imagining how the church can reorient around mission

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crown of glory – psalm 8 and romans 8

You should know Dr. Haley Jacob, a notable theologian who was supervised by the renowned N.T. Wright during her Ph.D. studies. We are so fortunate that she is a member of our church community and on our preaching team at Immanuel. Her research on Romans 8 is unique, even groundbreaking, and needs to be heard by every Christian. I am not exaggerating. It will set you free to imagine following Jesus in a new, IMHO, more beautiful way. In fact, I was so moved by her teachings that several times during the presentation, I physically gasped. Trust me; you don’t want to miss out on what she has to explain.

what is next for the church

I read an article this last week in which the author stated with the utmost confidence (read hubris) what will happen to the church “next.” Really?

Here are some clues as to what to focus on regardless of what happens next… read more

the church, faithful | how does a church stay true to the gospel?

In my sermon prep today I came across this piercing paragraph from the always prophetic Stanely Hauerwas (his commentary on Matthew).

 

“Rightly reading the signs of the times requires a church capable of standing against the legitimating stories of the day. American Christians often think that if we had been confronted with someone like Hitler we would have been able to recognize that he was evil. Yet in many ways, the church in Germany was a church more theologically articulate than the American church has ever been; still the German church failed to know how to adequately challenge the rise of Hitler. It failed because Christians in Germany assumed that they were German Christians just as American Christians assume that they are American Christians. Churches that are nationally identified will seldom be able to faithfully read the signs of the time.”

 

Please, please don’t read this as some overt political statement from me or some kind of Hitler/Trump equivalency. If you do, you are missing the target.

It is actually an ecclesial statement.

 

How does the church remain faithful in the midst of so many counter-stories, particularly “nationalism”? How do we maintain our equilibrium in the midst of so many different and competing narratives?
How do we maintain our equilibrium in the midst of so many different and competing narratives?

BTW – this commentary was written in 2006 if anything he was referring to George W Bush. Hehe!

r

a theological vision for immanuel church – part 1 – restore lives

Your kingdom come, your will be done in Spokane as it is in heaven.

In Spokane as it is in heaven! That is how I always pray the Lord’s Prayer in regards to our church.

So, what is it like in heaven? What will that be like? I think each one of us has the ability to conjure or imagine what it might be. Fortunately for us we get glimpses into what that might be like in the latter portion of the book of Revelation.

 “I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.  I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband. I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.” Revelation 21:1-5 (Message)

Really that is my vision for Immanuel. To live into that… In Spokane as it is in heaven.

About a few years ago now, we did a multi-part series reflecting this idea entitled “The Reconciliation of All Things.” We tackled subjects of kingdom misalignments in our city, such as broken relationships, racial tension, class discrimination, gender inequality, the environment and several other culturally significant (and charged) topics. We brought in presenters for each topic who were considered “experts.” It was an attempt at the very least to sensitize us to the misalignments in our world and in the best case, equip us to be agents of shalom in our city.

The reality is we live in a world that is disjointed or as the theologian Jürgen Moltmann would say, “…out of order.”

If this is our vision then, how does it work itself out in mission? At least part of the answer to that question would be, our mission is to vigilantly observe where the misalignments are and locate ourselves into those places as people and as a community of reconciliation.

That is our calling.

In II Corinthians 5:16-20 the apostle Paul writes,

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

It tells us that God has committed to us the message of reconciliation and that we are his ambassadors.

So what I’d like to lay out in this short essay are the four forms that this reconciliation occurs in the context; Immanuel Church, the West Central neighborhood and the larger city of Spokane.

RESTORED LIVES

I use the word restored not to infer that everyone was once Christian and just fell away. It is more to help capture the idea that there is a Gospel story or narrative if you will. See, the Gospel doesn’t begin with bad news, but with good. It is a narrative of God’s loving gestures to us that culminates in the Christ event. In other words, the Gospel didn’t begin the last days of Jesus’ life and in his resurrection, but rather it began in Genesis 1. You know the story. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In that creation event, we see that each creative act God performed was described as good. In fact, when it describes the creation of humanity, it is described as very good. It says that humanity was in a perfect environment. Eden. If you are familiar with Scripture you know that that did not last though. What comes next is what is described theologically as the Fall. It’s found in Genesis 2:15-17.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’”

It says “death” will come upon humanity if disobedience happens. So restoration, if seen through this lens, would be for people to be moved back into right relationship with God. Restoration means, to be sure, a rescue from estrangement from God to life eternal, but also must include the idea of being healed of our brokenness, made whole…having the potential to experience God’s shalom through Jesus Christ.

My hope then, is that people would be restored to that right relationship to God. Or another more straightforward way to say it is, I want to see people become Christ followers. The sad fact is in Western culture we do not see many people become Christians. Not long ago I surveyed 10 or 12 different local pastors and asked them if they had seen any type of conversion growth in their church at all in the last year. I allowed them to define what conversion was in their own terms, whether it was as following Jesus, or getting saved, or converting or some other descriptor. The sobering results, though nonscientific, were that few of them were seeing anyone become Christian. Now, it must be stated that these leaders are some of the strong leaders in our city. They’re the good guys. Trying to do church in a way that reflects Jesus. Yet, none of them were seeing anybody (or at least very few) become Christian. I believe this is endemic in the west. The sobering fact is when we see churches that are growing, though there are exceptions, almost all of them are experiencing what we call “transfer growth.” In missiological circles, we call this “rearranging of the furniture on the Titanic.” If this trajectory continues the church in the west is headed toward obsolesces.

