Thin~Spaces

Missing The Sun

Sunrise 7:00 am Sunset 4:21 pm: A little over Nine hours of sunlight! How do people in the Polar Regions put up with less than this? i need the SUN! These short days just do not agree with me very well. Looking for work can be depressing enough but putting up with the lack of sunshine and the grey Seattle skies truly makes me want to run to a warm sunny place.

Someone please send me a plane ticket to Australia or New Zealand. i miss the long days of summer! i usually experience the mid-winter blahs at this time of the year. But the lack of a job makes it seem that much worse.

It's time to get some amber colored sunglasses and break out my full spectrum lights. The last week has been rainy, cold and miserable. i can't wait for summer to return when it gets light at 5am and the sun sets at 9:10 pm - i miss that! Oh well, time to put on my "Bono" sunglasses and see some bright yellow days again.

I miss the Sun!

The Preacher Again

i have always found the act of preaching to be a rather paradoxical endeavor. We have a flawed person, a redeemed sinner, “speaking authoritatively” and giving talks on the ethics of how to live biblically. Many pastors i’ve heard sound more like a motivational speaker rather than a spiritual mentor. We sit in a building on Sunday morning and for 35 minutes we listen to a person exhort us to live in accord with the Scriptures (we hope). What never ceases to amaze me is that we come back for this week after week. Why? Is it informative? Entertaining? A ritual? Are we encouraged or is it just a sense of Christian duty? Does preaching really bring change? (I need to consider this rabbit trail some other time.)

Getting back to where I was going……

For the first time in two and a half years i spoke / preached in an institutional church environment. i’ve been doing the small group thing for several years and forgot how alien this communication form is. In our small gatherings i facilitate conversation and discussion rather than giving an extended monolog. There is no one authority on scripture as we all share and move down the journey of understanding together. Sure some of have more knowledge but wisdom is more valuable by far.

I'm Stuck In The 90's

Here is yet another humorous quiz to pigeonhole yourself with. I'm not that far out of date. What decade does your personality Live in?

what decade does your personality live in?

"it's not about a different type of church"

For many years now i've been very aware that the church is people and not the structures we surround ourselves with. If this is true, then we take the church to other people by our actions. We give it legs, a voice and action. A church locked in a building is a living museum and an oddity. For the church to truly function as we see in the Scriptures, we must take the church into the world instead of waiting for them to come to us.

Today i was reading my Bloglines feeds and found an article over at "House Church Blog" that just resonated with me. Here is a quote:

"I need to continually remind myself that the church is a people-movement, a Holy Spirit infused and led avalanche of God's people going and being sent, with His Spirit, into a world that needs His life.

My friend Tammy recently grasped this while participating in one of our house church gatherings. She suddenly felt stifled, smothered, and uncomfortable. She began reflecting on all of the people "out there" who need the life that Jesus Christ has for them. She has been "attending" a house church for a little while, but the light suddenly dawned: it's not about a different type of church, it's about going out there and being the church. She caught the vision of finding a lonely woman on a park bench and taking church to that woman; being led to a homeless person and taking church to that person; asking God to lead her to wherever it is that He wants her to go and be the church there."

You can read the rest of the article over at Roger Thoman's blog .

The Consumer Kills Community

Wake up! Are you coming with me? It's 6:30 am and Cheryl wants to check out a few items at a nearby stores 6hour sale before she meets up with some Christian friends to go shopping in Seattle. (she gave me the checkbook and went along for the relational time.) Thus begins the American Ritual of the Thanksgiving holiday shop-a-thon.

As the sun slowly rose over the mountains, we drove into the crowded parking lot. Being a typical guy i'm not one to spend my holiday shopping for bargains. Besides, when i hide out in the tool department i never find any sales on items i need. The American consumerist mindset lifts its head most visibly the day after Thanksgiving. i passed row after row of people rummaging in bargain bins oblivious to those around them. It reminded me of hogs slopping at the trough when i was a boy on the farm.

After dropping my wife off at the mall, i returned home to save my quicly evaporating piece of mind. i'm sickened by the spectacle of rampant consumerism. i keep thinking of all the people who do not even have the basic necessities while we spend, spend, spend on things that will ultimately end up in a storage unit gathering dust. How many people could we feed if we quit spending our money on all those petty distractions that are short lived?

The self-centered American consumerism is so taken for granted as "the-way-it-is" that few people question it. ARGH!! Everything is reduced to a product to consume. We consume careers, houses, cars, technology, churches, you name it. Nothing is immune to this mentality as we even bring it into our relationships. We trade-in friends for new ones and when we are tired with our spouse we simply throw them away and find a newer model that excites us again.

Thanksgiving and The Table

It is that time of year again. Thanksgiving is upon us and so the rush has begun. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy getting together with family and friends and feasting till we burst. Yet there is all the preparation that goes behind the meal and the stress that it causes.

Some of my most memorable family fights seem to be connected with the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas were often times punctuated by a major blowout. I remember one year when my mother threw a fully decorated Christmas tree out into the front yard because it would not stand upright in the tree stand. (Those old red ones)

Yet even with the difficulties, all was forgotten as we sat around the table for dinner. We laugh, bicker, joke around, tell stories, and ask forgiveness for our short tempers. At the table all is reconciled and all is well.

Churches: The Pamela Anderson Syndrome

My local denominational leaders have come to a statistical realization that the most effective way to reach the non-Christian is to plant new churches. They support this claim with the following statistics taken from FTS.

• Churches under 3 years old have a member to conversion ratio of 3:1 = 3 members to 1 convert.
• Churches under 3-7 years old have a member to conversion ratio of 7:1 = 7 members to 1 convert.
• Churches Over 10 years old have a member to conversion ratio of 87:1 = 87 members to 1 convert.

