Thin~Spaces

A Journey Into Emergence

As I was doing my cardio workout today I began to reflect on my journey of discovery over the last five years. I initially thought that my emergence began in 1999 when I decided to attend Regent College in Vancouver. After much thought, I’ve come to realize that I was an "emergent Christian" who had been indoctrinated into the Evangelical program as an early Christ-follower.

My faith shattered and a major push toward re-discovering Christ happened in 1996 when I was abruptly, fired from the church I was an associate pastor at. It was a very strange time. "Please move out of the parsonage in 30 days. You do not need to come to church next Sunday." No reason given, No discussion, No attempt to be open about it, just "Keep it under your hat and goodbye." I felt like a pariah

The day I moved out of the parsonage, the Sr. pastor I had worked with would not even look me in the eye when I went to his home to say goodbye. I was confused, alarmed and my worldview shattered. "Was it something I did or didn’t do?" My very 1^st post, "The silence" chronicles my response to this situation.

The Old, Old Story?

I finished reading A Generous Orthodoxy this morning. It is a good book. While I found nothing new within its covers, I did rather enjoy Brian’s way of presenting the material. I’d recommend the book to anyone who had already processed their own spirituality and wants another viewpoint on the faith.

I happened to be on "Brian’s page" most of the time. At times I thought he was a bit conservative for me but then again, I’m rather conservative in print myself.

Being a "Missional Christian," (Aren’t all of those who follow the Teachings of Christ supposed to be missional?) I found the following observation to ring true as I dialog with people of other belief systems.

"We must continually be aware that the "old, old story" may not be the "true, true story."

In other words, we must be open to the perpetual possibility that our received understandings of the gospel may be faulty, imbalanced, poorly nuanced, or downright warped and twisted. Here we must retain the good protestant, evangelical, and biblical instinct to allow Scripture to critique tradition – including our dominant and most recent traditions, and including our tradition’s understanding of the gospel. In this sense Christians in missional dialogue must continually expect to rediscover the gospel."

Brian McLaren, "A Generous Orthodoxy"

Christian heritage

In the West, many of us have historically classified our faith with denominational labels. Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, Anabaptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Methodist, Non-denominational, Presbyterian, Reformed and the like. Each of these broad labels has its own sub categories.

Ours is a tradition of increasing fragmentation and disunity. Recently, an acquaintance asked me about my "religious views." I told him that I’m a follower of the teachings of Christ.

"You mean that you’re a Christian then." was his reply. "So what are you? Baptist, Lutheran….?

I replied with simply "Yes." (I took a deep breath) and followed that up with, "I’m an Orthodox~Anabaptist~Reformed~Liberal~Lutheran~Pentecostal~Catholic~Presbyterian~Non-denominational~Conservative~Methodist~Baptist~trans-denominationalist~Episcopalian~Mystic who follows the teaching of Christ in the Freedom of the Holy Spirit." (I’ve been resonating with "a Generous Orthodoxy")

"huh? What’s that?" Was the reply to my self disclosure.

Our conversation was off to a good start. As our conversation unfolded, I explained that my spiritual life is informed by the beliefs and practices of all of these traditions and many more within the broad scope of Christian history.

I’ve always had a disdain for the labels and classifications we use to isolate religious experience. Ones experience of God must extend into every area of our life. It should not be confined with the limits of any classification or denominational label we can attribute to it.

Following Christ is so much deeper than joining a church or denomination. We should embrace our long heritage, indwell it, let it percolate through our actions as we live out our faith before God.

Deep Water Travelers

Upon reflection on my post "Getting to the Deep Waters", I have come to realize that I do have several distant amamchara in my life. G~, M~, R~, you know who you are. Unfortunately, these dear friends are not part of my daily life and are slightly younger than I am.

I now realize that in my prior post I was thinking of a much older amamchara who has swam in the deep water much longer than I have. A fellow Christ-Follower and mystic who has walked through the "Dark Night of The Soul", spent hours in silent contemplation, has a passion for Christ and is willing to share their life with a novice like myself.

My desire is to grow in the disciplines of Christ and walk with others who take the call of discipleship seriously. I’m tired of the shallows! Give me deep waters, strong currents, vibrant life, a school of fellow deep water travelers who are unafraid to the rigors of a deeper experience with God.

This is the cry of my heart.

A Journey Toward Community

Today I was thinking back on my M.DIV. experience and the Regent focus on community groups. It was durring thistime of my life when my mentality shifted. i was interrest in how my Regent experience shaped my life in the past few years so I scoured my journals to find an entry that crystallizes the moment when I began my mental shift toward the predominatly community focus i now have. The entry below is the earliest entry I could find.

11 January, 2000
Regent College 1:35pm

Well it has been an interesting morning; I almost got in a terrible accident on my way to Regent. It was snowing and about 5 miles south of Bellingham there was 1 inch of snow and Ice on the ground. I was traveling 40mph and the car broke loose. The tail end passed me and I did a 1180 deg spin. Almost slammed into the guardrail but God was with me and I missed the rail and ended up 2 lanes to the left.

The ironic thing is that I felt lead to pray earlier and decided to listen to one side of Mark on the tape player instead. The spin was 1 minute before the tape ended. One minute later and I would have been ejecting the tape. The timing is very interesting. It just goes to show that I do not have any control over my life.

