It’s because of the “We” that I’m in.

The message of Jesus, expressed across time from Genesis to Revelation, champions the “We” of community with God, and community with each other.

From the small “i” of individuality within the “We” of eternal community, we chose the capital “I” of Individualism.

The falling.

Then, it recognizes that we ultimately don’t have the power to attain the “We” with our own altruism and effort - that we are “bent” as Shaeffer put it, toward the “I.” We need and indwelling Presence and outdwelling Mover to recover Edenic community.

I think Eden is what the best of human beings are after. We want to return to life as it was meant to be.

History tells us that our greatest efforts toward goodness and righting the world seem powerless among the waves of human desire and self-preservation.

FirstCreation, to FirstAdam, to NewAdam, to CrossRighting, to ResurrectionLife, to NewCreation.

I can’t find another human/divine story as compelling, addressing the darks and lights, the suffering and joy, the leaves and the life, the space and the spark, the woman and the man, the hate and the love, the flesh and the bone, the heart and the mind - as this one.

Loved this idea over at Jonny Baker’s blog. Artist collectives and community experiences based around shared art are so vital to the health of the artist - whether commercially active or privately expressive.

Artists Collectives

Such a big, beautiful cosmos.

SPACE.com — Quadruple Sunsets Possible on Other Worlds

It is the “scandal of particularity”, the declaration of the Gospels that Jesus the Christ is the only way to God, to the Father, that is the primary issue facing Christians, and the opposers of the faith, in our postmodern age. GodSpeak is generally fine, unless your hanging with Richard Dawkins. JesusSpeak… now that’s a whole other kettle of fish bumper stickers.

A Walk In The Bookstore

Walk into any bookstore today, and you will encounter myriad books claiming some form of transcendant spirituality, and each will ultimately feel it their duty to relegate Jesus to being a teacher of Peace, a demi-god of self-actualization, or a paragon of virtuous revolution in his own confounding context. Many of these books are a strange mix of beautiful ideas, scathing criticisms, genuflections to the god of tolerance, and a melting pot of all things spiritual. These books, like those of Christian authors, reflect the reality that the human beings that write them are themselves a strange mix of the beautiful and the broken.

Right beside those books, typically in the bestseller section, you will experience a wide range of books repudiating faith in any god at all, typically on anthropological or social grounds (in some cases, physiological grounds - the “god gene”), standing on the premise that faith of any kind is toxic to the perpetuation of the human race and her virtues. In these cases, the worst of Christian expressions throughout history, typically the most intolerant or most syncretistic, become the examples that form the case against either Theism or Christianity.

Now, I believe such books are to be read, with a thinking heart and a feeling mind, by Christians. The more afraid we are to read them, the more we circle the wagons, the less of a reasoning (and reasonable) voice we will have in the coming decades and centuries of culture. We will either retreat into increasingly insular faith structures, or lose our faith in the face of big questions we have neither thought about in the presence of God nor taught our children to faithfully engage. Most of us see very clearly that a more socially conscious, powerful, and kinder, expression of Christian faith is necessary in our day. Our critics have not been completely wrong - they have given us the gift of the mirror-holder, enabling us to see ourselves as we are seen. Some of that image is our problem, and of course, some of it is theirs. Jesus said that humans wouldn’t “get it” all the time; his way of life expressed through the Church would confound, confuse and often tick off the powers that be.

What’s The Problem?

Father Raneiro Cantalemessa, the personal teacher to Pope John Paul II, spoke to the leaders of our Vineyard movement in Rome a few years ago. We gathered in a resonant marble chapel, which to me symbolized all that which is beautiful, enduring, timeless and solid. His message? “The Battle Is Around The King.” Our entire group reeled as though intoxicated under the influence of his striking words, expressing that in the ecumenism of the day, the joy of interfaith dialogue, the quest for peace among religious leaders of the day, all is well when “God” is the topic of irenic conversation. However, in a recent gathering of Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, Muslims and other faiths, Father Cantalamessa mentioned the name “Jesus.” Divisive stirrings began around the room.

