thoughts

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Easter Morning

After reading the passion narratives on Good Friday, I always read the Resurrection narratives on Easter Morning. This year I read them in The Message.

The common, human aspects mixed with the most amazing “supernatural” aspects strike me most. You have bribes and angels; crooked religious people and a man raised to life, etc. Reading it made me feel a little naïve about my criticism of some contemporary religious leaders. Leading form selfish motives seems to be as old as “other” forms of prostitution. I guess we will always have a mix of stuff. God help me to be a “truly good person” for the sake of others.

Second, and I don’t mean to start an argument here, but it is very noticeable, and radical for Jewish people of Jesus’ day, that the women were the first to tell the Story of the Resurrection—and that the guys didn’t believe it, which makes the women the first evangelists/apologists: beautiful; I love it! God seems to delight in using the “little”, but devoted (at the tomb) people. Maybe there was “Billie” Graham before Billy?!

More about the angels: They “scared people to death”… “Made them so frightened they couldn’t move”. Then said, “There is nothing to fear here…” This is funny/ironic/weird, but also instructive: there is a dimension to the cosmos that is more real than the material world. It is natural and intuitive to “the angels”, but starling to us. The reality of it (think C.S. Lewis or Willard here) is more than we can take. To use a cheesy example, like meeting a really famous person who up to then you had only seen pictures: the “reality of their being” can be overwhelming. For instance, I felt a little that way when I first met Billy Graham. I imagine people feel that way around the Pope too.

The immaterial is not less real, it is more real and it is the dimension we will live in for eternity. This “more real world” is the place from which we can secure our selves in this life. Seeing it and believing in it is our only hope to be truly free, giving people. Jesus saw it (think of the angles he could have called to help him at his arrest in the garden), Daniel saw it in the lions den; Paul and Silas knew it in prison and sang hymns; Elijah saw the chariots of fire, etc. The only decent, caring, safe people and leaders are secured in an unseen reality. Not in some psychotherapy way, but they lived into and then out of, or from an unseen reality (from within the closet, not letting their right hand know what their left hand is doing, putting in their two mites, doing none of this to be seen of men, knowing their Father who is unseen will reward them, etc.).

Or family is going to visit a church this morning, so I gotta go, but not before my favorite part:

“…the moment they saw him they worshipped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about “worship”, about risking themselves totally. Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge (the great commission)…”

Who needs a debate or sermon on grace after reading that? Thank God that he is “undeterred” in his will for you and me.

God, today I place myself in your unseen realty; the kingdom of God; the place of true and free grace, the place of genuine, unsurpassed power; the reality of boundless and fully competent love. Thy Kingdom come and thy will be done in my life and the lives of all I love. Amen

posted by todd 10:09 AM

Friday, April 18, 2003

Good Friday

I have a many years long custom of reading through the passion narratives (this year in the Message) in the four Gospels on Good Friday morning. I did so again this morning and want to journal some of my responses in the space:

Jesus said, “Don’t play games with me Judas.” God, forgive me for all the times I play games with you by not being totally honest, for not even being centered enough or self-aware enough to do so.

Jesus said, “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want? God, please help me to always, at all times and all places, ask this question of you and follow what I hear with good cheer.

Jesus said, “Stay alert…there is part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there is another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.” Lord, you know this is true of me; maybe not lazy exactly, but not “ready for anything” either. Help me not to be so self-conscious, cautious and filled with fear of failure. Help me to be truly free by finding ultimate security in you.

Jesus said, “All who use swords are destroyed by swords.” Nothing has been more discouraging or depressing to me in my Christian walk than the meanness and fighting Spirit I have seen in others and sometimes even in myself. God, please deliver us from this temptation so that all people will know you exist by our love for one another.

“But when the accusations rained down hot and heavy from the high priests and religious leaders, he said nothing…Jesus kept silence—not a word from his mouth. The governor was impressed, really impressed.” God, help me to know that silence can be golden. Give the wisdom and courage to speak when I should and the patience and discipline to remain silent when that is most appropriate according to your plan.

"What’s more, tombs were opened up, and many bodies of believers asleep in their graves were raised. (After Jesus’ resurrection they left the tombs, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.) This is just flat fascinating! Anybody who thinks Christianity is mainly “cognitive” and not beyond the merely rational is just not “seeing” these types of thing in the scriptures.

“Joseph of Arimathea…was a man of good heart and good character…one who lived in alert expectancy, on the lookout for the Kingdom of God.” Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear what you are doing and have the settled character and intent to be an ambassador of your Kingdom.

“Within minutes they were bickering over who of them would end up the greatest. But Jesus intervened: ‘Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles. It’s not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act he part of the servant…now I confer on you the royal; authority my Father conferred on me so you can…be strengthened as you take up your responsibilities among the congregations of God’s people.” Jesus said, “I am not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.” God, I think I have issues with power and authority. I have seen it so misused is my religious experience that now I don’t want any thing to do with it, yet it is clear you give it. Plus I know intellectually that to not use legitimate power or authority for the good of others is as immoral and abusing power. Please help me to land in a healthy place with reference to power and authority for the sake of your church and for the good of the world.

