“The devil has had all the best liturgies.”

Sometime in the near future, a few of my friends and I will be reviewing James K.A. Smith‘s newest book, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works. (I’m rather excited about this as we are three church planters from different parts of the US – Los Angeles, Syracuse, and Burlington, Vermont – with different communities, different contexts, and different backgrounds. Through this diversity, however, we have some strong commonalities, which should make for an interesting time of review and discussion.) It is his second volume in what will eventually be a trilogy aptly named “Cultural Liturgies.” The first volume, Desiring The Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, gave feet to a lot of things I was noticing and working on at the time of its publication. I’ve been anticipating this volume, and now that I have read some of it, haven’t been disappointed in his picking up of where he left off.

Below is a short excerpt that scratches at some of the more central elements of this follow up volume. Without going into all the details, which will happen at a later time and date, may it be suffice to say that I think he is rather correct in his assessment. Having spent my entire life in the Evangelical, conservative Christian world – those who have done the same will know what I mean – his indictment of the rampant intellectualism found at the core of much Christian discipleship is spot on. To borrow from his initial volume, we have become a people with “big heads and tiny bodies” meaning we have overemphasized, in our Protestant, Enlightenment tradition, on the intellect, leaving affect, imagination, and our bodily habits/desires rather untouched. As this excerpt illuminates, the devil has not done likewise.

Having fallen prey to the intellectualism of modernity, both Christian worship and Christian pedagogy have underestimated the importance of this body/story nexus – this inextricable link between imagination, narrative, and embodiment – thereby forgetting the ancient Christian sacramental wisdom carried in the historic practices of Christian worship and the embodied legacies of spiritual and monastic disciplines. Failing to appreciate this, we have neglected formational resources that are indigenous to the Christian tradition, as it were; as a result,we have too often pursued flawed models of discipleship and Christian formation that have focused on convincing the intellect rather than recruiting the imagination. Moreover, because of this neglect and our stunted anthropology, we have failed to recognize the degree and extent to which secular liturgies do implicitly capitalize on our embodied penchant for storied formation. This becomes a way to account for Christian assimilation to consumerism, nationalism, and various stripes of egoism. These isms have had all the best embodied stories. The devil has had all the best liturgies. (p. 39-40)

I hope you’ll join my friends and I as we dive into this important work. See you then.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Prayer for Lent

Here is a beautiful prayer for Lent by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you have never read any of his books, you need to. His ideas and practices written about during his imprisoning and eventual death at the hands of the Nazis has inspired and taught many, many people. Regardless of whether you are familiar with his works or not, I hope the Spirit uses this prayer as you pray it. (Thanks Christine Sine for originally posting this at her blog Godspace.)

I Cannot Do This Alone

O God, early in the morning I cry to you.

Help me to pray

And to concentrate my thoughts on you;

I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,

But with you there is light;

I am lonely, but you do not leave me;

I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;

I am restless, but with you there is peace.

In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;

I do not understand your ways,

But you know the way for me….

Restore me to liberty,

And enable me to live now

That I may answer before you and before men.

Lord whatever this day may bring,

Your name be praised.

Amen

“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?

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?

Beyond My Imagination: A summary of my life as of late

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. – Ephesians 3:20

Part of my daily morning routine is to get up a little earlier than I need to. I do this because it’s typically quiet and I can sit downstairs in stillness and silence. Part of this daily rhythm is centering myself around and in the story of God. I do this through readings and prayer as found in the Book of Common Prayer. I use the Daily Office as my primary tool of establishing daily rhythms of reading Scripture and praying for the world, both globally and locally.

One of the closing, short sections of Scripture is the verse quoted above. It is one the verses that are used to show us what we are entering as we close the office. It is used as a sending verse as we enter into the day and its work. It reminds us that we don’t just merely read and pray, but we are to embody these things in our lives as we journey with each other in our following where the Spirit leads.

This verse has become particularly important and fleshed out for me as of late. Let me give some examples, not in an effort to pat myself on the back, but to show how the Spirit works ahead of us and within us in ways we couldn’t imagine.

1. A little over a month ago, we had our second daughter, Ava. Now giving birth is an amazing spectacle and event in anyone’s life. We should all be thrilled when any new life enters the world. Having Ava reminded me of the reality that we don’t just celebrate healthy lives, but we celebrate the birth of every life, regardless of health or not. We would be thankful for Ava if she were healthy or if she were born with difficulties.

Beyond her entrance into our life, it is beyond imagination how her birth has brought people together in our life. We are part of disparate groups (I’m an interim pastor, lead/participate in, what some call, a house church, work in a public school, etc.) that all came together to provide us with meals, gift cards, hugs, and other well-wishes. The outpouring of love for us and our new daughter is something that we are extremely grateful for and humbled by.

2. The other week I was sent a Friend Request on Facebook. It was from someone with whom I had some mutual friends. This was different though because our mutual friends weren’t people from college or work or some random Kevin Bacon-esque  connection. All of the mutual friends were either well known pastors, theologians, or bloggers. So as any good Facebook friend would, I accepted her request, but I had to know how in the world she had found me. Apparently, she had read a comment I left on someone’s blog and had followed the link to my blog. From there she read some of my posts and enjoyed what she had read. As we continued to email back and forth on FB, and much to my humbling surprise, she had been giving out printed versions of some of my blog posts to the homeless people she works with in California. Homeless people on the opposite coast of America are walking around with some of my blog posts and (hopefully) finding encouragement and peace: beyond my imagination. I began blogging hoping to get some ideas out there; ideas that would prod people towards deeper action. Never would I have imagined something like this to occur.

