Occasio

FPU Ministry Forum with Ray Bakke

I’m blogging from the annual Ministry Forum at Fresno Pacific University today. Our keynote speaker is Ray Bakke, a pastor, teacher, and professor of urban theology. Ray is the chancellor of the Bakke Graduate University. Our theme for the forum is “One Church, One City.” Ray is a brilliant theologian with provocative and relevant thoughts for the urban church. Rather than editorialize, I thought I’d just share a cluster of ideas he’s been sharing today. These are loose paraphrases of his comments.

In 1800 2%, 1900 8%, 2000 50% of the planet lives in cities
Cities are growing by 100,000 per day; ½ by birth, ½ by relocation

Ray’s most shocking experience was to watch churches flee the cities in the 60s. Those who sang “red and yellow, black and white” bought into “white flight.”

Christians fled L.A. and Chicago and met in Colorado Springs

Evangelicals think they can’t survive in the cities because there’s a belief that gardens are good and cities are evil; there is an exodus theology in play

In the bible: 1250 texts regarding the city, 141 individual cities mentioned. Ez 16: cities are families (this is the part of focusing on the family that Dobson has left out). Biblical idea of family - hooked to geography and history.

Paul’s use of contextualization in the city:
Philippi - Lydia and women in an upper class city lead the church
Athens - quoted Greeks at Mars Hill
Corinth - he made tents, the crossroads the marketplace/commerce (urban and rural)
Ephesus - went to synagogue to dialogue (Socratic method)
Paul adjusts his message, methods and meaning places to meet people where they where
A theology as big as the city includes all of these

Luther and Calvin had a marketplace theology
Common Grace: taking care of schools, hospitals, public sector
Saving Grace: in the churches paid for by tithes
Tax money or tithe money - it’s all God’s
Why have Christians removed themselves from Common Grace theology? (This comes largely through American revivalism and personal piety movements)

God is bringing the nations to the city neighborhoods
The Lord of history is bringing the nations to California - why is he doing this? what does this mean?
This is not the time to flee the city in favor of gated communities. We need common grace.

Four worlds people live in: biological, geographical, relational, recreational worlds
The task of the pastor is not to get 10% growth this year but to get congregants into their four worlds as missionaries
“Evangelism is scratching people where they itch in the name of Jesus”
“Church growth” is about getting a hundred people into four hundred worlds touching thousands of people
Church Growth strategies have typically encouraged a pastor to build a church in his/her own image and then attract others to it creating homogeneous cultures
“I had to decide if I wanted to be a come-structured pastor or a go-structured pastor”

Form the second century in Epistle to Diognetus: what the soul is to the body, the Christian is to the city

Jesus died in the city and the church was born in the city at Pentecost

Does any of this get you thinking about Christianity, ministry and the urban context? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

MLK Day

I'm not sure if anyone's noticed but I've been gone for awhile. I've mostly been recovering from hepatitis but also catching up at school, starting a new semester, working on my doctoral studies, playing my mandolin and, very importantly, spending time with my family.

I'm getting ready for another doctoral seminar at Fuller Theological Seminary beginning next week (watch for posts from Fuller) so I've been reading in preparation. A recent text I worked through is by one of the best theologians of our day, John Howard Yoder. In his book, For the Nations: essays evangelical and public, Yoder (not "Yoda" as my nine-year old assumed!) picks up his familiar themes of peace, reconciliation, servanthood and justice, but applies them directly to the church as it lives in tension with its American culture. He suggests that the church's role as an alternate community, faithfully living out a biblical witness as first presented in the Hebrews and then lived out and fulfilled in the person of Christ, has enormous implications for our contemporary situation. All of his essays are twenty to thirty years old but find new life in the twenty-first century.

One of the essays is relevant for this day, the day we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. In "The Power Equation, the Place of Jesus, and the Politics of King" Yoder points out King's ability to have the same kind of faith that the Hebrews would have understood. In the book of Hebrews we read that "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (11:1). It is this faith that led both our ancestors of the Old Testament and King to believe that suffering will bring about good, though that good might not be immediately evident. One of the critiques of the American Dream is that in its current manifestation it negates suffering and replaces it with a type of utilitarian power that is righteously wielded by those who somehow know right from wrong. This is not what King had in mind.

