TheBolgBlog

The Stretching of Social Space

I had already been up this morning, typing on the computer.  My nine year-old son came out from his bedroom and said "I miss Chris." My son rarely expresses this kind of emotion, feelings reserved for cousins and very special friends. "I know, I miss him too. I thought he was really funny."

Doesn't sound that unusual, but the thing is, my son has never met Chris, at least physically. Chris Sligh was just voted off American Idol. We started watching the show a few weeks into the season this year,and we got hooked. In these past few episodes, my son felt connected to him, relating to him in a special way.

One thing I talk about in my classes is how modernity stretches space. Many many years ago, the space we shared with people always meant the sharing of physical space. Over the few hundred year span of modernity, more and more of our social world dealt with those at a distance from us, either across the town or across the world. Moreover, many of these people with whom we connected we did not even know, in the face-to-face conventional sense.

As Christian leaders, we spend the bulk of our time thinking about serving those with whom we share physical space. However, if physically proximate space is the only sphere in which we think missiologically, we might leave much of our social world untouched and 'secular'. Missional thinking, if it is to recognize that 'the earth is the Lord's' and thereby all realms are candidates for redemption, must increasingly focus on faceless relationships as well as the face-to-face, on American Idol as well as the relationships in the home...

Technorati Tags: American Idol, Chris Sligh, everyday life, Social Space

Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin

Kester Brewin is one of the sharpest thinkers on the emerging scene. For years, his community, Vaux, created worship spaces that engaged forbidden cultural and theological themes. His upcoming book, due out in July, Signs of Emergence: A Vision for Church That Is Always Organic/Networked/Decentralized/Bottom-Up/Communal/Flexible/Always Evolving, continues in this pattern and doesn’t disappoint. Brewin combines psychology, urban theory, and complexity theory with biblical reflection on church and leadership. The result? Brewin produces a fresh look at the contemporary scene with an innovative approach to leadership in the church.

Technorati Tags: book review, Emerging_Church, Kester Brewin, complexity theory

Ghandi and Mission

I just read Jonny Baker's post last week on Ghandi's mission advice to Christians. Wow. Live more like Jesus, do not tone down your faith, make love central, look for the good in other faiths so that you might be more sympathetic. What a challenge! We could plan a whole curriculum around that advice!

Jonny goes on to write about E. Stanley Jones and his advice to the Indians - Make Christ your own -- read the gospels afresh -- do not take on our Western forms. We expect you to add to our understanding of Christ by what you put together to follow him. This moves away from a modern perspective of mission, one that states that a particular cultural expression of Christianity is most valid for the rest of the world (usually developed in 16th century Northern Europe) and moves to a missional (and non-modern) model: each distinct people, when following Christ within their cultural forms and developed theologies, adds to the collective understanding of God and brings about the celebratory worship that culminates in Rev. 5:9.

In an interesting aside, Jonny closes with conversations between a Hindu and a Christian about trading holy books -- Christians read the Bible, where the NT teaches peace, yet they advocate war, and HIndus read the Bhagavad Gita, a book that gives reasons for war, and yet they are generally peaceful.

A really challenging set of writings -- thanks Jonny!!

In one of my classes at Fuller, we talk about a good deal about post-colonialism and mission.

Technorati Tags: culture, Hindu, mission

Reimagining Church

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of co-teaching Doctor of Ministry class with Doug Pagitt at Fuller Seminary (I'm taking the picture, Doug is in the center). It was a 40-hour one-week course (!) with a late evening thrown in (you have to have a movie night, right?). We had eight pastors for the week and really covered lots of ground together. The great thing about such a small class is you get the time to go on the rabbit-trails, tell all the (back) stories.

The content of the course revolved around three poles -- the kingdom of God, the church, and contemporary global culture. Although we taught separately about each of these topics, it seems every conversation included all three, each filled with personal anecdotes from Doug and I and the eight students. Each 'lecture' worked out as more of a roundtable discussion than anything else. Of course, Doug's stories were filled with references to Solomon's Porch, and mine to my emerging churches research.

Simply what needed to be re-imagined was the church's role in a changed world. Church, at its best, points to the reign of God. The current challenge for the church is to explore diverse global contexts (from within), look for where the kingdom is (and isn't), point to it, get behind it, and embody it as the body of Christ. Yes, continue to be a contrast people, but from a place very much within the culture, usually in unexpected ways...

