Thin~Spaces

Living Forever

Thin~Spaces has been rather quiet for some time now. I'm sure that most people who read my earlier posts frequently have long since changed that behavior. I'm glad for that. 

So often when we Blog we add to the echo chamber of people with similar ideas and view of the world or " how things are." There is nothing wrong with that in itself if we were static beings and did not continue to grow and change. 

Remember, what we write on our Blogs lives forever.

The other day while doing a Google search on an "emergent church" topic i found a rather frustrated/hurt sounding Rant that i written several years ago. Who was that guy?  I remember penning the words but the underlying emotions have long since changed as have some of my views.

(Many of my views have deepened while other are rejected)

What would i want to leave behind for some future web historian to uncover as part of her Ph. D Thesis on religion in the early 21st century.?. Our words will live that long in the meta-conversation we all play with called the web.

Do i have anything of lasting worth to contribute or will i be just another one of those lost voices in the echo chamber of this technology? 

Thin~Spaces .... No Promises.

Wash over me

I’m a weak and deeply flawed man…..

Listening to “Hard Sun” from the soundtrack to the movie “Into The Wild”  I encountered the most powerfull Thin~Space I have experienced is a long time.

In a gestalt of music and voice i encounter God and myself in the rawness that can only lead to tears.

I long to share the depth and wealth of emotion with you dear reader, but it remains eternally locked in my being. ? . .

        ~   Depth of soul  
                                             ~  rationalization None
            ~  tears Flow
                        ~ Realizaitons appearent
   ~  Live         

                                                       ~ Frailty
             ~ death
                                 ~ Cyclic
                                                     ~ Strength
                                                ~Uncertainty
                                ~ GRANDURE
                    ~ Beauty
                                ~ Love
                                          ~ Risk
                                                     ~ Pain
                        ALL ONE !

As so many before me, I have desired to follow Christ in all I do and say. To serve him from my being. The path of my life attests to the effort and struggle through these long years.

Yet -  in a moment -  I know that I have betrayed HIM in all that I am and have done.

Self-willed, walking in the light yet fearful to totally let go.  Frozen in the ivory tower of self.

Once I walked in the newness of freedom . . .  now I wallow in comfort . . . a middle-class altar to self that we “American Dream” of.

a spark burns white hot in my soul …  go and experience the ALL … Christ …. Tears flow.

Impossibilities unfold as sails on a tall ship.

Courage ~ Faith ~ Renewal ~ Wash over me 

"Do You Really Think Jesus Recommends Nat King Cole?"

OMG! Last night I saw the most hilarious repeat episode of King of The Hill. The social commentary of this episode is just delicious.

The storyline goes like this:

1) Hank and Peggy are offended by their Church and leave it.
2) The Hills’ go Church shopping to find a place to worship. (See the clip at the end of this post)
3) They choose a “Big Box” Mega Church and get highly involved.
4) Hank gets disillusioned as he no longer has time for his friends.
5) The Hills’ return to their old Church.

If you are familiar with the Institutionalized form of Church this is quite the hoot of an episode. I have not laughed so hard in a long time.

The pattern highlighted in this episode made me pause to think about a few things.

My own journey shares the same crux as that of Hank’s. He finds that once he is immersed in the Christian Subculture he has no time for his friends. He looses touch with the world outside the Church.

As a former Youth Pastor I was so immersed in the “Church” that we lost touch with those who are not part of the community of faith. While rather unintentional on our part, the ivory tower had us.

It is hard to be a “light to the lost” when you do not have any relationship with people outside of the Christian Sub-culture. This realization was always in the back of my mind but it came into sharp focus shortly after leaving vocational ministry in the late 1990’s to get my Masters of Divinity.

Unlike the Hill’s, we did not choose the consumer driven wet dream of many denominations and egocentric pastors. We decided to detoxify from the institutional church as we found it to be caustic to our spiritual growth at the time.  We wanted to BE the Church not DO Church.

By 2002 I had graduated from Regent College and we spent the next 2 years as vagabonds experiencing what God was doing in the world outside the Christian sub-culture. During this time we always stayed connected with small ad-hoc community groups of Christians.

In early  2004 we felt that it was time for us to facilitate an alternate faith community. Instead of seeking to build a “Church” we intentionally focus on living for Christ in the larger culture. Our faith community ~ church ~ what ever label you are comfortable with has grown to10 people in the last year and a half.

