Missional Activity (according to Larry Crabb)

I want to share a few thoughts that Larry Crabb presented at the School of Spiritual Direction this past week.

It deals with the idea of what it means to be missional. Yes, of course, I’ve been a fan of the emerging church and what it means to be missional, but there always seems to be something missing.

I think Scot McKnight’s comment about postmodernism and its relationship to the emerging church in the April 2009 issue of the UK Magazine Christianity,

We found that it tasted good, even if at times we found ourselves spitting out hard chunks of nonsense.

I can concur with that sentiment. However, Larry Crabb gave a short overview of what he thinks it means to be missional, which I would like to reproduce here.

Disclaimer: Any cloudiness or murkiness engendered by this article is my fault and not Larry Crabb’s.

Larry suggested that often we approach the missional activity like this:

Idea:

This is based on our Passion, message, vision, and Strategy.

What do we do? We dialogue, organize, and initiate. And we end up with:

• Package the message
• Get a plan
• Create a team
• Pray

The result? We make it happen!

This is linear, systems thinking at its best.

Larry Crabb suggests another path: Reflect, repent, and release.

Again we start with an Idea:

1. We begin by reflecting as asking the questions: What is my ruling passion? What is God’s passion? What other passions do we see?

2. We look at Relationships. The questions we ask may include:

• What is my lifestyle?
• Am I weary or tired?
• Can I say “no”?
• Am I appreciative of others?
• What kind of feedback am I getting?
• What is my history?
• Do I have self awareness of this idea?

3. This leads to Repentance.

• Where’s the fire?
• Is there a spirit of rest?
• Do I have the courage to say no?
• Is it attractive to others (especially to those closest to me)?

4. This leads to a Release to Ministry. This leads to:

• Prayer
• Discerning a commitment
• What has God provided
• The message is developed
• There is a deliberate strategy

This is definitely not systems thinking. It is also not how we usually do ministry. Think about it, and work through it, and give me any feedback you may have.

Technorati Tags: Kingdom,organizatonal leadership,emerging,missional

 

 

50 Possible Reasons Why You’re Not Emergent

  Great Post.

Of course, this is humor, but it is still good stuff.

On another note, my thinking on emerging church is in flux.  I can see a lot of reasons why it isn't a good alternative to the usual modernist, mainstream vanilla flavor church we have today, but unfortunately it is often the best alternative that we have.

But once in a while there is some good thinking that is going, so I am not ready to jump ship.

For another, more serious take on the idea of missional, take a look here,

And for the big guns, I think this list from the Dream Awakener blog has the names of theologians to draw on for a dialectical conversation to help shape our Ecclesiology.

Finally, here is an interesting diagram, part of a missional synchroblog. There are other posts from other bloggers on the topic of being missional, scroll down.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: culture,emerging,kingdom,missional

Missionary Conquest

Just about the time you think it's safe to tell someone you are a follower of Christ. I found this game on a website advertising board games, card games, puzzles, and other useful paraphernalia.

The blurb by the company says:

Missionary Conquest

Don't miss this exciting game of laughter and strategy! Travel around the world as a missionary and learn to finance your trips with wise investments. Good decisions and risks are major factors in this wonderful game. No Bible knowledge is required to play, win or to enjoy this game.

I especially like where it says, "learn to finance your trips with wise investments." Of course, "no bible knowledge is required to play, win, or enjoy this game." Just like real life.

On another, more serious note, David Bosch wrote in Transforming Mission,

If the "missionary text" of Greek Patristic period was John 3:16, and that of medieval Catholicism Luke 14:23, then one may perhaps claim that Romans 1:16f is the "missionary text" of the Protestant theological paradigm in all its many forms.

My question is, what is the "missionary text " of the emerging/Postmodern era? I'm not sure what I'd say, but John 10:10 isn't too bad:

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Let me know what you think.

Why Architecture Matters

Chapel at Ronchamp, France

I borrowed this title from a couple of articles that I found at the Clapham Institute website, which you can find here and here.

I think the articles are worth a read for several reasons, since architecture reflects the same philosophical and intellectual processes that produce the literature, music, cinema, and the rest of our contemporary culture.

There is also the persistence of modernism with its philosophical underpinnings in architecture, which result in buildings that exhibit an extreme abstraction, that pander to the fetish of technology, marking humanity as alienated, and portray a utopian view of society that sees prior wisdom and tradition as something to be discarded or swept away.

A question posed in the articles is "how, specifically, does architecture fulfill the creation mandate?" The author, David Greusel, states that Genesis gives us the mandate to cultivate and subdue the earth. He says that...

our cultivation of the earth includes not just planting, tending and harvesting crops, but also the creation of our shelter, our garments, and our various arts and sciences. So architecture, the design of space for human habitation, certainly fits this broad range of activities mandated by God.

