So we've spent alot of time discussing where we might be headed as a church, and how this new direction might change some old paradigms that we have been opperating with. I think it would be helpful to discuss the other side of the equation: What is it that you have landed at h.k10 church? Another way to ask the question would be: amidst the changes we are talking about making (vision,name of church, strategy, etc...) what needs to stay the same?
I would love to hear your stories about why you first came to h.k10 and what it was that made you choose to connect here rather than literally one of hundreds of other options.
What is it about our church that connected with you? Why do you love our community? What is unique about us as a church? What is God doing in and through our community that is really exciting? What is it that we are doing really well?
Hopefully by telling our stories, we can gain perspective on the ways that God is working in our community.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Name that Chuch contest
Hey Everyone,
I think its time to officially begin the discussion about the name of our church. Last year, when we went through our 2007 goal setting process, many of you were asking the question, is heartland.k10 going to be our name forever? As we have discussed for the past few months, i think its time for us to figure out who God has called us to be, not just keep the model of 'reproducing heartland'. So...that probably means it makes sense to create a new name for our church. I'm actually really excited about this possibility and hope we can find a name that really articulates something about who we want to be as a church community.
So...let the 'name that church' contest begin. Here are a few phrases/ideas that we have been discussing at the JOhnny's discussions that really are relevant:
NT Wright Phrase: putting the world to rights. God is at work (and we are called to join him) in this putting the world to rights.
Mission Church, church being about the 'mission of God' partering with him in that.
So, let the ideas flow!!!
I think its time to officially begin the discussion about the name of our church. Last year, when we went through our 2007 goal setting process, many of you were asking the question, is heartland.k10 going to be our name forever? As we have discussed for the past few months, i think its time for us to figure out who God has called us to be, not just keep the model of 'reproducing heartland'. So...that probably means it makes sense to create a new name for our church. I'm actually really excited about this possibility and hope we can find a name that really articulates something about who we want to be as a church community.
So...let the 'name that church' contest begin. Here are a few phrases/ideas that we have been discussing at the JOhnny's discussions that really are relevant:
NT Wright Phrase: putting the world to rights. God is at work (and we are called to join him) in this putting the world to rights.
Mission Church, church being about the 'mission of God' partering with him in that.
So, let the ideas flow!!!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Moving beyond the vision
Thanks to everyone who made it to johnny's last night. It was so good to be together. For those of you who couldn't make it, here is a brief recap of the night:
Moving Beyond the Vision
We talked last night about the vision of our church: connecting the disconnected to an authentic community of faith. the question i raised was do we need to move beyond this vision? The two reason i gave for this question were 1. This vision is basically the vision of the seeker church movement. We basically took that basic vision and reworded it. We wrestled through whether or not 'ripping off' the seeker church vision fit us as a church 2. We asked if this vision is too narrow. While i NEVER WANT TO BE A PART OF A CHURCH THAT DOESN'T HAVE A PASSION FOR REACHING FOLKS WHO ARE FAR FROM GOD, (like the CAPS for emphasis?) we wrestled through whether or not we have focused on evangelism too exclusively and not be as focused on other really important issues (social justice, discipleship).
AS a way to push the discussion of our vision forward, we brought in the book 'simply christian' by NT Wright. IN this book, he talks about the idea that God is actively working in the world, putting the world to rights. Here are a few quotes from the book:
p. 9: there is someone speaking to us, whispering in our inner ear, somone who cares very much about this present world and our present selves, and who has made us and the world for a purpose which will indeed involve justice, things being put to rights, ourselves being put to rights, the world being resuced at last.
p. 12: the Christian faith endorses the pasion for justice, which every human being knows, the longing to see things put to rights. And it claims that in Jesus, God himself has shared this passion and put it into effect, so that in the end all tears may be dried and the world may be filled with justice and joy.
p. 105: Jesus had gone about announcing that now, at last, God's kingdom was arriving. God himself was on the move once more and was about to rescue his people and put the world to rights.
p. 204: The church exists, in other words, for what we sometimes call 'mission': to announce to the world that Jesus is its Lord. This is the 'Good News' and when it's announced it transforms people and societies. Mission, in its widest as well as its more focused senses, it what the church is there for. God intends to put the world to rights; he has dramatically launched this project through Jesus. Thos who belong to Jesus are called, here and now, in the power of the Spirit, to be agents of that putting-to-rights purpose. The word 'mission' comes from the Latin for 'send': "as the Father sent me," Said Jesus after his resurrections, "So i am sending you."
