A Review of Jesus Manifesto, by Viola and Sweet

Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet are on a mission. The title of their now book, Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ, describes that mission perfectly.

Jesus Manifesto seems to have been written in a white heat. Taking its place in a string of recent books that have attempted to reorient the church back to Jesus (Michael Horton's Christless Christianity, Jared Wilson's Your Jesus is Too Safe and Frost and Hirsch's ReJesus, for example), the authors argue that the church suffers from "Jesus Deficit Disorder." The prescribed treatment, then, is a "fresh Christology." Their mission here is to re-introduce Jesus to the church.

What I love about this book is the sense of excitement the author's bring. Despite the prominence of words like "sovereignty" and " Christology," this is not a theological textbook for seminarians. It seems to have been written in a white heat. Sweet and Viola would startle us back to wakefulness, shaking us from our slumber, shouting, "Look, look, you're missing it! Jesus!"

In an early chapter, they argue that Jesus is the "occupation" not only of the Old and New Testaments, but also the creation itself. To know Jesus, then, is to get understanding. "Never forget," they say, "there is much more to Christ than we have ever imagined."

The greatest work of Jesus' friends (remember his words in John 15, "I no longer call you servants, I call you friends"?) is to cultivate an appetite, a hunger, in God's people for the Lord Jesus. The world awaits those who can present such a rich gospel that it leaves people spellbound, filled with awe, and desperate to know their inimitable Lord.

Sweet and Viola are attempting, with Jesus Manifesto, to cultivate that hunger in their readers. Their chapter entitled, "If God Wrote Your Biography," is quite wonderful. Their chapter on the church, entitled "A House of Figs," is also hunger-producing. That's where you'll find this little nugget of truth:

[Jesus] is more significant than any ministry, no matter how good or noble. It is possible to worship the the god of "ministry" in place of Christ.

The great strength of this book is the sense of excitement about Jesus that streams through its pages. It steers clear of many of the various raging debates in the Christian gabfest and instead simply rings the Jesus bell over and over. I hesitate to criticize any aspect of such a necessary project, but I will say that a minor problem here is the sheer repetitiveness that such a bell-ringing entails. The book is filled with perorations on the wonder and grandeur of Jesus, like an excited conversationalist who is so in love with his main point that he makes it over and over again.

Nevertheless, each time it inspires, and each time I'm tempted to climb to the rooftop and read their words through a megaphone. Here's just one example from near the close of the book:

Today we stand at the edge of a new frontier--one of exploration, not fortification. One of discovery, not contentment. In this new frontier we will navigate the uncharted waters of Jesus Christ, our all-sufficient Lord. there is so much more of Christ to sail than we could ever imagine.

Viola is known for his books on "organic church" (he blogs at Reimagining Church), and Jesus Manifesto might well have been intended as a simple primer on Christology for the organic church movement (although obviously intended for a much wider audience than that). Much of what they have to say here is founded on the idea that believers have Christ living his life in and through them. I personally believe this is a truth that needs greater focus even than this book brings. And Viola and Sweet may be just the authors to write that book.

[Disclaimer: I received a "reader's copy" of this book in return for which I agreed to review it here at Wilderness Fandango.]

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For more information, here's the book's website: JesusManifesto.com

And here's the official "blurb":

Thomas Nelson has just released the new book Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola and it is presently discounted under $9 from Amazon.com. You can learn more by going to www.theJesusManifesto.com. Endorsements by Rowan Williams, Matt Chandler, Calvin Miller, Ed Young, Jack Hayford, Shane Claiborne, Ed Stetzer, Reggie McNeal, Mark Batterson, Gregory Boyd, David Fitch, Steve Brown, Dan Kimball, Margaret Feinberg, Mark Chironna, Francis Frangipane, Todd Hunter, Alan Hirsch, Chris Seay, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Anne Jackson, Craig Keener, Ken Ulmer, Tommy Barnett, Sally Morgenthaler, and others.

And the Amazon page. Note, the book is selling for only $8.24 right now.

Kingdom-Oriented Relationships 3

Jesus taught us to love one another, but he also taught us to go and make disciples. I think that, with the best of intentions, we often choose the former and disregard the latter, as if the two were essentially at odds.

In our churches, we make discipleship a matter of theological study, increasing in our knowledge of church doctrine, and in time perhaps moving into a leadership role. Churches being human institutions, sometimes this process produces leaders who do not love, while the loving ones, choosing not to climb the leadership ladder, go about their lives in quiet and blessed anonymity.

