We love Detroit. An Open Letter to Dan Shaugnessy

Dear Dan,

In a recent edition of the Boston Globe you had this to say about Detroit:

Think about it: For the next five weeks, you could live in downtown Boston and your wife could shop on Newbury Street. Or you could live in downtown Detroit, amid the boarded-up buildings and the proverbial skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets. Is this really a tough call?

I would like to commend you on your lack of research.  You seem to be looking at pictures from 1968 in the immediate after math of the riots. Do you still think there is a gunman on the campus of Kent State University? Or maybe you believe that the "British are Coming"?

Of course maybe you are upset that President John F. Kennedy had this to say about Detroit:







I don't know what your issue is.  I don't really know why you feel like you have to chastise a proud city.  I would invite you to come and see what Detroit is all about.  Oddly enough I have not seen a burned out Chevrolet anywhere.  From Midtown to Greektown to Downtown all I find are great restaurants, bars, world class hospitals, a world class university, and three great sports franchises.

When one determines to include the metropolitan area we find that on a weekend in the fall 110,000 people jam into U of M staduim, 70,000 at MSU, 20,000 for a Wings game, 20,000 for a Pistons game, 35,000 for a Tigers game, and 60,000 for Lions game.

Detroit is proud city with good people.  We are a collection of urban and suburban working together for a great future. I suggest, sir, that you come visit before you write about our home again.

Sincerely,

Me.

PS - Thanks to Dave Mieksztyn for the following links that you might find interesting:









http://500coolthings.com/ (from the boys at Professional One)

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I am Proud to Be an American...

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...where atleast I know I can buy, whatever I want, when I want it, and nobody can stop me.

There are few lasting images in my mind like that of September 11, 2001 and the days that followed.  I remember where I was when I found out the World Trade Center had been attacked.  I remember sitting and praying with a team of missionaries in my home for the families, the world, and our country.  I remember looking at my son who was a few months old thinking what was his life going to be like?

Then it happened, the President of the United States finally spoke.  He told us that the terrorists would not win.  He told us that we can stand up to these people and fight!  He told us to do that we must...we must...GO SHOPPING!  Fill the malls and buy stuff, show them that they can't take away your lives!

In that moment, I thought, "Yes!  That's right we must go on." Upon nearly a decade of reflection I am becoming more and more distressed by this statement. What distresses me is the fact that it is emblematic of the broken culture within which we live in the West.  We are fundamentally consumers.  To go shopping and buy whatever we want is our highest freedom. It is what drives us.

Missional discipleship necessarily conflicts with this.  Consider this passage from Jesus' teaching,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”
(Matthew 5:3–11 ESV)

This is not the teaching of a consumerist.  This is the teaching of a man who would end up being crucified in any era, any time, and any place.  Missional discipleship requires us to take a hard look at the culture around us and begin to understand how WE are being manipulated by a broken world.

So many who call themselves "Christian" are more interested in the spiritual wares that a church is offering than serving in the church.  "Churches" become a clearing house for a shallow spirituality that is designed to attract and lure as opposed to forming the followers of Jesus spiritually.  They become analogous to the the fishing lure. It is pretty and attractive and the fish can't help but take a bite in doing so it finds itself hooked without substance.

Eugene Peterson in "Tell it Slant" says that this approach is similar to narcotics.  You can not live on narcotics yet it is all you want.

"If Christianity simply mirrors its culture, what is the point of its mission? (Untamed, 109)"

If we are serious about discipleship we must set aside the trappings of the consumerism that surrounds us and embrace the covenantal communitas of the living God.

Are you a consumer or a member of community?

Is it all about you or another?

Are you asking "what's in it for me" or "what can I offer"?

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I believe in the Spirit! Well sort of.

In my experience the evangelical church has a bit of an integrity problem.  No, I am not talking about the issues that just popped in your head.  I am talking about the Holy Spirit.  The last time I checked he was still part of the Godhead, you know the Triune God we Christians believe in? Yeah that guy. Our creeds give him second billing.  In seminary our professors tack him on at the end of a course and seemingly never get to him.  Yet, it is because of him that Jesus said it was better for us that he return to heaven and be with the Father.

It is to the person of the Holy Spirit that we now turn in our quest for missional discipleship as outlined for us in "Untamed" by Alan and Debra Hirsch.

The Hirsch's spend much time discussing the abuses and problems surrounding our understanding of the Spirit and for that discussion I encourage you to read the book.  I want us to focus on the heart of the issue in the chapter which is the carrying out of holiness with the Holy Spirit.

