Life In Liminal Land

It has been an interesting past 7 or so months.

• We “closed the doors” of our church plant, Common Table. (Aside: doesn’t that saying give away our dominant metaphor of seeing the church as a building?)

• We had our third daughter.

• We jumped into another local church plant with some of our friends from Common Table.

• We put our house up for sale.

Ever since these things began to occur, we had a sense of calm as we’ve entered into a season of rest. In many ways, it has felt like a sabbatical as we haven’t had to plan, organize, teach, etc. However, it has also been a bit unsettling, especially at the beginning of this period. As such, it has become rather confusing and tended to make us feel uncertain.

These are hallmarks of what has come to be known as liminal space. Liminality carries the idea of entering into an in-between period; a time when the old ways of doing things has come to an end and new ones are emerging. The word is derived from the Latin limen which means “threshold.” In anthropological terms, it refers to standing at the threshold of a new time due to an initiation or rite of passage, yet still maintaining our place on the threshold. In other words, it is a middle state between changes – politically, religiously, ritually, economically, etc. – in which we have an eye on the past but an ear to the future.

Having sensed this reality for the Church in the West for some time now, we have been engaging in cultivating ecclesial practices that attempt to stay true to the tradition handed down to us while creatively moving into the future. The challenge of harmonizing innovation and tradition with humility and hospitality is daunting yet necessary. Doing this on a personal level, however, has (somewhat surprisingly) been disorienting.

The questions that have come along with this uncertainty and confusion have primarily revolved around the selling of our house. From there, they have naturally lead to levels of second and third results and furthering questions. What happens if we don’t sell the house? Perhaps, more importantly, what happens if we do sell the house? Should I stay in my current job? Is now the time to pursue more education? If so, should it be a PhD in theology or another Masters, this time in Education? If we stay 30 minutes away from our larger Jesus-community, how does proximity play into community? The list goes on.

In the midst of life in liminal land I have  noticed a few recurring thoughts and have been given a few through my friend Andrew.

Life in liminal land has the potential to freeze us in our tracks. Doubt, confusion, and uncertainty are potent. They have the strength to pull us out of being aware of what is happening around us. Together they redirect our attention, thoughts, and ultimately our actions to the future ahead of us. As Andrew has said, they form a concoction where we merely exist in life instead of living life. I have seen this play out in varying degrees over the past several months. Rather than being attentive to the people and places we live our life with and in, we bypass them for the unknown future ahead of us. Neighbors, co-workers, and friends become shadows of themselves as we overlook and neglect those among us for what lies on the horizon. We need to be self-aware and cognizant of this propensity.

Life in liminal land can give us permission to rip the beauty out of the short-lived. Here in America, we have been taught, whether explicitly or not, to be utilitarians. Usage of things is what they are for. People, neighborhoods, jobs: we suck the life out of them for our own maximized gain. Combine this with consumerism and individualism and we have a cocktail of misuse and abuse where neglect, power-wielding, and brokenness are left in their wake. In short, we are formed to see things as our own personal tools made for our personal gain; beauty is a bygone characteristic.

Moreover, we favor the short-lived, making it our main mode of existence and thus become blind to its beauty. It is like telling a fish to identify the water it is swimming in: we have become so accustomed to the short-lived and rootless that it has become the water we unconsciously swim in. To continue the water imagery, rather than diving in to our present situation, we get out of the water by isolating ourselves from our places and people. Presence and availability wane: two of the vital structures of community.

What I have been learning in our liminality is the beauty of change. I have been given fresh eyes to the beauty of our particular neighborhood. Now is the time of year when mayflies come out, followed by the annual return of the swallows. Their aerial dance reminds me of the grandeur of our shared ecosystem and interconnectivity. Neighbors begin to emerge from our long winter, changed from the months of snow and cold. Internally, the process of liminality has opened up areas of my own life that would have continued to hide in the dark. All in all, liminality offers me (and you) a chance to see the beauty of the ordinary in which we swim as move towards the future.

Life in liminal land reveals the interdependency of life. One of the main areas this time has revealed from its hiding is the reality of the interdependent life. The numbing effect of the everyday can fool us into thinking we are living life as independent beings. We lose sight of our interdependence and interconnectivity to the ecosystem we are a part of as we roll through the rhythms of the ordinary. Unconsciously, we assume we are autonomous beings without need of community found in God, neighborhood, and creation.

