for the church to be the church there needs to be no church

Hey folks, I have been following this site for a while and asked James if I could contribute. I am a Nazarene church planter in College Park, MD and I have been involved in the Emergent conversation since seminary. I wanted to share a post from my own blog (Ethan's Feet) that I wrote in response to some things that i have been reading from author Peter Rollins. I am curious to hear yawls thoughts on it:

Lately I have been falling more and more for Irish theologian Pete Rollins. To get a flavor for Pete (though you should really check out his books) read this interview in Christian Century. I find his thoughts to be totally compelling, particularly his thoughts on "community" as laid out in that interview. Community is a buzz word in the emerging church as important as post-modern or anything else. Lately, though, I have been feeling like the idea of community can become as much an idol we worship and/or a millstone around our neck as any old church building or stubborn board of directors.

In fact, if I could sum up all that my brain has imagined from reading Pete I would sum it up in the following phrase: for the church(A) to be the church(B) there needs to be no church(C).

What I mean is that for the people of God (church, definition A) to start behaving like the distinct community of the Kingdom of God (church definition B) then maybe there needs to be nowhere that they can go where someone else or some institution (church, definition C) will do it/be it for them.

Now I am not saying that we don't have a church/institution "C" (that would be career suicide!) but rather that the primary job of the church/institution is to refuse to be for the church/people "A" the church/KOG "B".

You come to church seeking community? Reach out and love somebody. You come to church seeking praise? Stand up and praise God in front of everybody. You come to church seeking truth? Ask somebody a question. You come to church to serve the poor? Go out and make friends with someone whose poor and brig 'em to church!

I'm not saying... I'm just saying.

(re-posted from "Ethans Feet")

Something Worth Dying For?

Warning, this video is not for the faint of heart....

(HT: The Daily Dish)

Today there are countless Iranians protesting, and some dying for the right to have their voice counted in free and fair elections. I am not of any illusionary belief that democracy is a God ordained institution, however it is by far the best thing humans have ever come up with for self-governance and it sure beats the theocratic fascism that Iran's conservative Muslim leaders are now fully revealed to be in favor of.

I have friends that have served bravely in the military and they are willing to die for their country and fellow citizens; even to die for another country and her citizens. The earliest Christians and the underground church today are persecuted and martyred for their faith. But is it really worth dying for?

The question of death and life and viewing some measure of worth as being associated with it is an interesting phenomena. Is your earthly existence less valuable than your right to vote? Is your hand being intact worth some tangible amount which once is met you agree to have it lobbed off? Is there anyway a well fed white mid-westerner whose most dangerous experience was a brush with a 5th grader on the tetherball court after recess can identify with and say that they would indeed die for anything?

The things worth dying for are often identified as existing 'outside' of ourselves, they are bigger than our own footprint. Will we die to save the life of another? Will we throw ourselves on the grenade tossed before our friends? Will we stand in front of the tanks and bullets thrown at us by extremist governments with terroristic visions of domination?

Do we have a faith in a God that sent a son that had something valuable to do, something worth being killed for? Is the hope of reconciliation of God and his creation worth dying for? I ask these questions because I don't think most Christians serve that God. They have faith in the God of the Sunday morning concert, the God of the felt needs, the God of the 'feed me' consumption of targeted Christonomic Americanism. That is surely not something worth dying for, because there is nothing 'outside' of ourselves to die for. That is a Christian faith that is personalized, and internalized. It is filtered, packaged, and made 'just for you' so that you can feel as though you are somehow being Christian by listening to it, reading it, or watching it. That is the ingrown and inbred faith of 'Christian Yellowbooks' and only letting your kids play with other Christian kids. It is a faith that is stained with red, white, and blue. It is a farce, a false religion, a heretic gospel, and I won't die for it.

So what will I die for? I will die for a Christ that is fully God and fully man, that was really born of a virgin, that was really a historical person, that really died on a cross, and really raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty! I will die for nothing less. I will die for a faith that causes me to embrace a radical and trinitarian love that is eternally focused on the well-being of others at the expense of my flesh. I will die for a faith that transcends consumerism. I will die for a faith in which all I am and all I do is but worthless unless it is bathed in the shadow of the cross. I will die for a faith with teeth, that stands up for it's beliefs in the face of syncretism and pluralistic pandering to a culture bent on diluting everything to a pale grey. And in paradox I will only die for a faith that is so radical in it's love for the other that we will be accused of being drunkards and harlots, sinners and tax collectors. In short I will die for nothing less than the Kingdom of God come to earth through the incarnated hands of Jesus Christ.

Do you have something worth dying for? If you don't then what are you living for?

More than Discussion

I haven't posted in quite a while. I still read all the posts and some of the discussions in the comments, but in many ways, I'm just done with discussion. There are other good reasons too. Life is full, life is good.

One thing I've found with the emerging conversations is that they are indeed mostly conversations. Those who are in part or wholly postmodern are great at it. But I must confess that I miss the result-making aspect of modernity. I don't want to return to those structures and think we can't, but I do miss implementation. I long for dreamy seeds to turn into growing seedlings & saplings, and eventually, healthy & flourishing trees.