Now I am on the other side of the cultural dilemma. I find it hard to relate to people whose life revolves around an institutionalized form of Church. I just don’t get it anymore.

I think it is time to find the balance.

NOW: Hank Changing Churches

People Keeping

Free time . . . . I don’t have as much as I thought I would in my last post. Before we had Angelina I thought I wasted lots of time on frivolous things. The fact is, I keep too busy as a general rule.

(So . .  .how did I find time to blog today? I strained my back while doing routine home maintenance. I’m currently reclining in the front room waiting for the painkillers to take effect as Angelina sleeps.)

My daughter now takes up what free time I did have. It is a great privilege to care for her and help her develop. I have to make-the-time, as it is hard when there is so much that needs to be done.

My daughter has taught me so much about following Christ and being truly human.

In American culture we have historically been able to quote the heart of the Christian faith easily as the following phrases indicate.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,”  AND  “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

These phrases center on how we care for others.  As Rikk Watts my professor at Regent College would say, “It’s all about people keeping.”

Caring for my daughter only highlights the centrality of people keeping to me. She is 7 months old now and completely dependant on my wife and I for her survival. If we put our own needs over hers her care would suffer, as we would not have the time for her. Socially, we call that neglect at best and child abuse at worst.

How do you keep your own children?  Most of us would answer – “Rather well thank you.”   YET ask someone (if you dare) how he or she treats the transient or people who live outdoors and you may get an epistle on laziness, drug abuse, alcoholism, free choice, or some other answer.

A cloaked way of saying, “Am I my brothers’ keeper.” Cain asked the question to cover his sin of murder. Today, we ask that question in a more sophisticated way to cover our hardness of heart toward our fellow man.

Are you your brothers’ keeper?

In America we commonly act and think as if the answer is NO yet Biblically the answer is YES.

Our 16 month kingdom experiment ~ home Church ~ Micro Faith Community ~ what ever label you are comfortable with ~ is a practical experience in people keeping.

What has been the biggest hindrance in our practice of people keeping as we follow Christ?  Being too busy for others outside of our community!

Genesis of a Community

It’s Sunday morning and my wife is sleeping. My 4 mo. daughter, Angelina, and I are in the front room listening to Bebop Jazz. She is playing with her mobile while I drink my latte and reflect on how our faith community began.

(I’m playing with my daughter more than thinking though.)

Cheryl and I knew Tina through my good freind Steve. At the time, we were not close friends with Tina and her husband Jack.* We would drop by occasionally when Steve was around (Usually when they were having a party or something). They are a military family with four kids living the lifestyle of many Middle-Class Americans.

We always thought they were good honest people but we lived 98 miles away from Puyallup and that precluded anything but a passing intersection with their lives. We saw them about a dozen times in the course of three or four years.

That began to change when we moved about 1 mile from their house.

About a year after I graduated from Regent College we moved to Puyallup as we felt God leading us to plant an Emerging Church in that area. With no jobs, limited resources and only a casual acquaintance in the area we packed up our things and moved in Faith.

During our first 18 months I looked for work, made plans, wrote proposals for my denomination, talked with church planters and in the end started a faith community that was nothing like what I had planned.

It was a little over a year ago when Tina asked us to start our church in her home. The fact that she was drunk at the time made me a bit skeptical about her request. As the weeks passed, Tina asked us to start a home church in her home several more times.

When I asked her why she said, “I believe in God but find the church to be rather superficial b’sides Jack’s mom is a hard core bible thumper. He believes that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.”

I nodded my head, “Being in community sure helps though.” I replied.

“That is why I want you to start your church here.” Tina said with a look of earnestness in her eyes. “You and Cheryl are just ‘real’. You guys don’t put on an act or think you are better than anybody else . . . you try to live what you believe. . . our family needs that. What do you say? Can we start next week?”

“I wonder if Jesus would have made her ask only once.” I thought to myself.

I looked Tina in the eye and said, “We sure can. I’m sorry id did not take you seriously before.”

The next week we began our little faith community. No kick-off celebrations . . .no plan. . . no community mailings. . . . no big push to get people to join. Just a few people looking to Get-to-know God better and share their lives.