First, there is a comment made that I think is worth repeating.  Holiness is not a list of "don'ts" but of "dos".  This is imperative for us in discipleship.  The Holy Spirit is not a cosmic kill joy but one who spurs us to creativity, joy, passion, and mission.  He also leads us into truth and reminds us of all that Jesus taught.

How does this translate into missional discipleship? Check it out...

Let there be creativity: The Holy Spirit is the Creator, and he lives in us.  The on who created the platypus can surely stir our hearts and minds to creative action.

Let there be risky mission: The Hirsch's remind us that God is a sending God.  He sent the Son and the Spirit.  He has also sent the church.  The Spirit of God is leading us on the Mission of God.  Will we boldly and faithfully follow?

Let there be communitas: Community without mission is a social gathering.  Communitas is developed around a mission.  Is your community on mission? If not, then you don't have communitas and you might be missing out on what the Holy Spirit is doing in your midst.

Let there be lots of little Jesuses: The process of discipleship is to become like our rabbi, Jesus. If we are not looking more and more like him and there are not lots of "little Jesuses" running around then we are missing the work of the Spirit in our lives.

Let there be love: Romans 5:5, "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."  To love well means that we are in step with the Spirit.

Let there be learning community: The Spirit of God leads us into all truth.  We can pursue a quest for knowledge and knowing and ought to because of our relationship with the Spirit.

Let there be some miracles: Embrace the miracles of God that happen and let it be OK to do so.  We can set aside our enlightenment rationalism and rejoice in the working of God.

Let there be spiritual maturity: The Spirit is the means of spiritual growth, he brings us toward spiritual maturity, as we keep in step with him, we will see this growth.

Let there be a lot more discernment: To engage in the mission of God requires us to be in step with the Spirit so that we can discern between Spirit-led engagement and foolish absorption into the world.

Let there be unity around Jesus: I think this makes sense on its own.

Let there be ecstasy and intimacy: I have been reading some in the life of Abraham Lincoln and his counterparts.  I am noticing that there is a great sweep of emotion and intimacy in their writings.  This is largely lacking from our communities today.  If we are in step with the Spirit then we will begin to experience this more and more.

Let there be liberation and transformation: As we engage more fully with the Spirit we will experience his transforming power in our lives and in the lives around us.  This will be demonstrated through our being freed from the sin that entangles.

So, which of these do you question? Doubt? Struggle with?

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Your image or mine?

"If God is not the defining center of our faith, life, and identity, then who or what is? (58)" Now there is a question. The Hirsch's continue to challenge our thinking in relation to the center of our faith in chapter 2 of "Untamed". There is nothing more central to who we are than what we worship.

Missional Discipleship, at its core, is about worship.

Worship at its core is about the person or object worshiped.

If we get this wrong then we get it all wrong. The Crusader, the jihadist, the cult leader all do evil because their worship is wrongly placed.

So, how do we know if we are worshiping rightly? The answer, Israel's Shema:

““Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
(Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV)

This is the compass by which we set our heading in discipleship because it points us towards the reality and truth of who God is and what God has called us to do. Jesus said it this way,

“Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.””
(Mark 12:29–31 ESV)

Notice his expansion to love your neighbor. If you love God, then you will love your neighbor. It is a simple cause and effect relationship. If you do not love your neighbor, then you do not love God. I think that this modern re-telling of the "Good Samaritan" proves helpful here.

The Hirsch's argue that this place of "biblical knowing" comes when right thinking, right acting, and right feeling intersect.  The process of getting us to this point is the task of discipleship.

The issue at stake here remember is worship.  The Hirsch's define it this way, "offering our whole world back to God. (76)" If our lives are not becoming to a greater degree more and more unified under the living God then we are not worshiping.

My challenge for each of us is to take stock here.  Where are you disunified under God in your life? In what ways are you creating God in your image? Where are you missing in the areas of right acting, right thinking, and right feeling?

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments...

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Is your Jebus ‘Untamed’?

Last week I spent some time reading Alan and Debra Hirsch's newest offering, Untamed. It was so worthwhile that I thought I would take a few days to post a summary of each chapter.  While there is nothing necessarily "new" in the book it is a really well done text that brings classic missional discipleship into an updated and fresh rendering.

We begin with our view of Jesus.  The argument that is posited is simple, "Show us your Jesus and we will show you who you are (38)."  This is key to our understanding who God is. This is why the Hirsches argue that the foundation of discipleship is Jesus.  To know God is to know Jesus.  In any way that our picture of Jesus fails so too does our image of God.

I think that Alan and Deb illustrate this well by asking this simple and yet profound question, "If we had a properly Jewish picture of Jesus would the holocaust have happened? (39)"

Let that question run around in your mind a moment.  Is it possible that had the world rightly pictured Jesus as a Jew and not as a European could it be that the holocaust could have been avoided?

