Missional Church: Suburbia

in

Suburbia_2_450_100_mis

Pre-retirement suburbanites tend to get the city newspaper.  It has better news and sports.  Retired suburbanites tend to get the local, suburban or city paper.  It has obituaries of people they know.

Whatever your preference of newspaper, missional suburbanites should always get the local paper.  It has local events, when and where bands play, news on book clubs, and any number of things that provide opportunities to jump into the culture and enjoy and love and serve.

Free Will Sex

in

Alright, that was a really racy title.  Two plugs.  Hat Tip: Justin Taylor

Interesting four page interview with Bruce Ware, theologian at SBTS, on the issue of free will.  It's PDF, and it starts on page 4.

You can get a free copy of the forthcoming Sex and the Supremacy of Christ book if you will read the advanced copy in PDF, review it on your blog, and send Justin Taylor the link.  My wife and I attended the conference in Minneapolis that is being transformed into this book.  It was excellent.  Go to JT's blog for more info.

Baptist and Biblical

in

Baptist Press is releasing four articles on emerging young leaders.  The first article, "Young Leaders: Back to the Future" is by Bob Reccord, the leader of the North American Mission Board of the SBC.  It doesn't say much, but just by saying anything it says something.  In other words, by Reccord putting his name on the first article gives weight to whatever comes next.  Probably a good move in an all too political convention.

The second article, released today, is by Ed Stetzer: "Are 'Baptist' and 'Biblical' Synonyms?"  Ed created NewChurches.com and works at NAMB.

A few quotes from Stetzer concerning young SBC leaders.  My emphasis is in bold.

Theologically, they want “Baptist” and “biblical” to be synonyms. Missionally, they want Baptists to find new ways to reach our communities and the world.

[...]

The issues that are driving younger leaders away are not theological; they are cultural and missional. They are tired of being told that dress, worship style and traditional practices are biblical mandates when they are found neither in the Bible nor in the denomination’s faith statement.

[...]

In essence, we’re talking about their desire to be Christians who are living in a mission setting. As a result, their expressions of biblical worship use diverse music, preaching styles, dress, etc. It’s not about hipper clothes and cooler music. It’s about being God’s missionary where He has placed us now, not 50 or 500 years ago.

[...]

The conservative resurgence accomplished its purpose, and we have a group of young leaders committed to biblical theology and missional ministry. We must not now fight for our traditions as if they were our doctrine. They aren’t the same thing.

Younger leaders want to lead churches that are theologically sound and missionally committed. If they don’t find the SBC to be biblical and missional, they will find their own fellowships, and we will be the weaker for it. We had a theological resurgence, but young leaders want a missional resurgence, too. They want “Baptist” and “biblical” to be synonyms, and they want to get busy reaching the world!

Jimmy Draper Blog

in ,

UPDATE: Dr. Draper has now changed to a blog hosted at Lifeway.  Hopefully this will make comments possible, but not so much yet.

-----

Jimmy Draper, the head honcho over at SBC's Lifeway, is now blogging at Crosswalk.com (Lifeway).  Here's a link to his blog.  His first post is about blogging and about what he's learned in the Younger Leaders Dialogues (for emerging leaders in the SBC).  In the last paragraph he is very generous to my other site, Emerging SBC Leaders.  UPDATE: Baptist Press has an article on it as well.

Dr. Draper knows that he doesn't fully understand us, but also says that we don't fully understand his generation either.  Fair, and as he says, it's a good reason for us to talk.  It's obvious he could care less about blogging, but realizes that blogging is a means to connect with us better.  Good move.  Unfortunately he's using a blogging system that doesn't allow comments (which he admits), but it's a start anyway. 

A part of my concern with the current leadership of the SBC and older generations (if you will allow me to broadbrush), is that they usually think that for us this conversation is about our way of doing things vs. their way of doing things.  I don't think this site or the concerns we raise are only about (or even primarily about) doing things differently.  I think it's also about doing them better.  But maybe that's our problem too, in that we find things older generations do as always inferior to our brilliance.  We need to be very careful and willing to listen to see if we are overstating our case.

