Well, after getting a bit off-track at the end of last week, I hope to refocus our attention on the book. In so doing, maybe we can clarify the journey we are on just a little. The discussion was good on Sundays, but not what I had hoped. By the way, I had a great Sunday with my church yesterday. We worshiped, we played, we celebrated dads and it was encouraging. So, for those of you who might be worried that I'm not experiencing anything good in my Sunday expressions of the church, that just is not the case.
Now for today...The 1,700-Year Wedgie. Just reading the chapter title brought back memories of 7th grade sleep-overs at friends houses! Once I got passed my juvenile tendencies, I settled in for a great 7-page chapter. Here is the first part that grabbed my attention:
"When we call for the ancient way of church to return, we are calling for a return to this revolutionary position, outside the center of the dominant culture." (p51)
Right now, I am sitting at "The Chick" (Chick-fil-a), writing and I am listening to music that at one time was reserved for the privacy of one's own heart and maybe a youth campfire service. As I look around, no one is bowing, no one is lifting their hands, no one is clapping, no one is singing (out-loud). The Chick just might be the most popular fast-food restaurant in our area. There are always people here. That being said, "worship music" plays on the stereo and people hardly even notice. I love The Chick and I hope they keep playing the music, but to me it is an example of how the church has lost it's revolutionary position.
"The ancient church influenced the world not by lightening up their values or by veiling them, but by living them out in plain view of the culture around them. Their lives exposed and challenged the present value system with new Kingdom values." (p51-52)
I see this as achievable for the Church today. I do not want to go back to primitive dwellings, no electricity, no cars, no this no that. I have said before that I love our modern amenities. However, there is a place in the culture that the ancient church occupied that I want to get back to. Don't misunderstand our push for ancient church as a push for method - it's about mission!
Halter then moves into 3 specific cases where Kingdom values replaced current values...and can again!
1. The Value of Sacrificial Community (Acts 2:44) - operating like a spiritual co-op, where people had their needs met within the community
2. The Value of Confrontation (Acts 5:1-11) - because incarnational practices are relational, confrontation is much more direct and affective.
3. The Value of Inclusive Community (Acts 11:1-18) - God was getting Peter ready to change how Peter viewed people, especially the "nonbelieving Gentiles." The Good News was there for everyone - man, woman, young, old, slave, free, Jew and Gentile.
It's easy for us to get caught up in conversations about Sunday morning - nice conversations, by the way - but ultimately we all have to ask ourselves serious questions about our experience, no matter what flavor. In the early church, nobody repainted the picture to make it more attractive - in fact, a case could be made that Jesus often made His Way less appealing to those with whom he shared. "God's strategy of challenging valueless values with Kingdom values was the way the church grew in respect and in numbers." (p54)
These three specific values are increasingly difficult in the sterile environment of large group gatherings, but not so in smaller groups of relationally connected people. Yes, we can all come together and pool resources and gather 1000 backpacks at school, but the impact of a small group pooling their resources to support a family in the group whose husband has lost his job, is not only revolutionary to the one being served, but to the rest of the group as well. Sure, the speaker at a large gathering can "confront" everyone in the room with the words he says, but personal confrontation from people we trust and who know us goes a lot further for both the confronted and the one confronting. We can have services that involve people in large room of different colors and maybe different versions of the same belief, but in the smaller group context we can have people of any, all or no faith sitting in a room discussing their views of everything from Tiger Woods to the early apostles, and it's good.
This chapter gave me further clarity in the reason we are sailing in uncharted waters as a small church plant. We refuse to settle for good things, when better things might just be around the corner. As others have stated recently, different does not always equal better, but when the goal is to see people relationally connected to God and to their neighbors, different methods must be explored, lest we just repeat the same patterns of ineffectiveness as our predecessors. I for one, want more and I know there is more out there.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Chapter 7 :: The 1,700-Year Wedgie
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6 comments:
I agree that we have to avoid being complacent and staying with the status quo or we risk the opportunity to engage a generation that seeks connection to something bigger than themselves (we’re seeing it in politics, the workplace, and in our neighborhoods). But what does that look like? I know it’ll be different for everyone of us, this an example of what it doesn’t look like:
“Whether through political efforts, community efforts, or church efforts, the world sees evangelicals as desperately craving a place of power in order to preserve our good, wholesome way of life.” (pg 51)
Re-read this today after seeing a link on CNN about the new marriage law in California and was troubled. This is what millions of non-church goers will see tonight when they turn on the news. While I don’t agree with the law, I certainly don’t want this guy representing me in the public arena. Unfortunately, many people out there think this is what Sunday is like (come get judged and told what you’re doing wrong) and because of their perception (something we can’t argue about being right or wrong- it’s what they think) they don’t show up. So where do we meet them?