This becomes obvious to me when decision making becomes a solo act. Within the familiarity of my regular days, weeks, and months I see no need to confer with friends and family because I assume the ordinariness of everything will continue.

I’d rather remain in the presumed safety of my own decision-making than move into the messiness of communal life.

Yet in this in-between time (and, obviously, it should be all the time) I’m much more aware of my limits and the need for question asking, wisdom seeking, and conversation engaging. This manifests itself in prayer, chatting over coffee, and late night talks with my wife. Discussion and dialogue in community gives clarity as I begin to see that I’m not alone in this liminal life, but that we all share in limitations. My eyes and heart become more open to our need for each other and how God weaves us together and how this liminality actually forges community.

In the midst of life in liminal land, my main prayer is that I will stay attuned to the work of Jesus in me and through me for the sake of others. I pray I will not run away from it, but allow this time to do its work. Of one thing I am sure: I must remain present within this liminality so it can do its Spirit-filled work.

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So, how about you? What have you noticed about life in liminal land? How have uncertainty and confusion contributed to your life? In what ways has the regularity of liminality built community?

Missional Wisdom from the Tree Firmly Planted: Day 30 of Lent

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers. Psalm 1:3

When I was 20 I went to Kenya to visit my sister and her family for about a month. It was my first international traveling experience, which I will never forget. Sights, sounds, and smells filled my senses and altered my imagination in profound ways. Acts of hospitality, the deep sense of community, and the ambivalence towards a utilitarian use of time all ensured that the white, middle-class suburban, college kid I was didn’t go home the same person.

One of the terms I kept on hearing while there was “mzungu.” Everyone I met repeated that term when I came into view. My immediate assumption was that it meant “white person.” I was correct in a sense; “white person” is its connotation.

However, what it really means is one who is always on the move, always wanting to see everything. There is a sense of constant swirling. It stems from the original Europeans entering Africa and “busily swirling around”. It is definitely a loaded word.

In many ways it still holds true today.

One thing I have learned over the past several years is the allegiance to the myth of productivity. We in the West, due primarily to the Industrial Revolution and technological boom of the past 100 years or so, are addicted to being busy in ever-increasing ways. Email, social media, and instant means of “checking in” have allowed us to take our offices with us in our pockets. People are literally working themselves to death in efforts to prove their productivity levels and the evidence of self-worth that comes along with them. It doesn’t take much to show this. Seeing the human as a machine has morphed from a metaphor into an identity.

Buying into the myth of constant productivity is a result of our seeking after growth and results. We think that if we are always busy, things will grow. Our businesses will grow, our intellects will expand, and our bottom lines will be blacker. Results will flourish based on how often and how long our noses are against the grindstone. “Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the Devil” quipped Carl Jung.

I wonder how much of our result-driven busyness comes out of our formulaic attempts at growth. If we implement this guru’s wisdom here, align this methodology there, add enough pressure, and we’ll succeed. A + B = C. When this doesn’t pan out, we often give up or think we are not busy enough with the correct solutions to the problem.

The same postures and practices are found within the Church, the very community in which fruitfulness and growth cannot be coerced.

Perhaps it is from our fervent evangelistic outreaches. Perhaps it is our pursuits of justice. Whether we’re a megachurch or a church that fits in a living room, in many ways, we tend to fall into the trap of thinking fruit is always in season and that growth is always available. Again, we tend to bail out when produce is not easily seen.

If you are like me and the communities of faith I’ve been a part of, we tend to love the “whatever he does prospers” section of the above Psalm. We tend to think that we are infused with the power of God and as we do the things Christians do, we will find ourselves and our efforts bearing fruit.

Yet the natural world knows nothing of this. Seasons of produce give way to seasons of stagnation. Fruitfulness comes in harvest, yet is only possible after plowing, seeding, and waiting. Like the tree firmly planted, fruitfulness only comes in its season.

This reality is essential for those partnering with God in his missional movement of renewal. Despite our best efforts, we can formulate growth. We cannot read books, attend conferences, and listen to podcasts from “the experts” and expect growth to occur. Like the tree firmly planted, we are called to do just that: be firmly planted.