In today’s world, “division” is the enemy of all that is good, peaceable and “tolerable.”
We want to be united as people, and to see that unity born out in intercultural care, communication and consideration. We resist division, because we see the horrors it breeds in governments, faith systems and families. Tolerance says “You’re okay; I’m okay. We’re just different.” But, what is someone (you or I) is actually wrong? What is someone, or an ideology, is actually harmful, over millenia or in a moment? What if “I’m okay; you’re okay,” actually can, and does, bear the children of blood, tears and hatred as well as peaceful dialogue?

What if there is actually one way in the world? What if it’s a wide road in the coming to it, but a narrow road in the progressing on it? What if there indeed is a way of living for human beings, that one unique faith system (I include the faith systems of naturalism and evolutionism, all part of the “humanity’s best guess” club), at its essence, promulgates? What if the scandal of particularity is exactly the plan, and a way has been made that addresses hatred, death, love, goodness and the strangeness of the human condition.

Jesus Is The Problem.

Back to our topic. Jesus is the reason that Christian faith is a problem. “…No one comes to the Father but by me” is the bone of contention, and a Jesus who has been aligned with the Crusades, Inquisitions and Acquisitions of history is an unacceptable personage in the 21st century world.

What do we do with a God of love, who through His messenger Jesus, declares that a life of love is the way of God, and evidences this through real loving, healing, forgiving, restoring spiritual activity on the planet? We want everyone to be right, mainly because Derrida and others helped us to understand that many of us in charge actually have thought we were right, but to our own controlling ends. But, what if one is actually right? Then, what if that God declares his uniqueness among the faiths of all ages?

I’ll bring this to a point, particularly for my Christian friends who have been in what I would call “high and deep process” with their faith these past few years.

Christians Quietly Devolving To A General Theism

Many of my Christian friends around the world (both culturally and in their estimation, by chosen faith) are considering the scandal of particularity just that - a scandal that represents the worst of those with whom they no longer wish to be identified. They are both sad and happy for all the deconstruction of the faith in our age. In essence, they are seeking to ameliorate (improve) their language of “living a life of love” (accurately, the central message of the New Testament), and at the same time remedially ignoring any language of specificity or particularity related to Jesus. They don’t want to throw their vibrant history with God, or with God through the worship of Jesus, away; they just want to let it simmer on the other side of their outward confession for awhile while they figure this thing out.

To some friends, I would honestly and without judgement ask, “Have you left your faith in Jesus, your faith in his life as the Christ, his life, death and resurrection, while still trying to rationalize in your mind that you haven’t gone anywhere?” In other words, “Have you fallen back into a noble Theism, replacing any Christocentric language with ‘God language’, in order to compensate for your own internal struggle without letting others know how intensely it is raging? Is Jesus an example of yet another noble life, one which you and I simply choose to follow? Is Jesus becoming, in your heart of hearts, and option among options, to be embraced either to keep peace, or to remain socially connected, or because the jury of your heart and mind is still out. Or is he, as the earliest believers powerfully advanced post-resurrection, God incarnate?

I would ask them to be honest, as a friend, and answer that question - even in secret. So much is on the line for these wrestling friends; families, relationships and so much more, if they were to honestly answer this and live it out, that I think the psychological dance may simply need to continue for them until they die. Secret letters honestly answering that question may come out after they’re dead, but to live out their honest answer would cause too much pain and heartache for them to bear this side of death. In other words, the faith of their mind and heart must now hide behind the faith they express to the stakeholders in their lives. Once again, it seems that Jesus is as much about dividing as he is about uniting.

Have compassion on these ones, a group of people whom I have often lived on the edge with, and still do on my worst and best days. Somehow, they harbor Jesus in their heart still, but, when pressed, wrestle with the specificity of salvation experience he relegates to himself in the Gospels, and that the epistle writers expound on in the New Testament. The internal, rationalizing gymnastics are hard on them internally, but they feel that in order to be in integrity as a healthy spiritual person, and to be in integrity as a follower of Jesus, they must slightly hedge their bets on Jesus’ particularity and err on the side of a Gospel Of General Love Based On The Teaching Of Jesus. This may sound tenable, but aligning ourselves with the earliest, and historical, Christians, while falling to the side of the “less particular gospel of our own making” is an enterprise that would lack both academic and soulful integrity.