Greusel says that God is a designer, and design is important to him. God placed Bezalel, a skilled craftsman in wood, metal and precious stones, in charge of the making of the tabernacle, and that he also taught other workers, and Oholiab to assist Bezalel in the design and construction of the tabernacle, its furniture and furnishings. This was after he filled them with his Spirit. To quote Greusel, "So God is not only concerned with our structures, and wit their specific details, but he has given the Holy Spirit to men to create artistic designs." As a result we need to pay attention to how architecture impacts and affects the way people live.

How do designers reflect God as a designer? "The work of the French architect Le Corbusier gives us a case in point. For example, the photo to the right is Le Corbusier's plan for Paris. The Île-de-la-Cité is in the lower right. Notice that the place where Nôtre-Dame sits is empty in his model. Le Corbusier wanted to demolish Nôtre-Dame.

In fact, Le Corbusier wanted to tear down all of Paris and replace it with his Bauhaus-School architecture. He was able to convince the French government to use his designs for public housing in Marseilles. This "stacked ice cube tray" design became the model France used for public housing in the suburbs. What was the impact of this architecture?

Along with torched cars and Molotov cocktails, France's grim housing projects have come to symbolize the discontent that erupted in recent riots across depressed, mostly immigrant neighborhoods (CBS News).

On a more spiritual note, Le Corbusier was asked to rebuild a chapel in the mountain village of Ronchamp, France (see photo above). Charles Downey writes that...

Le Corbusier, a staunch atheist, at first had refused to accept the commission to rebuild the chapel, destroyed during World War II. But a visit to the site and the promise of total artistic freedom in designing the building ultimately convinced him... It was controversial, since a petition against Le Corbusier's chapel went all the way to the Vatican. The work began four years later, with the architect hoping to calm the polemical battle.

In a region with a fairly traditional mindset, Le Corbusier's chapel was received rather poorly. But the residents of Ronchamp today understand that they have a treasure high up on their hill," says Stéphane Potelle, a historian specializing in Le Corbusier, whom he calls "an agnostic architect who was steeped in spirituality.

The key phrase here, of course, is that he was "steeped in spirituality." How does this relate to the issue of God as designer, or how one reflects the idea of God as designer in their work? Is the spirituality of the designer or architect the issue, or is the spirituality that the building design elicits from visitors the point of all this?

Does God give his spirit to men to create artistic designs? Is anything that is done as art have a spiritual quality? Is it assumed that they are done in God's name? Greusel also points out that architects honor God and imitate him by bringing order to their designs. Are we to assume that anything creative is spiritual, reflecting the glory of God? Or is it more that the creative process reflects the divine mandate to create, subdue, and cultivate the earth? Bezalel and Oholiab aside, I don't know too many architects who would own up to this, or theologians for that matter.

Greusel is right, most acts of architecture are substantial public acts, and they impact shared environments as well as the lives of thousands of people. We shape our buildings, but they shape us as well. How do we infuse a witness into our creativity without making it a Sunday morning worship service? There are many cathedrals and churches in Europe built with this thought in mind, and today most sit empty (including Sunday morning) except when the tours march by.

Read Greusel's articles and think about them. It's a good take on the role of architecture, but for me, how do we address this task? How does architecture have a biblical witness?

Postmodernism: What do we know and when do we know we don't know?

This is part of an email conversation I've been having with my friend Nate. He asks some very penetrating questions that keep me on my toes, theologically and philosophically, but he is acutely aware of the issues involved in the whole post-modern environment and the story of the emerging church.

I'm including it in this blog because I think the correspondence is an interesting topic.

Howard:

I've been reading over that round of essays between Merold Westphal and Douglas Groothius to try and get a better understanding of the opposing views (www.christiancadre.org/topics/postmodern.html). Here's what I'm grappling with: At the root, the debate between the two is epistemological. How do we know anything? And Westphal, if I'm reading him correctly, says we can only "know" our Christian truth by faith (perhaps I'm phrasing this carelessly).
Groothius says:
"..if Christian apologetics does its job, one may believe with justification absolute theological truths, such as 'Jesus is the Son of God.'"

I want to be charitable to Mr. Groothius point of view here, but it seems rather ridiculous to me to assert that we believe doctrines because of the scaffolding of logical syllogisms holding them up.

Rather, I hear Westphal saying that the basis of our certainty is the Word, which makes no attempt to justify His Authority. I'm reminded of Moses' question, asking the burning bush to identify itself. And the response he got was, "I am that I am." As a kid, it always seemed to me that that was a cop-out answer, but now I realize that God does not need to (indeed, cannot)
identify himself contingent with any other thing.