Staying put, working among others, and being present within the contexts we have been placed is the core of what it means to engage in mission. The supermarket mentality of fruit always being in season begins to fade into a farmers’ market reality of seasons as we remain rooted where we are. Constant swirling around and busyness will not bring about produce; it is the long, aching, persevering staying-put-ness that will. As we do this, we will see seasons of fruit come along with the seasons of plowing, seeding, and waiting. Discerning the different seasons is key. It will give us roots to see beyond the seemingly lack of fruit for the season of plowing we are in.

Seeing fruit comes to those who remain firmly planted waiting for its season.

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Other posts in this Lent series:

Moving Beyond Immediate (and) Affirmation or Why I Will Be Blogging Through Lent

“Divine Sorrow” and Remembering: Ash Wednesday

Longings, Presence, and Vulnerability: Day 2 of Lent

Being Led by the Gentle Voice of God: A Notebook and 3 Questions: Day 3 of Lent

Lent Around the Blogosphere: 10 Links: Day 4 of Lent

First Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Psalm 91 and Cliche: Day 5 of Lent

Community and Prayer: Henri Nouwen on Pushing Through Individualism Via Communal Prayer: Day 6 of Lent

Humility, Place, and The Everyday: Lessons in Mission From John the Baptizer: Day 7 of Lent

Lenten Reflection and Fasting According to Joan Chittister: Day 8 of Lent

Jean Vanier’s “Seven Aspects of Love”: Day 11 of Lent

Second Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Suffering and Lent: Words from Joan Chittister: Day 14 of Lent

Third Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Loneliness: Day 20 of Lent

Fourth Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

If Lent Had a Theme Song…

The Difficult Place of Those Who Are Weaker – Jean Vanier: Day 27 of Lent

Humility, Place, and the Everyday: Lessons in Mission from John the Baptizer: Lent Day 7

This morning’s Lenten reading was the entirety of Luke 3. Here we find Luke’s version concerning the beginnings of John the Baptizer’s public ministry. I was struck by its missional attributes of humility, place, and the everyday.

Humility

John takes up some prominent space in the gospels. He has an angelic proclamation to his parents in preparation for his birth. Zacharias, his father was a priest, which made him known in their region. And his mother, Elizabeth, was Mary’s cousin. He even had his own group of followers, disciples, living and learning with him. If someone was looking for an impressive CV, you wouldn’t have to look much further beyond John.

Yet when it comes to wielding this recognition and authority, John deflects to Jesus. For the sake of mission, John understands his role as one pointing to Jesus. This comes to a head when he is asked if he is indeed “the Christ.” “No, but he is coming and he is mightier than I.” Personal limitations were well-known to him.

This stood out to me because I know I am a competitive person. Henri Nouwen says of our current culture,

We are living in a world where even the most intimate relationships have become part of competition and rivalry.

How true and frequent this is. Unfortunately, it happens within Christian community – read: family – and puts mission at a stand still.

It takes humility to know that we have a role within the family of God. We are not all called to be hands. No, some of us are called to be feet. We have different skill sets, giftings, and personalities, that together allow for the mission of God to flourish.

When we give into power and pride, we often assume roles that we have no part in taking. We bad-mouth, become overly critical, and, typically, ragingly jealous. I wonder how badly John wanted to say, “Yes” to the crowds’ question of him being Christ.

Humility isn’t merely a private posture; its effects are communal as we either live into humble love or arrogant power with others.

I wonder how often we assume the role of Christ – in our own lives or the lives of others – when we should humbly point beyond ourselves to Jesus and his unifying mission.

Place

John had an astute understanding of the role of place. It wasn’t by coincidence that he was meeting people and baptizing them in the Jordan River. The Jordan had (has) a special place in the social imagination and memory of the Jewish people. It was the geographic boundary the Israelites crossed over as they entered into the Promised Land. Found in the wilderness, John called people to repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of their sins. Now, we shouldn’t think of this as personal salvation, but as a renewed call to be the community of people they were meant to be. And this would have been obvious to the people there as they knew how place was intimately linked to themselves and their story.

John evokes a dual call to both coming judgment and hope by placing himself in the wilderness and baptizing in the Jordan. It was this rootedness within his place that allowed him to enter the social imagination and memory of his people. He didn’t just know his role, his people, and his story. Rather, they all combined with his knowledge of place to make one coherent proclamation.