The genesis of our fellowship was light-years away from the institutional approach to community formation that is popular in Evangelical circles today. Yet it is one that I feel God has His hand in.

At the time I was unsure how long this would last but I was ready for the adventure. I did not think it would last a month when we started out yet here we are a year later still meeting.

* Names Changed

(NOTE: This is the first post in a series on our community)

One Year Anniversary

Our faith community is now a year old. I’ve been thinking that it is time to reflect on our shared journey of the past year. It has been a wondrous journey that has brought us all closer together and cemented our relationships in Christ.

I want to reflect and then post on my own journey within this community over the past year. My thinking on the church has changed on some issues and been strengthened on others. I’m still processing it and am at the point of putting it to pen.

The impetus for my blogging hiatus started a year and a half ago Cheryl and I participated in the 2005 Emergent Gathering in Glorietta NM.  A late night conversation I had on the “smoking porch” challenged me to quit writing about faith in an emerging culture and actually live it offline. SO that is why I’ve been rather quiet in the past year. I’ve been doing more living than writing.

Now I feel it is time to reflect on things a bit more and slowly re-energize Thin~Spaces as I  re-enter the online conversation once again.

"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity."
Christopher Morley

It has been a while. . .

Hi all, it has been a while since I posted anything on Thin~Spaces.

With a new baby, life has been rather hectic. Not to mention rather sleepless at times. But things are finally starting to even out a bit.

I’ve been reading Frank's Viola’s new book "God's Ultimate Passion." I’ll be writing a review of it shortly. If you are wondering what has been happening I’ll give you the brief outline by level of importance to me but they are all interrelated.

1. Being a Dad – Very rewarding and time consuming
2. Being a Husband – A new challenge with a baby in the house as things get redefined
3. Working – A two hour a day commute is all the “me” time I get.
4. Facilitating a small faith community – Living the emerging faith rather than just blogging about it.

After these things I’m considering joining the local volunteer fire department as a Chaplain / driver and possibly an emergency medical technician. (They may want me to get EMT training.) This is all about serving my larger community and what not.  I’m currently evaluating the time requirement. The department has the need but few people are stepping up to do it. My dilemma is one of time management not desire.

Thought For Today

People in America are very spiritual yet they simply do not trust the Church as we have historically misused our cultural influence.  Therefore the spiritualy minded in America look to other sources for spiritual guidance as the church has been deemed untrustworthy and has been marginalized.

How do we inoculate people from the Gospel?

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."  
--  Mahatma Gandhi

Jesus Misconceived?

Santa Claus is clearly what Jesus would be if he was real. Nobody would ever consider nailing this omnibenevolent deity to anything, would they? Nor does he hold anything against you longer than a year.   - Steve James

Angelina Is Born

After 17 childless years of marriage, Cheryl and I have been blessed by Lord with the arrival of our first child. Angelina came into our lives a few days after Christmas.

Dealing with infertility has been a very silent struggle for us. Over the years we have watched friends and former students have children almost without effort. Even though we had quit using birth-control after 9 years of marriage our story was different.

When we did speak of our problem we often got the same advice, "Take medical steps to conceive." That just seemed too much like playing GOD for us. After all, what would happen to all of our children who were not implanted and remained frozen? Stem cell research?

We decided to trust in the Lord rather seek that level of medical intervention to conceive. That was an extremely hard decision to make as Cheryl's main desire in life is to be a mother. Ethically, we just could not go the route of advanced medical intervention.

People we spoke with just could not understand our decision. Most just assumed that we did not really want to have kids or we would do something medical. We eventually quit discussing it with people as few were truly accepting. We kept silent rather than rehash the story and opening ourselves up for a fresh batch of pain due to our infertility. (there is a lot more to the story but i'll skip it for this brief post.)

For eight long years we prayed in faith believing that God would grant us a child. Being a pragmatist, i was beginning to think that we may need to adopt a child to become parents. (unlike Abram, i did not have a maidservant handy.) So we purchased a home and I began to look into adoption. That was 10 months ago. 

Now we have a beautiful little girl in our lives and we did not need to adopt a child as I was planning.

God is so faithful to his servants! Cheryl and I are now middle-aged parents who are struggling with feeding issues and all those baby changes. I would not have it any other way!

Emerging / Emergent Church Moving to the Mainstream?

