a church for the world

Time to Surrender

This sculpture has caused a great deal of controversy. When Rob showed this picture to our class I honestly wasn’t sure of what to make of the image. Whether you love it or hate it, it exists and stands to represent mixed feelings about the church in western society. Some may see the church as sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong, or acting as a moral regulator, others may maintain the illusion that we remain in a culture of Christendom. These perspectives and others are valid; they are perspectives based on individual experience and pose a difficult question. How does the church go about repairing the views of the larger culture in the west?

We have discussed this at great lengths in class and it seems that the next logical step is to step out of the safe, comfortable church bubble and step into the dangerous realm of missional living. The big idea is to stop defending ourselves, to put our arms down and to accept the criticism, to own up to our mistakes and to finally start loving people. The church as an institution has historically caused a lot of controversy, from the crusades to the Westboro Baptists. People have said they like our Jesus but not the church, I say it is time for us to stand up and accept responsibility and to begin living as Christ did. The church needs to take a position of humility in order to gain any ground in western culture. The church has gained a reputation of condemnation but to live in a fresh way, to live sacrificially and incarnationally we need to surrender our defense and begin to let the light of Christ shine through us.

-Jeremy

How faith helped uncover a ‘golden voice’ – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs

It’s the urban drama most of us have been forced to play. A panhandler stands outside your car window, invoking God and asking for help. What do you do?

read more

Missionality and the GLBT Community

Andrew Marin, the primary blogger for Love Is an Orientation recently began a series of posts about his life in Boystown, Chicago's primary gay neighborhood. His organization, The Marin Foundation, tries to build bridges, break down stereotypes, and open up conversation between the Christian and GLBT (Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Trangender) communities. At the very center of his ministry is the recognition that the attractional model is doomed because of Christian's actions in the past, as well as the stereotypes of both communities created in our culture. We cannot expect to bring in to our churches today a group that has been the victim of countless attacks from within the church throughout our entire history. In his book UnChristian, David Kinnamen provides countless statistics and research on the perception of the church by outsiders. At the top of his list of negative perceptions of Christianity is that it is anti-homosexual, a view held by 91 percent of the participants in the survey described in his book. To be clear, this does not mean that 91 percent of Christians are actually anti-homosexual. Rather, it means that there is a tremendously strong preconception that the Church is actively against homosexuality.

Isn’t There a Committee for That?

I love jokes, especially the ones that poke a little fun at something I’m passionate about and also shed a little truth on an issue that should probably be addressed. Growing up Presbyterian, this particular joke became one of my favorites.

Question: How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb? read more

What does God want us to do now?

At this point, we have answered the question of what we are doing wrong in today’s church. I want to start to focus on what we can do to make it right, in a very specific sense. So I cast around for examples of successful churches and I realized the best example was right before my eyes – the first church, found in Acts. In this church, there was no building. Scripture (the limited canon that existed at the time) was taught in very small groups that met in people’s homes. I imagine the groups did not hold their membership very long, because as they grew, people had to leave so as not to draw attention. The people that left started their own groups, which then grew and multiplied again into even more groups. Church members did not claim any possessions of their own. They gave freely and generously to those in need, whether the needy person was a member of the church or not. They went to any sick person they could find and gave them God’s healing in the spiritual and the physical sense. Can you see this type of thing happening in our society? It’s a huge stretch for us to put a tenth of our earnings into the offering plate – can you imagine the reaction if the pastor suddenly asked you to give up all your money and possessions? What if he stood up one week and said the church would be disbanded into small groups which were never permitted to have more than five members? Would that church work today?
-Diana C.

Cheating Yourself

I hear many supposed Christians say that they don’t need to go to church or that they feel like they can connect to God better without church. Another idea is that they can worship God better with the extra time. Whatever the excuse that’s exactly what I hear when Christians tell me they don’t go to church; excuses. The church is the body of Christ. The church is meant to be a foretaste of the Kingdom as Leslie Newbegin said. I see going to church as practice, practice for living out the mission of God and embracing the Kingdom. I had a wrestling coach in high school that said for an action to become a habit takes muscle memory, and for muscle memory to develop the body must perform that action at least 10,000 times. 10,000 times takes a lot of practice! I coach high school wrestling and if any of my athletes showed up for matches but didn’t go to practice not only would I be disappointed and not allow them to compete, but they would lose! You can’t develop the skills of wrestling without practicing and learning about them. We make our wrestlers drill the same moves over and over for a reason…to build muscle memory. To me going to church is like building muscle memory for how to carry out God’s mission in the world and live our lives in a way that is worthy of the Kingdom. You can’t learn if you don’t practice and if you don’t practice with regularity you lose your skills. Attending and participating in a church is no different. We need to practice the things that Christ has set out for us to do and sometimes we need to be refocused on what is really important. From now on whenever a Christian tells me they don’t need the church I will tell them what I tell the high school seniors who go through the motions in practice or don’t show up at all, “You’re cheating the program, but most of all you’re cheating yourself!”

-Jack

January Posts!!! A Missional Church Class

For the month of January there will be 22 amazing guest posters on "The Drum" from a course I teach at Whitworth University to upper level theology majors entitled, "The Missional Church." They are required to post twice a week from the readings, class material or their own personal research on the topic.

The required texts for the class are (along with numerous other essays, videos and articles): read more

Mythological Proclamation

Thinking back oh-so-fondly to memories of my childhood Sunday School education this past week, I was reminded of many things. I was reminded of my utter failure to memorize the bible verses selected for me, and the deficiency of precious gold stars that resulted, causing much strife. I was reminded of the abundance of stories that were told that have been forgotten. I was reminded of the snacks. Oh, the snacks.
Moving beyond these superficial recollections, I thought about those stories that I did remember, and noticed how devoid of any spiritual significance or context they all were. I thought about magical-glowing-flannelgraph-Jesus:

"And look how the baby in the manger never cried!" read more

Excuse Me Mr. Webster, a Correction Must be Made!

Webster's Dictionary the new census edition by Philip Williamson on flickr

My junior year of high school I decided I wanted to go into youth ministry. I loved God, I loved the church, and I loved high school students. Now maybe I loved high school students at the time because I was a high school student, and thus high school students were awesome. But the passion has stuck with me through the end of my college experience and opened doors for my future. There were always some in my life who were excited for me, but there were others as well. read more

LEADERS IN THE DARKNESS

I was reading some of Leslie Newbigin’s material on the missional church and how to be truly missional. He brings up many fantastic points but the one that really stuck out to me was what he said about the church empowering people not solely so that they could better themselves but also so that they could in turn empower those around them. The point was that many churches, more properly labeled as congregations, gather on Sunday in extremely poor places. The soldiers of Christ who meet up every Sunday morning scratch out a living where there is no hope. These are the exact places that Jesus needs to be preached for Jesus tells us “it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick” (Mark 2: 17).

What happens with these churches is that they do empower men and women who start to have hope and with that hope they usually find more economic success. With this economic success (which is certainly not a guarantee from Christ) they almost always flee their neighborhood and move into less desperate places, which is a blessing for them, but what about their brothers and sisters still stuck in the ghetto? Leslie’s point is that when these men and women who emerge from the darkness leave their communities, they leave those places darker. At least some of these people need to stay put and build up their brothers and sisters around them. It isn’t pretty and certainly not easy, but it is good. We are called to love especially our fellow Christians and while it is a true blessing to move from a shady part of town to a more hospitable one, these Christians can do so much in the neighborhoods where they started at. They become the leaders of the congregation and empower those around them so that the whole community can look forward to a brighter tomorrow under Christ’s reign.

Zach W.

imagining how the church can reorient around mission