God is sovereign and he will do what he wants to do with me.

8:00 pm
At Matt's Place.

Well I'm stuck in Vancouver tonight! The snow fell and it took me 1.5 hours to go 3-4 Km. Wow! Snow and thunderstorm at the same time, there was a lightning strike about 20 yards behind me, while it was snowing if you can imagine that.

The experience was very strange.

I find that life is just that way.

I must admit, I like the feeling of camaraderie that exists with regent students, the community Idea is well put forth. Several people showed concern and the like. (Was nice.) I was part of a group of people who wanted to just BE. To BE the hands of Christ extended.

I am beginning to see the use and reality of how to live in a communal type of Life. Hmmm… True caring and generosity is a nice thing. What a great idea! I'm lucky to have the environment I'm participating in. I'm not use to this type of thing. Most churches are very shallow and people don't easily go out-of-their-way for anybody.

I do want to live in a caring community though…. Selah

This journal entry points at the beginning of my journey toward a different ideal-mode-expression of Christ-Following.

Tomorrow, some friends and I are going to take a ferry boat to Vashon Island and spend the day exploring. We are being the church, getting to know one another and live life together.

My journey into community is an interesting one. I've made mistakes and unintentionally wounded people due to my own selfish nature. I've learned to accept people as God made them and not what I want them to be. This is the struggle of living in honest community.

Communities are always changing, growing, and evolving into something new. People are community and relationships take work, understanding, faithfulness, caring, nurturing, grace, involvement and most of all forgiveness.

I'll end before I get too preachy on the topic.

Getting to the Deep Waters

I’ve remembered yet another parallel to weight lifting and the spiritual life. You can make good progress on your own but you eventually need someone else to help you. A person can get into great shape on their own but having a gym partner makes the effort easier and allows us to grow beyond our solo potential.

In weight training, your training partner is called a spotter. They are there to keep you from hurting yourself, encourage you to push beyond what you think you can do and in turn you do the same for them. Over time you develop a camaraderie that is hard to break.

I remember every workout partner I’ve ever had. Their struggles, joys, pains and triumphs, in life. While they many of these friendships only lasted a year or two and then one of us would relocate or some other life change would happen. Ours was a friendship forged and centered on our shared journey toward physical fitness.

Our spiritual journey is very similar to weight training. You can have all the disciplines, be in tune with yourself, devote your life to God, and never reach your potential alone. In the Spiritual arena, we need training partners to keep us accountable, to encourage us, and to help us move beyond our limitations.

I have not been to a gym in 10 years.

Today was my 1st day back at a gym after ten years. Before my motorcycle accident, I was a gym rat. Every day I worked out and was in great physical condition. Today I'm 40 pounds overweight and my physical condition is pathetic by my standards.

Why has it taken me so long to get to a gym? Sure I was injured in the beginning but over time I accepted my limitation and became lazy and complacent. I quit seeking the edges my physical limitations and accepted life with continual low grade back pain.

This morning, I scheduled one and a half hours to work out. The workout was not too hard. The hardest part was accepting myself in my current condition and be diligent with what I can do now. I felt like a rank beginner. Then again, I had correct technique, form and skill to use the free weights. Some things you just don't loose. Strength and stamina may go, but the knowledge of how to use the tools that make you strong never leave.

In many ways the Church in America is like my current physical condition. We look back to the glory days of what Church used to be in American life and long to be that way again. Gone are the days when pastors woke early and prayed for hours in the morning, (George Barna notes that the average pastor only prays for 20 minutes a day) bars closed on Sunday and schools did not schedule activities on "church nights." (Typically Wednesday)

Looking at what we "used to do or be" will only keep us from moving forward from where we are today. We gradually accept our cultural limitations look back in hopelessness at what the church once was. We become lazy and complacent. Christians no longer seek the depth with God that we once had. We become insipid sermon tasters who hear yet do not hear the message of the scriptures.

We keep ourselves busy with the "activities" of church life yet deny the very lifeblood of what makes us the church. To be frank, we have an identity crisis. The church has been looking back at an idealized history in America.

In a misguided attempt, we seek relevance and influence so we do-what-it-takes to attract a crowd. In the process we loose the very distinctive that make us an alternate community. We begin to look like the predominant culture and therefore are marginalized as inauthentic. We courted the world and lost ourselves in the process.

I have to accept myself where I am and take responsibility for my physical condition if I am to move forward. I can't measure myself by what I was 17 years ago. I have to make an honest assessment of myself and look to the future.

In the same way, the American church must take responsibility for her spiritual condition, repent of her sin and look toward her future. We should take seriously the calling to be a people of a different kingdom. We should not look like the word, we should look like Christ.

Rather Sparse Postings

Last night I was talking with my friend Mike. He mentioned that he missed reading my Blog entries as I have been rather sparse with my postings lately. I was surprised by his comment as he never voiced it before.

To be quite honest, I simply have not had that much to say recently. I’ve been ruminating on some things in the last 2 months and have not been in a headspace where I could write about it. I’ve been processing it off-line if you will.

Anyhow, I now feel like I have a lot of things to say once more. You know, stuff that is worthwhile to post again. I probably should have voiced this sooner. I’m sorry for "dropping off the planet and will ramp-up my posts in the coming weeks.