King understood that the suffering at hand was not entered into because it would foster the outcome he hoped for in his lifetime, but because it was the right thing to do. Pondering whether suffering is worthwhile even when the sufferer sees no signs of success, Yoder writes:

What is the validity of our cause when we are not winning? Does it change the affirmation of the human dignity of the adversary when (in the foreseeable future) the adversary will not be won over by our suffering love but keeps on unrepentantly oppressing? Does it reverse the pragmatic ethical commitment of the activist to truth telling, to breaking the law only in very exceptional circumstances, and to rigorous nonviolence, when those tactics achieve less?

Yoder notes that King often referred to the need for love, nonviolent resistance and suffering even when no particular fruit was immediately evident (which is why he continued to opt for "the power of suffering" instead of Malcolm X's "black power"). King:

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. (Nobel Peace Prize acceptance, December 1964)

The cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. To be a Christian one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tension-packed content and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering. (National Conference on Religion and Race in Chicago, January 1963)

Yoder continues commenting on this view of faith and suffering:

If the Lamb is worthy to receive power, then the only rational worldview, in a cosmos where we have no control, will be apocalyptic. ...The Lord's coming "to judge," i.e., to set things right, will be soon, but not right now. It does not bypass our ongoing struggle; yet the criterion guiding us in the struggle is not whether we win, not whether we can implement lesser-evil calculations to get there, but whether we keep the faith.

So, I would ask the church, "What does it mean to be a faithful people, or to keep the faith?" "Why do we oppose suffering, or at least put up with it only when we see the product of our suffering at hand?"  "When will we understand that repaying good for evil is not simply proverbial, but the way the Creator has designed the universe to work?" "When will the church become the presence and foretaste of God's kingdom with regard to suffering?" Or finally, "In an age of declining membership, might the church in America grow once again not through any growth strategy, but through suffering and sacrifice as all churches have under such circumstances?"

How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.
How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow.
How Long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. (King in Montgomery, March 1965)

We're not electing Jesus!

I’m stunned at how many Christians think they’re electing Jesus on November 4. I’m getting pretty tired of being phoned, emailed, spammed, FaceBooked and in other ways accosted by well-meaning believers who have completely come to find their identity in a political candidate or proposition.

There are at least two major issues that Christians are divided on this time around: the presidential election and, in California, Proposition 8. It’s times like these that bring out the most irrational thinking and the sloppiest hermeneutics. It’s time for a reality check: all campaigns lie, make unfounded accusations and spread disinformation. Depending on who you talk to, McCain and Obama can each be viewed as the Antichrist (no such character found in scripture by the way) or the Savior. And I love the way each side paints their candidate as “the” Christian in the race. In addition, one candidate is “guilty by association,” another for having too many addresses and another for dressing sharp.

Prop 8 raises a whole other set of issues. This is the attempt to modify the California constitution to define marriage as limited to one man and one woman. The “yes” folks warn we will get “gay education” if it’s not passed, and the “no” population learns to hate the church with a new vigor. “This” church invokes biblical authority, "that" church opens their arms with Christ’s love.

As I said above, I see two primary flaws in the way many Christians approach elections. First, there’s a sense of irrationality. Say goodbye to any kind of an intelligent conversation; pick a side and call the other whackos and lunatics. “Oh, they’re well-meaning,” we say, “they just don’t have any brains (AND they’re ruining the country!). A recent psych study at Cornell University verifies the human propensity toward an “unshakeable self-confidence in one’s decisions” and the myth of “the feeling of being right.” The problem with convictions, gut feelings, and hunches is that we rely exclusively on these intuitions at the expense of logical conversation. Hence, a debate is an opportunity to bolster what one already believes (cyclical reasoning) rather than a chance to expand ones understanding and knowledge.

"Feelings of absolute certainty and utter conviction are not rational deliberate conclusions; they are involuntary mental sensations generated by the brain. Like other powerful mental states such as love, anger and fear, they are extraordinarily difficult to dislodge through rational arguments. Just as it's nearly impossible to reason with someone who's enraged and combative, refuting or diminishing one's sense of certainty is extraordinarily difficult. Certainty is neither created by nor dispelled by reason.”

A second flaw in our approach to elections is that of prooftexting. Christians taking ANY position, be it on a presidential candidate or a proposition, can find support for their position in scripture. James Dobson does this. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright does as well. Cult leaders do it best.

Prooftexting is the practice of selecting verses out of scripture that support what one already believes, regardless of the context they were originally written for. A classic example: we often hear the verse, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst” and apply it to the topic of prayer.  If we read the whole chapter of Matthew 18 however, we don’t hear a word about prayer. The chapter is entirely about conflict and forgiveness. The implication: When two or three come together to reconcile and forgive, there am I in their midst. Go ahead, read it.

