kingdom grace

Hamo’s latest post stirred up my thoughts again about how we view ministry. I always appreciate his humility and transparency.  His description of his former role as “minister” in comparison to the relational way that he and his wife now minister reminded me of the series of 5 or 6 posts we did here awhile back, starting with the post What Is Ministry?

Bob’s post this week of a letter concerning women in leadership has been like a small burr under my saddle. I typed and deleted a few comments on the post and eventually gave up. According to the letter, the women are serving within the church in relational areas of ministry. However, the men in power are wringing their hands over whether these women should be “restricted from participating in the highest level of leadership.”

“Faithful to scripture”, “honor the work of the Spirit”, blah, blah, blah.

Yes, it looks like a gender issue. But in a way, it is so much more. Our church structures often produce really stupid ways of relating to one another and totally twisted ideas about what ministry is.

I was not expecting extensive discussions about social, cultural, and political issues from the book Ain’t Too Proud to Beg. During this political season, I was intrigued by the author’s ideas about patriotism, politics, and christian identity.

Although the country is split ideologically between liberals and conservatives, he says, “both of these cultures are essentially patriotic,” and, “both sides see political activism as the measure of social and individual identity - including religious identity.”

Partisan politics’ ability to drive a sword right through the Church shows the power it has overs us. The campaigns are telling us that politics is what matters in America and America is what matters in politics.

For the election to matter, we have to believe our lives, finances, civil liberties, and national pride are insecure and ultimately depend on this candidate.

Voting out of our own fears or our own dreams does what Jesus refused to do. It puts our own agenda ahead of the Father’s. We must resist the reflex in politics to become our own saviors.

Politicians try to use the word “hope,” but they can’t bring hope in the Christian sense at all.

However, the author is not encouraging withdrawal or inactivity, but rather reminding us to not lose our focus.

Christian power is not cultural power, cultural powerlessness, nor countercultural power. It is eschcatological power.

Eschatological power comes from above the world of principalities and powers. It is not defined in terms of anything but the God whose purpose is accomplished through it. It is neither worldly nor otherworldly, but eternal.

I find ideas about the nature of evil interesting, particularly the social dyanmics that factor into the ways that groups of people think and behave. Ain’t Too Proud to Beg includes this quote about how we are socially influenced.

“We’re all motivated, and I certainly include myself here, far more than we want to admit, by group expectations.” - Tom Wolfe

The book also deals with some of M. Scott Peck’s ideas about evil and group behavior.

Evil is a quintessential form of scapegoating, using power to destroy the spiritual growth of others for the purpose of defending and preserving the integrity of a sick self.

Peck extends his account of evil beyond the personal level to the group, which he regards as an analogous organism whose status as a group depends on unity and cohesiveness. Because groups tend to distribute their collective conscience among their members, evil manifests itself as

• moral fragmentation
• the narcissism and false consciousness of group pride
• regression to childlike dependence on authority
• construction of others as enemies
• and intolerance for group self-criticism

In other words, community gone bad.

Brother Maynard has written some about the Lucifer Effect which also describes how group dynamics play into corporate expressions of evil.

I am not going to have much time to write this week, so I thought that I would post a few of my favorite quotes from Ain’t Too Proud to Beg. The first quote is from a section of the book discussing various approaches to life and mission.

“Truly rare is the church or denomination that forgoes traditional priorities and makes mission its cultural, political, or even financial ordering principle.”

This reminds me of statements by others that church is very rarely formed around missional purposes. I wrote about this previously in When Is A Church A Missional Community?

The thought is similar, although perhaps not quite as radical, to this quote from Shane Claiborne’s book, Jesus for President.

Church father Ignatius said that if our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry, then we are guilty of heresy- and a new reformation is long overdue. Some of us who were pretty discontent with how the church was embezzling money belonging to the poor to build buildings and pay staff began to dream again what it would look like to reimagine tithes and offerings, which God intended to be instruments of a redistributive economy… and we came up with the something beautiful and small- the relational tithe.

(ht Out of Ur)

This book by Telford Work is subtitled “Living through the Lord’s Prayer.” As the subtitle suggests, it is a book about the Lord’s Prayer. I found it to be a completely unexpected approach to the Lord’s Prayer.

It was not formulaic, providing simplistic applications for this familiar prayer. Rather the book shows how our views and perspectives can be continually shaped and formed by the kingdom lens of this prayer. Using examples of social, political, global issues of our times, the author explains how our views are shaped by our own cultural stories and demonstrates how Jesus’ words give these same issues a kingdom context.

