many introverted Christians struggle with how to find balance between their own natural tendencies and evangelical perspectives on community and evangelism. A subtle but insidious message can permeate these communities, a message that says God is most pleased with extroversion.
Joseph Bottom, editor of First Things, on the disappearance of Advent. Everything about our feverish pursuit of the "Christmas spirit" seems directly antagonistic to the essence of Advent, which is all about quiet waiting and contemplation. American Christmas is an Advent-killer. All of which corroborates my long-held cranky belief that Christmas-as-we-know-it is essentially evil.
Getting ready to head home after a week in Indiana. Hanging with the boys is always a pleasure. And now I'm thinking coming home will be also. As T. S. Eliot quotatiously said:
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
Well, I hope so anyway. How do you keep seeing the freshness of everyday things, everyday? But that is the problem, isn't it? That though we make such declarations, we find ourselves not doing what we said we'd do, routinely, and without noticing. We declare our will to do this or that (love more, eat less, pray without ceasing), even as we drift into patterns of neglect.
Eliot's words are often cited, and when you see it cited, it's exactly those four lines (as with this example from a quotation website), but the sentence actually begins at the line before, and the omission is significant.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
The "drawing of Love" is the dire need of all, at ever moment, if we are to be able to say with even partial honesty, "I will not cease from exploration."
I work in a new building which since its opening has been plagued by an intermittent odor. When the smell is with us, we quickly become inured to it. Olfactory fatigue, they call it. You have to go outside, take a deep breath or two, then come back in again in order to smell the odor all over again.
So then there's the question: how do I leave home, go away, even now, in this moment, every moment, in order to see the moment fresh, as if for the first time. Frederick Buechner wrote:
“Strange things happen. Again and again Christ is present not where, as priests, you would be apt to look for him but precisely where you wouldn’t have thought to look for him in a thousand years. The great preacher, the sunset, the Mozart Requiem can leave you cold, but the child in the doorway, the rain on the roof, the half-remembered dream, can speak of him and for him with an eloquence that turns your knees to water.”
I think sensory fatigue is a huge problem. When it settles in, it becomes the deep-seated ennui or boredom that requires new stimulation always. Which, for some reason, reminds me of this:
We are all so "stimulated," and yet all so dissatisfied. So much of home-life becomes the warding off of boredom. Christmas itself has been debased because it is now only a tool to serve our addictions. Joseph Bottom, at First Things, writes:
Still, the disappearance of Advent seems especially disturbing—for it's injured even the secular Christmas season: opening a hole, from Thanksgiving on, that can be filled only with fiercer, madder, and wilder attempts to anticipate Christmas.
More Christmas trees. More Christmas lights. More tinsel, more tassels, more glitter, more glee—until the glut of candies and carols, ornaments and trimmings, has left almost nothing for Christmas Day. For much of America, Christmas itself arrives nearly as an afterthought: not the fulfillment, but only the end, of the long Yule season that has burned without stop since the stores began their Christmas sales.
The American economy rests on this staving off of boredom, this sustaining of a noisy pleasure-seeking in sheer dread of the familiar.
So perhaps this post is really about Advent: a time to re-focus, a time to see anew what has always been in our own backyard.
But I've really got to stop. If you need more stimulation, go read Dan Edelen's related thoughts here.
I got up early and strolled about in downtown Lafayette, IN, this morning. Had breakfast at the Sunrise Diner. Took a look-see at the Long Center, which opened in 1921 as the Mars Theater and featured vaudeville acts like the Ed Wynn Carnival (featuring a "Wynn-some, Wynn-ing chorus line of beauties").
I love walking around cities, looking at the distinctive architecture, making note of the local restaurants and brew pubs, and of course the local library.
Also, I went to see my old house. I lived here 48 years ago.
The current resident, Wes, showed me around, even let me come inside. He'd painted giant martini glasses on the wall with dolphins leaping out of them. He did it for his wife, who loves dolphins. Like just about every Hoosier I've ever met, he was extraordinarily friendly.
While here in Hoosier-land, I also visited some family graveplots (in Columbus, IN). My Dad's:
And my grandparents':
I never knew my grandfather, Orval Pittman. He worked at the Cummins Engine plant, My mom says he used to sit on the back porch and play old mountain songs on his harmonica. A true hillbilly (I say it with pride).
While in Columbus, we also visited a landmark ice cream parlor called Zaharako's. A beautiful place. If you're ever in Columbus, don't miss it.
I've been hanging out with my fam in Indiana this week. Specifically, this last day or two, in Lafayette, where I lived for a few years, moving away at the age of 5. Being the church-geek that I am, I'm always curious about the local church scene. The Indianapolis area seems to be chock full of prosperous-looking mega-churches (or churches that aspire to be mega) situated strategically between sprawling shopping plazas and chain restaurants, and looking right at home there.