So...thoughts about this idea of putting the world to rights and how that impacts our vision as a church?
Moving Beyond the Vision
We talked last night about the vision of our church: connecting the disconnected to an authentic community of faith. the question i raised was do we need to move beyond this vision? The two reason i gave for this question were 1. This vision is basically the vision of the seeker church movement. We basically took that basic vision and reworded it. We wrestled through whether or not 'ripping off' the seeker church vision fit us as a church 2. We asked if this vision is too narrow. While i NEVER WANT TO BE A PART OF A CHURCH THAT DOESN'T HAVE A PASSION FOR REACHING FOLKS WHO ARE FAR FROM GOD, (like the CAPS for emphasis?) we wrestled through whether or not we have focused on evangelism too exclusively and not be as focused on other really important issues (social justice, discipleship).
AS a way to push the discussion of our vision forward, we brought in the book 'simply christian' by NT Wright. IN this book, he talks about the idea that God is actively working in the world, putting the world to rights. Here are a few quotes from the book:
p. 9: there is someone speaking to us, whispering in our inner ear, somone who cares very much about this present world and our present selves, and who has made us and the world for a purpose which will indeed involve justice, things being put to rights, ourselves being put to rights, the world being resuced at last.
p. 12: the Christian faith endorses the pasion for justice, which every human being knows, the longing to see things put to rights. And it claims that in Jesus, God himself has shared this passion and put it into effect, so that in the end all tears may be dried and the world may be filled with justice and joy.
p. 105: Jesus had gone about announcing that now, at last, God's kingdom was arriving. God himself was on the move once more and was about to rescue his people and put the world to rights.
p. 204: The church exists, in other words, for what we sometimes call 'mission': to announce to the world that Jesus is its Lord. This is the 'Good News' and when it's announced it transforms people and societies. Mission, in its widest as well as its more focused senses, it what the church is there for. God intends to put the world to rights; he has dramatically launched this project through Jesus. Thos who belong to Jesus are called, here and now, in the power of the Spirit, to be agents of that putting-to-rights purpose. The word 'mission' comes from the Latin for 'send': "as the Father sent me," Said Jesus after his resurrections, "So i am sending you."
So...thoughts about this idea of putting the world to rights and how that impacts our vision as a church?
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Discerning God's will, thoughts from St. Ignatius Loyola
Hey all,
great work on the last post! there is some really helpful dialog going on here. I think that ultimately this process of figuring out who we are called to be as a church is really a process of discernment. This is a very important reality we have to understand, this is just about a fun conversation, it is seeking out and discerning God's will for our lives together. Below is an article about St. Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, which is a classic Christian text. There is a bit of a Catholic slant to the article, but Ignatius was a Catholic, so what are you going to do? Let's all read this article and post what we think.
Kevin
Discernment: Recognising God’s Voice
by Brian Incigneri
This article is based on The Rules for Discernment of Spirits by St Ignatius Loyola. Writing in sixteenth century Spain, St Ignatius was a master on spiritual discernment. His teachings come from his own experiences of temptation and of experiencing the movements of God in his soul. Over a long period of time, he began to recognise when it was God that was moving him, and when it was not, and what were the characteristics of both. He describes his rules as:
Rules for perceiving to some degree the different movements that are produced in the soul.
