Community Discussion
Posts in this section are written by registered users of MereMission. These posts are meant to be reflections, questions, quotes, ideas, stories that relate to Missional Theology and the Missional Church. If you would like to contribute, please
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Posted by: Todd Hiestand (Admin) // Posted on: April 16, 2008
Last night I headed up to Princeton Theological Seminary to listen to Brian McLaren Lecture on his newest book “Everything Must Change.” I’ve known Brian for about 6 years now and I’ve always been inspired by his love for Jesus, the church and the world that we live in. So, despite many critiques of his writings and thoughts (some of which are valid and some of which are ignorant) I have a tremendous amount of respect for what he is trying to do. In the times I have personally interacted with him and in the times I have heard him lecture publicly, I’ve never, ever doubted his love for Jesus and the gospel. There, now with that said, here are my raw notes from his lecture…
Two questions:
- What are the top global problems?
- What does the message of Jesus say to those problems?
These questions flow from frustrations as a pastor
Amazing how much time christians spend on what seem to be intramural affairs.
SOME LISTS OF BIGGEST PROBLEMS:
- United nations university: The statement of the future (15 challenges)
- Copenhagen Consensus top 10 global problems
- 8 millennium development goals
- Rick Warren’s Peace Plan - Brian is really impressed with his work
“This biggest problem in the world is the way we think about the biggest problems in the world.”
Machine & Mechanism / Society System Concept
Three parts of the societal system
Prosperity: life, libertiy and pursuit of happiness, entertainment, health, everything we do to thrive as human beings. I mean this as something good.
Security: As soon as you have prosperity, you need to protect it. So we create a security system.
Equity: You need an equity system to support the prosperity and security system
This human system is situated in the larger system of the environment.
only things that come in are solar energy and only thing that goes out is heat.
Everything happens within the closed system of the planet.
In our system, we bring in resources and pump out waste.
In our lifetime, we will reach for the first time where the human system will outgrow the ecosystem. Essentially we are over our environmental limit.
Crisis #1: Our prosperity system can’t stop growing beyond environmental limits, resulting in multifaceted environmental crisis. (The Crisis of the Planet)
We are in a mindset that the solution to every problem is economic growth.
Crisis #2: an equity system that can’t keep pace with the growing gap between the rich minority and the poor majority, resulting in suffering, resentment and fear.
Crisis #3: A security system that arms rich and poor with more and more catastrophic weapons, resulting in vicious cycles of crime, mass migration, terrorism, and anti-terrorism
Of 6.7 billion people…
Top 1 billion consumes 32 times more than bottom 1 billion
Top 1% = 40% of the wealth
Top 5% = 70% of the wealth
Top 20% earns 83 times more than the bottom 20%
Since 1950, the global economic output has increased by 600%. But 80% of teh gains have been shared by 20% of the population.
Beware of a grieved majority
The minority will be involved in petty crime
Mass migration
Terrorism - the reason they commit terrorism is because they want our freedom and they want to get in on the action.
These three crisis are interrelated and they can’t be solved without dealing with the system.
What keeps driving the system to keep behaving in the same way?
i.e. What is the Framing Story? There are a handful of stories that are driving our culture:
Crisis #4: The failure of the world’s religions to provide a framing story capable of healing the societal machine (The crisis of purpose/spirituality). (this was a “lightbulb” moment for Brian)
Four narratives our religions usually promote:
- Domination Story: “If only we were in charge!”
- Revolution Holy War: “If only they weren’t in charge”
- Revenge/Victimhood/Scapegoating story: If only they would change (Hitler/Nazis)
- Isolation/Withdrawal: There’s no hope, retreat to the bubble.
These framing stories were driving society in Jesus’ day.
Main Stories of Jesus’ day:
- Domination/Empire: Sadducees and Herodians
- Revolution / Holy Warrior: Zealots
- Revenge / Scapegoating: Pharisees
- Isolation/Withdrawal: Essenes
Jesus proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God.
How do we render the Kingdom of God today?
- Don’t dominate. Serve
- Don’t get revenge, reconcile
- Don’t scapegoat, embrace
- Don’t isolate, draw near, heal
We need to let go of the idea that “the Church” solves these problems. It’s bigger than what a church progra can handle.
The job of the church then is to send people into the world to live out a different way.
“When you become poor enough you desperately need to make fast money.” Often you will resort to short term solutions that create long-terms problems. This leads to poverty on many different levels.
Solidarity is a metaphor for Kingdom of God.