My wife and I were watching a DVD last night. When the program was over, I turned off my DVD player and decided to watch some TV as our newborn baby was sleeping. 

Imagine my surprise when the announcer of iQ weekly, a local program for QCPQ 13, starts giving a bio on Spencer Burke. Now my attention was piqued. What were they going to talk about?

How about Spencer’s book “A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity” and the institutional church with a mention of the OOZE. Hmmm. Could emerging / emergent church ideas and interests be going more main-stream? It feels that way to me.  Some may say that is a good thing and others will hold the opposite opinion. I tend to think that “going mainstream” is the first step to co-option of any message or lifestyle.

Just look at the example of Harley Davidson motorcycles. A Hog was the preferred ride of those living the biker lifestyle. While the machines were rather unreliable, they had a mystique about them mostly due to the hard living, tattooed men and women who owned them.  That rough image was capitalized on and mass marketed in the late 1980’s.

Harley Davidson went from nearly bankrupt to main-stream ride for the week-end rider.

Now a Hog is owned by middle age boomers who dress up in the regalia of a biker, join bike clubs for weekend touring in the summer. These people do not live the life; they are merely posers who try to grasp the idolized ethos of what a biker is. Or worse yet, try to recapture an idealized youth they feel they missed.

The counter-cultural lifestyle of those early devotes of the open road has been lost to an image marketed by a motorcycle manufacturer who want to perpetuate its existence.

While many would use this example to demonstrate the co-option of the institutional church, I believe it holds a warning for the Emerging/Emergent Church forms as well. After all, the message of Jesus was counter-cultural once. Spencer’s book points that out rather well so I’m glad that the book is getting some “buzz.”

Yet I must also be concerned with the upcoming co-option of the emergent ethos by main stream American Christianity. Will the institutional church be like Harley Davidson and embrace the reputation/image/ethos of a fringe movement for its own survival?  Selling the image rather than living the life. (I’m painting with rather broad strokes here.)

Let's quit all this useless talk about the type of church form we think is best. It leads to a polarity of thinking and narrowing of the message of Christ. (What brand are you)  It is that narrow view that will get us set up to be co-opted with time.   

Can we avoid this polarity all together and realize that the burgeoning division of institutional and emergent church forms is an artificial divide? The CHURCH has been emerging since the time of Jesus and will continue to emerge into new cultural forms with time. That is the beauty of the gospel message. It transcends cultures, geography and time as the Spirit of Christ moves within a society.

Christ Emerges in a society through His people. We are the Church in those all-too-brief moments when we truly reflect Christ in our own cultural settings.  (I'm going to get rather preachy if i continue this post.)

Cold..Cold...No Power

Cheryl and i have been spending the last few days at her parents house. They do not have power either but at least they have a small generator and gas heat. With are baby due in 10 days, staying in a cold house was not an option. At least i can use a PC at work as i have not had access since last Thursday's wind storm.

Keep warm!  D~

On Faith

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
  - Sir Francis Bacon

I just enjoy this quote! When thinking about God we tend to think we know all about Him/Her because of what our churches teach. We use theology to communicate our collective certainties and often times those certainties keep us from experiencing a relationship with God.

I have found that as i enter into relationship with God my old certainties have fallen away in a process of deconstruction.  In the midst of my doubts, i am left only with Faith and my experience of God. Once this happened, my theological understanding took its rightful place as a filter for my experiences.

Reconstruction starts with  being comfortable with your uncertainties. I think that is what the Emerging / Emergent church is all about.   

 

The Ugly Side

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
  - James Baldwin

Just participate in any community long enough and you will also get that knowledge. Life in a small faith community is great but it also has its ugly side. Institutionalized forms of community simply have a larger scale that is all. How we deal with the ugly side (I'm not speaking of blatant sin) of Christian community shows our commitment to each other and the faith we profess.  Many in the West would say that we have handled it rather poorly. Just look at our religious history.

 

On Books

If you have ever been to my home you know how many books i have and my overall love for them. I found this quote today and just had to laugh at my own book harem.

Books to the ceiling,/ Books to the sky,/ My pile of books is a mile high./ How I love them! How I need them!/ I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
  - Arnold Lobel

Too Busy These Days

Life is just too busy these days. My wife and i are expecting our first child in a month and my "Honey do" list keeps growing. She is nesting and i don't have much free time these days. So here is the 411 on what's been happening these days.