Notice the loaded language? Truth is, I've prejudged all these churches. It's totally unfair of me, I know, and I've no right to speak so condescendingly about places that after all I know only "edificially." Nevertheless, I'd probably never be tempted to visit one of these churches. If I ever moved to this area, I'd look around for a street-level church in the city, one that rents space in a school or a warehouse or meets in a home, and one that isn't all shiny and gleaming and house-proud.
No high-def screens, state-of-the-art sound, or state-of-the-art anything for that matter. But that's just me. I'm prejudiced.
Sitting in the Zionsville, Indiana, Starbucks on a Sunday morning. Saw a great performance of Hedda Gabler at Purdue yesterday (costumes by Jessica Pribble, who is dear to me), then went out for a tasty grilled Salmon for dinner.
I'm in the land of "In God We Trust" and Colts logos on the license plates. Prosperous looking dress-up/drive-to churches scattered between the strip-malls. Dallas Clark and Ron Artist live here, according to Wikipedia. Today I'm going to Columbus (to visit some old family grave cites), also stopping at Gnaw Bone to visit a flea market and maybe buy some wine. Yup, Gnaw Bone.
Jonathan Dodson on marriage. This is good. Jonathan discusses the idolatry of marriage and idolatry in marriage (with the help of some Radiohead lyrics). Here's a snip, just to get you started:
But you see, marriage is not the problem; it is our idolatry of marriage, our idolatry in marriage, sexual pleasure, personal rights, or relational intimacy. Unfortunately, our views of marriage and relationships have been conditioned by the brokenness of our own stories. But God in Christ offers us grace. He does not love us based on performance. He does not demand that we perform perfectly to obtain his love and acceptance. Instead, he performs perfectly for us, in life and in death and in resurrection, offering us true and ultimate joy and intimacy, from which we can freely love and respect our spouses. You see, when we let go of the idols of sex and intimacy, of husband and wife, we are free to love and respect one another.
If you're married, or thinking about getting married, or know someone who is, you should read the whole thing.
Speaking of Jonathan, he's done a triad of posts at The Resurgence called How NOT to be a Missional Church. He's going to follow up with a series of positive suggestions, so stayed tuned. As for the three "how NOT to" examples, they are, Event-Driven, Evangelism-Driven, and Social Action-Driven. I've seen all three of them up close and personal.
BTW, about Michael Spencer, to whom I often send my readers. I love the dude. I assume we're related. He's cranky and truthy. He's one of those people who's always poking needles into our party-baloons, shouting, "Fly, you fools! The deluge even now breaketh upon us!"
Well, not exactly. But I said he was truthy, and truthy people tend to point out our illusions with disconcerting frequency (the pursuit of truth begins that way, it seems). All of which is prelude to his post about our delusional understanding of the Gospel. Part 1 of two. The first points out the problem (negative), the second will emphasize the "how to" of Gospel-centric preaching (do you seen a pattern emerging?).
BTW, just a note to say, if Michael Spencer is my blogging Gandalf, Jared Wilson is my Legolas. Me, I'm the grumpy dwarf.
I consider myself a newcomer to the "missional" movement. A lot of what these folks are saying resonates strongly with me, and I recognize in the missional take a kind of positive response to the critique of the church that I'd been refining (some would say "mired in") for some time.
Anyway, although I know that for the missional crowd it's not about "going to church," I recently switched churches and now go to one that clearly wants to embody the missional outlook. Is it all just talk? Is it really just a superficial "new thing" that will soon be forgotten? I'm guessing not.
The missional understanding begins with the perception that Christendom, always a house of cards, is crashing down around us. And it's a good thing (never move into a house of cards). That's what Michael Spencer means when he talks about "the post-Evangelical wilderness." That's what I'm referring to in my tag-line above. But the tag-line pictures a dream, not a reality. Not much "dancing" going on 'round here, I'm afraid.
If you'd like to know more about these mysterious matters, Brad Briscoe has put together a nice reading list of formative readings in the missional conversation here. I'm a student by nature, so this jazzes me.
I think the future of this blog, if it has one, is as a diary of my missional journey. I'm going on a much-needed vacation in a couple of days and won't be blogging much I suspect, but I'm going to be thinking a lot about these things, and will report back soon as I can.
BTW, the Internet Monk nugget of the day, describing his audience of fellow-wilderness-travelers:
We are tribes, hermits, monastics, liberals, conservatives, traditionalists, emergers, contemplatives, prophets, lamenters, artists, solo players and plodders. Most of us have found a place to live out this wilderness experience and we go to work every day doing something for Jesus.
