Pt. II

Expanding on the three flaws of the current church: ATTRACTIONAL, DUALISTIC, AND HIERARCHICAL.

The current mindset in the church is that it has to get it "right" and people will come flooding in to be changed by the gospel. That we have to "attract" people. If the teaching is interesting enough, if the music is good enough, if the children's program is quality and the lighting is perfect then the community will come flocking into the services. It as if everything has to do with the service itself, as if people are looking for a service to attend on Sunday morning, just that they haven't found the one that is perfect yet. This is the problem with attractional. It is a COME-TO-US attitude instead of a GO-TO-THEM mentality which is clearly the more biblical of the two.

Dualism is the act of separating the sacred from the profane, the holy from the unholy, and unfortunately what has become "religious and secular". It produces a gap between belief and everyday life. We talk about the "world out there" and "us in here". Clearly a Christ-like way of seeing it. (sarcasm there if you missed it).

Heirarchical leadership is dominant. What about Paul's radical dissolution of the traditional distinctions between priests and laity, between officials and ordinary members, between holy men and common people? "The first Christians radically reshaped the language of "priesthood" and "sacrifice." In one sense all are priests; believers are their own priests for all have immediacy of access to God's grace in Christ. What priests have performed for others before, believers can now do for themselves. In another sense, none can be appointed priests in the Christian church, for Christ has fulfilled the priestly role once for all." To say it clearly, there needs to be a recognition that the common layman has as equally important, and needs to be equipped for such as much as any "pastor" or "minister." It is a recognition of the ministry of a daily life. This is not doing away with leadership, for that is biblical, but rather a shift needs to take place in the understanding that we all have ministries, we all are priests, we all are "sent-ones" and there is no such thing as a high-calling to the pastorate or the mission field. Check Ephesians 4 and the concept of a body with Christ as the head, heirarchical or apostolic leadership? Quite clearly it is the latter and as the church we have gravitated to a top-down model with someone other than Christ as the head.




So then, these trends must be reversed and what emerges is a missional church, which by its very nature will be an anti-clone of the existing traditional model. Rather than being attractional, it will be incarnational. It will leave its own religious zones and live comfortably with non-church-goers, seeping into the host culture like salt and light. It will be an infiltrating, transformational community. Second, rather than being dualistic, it will embrace a messianic spirituality. That is, a spirituality of engagement with culture and the world in the same mode as the Messiah himself. And third, the missional church will develop an apostolic form of leadership rather than the traditional hierarchical model.


(Again, these are quotes and thoughts taken from The Shaping of Things to Come.)

Currently

Currently without internet access in all other places except the library.

Currently I am also spending the month in Cáceres.

Later I will post what I am up to, what life is like here, and some more thoughts from Things to Come.

Pt. I continued- All quotes.

"The missional church represents God in the encounter between God and human culture. It exists not because of human goals or desires, but as a result of God's creating and saving work in the world. It is a visible manifestation of how the Good News of Jesus Christ is present in human life and transforms human culture to reflect more faithfully God's intentions for creation. It is a community that visibly and effectively participates in God's activity, just as Jesus indicated when he referred to it in metaphorical language as salt, yeast, and light in the world."

Three overarching principles...

1. The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel. Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don't yet know him.

2. The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the world and God's place in it as more holistic and integrated.

3. The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership. By apostolic we mean a mode of leadership that recognizes the fivefold model detailed by Paul in Ephesians 4. It abandons the triangular hierarchies of the traditional church and embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community that unleashes the gifts of evangelism, apostleship, and prophecy, as well as the currently popular pastoral and teaching gifts.


-the emerging missional church must see itself as being able to interact meaningfully with culture without eve being beguiled by it.

-to see itself as a missionary movement rather than as an institution.




The above were all quoted from chapter 1, The Shaping of Things to Come.

Thoughts from The Shaping of Things to Come. Pt. I

I am currently reading the book: The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. It's kinda thick, kinda heavy, and it takes a bit of wading to get through. All of that because it is full of ideas and insight into culture, church and the world we live in. So to help process my own thoughts, I am going to spew out some of what I am processing, some of what sticks out and whatever else deems itself worthy of being spelled out. Note: most of the following will be extracts taken from the book or their thoughts in my words, with my occasional thoughts thrown in. I will try to mention when it is me thinking out loud.