Humbling.

So where does that leave us? I'm fully able to comprehend the folly of Enlightianity, whoops, I mean modern epistemological structures, but how should we then live? I understand now that I stand on the Rock and nothing else (not even propositions), but how do I resist that becoming a private piety that does not affect my surroundings?

Nate

Nate:

Let me throw some thoughts at you. I want to use as my text the phrase:
Groothius says:
"..if Christian apologetics does its job, one may believe with justification absolute theological truths, such as 'Jesus is the Son of God.'"

Of course, he is saying nothing more here than we can make a propositional statement and believe them. I'm reminded of Barth and his dislike of apologetics (which is, ultimately, epistemological). Barth had a pretty low opinion of apologetics, as seen in this quote:
"Anxiety concerning the victory of the Gospel—that is, Christian Apologetics--is meaningless, because the Gospel is the victory by which the world is overcome. ... It [the Gospel] does not require representatives with a sense of responsibility, for it is as responsible for those who proclaim it as it is for those to whom it is proclaimed. It is the advocate of both. ... God does not need us."

Part of the quote speaks to the purpose of "evangelical apologetics," i.e., why do we do it?
Simply to win a debate and have someone make a decision to follow Christ? No need for revelation, eh? We can figure it out on our own.

Second, it also points to their view of scripture, which again Barth also takes to task: " "Holy Scripture as such is not the revelation. And yet Holy Scripture is the revelation, if and as far as Jesus Christ speaks to us through the witness of His prophets and apostles. Holy Scripture is a token of revelation... But there has never yet been a faith in the revelation which has passed by this token, a faith which was not rather awakened, nourished and controlled precisely through the instrumentality of this token."

As a writer has pointed out, by this paradox Barth maintains that the text of scripture cannot be equated/identified with revelation (since revelation is the person of God in Christ), but its witness to Christ can be used by Christ to reveal himself. The Bible finds its authority because of its content, because it is a witness to God in Christ who gives it such authority (I really like this!).

What Mr. Groothuis fails to reckon with is two issues. Again borrowing from Barth's thought: "His (Barth's)theological account of rationality called into question the legitimacy of any

(1) general view of rationality that does not take seriously the sinful perspectives of our knowing,

(2) account of knowing that imagines God as an ‘object’ perceivable through human striving."

What this means is that Groothuis assumes that apologetics "gets it right" and therefore we can trust these objective truths as much as we can scripture, and second, we can somehow share this "truth" with others and they will get it without the help of divine revelation or the presence of the HS. Since God is not an ‘object’ in the way other things are, God cannot be known in the same way as other objects.

And as someone else has pointed out, "how secure is a faith that is based on any kind of intellectual argument?"

I like what Cardinal Avery Dulles says: "Faith, therefore, is not a simple achievement of reason. It is the work of reason submitting to the word of God, which comes by way of revelation. God, as the infinite source of all that is or can be, lies immeasurably beyond all that we can infer from the created order.

His inner essence and intentions are known only to Himself unless He chooses to reveal them. For our sakes He has revealed something of Himself and His saving plans so that we may love and serve Him better.

God’s great and unsurpassable revelation of Himself is His Son, His eternal Word, who has become flesh in Jesus Christ. The Christian clings to that living and incarnate Word, in whom salvation is to be found."

Too often we claim to demonstrate by cogent arguments not only the credibility but the truth of Christian revelation. Barth, on the other hand, judged that apologetics by its very nature leads to compromise with unbelief. Apologists, he charged, seeking to make the gospel credible, marched onto the field carrying a white flag, and ended by surrendering essentials of the faith.

And we haven't got to postmodernism yet...

And now, just to muddy the waters even more, a lot of what passes as epistemology is actually metaphysics. For Heidegger, metaphysics is about existence, and when we move outside of existence, we tend to atomize existence into spirit, truth, being, matter, power, will, substance, subject and so on, thus we lose the truth of the thing and what existence is all about.

But to even do this assumes that there is a place in the world where we can stand (absolute truth?) in order to step out beyond this. What happens intellectually that we are at the edge of a cliff, so we stick a board out over the edge and anchor the other end into the ground. Then we tack another board on the end of that and move a little further forward, and do the same thing again (this is what is usually referred to as foundationalism).

So hopefully you can see the problem. It's one thing to stand on solid ground in one place and say something, but does that make our entire metaphysical journey as valid? Not only Heidegger, but Nietzsche (where Heidegger learned his metaphysics), Husserl, Levinas, Derrida, Foucault and most other Pomo philosophers battled this and tried to find a way around it. This metaphysics was Kant and Hume and Descartes at their best.

