrace both worshipful trust in a God who is good, but maybe not so safe (nod to C.S. Lewis).

[to be continued...]

the Pitt 39: Prophetic Worship in the Face of Static Religion

2011-06-22T05:00:00.015-05:00

Continuing in this vein of the missional-orientation of worship, there is a prophetic aspect to this trajectory that God has called us into, which counters the static religion of our time. Say what? Static what, you ask? Static religion is something God can't stand, as the prophet Amos points out:

"I can't stand your religious meetings.
   I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
   your pretentious slogans and goals.
I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes,
   your public relations and image making.
I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
   When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
   I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
   That's what I want. That's all I want."

In Walter Brueggemann's insightful book The Prophetic Imagination, he clearly states the fact of static religion. Static religion has fallen out of the radical middle. What 'radical middle' are we talking about? The radical middle between the Freedom of God and the Accessibility of God. It happens when we don't acknowledge the 'both/and' of the 'now-and-not-yet'. It happens where relationship with God has become a memory, whether we live in denial or not. As Brueggemann points out, the freedom of God is always in considerable tension with the accessibility of God. For myself, God is the most Free Person I know, but this tension should be inherent in our worship practices. Static religion was seen as the establishment of a controlled set of worship practices that sort of put God in a box.

The sovereignty and freedom of God is all but gone in static religion and too easily nation-states and leaders seek to fully subordinate static religion to their own purposes, whether legitimating their military, economic or political agendas. This is where God is made accessible through the right way or the right person like a candy machine, put in the right amount of money, press the right button (or maybe we should say rub the lamp), and whoosh, the domesticated God is at your command, ready for your wish-fulfillment. Carol Wimber actually does a wonderful job of describing the issue nowadays like this:

"When we look back and see Gods presence moving on us; forming us; worship had such an intricate part through all this. Over the years we’ve seen things change-shift, but from the very beginning we understood that worship wasn’t “for” anything, except for the Lord. Sometimes I get the feeling that we’ve shifted a bit too, “We worship in order for this to happen.” Whatever “this” is —a great move of the Spirit perhaps. But that truthfully is the opposite of what we’re doing in those early days. We were worshipping simply because God is worthy of worship. The wonderful things that happened were as a result of his presence. But we didn’t worship so that his presence would come; we just worshipped! We didn't even really know about trying to 'make' things happen, or "we'll worship until the 'big' thing happens, or when the Spirit begins to move. That wasn't why we were meeting together..."

To wrestle with a genuine alternative to this situation, we must admit: we all have deep committments to this in one way or another, and thus how can we seek to worship otherwise? As in all things the issue with worship isn't worship...the issue with worship is God. Perhaps our consciousness and imagination have been so co-opted that real courage must be asked for to enter into the wrestling match of what else might be possible. The questions involved here are - I believe - where the missional-orientation of worship is taking us. As R.D. Laing supposed, people are simply so busy, so drained, so unable to care or suffer or be truly joy-filled that they go through the motions and manage proper behaviour in whatever situation they find themselves; they have become so numb and are no longer able to experience their own experience. Thus, given the situation we find ourselves in, how do we prophetically pique them, rouse them, awaken them to experience the Redeemer?

So, a few more questions: Have we fallen into the rut of static religion? Have we fallen for worshiping in order to make God appear (like rubbing a lamp for a genie??)? How do we change our minds and change our direction and get back to the radical middle? Increasingly, this generations experiences are vicarious, ethereal and do not touch their everyday living...in such a context, how can we help people have experiences, so that they experience their own real experience? What would prophetic worship in the face of this static religion look like today? How can we help people to experience God and rouse them from the numbness that binds and blinds them?

[to be continued...]

the Pitt 38: Towards Integrity in Worship

2011-06-15T04:59:00.000-05:00

Last time, we sought to broaden our imagination and the landscape regarding worship. One of the first issues significantly impacting me personally was integrity and the fusion of Worship and Justice that David Ruis has been prophetically speaking about for years. Some of you might know him as he has been quite the creative voice and written many Vineyard music worship songs. I got to hang out with him briefly in February at SVS, and he's really a humble but passionate and inspiring kind-of-person. Below are two videos from a Dutch interview with David Ruis on Justice & Worship (the Intro. is in Dutch, but the interview is actually in English).