We’ve understood Jesus through a neo-platonic philosophy instead of the story of abraham, Issac, jacob, etc.
We need a capitalism that doesn’t just maximize profit but maximizes benefit. Unemployment is the root of all evil.
When you have a slum:
- Domestic violence
- Crime
- Substance abuse
- STD
If you have 400 people with 100% unemployment with nothing to do they will have sex. They have sex because they are bored. You cannot sold HIV crisis without employment.
Posted by: Todd Hiestand (Admin) // Posted on: April 14, 2008
While this is is not a foolproof way to tell how a church is doing at reaching outside of your relational / literal walls is to talk a quick look at the bulletin and announcements.
Are all your announcements about things internal? While I’m a believer that discipleship and community life stuff is important for the mission of a local body, if all of the activities, programs, etc are pointed inward, this might be a good indication that the church needs to take some intentional steps outside itself.
What do you think? How does your church pass in this little test? Is this a fair test?
Posted by: mobilemalcolm // Posted on: April 13, 2008
Even before I ever knew what missional church or ministry was… God had laid it on my heart to impact one community. This community, had the highest amount of unchurched people living in it, it has the highest poverty rate, the highest school drop out rates and it had the least amount of active, healthy churches that wanted to reach that community and their neighbors.
So my family and I moved to this community, and started to learn what this community needed. Now missionaries for decades have had the rap of going to countries and wanting to Westernize them instead of listening to the people that they were ministering to, listening so they can learn the obstacles those in this culture had from receive the Good News of Jesus. Those missionaries that have listened to the cultures of where they are called, and learned to communicate the Gospel within their culture and to meet their needs, they are ones that have been the most successful at spreading the Gospel.
As I have learned what missional ministry is about, and blogged about it… I have learned that the key to missional ministry is just that. We also need to listen to the people that we are ministering to, we need to listen to the community and their needs and then learn to do ministry, and how to contextualize and communicate the Gospel.
Jesus contextualized his message… he learned to communicate the Gospel and the Kingdom of God in a such way that met the needs of the groups/ community where he was at. Look, Jesus was talking to the fishermen… and he started talking to them using fishing terminology. Then when he talked to the tax collectors, he used money and business terms.
When Jesus did ministry, he met the needs of the people he was with. For instance, when he ministered with the woman at the well, he did not give her some religious programming where she just sat there as a consumer. No, he knew her needs and ministered to those needs. To those that need healing, he healed. To those that needed food, he fed. To those that needed salvation, he gave salvation and he did on their terms. The terms that they could best relate in.
Today, we in the church need to do the same thing. Instead of just rolling out religious programming that every other mega church may be doing… we need to slow down, listen to the needs of the community where we are located. Imagine if churches, learned the needs of their neighbors… and ministered to their needs… and they used this to communicate the Kingdom of God the most effective. Imagine the results and the impact, that they could have. Imagine the changed lives that they can on a single community, when we meet their immediate needs.
Your thoughts?
Posted by: Todd Hiestand (Admin) // Posted on: April 11, 2008
Well, not really. But I do wonder where they got the term…
But there is an excellent interview on NT Wright’s book, Simply Christian. In this interview on Christianity Today he talks about “how to present the gospel in a postmodern world.”
I apprecaite what he says here,
“Because I’ve done all that historical work, my view of the gospel and how it works out in the real world has been deepened and enriched in all kinds of ways that I would never have guessed 25 years ago when I was starting out writing about Jesus. So in Simply Christian there’s a lot about justice, what it means to be human in the mandate to work, the putting to rights of God’s world, generating beauty, alleviating poverty, working with ecology. Thirty years ago I would have said those were secondary issues.”
I loved this book because Wright not only addresses the big picture of the story of God but he gives us some good, “so what” things to think through.
Read the entire interview here.
I’ve written a summary of this book on my personal blog here.
Posted by: Todd Hiestand (Admin) // Posted on:
If you are a pastor, here’s a question: How do you refer the people in your church? Most pastors I know use interesting language when talking about the congregation they pastor in. They usually are called “my people?” Now, I understand that this might be semantics but I tend to think that semantics are pretty dang important.
Calling the congregation “my people” obviously speaks of possession. But, are they really your people or are they really God’s people? Sure, you say, of course they are God’s people. Right. What God-respecting pastor would ever think that the people in the congregation that he pastors are actually his and not God’s? But, far too often there is a disconnect between what we say and what happens in practice.