Learning to Listen to God
When someone comes to experience the reality of the spiritual world and discovers that God is a personal being who is vitally interested in every aspect of their life, they soon discover that they need to learn to recognise promptings which come from God. They know that God is completely good and completely self-giving, and they know that everything that comes from him is beneficial.
Such a person yearns to hear God’s voice, to receive his guidance, and to do his will.
They discover, however, that discerning promptings from God is not straightforward — there are many ‘voices’ competing for our attention. These spiritual ‘voices’ are quite subtle. Perhaps we had not even been aware of them before — how do we know which voice comes from God?
The first proposition we begin with here is that God does speak to people, that is, he does communicate by some means and is fully involved in the life of each person. More and more people are coming to that realisation today, turning around a period in Western history in which God came to be seen as being quite remote and even disinterested. One of the main emphases of Catholic Charismatic Renewal is this closeness of God, and his constant readiness to guide and help us in both small and great things.
God does not speak to us by an audible voice (except, perhaps, in rare circumstances). His normal way of communicating is by more subtle leadings and promptings. He may speak through circumstances, or by an ‘inner voice’ by which we know he has communicated with us, but we have not heard words. His communication may seem like a thought to us or an idea or a realisation. Yet his communications have a different quality, and as we grow in the ability to discern, we come to recognise ‘his voice’ more frequently.
Discernment Must Be Learnt
Why doesn’t God speak clearly to us? God has always chosen to risk the distortion of his Word by using human beings as messengers, just as he used the biblical writers, the Church and everyone who proclaims God to the world today. This is because of his desire that men and women be mature partners in the work of salvation. He could have spoken clearly and directly, but that would never have brought maturity. And so we are called to discern, and in doing this we are called to be open to things beyond the rational, and to consider the seemingly impossible.
If we are to grow closer to God, we must learn to come to know what he is really like. We come to know God’s voice by coming to know God. Discernment, then, is getting to know a person.
It is as if we receive a telephone call, and the line quality is very bad. The person on the end is saying that they are someone we know very well. How do we know it is them? We know because of the type of thing they say, and the tone they use to say it. If they suggest something that we know our friend would never suggest, we know it cannot be our friend on the line.
In John’s Gospel, we read:
[The shepherd] calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run away from him because they do not know the voice of strangers (John 10:2–5).
In Palestine, the shepherd would walk ahead of the sheep. Even if the sheep mixed with other sheep at a waterhole, the shepherd could separate his own sheep by just calling them. They knew his voice and would follow him. A tourist in Palestine once asked a shepherd whether the sheep would ever follow anyone else. The shepherd replied, “Yes, when they are sick they will follow anyone.” Once, the tourist saw a man driving a herd of sheep. When he asked about it, he was told that the man was not the shepherd, but the butcher.
Discernment Involves Making a Choice
The word “discern” itself means to exercise judgement. With discernment, we are always faced with a simple choice: is it God acting or not?
As Catholics, we believe in a spiritual world in which there are spiritual beings which are inimical to the welfare of humanity. Satan certainly exists and tries to mislead us. But there are also our own inner voices which can work against God — we could call this our dark side.
However, if a prompting is not from God, we are not really interested in discerning the source. It is not helpful to try and work out if it is from ourselves or some evil spirit. Fr Green gives us excellent advice here: “When the pray-er recognises the tail of the snake, he or she is wise to run away without looking for the rest of it, and to leave the species determination to the snake specialists.” And so, we will be using the term “the bad spirit” to mean whatever forces are working within us which work against God.
If we are concerned to do God’s will, then we are only interested to discern whether God is the source of the leading.
We must work at discerning God’s voice. Discernment is the art of knowing when it is God acting upon or speaking to us, and when it is not. This art can only be learned by trial and error. The voices we experience are quite subtle, and discernment requires us to become sensitive to subtle differences between the different movements upon our soul. Yet we will never recognise the voice of God with absolute clarity, and anyone who claims to hear God clearly and with certainty should be avoided — they have not even begun to know spiritual realities if they make such a claim.