Because so many Christians are prone to irrationality and prooftexting, they vilify one candidate and praise another. Obama is a kills babies. McCain kills Iraqis. And there is very little ground in between for conversation. Families are divided, friendships are strained and congregations stand against one another, always in the “name of Jesus.”

Maybe that’s the gist of the problem – we keep claiming the name of Jesus in ways that are inappropriate. I’m lucky, my wife and I cancel two or three of each other’s votes on candidates and ballot propositions every election. We see issues differently; sometimes we agree, sometimes we don’t. That doesn’t make either one of us less Christian. Just because she voted different than me doesn’t mean she’s dumb or unholy. (Although I often remind her that I am smarter than her – after all, when we got married look what she got and look what I got!)

So let’s find our identity in Christ, not in politicians or political causes. If the Jews and Gentiles could do it, Dems and Reps might just have a chance.

In the end, we’re not electing Jesus. If we did, I’m sure he’d just get crucified.

   

The NFC pastoral staff at our Halloween carnival:

Loren "Biden" Dubberke, Terron "Obama" Nolan, James "McCain" Bergen, Krystal "Palin" Klaassen

Ancient Spiritual Practices

I wrote an article for our monthly Mennonite Brethren publication, Christian Leader, entitled "The New Old Spirituality." The result was a fair amount of critique and criticism and three months worth of letters-to-the-editor. My intent was to demonstrate how teens and young adults are vitalized by new forms of prayer, forms which have their roots in ancient practices. Here's a thrilling image: teens waiting in line to pray! Somehow that got lost amongst a discussion of what is orthodox or pagan. Prayer, it seems, is only to be practiced in certain approved fashions.

Here's what I've learned:

• There are many MBs who are anti-Catholic; my apologies to my Catholic friends, people who are deeply committed to following Christ and his teachings.
• There are many MBs who are afraid of anything new. Many complaints came from those saying that Menno (Simons) would never do this (whatever "this" practice might be). They point back to a standard that was set by Menno and must be maintained. Hmm, but didn't Menno himself start new practices? See http://rollovermenno.wordpress.com/ for more critique at this level from a group of folks who are self-proclaimed gatekeepers of Menno-traditions. [Update: I just discovered that this site is now password protected - not quite sure why.]
• There are many MBs who are afraid of anything old (or older than 1525). Prayer labyrinths, lectio divina,the Jesus Prayer - not acceptable, they're not found in the Bible. Hmm, tell me again what verse the organ is found in? (I do think I saw some cymbals and tambourines mentioned a number of times however.) How about a sanctuary, pews, the sermon, the baptistry, the professional pastor, etc.?
• Paranoia spreads quickly and anything a person disagrees with can be labeled heresy.
• We're becoming more Southern Baptist by the day; my apologies to my SBC friends, people who are deeply committed to following Christ and his teachings.

If you are interested in reading the article that started the controversy, here is is. Here's a teaser as well:

Imagine this scene. Teens silently form a line in a hallway, patiently waiting late into the night to enter a room in which they will experience an ancient spiritual discipline: contemplative prayer. When they emerge from the prayer room an hour later, many have tears in their eyes, smiles on their faces and peace in their hearts. They have just walked a prayer labyrinth, an interactive eleven-station experience in which the participants learn to practice the presence of Christ.  Scenes like this are happening again and again in churches, camps and conferences all over North America.

Interested in reading some of the letters-to-the-editor? Here are a few snippets and links for full texts.

"As MB congregations are moving further away from a historical connection with their Anabaptist heritage, they may be hindering their ability to present the gospel to a postmodern world." full text

"Why is the prayer labyrinth, an ancient pagan practice, entering into MB circles?" "We need to remember that Menno Simons wrote a renunciation of the Roman Catholic Church...." "These 'new old practices' you are advocating are dangerous and experiential of old forms of mysticism. It sounds no different than promoting Ophraism and her influences with new age gurus." full text

"All this makes me think that perhaps a practice's origins in pagan culture or its absence from biblical text isn't the guiding principle for whether we reject or accept it, but rather whether or not it reflects biblical truth and principles and either draws us to Jesus and each other or not." full text

Please leave a comment if you would like to add to the conversation. Here's a previous post I did on a prayer labyrinth.