Because I'm not a part of any church fellowship right now, I'm thinking about how to apply Christ's imperative, "go and make disciples," out here in the world beyond the church parking lot. But it's always helpful to define your terms. In the Christian context, a disciple is a follower of Jesus. To "make disciples," then, is to guide people toward Jesus.

Dallas Willard has laid out the problematic nature of discipleship in Evangelicalism in his great article for the Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology (found online here).

Willard's article is very helpful, and you should read it all, but the essence of New Testament discipleship, as Willard sees it, is "being with Jesus, and learning to be like him." Here's more from Willard:

Now this practice of discipleship in the communities of Christ followers—being with Christ learning to be like him, in part by being with those who are further along on that same path—is what lends realism and hope to the glowing pictures of his people that stand out from the pages of the New Testament. Such passages as Matthew chapters 5-7, John chapters 14-17, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 13, Ephesians chapters 4-5, and Colossians 3 readily come to mind. These are not just passages stating required behaviors, as laws might do—"Turn the other cheek" and so forth—not a new and sterner legalism. Rather, as expressing what lies "beyond the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees" (Matt. 5:20), they are indications of what life becomes for those who are devoted disciples of Jesus Christ within the fellowship of disciples and under the administration of the Word and of the Holy Spirit. A life of this quality is the "output" of disciples of Jesus who make disciples wherever they go, gather them in Trinitarian reality, and teach them in such a way that they come to do all that Jesus told us to do out of transformed personalities. What is now generally regarded as "normal Christianity" drops away with the "cleaning of the inside of the cup" (Matt. 23:25-26). Discipleship is the status or position within which spiritual (trans)formation occurs.

I'll have more to say concerning all this, but simply note for now that, given Willard's NT references above, you will understand that love is not something that happens apart from discipleship and disciple-making, but a fruit that is produced by our "being with and learning to be like Jesus."

The life of a disciple is this "drawing near" to Jesus (in the Word, in prayer, in fellowship with other followers of Jesus), learning from him, and then application of that which we've learned. This application happens in contexts that are anything but private, inward, or strictly "spiritual," but intensely relational. This application, this "walking out," looks a lot like love.

Saturday Book Notes

Rodney Stark on the Crusades. His book is called God's Battalions: the Case for the Crusades.

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Randy Alcorn loves the feel, the smell, of old books. Me too.

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To Kill a Mockingbird turns 50.

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Here's one I'd like to read: Last Call: the Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent.


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And here's one I'm reading now: The Pacific, by Hugh Ambrose.

Coffeehouse Ponderings

I'm sitting in a local coffeehouse this morning, just like all the other do-nothing bloggers! ;-)

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The Blind Beggar has noticed a decline in the missional conversation among bloggers. Now that he mentions it, yeah. BB says it's so even with himself, since he's been "focused on 'doing the stuff' instead of thinking and writing about it."

Yes, there is a way that "thinking and writing" keeps us from doing. We have to watch that.

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Also, well, hey, maybe it's not a conversation that really needs to go on forever. It has exerted a corrective influence on the church (in my opinion), but what lies beyond the correction? I've kind of focused my own blogroll on "missional" bloggers. This term, "missional," is not essentially about how to do church, but about application of the great commission to all aspects of life. At least that's my understanding. And I even think God is guiding me very gently in this regard.

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I often wonder about broadening the content of this blog to include more of my other interests. Cultural commentary, sports, classic films, bluegrass and Americana music, etc. Maybe a summary tagline like, "Faith, Books, Music, etc." I dunno. What do you think?

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Speaking of music, it was Levon Helm's 70th birthday yesterday. Levon, who came to fame as a part of the seminal roots-rock band called The Band. He's one of my musical heroes. It's a day late, but happy birthday, Levon!





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I love music that shows its roots. I like musicians who are aware and inspired by their musical forebears. I'd go to a dozen bluegrass festivals every summer if I only could. The first time I ever heard bluegrass music was back in high school, the seminal bluegrass collection put out by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Unbroken. It's still one of my favorites. Especially for the presence of Mother Maybelle Carter.

Latest Bluegrass Discovery

I love discovering new bluegrass bands. Latest discovery: The Farewell Drifters.