Some Simple Rules
There are simple rules we can follow in discerning God’s voice and these can make a very big difference for us. If we know them, we will make fewer mistakes. Many people make very bad decisions in their life because these basic rules have been ignored.
Someone who knows what God is like knows what his voice is like. As an exercise, write down a list of single words that describe what you think God’s voice is like (for example: gentle, patient, kind, forgiving, encouraging). Then write a separate list of what you think the voice of the bad spirit is like (for example: harsh, condemning, impatient, negative). You will see a very dramatic difference between the two lists. And yet everyone regularly forgets this basic difference when they come to make key decisions. If you remember what the voice of the bad spirit is like, you will make fewer bad choices. You already know how to discern in most situations.
Presuppositions for Discernment
Before we can say discernment is actually occurring, certain conditions must be met:
1. You must desire to do God’s will. This means that this must be your fundamental choice in life.
2. You must be open to God at the moment of discerning. This means that you must be completely open to accept any of the possible results of discerning. If you are only interested in doing what you want to do, and are not open to other possibilities, then discernment is not possible.
3. You must know what God is like.
4. You must be a person who prays.
A good discerner is also:
1. Humble. Humility involves knowing self (as good, but imperfect), an openness to be guided by God and others, and a readiness to follow that guidance. A humble person is ready and willing to learn.The bad spirit will always attack you at your weakest points, and so we must know our own weaknesses.
Often that weakest point will be in our close relationships. Pseudo-Macarius warns us that we must learn to discern when the bad spirit is “operating in the area of our hidden passions.” Generally, the Desert Fathers emphasised the spiritual battle that those committed to the spiritual journey will necessarily be engaged in, and urged beginners to get in touch with what is happening inside them. They stressed the need to have a spiritual advisor available to help to discern.
With important decisions, we should always test our discernment by seeking the help of at least one other co-discerner. A community can only discern if all its members are discerners.
2. Charity. A good discerner is slow to judge others, and is tolerant. This allows for an openness to others which is essential for good discernment.
3. Courage. A good discerner needs to be ready to act boldly if necessary, and be prepared to take risks. In particular, the discerner must be prepared to be wrong.
It is important to realise that only YOU can discern for you. No one else can discern for you. You will never learn to discern if you expect others to tell you the answer. This does not mean that you should not seek help — you should, but the other person is only helping you to discern.
Also, what is discerned must be consistent with what God has said previously. This means that what we discern must be consistent with his previous revelations through Scripture and through the Church. God is always true to himself. This means, however, that we have an obligation to know what God has been saying through the Church. We must know our faith well. We also should know Scripture, not necessarily in detail, but we should understand what Scripture is and what it is not, and never misuse the Bible as so many do. We should know the Bible well enough not to take any part of the text out of context.
great work on the last post! there is some really helpful dialog going on here. I think that ultimately this process of figuring out who we are called to be as a church is really a process of discernment. This is a very important reality we have to understand, this is just about a fun conversation, it is seeking out and discerning God's will for our lives together. Below is an article about St. Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, which is a classic Christian text. There is a bit of a Catholic slant to the article, but Ignatius was a Catholic, so what are you going to do? Let's all read this article and post what we think.
Kevin
Discernment: Recognising God’s Voice
by Brian Incigneri
This article is based on The Rules for Discernment of Spirits by St Ignatius Loyola. Writing in sixteenth century Spain, St Ignatius was a master on spiritual discernment. His teachings come from his own experiences of temptation and of experiencing the movements of God in his soul. Over a long period of time, he began to recognise when it was God that was moving him, and when it was not, and what were the characteristics of both. He describes his rules as:
Rules for perceiving to some degree the different movements that are produced in the soul.
Learning to Listen to God
When someone comes to experience the reality of the spiritual world and discovers that God is a personal being who is vitally interested in every aspect of their life, they soon discover that they need to learn to recognise promptings which come from God. They know that God is completely good and completely self-giving, and they know that everything that comes from him is beneficial.