In other words, the Old and New Testaments are what they are: Very Particular. I would like to edit the canon, too. But the work would be too hard (though some seem to do it with great ease, simply forgetting or rescripting the parts of the scripture they find distasteful) and the resulting iPod spiritually would feel too… too… selective and particular. In fact, I’m sure I do the internal editing as much as the next Christian, but it doesn’t feel good at this point - I’ve simply known and seen too much to be comfortable in that skin for very long.

What If Particularity Is Divine Clarity?

Jesus keeps us on my toes, I do declare. I believe that God is willing to live there on this rocky edge as well (I note here that in those times, for some beautiful reason, it is the music of worship that anchors and renews me in mind and heart). My layman’s studies of world history and civilization tell me that the “my god is better than your god” game is a long-standing past time. We view particularity, in some fields, as lacking in academic sophistication. However, in other fields, to be increasingly particular and specific leads us also the greatest of discoveries, and even to the answering of macro questions that have haunted us for time immemorial. Particularity is not always a bad thing. Certain us/thems, on sides of ideas and explorations, can be helpful to the whole - disagreement is not always the enemy.

The real question becomes then, in my own mind, does the specific teaching of Jesus, related to how faith and followership of himself and God the Father, accurately tell us both that he is uniquely the way to the Father (no matter the vehicles by which we come to him - a mystery still to be sorted out by God and God alone), and that a life to love all unconditionally (in the way of Jesus) is the truest way to live out that very particular faith? If it does, does it rise above all other faiths (not render them all devoid of truth, but rather clarify what is true and false about them) not only in its strength to remedy the human condition, but also in its ability to enable us to understand our bestowed greatness in the grand economy of God’s work?

The laws of civilization (read Guns, Germs And Steel, for example) and the zeitgeist (popular thinking) tell us that the scandal of particularity is the blemish that unveils the falsity of the faith. The regurgitating of the Gnostic gospels in their varied forms furthers the incredulity of the faith’s greatest opponents and inquisitors, and manipulates the mind of the average church goer (or causes them to close their minds further to any arguments against their faith).

Instead of simply conforming to the age and its values, or conforming to a body of followers of Jesus who refuse to engage with the deepest questions of both civilization and popular culture, or reacting to either (I see so much reactionism that most days I’m tired from having to counter it in my mind and relational activities - and yet I do it, and it’s common not only to our age, but to all ages), is there a third way that embraces the particularity of Jesus, and yet does so in a way that is stunning intellectually, psychologically, socially, spiritually and even physiologically? Is the language of the Creator, the fallen ImageBearer, the New Adam, New Creation and the Age To Come a powerful enough story to right all the confusions of the world? Is it more substantial than, or does it complete and clip and clarify, the stories of the ancient Olmecs, or the Jews, or the Romans, or the Buddhists, or the brands of Christianity, or the atheist or the macro-evolutionist.

The God I have encountered, in my worship of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (the doctrine of Trinity, one God self-revealing in three persons), has been that stunning. I lead people into worship because I can; if I did not, I would probably beg for the opportunity to open the gates of revelation to such a glorious God, such a glorious Jesus, such a glorious Holy Spirit.

The world is waiting to see such a mix of both intellectual integrity and spiritual particularity lived out before them. Does their addition together create the perfect storm - a storm of love, of power and of sound-minded humanity? Could we be the vanguard of a fresh way of being human - according to the salvation story of the Jews - the only real way?

Thoughts for today.

This morning I played, just me and my acoustic, for our St. Stephen Art Market downtown. It was a rainy day, so traffic was low and friends spent considerable time chatting under tents. Renditions of Time After Time, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Sittin’ Waitin’ Wishin’, Save Your Scissors, and about 5 originals filled the time.

As the rain came down harder, we decided to pack up and head home, which is an 8 minute walk up the street. As my eldest daughter and I walked with my guitar and a fold-up chair, the rain began to pound down harder halfway through our homeward journey.