Part 1:

Part 2:

There is so much that David says that resonates deeply in my own heart. Worship and Justice. The perspective and vision of the Reign of God vs mere humanitarian efforts. The reflection and discernment of the consequences of our well-intentioned actions may be. God has increasingly revealed to me that Justice & Worship are at the heart of my own personal struggles with worship @ church recently. This is something my friend Steven Leyva and I have been working on, praying about, talking toward, since January; and for me it's core to my own calling and struggle...and I think quite possibly, it's core to who I think God wants us to be in Pittsburgh. I think it drives us toward the deeper questions of the cost of worship. How to I align my life and wrestle with the question of how much I am willing to sacrifice to journey along the Jesus Way...?

We have to wrestle with this, because I want God to not just endure our gatherings but rather and much more: to inhabit them. In order to go there, we'll need to change our minds about worship gatherings that just offer brilliant music and therapy sessions. We'll need to go beyond "solemn sacrifices" (i.e., tithes and offerings) to equally challenging each other about unjust living (including seeing the structural injustice that we may participate in, and embracing things like Fair Trade).

God wants justice [in the Hebrew mishphat - can be thought of as more of a prophetic proclamation of what's wrong and what needs to be done] and righteousness [in the Hebrew tsedeqah - the action of "setting things right", and not just personal holiness (although that's included) but going about setting all things right as we are led to encounter what the Father is doing] to wash over the world. Then, with this integrity of offering ourselves to the Agenda of God, being the gathered of the Missio Dei, our light will break forth like the dawn, and our healing will come quickly...then we will be like a well-watered garden.

...my heart yearns for these things...

[to be continued...]

living sacrifice

2011-06-10T10:23:00.000-05:00

"Our whole lives have now become expressions of worship that go far beyond words, and all of life has become a living sacrifice...[t]his is the only reasonable worship."

~ David Ruis

the Pitt 37: the Missional-Orientation of Worship

2011-06-08T05:02:00.007-05:00

Over the last few months, our conversations among our friends called to Pittsburgh have taken a turn toward what we might call "back to basics." We decided to turn our conversation toward three things that will undergird everything we do as a faith community in urban Pittsburgh. Those things are: Worship, Prayer, Stewardship.

We start with Worship and the Missional-orientation of Worship. One of the things I kind of like about the whole "Missional" conversation (as well as the Emerging Church conversation lo, those many moons ago) is the perspective that has taken root regarding worship. The missional church conversation isn't obsessed with style and yet there is an expansiveness, maybe inherited from the Emerging conversation, with a simplicity that endeavours toward a worshipful experience in a "worship gathering." I think most significantly, the missional/incarnational orientation is interested in context and culture and while renewal/redemption is a key aspect, it's welcoming and not all about themselves. Thus, a missional-orientation begins with a reversing a common phrase: the church doesn't have a mission, the Mission of God has a church, right? Of course, as we've seen this changes our perspective on many things, and worship is probably a key one.

So: where would being missionally incarnational orient us - posture us - in terms of worship?

I have several specific suggestions in terms of trajectories to explore and discover, but I want to start with a bigger perspective.

First, the missional orientation seems to assume a public context for the Missio Dei, and so that goes for worship as well. In the churches with which most of us have experienced and been a part of, the primary context is private. Worship many times is done (and thus modeled) and witnessed as a part of some kind of inward aspect of the church. There's nothing particularly wrong with this sort of trajectory until it runs into individualist worship experience momentum and consumer critique. Yet I think worship in a missional orientation would assume a much broader landscape. It would worship in the presence of and for the sake of the world because we are joining God's Mission in and for the world. There is a "priesthood of the believer"-aspect to this that Mark Love has been really helping me explore and I want to really get into that a few posts from now.

But I'm wrestling with how exactly missional worship would integrate all of life, and thus perhaps a connecting point between God and us and the world (again, more on that in the next few posts). Also, in keeping with this integrating-impulse and what The Tangible Kingdom significantly invested in: missional worship would welcome the stranger, the sojourner. This is also about the Presence of God-factor, which undergirds all of life as worship, with God, His People and the world set for redemption. The Presence-factor oriented missionally, seems to be involved in all three, and not to the exclusion of any one.