Check this out

HT: Blog One Another

Kingdom-Oriented Relationships 2

In a recent post (Kingdom Oriented-Relationships) I tried to focus on the relational Kingdom-oriented community of believers that isn't essentially church-shaped. I wrote:

So the question is, out here beyond the church foyer doors, out between the stop signs of life, how do we train our relationships toward the Kingdom, toward a Kingdom orientation and Kingdom authenticity? The hope is that, out of the ground of ordinary "life together" relationships real Kingdom oriented, Jesus-shaped communion can happen.

In the wake of that post, I went to see an old friend who is dying. She called on the phone to tell me she didn't have much time, and she wanted to see me. I hadn't known she was even sick. My wife and I went to her house and found her frail and as "worn out" as I have ever seen anyone look. Her husband told us her immune system had been destroyed by radiation treatments for cancer.

She and I and many others had been a part of a tragic and frightening church conflict in a small Lutheran church back in the 90s. She was the victim of a campaign of pastoral slander, an evil that still makes me angry to this day. I'm not going to get into the details, but it was an experience that taught me to be extremely suspicious about authoritarian church leadership, and also of the amusing concept of "denominational oversight."

Anyway, in that church, it being a good liturgical Lutheran church, we "took communion" every week. But here's the thing: there was no communion! None. Not if you understand communion to be oneness in Christ. This failure, in my opinion, is what Paul was referring to when he said,

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself (1 Corinthians 11:29 ESV).

Anyone, in other words, whose communion is mere religious box-checking and not a real participation with others in the unity of faith (while living, in fact, in disunity and denial of the oneness of the Body) is essentially despising that unity in favor of an empty ritual practice, which you have elevated above the reality of body of Christ oneness. You are just eating and drinking (communing) your way to judgement.

And recall what Paul wrote to the church at Philippi:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. . . . (Philippians 2:1-5 ESV)

Now just imagine a church that has, instead of heeding Paul, heeded the devil's counter-argument to Philippians 2:1-5. How would the devil ask a congregation to "complete his joy"? Do everything from rivalry and conceit. Let the same mind be in you that was in Judas, in Pontius Pilate, in the super-righteous Pharisees, even in Herod. And above all, think of your pastor as more significant than everyone else, no matter what evil he does. That's a portrait of what happened in that "church family."

My point is not to rehash church horror stories, but that visit to my dying friend has stirred up these thoughts and memories. I am more committed than ever to walking out faith in relationship, though I'm not always sure what that actually means. But here's a guess. When you come together with your believing friend, whether to have a beer, play bocce, watch a movie, or pray, do it in the name of Jesus, and have confidence that therefore Jesus will be there with you. You're going to church! That's what I mean by kingdom-oriented relationships.

Clearly, kingdom-oriented relationships are not necessarily more common in the church than in the wilderness beyond the church doors. In fact, the "much ado" that is church-life can be a convenient religious cover for our willful isolation from one another. So the task I've set for myself is to see relationships--all kinds of relationships--as the place where we walk out our faith. And in tandem with that the recognition that we do not always walk it out in our relationships, but simply pay lip service to it in our blogs, etc.?

Spencer on Spencer

Nate Spencer seems to be channeling Michael Spencer. It's all good, and it's important, because it's another voice asking the hard questions of evangelical "papers in order" Christianity. Which means, among other things, asking them of ourselves. Here are a couple of meaty snips:

Church-shaped spirituality, at least for those not familiar with Michael's work, is not easily identified because most of it is coming from places where the proper boxes are checked, and there's enough fruit of some sort for people to be able to believe that God's blessing is there. There's enough commitment to the basics to keep it from being easily repudiated. Yet it's distracted, self-medicating, pseudo-spirituality, and no one should be ashamed to say so.

And:

This is not about writing off entire churches, people as individuals, or movements. It's about repudiating lies. Exposing terrible priorities and not worrying about it too much if the stupid thing crumbles as a result. As shiny as it was, that doesn't mean God wanted it there. It's about calling functional heresy what it is, even when there's a visible affirmation of orthodoxy. (I don't think Michael ever used the term "functional heresy" to describe churchianity, but I just did.) It's about refusing to let superficial results dictate what's valuable to us.

And what Nate says about Michael Spencer is funny and true (and I think Michael would have had a chuckle over it: "Calling the baby ugly is one thing Michael did well."

[Disclaimer: Nate is kin, but Michael, as far as I know, was not.]

A Messy, Unruly Kingdom

"Make disciples, not organizations..."