I think the authors are correct in saying, “They’re (spiritually disoriented) weary of our rhetoric, the same stories, or the pat answers and structures of Christendom. Their ears are closed to the authoritarian approach as well as the watered-down pop Christianity. Like Fiona and her Irish friends, a new and fresh look at a Kingdom with true and eternal values may be the only think that Sojourners are interested in any more.” (pg 57)
As long as we as Christians continue to make the news, pass judgement, avoid relationship with “outsiders’ and withdraw to the safety of our homes/churches we’ll continue to miss the masses.
Sorry the link didn't take for CNN's report- here it is:
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-36235
I desperately desire these kingdom values for my church. However, I've never been satisfied. At first glance, my church is a small (100 people) close-knit group. A lot of people sacrifice time and energy for Sunday morning service and certain special events throughout the year. We all stay after church on Sunday for fellowship (often for an hour or so).
The truth is, though, that we don't really "do life together". We do Sunday mornings and special events together.
Our lives are our own, and our families'. We've got basketball practice, and choir concerts, and working late hours and business travel and homework and piano practice, and sitting at home watching TV while playing games on the computer.
I hate to say it, but my church (at this point) is not my family (thought a few in it are a part of my extended family).
I still believe that we can get there. But how? Do I quit my job? Do I pull my son out of soccer?
Loser of Greatness:
God is obviously moving your heart in a direction that may call for you to make some changes. They may be as radical as you suggest, quitting your job or pulling your son out of soccer, or even moving. We have people that have done all those things in our church. But I would be remiss if I didn’t also say that may not be what He is prompting you to do. God has obviously pricked your heart about this and it will require changes. The depth and breadth of changes can be as great as you suggest, or a simple reordering of your own life to provide you the margin of time required to begin a movement to deepen the community within the context of where you are at currently. It doesn’t have to be extreme.
You could simply begin to be intentional about creating a deeper level of community and intimacy with those you already have a relationship with. There seems to be a desire for it based upon the description you gave of your church: small/close knit.
Use the direct approach. Invite a few others to your home for a meal. Keep the TV off. Make it potluck. Make it a weekly gathering and make it informal. Make it for the entire family (not babysitter required). You might be surprised at the response you get. Enjoy the food and fellowship. And know that life itself is holy and good and spiritual, and it doesn’t require a bible study to make it that way, although that may be part of what you do. Open your heart up to God, humble yourself and beg him for this, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
And realize that you may have to fight to get this going, and keep it going. Any time we move toward the deeper waters of community, of a shared life, we will experience difficulties, obstacles, troubles. I don’t think there is a family in our church right now that is not experiencing spiritual warfare at some level. And it is not just coincidental. We are trying to take back our own lives, and offer life to others. Satan doesn’t take kindly to that. In fact, in Revelations 12:17 puts it quite clearly: “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”
Not everyone will want this. Yet this is the kind of life that Jesus was offering, and it is the kind of life that is attractive to those who are not Christ followers yet.
I wouldn't go back to where I was previously for all the ease and comfort in the world.
One of the things that trouble me a bit was the phrase on P55, 2nd paragraph: “…let alone change the culture we’re called to influence.”
It’s an assertion that has been made previously, that the goal (or part of it) is cultural influence. I am not so certain that we are called to influence/change the culture we are in, as much as live in a way that reflects the life of Christ and draws others to Him. The results may be the same, as we influence people, we will have an impact on the culture, but that isn’t why I am doing this.
The phrase in the chapter that drew me was on p56 where he talks about the indentify of the church and how it began to change during the time of Constantine. I am more interested in being “a people who” rather than “a place where”.
PeteT...My thoughts here are that there is no either/or, but a both/and. Jesus clearly set forth a call and a challenge for us to love God and love our neighbors. He called us to abide in him and charged us to be salt and light in the world. He called us to love and challenged us to go and make disciples. Jesus was a cultural revolutionary, wasn't he? And not a passive one.
"We've got to find the courage to live bigger and be countercultural while remaining deeply embedded in the world." p55 BOTH/AND...BOTH/AND
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