Following the outline of the prayer, I will attempt to share a few thoughts. Keep in mind that these few sentences can in no way capture the depth of ideas covered in each chapter, but hopefully they will give you a taste of the vast extent to which the author looks at the prayer’s impact and influence.

Our Father in Heaven

Jesus prays this prayer with us, declaring God is our Father and demonstrating that His incarnation has achieved the fatherhood of God over all His children, making us heirs, insiders, members of His family.

Let Your Name Be Held Holy

Wonderful thoughts in this chapter about holiness, describing it as a relationship based upon the love and faithfulness of God and His gift of bridging the distance in the relationship. Holiness is not a degree of relative purity, but rather the distinction of a people with whom the Son shares His holiness.

Your Kingdom Come

This was probably my favorite chapter. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us to look at life from a kingdom perspective. “The Lord’s Prayer makes the fundamental question not how Christians should be involved in the world, but how Christians should be involved in the kingdom.” The chapter is an incredible description of the nature of the kingdom, the reality of the reign of God, and the defining character of new creation. Christ, who put His entire trust in the fulfillment of God’s purposes, is our pattern. Likewise, we go into the world focused with “apostolic patience” to announce the kingdom has already arrived.

Your Will Be Done On Earth as It Is in Heaven

This was a really challenging chapter about how the church engages with the world to accomplish God’s redemptive purposes. “The will of the Father is none other than the Holy Spirit.” When we pray for the Father’s will to be done on earth, the answer is not just spiritual gifts or fruit, but the Holy Spirit himself. Jesus has realized the Father’s will in both heaven and earth. He empowers us to be fellow reconcilers by His indwelling Spirit.

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

This chapter contained a lot of interesting thoughts about money, wealth, and the economy. It is about provision and sustenance. Jesus calls this our daily bread, “what we need now to see us through to the very end.” God reframes wealth and provision according to our relationship as heirs in His kingdom. “The greatest blessing that an heir can receive is…the benefactor’s authority and virtue.”

Forgive Us…As We Forgive

In the world, our relationships are organized according to power and status. The kingdom reorders our relationships through forgiveness and reconciliation. Rather than two separate statements, these must be viewed as parts of a whole. We reconcile our relationships through the forgiveness that has been granted to us. As we pass along the Father’s grace, we become co-redeemers in extending the kingdom.

Do Not Lead Us into Temptation, Rather Deliver Us from the Evil One

Opening the chapter with a discussion about evil, the author explains how this statement of the prayer is to prepare us for the evil we will inevitably encounter as the kingdom of God confronts darkness. With Jesus as the prophetic pattern of endurance through trial followed by deliverance, we also have the promise of deliverance even as we are prepared for the possibility of enduring trouble.

Throughout the book, the author demonstrates the Lord’s Prayer as a process wherein we acclimate ourselves to God’s agenda. It joins and fuses the purposes of heaven and earth. The prayer is not a rote practice, but rather a dynamic expression that we live through, that shapes and transforms us, and that we then express in our lives.

Ron shared this quote from Eugene Peterson…

“The way of Jesus is always local and ordinary.”

and added these wise thoughts…

Missional does not have to be spectacular. It is simple. There has not been a day in my life where I have not had a chance to be missional. If I have the eyes to see, and the ears to hear…the opportunities are aways before me, and around me. The challenge is to take that little mustard seed of faith, and plant it missionally in my everyday living.

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

This week’s thoughts and links are admittedly random. I probably should have titled them “random linkage” or something like that.

Judging Guinness

I ordered my first guinness last night.

Are you waiting expectantly to know what I thought of it?

Well, I’ll tell you…

Yo dawg, check it out. It was alright, it was just alright for me.

But it looked really beautiful, just beautiful. Stunningly dark and topped with a lovely inch of foam, it just seemed really special and unique.

Here’s the deal: it was beer. Not particularly inspiring, maybe even forgettable, probably the kind of beer you would find on a cruise ship.

But I would have another.

Post of the week…

It has already been linked almost everywhere, but if you happen to live under a rock and missed this post of Cindy’s, be sure to read it.

Also widely linked was Jonathan’s post, Top 50 Possible Reasons Why You’re Not Emergent. Maybe I am emergent. What’s next, black eyeglasses?