Part I

There is a phenomenal shift taking place in our Western World, a spiritual awakening happening and everyday the institutionalized church is becoming less and less relevant. Perhaps the description of a festival that takes place in the Black Rock Desert in the Western United States can describe this awakening, this hunger that is being felt by humanity.

The festival is called Burning Man.

"Each year thousands of artists, musicians, bohemians punks, taggers, rappers and other artistes or simply interested bystanders journey into the 107-degree heat of the desert for a festival like no other. It is a temporary community of people committed to generosity environmentalism, celebration, spirituality, and above all, art. Burning Man has been so successful over the past five years that it has come to represent those trends that pose the greatest challenges to the Christian church. It dares offer acceptance, community, an experience of god, redemption, and atonement. In short, it resembles everything the church is supposed to offer. But many people are finding the transformative power of Burning Man to be far and away more effective than anything they experience in church."

What is it that is attractive and so real and so true? There are six key elements:

BELONGING: (says the official website) "You belong here and you participate. You´re not the weirdest kid in the classroom- there's always somebody there who's thought up something you never even considered. You're there to breathe art... You're here to to build a community that needs you and relies on you."

In a society that has been fractured by economic rationalism, globalization, racial disunity, ideological differences, fear, and violence, the Burning Man community claims to offer solace, welcome, and acceptance.

SURVIVAL: It is not for the faint-hearted. It involves venturing into the desert and surviving without restaurants, air conditioning, or shopping malls. With all the comforts of home stripped away, participants are forced to look deep within themselves, to discover who they truly are, and to summon up from within themselves the will and the power to survive- both in the desert and after they return to the world outside.

EMPOWERMENT: (says the official website) "You're here to create. Since nobody at Burning Man is a spectator, you're here to build your own new world..." Everyone is to participate, no one is deemed to be without talent.

SENSUALITY: Burning Man is a highly sensual, experiential community. "You're here to experience..."

CELEBRATION: The crescendo of the festival is the burning of the large human effigy in the middle of the camp. Participants have said that as the Burning Man goes up in flames, they experience a deeply spiritual sensation. Artists also cast their works into the flames. There is apparently a purging, a form of atonement, and a sense of liberation and joy.

LIMINALITY: The word liminal in Latin signifies an in-between time. A transition, temporary period of human transformation. The Burning Man community appears in August and takes over the seeming untouched playa (desert), then leaves in September leaving no trace it was ever there.

This festival, judge it how you will, is a cry from an emerging postmodern generation for a community of belonging, spirituality, sensuality, empowerment, and liberation. Of course the transformative power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is greater than anything offered at this festival, but is the church living out and expressing that? (excerpts from pages 3-5 occasionally in my own words)


Me thinking out loud-
What does the church currently have to say or offer? Is the church prepared to be a community that offers those (Biblical) characteristics in some form to people who will never cross the threshold of a church building? These needs, desires, and longings expressed by the artists at Burning Man are not so far off from most people's. There are real and they are legitimate. Surely Jesus has something to say to those feelings and states of being as much as the Burning Man festival. As the church, we find ourselves a long way off from being relevant to anybody willing to express the spiritual awakening which they are experiencing. There is something of those six elements in each of us, whether we have smothered them in the name of security and institution or not. There is something of truth being expressed in them. I believe Jesus has something to say to it and as his church we had better too.

lack of tiredness

aye aye aye. insomnia in august. early monday morning classes cancelled. all motivation to go to bed- out the window. perhaps i'll just have to stay up all night squeezing my brain for words. and this is all i manage to come up with for a post! maybe inspiration will come around 3.

Sonnet

The Chasm


Laughter or sarcasm. Sarcasm, laughter . . .

Contagious, infectious and likely to spread
into rushing flames. Be careful which you
choose.......(No matter- you'll probably lose.)

But lest you worry about choices and friends,
remember that fog turns quickly . . .
where rusty creeks run, and a tree ends up turning
into tiny debris. Water spigots and lost friends
have - not much in common.