Pilate announced: “here is the man.” THE Man! Perhaps the greatest insight I have received from Tom Wright is notion that on the cross we not only see the Lamb (substitution), but we see humanity as God intended it; Israel as God intended her and the church as God intends her. Lord, help me to be obedient no matter what it costs or where it takes me.

“The eyewitness to these things has presented an accurate report. He saw it himself and is telling the truth so that, also, you will believe…these things that happened confirmed the Scripture…” I know there has been a lot of angst in the postmodern discussion about he authority of any text, but especially our sacred text. I am open to various ideas about, “theories” of, and doctrines of the inspiration of scripture and also I think the “Verbal plenary” theory could use some criticism and sprucing up, but for me and my house, I still hang with the scripture as the best, most reliable written guide we have for the content and practice of our faith. It’s like theories about the atonement; okay we can have different theories, but we can’t do without the atonement. Similarly, we can different theories on the inspiration of the scriptures, but I think we must hold to their essential place in the life of our communities.

Lord, help me show how much I value your word by not only hearing it, but by doing your word too.

posted by todd 11:39 AM

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Here is some more Dr. B. to chew on.

I think I must like him because I probably would have been one of those “kings” or even common Israelites who often found themselves in despair, too emotionally tired to rise up and articulate a preferable future; too pessimistic to believe that important change that pleases God and benefits real people could actually come to pass. I’ll bet I would have been one of those people “who needed a prophet”… Dr. B.’s next chapter (4) is on “prophetic energizing and the emergence of amazement”. Thank God, B’s work energizes and fills me with amazement. Here are some sample quotes with my thoughts…

“…The alternative community is concerned both with criticizing (as per last post) and energizing…the task of the alternative community is to present an alternative consciousness that can energize the community to fresh forms of faithfulness and vitality.”

I know from my former group in OC and from my thousands of hours of “coaching” that this business of starting alternatives to “church as we have known it” is demanding—emotionally, intellectually and even relationally. I had hoped to find an easier, peace-filled alternative. I think with reference to “church” it is true; but with reference to the “prophetic” aspect of calling the present into question, well that is a different matter…

“…The royal consciousness (the ruling way that things presently are) militates against hope…the present ordering claims to be the full and final ordering…that claim means there can be no future that either calls the present into question or promises a way out of it. What is most needed is what is most unacceptable—an articulation that redefines the situation and that makes way for new gifts about to be given…[for] we have been nurtured (in the status quo) away from hope, for it is too scary. The question facing ministry is whether there is anything that can be said, done, or acted in the face if the ideology of hopelessness.”

Thus, a big part of our job is to provide a rationale for creativity, to create communities that celebrate risk and do not punish honest failure, and to generously share resources; resources of every kind--education, money, visibility. These are not just for the “ruling class”. We must equip and empower the whole people of God for the whole work of God. This does not take “level ten” people…well not unless you are thinking of church as a big corporation. Most ministry is never seen and never will be; we are deluded by the culture of Christina media and the clergy class into believing otherwise. Humble, unseen ministry, enabled by the Spirit, empowers invisible people to do invisible, but amazing things. This is how the Kingdom marches on.

“The task of prophetic imagination and ministry is to bring to public expression those very hopes and yearnings that have been denied so long and suppressed so deeply that we no longer know they are there…hope-filled language cuts through the status-quo despair and hopelessness; it is the language of amazement. Amazement works against despair the way grief works against numbness…the hope announced is not a nice feeling or a new inner spiritual state. Rather, it is grounded in a radical discernment of [our] worldly situation.”

I find a big part of my work is to provide hope—to myself first and then others. In fact, it is a major reason my blog has taken the shape it has over the past few weeks. Providing hope is also a huge part of the task of Allelon; it is a driving force behind every conversation I have.

The problem is “…we have all made commitments to what we are now calling into question”. Which means, for Christian “leaders” like me, we are calling our very lives into question. This is the heart of it. This is what demands “metanoia”, repentance; the reconsidering of our whole way being in the world, which if you think about it, our “church work” is only a small part that whole.