Such a person yearns to hear God’s voice, to receive his guidance, and to do his will.
They discover, however, that discerning promptings from God is not straightforward — there are many ‘voices’ competing for our attention. These spiritual ‘voices’ are quite subtle. Perhaps we had not even been aware of them before — how do we know which voice comes from God?
The first proposition we begin with here is that God does speak to people, that is, he does communicate by some means and is fully involved in the life of each person. More and more people are coming to that realisation today, turning around a period in Western history in which God came to be seen as being quite remote and even disinterested. One of the main emphases of Catholic Charismatic Renewal is this closeness of God, and his constant readiness to guide and help us in both small and great things.
God does not speak to us by an audible voice (except, perhaps, in rare circumstances). His normal way of communicating is by more subtle leadings and promptings. He may speak through circumstances, or by an ‘inner voice’ by which we know he has communicated with us, but we have not heard words. His communication may seem like a thought to us or an idea or a realisation. Yet his communications have a different quality, and as we grow in the ability to discern, we come to recognise ‘his voice’ more frequently.
Discernment Must Be Learnt
Why doesn’t God speak clearly to us? God has always chosen to risk the distortion of his Word by using human beings as messengers, just as he used the biblical writers, the Church and everyone who proclaims God to the world today. This is because of his desire that men and women be mature partners in the work of salvation. He could have spoken clearly and directly, but that would never have brought maturity. And so we are called to discern, and in doing this we are called to be open to things beyond the rational, and to consider the seemingly impossible.
If we are to grow closer to God, we must learn to come to know what he is really like. We come to know God’s voice by coming to know God. Discernment, then, is getting to know a person.
It is as if we receive a telephone call, and the line quality is very bad. The person on the end is saying that they are someone we know very well. How do we know it is them? We know because of the type of thing they say, and the tone they use to say it. If they suggest something that we know our friend would never suggest, we know it cannot be our friend on the line.
In John’s Gospel, we read:
[The shepherd] calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run away from him because they do not know the voice of strangers (John 10:2–5).
In Palestine, the shepherd would walk ahead of the sheep. Even if the sheep mixed with other sheep at a waterhole, the shepherd could separate his own sheep by just calling them. They knew his voice and would follow him. A tourist in Palestine once asked a shepherd whether the sheep would ever follow anyone else. The shepherd replied, “Yes, when they are sick they will follow anyone.” Once, the tourist saw a man driving a herd of sheep. When he asked about it, he was told that the man was not the shepherd, but the butcher.
Discernment Involves Making a Choice
The word “discern” itself means to exercise judgement. With discernment, we are always faced with a simple choice: is it God acting or not?
As Catholics, we believe in a spiritual world in which there are spiritual beings which are inimical to the welfare of humanity. Satan certainly exists and tries to mislead us. But there are also our own inner voices which can work against God — we could call this our dark side.
However, if a prompting is not from God, we are not really interested in discerning the source. It is not helpful to try and work out if it is from ourselves or some evil spirit. Fr Green gives us excellent advice here: “When the pray-er recognises the tail of the snake, he or she is wise to run away without looking for the rest of it, and to leave the species determination to the snake specialists.” And so, we will be using the term “the bad spirit” to mean whatever forces are working within us which work against God.
If we are concerned to do God’s will, then we are only interested to discern whether God is the source of the leading.
We must work at discerning God’s voice. Discernment is the art of knowing when it is God acting upon or speaking to us, and when it is not. This art can only be learned by trial and error. The voices we experience are quite subtle, and discernment requires us to become sensitive to subtle differences between the different movements upon our soul. Yet we will never recognise the voice of God with absolute clarity, and anyone who claims to hear God clearly and with certainty should be avoided — they have not even begun to know spiritual realities if they make such a claim.
Some Simple Rules
There are simple rules we can follow in discerning God’s voice and these can make a very big difference for us. If we know them, we will make fewer mistakes. Many people make very bad decisions in their life because these basic rules have been ignored.