..................................So avoid Radio Flyers
with small children in back, for what they may lack,
are those false things in the night.

But always make sure to embrace the knife that bridges
...the chasm
so oft created not from laughter- but sarcasm.

alone

This is the photo of someone sitting in an airport. Someone who has been there for a while, someone who no longer has a suitcase. Or perhaps someone who is about to lose it. Sitting in Madrid. Or was it Heathrow? Thinking about it now, coulda been Chicago. There was a foreboding sense that it was about to happen. It was nearly said out loud as they parted ways at the check-in. Go figure. It was as if the connection between suitcase and owner was tangible up till London and then all went blank. The changeover was way too fast, there was no way it could have made the switch... Something wasn't right.

Waiting in Madrid at the luggage belt watching bag after bag come out.

Waiting in Madrid at the luggage belt watching no bags come out. Alone.

Long walk to the lost baggage desk.

Walk out of the airport alone, with empty hands and nothing but the clothes on my back which were about to be worn for more hours straight than was ever meant.

That is what this photo is about.

into someone else's life.

Tonight I came across a blog by a guy I don't know and haven't ever met but we happen to have a friend or two in common. As I read through his thoughts on his life I was struck by the honest, open simplicity of the way he described various occurrences from the last while. No pretenses, just communication. It was refreshing actually. It was like he was writing for himself, yet aware that people like me would be looking in, and so he explains everything very neatly, almost like it was for a child. Although what he writes about is not remotely childish, perhaps it is as a child would view the world. I dig it.

It is one thing to read a friend's blog. It's great actually. But it's something entirely different to look into someone's life whom you have never met and wouldn't even recognize on the street- and finish feeling like you have been been for a two hour coffee with them for the third time that week...

I think we'll go for coffee again.

quote by Eugene Peterson

The great masters of the imagination do not make things up out of thin air; they direct our attention to what is right before our eyes. They train us to what is right before our eyes. They then train us to see it whole- not in fragments but in context, with all the connections. They connect the visible and the invivsible, the this with the that. They assist us in seeing what is around us all the time but which we regularly overlook. With their help we see it not as commonplace but as awesome, not as banal but as wondrous. For this reason the imagination is one of the the essential ministries in nurturing the life of faith. For faith is not a lap out of the everyday but a plunge into its depths.

quote by Thomas á Kempis

Jesus today has many who love his heavenly kingdom, but few who carry his cross; many who yearn for comfort, few who long for distress. Plenty of people he finds to share his banquet, few to share his fast. Everyone desires to take part in his rejoicing, but few are willing to suffer anything for his sake. There are many that follow Jesus as far as the breaking of bread, few are far as drinking the cup of suffering; many that revere his miracles, few that follow him in the indignity of the cross.

the Valley I

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…

The valley.

Whether it be long and narrow or wide and deep, the valley is not for the faint of heart. While it is good there, the silence can be deep and long. While it is beautiful, at night the shadows deepen and the light recedes back up the mountain leaving the darkness in its wake. However for those who wish to peer into the deep things, it is a path unavoidable. It is the only way to become like Him. True revelation comes at a price. That price is a journey, not only across the mountaintops but also down into the deep valleys that separate the peaks that reach up towards the heavens.

Every traveler is one who has left home. One who has forsaken what was his own, what was comfortable in search of something more. He has embraced foreignness and will not arrive till he has found his true home. The man who embarks on this journey is not the same as the man who completes this journey. He does not carry a map; he does not know where his steps will take him. All he can see is a city off in the distance, a distant glow that surpasses all others. He knows his destination awaits him, and while he is not completely sure how he will get there, he knows that the same power that pushes him out is the same power that will lead him home.

the Valley II

Night has fallen in the quiet valley and memories of the warm sunlight have long since faded. The traveler, alone, sits amongst a grove of trees that are all too still looking up towards the black, cloud-covered darkness. The cold has seeped through his clothes and with the long night before him, despair begins knocking at his heart. Despite the night air, lines of sweat make trails down his worn skin as he rocks back and forth, his beard brushing against his knees; perhaps to keep warm or perhaps to fight off the fear that seems to be closing in. His lips move quickly forming words but only whispers would be heard if one were kneeling beside him.