What I'm saying is that those inspired by the emerging conversation are mostly...well...just inspired. Inspiration is one thing, living is another. I know lots of people who are inspired by a good idea; few, if any, willing to risk it by living it. Indeed...the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

But some things are happening. I was actually encouraged by attending New England District Assembly a few weeks ago. Sure, there were multiple times when I wondered, "Why are we doing this?" But it was encouraging to see and talk to some pastors who are breaking the chains of growth models, willing to be "embarrassed" by the archaic systems of statistical measurement in order to actually grow by the fruit-measurements of scripture.

I want to tell you about two of them in hopes that it's encouragement to other pastors and churches out there.

Lifebridge Church of the Nazarene is in Manchester, NH, a city that's growing in many ways, including within the populations of the homeless and immigrants. If you look in the NED booklet from assembly, you'll see something like 8 or 12 as the weekly "worship attendance" for LifeBridge. About six of those every week are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. LifeBridge is the mother church of the Helping Hands Outreach Center, a 24-7 "church" that ministers to and with men recovering from addiction, jail time, and other disenfranchising elements of society. It's tough to know it from a one-page statistical summary, but LifeBridge CotN is doing the work of the Kingdom every day of the week by ministering to the lives of dozens of men, most of whom will not be in Sunday morning worship, but all of whom are being presented the gospel as Jesus spoke of it.

The second is Cornerstone Community Church in Spencer, MA. I met the pastor, Ted MacNeil for the first time at assembly. I was tuned into the church via his humorous video report, a parody of the FOX show, House. You can view it below, but skip to 5:37 to see it.


I remember one of the first aspects of the emergent conversation that drew me in was that I found that the Spirit of God was moving in the same ways in different people in different places. The conversation became a place for me to know that these thoughts I was having were not misplaced, out of the ordinary, or even completely unorthodox. But now I'm looking for stories and places where it's more than a conversation.

Anyone else? Stories to share...?

God Is an Atheist

I am an atheist. Don't look so shocked! You are an atheist, too. So is God. We are all atheists.
If you don't believe in God, you are an atheist. If you do believe in God, you are atheist.
Huh?
The early Christians were called atheists because they rejected the gods of Rome. They had the audacity to say that Rome's long-honored gods were false and that there was only one true God. So people called them atheists – people who don't believe in the gods.
Good Christians are still atheists in this sense today. Stan Martin was a professor here several years ago. He was fond of saying, “So you're an atheist … OK, tell me about the God you don't believe in. I probably don't believe in him either.”

Let's read our Old Testament Lesson: Isaiah 44:6-20.

J.B. Phillips wrote a little book called, Your God Is Too Small, and in it he argues that the greatest barrier to faith is poor, weak, small, piddly images of God.1 So often, we believe these bad images of God, and they really mess us up. Let me tell you about the Gods I don't believe in – at least I don't believe them most of the time.

God is not the whammy hammer. ...

To continue reading this post, click here.


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What does it mean to be Pro-life today?

The horrific shooting of an abortion doctor in Kansas by an antiabortion zealot is forcing us to take a look at the current state of the Pro-Life movement in our country. Both sides can look at this awful incident and wonder about all that leads to such destructive behavior.

For those who are on the Pro-Life side of the conversation it seems that we need to take a look at where we are. In many ways these are hard days for the Pro-Life movement. First, President Obama, while working towards civility and understanding from the both sides of the abortion debate is clearly working from a more left wing agenda on the issue. Some of his first actions as president were to repeal executive orders from President Bush aimed at protecting unborn life. Secondly, with the appointment of one Supreme Court Justice soon and possibly several more in the coming years, the court may be making a shift that will not help the Pro-Life cause.

So how should pro-lifers proceed through these difficult days? I think that first and foremost there needs to be some readjustment on our perspective on what it means to be pro-life. Believing in the sanctity of all human life, born or unborn, is not simply an issue in regards to abortion. It is a major component, but life is life wherever it exists. I have stated numerous times in sermons and through my writing that the church needs to focues on the unborn and the already born alike. Poverty, AIDs, and genocide are affecting more children each year than abortion. So let’s just make sure we are focusing on all sanctity of life issues that God is calling us to make a difference in.

With the changing landscape there needs to be a shift in how we are trying to accomplish the ultimate goal of lowering the number of abortions as much as possible in our country and in our world. I do not believe that Roe V. Wade will ever be overturned in our country. If it was in some way altered, it would most likely become an issue that was sent back to the states to rule on. The majority of states will most likely still legalize it. Even that happening is a huge longshot.

But, regardless of the legality of abortion, we should be working to eliminate abortions. Taking the choice from women doesn’t actually address the issue that leads most women to abortion anyways. Eliminating poverty, providing support for single moms, helping to rebuild the family, providing sex education, talking about abistenence, and helping those who need them get the means to prevent pregnancy will make a huge impact on the number of abortions in our country. To find models for this we need to look outside of our countries to ministries that operate in countries were abortions and orphans are so prevalent. Ministries in these countries are trying to change the culture around women and children to help give them life. There are no hopes of eliminating abortion in these countries so people have had to find other ways to help prevent them. These are the models we should be looking towards in our future to provide better preservation for all life.

Personally I am excited to begin partnering with a new organization called Doma that my friend Julie Clark has started. Doma is doing a lot of this kind of work in the Ukraine, Russia, and throughout Africa. Models like theirs are the kind of models we need to adopt here in the US as well. There are so many passionate and committed people who want believe in the sanctity of all life. My prayer is that we will increasingly find more effective and even more Christ honoring ways to pool our efforts and make a difference in the lives of those who have no voice for themselves.