Over the years (all 7 of them) I’ve learned to hold the people at The Well with open hands. They are not in my possession. I have grow very aware that the Kingdom of God is much bigger than The Well. God has called many families, couples and singles to other parts of the country. It seems like we are constantly sending people out to serve God in different locations. I don’t consider this a loss for The Well but a gain for the Kingdom of God.
I think this thought also applies to people who are visiting our community and searching for a congregation that they can join in the mission there. I am not really into begging for these visitors to stay at The Well. Sometimes I hope they don’t! I think when we sit with those who are searching for a community (I’m not speaking of church shoppers here - speaking of people who are genuinely looking for a community to serve in) pastors start their sales pitch as to why these people should join their church.
But this can’t be what we do, we have to hold even these new people with an open hand. There is a very good chance that they don’t need to go to your church, even if you are hurting financially and you could use their tithe! It’s quite possible God is calling them somewhere else. So, as pastors I think we need to stop hoping they will be sold on our community but truly serve them well as they are in our midst.
I always tell “new people” that we aren’t desperate for new members but we are desperate to help them on their journey. If that means they become an active member of our community, great. But if that means we find them a church family that fits their gifting better than that’s what we need to do.
When it all comes down to it, what’s our goal? Grow our church? Or is it to serve the kingdom of God?
I hope its the second. Because when we do that, we’ll be serving God’s people well…
Posted by: Todd Hiestand (Admin) // Posted on: April 10, 2008
One of in things to say in churches that claim to be “missional” is something like this: “we don’t have a missions program, our church is a missions program.” This is a great statement, I’ve said it quite often and I am a firm believer that we need to understand and see our entire church as “missional.” This means, that everything we do as a community is for the sake of witness, for the sake of the proclimation of the risen messiah. This includes elders meetings (we’re talking about mission right?), children’s ministry (we’re forming our children to think about the implications of the gospel right?), our teaching time (we’re teaching about what it means to be disciples that are witnesses to Jesus right?) and of course our obvious acts of caring and sharing our lives with the down and out, disenfranchised and the poor (you are doing that right?).
But, last night I sat with two pastors from Africa. George is from Zambia and Victor is from Camaroon. Both are seeking to grow leaders and churches in their countries that radically challenge their culture. They are doing “incarnational” ministry in every sense of the world (and, ironically, they’ve never read a missional text book. Their missional text book is the bible). I’ve spent some awesome time with George the past few weeks he’s infected me with a love for his country and a passion to see the kingdom of God be more present in his city of Ndola, where 70% of the residents live on $1 a day. I long to see the 1 million or more orphaned children find hope, education and home. I long to see change to not only my community but George’s community…
So, here is my question, while our entire church existence should be about mission, its clear that we cannot give up on a global understanding of partnership. Just take a look at the end of Acts 11:27-30.
During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius. The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the believers living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.
What does it mean to still partner with churches overseas and globally in a way that is helpful and not enabling?
How do you find meaningful ways to relationally partner with the global church?
What is the approach your church is taking? Or not taking?
Posted by: Todd Hiestand (Admin) // Posted on: April 9, 2008
After being down for a while, MereMission is back up for business…kind of. I really put it back up for the sake of the archives but I do want to open the site up to our old users to create content. Anyone who was a user in the past has now been given the permission to create and make new posts without the necessity of there being approval. One of the difficulties with the first incarnation of MereMission was the fact that posts had to be approved. Of course, with much freedom comes much responsibility (or something like that). In other words, don’t be posting pictures of your dog.
Just a reminder, the site is based around simple acts of mission and the application of missional theology on our daily lives (which, really should be that hard to connect!). Let’s keep on topic. Of course, I reserve the right to remove a post if I find it doesn’t stay on topic. Hey, its only fair, i pay for the domain name!
I have been doing some thinking of what I want to do with it as it has sat dormant for the past 8 months or so and I have decided that, while the open-source group blog was good in concept, it just didn\’t work in practice.
I have also been using my personal blog for more personal type of posts and have a desire to share my experiences and thoughts about church, leadership and missional theology in a different forum.
So, I have decided that for the sake of focus and simplicity I\’ll be the primary blogger on this new incarnation of MereMission. I have not deleted any users and welcome guest posts from anyone.
I will personally be focusing on writing the area of leadership and local & global mission in the context of a post-christian culture.
I obviously invite your participation in the comments and even a guest post now and then.
I would also really appreciate your help getting the word out about the site. I believe that this is practical stuff will be fertile ground for a helpful conversation.
Some changes or upcoming changes of note:
Feeds - These were a good idea but I’ve decided to ditch them in this version
Gravatars - The site now uses those cool little images next to the comments (check out the comments in this post to see what i mean. You need to register and upload a user image here.