With his humble call to the One Coming After Him, he offered this hope and called into being a picture of (finally) entering into the true Promised Land. Through his recapitulation of the ancient Israelites’ dealings in the wilderness, he was calling people to a life of justice and peace. It began with an understanding of the role of place in the mind of his people. From there, he called them into the continuing mission of God.

I wonder how we might understand place in our own contexts and by doing so tap into the social imagination and memory of the people around us as we join God in his mission.

The Everyday

I have found over and over again how enamored people are with the glamorous and the spectacular. We like things done big and done well. We’d rather make a huge splash than tiny ripples.

I’ve heard many times of peoples’ dreams of going big. People chase after the title, the organization, the complex social issue. Within the Church world, I have heard many people say they want the title of Pastor, the Homeless Shelter non-profit organization, and that they’re going to stop the social issue of human trafficking.

We tend to chase after the grandiose while missing out on the everyday. We reach for the stars, but forget the dirt we’re standing in. We’d rather flirt with the universal and reject the particular.

This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but I think we often lose sight of where God has us now in lieu of pursuing something else. If we don’t start with the small, we will have a much, much more difficult time attaining the character and skill required for the large.

This was a temptation for John’s listeners as they heard and saw ancient words coming true before them. Their longings were finally being met and now the show could get started. Let’s do it big and do it now.

Our participation in the mission of God, however, always begins where we are in the everyday. 

John reminds us of this when he tells his questioners to start with themselves in the regularity of the everyday. “If you have two tunics, give one of them to someone who has none.” To the tax collectors, he says, “Collect no more than what you’ve been ordered to.” To the soldiers, he says, “Don’t take any money by force; be happy with your wages.”

N.T Wright says,

What we discover at this point is that the sorting-out process begins here and now. We’ve come to hear about the big picture, about the whole world being put to rights. But we are brought down to earth with a bump by the questions people are asking and the answers they’re receiving. People ask: ‘What are we to do?’ Answer: ‘Straighten your lives out in the simplest, most direct way.’

And by doing so, they would begin to be the people they were created to be with Jesus as their Christ.

I wonder what would happen if we began to cultivate eyes to see and ears to hear God’s missional movement in the everyday.

Connecting the Dots

I have found that these three qualities intersect and overlap in mission. Often it is our lack of humility that pushes us into seeking after the grandiose. This seeking often results in a relegation of our everyday and our place as we yearn for the prideful position, organization, or eradication of the social ill. It takes humility to realize our placedness and to begin there by seeking God’s voice and movement. I think John was on to something as he deliberately prodded his community into humility, place, and the everyday.

May we do the same as we participate in God’s mission.

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Other posts in this Lent series:

Moving Beyond Immediate (and) Affirmation or Why I Will Be Blogging Through Lent

“Divine Sorrow” and Remembering: Ash Wednesday

Longings, Presence, and Vulnerability: Day 2 of Lent

Being Led by the Gentle Voice of God: A Notebook and 3 Questions: Day 3 of Lent

Lent Around the Blogosphere: 10 Links: Day 4 of Lent

First Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Psalm 91 and Cliche: Day 5 of Lent

Community and Prayer: Henri Nouwen on Pushing Through Individualism Via Communal Prayer: Day 6 of Lent

Community and Prayer: Henri Nouwen on Pushing Through Individualism Via Communal Prayer: Day 6 of Lent

The other week my good friend Dan posted about how the missional movement will survive into the future. I think he is spot on in his pushing us away from individualism and into community.

Individualism is running rampant in our culture and the Church has fallen prey to its tendencies. We have lost vital connections between salvation and community. We push people into evangelistic practices all alone. The list goes on.

One area I have seen this individualism run free is in prayer. As with many areas, we have studies and programs describing and analyzing prayer which fills our informational warehouses. Yet when it comes to learning through imitation, we have produced anemic lives of prayer. As I’ve said before, many people intellectually agree and yearn for justice, but don’t know how to engage in it because they’ve never seen a community faithfully practice it. I think the same is true regarding prayer: many of us have never had a community patiently and persistently model, lead, and invite us into prayer. We know we need to live lives of prayer, but we get stuck in the gulf between “book” knowledge on prayer and real life, hearing with our ears, resounding in our souls prayer.

We need these communal rhythms to enrich and guide our everyday individual ways of life. And vice versa.