Looping back to the text we just read from II Corinthian’s, Paul makes it clear in verse 14 that “…it is Christ’s love that compels us.”

That really is my story. I became a Christian in my early 20s, but the seven or eight years just prior to that I lived a significantly self-destructive life. When I encountered Jesus, when I realized that I was loved and that there was a purpose in life, it changed everything. I could no longer go on living the way I once did. And, I fervently wanted others to know about this love.

Our love for Jesus inspires us to fulfill our mission. Everyone matters to God. God loves every person who has ever been born. God made some people that I don’t love. I can go further, God made people that I don’t even like. But God loves them. The most dreadful human you can imagine is still loved by God. And because God cares, it follows that we must care as well.

I think the missionary theologian Lesslie Newburgh put it best. He writes,

“Anyone who knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior must desire ardently that others should share that knowledge and must rejoice when the number of those who do is multiplied. Where this desire and rejoicing are absent, we must ask whether something is not wrong at the very center of he church’s life.”

We, Immanuel, must resolutely and unapologetically be about the restoration of all people to a right relationship with God, through Jesus Christ.

Peace to each of you!

r

Alternative Politic

T1larg

If you say you are a Christian, it is not an option – you must begin with theology (who is God, who am I before Him and what does He desire), rather than nationalism or partisanship (what is best for our country or the party I belong to) in discerning how to engage culture. While the latter is important, we must be the best of citizens; it MUST be subjugated to the will and ethic of the Kingdom. The most frightening thing for me is not our new President, or Russia or Islam or Fake News, or some other external influence, though each carry with them a reason for consternation. The thing that frightens me most is the famine of “believers” who recognize the collision of Kingdoms that is taking place around them.

This is unquestionably an indictment on the church for its lack of spiritual formation (a topic for another day).

If you begin with the latter, whether you know it or not, you portray a co-opted version of Christianity that is underdeveloped at best and repelling at worse to those who are sincerely seeking the real thing. #alternativepolitic #kingdomfirst

Book Review: Kingdom Conspiracy by Scot McKnight

9781441221476

Do you wear skinny jeans or pleated pants?

Kind of a funny question, but those are the metaphors theologian Scot McKnight uses to describe two prevailing and popular views of the Kingdom of God in his book, Kingdom Conspiracy. The first view, skinny jeans, predictably represents a more current approach that frontloads public sector social justice activism, while often times bypassing the church. He writes, “Kingdom means good deeds done by good people (Christian or not) in the public sector for the common good.” (p.4) The second picture is, again predictably, a perspective that is more represented in “traditional” Christianity. He describes this group’s view by saying, “…the Kingdom is both present and future, and the kingdom is both a rule and reign.” (p. 9) read more

Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier

Jpeg

Over the last couple of months I’ve had the privilege of reading the book “Prodigal Christianity” with a group of my friends here in Spokane. All of them are good thinkers and we had a wonderful time processing the ideas by Dave Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw. 

The book is really an attempt to locate a way forward that is truly prodigal in today's Christianity, a third way if you will. A writing device the authors employed is a cyclical juxtaposition between a Neo-Reform perspective of Christianity (Piper, Keller, et al) and a more “Emergent” version (McLaren and Jones). Honestly, a device I am not entirely thrilled with and I would suspect the authors represented in the book probably were not wild about either. Nonetheless, while looking at both of these poled perspectives they seek to mine out an alternative way for the church to move forward in the undulating social challenges of Western society. read more

What Motivates Your Life to Do Good?

Forgiveness

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I
will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I looked up my hands. I
will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my
mouth will praise you.” Psalm 63:3 

Yesterday,
I wrote about the amazing gesture of adoration the woman in John 12 gave to
Jesus by pouring a bottle of pure nard, an entire years wages worth, onto His
feet. The follow-up question that must be broached is what would bring about
such an extravagant gesture? What drove her to such an act? read more

The Church: A Banquet for Your Friends or a Refuge for the Poor?

Melissa Blog Four Photo

Then
Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite
your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors;
if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you
give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and
you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the
resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:12-14)

             The great
eighteenth-century hymn writer and ex-slave trader John Newton marveled at the
far-reaching impact of these words spoken by Jesus in Luke. “One would almost
think this passage was not considered part of God’s word, nor has any part of
Jesus’ teaching been more neglected by his own people. I do not think it is unlawful
to entertain our friends” he says, “but if these words do not teach us that it
is in some respects out duty to give preference
to the poor, I am at a loss to understand them.” Looking at the current state
of the American church, one can’t help but wonder if the “luncheon or dinner”
Jesus was referring to could be what we call our church service today. We spend
so much time catering our churches to our friends, brothers, sisters, relatives
and neighbors, that we completely disregard those Jesus is calling to invite
join us in our “banquet.” read more