I wonder if the term convert equals a functioning disciple in the church, a church member or a “decision for Christ?” Given that our denomination has lots of “old churches” it appears that the new emphasis will hopefully inject new life into the movement and reach more people.

All of the men i spoke with have a great passion to reach the lost. (There were no female planters – a shame!) Yet no one questioned why older churches are so ineffective on average. Instead we spent the next two days walking through a program to “guarantee a successful” church launch. The quick outline goes like this.

1. Start 5-8 home groups to train your core members for a year.
2. Raise 223,000 dollars to cover building rental, staffing, and purchase what you need.
3. Focus on children because if the children are happy, the parent(s) will return.
4. Advertise, advertise and do it some more.
5. Plan on a launch event of between 200-300 people.
6. Be a “big church” from the start.

I call this type of emphasis on “Bigger is Better” the Pamela Anderson Syndrome.

A New Look!

Formerly, Thin Spaces used the basic format of an entry level typepad account. It looked like this. i had tweaked it as far as it could go without upgrading the account. i decided to upgraded my account so i could be a bit more creative. i’ve given it a graphical face lift and added some new material on the side bars. i hope you like the new format.

WYLAS!

What is "Authentic" Christ-Following?

Friday night traffic on I-5 is just horrendous! A one hour commute turns into a two hour commute with the traffic backups. i just came back from Seattle. My father-in-law was giving a presentation at a science teachers convention today. He requested that i make a video of the conference so he could analyze his seminar teaching style. While listening to his module on scientific inquiry, he made an interesting statement that has rattled around in my head all afternoon.

He said, "When we have a positive answer in an experiment we do not say that our hypothesis is true. We say that the experiment only corroborates the theory. Language like true and false is misleading in our quest for understanding. When the scientific community discovers a large enough body of supportive evidence we can infer the likelihood of a theories validity."

Hm… it sounds like he is talking about how language gets in the way of our understanding. Those of us who are seeking to live out our faith in a postmodern social context would do well to guard our language. Especially as we dialog with other Christians who do not share our views of authentic Christian commitment and experience. If we do not guard our language then we polarize into the binary opposites of US and THEM. The emerging church will become reactionary if we are not careful.

Let me explain what i mean by Authentic Christian Commitment. A Christian is a person who is fundamentally committed to being a Christ-Follower. Furthermore, every Christian throughout history has a notion of how her Christ-Following ought to be realized and lived. This notion forms a pattern of action and belief that is an expression of the individual's realization of their Christ-Following. This pattern becomes their view of authentic Christian commitment.

When we accuse others of being "inauthentic" what are we really saying? The evidence of your Christ-Following does not support my view of how one ought to follow Christ. They simply do not validate our theory of how to follow Christ as they do not follow Jesus as we do. Are they wrong? In error? Phony? Misguided? Or just plain different? i'd have to say that without a community it is impossible to tell. It is the tradition of our community that acts as a foundation and informs how we ought to realize our Christ-Following.

Therefore a Christian is also one who lives within a community with a tradition. It is within the tradition of our community that we find support, guidance, and nurture as we all journey thought this process of Christ-Following. But we do not have one homogeneous community to inform our Christ-Following. We have many differing communities to choose from. May I suggest that we in the emerging church dive into the dumpster of Christian history and rediscover the historic core of our forefathers.

Ours is not to be a tradition-less church, it is a church that is informed by Christian tradition and practice throughout the centuries. It is only by looking backward that we can chart the future for our communities and realize a pattern of Christ-Following that is appropriate for our emerging culture.

Sculpting a Group Experience

Our most recent (micro church) small group experience was amazing. The discussion opened with an impromptu piece of modern sculpture in the center of the room. We did not describe what it supposed to be, it just was.

As people came into the room and chose their seats in the circle, I watched them examine the 4 foot tall object in front of them. The sculpture was made out of a traffic cone with served as the base for three nested tubes. On top of the tubes was a ruler that blocked the entry to the tubes and served as a place to set the cross pendant.

To open the discussion we stated that there was no right answer to the meaning or purpose of the object. Each person was to interact with the object and discover what it represents. This opened the door to a very interactive and revealing discussion on the nature of Christ and the human condition.

As each person gave their interpretation this would open up a conversation for a time until the next person revisited the object and either amplified the previous conversation or gave it a new meaning. Many people used scripture to illustrate the principle they were talking about.

I'll outline how the discussion evolved as each person added their perspective and modified the conversation.

1. The nested tubes represents us, Outer layer visible to all and in inner core that makes up the real person. The ruler represented the blockage that our rational mind creates. The ruler stops Christ from becoming the center of our being. We removed the ruler and dropped the pendant into the center tube. We discussed experience vs. logic and reason in knowing God.
2. The tubes were removed to demonstrate that the person does not stand alone as she remians supported by the base which symbolizes the Christian community. Then the sculpture was reassembled as we talked about the importance of authentic community.
3. The pendant was removed from the top as the sculpture became deconstructed and thrown outside of the circle. The pendant was placed where the structure had stood. Christ functions as the center of our community and its foundation. Our conversation turned to the centrality of Christ in Christian living and experience.
4. The pendent was removed and the sculpture rebuilt to represent how we move from the center issue to the self deception of "Doing vs. Being" We hold to the ideal of Christ as the center but remove him from there in practice. We arrived at our beginning point once again.
5. I suggested we end the time by finding a quiet spot to meditate and pray about what God had shown us. Once everyone had found a place, I turned off the lights and we alone in the dark.

WOW! The total experience remained free flowing and my feeble description does not do justice the energy of the experience. It was a stunning time of discovery and interaction. That is what i so enjoy about small gatherings, we can be creative and explore new teaching ideas.