Our lack of communal prayer has left us bereft of any individual prayer. And our lack of individual prayer has left us shortsighted in the need for communal prayer. The relationship is cyclical.

This seems especially true in many of our current models of Church where entertainment is our mode of being and doing. Prayer is often a bewildering thing, riddled with emotion, and, at times, seemingly fruitless. Sometimes, it rattles us into a deepening sense of God’s absence. It takes time, honesty, and vulnerability. Let’s be honest: it isn’t always the most attractive thing.

Yet, it is what connects us as a “waiting community.”  “Prayer is the language of the Christian community” says Henri Nouwen. “Prayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very being…But when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation.”

Prayer – both communal and individual – is the essence of community and mission.

Enough of me. Here is an extended quote from Henri Nouwen discussing the intimate connection between communal and individual prayer:

Much that has been said about prayer thus far might create the false impression that prayer is a private, individualistic and nearly secret affair, so personal and so deeply hidden in our internal life that it can hardly be talked about, even less be shared. The opposite is true. Just because prayer is so personal and arises from the center of our life, it is to be shared with others. Just because prayer is the most precious expression of being human, it needs constant support and protection of the community to grow and flower. Just because prayer is our highest vocation needing careful attention and faithful perseverance, we cannot allow it to be a private affair. Just because prayer asks for a patient waiting in expectation, it should never become the most individualistic expression of the most individualistic emotion, but should always remain embedded in the life of the community of which we are a part.

Prayer as a hopeful and joyful waiting for God is a really unhuman or superhuman task unless we realize that we do not have to wait alone. In the community of faith we can find the climate and the support to sustain and deepen our prayer and we are enabled to constantly look forward beyond our immediate and often narrowing private needs. The community of faith offers the protective boundaries within which we can listen to our deepest longings, not to indulge in morbid introspection, but to find our God to whom they point. In the community of faith we can listen to our feelings of loneliness, to our desires for an embrace or a kiss, to our sexual urges, to our cravings for sympathy, compassion or just a good word; also to our search for insight and to our hope for companionship and friendship. In the community of faith we can listen to all these longings and find the courage, not to avoid them or cover them up, but to confront them in order to discern God’s presence in their midst. There we can affirm each other in our waiting and also in the realization that in the center of our waiting the first intimacy with God is found. There we can be patiently together and let the suffering of each day convert our illusions into the prayer of a contrite people. The community of faith is indeed the climate and source of all prayer.

What does your community do in an effort to be “the climate and source of all prayer”?

How does this translate into your individual life and then back into the community?

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Other posts in this Lent series:

Moving Beyond Immediate (and) Affirmation or Why I Will Be Blogging Through Lent

“Divine Sorrow” and Remembering: Ash Wednesday

Longings, Presence, and Vulnerability: Day 2 of Lent

Being Led by the Gentle Voice of God: A Notebook and 3 Questions: Day 3 of Lent

Lent Around the Blogosphere: 10 Links: Day 4 of Lent

First Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Psalm 91 and Cliche: Day 5 of Lent

Love Your Neighbor: Begin with Their Name

The idea of names has been bouncing around our house for awhile now. This is due mainly to the upcoming birth of our third daughter and the responsibility of naming her. We’ve quickly come to realize our first two daughters are named with all-too-common names. We didn’t know it at the time of their namings, but Lily and Ava apparently are the names of practically every third girl between 1-4 years old around here.

The giving and changing of names (typically) occur in serious times of life. Births, marriages, divorces, and in some cultures, religious events bring about names and/or their alterations. Some people have names of familial importance; others names that will hopefully be lived into as future realities. Either way, there always seems to be discussion and thought put into the words by which we will be identified.

It is interesting to me to see how in the beginning of God’s story (what we Christians call the Bible) God gives the first human community, Adam and Eve, the names by which they will called. Throughout the books of the Story, we first see YHWH and then Jesus changing certain peoples’ names for differing reasons: Abram and Sarai are now Abraham and Sarah; Jacob is now Israel; Saul is now Paul; to name a few. Names seem to be rather important.

Today as I was reading over at Abundant Community I came across the second post in the series on being a neighbor, The Neighbor Challenge #2.  In it the author talks about how knowing the names of our neighbors is essential to actually knowing our neighbors. Taking the time to know the name of another demonstrates a tangible way of demonstrating their value. She says

Knowing someone’s name is fundamental to relationship building.  It’s the start of our story, and when you take time to learn someone’s name you show you value them.