1. Our faith community did not meet as a church for two weeks due to illness
2. The baby's room is coming along but still needs more work done
3. I'm still working on the initial ideas and research for a book
4. My wife and i are still discussing names for our little girl (Any Ideas?)
5. I'm working from home today as there is just too much ice on the roads

That is the quick rundown on my silence these days.

A Baby Shower

Cheryl and I had a couples shower thrown for us. I’ve never been to a “baby shower” and am glad that four other brave men joined me. We were the minority of course but at least we could share this alien social ritual.

We saw old friends Cheryl has barely kept touch with since high school show up for this event. The list of people stemmed from friends of her parents who had known her since she was 3yo and new friends that Cheryl and I made in the past two years.

Reconnecting with people was the best part of this event. I was amazed to see how many people we were once close to 15 years ago. Life often gets in the way and over time you loose touch with people. This is a function of geographic change as most of these people still live in the Seattle area.

We have moved quite a few times in my former ministerial career. I never realized how many people we left behind. Good friends! No wonder Cheryl and I make it such a point to call people who are important to us. I just wish we would have discovered that 10 years ago instead of after our move in 2002.

While we both appreciate all the gifts as first time parents, seeing people who we never thought would show up was a blessing.  I think that this may be the true value of these social events. Now we need to keep in touch with those we have re-connected with.

Chasing Happiness at Church

American culture is so consumed with a quest for being happy. We strive for it, chase it, catch glimpses of it and move on when we are no longer happy where we are. Look at church attendance as an example.

People join communities that make us happy. (Typically a friendly and accepting church) When people are no longer "happy" with things they leave for a place where they think they will be happy. There is no commitment only a quest to feed their own emotional drive.

The most common excuse for leaving a church is "I'm not being fed here anymore." NOT being fed? What hogwash. Grow up and feed yourself! Better yet... Quit serving your own emotional state and try to serve others. You just may find that true satisfaction and growth comes when we serve others and forget about chasing our own happiness.

If you must focus on your own happiness, think of it this way...

"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness."
  - Robertson Davies

A Great Weekend

What a wonderful morning! Cheryl has her car back - $1200.00 and a new engine later. I drove it in to work to give it a shake down. That is not what made my morning though.

Last weekend we skipped our usual gathering to spend the weekend in Portland with Ken and Deborah Loyd. We spent most of our time just hanging out at their place drinking coffee, talking about church, going on walks, meeting new people and watching television. A very low-key weekend.

On Sunday we went to The Bridge to worship God. I’ve been to many churches and hear most of the same songs. This was not the case last Sunday. Each song was unique to their community and sung from the depth of their souls. You could hear the angst, joy, pain, hope and life of this band of travelers.  Authentic was the only word their worship.

Cheryl’s car has a CD player and I had picked up a few CD’s from their house band. It was full of new songs that just resonated with the longing of my soul. I totally forgot about the traffic as I drove in to work today. I wonder if our faith community will decide to have a deliberate time of corporate worship. It just may. When it does, I’ll encourage our own brand of expression.

When living in community, remember ....

"As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a Body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them. There are two things that men can do about the pain of disunion with other men. They can love or they can hate. Hatred recoils from the sacrifice and the sorrow that are the price of this resetting of bones. It refuses the pain of reunion."

Thomas Merton

Small Community ~ Big Connections

Life in a small community is much different than being in a large “church.” During our last gathering, Julie received a call from her husband over in Iraq. He informed her that his unit will no longer be stationed in Tacoma when he returns from his tour. She was rather shaken by this as this would mean that they have to move after he returns.

She asked us if we would pray for her and her family. We stopped our discussion and switched gears to support Julie. You simply can’t do this in a “Service” as we commonly think of it. There is just too much of an agenda at work. Sure there are some exceptions but most churches would keep on going as Julie exited the sanctuary to field the call.

Her news did not affect her family alone. The entire feel of our community will change when Julie’s family leaves. The emotional loss will be greater than anything. Part of our family will be moving away. . . Small communities make for Big relational connections.

Small community can be hard some times.

Moving Beyond a "Wish Dream"

Living faith in a small community is not as easy as being anonymous in a large church. In a large church you can come and go almost without notice but in a small community you can’t hide.

