"Community has little to do with mutual compatibility. Similarities in educational background, psychological make-up, or social status can bring us together, but they can never be the basis for community. Community is grounded in God, who calls us together, and not in the attractiveness of people to each other. There are many groups that have been formed to protect their own interests, to defend their own status, or to promote their own causes, but none of these is a Christian community. Instead of breaking through the walls of fear and creating new space for God, they close themselves to real or imaginary intruders. The mystery of community is precisely that it embraces all people, whatever their individual differences may be, and allows them to live together as brothers and sisters of Christ and sons and daughters of his heavenly Father."
Making All Things New, 1981
AMEN! The world is watching!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Prayer for Global Transformation
Our Lord is the Lord of all.
In goodness and in evil, the Lord reigns.
In peace and in war, the Lord reigns.
In health and in illness, the Lord reigns.
In the simple and in the inexplicable,
our Lord is the Lord who reigns.
The complexities of the world are endless; the complexities of our own lives are ceaseless. We are called to live as a people who not only speak of what is, but of what is to come - the full transformation of all of life. We profess our hopes, desires, and beliefs not as people who are certain of the means of this transformation, but as those who long for it.
We profess that God wants goodness for the world and that God works for the salvation of the earth and all who are in it. We know that creation is not complete, but that it is in the midst of re-creation. So we pray for our world to grow into the fullness that God desires for it. May God's kingdom come; may God's will be done. We live in the world; we join in its re-creation. We pray and live with the confidence that God will continue the good work that has been started.
Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill, "Body Prayer".
In goodness and in evil, the Lord reigns.
In peace and in war, the Lord reigns.
In health and in illness, the Lord reigns.
In the simple and in the inexplicable,
our Lord is the Lord who reigns.
The complexities of the world are endless; the complexities of our own lives are ceaseless. We are called to live as a people who not only speak of what is, but of what is to come - the full transformation of all of life. We profess our hopes, desires, and beliefs not as people who are certain of the means of this transformation, but as those who long for it.
We profess that God wants goodness for the world and that God works for the salvation of the earth and all who are in it. We know that creation is not complete, but that it is in the midst of re-creation. So we pray for our world to grow into the fullness that God desires for it. May God's kingdom come; may God's will be done. We live in the world; we join in its re-creation. We pray and live with the confidence that God will continue the good work that has been started.
Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill, "Body Prayer".
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Surprised by Hope!
Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright has consistently ministered to me through his thoughtful books and lectures about God, the Scriptures, and Christianity. My latest read is "Surprised by Hope", subtitled Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Toward the end, Chapter 13's third section is titled "Evangelism" and is worth quoting:
If we are engaging in the work of the new creation, in seeking to bring advance signs of God's eventual new world into being in the present, in justice and beauty and a million other ways (there is no space for more in this book, and justice and beauty themselves cry out, of course, for fuller treatment), then at the center of the picture stands the personal call of the gospel of Jesus to every child, woman, and man.
The word evangelism still sends shivers down the spines of many people. There are various reasons for this. Some people have been scared off by frightening or bullying harangues or tactless and offensive behavior or embarrassing and naive presentations of the gospel...
Much evangelism has, of course consisted of taking the traditional framework of a heaven-and-hell expectation and persuading people that it's time they consider the heaven option and grab it while they have the chance. What's stopping them getting there is sin; the solution is provided in Jesus Christ; all they have to do is to accept it! Millions of Christians today are Christians because they heard that message and responded to it. Am I therefore saying - since plainly I think that way of putting things is at best lopsided - that they have been deceived or mistaken?
No. God gloriously honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news. I do not suppose for a moment that my own way of preaching or talking to individuals about God is perfect and without flaws, and yet God (I believe) has graciously honored some at least of what I do. No doubt he would have been far more honored if I had done it better and more prayerfully. No doubt the flaws in my own preaching, and the different flaws in other presentations, will eventually show up in the Christian lives of those who come to faith as a result, and no doubt we all ought to polish up and improve what we do for the sake of our hearers and the honor of God. But, as every generation knows, it isn't the quality of the preaching that counts but the faithfulness of God...
But none of this is an excuse for not understanding what happens when we evangelize or not shaping the way we do it in accordance with the full biblical gospel. So let's start with the latter point and say clearly at once: the gospel, in the New Testament, is the good news that God (the world's creator) is at last becoming king and that Jesus, whom this God raised from the dead, is the world's true lord. There are a thousand different ways of saying this, depending on where the audience is starting from and what sort of occasion it is. (Compare the various speeches in Acts!) Some people will know who Jesus is, others will have only a hazy idea about him; some will hear the word God and think of an old man with a white beard while others will think of a sort of heavenly gas. Almost everyone will need help to understand what the message is about at some point or another.