We ducked into the local ice cream shop, wet hair, guitar, clothes and all. The rain was coming down in sheets at that point, so we had a bit of ice cream and sat down. The shop owner just happens to be a local musician who plays for a few party bands in town, dating all the way back to the 80’s, and was setting up a little amplifier he had acquired for $10 at at a garage sale. Pulling out his keyboard, he was getting set up to test it.

I had a guitar. He had a keyboard. It wasn’t long before we were playing, recalling songs, and generally filling the ice cream shop with laughter and music. From Judy Garland to Bob Seeger to Anna Nalick, we covered musical territory, and my daughter, ever the photographer, took some shots I may post along the way.

Small towns have much to be appreciated this rainy afternoon.

I’m always thrilled when I see a believing artist punching forward not just in Christian circles, but in popular culture. Clad in living faith, artful voicing and confident love, we move forward.

Here’s an article on Derek Webb and Rickie Lee Jones, seeking to disarm the culture about what it means to have faith in Jesus, but pressing the culture on political, social and spiritual issues.

Good on ‘em. To me, this is the way of optimal influence for creative leaders, along with our daily acts of love, service, goodness - and serving within our faith communities.

Jones, Webb find faith their way - USATODAY.com

I had a wonderful encounter the other morning with God. It is not unnatural for the human mind to get lost in its worries and cares, its intellectual struggles and its relational burdens.

But I have found this. I may analyze, categorize and de-romanticize the nuts and bolts of worship, Christian worship, contemporary worship, emerging worship and the act of leading or participating in its activity. I may become so routinized in my functions, roles and personal patterns that I lose sight of my context as a child of God, in a bright, beautiful and broken world. I may delve into the wider arts, culture, religion, philosophy and worldview. And yet…

When I lift my voice in a simple, or artful, lyric and melody that affirms who God is, His goodness, His trustworthiness, His praise-worthiness, my heart is moved over time. It seems that God responds to expressed words of acclamation and appreciation, affection and trust.

My disorientation gives way to orientation; my feeble attempts to course-correct my own interior life find hope and reason trickling toward them, infusing them with life from without.

Someone once asked me why I led the act of musical worship, in the ways and with the consistency that I do.

I said, “I have to. It keeps me alive. I also have to because it orients others, and keeps them alive in the wear and tear of life.”

Enjoy art, bear the responsibilities of life, see worship as a whole life, sacramental response to the goodness of God, do justice, love mercy, care for the poor, embrace the sacraments, incarnate the teaching of Jesus, celebrate and aid your neighbor, but please…

Do not withhold worship, as expressed through songs of direct prayer, thanks and communication to God.

It will orient you, and heal you, over time.

Let your praise be heard, with words, in addition to actions and thoughts. The emerging Church systems and philosophies we are building must keep music integral to our forethought. There is something about singing that is vital to all who walk the human concourse.

In considering the Church and its current life in the world, the issues of greatness continue to crash on the shore of my mind and heart. It seems, either from projecting my own need to continue to take my place, or from a true desire to see individual greatness expressed in others, that I lie awake at night thinking and praying about this idea.

I believe that Jesus central mission was to teach us greatness as human beings. His greatness led to a cross (as far as he was concerned), and ours may lead to a crucifix, stage or a smile only on others faces at the end of our days (Wilberforce, for example).

To participate in bringing the new creation now, this is greatness of life.

In searching for some ideas on the concept of “greatness,” I stumbled upon this school project by a fourth and fifth grade “gifted” class.

Though only western in orientation, you may find their chart below interesting. Personally, I believe that every human being carries a greatness factor, that unique expression of the personality of God which they carry into the world. We are the richer for one another’s greatness, whether it flows from a small child, a young woman with Down’s syndrome, a high-end athlete, a man who’s gift is friendship, or from an artist of any stripe. I continue to want to see each person not lost in their third, fourth of fifth level of greatness (mind you, this is servanthood and can be very right, or even just seem to be very right), but engaging most of their time and energy in their highest area of greatness. As parents, we aim for that in our children, often through aiding them in experimenting and supporting them as they succeed or fail. I also recognize that being a father, mother, friend, provider, etc. amplifies in us areas of great weakness as we struggle to keep up with our responsibilities. Duty must win over passion at times. And yet, to parent out of our unique greatness without apology, to know what our shining part is and to not allow it to be buried as progress through life, these are worthy goals.