Someone who knows what God is like knows what his voice is like. As an exercise, write down a list of single words that describe what you think God’s voice is like (for example: gentle, patient, kind, forgiving, encouraging). Then write a separate list of what you think the voice of the bad spirit is like (for example: harsh, condemning, impatient, negative). You will see a very dramatic difference between the two lists. And yet everyone regularly forgets this basic difference when they come to make key decisions. If you remember what the voice of the bad spirit is like, you will make fewer bad choices. You already know how to discern in most situations.
Presuppositions for Discernment
Before we can say discernment is actually occurring, certain conditions must be met:
1. You must desire to do God’s will. This means that this must be your fundamental choice in life.
2. You must be open to God at the moment of discerning. This means that you must be completely open to accept any of the possible results of discerning. If you are only interested in doing what you want to do, and are not open to other possibilities, then discernment is not possible.
3. You must know what God is like.
4. You must be a person who prays.
A good discerner is also:
1. Humble. Humility involves knowing self (as good, but imperfect), an openness to be guided by God and others, and a readiness to follow that guidance. A humble person is ready and willing to learn.The bad spirit will always attack you at your weakest points, and so we must know our own weaknesses.
Often that weakest point will be in our close relationships. Pseudo-Macarius warns us that we must learn to discern when the bad spirit is “operating in the area of our hidden passions.” Generally, the Desert Fathers emphasised the spiritual battle that those committed to the spiritual journey will necessarily be engaged in, and urged beginners to get in touch with what is happening inside them. They stressed the need to have a spiritual advisor available to help to discern.
With important decisions, we should always test our discernment by seeking the help of at least one other co-discerner. A community can only discern if all its members are discerners.
2. Charity. A good discerner is slow to judge others, and is tolerant. This allows for an openness to others which is essential for good discernment.
3. Courage. A good discerner needs to be ready to act boldly if necessary, and be prepared to take risks. In particular, the discerner must be prepared to be wrong.
It is important to realise that only YOU can discern for you. No one else can discern for you. You will never learn to discern if you expect others to tell you the answer. This does not mean that you should not seek help — you should, but the other person is only helping you to discern.
Also, what is discerned must be consistent with what God has said previously. This means that what we discern must be consistent with his previous revelations through Scripture and through the Church. God is always true to himself. This means, however, that we have an obligation to know what God has been saying through the Church. We must know our faith well. We also should know Scripture, not necessarily in detail, but we should understand what Scripture is and what it is not, and never misuse the Bible as so many do. We should know the Bible well enough not to take any part of the text out of context.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Who are we called to be?
So we have started a discussion at h.k10 around one simple question: Who are we called to be as a church community? when we started out 3 and a half years ago (can you believe its been that long?) the basic idea was: let's reproduce heartland. but can you really just 'reproduce a church?' Can we just look at what worked over there and try to do the same thing at a different place? Is that really how the kingdom of God works?
The more I've wrestled through those questions, the answers i've come up with are no, no and no.
So...now the question is who are we called to be? what kind of community does God want us to become? what is our unique calling and mission to the world? what does it look like for us to be the unique people of God in this time and this place. I am so excited about these questions, and so excited about the community God has brought together to wrestle through this. I can't wait to see where we end up.
So, to get the discussion rolling, one of the things that i believe has to be a part of 'who we are called to be' is to be a MISSIONAL COMMUNITY. I never want to be the kind of church that is inward focused and doesn't participate with God in his mission for the world (putting the world to rights). Our calling as the church is to be a blessing to the world, and if we miss this, we miss the central calling on our lives. So i guess my question is this: What is the mission of the church? What would it look like for us to live out that mission? what does it look like to be a missional community? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, let the blogging begin!
The more I've wrestled through those questions, the answers i've come up with are no, no and no.
So...now the question is who are we called to be? what kind of community does God want us to become? what is our unique calling and mission to the world? what does it look like for us to be the unique people of God in this time and this place. I am so excited about these questions, and so excited about the community God has brought together to wrestle through this. I can't wait to see where we end up.