He is alone. This dark night has closed around his soul and he is left to the powers that be as they batter him back and forth. His mind a battleground and his body awaits expectantly. His response will be according to the decision cast down from on high. He can taste the fear in his mouth as he senses that perhaps his time has come. He wonders if he is capable. He wonders if he will have the strength to finish what he started. He reaches up to wipe the sweat off his face and in the half-light his hand looks as if it was smeared with blood. There is no one else. No one to help shoulder what he has to bare, no one’s touch to comfort him. He is truly and utterly alone.

He knows not when it will begin, whether in the dark of the night or the first light of dawn. Whether in silence or shouting they will come. The revelation runs through his body- what was started is about to be finished. Trembling he pronounces the words that have been brewing from deep inside him ever since the full revelation had descended. Words that mean the end since the answer will be final.

The man falls forward, losing awareness of the cold and the darkness, conscious only of what is forming on his lips. His heart bursts with the enormity and weight of what seems the world on his back. He is one man. What will it be like to experience for the first and only time complete and utter separation from the creator of all things? Humans are not meant to bear the revelation of such things, let alone the sheer hell of the experience itself. Suddenly the words fall from his lips, now formed and birthed into existence. Like all spoken words they are breathed into eternity and cannot be taken back. The words reach up into the heavens and down into the depths. The Father hears them and words do not express what he feels.

“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Followed immediately with “nevertheless not as I will, but as you will.”
And then again, “if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, let your will be done.”
And finally a third time.
It is a final resignation to the path that leads out of the valley. It is the only way. The only way anyone will ever be able to the leave the valley and enter into rest.

The wind picks up and the stillness seems to disappear in anticipation and sudden expectation and the leaves on the trees begin to make noise. The man feels release wash over him as the words are spoken and make their journey infinitely outwards. The answer is already there before the sound of the request has died out. He has known his Father’s will since before the beginning of time. His will is the Father’s will. Now he is ready. He has spoken out of being human. He has voiced the innermost, deepest and most human request to ever be formed. Never before has he been so frailly human. Never again will anyone be so human again.

In the distance voices are distinguished. Glimpses of torchlight can be seen through the now swaying trees. The hour has come. His hour has come. He pulls himself to his feet and the weight of the world shifts from his back to his shoulders. Soon that weight will be two literal beams in the form of a cross. The group approaches and the lonely traveler is greeted with a kiss from an old friend.




The trees in the valley have stopped swaying. The first light of day rushes across the sky and all is still again. Sensing the importance of this day, the trees pause to consider what had been witnessed the previous night. Alone and weak the traveler had come and knelt beneath them. He had faced the night, but in a moment shortly before the others came something changed. It was as if he had entered the valley with the human vision of all that awaited him on the other side of dawn, for he was human. However for the first time in human history, the Father refused to take the cup from a human hand, and instead would pour it out fully over the Son, and the world would be changed forever. It was that vision that tormented the traveler, the vision of what it was to be separated utterly and completely from the Father, making all other valleys pale in comparison.

In the darkest hour of the night, in the moment when the sun, moon, and stars shone the least, revelation descended and the vision of the Father for himself and every other frail human being was revealed, and the traveler was led away into the night. He had faced the end and poured out everything, and when human strength and understanding failed him, he bled the only words that are left at that point, “not my will but yours” and thus found his way out of Gethsemane.

jack johnson w/ ben harper

live version one of my fav songs by jack and the fact that it features ben harper just makes it deserving of a post...

random Chicago

..................................................................not sure why



¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿?



..........................................................................familia



mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (m&m) colors











alto y claro..................................................................................................

white sox!!

While in Chicago we hit up the White Sox on a beautiful, cool night, perfect for baseball. We had seats in the outfield bleachers in a packed house to see the pale hose take on the Texas Rangers. In accordance with their custom when we are in the stands, the Sox were pounded 6-1 and generally didn't play great ball. But the experience wasn't tarnished too much (it's baseball, the best teams still lose 60 plus games out of 162!) and we left the richer for having been... (the following night their bats responded and won 10-2, go figure)




can't forget 2005. world series champions. go Sox! campeones, campeones...