Here are a couple of tips from Neil Cole concerning "organic church":

1. Make disciples, not organizations, and let Jesus build the church out of changed lives. A disciple is one who follows Christ and learns at his feet. Allow them to learn to follow Jesus. They will make mistakes along the way, but that is how we all learn. Protecting people from mistakes is to keep them from learning.

2. Lower the bar on how church is done and raise the bar on what it means to be a disciple. Look to invest in what’s proven rather than in potential. As people are faithful with small obedience present them with the opportunity for more. Start slower and smaller and let the growth generate by reproducing new life, rather than trying to grow something too quickly through attraction.

There's more from Neil at Out of Ur, Part 1 and Part 2.

Kingdom-Oriented Relationships

It has become commonplace for people to say that Christianity is a relationship (as opposed to a religion). And yet their are elements running through our very nature that tend to undermine relationship, or at least render them continually problematic. If it's true that relationships are the fundamental building-blocks of community, and yet we have this anti-relational side that likes to routinize relationships or simply use them for our own purposes and then discard them, then community is always, it seems, in danger from within.

Another way of saying that is, I am a danger to my friends, and my friends are a danger to me. This is what makes community difficult, and fleeting, as the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and countless others vividly illustrate. C. S. Lewis brilliantly illustrated this problem in his book The Great Divorce.

But of course we could do church without relationship. It happens all the time. For example, you've heard of churches that command people to ostracize a member because they infringed the rules or (more likely) threatened the autonomy of the pastor. Shunning, they call it. I used to sit under a pastor (many years ago) who said the church was like an army and the pastor was the general. Church was all about command structures, authority, discipline, and structures of accountability. But the least tincture of fear can mar love badly. [Aside: but we know what drives out fear: the "perfect love" of Jesus. We love because he first loved us.]

A couple of nights back I wrote out a few things I'd like to experience in community that may or may not fall under the church rubric. I should note first that I'm not dismissing all churches, or arguing strenuously for house churches as opposed to the "institutional church" (as some do). I'm just wondering what might be beyond--to use Michael Spencer's phrase--"the wreckage of a church-shaped religious faith." I'm guessing at the possibilities.

So the question is, out here beyond the church foyer doors, out between the stop signs of life, how do we train our relationships toward the Kingdom, toward a Kingdom orientation and Kingdom authenticity? The hope is that, out of the ground of ordinary "life together" relationships real Kingdom oriented, Jesus-shaped communion can happen.

In no particular order here are some of the characteristics of such a community.

• They pray together.  They approach the throne of grace together.  They are weak and dependent together.
• They take seriously and talk frequently about how to represent Jesus in the world.  How to be ambassadors.  How to introduce strangers to Jesus. They wonder often about how to spread the fame of Jesus in their daily contexts.   In other words, they take mission seriously.
• They sing spiritual songs together.  [A front parlor sing-along is better than a spiritual rock concert, btw.]
• They teach one another.  Maybe even at times "admonish one another in all wisdom" (Col. 3:16 again).  To go along with that, they learn from one another.  This is rather a stunning possibility!
• They bless one another frequently, in large and small ways.  Lots of not so random acts of kindness flowing freely back and forth.
• They share in one another's suffering.
• Meals together.  

All these things can happen among any close-knit group of friends.  I've seen it happen for a while, here and there, but it has been a rather transient experience.  I'm wondering if we can be more intentional about sustaining it, beginning if necessary with only two or three and seeing where it goes.  

As I said above, I'm not really down on the big church, but I do think it tends to pile on obligations much faster than it builds relationships.  Out here among the stop-signs of life, I'm looking to start with relationships (orienting always toward the Kingdom of God) and see what follows.  

Say a Little Prayer

If I just post music, it gives me time to think about my next written post.



And since Greg mentions Aretha in that song . . .



BTW, I think Greg Brown's song is about the best and "realist" song about prayer I've ever heard.

Mere Churchianity is almost here!

It's been a long time since I've been as excited about a new book as I am about the late Michael Spencer's Mere Churchianity. You can download the introduction here.

Looking over the chapter headings, you'll get a good sense of the trajectory of this book. I note especially the title of chapter 12, "Leaving behind the Church-shaped Life." Dang, somebody had to say that, and of course Michael was the one to do it.

Here's a snippet from the introduction, just to whet your appetite (and if you've been reading my recent posts, you'll understand why this is resonating with me big time):

But I’m not writing to church members who are happy where they’re at or to Christians who are heavily invested in the success and propagation of the church as an organization. I’m writing instead to those who may still be associated with the church but no longer buy into much of what the church says. Not because they doubt the reality of God, but because they doubt that the church is really representing Jesus.