Wordpress 2.5
The site is now running Wordpress 2.5. Its slick and I think you’ll like it. Don’t forget that if you want the post to show up in the main blog section you have to check the category “blog.” Categories are now below the post entry area in the admin.
Reading List & Links
I will be updating the reading list and the links in the next week or so. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments.
More updates and changes to come. Stay tuned and get the word out again by using this handy dandy little button on your blog.
Posted by: JR // Posted on: August 20, 2007
A new friend shared this quote with me the other day from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work, Life Together.
He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
As I was thinking about this, I lamented my tendency to critique church communities based on their failure to embody God’s dream for his people and I quickly began to swing the pendulum the other way, believing that I ought to resign myself to the reality which is the church and push off God’s vision for community to that which will be realized in the fullness of the Kingdom.
Imagine if God loved us only insofar as we reflected his dream for us? I, for one, am thrilled that God’s love in the here and now gives me strength and hope to step into his vision for me, rather than being contingent on my doing it.
For those of us with a heart and passion for the vision of “missional church,” I wonder what it looks like to love and appreciate communities right where they’re at for the hope of somehing more, rather than beginning with loving the vision and objectifying communities?
Posted by: JR // Posted on: July 15, 2007
As someone who is constantly thinking about what what radical (or perhaps just faithful) missional life in the midst of suburban affluence looks like, I really appreciated this post from David Fitch.
Basically, he’s talking about what it looks like to missional communities to navigate a communal life without defaulting to consumer-oriented affinity.
I have but one point to add. I am not inclined to advocate (not that he is doing this) individual engagement with those it’s hard or unnatural relate to. To be sure, this is what local expressions of the Church ought to be doing, but doing together. There’s nothing wrong with cultivating relationships and growing in love with those to whom it’s easier or more natural to relate. However, if those clusters of disciples aren’t moving out together and seeking to engage people unlike themselves - those it’s more difficult to love, then there’s probably something lacking in terms of their Christcenterdness.
Affinity may indeed be one the hardest obstacles to overcome in suburban contexts, but if we are to embody the Kingdom of God for the sake of the world, it’s something we must grapple with together.
Posted by: Todd Hiestand (Admin) // Posted on: July 12, 2007
At the risk of sounding a little self-serving (which is not what I am trying to do!) I wanted to point you to Allelon.org’s new blog called “Moving into the Neighborhood.”
Its basically a discussion on being missional in sububia. It is exciting to me that this topic is gaining some momentum because I personally think its a rather huge topic!
Right now there are two articles on the blog. One by Alan Roxburgh and one by some guy named Todd Hiestand (yeah, that’s the self-serving part!).
Anyways, it looks like a helpful resource and i am looking forward to the discussion and resources that will be available there. Just wanted to point your attention that direction.
Posted by: Christian // Posted on: June 13, 2007
And is missiology dependent on theological uniformity?
One of the distinctives of the Community of Christ (my peculiar denomination) specifically, Christian primitivism in general, and today’s postmodern, pluralist culture everywhere, is an aversion to “creeds.” We don’t like tests of faith or fellowship, especially ones centered on words and “confessions.” Words are so slippery, and yet so meaningful - to force agreement on something seems to mitigate its meaning in significant ways.
But what that does mean is that there is a tremendous amount of diversity of opinion and theology. There is some strengths in diversity - I’m thinking hybrid-vigor here. But there is also a danger: how big does the umbrella get before it becomes untenable, or worse, meaningless? That’s not the question I’m asking here, exactly, though.
Ecclesiology is “what the church is.” It is thinking about what the church is in relation to other theological concepts or doctrines, and also asking the metaphysical question - if “the church” isn’t the brick-and-mortar building on the corner, then what is it? But it is also thinking about how the church organizes itself (as an expression of God’s revelation and incarnation in the world), and how it goes about being and doing.
Ecclesiology is easier - after a fashion - in homogenous groups: cultural, political, geographic, financial, and theological. (This is not a value judgment.) People work with the same underlying assumptions, have the same expectations, are willing to dedicate the same resources, share a sense of solidarity and unity, and so on.
But what does an “ecclesiology” of diversity look like? What does it mean to be “the church” when there are so many different people in it - and not just differences like race and dress and worship style, but deep, critical, theological differences like Christology and revelation, scripture and salvation, sin and grace and the kingdom of God? As a denomination, we’re only starting to confront the question of mission - to me the point at which the rubber of our rhetoric meets the road of the world.