Your intention of cultivating a knowledge of and relationship with them begins in the simple act of saying, “Hi, I’m ______. Your name is?” Then, and this is crucial, you must actually stop and listen. Listen to your neighbor. You’ll never get anywhere in developing community if you haven’t developed ears that listen.

For far too long we have allowed ourselves to get away with a simple wave or “Good morning” and wonder why relationships aren’t being developed. Those who claim to follow Jesus are not called to merely wave, but to love our neighbors. Love builds community for love springs from the being who is communal love: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As Icons of this being, imperfect as we are, we are called to live in community with each other. Hiding behind an anonymous wave just won’t do.

And I think this is the beauty of knowing others’ names that this article brings out. God doesn’t merely wave to us from across the street. No, God came into our neighborhood and took time to know our names because it is intrinsic to the cultivation and development of relationship. God doesn’t just say, “Hey…you…dude from across the street.” No; God says, “Hey Jim. How was your day? I’d love to hear about it.” And then he listens. Beginning with a name breaks down the anonymity so common today and allows us to move towards further discussion and story telling.

So, as Abundant Community has blogged and challenged, I’ll throw it out there as well: Do you know the names of your neighbors? Can you draw your street (a box for every house) and then write the names of those who live there?

The Permanent Revolution by Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim: A Review

I recently finished The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church by Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim. It was both fascinating and challenging; eye-opening and head-scratching; theoretical and practical. As the title alludes to, they aren’t merely looking to write another informative, and perhaps, redundant piece of missional thoughts and practices. No, they are rather looking for a return to the five-fold movemental nature inherent to the Church brought about through the identification and manifestation of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher and their subsequent equipping of the saints.

At the outset and permeated throughout the bulk of the book, Hirsch and Catchim (along with a bit of Mike Breen thrown into the mix) warn of the nature of this writing. It isn’t for those who think they have it all together. It isn’t for those not willing to learn. Instead it is for those yearning for the missional nature inherent to the apostolic ministry found in Ephesians 4 (and elsewhere) to be brought (once again) to the fore. This is especially pertinent, in Hirsch and Catchim’s view, because of the current cultural context and state of the Western church. Steady decline has made many wonder what is the potential solution to this steady downturn. Enter The Permanent Revolution.

Central to the argument of returning the church to its apostolic DNA is the breaking away from the thinking that has gotten to us this point. As is pointed out throughout the book, the thinking and doing that got us to this point is producing that which cannot get us out of our ecclesiological rut. Again, central to their argument is the relegation of what is essential to the Church herself: the fully functioning APEST roles. As is shown in biology, if you mess with the DNA  of any organism you will get a distorted body. Hence, Hirsch and Catchim demonstrate, most Western churches practice a two-folded ministry focused on the Shepherd and Teacher to the extreme denial of the Apostle, Prophet, and Evangelist. This denial and relegation of these core ministries has left us wanting and wondering why the Western church has lost its movemental nature. The argument here is made that it is due to our anemic understanding and consequential practice of both the church’s being and doing in general and of the Apostle in particular. The essence of the Apostle – the key to missional movements – is at the core of this writing and will spark your imagination, even if you aren’t gifted as an apostle. For instance they say:

Exclude the apostolic, and it becomes hard to see how a fully formed, mature, and expansive ecclesia can possibly take place. Most likely the church would be limited to good preaching, groovy contemporary worship, and Bible studies. We suspect that Jesus intended much more for the movement that he started.

Does that form of church sound familiar? It should.

There is so much in this book that the reader is given a thorough overview of the current state and condition of the Western church. Taking their cues from sociology, biology, emergence theory, social movement dynamics, together with church history, theology, and Scripture, Hirsch and Catchim have developed a truly revolutionary book for both thought and practice. Their extremely well developed concepts of all of the APEST roles goes beyond anything I have seen. The relational nature of these gifts and how they are intimately related to each other is deeply examined, especially in light of the Apostle.

If you have been well-versed in the missional conversation this book will continue to expand your conception of the nature of the church and how to put feet to it. If you are just getting your feet wet in the missional conversation this book will blow your mind and then put it all back together again. Whether you are seeking to plant a church or transform your established church, this book is an essential piece of the puzzle that we need to grapple with. There is so much of value here a simple review like this won’t do it justice. Go get yourself a copy. I highly recommend it.