I enjoyed this video interview of Paul Young, author of The Shack. (ht Sarah and Jeff)

Mr. Grace doesn’t know much about Mark Driscoll, but he watched the video clip I posted this week. His comment about the clip,

“Does he always wear the pretty little necklace?”

Rose Madrid Swetman took the discussion about Mark Driscoll’s comments to a whole new level. Rose became a hero of mine last year with her open letter to Mark in the midst of the controversy concerning his public statements about pastors’ wives.

If you’re looking for some interesting reading, I would suggest the posts from Glenn’s synchroblog dealing with issues of church transition:

• Aaron Monts: Why I Stayed
• Alan Knox: A Revolutionary? Who? Me?
• Barb: My Response
• Erin Word: Are We There Yet, Papa Smurf?
• Jane: Onward Christian Soldier
• Jason Ellis: Why I Ended Up A Free Charismatic Southern Bapti-Methodist Nondenominational Christian Sitting In A House Church On Sunday Mornings
• Jeff Greathouse: So, You Want To Change
• Jeff McQuilken: The Great Shift–and My Unwitting Part In It
• Jeromy Johnson: A Safe Place To Experiment
• Jim Lehmer: There Is No Spoon
• Jonathan Brink: Re-Emerging Church
• Kathy Escobar: Surviving Spiritual Vertigo
• Rainer: A Revolutionary?
• Sarah: My Story of Following Him Out

The IRS and IRA’s

Remember April 15 is almost here. You might want to ask Michael Lee to help you with your return.

I had to choose some funds for our IRA’s yesterday. This year it was just a matter of trying to find which fund sucked the least.

More for American Idol fans…

I was disappointed to see Michael Johns leave this week. I didn’t really expect for him to win, but he certainly wasn’t the worst of the remaining contestants.

Lots of discussion this week about “Shout to the Lord” on American Idol. I tend to be embarrassed about how we as christians react or over-react when “christian” things occur in mainstream media.

Last, but not least, here is a picture of Jason Castro without dreads.

A Brilliant Homeschooling Moment

My daughters are in the midst of writing term papers. One of them is writing about slavery and abolition.

This daughter explaining the underground railroad to her dad:

“Well, like it wasn’t really underground…

and it wasn’t really a railroad.”

Vanity…

My girls primped for an hour before going in for driver’s license pictures!

Or not…

My son tolerated me combing his hair before going to the studio to have his senior pictures taken.

(clip is 7 minutes, ht Emergent Village)

It was no surprise to me that my opinion and views about The Shack are polar opposite to Mark’s. To begin with, The Shack is not a work of doctrine or theology, it is fiction. However, to be fair, there are issues of doctrine and theology addressed as themes, conversations, and metaphors in the book.

The trinity is a major theme of the book. Mark’s view has no tolerance for God the Father represented as a female, and he believes that to represent Him as a fictional character is making a graven image. Also, Mark’s doctrine strongly opposes a non-hierarchical understanding of the trinity.

According to him, those who accept the picture of God - Father, Son, and Spirit - described in the book The Shack are undiscerning and embracing a heretical doctrine.

I agree with Mark’s conclusion that the book addresses the biggest question there is, “Who is God?”

Does the popularity of this book reflect a resonance among readers with an understanding of God as He really is, or is it the mindless embrace of a gullible public embracing a heretical view of God?

What do you think of Mark’s objections?

I thought that some of you missional mavericks would appreciate this quote from Floyd McClung’s new book, You See Bones, I See An Army: Changing The Way We Do Church:

Hierarchical leaders focus on control, order and nostalgia. Apostolic leadership yearns for the ‘not yet’. Dreaming, faith, imagination, risk taking, pioneering and future goals characterize apostolic leadership. Administration, bureaucracy, reminiscence and impersonal systems and structures characterize hierarchical leadership. Apostolic leaders encourage holy dissatisfaction, risk taking, questioning and experimenting.

Paul was an apostle, and as such, functioned as a visionary leader. He held to independent views and refused to conform to the religious structures of his day. He was a maverick. We need to make space for apostolic mavericks like Paul in the church today. It is the visionary mavericks that play a vital role in questioning the status quo. They propose mind-blowing alternatives to how things have always been done. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch make this profound statement about the role of biblical mavericks: “In a real sense, a true biblical maverick acts in a prophetic manner by exposing the lies that the dominant group tells itself in order to sustain its shared illusions…”

(ht Bill Lollar, thanks Bill)