My denomination isn’t unique in its embrace of a great deal of diversity - it is part of the Christian endeavor to recognize the worth of all persons, and the reality of life in a pluralist, post-denominational society. And I doubt we’re unique in actively struggling to create a unified ecclesiology not dependent on theological uniformity. It seems the struggle of honest Christianity in an honestly postmodern world. The question remains: what does that look like?
And a related question: will anyone be happy with what it does look like?
Originally published on Flannel Christian.
Posted by: Andrew Tatum // Posted on: May 27, 2007
As indicated previously, this two-part essay hopes to establish a connection between the thought of Lesslie Newbigin and William Cavanaugh in their shared concern for the phenomenon of globalization as a problem for the church. Thus far, an argument has been made that this is actually the case. Therefore, the question that we must now answer is this: What, then, is the church to do when faced with such apparently bleak circumstances? To get more to the point, what is the mission of the church in the twenty-first century in the face of the reality of globalization and all that it entails? How do we expect to make disciples of all nations in the name of the Trinity when those of us who claim to be God’s chosen people are currently being discipled by the global mass media and the “free” market economy? In this section, the case will be made that what Newbigin and Cavanaugh think we really need is to actually be discipled by the Trinity in a community oriented around certain formative practices.
As we have seen numerous times throughout this investigation, William Cavanaugh’s definition of what the church is involves a community of people who have been inscribed into certain practices. The language of “bodies” previously used could cause us to mistake Cavanaugh’s purpose. He is not attempting to dehumanize the situation but is making certain that his readers understand that the practices of the Christian community most certainly involve our bodies as well as our souls and minds. Because of his experiences in Chile during the time of the regime of General Augusto Pinochet, Cavanaugh was able to make the connection between Torture and Eucharist as formative in the lives of individuals in the Chilean situation. In this situation, the military government had overthrown the elected socialist government because of widespread economic and social poverty resulting from a variety of factors that are too numerous and complicated to be addressed presently. What must be known is that the elected government under Salvador Allende was overthrown by the forces under the command of Augusto Pinochet to bring order and economic prosperity to the people of Chile. What was actually set up was more akin to what we have in America and in other Western style democratic nations only much more extreme and unchecked. At any rate, the government under Pinochet conducted a campaign to rid Chile of all those who contradicted and served to subvert its purposes for the “betterment” of the Chilean people. By Cavanaugh’s account, Pinochet’s program included the disappearance, torture, and killing of thousands of native Chilean people who disagreed with the government or simply got in the way because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by: Andrew Tatum // Posted on: May 23, 2007
The idol which we have to recognize, unmask, and reject is an ideology of freedom, a false and idolatrous conception of freedom which equates it with the freedom of each individual to do as he or she wishes. We have to set against it the Trinitarian faith which sees all reality in terms of relatedness (Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell, 75).
Through God’s love we are gathered together and guided by the Spirit in the worship, reverence, and movement forward in the way of Jesus Christ the Son. This is but one formulation of Trinitarian resistance to the idolatrous freedom that is hidden beneath the presumed “catholicity” of globalization. This essay hopes to provide (in two parts) an exploration of the negative effects of globalization on the contemporary church in western culture. It appears here in condensed (believe it or not!) form.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by: mobilemalcolm // Posted on:
I have been thinking a lot about what a vision of a missional church would look like. What are the core values that a missional church would look like?
I have created a potential or atleast a begining point for a vision statement for a missional church. Go to my blog at http://www.completinggodsmission.com and weigh in on your thoughts of a vision statement would look like.
Thanks.
Malcolm
Posted by: JR // Posted on: May 20, 2007
A common misconception about what it means to be missional is that it really comes down to being outward focused and serving others. This is not the case. Cultivating a missional identity is deeper and more holistic than this. It has to do with investing time and energy in things which contribute to a group of people developing a certain character - becoming a certain kind of people so that they can interpret (and be interpreted by) Scripture together as well as discern the Spirit’s voice and leading in their midst. This opens the door for what I am calling a “Missional Retreat.” In my thinking this isn’t a retreat as traditionally understood - an opportunity to “recharge your spiritual batteries” or “get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.” No, it’s more like being intentional about cultivating relationship with those who you are seeking to share life and mission with. It’s taking time to dwell in the ordinariness of life to experience more fully who people are, what they’re all about, where and how God is present and active in their lives. It’s when we take the time to do this that we have an opportunity to be formed as a community.
For a bit more on how my church community recently practiced this, see here.