So, to get the discussion rolling, one of the things that i believe has to be a part of 'who we are called to be' is to be a MISSIONAL COMMUNITY. I never want to be the kind of church that is inward focused and doesn't participate with God in his mission for the world (putting the world to rights). Our calling as the church is to be a blessing to the world, and if we miss this, we miss the central calling on our lives. So i guess my question is this: What is the mission of the church? What would it look like for us to live out that mission? what does it look like to be a missional community? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, let the blogging begin!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Church
and the Fiddler on the Roof.
by Tim Suttle
On Sunday at h.k10 we explored the metaphor of the Fiddler on the Roof. In this old Broadway musical, the proud Jewish father struggles when each of his 5 daughters come to ask his blessing for their marriage. As he tries to decide whether or not to bless the union, he actually considers what this will do to their family…will it change them? enhance them? ruin them? He is really trying to balance TRADITION with RELEVANCE.
This is not unlike what the church is asked to do. We must deal with the question: “How do we balance the traditions of our heritage/scripture with the need to be relevant to our current culture without breaking continuity with historic Christianity?” If we fall too far toward traditions and begin to embrace them merely for tradition’s sake, we fall into traditionalism & no longer embody the kingdom ideal. If we fall too far toward relevance, then we break continuity and start a brand new religion. How can we balance?
This question is made even more important by the realization that we live in a time of great change. We explored Phyllis Tickle’s claim that we are in a great transition which is just one in a long succession of transitions which come every 500 years:
- Reformation (1500 AD)
- Great Schism (1054 AD)
- Fall of Rome & Monasticism born (476 AD)
- Time of Christ (33 AD)
- Babylonian Captivity of the Jews (550 BCE)
- End of Judges/beginning of Dynasty (1030 BCE)
Her point is that we are living at the end of an old era and the beginning of a new one. In this new era we’re considering the old models of church which we’ve inherited.
The Reformation gave us the view of church as “a place where certain things happen.” This view brought with it some baggage. First, it created the expectation that church will be a “vendor of religious goods & services.” In this model parishioners become consumers, pastors become professionals, and members become volunteers who are deployed to meet consumer needs much like a workforce. Second, it forced churches to compete in the marketplace with the primary focus being brand loyalty and acquiring market share.
The Enlightenment gave us a view of church which was dominated by “Reason.” This view also brought with it some baggage. First, faith became largely a rational thing. Second, faith became largely a personal thing. Thirdly, it required faith to stand up to “reason” as the only legitimate way of “knowing.”
The Church Today is splintered and divided almost equally between Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Mainline Denominations, and Liturgicals, each offering different ideas about what it means to be a church. We talked about the possibility that in the biblical teaching about the Kingdom of God, we might actually find one unifying theme.
Jurgen Moltmann teaches us that the church doesn’t have a mission, but Christ has a mission. It is the mission of Christ which calls the church into existence. Our mission is to follow Christ in pursuit of the kingdom of God. We learn from Darrell Guder three ways which we might do this:
BEING: the church can represent the kingdom of God in its community. The first job of the church, says Stanley Hauerwas, is to simply be the church. The church is to embody the reign of God before a watching world. In doing this the effects of the reformation are counteracted. Church is not seen as a place where certain things happen, but a people called to the mission of Christ who embody the reign and rule of Christ.
DOING: the church can represent the kingdom of God as its servant. In our times this might looks very different in differing contexts. In America, it will look less and less like imposing our moral will onto the social fabric and more and more like the church giving tangible experiences of the reign and rule of God through compassion, mercy and justice. This offsets the Enlightenment idea that religion is private & merely rational by proving that the truth can be incarnational.
SPEAKING: the church can represent the Kingdom of God as its messenger. By embracing the catholic nature of our faith and uniting by the proclamation that Jesus instituted the kingdom of God and that all are invited to join, the church can actually speak with one voice. This offsets the dis-unity and the current splintered factions which dominate the church.