Here's a picture of Menno. He really was an amazing and inspiring man of God. In this picture he appears as preacher and theologian.

Telling a story vs. joining a story

My friend Jeff Chandler is a graphic artist and works for an advertising agency. He sent me this great post from an advertising website. In a time when everything seems to be market driven (including the church), it's a refreshing look at entering into the lives of real people. As a church we need to think about the difference between "telling" a person's story and "joining" a person's story. From the post:

Telling:

• All about the storyteller
• One sided communication
• Story is potentially unwanted
• Story is, well...a story

Joining:

• All about ALL participants
• Two-way communication
• Story is living and evolving
• The story keeps going when you stop talking

If the church would stop "talking" and start "joining" in the stories of real people I don't think we would ever have to have another conversation about evangelism. Growth and evangelism are not goals (though that's what the contemporary church in a free market economy tends to make them), they are products of a healthy community of Christ-followers who are deeply aware of their own stories and how those stories intersect with God's story. We don't need to "bring" God anywhere, we need to "join" in what he is already doing.

Here's the full post.
 

No "them," there's only "us"

It was easy to lead worship this past weekend. Our congregation is working carefully through the book of Acts and Pastor James was preaching on chapter 15. In this text there are some Jewish believers who think that all of the Gentile believers must be circumcised to be part of the new movement called the church. It's a messy and confusing time of uncertainty and ambiguity. Christianity is in its infancy and the law of Moses is the only thing the Jewish Christians know. Should this be imposed upon the Gentile converts?

The elders gather in Jerusalem and listen at length to the counsel of Peter, Paul, Barnabas and others. In the end, the elders decide that circumcision should not be a requirement; it should not divide the two groups. They send a brief letter to the church in Antioch with the following instructions: "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."

It's odd that all kinds of things we would like to see in that list are not there: go to church, read your bible, pray every day, memorize the ten commandments, don't drink alcohol, don't watch R-rated movies, don't pierce or tattoo your body, don't... don't... don't.... The prescriptions the elders do make all relate to temple worship of non-Christian deities - they are already contextualizing the gospel. The greatest danger to the young believers would apparently be to syncretize their new faith with the gods of a pagan culture.

I wonder what requirements we impose on new believers in the name of biblicism? Are we sure we're not just justifying our "law of Moses?"

Again, it was easy to lead worship. The dominant message of the Acts 15 text is that of unity. Gentiles and Jews are brought together under the cross and through the creative power of the resurrection. A key moment in the text comes with verse 9. Peter declares to the council, "God made no distinction between us and them." This is a new humanity! (Eph 2:14-15) The result is not that all individual distinctiveness is removed, but that joy is found in what is held in common. God has replaced that which divides us with unity in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. As we prepared for communion we prayed, "There's no 'them,' only 'us'."

Of course I had this video in mind. It's a beautiful rendition of "One" complete with orchestration. Check for a couple of things as you view this U2 performance: watch the crowd at this opening ceremony for the 2003 Special Olympics, and "no 'them,' there's only 'us'."

Ancient Spiritual Practices for a 21st Century Church

Imagine this scene. Teens silently form a line in a hallway, patiently waiting late into the night to enter a room in which they will experience an ancient spiritual discipline: contemplative prayer. When they emerge from the prayer room an hour later, many have tears in their eyes, smiles on their faces and peace in their hearts. They have just walked a prayer labyrinth, an interactive eleven-station experience in which the participants learn to practice the presence of Christ.  Scenes like this are happening again and again in churches, camps and conferences all over North America.

So begins an article I recently wrote for the Christian Leader, the monthly publication of the U.S. Conference of the Mennonite Brethren Church. If you are interested in reading more about how ancient spiritual practices are being used in contemporary churches, you can find the article here. If you would like some resources for this topic, click here.

I also published a condensed version of this paper though Fresno Pacific University's Scholars Speak feature.

“Yahweh” and The Jesus Prayer

We had a great worship service yesterday. Our style is typically “contemporary” (I really don’t like that word but it seems to be one that most people understand, though often with misconceptions); I lead with acoustic guitar but try to be creative and incorporate all art forms, not just music.

So yesterday we continued our Lenten series with a twist – we went “unplugged.” We tried to get rid of the distractions that even a worship service can bring. No drums, no stage lights, no color washes, no images of any kind – just white text on a black screen. This is very hard for me because I’m so visually oriented. Our little worship combo included guitar, piano and violin and focused on quiet, reflective music and practices.