If you are having a bad day, everybody knows about it and your actions have immediate consequence. You simply can’t put on a “game face” without someone calling you out or pushing your buttons.

In our community, everyone participates and if you sit silently someone will ask you a question hoping that you will join the conversation. Hiding in plain sight is not an option.

So what do you do when you are having a bad day? How do you cope with community life when your life has too much drama? This is where the reality of your faith shows itself.

Conflict in community is necessary. Many people have said, “If there is no conflict then there is no real relationship.” Growth and relational depth is fostered as we work through the issues of life together.

Civility is good but all too often Christian communities avoid the relational messiness in favor of a cordiality that has no depth. We have churches that feel friendly but are full of isolated people. True friendship has its ups and downs.

Living out your faith becomes less theoretical in a small community as you have to work through difficulties. This is not always fun but the rewards of living live in community far outweigh the momentary relational messiness.

Bloggers Block.?.

Have you ever written what turned out to be an uninspired post so you deleted it b4 posting? I just did. After several days of crafting what i thought would be a great post I deleted it as it seemed too much like a post I wrote back in 2004. I’ve been trying to think more and blurt less on my blog these days.

I’ve possessed so much in the last few months that I need to clarify it in my mind before I write about it. In Short: Life is a wonderful journey.

Religion and Emerging Faith

I've just finished the first section, Questioning Grace, of Spencer's book. "A Heretic's Guide to Eternity." Within this section is a rather large bulk of material that develops a contrast between religion and spirituality. (Most direct summation on pages 58-60)

In a very real sense the contrast creates what I believe to be an unintended false dichotomy between the two. The terms Religion and Spirituality become locked in binary opposition with the clear preference being spirituality. This contrast sets up a reversal of the current social preference yet does not decenter the core dichotomy. I think the interplay of Religion and Spirituality is much more complex than the contrast painted within the text.

Religion is a social codification of spiritual experience(s) into an explanation that others may utilize as a guide within their society. Without a Religious framework to express your spiritual experience in, your communication is hampered within society. It is this very need to share our Spiritual experience that leads to the creation of Religion over time.

In any society, religion and spirituality are necessary as the one cannot exist without the other. If there is no contact point between the Spiritual experience a person has and their society, they risk being view as either as a madman, lunatic or worse yet a heretic. 

Religion exists to foster the social communication of spiritual awareness and experience within a society. Ironically, the seeds of Spiritual experience begin to reside within the social codification of the religious experience. As Spencer notes in his text, the problem arises when the resulting religion is co-opted in order to control or administer the faith to society.

The institutionalized faith will seek its own preservation and social influence.  (Just look at the Religious Right in the American experience.) It ceases to be a communicative metaphor or guide to help people experience the sublime nature of sacred reality. At this point, a Religion becomes toxic to the seeds of spiritual experience and awareness that it contains.

Once a faith has been institutionalized, like American Christianity; the communicative metaphor of the institution looses contact with the larger social context.  That religion will become increasingly irrelevant to a societies continued codification of spiritual experience. Many people will leave the faith behind or explore other faith systems and religions whose communicative metaphors speak to their (and societies) spiritual awareness and experience. 

Yet the decline of a religion does not completely eradicate the hunger for the underlying spiritual experience contained in it. Within the religion, people still manage to nurture the seed of the faith and grow despite the toxicity of the institutionalized form and structure. Over time, these people will either seek to reform the religion or depart from the institutionalized structure in favor of a new expression of the faith.

The emergent church may be just such a move within Christendom today.

A long week

It has been a long week. My wife's car has blown a head gasket so now we are down to one car and she is expecting our 1st child. Given that we live 10 miles outside of town this can be a large inconvience. 

We are starting to get settled in our new place - it has been a long summer! Too much going on and not enough time. I am amazed at how much of my day is eaten up by the longer commute of 40 miles.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
  - Dr. Seuss

Emergent Church, Emerging Faith, or Heretics?

After returning from the pool tonight I had a package sitting at my door. A BOOK!  W’hoo, I’m always open to getting books to read. This book is by Spencer Burke, those of you who read  The OOZE or are connected with the Emerging church are familiar with his presence.