The power of the gospel lies not in the offer of a new spirituality or religious experience, not in the threat of hellfire (certainly not in the threat of being "left behind"), which can be removed if only the hearer checks this box, says this prayer, raises a hand, or whatever, but in the powerful announcement that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil have been defeated, that God's new world has begun. This announcement, stated as a fact about the way the world is rather than as an appeal about the way you might like your life, your emotions, or your bank balance to be, is the foundation of everything else. Of course, once the gospel announcement is made, in whatever way, it means instantly that all people everywhere are gladly invited to come in, to join the party, to discover forgiveness for the past, an astonishing destiny in God's future, and a vocation in the present. And in that welcome and invitation, all the emotions can be, and one hopes will eventually be, fully engaged.
Ahhhhh, yes, that is good news indeed!
If we are engaging in the work of the new creation, in seeking to bring advance signs of God's eventual new world into being in the present, in justice and beauty and a million other ways (there is no space for more in this book, and justice and beauty themselves cry out, of course, for fuller treatment), then at the center of the picture stands the personal call of the gospel of Jesus to every child, woman, and man.
The word evangelism still sends shivers down the spines of many people. There are various reasons for this. Some people have been scared off by frightening or bullying harangues or tactless and offensive behavior or embarrassing and naive presentations of the gospel...
Much evangelism has, of course consisted of taking the traditional framework of a heaven-and-hell expectation and persuading people that it's time they consider the heaven option and grab it while they have the chance. What's stopping them getting there is sin; the solution is provided in Jesus Christ; all they have to do is to accept it! Millions of Christians today are Christians because they heard that message and responded to it. Am I therefore saying - since plainly I think that way of putting things is at best lopsided - that they have been deceived or mistaken?
No. God gloriously honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news. I do not suppose for a moment that my own way of preaching or talking to individuals about God is perfect and without flaws, and yet God (I believe) has graciously honored some at least of what I do. No doubt he would have been far more honored if I had done it better and more prayerfully. No doubt the flaws in my own preaching, and the different flaws in other presentations, will eventually show up in the Christian lives of those who come to faith as a result, and no doubt we all ought to polish up and improve what we do for the sake of our hearers and the honor of God. But, as every generation knows, it isn't the quality of the preaching that counts but the faithfulness of God...
But none of this is an excuse for not understanding what happens when we evangelize or not shaping the way we do it in accordance with the full biblical gospel. So let's start with the latter point and say clearly at once: the gospel, in the New Testament, is the good news that God (the world's creator) is at last becoming king and that Jesus, whom this God raised from the dead, is the world's true lord. There are a thousand different ways of saying this, depending on where the audience is starting from and what sort of occasion it is. (Compare the various speeches in Acts!) Some people will know who Jesus is, others will have only a hazy idea about him; some will hear the word God and think of an old man with a white beard while others will think of a sort of heavenly gas. Almost everyone will need help to understand what the message is about at some point or another.
The power of the gospel lies not in the offer of a new spirituality or religious experience, not in the threat of hellfire (certainly not in the threat of being "left behind"), which can be removed if only the hearer checks this box, says this prayer, raises a hand, or whatever, but in the powerful announcement that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil have been defeated, that God's new world has begun. This announcement, stated as a fact about the way the world is rather than as an appeal about the way you might like your life, your emotions, or your bank balance to be, is the foundation of everything else. Of course, once the gospel announcement is made, in whatever way, it means instantly that all people everywhere are gladly invited to come in, to join the party, to discover forgiveness for the past, an astonishing destiny in God's future, and a vocation in the present. And in that welcome and invitation, all the emotions can be, and one hopes will eventually be, fully engaged.
Ahhhhh, yes, that is good news indeed!
Monday, February 01, 2010
Recommended Reading List
Well, I know I've never done this before, but I'm going to recommend a page on the "Contending for the Faith" website. Its clear they don't intend it to be referenced in this way, but the list of books that are the subject of their 2010 Spring Lectures looks like a great list! I haven't read them all, but I have read most of them and I highly recommend all of those to anyone who has been feeling "stuck" or "bound" by the traditions within the American Restoration Movement churches, especially my "tribe", the Churches of Christ. To you, please take heart that there are others who have been wrestling with these "issues" for years and have written some very readable and well-documented books on the subjects which our tradition has turned into "issues". These authors expose how good we have been at answering questions that no one is asking and at driving away anyone who dared to actually read and think about the God of the Scriptures. This tradition of destructive criticism and isolationism is being continued by the folks involved in "Contending for the Faith", which is especially ironic since one of their core doctrines is a plea for simple New Testament Christianity. Their practice of ever-increasing exclusivity and drawing lines to maintain their self-identification of faithfulness is self-destructive, so its not worth being drawn into fighting or arguing about their "issues". But in the meantime, I'm happy to utilize their research and spread the word about their "Recommended Reading List"!
The world is watching!
The world is watching!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)