So, to put is simply, most metaphysics is saying that I have a ground or place to stand to say these things, and they are true. Heidegger (et al) said, oh, really?

So the battle is not only epistemological, but ontological and metaphysical as well, but you won't find Groothuis working in those categories.

Your comment about Moses' question to the bush is right on target, and intuitively hits at the heart of the issue. I doubt anyone else from your group could get what you mean, so be prepared to get clobbered.

Finally, your question below asks:

“I understand now that I stand on the Rock and nothing else (not even propositions), but how do I resist that becoming a private piety that does not affect my surroundings? “

I again refer you to N.T. Wright and his work, especially the big three volumes I mentioned in my last email. I've been there and I've been through the wilderness, and made my way back (I think I see some suburbs in the distance...), but it is a journey ultimately you will have to work out for yourself.

However, you don't need to walk it alone, you just need to find community and some good books by Brian McLaren, Don Miller (blue like Jazz), and Eric Sandras (Buck naked faith). You may like this quote from a blog of his:

Transitions

1:58 PM PST, February 28, 2006
“A couple weeks ago I was invited to speak at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Of course, having failed my geography classes miserably in high school, I didn’t realize that visiting Duluth in mid February can be a frightfully chilling experience.

Being a window seat kinda guy, my view of my descent to Duluth positioned me right next to the landing wheels of our turbo propped United Express plane. As the snow covered tarmac approached I suddenly felt a bit uneasy. Staring at the tires, I realized that they where noticeably absent of any snow tread or even those cool little spiking things that half of Port Angeles puts on their tires at the first sign of snow.

So I’m thinking, “Traction is important on vehicles trying to stop on the snow. My 4-Runner has great snow tires and still slides sometimes. This plane is a lot heavier and moving a lot faster than my 4-Runner. Geez, where are those Les Schwab tire guys when I need ‘em?...”

Of course, the freakiest part of landing an airplane is that transition point. You know, that place when you haven’t quite landed, but aren’t really in the air? Or when you are taking off—you can feel the lift, but the plane is still on the ground. I stared at my bald tire friends out the window and realized that, during this transition time, my life was in their hands. I realized that there wasn’t a thing I could do to make that plane land safely. I couldn’t press done in my seat harder to make the plane heavier. I couldn’t flap my arms really, really fast in order to keep it aloft. Nope.

All I could do is have faith. Faith in those tires… faith in that plane… and most importantly faith in the pilot. The fact that you are reading this column is evidence enough that I made it through that snowy transition and landed safely.

Still the whole experience got me thinking about transitions in our lives. They seem to be some of the most awkward and nerve-racking experiences we as human have to endure. We like the status quo. We like things predictable and tidy. But life is not that gracious. It demands flexibility and change. Our kids grow up, our parent’s grow old, and our bellies grow wide. We move to different houses, different cities, and even into different lifestyles. Transitions occur in our lives at varying degrees and speeds. So the key to success is not avoiding awkward transitions, but learning how to handle them. Let me offer three things to keep in mind to help you land safely on the other side of change.

Focus: Keep in mind that every transition has a beginning, middle, and an end. Knowing where you are in the process and where you desire to be when it is over can help you make healthy and life giving decisions in the midst of it. This is especially important when transition surprises us. Without focus, the death of a loved one or a unexpected career change can cause us to make poor decisions that actually compound the problem instead of navigating it.

Friends: I see too many people in transition pull away and isolate themselves from others. Likewise the awkwardness of not knowing what to do, causes many of us to avoid those we know who are in transition. My advice, regardless of what side of the coin you are on—walk in the opposite spirit. Where your natural inclination may be to run and hide, or avoid and deny,
turn to pursue and love. Friends are gifts from above that add stability and sanity to our lives.

Faith: If I’m flying the plane myself, then the weight of success or failure depends on me. If I’ve entrusted my life to someone who knows it better than I even know myself, then faith dictates that I trust.

Jesus said that he was the Master of Life. By that very statement, I believe he means that he knows a lot about life. Not just church or offerings, but life. He knows a lot about marriage and parenting, about careers and callings, about love and loss, and a lot about the present and future. To let him be the master of my life means I get to be his apprentice and learn from him how to live this life—and live it abundantly.

So may your Faith, Friends, and Focus help you land safely through the next transition in your life. And if you happen to be on an airplane sometime in the future and see some guy flapping his arms trying to keep the plane in the air, just come remind me to listen to my own advice and trust the pilot. “

This will probably bounce because of the length or bandwidth, but hopefully I've made some sense.

howard