Technorati Tags: Doug Pagitt, Fuller Theological Seminary, kingdom of God

Continuing Jesus' Mission into the World (Part Two)

Piggy-backing on my last post on Continuing Jesus' Mission into the World, I wanted to further describe the final project I gave to my students this quarter. Again, I wanted to be as concrete as possible, both in the description of the project and in their rootedness in the practices of Jesus. So, after studying the kingdom of God in the life of Jesus, we named those specific practices that Jesus performed as he was non-conformed within the culture.

Here is the list of Jesus' practices we worked from in class:

-- acts of liberation, healing activities, working for justice (econ, racial, gender), solidarity with those care for the poor, inclusion of the marginalized, redrawing social boundaries

-- communicating the good news of the kingdom, mediators of grace, forgiveness, mercy, telling stories of another reality

-- acts of hospitality, generosity, joy

-- love of enemies, no enemy but Satan, peacemaking

-- egalitarian community, egalitarian, non-coercive leadership, voice for all

-- announcing/denouncing, engaging, seeking

Soooo, given these activities of Jesus, what does it mean to continue Jesus' work in the world? Here is the students assignment:

1) Describe a context (be it a church system, a neighborhood, a refugee camp, Starbucks) in terms of kingdom language (above). Give examples, what is like the kingdom, and what is not…Describe where you see the kingdom and where you see the opposite -- is there freedom or oppression, a voice for the marginalized, or is the system itself marginalizing? Look for the kingdom but note where you see the opposite.

2) Describe what kingdom mission might look like in your context. Dream what the kingdom would look like in this context. What  does liberation look like here -- where everyone gets a place at the table? Remember there is no sacred/secular split, so the church system is just as much a candidate for redemption as the Fortune 500 corporation.

3) What does the community of believers need to do to foster kingdom expressions in the context? Given the context, given some of your dreams, what must be fostered to move in that direction? Remember, the means to the given end must be consistent with the kingdom -- no coercive leadership, everyone given a voice, dialogue, etc.

I see this as one possible step forward in moving a given social system, be it a relationship, a network, an organization, a neighborhood towards the reign of God. This week I'll be reading 74 students' efforts in moving in that direction. What I have read so far has excited me and keeps me going as a teacher
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Here is another post on the topic...

Technorati Tags: Fuller Theological Seminary, Jesus, kingdom of God, mission

Continuing Jesus' Mission into the World

"It is the decision to carry on the mission of Jesus’ kingdom that remains the basis of the church" says John Fuellenbach in Church: Community for the Kingdom. In my Church and Mission class this last quarter, we discussed this idea -- continuing the work of Jesus as the primary task of 'church'. We talked about Jesus' central message, the proclamation of the kingdom of God. We talked about how the church finds its true identity when it continues this proclamation, both in their corporate life and in the story they tell about God. We talked about how the kingdom is not an abstract concept -- Jesus' proclamation created a space that included the outcasts and the sinners and invited them into community. It gave voice to the voiceless, the enemy a seat at the table.

I asked my very big class (74 students!), what would it look like if our sole mission strategy was to  continue Jesus' ministry? And what if it had to stay pretty concrete, staying pretty close to the actual things Jesus did in community with his disciples? What if that was the stuff we had to get right, the central stuff, and that the other stuff, while important, was peripheral? In our jobs at Starbucks, or in our neighborhood groups, or in our church systems, what if hospitality, including the marginalized, overflowing generosity, giving voice to those without, were the essentials? Could these sorts of communal practices point to God and change the world?

In our class, we replaced the church rubric (how many are in or out?) with kingdom rubrics -- how are our practices, anywhere, like the kingdom (or not)? Are our activities that we participate in moving in that direction? How might we foster, through our conversations, positive moves towards the kingdom at Starbucks, in our neighborhoods, and in our church systems? It was an engaging conversation that lasted all quarter -- both in small groups and in our large discussions. They are questions I hope they will continue to ask the rest of their lives. 

Here is Part II

Here is another post on this topic...

Technorati Tags: Fuller Theological Seminary, Jesus, kingdom of God, mission