What is the book titled? A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity. A rather provocative title but one that caught my attention as I casually wonder if I’m a heretic at times. I’m already on page 33 and found a quote that really speaks to me and I just had to stop and post about it.

“Similarly, some people see the growing divide between religion and spirituality as a loss. They bemoan the shift away from religion and decry secularism because they cannot conceive of alternative ways of encountering God. But with the loss of religion comes the opportunity for other ways of practicing faith to emerge.”

So often we think that these news ways will be rather similar to what we practiced before. While some may not diverge very far from the standard template of the Christian religion, other go far a field. Some will indeed become heretical sects while others may not look like the norm at all yet grasp the spirit of the religion.

While the central “truths” that make up the classic teaching of the faith may remain static, the mode of expression will vary greatly. WHY? Because those who seek to encounter God will naturally look to ways that fit a person of their time period and cultural setting. What does that look like in 21century America? What "new things" are happening?

The popular focus is shifting to the “Emerging/emergent” form of expression. Yet this is just one cluster of experience that is widely know about. There are others that are more hidden from the popular mind and therefore less familiar than the “stereotypical Emergent Church.”

I’m painting in broad strokes here. Yet the existence of the(se) stereotype(s) demonstrate the veracity of these strokes.

The popular success of these Emergent churches results from the maintenance of their contact points with the public mind. They do not diverge too widely from the familiar forms of church as they have buildings, set service times, songs and and so forth. While their heart and soul may beat to a different drumb, they look very much like the rest of the band.

Today we are probably more open to the clusters of alternate communities that may not look like the common understanding of a church. These communities have been making radical departures from that comfortable form of church the rest of us know about. Being widely out of the public mind, these communites exhibit the central nature of Christ through their actions without all the fanfare and praise of men.

There is plenty of room to consider divergent flavors of what emergence / emerging is. It is a mistake to think that the stereotypicly Emergent communities are the only things that are emerging in the 21st century. While it is true that these communities form a necessary and comfortable touch-point with what is commonly thought of as church, they may be just the tip of an iceberg.

What does emerging faith in the 21st century look like?

I think that people practicing an emerging faith may not even be part of the “Emergent Conversation” or consider themselves emergent. They may form communities that are practicing a radical praxis in their quest to encounter God yet would not even be recognized as churches in the classical sense. 

Some people living an emerging faith may indeed be heretics in the classic sense. Others my look like heretics but actually recover the heart of what it means to practice the Christian faith in our day.  Which camp do we fall in? Which do I fall in? Only time, faith, and practice can give us a clue. Ultimately God will be the judge.

I so enjoy books that stir my thought processes.  I'm going to continue reading now and process what I'm thinking later on.

bibliomancy

(BIB-lee-o-man-see) noun

   Divination by interpreting a passage picked at random from a book, especially from a religious book such as the Bible.

Check out the Wikpedia definition of how that is done. . .

"The most common procedure involves placing the book on its spine, and with eyes closed, allowing the book to fall open to a random page. Then, with the eyes still closed, place a finger on the open page and read the passage indicated."

I've known many christians who simply open the Bible to a text and read from where their eyes fall on the page. As a novice christian I was taught to "let God speak to me" in this way.

Hmmm.... sounds close to a divination practice

I've long not done this in 16 years as I favor Narrative and Exegetical study.  I find it rather ironic that I was taught a blatantly pagan practice while in an institutional church setting. I wonder how many more things like this exist in our "Christian Sub-culture?"

Apologetic or Relationship?

(Warning: Rant Ahead)
Several days ago I found myself in a rather strange conversation. I was taking advantage of the pool/spa in our new community and met Rikki, a middle aged woman, and Derrik a 30 something I had previously struck up a conversation with.

Rikki and I were talking about “church” and how she feels that professional clergy make for lazy Christians (her words) as Pastors do all the work. Having been a pastor, I related to her comment. Then Derrik came over having become interested in what we were talking about. I knew that the conversation was about to get interesting as Derrik was not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination.

In a subsequent conversation I learned that his mother has been a devote of Ramptha since the late 1980’s and that he tends to be a Christian Gnostic in his viewpoint on Christ.  (JZ. Knight’s compound is located about 8 miles from where we live. If you watched “What the #$*! Do We Know!?,” you have seen her.)