Is a desire to move from institutional to incarnational, or from monuments to a movement, about doing it different?  Or doing it better? Are we only about being different to reach younger generations, or more missional to reach all generations better?  I think these are some of the most important questions as we seek to see walls come down and find real understanding between us.

Job as Living Metaphor

in

James 5:7-11, my passage for tomorrow morning's sermon, mentions Job in verse 11.

Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (ESV)

Now, I haven't studied the commentaries on Job recently, and I don't mean to speak authoritatively on the issues I raise, but I just want to make an interesting observation and ask of possibilities. 

As an historical figure Job is curious.  His life circumstances seem odd, not just because of The Satan and God and their strange and revealed cooperation, but also because of how the things that happen seem so artificial.  For instance Job loses so much, but after it all he ends up exactly twice as much as before. 

Because of this perceived artificiality (does God ever really double the pleasure like this in real life?), some have determined Job wasn't a real guy after all.  His life is fiction in order to make a point, or something like that.  Others put on their armor and defend Job as no less historical than their grand-mother.  To say otherwise makes you a liberal.

The question that popped into my head tonight is, Why can't we see Job as a God-intended living metaphor?  In other words, maybe we aren't supposed to see Job as "this life" literal (It could happen to you!), but metaphorical literal, like how God used Ezekiel.  God cast Ezekiel in many different "living metaphor" roles in his ministry where he acted out in his life the realities of God's people and exile.  He would rip a hole in his wall, or lay on his side for so many days, or eat a scrumptious feces loaf.  In Ezekiel the living metaphor is obvious.  In Job, could it be the same thing, but not so explicit?

As far as I know, I may be the only person to think this, or the last person to think of this.  Whatever.  But I think makes sense of Job because we don't have to wonder why God only did these things to one guy.  Also, we can still believe that Job is a real guy which is important, I think.  And in Job's life we see on display what God wants us to know about suffering and the riches of God, which we know are ultimately found in Christ.

A little thinking outloud, pre-sermon.  Thanks for listening.  I need sleep.

What We Don't Understand

in

Susan Srigley, author of Flannery O'Connor's Sacramental Art, in Mars Hill Audio Journal 73 quotes Flannery O'Connor in Mystery and Manners.  This is from audio, so punctuation may not be exact.

If the writer believes that our life is and will remain essentially mysterious, if he looks upon us as beings existing in a created order to whose laws we freely respond, then what he sees on the surface will be of interest to him only as he can go through it into an experience of mystery itself.  His kind of fiction will always be pushing its own limits outward towards the limits of mystery, because for this kind of writer the meaning of a story does not begin except at a depth where adequate motivation and adequate psychology and the various determinations have been exhausted.  Such a writer will be interested in what we don't understand rather than what we do.

Mere Moore Comments

in

The Touchstone Magazine weblog, Mere Comments, first linked to my blog back in early March.  That's when I really started keeping up with their blog as well.  Then they linked to my post responding to an article by Russ Moore later in March.  Russ is a theologian at SBTS.

Now Russ Moore is one of the bloggers at Mere Comments.  I think that significantly raises the stock of the blog.  One of his first posts discusses a book on "manly dominion."  Don't miss the last line.

Nailing Jello w/o a Hammer

in

There's nothing like a poorly written, poorly researched article on the Emerging Church to wake me up in the morning.  (Yeah it's almost noon, but I was watching Episode III at midnight).

I'm all for good critique of the EC, but this isn't it.  "McLaren" only has one "c," by the way.  And if one more person says "trying to define the Emerging Church is like trying to nail jello to a wall," I'm gonna scream.  Find a new word picture, please!  If there is anything that everyone should learn from the EC it's that creativity (instead of imitation) is a good thing.

Rabid Dogs for Evangelism

in ,

Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina (who once had an extended conversation with me while we peed in neighboring urinals in an SBTS bathroom, the topic was his seminary ethics class with Paige Patterson), is rightfully bemoaning the news that the stats show the conservative resurgence of the SBC has not made us more evangelistic. 