“This is Discipling” (video)

If you watch one video on here, please watch this one. This resonates with me on many levels. I won’t say much, just this: the content of this video is what is needed.

Thoughts?

David Fitch on Missional Order (video)

I’ve been blessed to be able to spend some time listening to and learning from David Fitch through a few Ecclesia Network events. He’s a professor at Northern Seminary and a pastor at Life on the Vine, both of which are in the Chicago area. This makes him not only a theorist, but also a practitioner; a somewhat rare breed here in our American context. Basically, the man knows what he’s talking about  because he is living it. If you need more, check out his blog at Reclaiming the Mission. Enjoy.

Any thoughts? Comments? Complaints?

Is the Church on a Broken Escalator?

I saw this video, which is for some health company and I can’t edit it to not show that part, at work the other day. It was being shown to demonstrate the new technology being added to our classrooms and the help that would come with it. Teachers need not fear the new technology for the tech specialists were always around ready to guide, lead, and aid them into the future.

Of course, as I watched it all I could think about was how might this be interpreted in relation to God and the Church. These types of things happen regularly with me, especially since I finished seminary a few years back.

It seems to me that many, many people are riding along the escalator their church has determined is the correct one. It is the proper path heading to the proper destination. Now, without going into the horrendous theology that makes the purpose of Christianity a destination, i.e. heaven, we’ll push ahead to another reality present in a large portion of churches.

Just as in the video, many people in the church are merely riding the escalator as passive spectators. Rather than being active participators many church-goers are simply that: church-goers. They religiously show up every Sunday morning for their hour and a half of churchly duty. They interact with each other and wonder who made the coffee this week because it is unusually weak. They sit as if at an entertainment venue (ever notice how even our architectural design perpetuates a passive stance?) where everything is done up front and on a stage. Emotional music, pseudo-therapeutic/self-help sermons, and tv screens all push us, whether we’re aware of it or not, into a passive posture. We come, we consume, we go home. We’ve been conditioned by our culture to be passive and, unfortunately, many of our churches are doing the same.

So instead of being able to simply walk up the escalator-turned-stairs, we become stuck and wonder where the help is. We idly stand by awaiting the professional with the answers. Unfortunately, again, when the paid professional shows up, he too cannot help. From a church perspective, why is this? Why do we get stuck in our Christian lives and await the paid professional (pastor) to get us out of our stagnancy, just to find out that he/she can’t get us anywhere?

I think the problem lies in the lack of discipleship within the Church. As passive spectators we expect the professional, gifted, ultra-spiritual ones to put on “church” for us. We expect them to “do” church for us. We show up, easily enough, for the worship service and head home. Discipleship is tacked on as a by-product or as a secondary result of the worship service rather than the other way around. As has been said elsewhere: You make disciples, you’ll always get a church. You make a church, you won’t always get disciples.

A reality that is becoming more and more prevalent, however, is the lack of discipleship within the ranks of those attempting to lead a church. I have spoken with many pastors, and I include myself in this group, who get to a point where they have graduated from seminary, have gathered people, have taught them, but then hit the wall. There is somewhere or something they have envisioned, but can’t seem to take others there. The problem? Most pastors, especially younger ones, haven’t been made into disciples who make disciples. We have become passive spectators. Just like the mechanic who came to fix the escalator, we get leaders who can lead, but who can’t make others simply walk off of the escalator because they can’t walk off it themselves. People end up hurt, confused, and, in many cases, walk away from their faith because it, like the escalator, seemed broken.

As I said, I consider myself in this group of undiscipled leaders. Discipleship was always a secondary thing compared to Sunday-morning-only “church”. Sure, there were moments here and there, but never any intentional discipleship. Therefore, I have made intentional steps to remedy this. I don’t want to be another Christian who “does church” instead of being the church. I don’t want to be able to put on the worship service and tack on discipleship somewhere. I want to make disciples and then go from there. Simply put, I want to be a disciple who makes other disciples. But I’ll get back to these steps at a later date.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Does this resonate with you? What am I missing? Thoughts?

Settling for Sunday Morning Community

“The kind of community so many folks in our churches have settled for is kind of spilling coffee on one another Sunday morning. And there’s no possibility of knowing, engaging, community, or accountability.”