Jesus is noticeably absent from this list (if we believe his the new Adam, then this is quite a glaring oversight, but not surprising if they are a public school), and I also note that greatness is not necessarily evidenced by notoriety or visibility. You’ll see it in every face you know today if you look hard enough, and ask God to reveal it to you.

I look forward to a day when we’ll see the greatness that flowed in the most hidden of places, and yet shaped a life, or the world.

Cheers to greatness, forged and exposed by weakness, it’s constant companion.

Images Of Greatness

After another rousing Sunday afternoon of Olympian Ultimate Frisbee, a simple question…

Q: How do you get a flock of 8-50 year olds to run up and down a long field, as fast and hard as they can, diving, jumping, blocking, screaming and achieving (or underachieving), covering approximately 6 kilometers of ground over a two-hour time span?

A: Ultimate Frisbee.

Q: How do you get the Church to find her way into all fields of culture, celebrating the goodness of the gospel by incarnating it’s realities, as fast and hard as each person can run, diving, jumping, blocking, screaming, healing, giving, befriending, challenging and achieving (or underachieving), covering trans-human terrain over the span of an individual’s or community’s lifetime?

A: Ultimate…

(you have to unpack your answer in a sentence or two).

I’m grateful for this post. Please, take a moment and read it through. To start with human beings, at essence, being ImageBearers, will be my swan song it seems. I appreciate where the Vanguard folks begin in this piece.

Thanks to Heidi Turner for putting me on to it.

Vanguard Church: How to have an Appreciative Inquiry evangelistic conversation

A beautiful post on the work of Erwin McManus. I was put onto this by Dan Kimball’s blog.

In my estimation, this is the future, or present, of evangelism. Honoring human beings, and their life “as is” in the process. It’s the only “method” that’s worked for me.

CRN.Info and Analysis » How to Save a Life

This post by Scot McNight on Trinity is a further advancing of worship-related ideas on the relational Trinity approach of the Eastern tradition. He launches from the book Trinity by Olson and Hall.

As contemporary worship songwriters, we should be working on crafting songs that amplify the ideas noted in Scot’s blog post. In my estimation, the relational concept of Trinity, and the pneumatology is spawns, is “what the world needs now” in its understanding of the Deity of the Christian community.

I’m also interested in Volf’s book on Trinity, as I’m curious to his take and the others he’s listed.

Jesus Creed » Friday is for Friends

Just a Canada Day (July 1) and Fourth Of July (July 4th) comment for citizens of earth, and heaven.

Isn’t it wonderful to live on a continent where we can freely rip our nation to shreds, both verbally and practically, from the safety of the very freedoms it sustains for us?

No one (most probably) today will be killed for maligning their nation or its current state here; I’ll live and serve, and challenge, in a place on earth like that. My wife lived at times in her life in places where that was not true, so we’re grateful today for imperfect nations like Canada and the United States.

Many of us in church leadership roles are convinced that our world impact (local, regional, national or international) is very big, and our influence is actually significant and vital to the world around us. While we may be solid and real followers of Christ, in reality, often our impact is very small, and our denomination’s dent in culture is about the same, in the grand scheme of history, as that of the Methodists or the Baptists down the road.

We use the language of world-shaping profundity in our sermons, but to the popular cultures in which we live, we are often having only marginal impact - if it is perceived at all in our towns and cities. Please hear me, I don’t want to decry what we are actually doing, and what God is doing through us, but far too often we overstate our impact to the point where we believe we are actually making more of a difference than we actually are. For this overstatement, I turn primarily to my fellow communicators, who fill the pulpit week after week in local churches across North America and Europe.

From my vantage point, listening and watching churches triumphally declaring their unique war on evil and brokeness in their communities, we’re way over the mark in our estimation of our effect. The faith communities that are having the most actual impact may be those who the culture observes and draws attention to first, without the faith community declaring their own influence and authority in their area.