I’m writing to people on the inside who are about to leave or have already left. I’m writing to those who are standing in the foyer of the church, ready to walk out, yet taking one last look around. They haven’t seen the reality of Jesus in a long time, but they can’t stop believing he is here. Somewhere. And they’re unsure what it will mean to strike out on their own.

Mere Churchianity is written for people who have come to the end of the road with the church but who can’t entirely walk away from Jesus. In the wreckage of a church-shaped religious faith, the reality of Jesus of Nazareth persists and calls out to them. I’m talking to those who have left, those who will leave, those who might as well leave, and those who don’t know why they are still hanging around.

Monday Whatnot

I can relate to way too many of these examples of greatness.

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Broken, broken, broken. It's still a fundamentally important and highly repetition-worthy insight.

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And this cool groove to start your workweek. Grooveyard's "7 Mile."

Breaking for Poetry

As you may recall, I've set a goal this year of writing at least one poem per month. So far they've all had birds in them, but this one is bird-free. Oh well. This one is called, Dad.

You want to call him up,
suggesting perhaps an easy walk
around the neighborhood, so peaceful and fine
is the day, so purely perfect
the blue of the sky, and the lilacs
all in bloom and gifting the air
with their ancient scent,

until you remember that he's gone now, gone
these five, ten, however many years--
these many years--
and anyway he never walked with you,
you never walked with him--

but off you go, the two of you,
just walking and talking,
and on the neighbor's porch
a transistor radio is playing
some song from 1966--

four boys from Liverpool
singing their fool hearts out--

and somewhere a wooden screen door slams,
and there is the putter of a small plane
flying low, slow, a friendly sound--

and you almost forget
that there never was such a day as this,
never such a walk,
and the word, the one word
you so ernestly wanted to say,
but never said--

it's playing on that old transistor radio,
on this day that never was,

and, yes, you're walking with your old man--
you're walking with your old man!--
and it's 1966 but you're all grown up, you see,
all grown up the way he never knew you--
you're a man, he's a man--

and so finally you can say it,
for the first time but all over again,
for the thousandth time,
for the first time,
you say,

all you need is love, love,
love is all you need
love is all you need
love is all you need.

Simply Organic

Most of the folks on my blogroll are avidly churchy people. In fact, many of them are church leaders. I've tried to give the blogroll a missional focus, because I want to keep up with that coversation and believe that it's one of the more hopeful signs of life in the church today.

Trouble is, as I've been at pains to say lately, I seem to have fallen off the board when it comes to church-ly things. There's an Acts 24 church in my town that I'll attend now and then, but a survey of the rest of them leaves me pretty cold.

I'm starting over. I'm right back where I was at the beginning of my Christian walk, except now I'm a lot more picky. Maybe even jaded. I'm thinking about this and processing it aloud here at WF, so I hope you'll have patience with me. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

A friend of mine said, "I hope you find what you're looking for." Thing is, I wasn't actually sure at the time. Maybe a little more sure now. Maybe.

I said it a couple of posts ago, I guess: "a small tight-knit group of friends who will, among other things, worship and pray together, learn from Jesus together, and serve one another and the community in which they live."

Simple. The "church" (if by that you mean the assembling together of Jesus followers) manifesting itself out of the loamy soil of human relationships, as opposed to assembling at a big building once a week for a specially prepared "worship experience" en masse and then hoping for relationships to happen (it's not that I rule out the possibility of the latter--I've seen it happen--but it hasn't really worked for me).

I think that starting from relationship might be part of what Frank Viola calls organic church. Viola says that "there is a phenomenon today where countless Christians are leaving institutional forms of church and exploring non-traditional forms of church in pursuit of authentic, shared-life community." Viola credits T. Austin Sparks for the term "organic church." Sparks, in his own inimitable style, put it this way:

God’s way and law of fullness is that of organic life. In the Divine order, life produces its own organism, whether it be vegetable, animal, human, or spiritual. This means that everything comes from the inside. Function, order, and fruit issue from this law of life within. It was solely on this principle that what we have in the New Testament came into being. Organized Christianity has entirely reversed this order.