Unfortunately, his answer to the problem will never fix anything.  According to the ABP article on a talk from Akin, "In light of the downward evangelism trends, Akin urged North Carolina Baptists to become 'rabid dogs for evangelism' and defend 'the exclusivity of the gospel,' which contends that salvation comes only through Jesus."

While on the surface these things seem fine and all, I'm afraid it's just more of the same.  Don't you think the SBC President's bus ride for the cause of gaining like a zillion new baptisms should do the trick?  Maybe we need more SBC leaders to take more tours of the country in more unique vehicles.  Like Mohler in a new H3 looking for "Deeper Theology by 2133" and Akin on a train with his campaign "Riding Along Till Marriages are Strong." 

Sorry, I'm just a little frustrated.  Akin's a great bathroom conversationalist, a passionate guy, and a man of God.  But once the "rabid dogs" line doesn't really make a difference (like all the other lines before it) someone will just think of another, like "Let's crap the truth like a diarrhetic goose!"  You get the picture.

Hey SBC'rs!  How about this.  Maybe we need to be more missional.  Maybe our problem isn't that we should say the gospel more (and more like sick dogs), but that we should say it better.  Not with better words, but in better ways, like people and families and churches that are incarnated in the culture.  Healing and suffering and loving speaks!  We have too long divorced the spoken gospel from the lived gospel in the SBC.  That's the real key to fixing our statistical nightmare.  And that means we should just admit our cute sayings and bolder thrusts and clever tricks and canned evangelism just isn't good enough and actually encourage our people to live out the gospel.  We need to live redemptively, missionally, incarnationally.

Maybe we need more thoroughly missional people who live and breathe and eat the gospel.  Maybe we need more people joining book clubs or bowling leagues or knitting classes and building relationships there that will lead to helping and serving and loving and redeeming.

Missional Church: Storytelling & Storyliving

in

Another messy post full of new thoughts...

The theme of Story and storytelling colors so much of the emerging church. I think the missional church will focus on Story. The Bible isn't a random set of stand alone texts, but is essentially the Story of redemption, the Story of God, the Story of the Son of God, the Story of sin and salvation. However we say it, it is Story. And much of what God communicates to us is in the form of Story. Whether it's the parables of Jesus, or much of Old Testament narrative, or the early church in Acts, we get a lot of what God wants us to know from the Story, not just the "bullet points of faith."

So the missional church should be a storytelling community, where we take God's Story and retell it.

But one of the things I've noticed in the books by some in the EC is that when Story or storytelling is explained, it's often in the context of finding creative ways to tell the Story through experience. But this isn't typically explained as the personal experience of living it. It is the experience of imitating it. So we may create the retelling of a healing story of Jesus by having some people be the blind and others the crippled, and one is Jesus. Or we may use some sort of art to experience the Story.

I love art, and I do think it's an important part of life and God's community. I'm not saying it doesn't have an important place. But I wonder if there is an overemphasis on the creativity that aids the experience of the Story. I wonder if the missional church wouldn't be better served through the plain telling of the Story with exhortations to live it, and let the Holy Spirit drive it home as we do it. In other words, we could blindfold ourselves to see how it feels to be healed of blindness. Or we could serve a blind person an evening a week. It's the difference between faking experience of a story and storyliving.

We already have a canvas for experiencing Story, our own bodies and families and churches and community. We can act out a play about something Jesus did, but isn't it better to act it out in our community by living as Jesus lived? Won't that make the spoken story far more real for us and those around us?

I think the EC is spending a lot of time trying to think of creative ways to tell and experience spoken messages (or experience them without speaking). There's a lot of good in that. But the natural, normal way to experience the message is to live it and have it lived on you by others. That's missional, that's the truest art...to become the canvas of suffering and love and forgiveness for a world that needs to hear/see the gospel.

-----
Missional Church: Post 1, Post 2

Defense or Defensive

in

I think apologetics is a very interesting issue for emerging generations.  I am a regular visitor to and reader of a few apologetics websites and have read much on the topic in the last 10 years.  And lately I've been starting to wonder if what many call "a defense" of the faith has really become about being "defensive" about the faith. 

In other words, has apologetics turned from being the work of defending the faith against error to being about feeling defensive about our position in the culture?