We say that we’re about the business of cultural influence in the way of Jesus, but we’re not practically about the business of adequately preparing and thrusting Christian astronauts, teachers, decision-makers, business leaders, quantum physicists, philosophers, movie directors, journalists, story-tellers, architects, doctors, nurses, authors, philanthropists, media stars, social engineers, mother theresas, geneticists, artisans and real cultural movers and shakers into the arena of culture. What do I mean by this?

We need, as Neuhaus said, to train spiritual influencers rather than religious technicians, both for the work within the fellowship of the saints, and in the world at large. In my estimation, we are overstating our impact because we have to - our practical theologies and trust in the Holy Spirit are not adequately enabling us to do the work we we were desigend to do as the Church in society.

The tension is real; I just think we’ve leaned so far away from one side of the horse that we’ve fallen off the other side. Cultural formation should be at the top of the agenda in every church’s leadership or board meeting. That may be expressed through a church’s call to be a safe place in a town. It may be expressed in a church agressively seeking to become the editorialists (I mean that in a real world sense, not a churchy sense), mayors, teachers and influencers. Who doesn’t need loving and quality people who champion a town or city, and its people, to be in those kinds of positions? We live as healers, and our communities will ask us “the reason for the hope within us.”

“Do you want a great church, or a great city?” an urban church pastor recently asked. We’re functionally inward in our practical theology, and are often about creating more pastors, children’s workers, youth workers, evangelists, worship leaders and other functional church leaders to feed the ongoing systems we need to continue in our churches. The sacred/secular split of Platonism rules and reigns in our practical actions, and we’re not doing the best we can be at creating atmospheres in which people of every stripe of talent and passion can thrive - and be launched full force into the culture to shape it from the base of a loving Christian community.

We are feeding ourselves as a Church organizational, and like the type that is the zombie, are feeding off ourselves to keep ourselves alive. It’s not okay to direct every talented young Christian leader into a church job. It’s wrong for many of them, and another window on the fact that some of our theological understanding of Christian vocation is not only skewed and in need of remedial measure - it is actually toxic to the Church having the impact we are called to have in culture.

The families and church bodies that begin to prepare young ones to follow and hone skills and passions that are unique to each child, without elevating primarily pastoral and ministry work (though high callings they are, and accurate for a few), will be the families and church bodies that have the most significant impact in culture in our present and coming generations.

In many cases, we’re teaching our children to avoid the hardest questions of culture, ask only “safe” questions themselves, or simply to defend themselves against those questions, instead of equipping them to reflectively answer those questions with lives that resound with credibility in culture - in loving thought, action and words. Our work in the church is often primarily about our internal functions as a Christian community, and only incidentally about transforming our communities around us. There is not enough time, energy and even intellectual understanding (or cultural engagement) to go around, so we circle the wagons and do just enough in our towns to make ourselves feel like we should exist as a church.

I’m all for the Church, and us taking our place. I just believe that we had better start calling some things as they are, putting a spotlight on the elephant in the room, or we will find ourselves continually marginalized in a postmodern world - even more than we are now.

I’m beginning to sense that a time of verbal silence (or near silence), and vibrant action, is upon us as the Church, and living out our faith substantially in the world must take precedence over the church culture of words and hype that dominate our pulpits and shape our ongoing church leaders. The world is tired of our talk and its primarily internal implications; we should be too.

We need our faith communities to be self-sustaining, but we cannot, must not, sacrifice the proliferation of Kingdom-oriented individuals whose Christian leadership is lived out in studios, board rooms, backstages, labs, classrooms, arenas and governmental halls of power. We can’t just hope for that, and then subtley suggest that church work is the most important thing they can be doing.

We have to give our real influencers a theology that puts a fire in their hearts after Sunday - when they get out of bed on Monday morning. We need to give them a mission worth dying for; not just a role in the church so we can keep the system alive. We must change our teaching and our systems to launch them with great force and joy into their daily labors. We must channel the majority of our teaching, human and tangible resources into creating these kinds of people, for work outside of the church proper.

P.S. By way of disclaimer, that’s a fairly unchecked rant after another “shake and wake” church experience. Please take it as such; a moment in time where I’ve just seen another situation that confirms in me more and more that the Church needs to get out of the church - substantially, and with the majority of our human and other resources.