Viola, whose new book is called Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ (whilch I'll be reviewing here in a week or two), goes on to say this about the organic church movement (and why it's not a "movement"):

So many things can replace our Lord. But God’s eternal purpose—that which has been in his heart since before time—will never be fulfilled if our first rattle out of the box is a new way of doing church, a method for multiplying churches, or a technique to change the world. God’s purpose will only be restored if we blindly and singularly make Christ our pursuit, our life, and our motive. Everything else will flow out of that.

Yes. My experience of church small groups, which I "led" for a number of years, is that the church leadership tends to see them as little local subsidiaries, rather than organic manifestations of people's love for one another and desire to walk together. They inevitably highjack the small groups to promote their latest program. The groups were primarily tools in the functioning machinery for maintaining the programs of the church.

So, anyway, there's this concept out there called "organic church," which may or may not be a movement. I'm interested. I've also heard of "simple church," which I think is more or less the same thing. The stuff these people are describing sounds about right to me. Some simple churchers in the blogosphere are Roger Thoman at SimpleChurch Journal and the folks over at raw religion, where you can find an article entitled 5 Things to do Until an Organic Church Comes to Your Town. Watch and pray, baby. Watch and pray.

Wilderness Faith

So, transition.

I'm not really sure why the whole church thing stopped working for me. The Sunday morning concerts (known in the church biz as "worship") got too self-congratulatory, I suppose. The preaching was okay, but I didn't see the point of sitting in rows and listening to the special person talk for an hour.

Then there was all the "let's go, people" type sermons. It could be almost painful at times to listen to. So after a while, I just gave up.

Since then, I've attended another church that I like well enough, and yet I haven't actually sunk down roots there. I'm not sure why. What I really think I'd like, really, is a small tight-knit group of friends who will, among other things, worship and pray together, learn from Jesus together, and serve one another and the community in which they live.

Imagine that. I don't actually expect to find this any time soon. But I'm looking. I expect to visit churches from time to time, and seek other ways to get together with believers to talk or sing or whatever, and my whole point here is to say that I'm going to journal the day to day experience here at Wilderness Fandango.

The truth is, when I changed the name of the blog to Wilderness Fandango, it was in recognition of something I saw in the offing, but hadn't yet fully understood or wholly entered into. The "wilderness" is essentially a place between, a place of transition. It is not necessarily a place of terror, but certainly of discomfort, of long gazing at far horizons, and of, by necessity, great patience.

In this time, as might have been expected, the very purpose of blogging has been in transition also. Many years ago, I thought of it as a kind of ministry. Now, I simply want to record the journey. I'm not even sure what I mean by that, or what it will entail. I'm still thinking that through.


More to come.

Community?

Following up on my last post, Thoughts of a Church Leaver. I find Alan Jamieson's two articles in Reality magazine very helpful. Read A Churchless Faith and In search of Turangawaewae and then come on back.

In the first article, Jamieson describes several categories of church-leavers (based on sociological research), and in the second he describes the groups that such church-leavers have often formed to replace the faith-communities they've left behind. I'm fully aware that these sociological categories are not absolute, as if every church-leaver must fall into one of these boxes, but I did find them helpful. I myself can relate to much in the "Reflective Exiles" category (but not all).

Bottom line, though, is that church-leavers do not prefer loner-status. They do desire to be part of a faith community, but for whatever reason (there are many) the church as they have known it no longer works for them.

I just mentioned the c-word: community. I kind of dislike that word, it seems so vague and trendy. In what is certainly a commentary on our times, it seems to have replaced the equally malleable word, family, as the label of choice to describe the church. And yet, for all our self-conscious striving after community, how little of it there really is.

I can honestly say that in nearly twenty years of steady church attendance (two churches) I have only experienced it for a very brief time. Solid relationships, which are surely the building blocks of community, have been quite rare. This may be because I'm a hard person to get along with, or it may be because people are just too busy, but my point is that "community" in the church is as much a will-o-the-wisp as it is in the world.

But I've not given up. I have this notion that a group a people who truly know and love one another, meeting in one another's homes, singing and praying together, is a real possibility.

More on all this in a future post.

Jamieson, btw, blogs at Prodigal Kiwi.

Saturday Three

Having finished The Invasion of Canada, I'm now well into its sequel, Flames Across the Border, which continues the story of the little known conflict between the U.S. and England along the Canadian border in 1812 and 13. Fascinating tale, in which we re-learn the age old lesson that stupidity can verge over into evil very quickly, especially perhaps on a national level.