I write this to encourage those who blog, preach, answer phones all day, mentor, home-school, stay at home with kids, share lunch with co-workers, have dinners with their lonely neighbors, or have decided to share their lives with others in ways that perhaps go unnoticed. Continue your good work. It is not for nothing.

3. Besides being an interim pastor at St. Andrew’s Anglican, I have been blessed to lead/participate in, what we have called, Dinner and Discussion. Basically, it is a group of people who get together every other Sunday night either at our house or another house from within the group. We all have dinner together, we discuss a biblical/theological topic, pray, and see what ways we can help those outside of ourselves. We are learning how to live life together and do so that makes us better disciples of Jesus. It is slowly evolving, nowhere near perfect, and can be exhausting (at times) to put together.

Thankfully, these past few weeks have produced some encouragement. I have had many conversations with people, including a dinner with some very like-minded folks who don’t know where else to turn to outside of the established evangelical churches in our area and with a Anglican/house church minded dude from Texas. Some folks within the group have shown me, both verbally and  by their actions, that God is at work in their life and that the Dinner and Discussion community has aided in that.

Now how in the world did this happen? I have no idea. I know it isn’t all from  me and my efforts. Not by a long shot. I am merely trying to be faithful with the vision and call Jesus has on my life. It is my job to listen, follow, and call others to do the same. All of this has gone beyond my imagination and I am humbled to be able to participate in it.

May we all continue to do the work of the kingdom, for there are no meaningless tasks the Spirit calls us to.

Sunday Asylum with Stanley Hauerwas

This is just the trailer, but it looks absolutely intriguing. The full title is “Sunday Asylum: Being the Church in Occupied Territory” and it is available at The Work of the People.

Anyone else out there find this intriguing? Anyone else out there already used it?

Lent and Dying to Self

Post-Ecclesia National Gathering: Part 1

I returned from my time at the Ecclesia National Gathering last night despite the somewhat treacherous driving conditions. Overall, it was a great time of meeting new people, reconnecting with some older friends, and learning about spiritual formation. In the next few posts, I’ll give some of the highlights of our time and what they may hold for the future.

As I mentioned in the last post, Todd Hunter and MaryKate Morse were the two main speakers. They opened our time Wednesday afternoon with a general introduction to what spiritual formation entails. A simple definition was given: “Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others.” This is a great, concise definition with some key elements to being the people of God.

First, it is a process. In many Christian circles the emphasis is on salvation (typically a very reduced version of it: dying and going to heaven someday) and then anything of substance usually tails off. Discipleship and formation aren’t necessarily entered into the equation because it is simply seen as that: an equation. Rather than being seen as a process we enter into through salvation, Christian faith is seen as a decision in which all the benefits of said decision are immediately ours. The reality is that life is the process time in which Christ forms us into his image. It is a lifelong journey.

Second, we aren’t being transformed into just “a better person”, but we are being made into the image of Christ. This is essential for our understanding, not just of New Testament Christianity, but for our understanding of the entire Christian narrative. If we were made in the image of God in the beginning, it was fragmented and broken because of sin, part of the redemption process must be the restoration of this original image-bearing. Along with the image being reformed come the works and original purpose of this image-bearer.

This is the third aspect of our definition: mission. Formation into the image of Christ, thus rendering us into the humans we are supposed to be, naturally leads into mission. We don’t begin our journey into Christ-likeness and then keep it all to ourselves. No, formation into the image of Christ pushed us into the world for the sake of the world. This is (again) linked to knowing, understanding, and embodying the entire narrative of God. Because he is a missionary God we are a missionary people, formed in his likeness for the benefit of others. This is why Todd Hunter says, “Missional without formational will always remain aspirational.” They are two sides of the same coin.

Perhaps this is why we don’t see much missionary activity in local churches. If there is a link between embodying the entire narrative of God and missional/formational concepts, and I think there is, then we must ask if we’re lacking in any of these areas. Do we know the impetus behind our being and doing as Christians? Do we anticipate living fully someday “in heaven” or do we strive for life here and now? Are we intentionally pursuing formation (transformation of our malformation) for the sake of others or are we intent with the way things are? If formation and mission are in constant relational tension, what are we intentionally doing to shape our being and vice versa?

Epic Fail Pastors Conference

Last May I had the privilege of attending the Ecclesia Network‘s church planting training. While there I met J.R. Briggs, one of the pastors within the network. He pastors Renew Community in Lansdale, PA, which is just outside of Philly.

J.R. recently posted the fruition of an idea that had been brewing inside of him. The conference landscape in the U.S. is littered with gathering after gathering of “famous” pastors who have “successfully” planted churches or turned their living room Bible studies into their current multiple of thousands congregation. It’s what Ed Stetzer has called “ministry pornography”: hyped up situations that rarely, if ever, actually occur, but make you think that they do.

To help balance out the situation, J.R. has conjured up the resources for the Epic Fail Pastors’ Conference happening this April. The website has all the relevant info. If you’re like me and would like to be part of something that is refreshing and seemingly more realistic, think about attending this conference. If you want some more of the background, check out J.R.’s blog post here. I have a hunch this will be well worth attending.