A highlight of the service was the incorporation of The Jesus Prayer. This prayer emerged around the sixth century from the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Prior to 313 A.D. the church was persecuted and Christians suffered for their faith. When Constantine legalized Christianity it became the faith of the Roman Empire. Almost overnight Christianity was ushered in as the official state religion. In response to the shallow faith experience that this shift brought, people began to relocate to the desert to discover again the power of suffering and self-denial in spiritual formation. Out of this movement came The Jesus Prayer.

While this prayer has had an evolution of form and practice, many people recognize it as a variation of the Kyrie. On Sunday we used the text, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” We not only used this at several different points in the service, but also practiced the prayer repetitively during communion. One way to recite the prayer is to pray it rhythmically while breathing: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God” on the inhale, “have mercy on me, a sinner” on the exhale. I am trying to spend ten minutes a day this week with this practice. While that will result in 100 or so repetitions, the Desert Fathers were known to repeat the prayer thousands of times a day. The goal is to let the prayer work its way into the very heart and soul of spiritual formation.

For the sermon, Pastor James has been working through a sequence of Lenten messages from the book, At The Cross: Meditations on People Who Were There, a series of devotions given on Good Fridays in St. Andrews, Scotland. This week we focused on Peter’s failure before the crucifixion of Christ. Our need for mercy, repentance and forgiveness is no less or no greater than Peter’s. We all know the desperation that comes from failing Christ.

We closed the service with an acoustic version of “Yahweh,” U2’s psalm/prayer/confession for dependence on our Creator. It’s a cry for renewal and transformation. We have used the song in worship before, but this time I introduced it as "Peter’s song." What would Peter have thought standing on the beach before Christ, after the denials and after the resurrection? Certainly he remembered that his feet had carried him far away from Christ, that his mouth had recanted and rejected his Lord, and that his hands had wanted to respond with sword and violence. As the sun rose the morning after a hard night of fishing, would Peter have understood the newness of the dawn after the pain of failure and denial? I think so.

Watch the live clip of this song from Chicago here.

Don’t forget to see U23D and make sure you stay for the credits – a beautiful live rendition of “Yahweh” with stunning and purposeful graphics.

Take these shoes, Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes, And make them fit
Take this shirt, Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt, And make it clean (clean)
Take this soul, Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul, And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh, Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh, Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Take these hands, Teach them what to carry
Take these hands, Don't make a fist (no)
Take this mouth, So quick to criticise
Take this mouth, Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh, Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh, Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Take this city, A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city, If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart, And make it break

God's Christmas graffiti

Merry Christmas! Last night I gave a meditation for North Fresno Church's Christmas Eve service. The inspiration for the short devotional came from a sermon by Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Christmas Day of 1999 in the National Cathedral (see The aWAKE Project). He noted that the birth of Jesus is like God's graffiti announcing, "I love you with a love that cannot change."

For most of us the Christmas story has lost its jarring sense of surprise. It no longer shocks us like it should; like graffiti scrawled across a freeway overpass, school building or sanctuary wall. If we forget about the cards, carols and dramatic presentations we're left with a very simple text full of odd twists and surprises.

If you are interested in reading an abbreviated version of my message click here (this is a piece I published through Fresno Pacific University's "Scholars Speak" forum). Here is an excerpt:

Where would God show up? I do not know, but there is one thing I am sure of: He wouldn’t be in the places or with the people I would expect. This is the danger of discrimination. Nazareth, Bethlehem, unwed mothers, stables, shepherds—all the stuff of first-century discrimination. I wonder, would God appear with the people I am most prejudiced against? Will He continue to come to the places I and others might find offensive?

Halloween at North Fresno Church

Last Wednesday night, Halloween, was one of those moments I stood back, looked at what was happening on our campus and thought once again, I can't believe what our church has become (or is becoming, or will become, or all of the above). I don't say this out of arrogance, but rather out of amazement for what the spirit of Acts 2:42-47 is doing in our midst. The colors of the evening were wonderful. Not the colors of the costumes - I'm talking about the colors of skin.

Our church has it's messes, hypocrisies and conflicts like every other church, but I hope and pray that God can continue to make us a community that crosses social, economic and ethnic boundaries. It's the "one, but not the same" of 1 Corinthians 12. It seems we can really only be God's people (at least in our neighborhood) if we do this. People are coming to God! I'm coming to God!

Here's a short video of the evening. Thanks to Nickel Creek for "The Smoothie Song."

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