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I notice Ray Bradbury just turned 90. He was definitely my favorite writer growing up, but I've been a little leery of rereading his stuff for fear of being disappointed. Would Dandelion Wine seem as wonderful to me now as it did when I was 14?

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I've eliminated my book bloggers bloglist temporarily, but will be rebuilding it soon. Meanwhile, here's a list of 101 book bloggers.

Tupelo, Mississippi

Continuing my week of musical postings, here's something that makes most other things seem like pure fluff. The master, John Lee Hooker:

The Delta Rhythm Boys

In a bit of a blogging lull here, but I thought I'd fill the space this week with music.

I have this crazy dream (the crazy dream is one you don't really take seriously at all, although maybe you should!) of singing in four-part vocal group, sitting around the front parlor and harmonizing till the cows come home! No, it's probably not going to happen (especially since there are no cows), but I really enjoy groups like the Delta Rhythm Boys:

In the Middle of the Air

Nice!

Thoughts of a Church Leaver

So it's simply a beautiful morning here in Maine. Cool, breezy, sunny. My honey and I are going for a bike ride this morning . . . on our new bikes! This is going to be fun.

I got a kick out of this video the other day, but then read the conversation in response to it at Pastoralia and at Bill Kinnon. What to make of the fact that the video was produced by a church that is, apparently, much like the one being satirized? Of course in the culture these days, when cool people satirize their own coolness, they grow only more cool! Perhaps that old curmudgeon, Qoheleth, was right. Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.

Having left a church last year I have come to realize I'm not going to land in a new church any time soon (thus, the bike ride on a Sunday morning). Not that I'm ruling it out, only that I'm not out there "shopping" for one. I think in the end I might settle for occasional attendance at one of the handful of churches in walking distance from my house.

I'm thinking about this sort of thing after reading a series of articles on the subject of "church leavers." It started with Len Hjalmarson's post at Next Reformation. Too much of the conversation about church leavers comes from church leaders who mis-characterize these people as, inevitably, selfishly flitting from church to church, unable to commit or submit, consumeristic, etc. I bought into that for a while. It is a helpful and comforting myth. I now believe that the selfish ones are those who continue to put forward that egregious straw man.

Anyway, Len's article is much better than all that. Am I a Reflective Exile, a Transitional Explorer, or perhaps an Integrated Wayfinder? I don't know. I know I do want company on this path, and as Len points out rather brilliantly, "transitions require liminal space." Anyway, I'm finding Len's meditation very helpful, and I'm grateful for his links to the work of Alan Jamieson (here and here).

So anyway, all these links above are to very thoughtful and nuanced articles concerning the matter of "church-leavers." Me, I'm clearly in one of those liminal spaces that Len talks about. As I said, I'll probably wind up occasionally attending one of the handful of churches within walking distance of my house, but what I do desire, of course, is what I might call the understanding companionship of a few fellow-wayfinders. I have no desire to "do faith" in isolation, but I'm done with the "tyranny of they."

I'll end with a snip from Len's post:

God may call you out of your faith community. Or, you may find yourself unwillingly on the outside. It will be a tough journey. Keep your eyes on Jesus. I know – the challenge is for some that this journey begins without conversation partners. But if you are reading this, then already you are gaining a broader perspective.

As God’s people in exile we face many daunting challenges in our time. Times of Reformation are always confusing and dangerous. Much that we thought could not be shaken is now being shaken. The rate of people leaving churches in North America is on the increase. The diaspora is hard on everyone – people, leaders, communities.

Now, let's go riding!

But what happens when we live God's way?

This is Eugene Peterson's take on Galatians 5:16-26.

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Hesitations 5:16

Preach it!

David Platt:

The April Poem

The gentle prodding of Nancy finally got to me. This morning I finally wrote my April poem. My goal has been to write a poem each month. This one, then, is called April. It begins with a line from a poem by Richard Jackson, called Villanelle of the Crows. It feels a bit forced, this April poem, but it's all I've got just now.

April

The heart sometimes panics, stumbling to fly off with the crows,
but the crows will have none of it. They don't care
about my sadly dazzled ticker.

They hasten to treetops, fringing the view with slashes of black,
brooding nervously like disdainful mourners
at a stranger's wake.

Featherless one, they call, groundling, gawker! They cringe
and bob and preen and caw. They know nothing
of the hopeful heart,

which quickly regains its awkward balance, steps back
for a running start, spreads sudden wings
and leaps into startled flight.