The stage was set for an interesting encounter of view points. Given that we were talking about “Spiritual things” I asked Derrik what he believed. After a few minutes of talking, Rikki’s response to what he believes told me that she was thoroughly indoctrinated in our typical “American Brand” of Christianity.

Her comments immediately dismissed his POV while her method pushed him to make a “decision for Jesus” in the conversation. (She had not even asked his name yet!) As Derrik shared what he believed, Rikki countered with what I would call the standard evangelical apologetic.

I can’t tell you how many times she used terms like, “Let me challenge you” … “Yes, but the Bible says” … “Do you know Jesus?” . . . “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship” . . . "Jesus is my GOD" . . .  and so on.  SHE NEVER LISTENED TO HIM or acknowledged what he said.!.

Rikki appeared to make no attempt to enter a real dialog with him. She just kept grinding her theological axe at every opportunity. 

It was like watching a Used Car Salesman working their SALES PITCH to persuade some poor slob into buying a car. Where do you enter into a mutual relationship when your agenda is centered on getting someone to say “the sinner’s prayer?”

Is this what our churches produce? Someone who knows how to object to divergent points of view while totally failing to relate to the person they are talking at. Who taught her this approach?

My GOD . . . is this what discipleship has become? Is this the method of CHRIST? Where is the love?

I just sat back in silence and let her go as I could not get a word in edge-wise. When there was a lull, I’d try to bridge the language gap between her modernist and his postmodern view point. It did not work. A more common ground for dialog could not be reached with Rikki arguing her apologetic. After a time I gradually exited the “conversation” and decided to talk with Derrik later on.

Meanwhile, Rikki just blindly kept parrying with her methodology and never left the adversarial line of “Challenges” she had been taught to use in a situation like this. How blind are the guides she follows?

Would you rather be right or develop a redemptive relationship?

Now here is where it gets rather ironic. Derrik began asking questions of Rikki in an attempt to get to know her better. He never once countered what she said she believed with an apologetic of his own. I like his style!

ANYHOW –

I found the lack of honest exchange rather frustrating.(Hence my rant) I must admit that I was almost embarrassed to call myself a Christian in the context of Rikki’s "Christian diatribe."

Rikki is a neat person but that was totally eclipsed in her quest to convert Derrik.

Enough of this RANT against a style of gospel presentation that annoys me.

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
  - Carl Jung

Personal “Mood Space”: A Bizarre Experiment

Like so many of us who own an iPod or other MP3 player, I have my favorite play lists that I use depending on my mood and activity. My tastes are quite eclectic so I have a large variety of music genres (except Bluegrass) and styles on my iPod and iRiver.

Today I decided to do something rather bizarre while commuting and set my whole music collection to shuffle rather than rely on my play lists. The results of my experiment are as follows:

Artist - (Genre)

John Chapter 3 -  (Bible on CD)
Charlie Parker  - (Jazz)
Goo Goo Dolls - (90’s Alternative)
Margaret Becker  - (Contemporary Christian)
Rolling Stones - (Classic Rock)
Led Zeppelin - (Classic Rock)
Dalai Lama - (Buddhist Teachings on Peace)
Daniel Chapter 10 - (Bible on CD)
Jimi Hendrix - (Rock – Old School Baby)
Michael Sterns - (Ambient)
ZZ Top - (Classic Rock)
Hendrix – (Classic Rock)
Job Chapter 11 - (Bible on CD)
Cassandra Wilson - (Blues/Jazz)
Smashing Pumpkins - (90’s Alternative)
IONA – (Christian)
Alice In Chains – (90’s Alternative)
Frank Sinatra – (Easy Listening)
Doors – (Classic Rock)
The Grateful Dead – (Classic Rock)
Alicia Keys – (Pop/Hiphop)
The Throes – (90’s Alternative Christian)
Charles Mingus – (Jazz)
Sting – (Pop)
Johnny Cash (Many Genres' a great artist)

And this is only a few songs out of the 30 Gig of music on my player. There are many artists and genres’ of music that were not even touched.

Eclectic is definitely a good descriptor for this set. Yet I am beginning to wonder about the personal “Mood Space” that my preset play lists represent.

Thinking about this mix leads to some very strange “head space” when you add up the narrative themes presented via the music. What do they have in common? What is the attraction and so on?

I’m still pondering these types of questions.