But what does that look like? For today, perhaps this takes us along three distinct trajectories:

Service: This expansive trajectory has to do with life as an on-going act of worship, which would include seeking justice as an act of worship and the Romans 12 issues of "being a living sacrifice" as we live our lives...this is our spiritual act of worship.
Hospitality: Maybe if we can see hospitality as something more than just the "welcome person" at the doors of a Sunday gathering or the person making coffee? If so, we might see that hospitality would include what Jesus did so much of with strangers and sojourners: table-fellowship as a center of worship experience. This is the place of God's welcome. At weekly, monthly and seasonal parties in ancient Israel (Sabbath meals, harvest festivals, etc.) it was a place to welcome the marginalized, and be inclusive of the poor, the widow, the orphan, the priest. It should be a place where faith, hope, and love are put on public display, right?
Creativity: some of the more immediate questions regarding worship, intersecting the really significant creation of space/place and aesthetics in a fuller worship experience of God beyond (but astill including) corporate music: creating space for creativity: so poetry, painting, dancing, etc., that instead of always being "performance art" might look a bit more like a jam session.

So questions to start us off: What do you think about some of the actual practices that this orientation suggests so far: worship gathering with expansive and inclusive art/music (something like what our friends Bill and Ashley Hoard have hosted at home in the past that had an invitational and inclusive nature and this sharing nature about the gathering. This - to me - resonated with what I hear as the organic nature of a gathering (by no means the only way to do it, of course) in 1 Corinthians 14 - where when such a gathering takes place, each one has a song or inspired word or something they have learned or a testimony of God's action in their lives or lives of their friends, etc.; and what can we imagine regarding serving the vulnerable as an act of worship; and what about dinner-parties/house parties/neighborhood block parties are public acts of worship? What are other concrete practices and initiatives that we can be intentional about as a community? Are there other large, organizing impulses and practices for worship that inform our incarnational, missional and relational orientation?

[to be continued...]

confession of faith

2011-06-05T06:14:00.001-05:00

"Confession of faith is not to be confused with professing a religion. Such profession uses the confession as propaganda and ammunition against the Godless. The confession of faith belongs rather to the "Discipline of the Secret"...[t]he primary confession of the Christan before the world is the deed which interprets itself. If this deed is to have become a force, then the world will long to confess the Word. This is not the same as loudly shrieking out propaganda..."

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from his Prison Letters

the Pitt 36: Doctrine You Can Rely On

2011-06-01T06:00:00.006-05:00

"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior for humanity were revealed it was not because of any upright actions we had done ourselves; it was for no reason except his own faithful love that he saved us, by means of the cleansing water of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit which he has so generously poured over us through Jesus Christ our Savior; so that, justified by his grace, we should become heirs in hope of eternal life. This is doctrine that you can rely on."Titus 3:4-8

...doctrine that you can rely on...

Thus today our rabbit trail ends and next time, we'll get back to the journey toward cultivating a faith community in Pittsburgh. Having wrestled with some issues with my neo-Reformed companions these past few weeks, they probably wonder if I rely on any "doctrine" at all, right? But I do...I especially treasure this piece of Paul's letter to Titus from the Christian scriptures.

So much of what some people count as good "doctrine" [doctrine simply means teaching] seems off to me (of course, I am known for being wrong a lot too). Some of it seems off-balance...and either it smacks of being trapped in what can be the dualism of Greek philosophical thinking or it seeks to (while falling terribly short) unveil an impenetrable and eternal mystery like YHWH-Elohim...or the incarnation of Christ...

Some espoused "doctrines" seem so trite and rather than making room for mystery and paradoxes and the unexplainable, they settle for easy answers.

Now, it isn't that I do not appreciate the struggle and wrestling with the mystery...as I heard Wimber used to say, 'never trust a man without a limp'...which basically warns us to be careful about people who haven't really wrestled like Jacob with the mystery that is God.
I guess it's the contentment with cheap and shallow answers that gnaws at my bones through the night and has me wrestling with the angel until dawn.

I think at times - out of our own insecurity - we teach our children these trite easy answers...instead of inviting them into the mystery as partners in it, partakers of the divine so-to-speak. We seek to give them security (as well as cobble together some for ourselves), when the security they (and we) truly want/need is love and beauty, not pat and trite answers.

Yet when the kindness and love of God our Saviour is revealed...this is true doctrine!

The Holy Spirit poured generously over us...this is true doctrine.

Embracing grace to become the heirs of hope in participating in the eternal life of God and His will/Kingdom...

...this is doctrine I rely on.

[to be continued]

the subversive witness

2011-05-29T05:08:00.001-05:00

“Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.”

~ Oscar Romero