We must ask this question, do we believe in the Jesus of the Bible or do we believe in a created Jebus of our own imagination?

This is critical for the task of discipleship because it is Jesus who sets the entire spiritual agenda for his follower.  Before continuing in your read, I would encourage to take a moment and consider, who is your Jesus?

Now we must determine what our agenda for discipleship is.  Quite simply it is the pursuit of holiness.  This pursuit of holiness is different from what we typically understand. Consider the fact that when Jesus was teaching there was a group of very holy people, the Pharisees.  They had cornered the market on holiness, they had all the rules and all the ways to make sure you could stay close God.  However, the people feared them and their religion.

Then this Jesus comes around and his brand of holiness is attracted people, and not just average people, but SINNERS.  Yes, his holiness attracted SINNERS, the very people who the Pharisees, those hard hearted harbingers of holiness, despised and avoided.  This holy Jesus was accused of being a drunk and a glutton.  His brand of holiness is clearly stated in Matthew 5-7, that great sermon on the mount.

Do you hold to the radical and untamed holiness that Jesus espouses in the sermon?

What is astounding is that this holiness is based within the context of love, grace, and mercy and yet a radical standard that transcends anything that most of us would consider doable.

The first task of missional discipleship: right our view of Jesus.

The second task of mission discipleship: embrace the sermon on the mount as our agenda.

[vimeo 6302404]

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Unity, Liberty, and Charity

I am really enjoying the ideas that are being put forth as part of the Big Tent synchroblog.  I think that one of the things I am noticing is that there continues to be one thing lacking in all of our posts, a center.  It seems that each of us would say "Jesus" is the center.  But, which Jesus?  Alan and Deb Hirsch in their text Untamed do a great job of pointing out that our understanding of who Jesus is determines what we believe about God.  It is here that I think we find either our center or the point at which the Big Tent falls.

For us to truly be a Big Tent we must find the good and the redemptive in each of the positions that are being voiced.  There are too many voices that make it feel as though to enter the tent you must set aside your tradition and set aside your understanding of the faith. Yet, this not the way that the first Big Tent worked itself out. We must realize that we are blazing new ground.  We are simply rehashing the same issues that have faced the church since the beginning: What do we make of the stranger? For the first century church this had everything to do with what to do with the Gentile convert.

The answer was: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28 ESV)" Paul was simply admonished to "remember the poor", which was the very thing he sought to do.  The table was opened.  There was freedom to approach God as male and female, Jew and Gentile, and so forth.  Today we are still free to approach our God as fundamentalist, neo-reformed, reformed, orthodox, liberal, neo-liberal, emergent, etc... The question is will we embrace a consistent picture of Jesus?

I would suggest that this is the pen-ultimate question.  Who is Jesus?  Can we agree on an answer? Is it possible to listen to one another's perspectives and find the baby in the bath water in each?

I appreciate the motto of the tradition that I belong to, "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."

Of course this requires a definition of what is essential.  The bigger the tent the larger the stakes required to secure that tent and keep it up. Here's my minimal effort at a "Big Tent" list of essentials:

1. Jesus is the real representation of God and in him alone we find the clearest expression of who God is.


2. The atonement in all its facets is central to our understanding of identity and mission for the follower of Jesus.


3. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the essential grounds for our knowledge of Jesus and his way.


4. The mission of the Church is to follow Jesus as king in his kingdom building movement in all of its ramifications.

Personally, I ascribe to the Westminster Confession with a couple of exceptions.  I also prefer the slightly more robust essentials statement of the EPC.  However, I think those four statements might allow for a symphony of harmonious voices to engage together.

What say you?  What are the essentials for a Big Tent Christianity?

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Scattered, Gathered, and Beautiful

This my third post for the Big Tent Synchroblog dealing with these questions: What are your hopes and dreams for the Church? More specifically, what does “big tent Christianity” mean to you? And what does it look like in your context?

I want to deal with the first question: What are your hopes and dreams for the Church?  In my first post I dealt with a definition of the church ( group of people who communing together in the midst of being on mission with Jesus).  So, here's how I see that playing out in my hopes and dreams.

I dream about a church that is scattered all over a city, town, or suburb in small, intimate groups that are keenly aware of the needs, heart cry, and passion of their surroundings.  These small gatherings would each have an embedded DNA of mission, compassion, and kingdom. These gatherings would be outward looking always seeking to broaden their definition of family by inviting the stranger into their midst.  They would gather around a common table fellowshipping together and worshiping through prayer and the word.