When I talk to people about the decline of Gospel-centrality in the church, I often get a surprised response. I've come to believe that there are people out there who define "the Gospel" so loosely that almost any "positive message" fits. But no one has ever said better just what the loss of Gospel-centrality looks like in the church than Ray Ortlund, Jr. Thanks to Jared Wilson for providing us with this deadly accurate quotation from Ortlund's book, A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans:
Imagine the evangelical church without the gospel. I know this makes no sense, for evangelicals are defined by the evangel. But try to imagine it for just a moment. What might our evangelicalism, without the evangel, look like? We would have to replace the centrality of the gospel with something else, naturally. So what might take the place of the gospel in our sermons and books and cassette tapes and Sunday school classes and home Bible studies and, above all, in our hearts?
A number of things, conceivably. An introspective absorption with recovery from past emotional traumas, for example. Or a passionate devotion to the pro-life cause. Or a confident manipulation of modern managerial techniques. Or a drive toward church growth and “success.” Or a deep concern for the institution of the family. Or a fascination with the more unusual gifts of the Spirit. Or a clever appeal to consumerism by offering a sort of cost-free Christianity Lite. Or a sympathetic, empathetic, thickly-honeyed cultivation of interpersonal relationships. Or a determination to take America back to its Christian roots through political power. Or a warm affirmation of self-esteem. The evangelical movement, stripped of the gospel, might fix upon any or several of such concerns to define itself and derive energy for its mission. In other words, evangelicals could marginalize or even lose the gospel and still potter on their way, perhaps even oblivious to their loss.
Like I said, deadly accurate. But this is just a snip. Read the whole passage.
So I've been transitioning out of the Vineyard church for some time. A couple of years of attendance but with declining engagement (a phenomenon I have struggled with) has led to this. Long conversations and sometimes annoying snarkiness (on my part) have been a part of the process.
I have no desire to complain about my old church, but some sort of tipping point was reached earlier this year, and since then I've been quietly waiting for some guidance from God about finding a new place to worship in community on Sunday mornings. I've not been "church shopping," but I have been looking, wondering, waiting. Waiting for something that "feels right."
So now it looks like we're attending a local "missional" church planted by the Acts29 Network. It's much closer, it's much smaller, and it's much simpler. They meet in the cafeteria of an inner-city school. They're committed to the city. They read from the ESV! The grace of God in Christ is their theme.
It's funny how this transition has simply happened. At no point have I tried to convince anyone (my wife, or the other couple that often comes to church with us) that we should make this change, but we have drifted like a gaggle of ducklings in this same direction at roughly the same time. And now find ourselves waddling ashore at the same spot.
Heh. I love goofy metaphors.
So, anyway, here I am . . . here we are . . . in a new church and all of us kind of delighted. Thank you, God. Rock on.
I'm listening to Michael Frost's definitive talk on what it means to be "missional." If you've got about an hour:
I especially like the discussion about the way "missio dei" relates to the way we see the world (starting about 34 mintues in). Also, the quotation from Willa Cather at the end. Warning: this message is tight; nothing of it should be left out. If you don't have an hour to spare, wait until you do. It'll make you think, wonder, question, maybe even repent.
I got a call the other day from someone who had read my blogpost on church membership. This fellow was from just up the road, and he seemed to feel the same way as me and was obviously struggling with the issue of finding "a New Testament church" in our area.
Anyway, it felt kind of strange to have to tell him that I was still attending the same church that I'd written about in that post. I've been biding time there, that's all. But there's this couple that we bring to church often, and they've been as baffled by the changes going on there as we have. This week they asked if we could go to Missio Dei instead.
I'm really glad they did.
Oh, we'd been there a few times, and I liked it (I'll tell you why in a moment) but my wife wasn't so sure.
At the end of yesterday's service, all four of us felt pretty darn sure.
Speaking for myself, it felt good to sing worship songs that were not about a mythic me loving God with all my heart forever and ever because I've totally surrendered, etc. Instead, the lyrics described the human condition realistically, and therefore emphasized our need for God, because our hearts are an undependable wreckage; God is the one of whom to use terms like "forever" and "totally." Ourselves, definitely not. And it's no small point. From faulty premises are derived faulty conclusions.
The message (on Genesis 13) started from the same understanding of the human situation. The preacher preached the Gospel, hard. I'm telling you, it was clear that he was tracking toward Jesus right from the start. The human predicament, self-will leading us to mess things up again and again, but the grace of God in Christ being bigger than all my sin. The Gospel!
After church we took a walk, the four of us, and talked about it all. We had all, each one of us, been shaken. It was good.
So I dunno, maybe this is going to be our church now.