This is not unlike what the church is asked to do. We must deal with the question: “How do we balance the traditions of our heritage/scripture with the need to be relevant to our current culture without breaking continuity with historic Christianity?” If we fall too far toward traditions and begin to embrace them merely for tradition’s sake, we fall into traditionalism & no longer embody the kingdom ideal. If we fall too far toward relevance, then we break continuity and start a brand new religion. How can we balance?
This question is made even more important by the realization that we live in a time of great change. We explored Phyllis Tickle’s claim that we are in a great transition which is just one in a long succession of transitions which come every 500 years:
- Reformation (1500 AD)
- Great Schism (1054 AD)
- Fall of Rome & Monasticism born (476 AD)
- Time of Christ (33 AD)
- Babylonian Captivity of the Jews (550 BCE)
- End of Judges/beginning of Dynasty (1030 BCE)
Her point is that we are living at the end of an old era and the beginning of a new one. In this new era we’re considering the old models of church which we’ve inherited.
The Reformation gave us the view of church as “a place where certain things happen.” This view brought with it some baggage. First, it created the expectation that church will be a “vendor of religious goods & services.” In this model parishioners become consumers, pastors become professionals, and members become volunteers who are deployed to meet consumer needs much like a workforce. Second, it forced churches to compete in the marketplace with the primary focus being brand loyalty and acquiring market share.
The Enlightenment gave us a view of church which was dominated by “Reason.” This view also brought with it some baggage. First, faith became largely a rational thing. Second, faith became largely a personal thing. Thirdly, it required faith to stand up to “reason” as the only legitimate way of “knowing.”
The Church Today is splintered and divided almost equally between Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Mainline Denominations, and Liturgicals, each offering different ideas about what it means to be a church. We talked about the possibility that in the biblical teaching about the Kingdom of God, we might actually find one unifying theme.
Jurgen Moltmann teaches us that the church doesn’t have a mission, but Christ has a mission. It is the mission of Christ which calls the church into existence. Our mission is to follow Christ in pursuit of the kingdom of God. We learn from Darrell Guder three ways which we might do this:
BEING: the church can represent the kingdom of God in its community. The first job of the church, says Stanley Hauerwas, is to simply be the church. The church is to embody the reign of God before a watching world. In doing this the effects of the reformation are counteracted. Church is not seen as a place where certain things happen, but a people called to the mission of Christ who embody the reign and rule of Christ.
DOING: the church can represent the kingdom of God as its servant. In our times this might looks very different in differing contexts. In America, it will look less and less like imposing our moral will onto the social fabric and more and more like the church giving tangible experiences of the reign and rule of God through compassion, mercy and justice. This offsets the Enlightenment idea that religion is private & merely rational by proving that the truth can be incarnational.
SPEAKING: the church can represent the Kingdom of God as its messenger. By embracing the catholic nature of our faith and uniting by the proclamation that Jesus instituted the kingdom of God and that all are invited to join, the church can actually speak with one voice. This offsets the dis-unity and the current splintered factions which dominate the church.
Friday, May 25, 2007
The Church
What is the Church?What is the church & what is is for? What do you think of when you hear the word Church? Is it a building? Is it a people? Is it visible or invisible? What is the Church and what is it for? This is the question we are going to begin to wrestle through together. Why does the church exist? Where did it come from? What can we learn about the church from Scripture, Tradition, Reason and experience?
Over the coming weeks and months we'll be posting resources, information and ideas and then commenting and discussing together on this blog. If you have ideas for a post, email them to tims@heartlandk10.com and I'll work with you to get them ready for the blog. If you have comments on a current post, fire away!
"Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love." - Frederick Buechner
[ for those posting on the blog: all posts will be moderated which will ensure that nobody comes and hijacks our discussion. This will mean there might be a few hour between when you submit your comment and when it actually posts on the blog. ]
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