US Cellular Field. doesn't sound quite like Comisky Park, but since we live in a world where marketing is everywhere, even the name of the stadium has to do its part, pulling in revenue...




a little action.




lined up and surrounded by semi-sober, baseball experts who took pride in constantly telling the Ranger's outfielder Josh Hamilton that he sucks. nevermind that Hamilton just got back from the all-star game where he set a new baseball record for most homeruns in the derby in one round.




from t-shirts to hats, we were all appareled up!




Ninth inning was wrapped up and we were headed home. (Just missing Ash in this picture, maybe if someone has the ability to superimpose..?)

Chicago at Night.

Hopefully somebody got the reference to Spoon... Then again, has anyone even heard of Spoon?

wedding

Saturday the 19th of July, 2008, Jeremy Miller was joined in marriage with Carrie Ulrich. It was the end of one stage of life and the beginning of an even better one. I'm not going to blubber on about the occasion but let it suffice to say that it was a beautiful event and I am extremely happy for them. There were a lot of laughs and probably a few women crying like they tend to do at weddings. (Nothing wrong with that, I'm honestly not criticizing.) Carrie was of course gorgeous and Jeremy looked dashing. Okay, enough of that, I'm getting near the blubbering line. Anyways.... I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Nuff said.

summetime II

what this is is entertainment. on an evening where there isn't too much breeze, a bit of moon and a star or two, grab yourself a few tennis balls. soak them gently in gasoline until wet. place on driveway away from dry grass and put flame close to the ball. watch the fire catch hold. grab tennis ball quickly and throw at friend. friend- catch tennis ball and throw to another friend. continue until the ball flames out. film for good memories. if footage refuses to load, use foto instead.

summertime

happy clouds. its not photoshop, just an airshow down the road if you were wondering...





tubing at the lake. good times.

LIFE part I

My grievance with contemporary society is with its decrepitude. There are few towering pleasures to allure me, almost no beauty to bewitch me, nothing erotic to arouse me, no intellectual circles or positions to challenge or provoke me, no burgeoning philosophies or theologies and no new art to catch my attention or engage my mind, no arousing political, social, or religious movements to stimulate or excite me. There are no free men to lead me. No saints to inspire me. No sinners sinful enough to either impress me or share my plight. No one human enough to validate the "going" lifestyle. It is hard to linger in that dull world without being dulled.

I stake the future on the few humble and hearty lovers who seek God passionately in the marvelous, messy world of redeemed and related realities that lie in front of our noses.

William McNamara (10)



In-satisfaction.
The desire to be fully human.
To be truly alive.
A thirst for that which we will be, when he appears and we become like him, seeing him as he truly is.

But the resistance comes.
The rains fall.
The floods come.
The rains do not fall.
The desert stretches across the horizon.
The valley darkens.
Our eyes fail.
And so-
We settle.
We conform.
We stop striving.
We stop dreaming and forget the dreams we have already dreamt.



Life is hard.

It is easier to relax in the embracing arms of the The Average. Easier, but not better. Easier, but not more significant. Easier, but not more fulfilling. (18)
(The council in this day and age is that we can arrive at our full humanness by gratifying our desires.)
Has something ever been further from the truth?
Someone once said, "Not my will but yours be done."


Vitezslav Gardavsky (a Czech philosopher and martyr) said that the terrible threat against life is not death, nor pain, nor any variation on the disasters that we so obsessively try to protect ourselves against with our social systems and personal stratagems. The terrible threat is that we might die earlier than we really do die, before death has become a natural necessity. The real horror lies in just such a premature death, a death after which we go on living for many years....... (17)



I don't want to die early. I don't want the easy. I have said it before and I will say it again and hope that the only one who can prevent the mediocre from taking root is listening and hears my prayers. For I want to be fully human. I don't want to die before I'm dead. I want fullness in all its pain.

We are meant to have life and to have it abundantly. That means that whatever it brings, whether floods or deserts, valleys or mountaintops and everything else in between, we can live it in abundance. Abundance. Without reserve. Without holding back. Letting go and becoming a humble, hearty lover of God in this messy, marvelous world of the redeemed.




Chunks of this were taken from Run with Horses by Peterson, with some of my comments thrown in.