These who are scattered would come together each week and celebrate all that God is doing in their midst.  Stories would be shared and the DNA of mission and kingdom reinforced through the preaching of the authoritative Scriptures. The church would be diverse in as much as the communities which are represented in it are diverse.

I dream about there being a revolutionary effect because the mission grows the kingdom and the pursuit of the King is relentless.  Care and concern for the local would drive a vision for the global.  The creation would be cared for through a reconnection to local food sources that would require the local culture to be sustainable for its own sake.

The Church would grow in scope as it scatters further and further birthing new celebratory gatherings and so  on and so on.  The very nature of DNA requires multiplication and diversity.  When it becomes static and loses its diversity then mutations and problems occur.

For the church to be the beautiful bride of Christ it necessarily must be scattered, gathered, and multiplying.

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Big Tent or Single Issue?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am on a study leave this week and a big part of that is preparing for the year that is to come.  I am enjoying the time to think and plan.  The Big Tent Synchroblog has been stimulating some of my thinking and has been a welcome distraction to punctuate my work chunks.

My initial response to the blogs is that there seems to be a couple of main issues surfacing in the conversation.  What are these issues you ask?  It's the issue of human sexuality.  Chad Holtz, and Rachel Held Evans are good examples.The other issue is that of what do we do with those who disagree with us. David Adams, Greg Bolt, Julie Clawson are good representatives of this side of the coin.

As I think about these two sides of the same coin I begin to wonder if we are missing the key issues that are potentially at stake in this conversation.  While we talk about enlarging our tent, I think we are missing the key issue, as Scott Frederickson helpfully points out, taking our tables out of the tent.

I am growing more and more convinced that as we authentically engage in the lives of people we will change our understanding of the way we understand "who" can belong.  People with real relationships with the homeless easily include them in the community.  People with real relationships with homosexuals easily include them in the community. People with real relationships with heterosexually broken people easily include them in the community. The list could go on...

The issue that continues to rise to the forefront of my mind is this: Who we know determines who we love. The unknown creates fear.  To broaden the "tent" we must broaden our relationships. As we broaden our relationships we will constantly have to return to the question of grace and what it means to embrace those who "live in a broken world with broken relationships and bad records".

Check out the blogs and let me know what you think...

I hope that as the week continues we will see conversations move from our personal "hot button issues" to grand visions of a unified body of Jesus.

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Big Tent Christianity 1

So, I am a day late to the Big Tent Christiaity Synchroblog.   Here is the theme that we will be discussing this week: What are your hopes and dreams for the Church? More specifically, what does “big tent Christianity” mean to you? And what does it look like in your context? Oddly enough I am in the midst of a study leave this week and one of the questions my counter part in ministry asked me to wrestle with was, "What are your hopes and dreams for the Church?"  Brilliant!

What are your hopes and dreams for the church?

I think that before I can answer that question I need to ask a more fundamental question.  What is the church?  There are so many definitions running around that it's hard to keep up.  It used to be (back in the 50s in America) that the "church" was simply those folks who showed up and sat in their pew on a Sunday morning.  Now we have "communities" and "networks" and "friends"  and "who knows what else".  So, I don't think I can express my dreams for the church until I can have some working definition of what the "church" really is.

I want to follow most of those before me and say that the church is broken up into two large parts, the church visible and the church invisible or universal.  I hold to a robust sovereignty of God and so I leave the latter to mystery, I am more concerned with the former. The definition that I want to posit for the "church" is a group of people who communing together in the midst of being on mission with Jesus.

So, let's break that down. "A group of people": this is necessary because following Jesus does not call people to be alone on mission.  He calls them to be a part of his body, family, and bride.  I think you can get a good sense of this from this clip:







The body of Christ ought be a collection of people of who speak with one voice because they are centered on one man and pursuing the same mission.

"Communing together".  Alan Hirsch calls this "Communitas". Whatever you want to call it, I think that the church must go beyond community to communing.  This is the active lived life of a group of people together.  They are engaged with one another sharing the mission, life, and life of Jesus. They are practicing the sacraments together (communion and baptism).  This is a group of people who worship around a common table and as they commune with Jesus through the Spirit they find themselves drawn to one another.

" In the midst of being on mission with Jesus".  A group of people doing "community" does not the church make.  They must be on mission with Jesus.  There is no other mission that they are to be on.  They are to be on Jesus' mission. This means that they are glocally concerned with living revolutionary lives calling those around them into this mission.  It is interesting that Jesus' invitation was always to follow him.  This following was at its core an invitation to join him in his mission.

So, that's my definition. What do you think? Later, I will post some comments on the other blogs in the discussion.  Tomorrow, I will write about my dream for the church.

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