Okay, I want to get back to some different stuff on this blog, so here are the last Brueggemann quotes and then you’ll have to go buy the book—

“The effect of Isaiah is to energize Israel to fresh faith. But notice the radical, bold, even revolutionary form energizing takes. The prophet employs no psychological gimmicks and no easy meditative steps because the issues are not private, personal, spiritual or internal. The only serious energizing needed or offered is the discernment of God in all his freedom, the dismantling of the structures of weariness, and the dethronement of the powers of fatigue…it is the business of the poet to drive the exiles to a decision about sovereignty because exiles do not want to choose; depressed people do not want to act, and despairing people think it does not matter. But the first step out of exile/despair is the clear embrace of a faithful sovereign [God]…the poet engages in the kind of guerrilla warfare that is always necessary on behalf of oppressed people. First, [the dominant status quo] must be ridiculed (Rhetorically? I think I know what he means here, but I want to be careful about the ethics involved; I want to treat people the way I would want to be treated. But maybe that is why I am not a prophet J) and made [understood], for then it can be disobeyed and seen as a nothing who claims no allegiance and keeps no promises. The big house yields no real life, need not be feared, cannot be trusted, and must not be honored…adherence to it and its definition of reality make people weary and hopeless…but a re-articulation of the old Story sparks the imagination, turns despair into energy, and gives people back their faith.” (All the above from chapter 4)

With you on the journey into spiritual transformation into Christlikeness for the sake of the world,

Todd

posted by todd 12:19 PM

Friday, April 11, 2003

Quotes and comments from “The Prophetic Imagination”: Weekend Edition…

“Jeremiah asked only that the community face up to its real experience…” (Page 47)

Facing up to the experience of the contemporary Christianity is what messed me all up. I could not and still can not read the statistics people like Barna, Gallop and the sociologists of religion give us, know what I know form the insides of denominations, etc and not HAVE to do something about it; my conscious constrains me! Not because I am down on the church, quite the opposite, I am up on her future. I just want to help shape and form that future, to re-shape our imagination about “church”.

Jeremiah’s grief: “…that no one would listen and no one would see what was transparent to him.” (Page 47)

Better to let Dr. B. comment here: “My judgment is that nearly every situation of ministry includes this component of deception and the terrible dread of letting our rule come to and end, whether it is no more than tyranny in a marriage or supervision of my favorite anger or hatred. We want nothing that secures us to die.”

This may be one of the biggest reasons we have such a hard time making big, key change. Most of us are secured by all the wrong things. Look at how hard it can be just to change the time of a Sunday service or something. Church splits have happened over less.

Let me bring to bear here my favorite mentor, Dallas Willard. He has said to me: 1. “The open secret of the church is that when push comes to shove, he pastor will do WHAT EVER IT TAKES to hold onto control.” (I’ve discovered that this behavior is not limited to pastors. Almost everyone engages in it. It is the ugly side of consumerism that “demands its own way”.) 2. If we are to be really free to serve and love, we must secure ourselves in the “invisible world”, the rule and reign of God, wherein we are always safe; to live seeing “the chariots of fire” and not just the enemy; to see the legions of angles and not just the court of Herod, etc. I find this to be totally true. I cannot make myself safe by anything in this world; if I try, I will, in B’s words always “be eating from the table of my hungry friends”, using people, making every relationship open to utilitarianism. In the past few years, I have found a key to this kind of leadership is that I cannot want anything “from” people, I must want things “for” people and to create a community in which that is the behavioral norm. When that is the case, everyone’s “needs” are met.

May “the ache of God” break the “numbness” of my life; may the goodness of the rule and reign of God make me safe to lead others into that reality in truly altruistic ways. Amen
posted by todd 11:59 AM

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Have you ever--in the midst of all the challenging changes we have been trying to make—felt depressed, not sure you really care enough or have enough emotional reserves to keep pressing on; that it might be easier to not ask the hard questions? Ever had the secret thought that it might be easier to slip back—if you could do it un-noticed—into the mainstream? This is what Dr. B. calls “the absence of pathos”. It is numbness, apathy or the inability to care or suffer. Most of the time, I know I would do almost anything to avoid suffering. It is too hard, especially if you can’t know for sure if you are right about a given thing or that your cause is totally just.

Established, bureaucratic systems embody numbness. But it sneaks up on reformers too. Dr. B. gives some hints about how the prophetic imagination can cut through numbness and penetrate self-deception so that God can break through.

B. says the prophetic task here is “quite elemental and modest”--

Offer symbols that are adequate to confront the experiences that evoked numbness and denial. Reactivating old symbols seems to work best. The exodus is an obvious key metaphor.

Maybe the early Anabaptists could be a symbol for us? I know the Anabaptists were not right about everything, and I’m not a professional historian, but it sure seems to me that the Reformers failed to move from rhetoric to praxis on some key issues (the priesthood of all believers for one) that the Anabaptists tried to remedy. Second, it seems to me they were more willing to live in tension with he culture; i.e. to be Christians before they were British, American, etc. Just a thought…symbols get me a little out of my competency. Rise up oh artists and help us here! We need new songs and poetry and liturgy, etc.

Bring to public expression our truest thoughts and concerns. B. says we ought to use metaphor and evocative speech (speech which causes emotion; i.e. Jesus’ words about hell or his words against the Pharisees, etc.), not analytical language. Again, this is not strength for me; I tend to think analytically. Actually, I do not usually like emotional communications. But some of you do this well and need to do it: do it filled with love and humility and we will be fine.

I often have the experience of people saying to me, “Todd, you are articulating what I have been thinking but I was afraid that I was the only one thinking these thoughts…” I witnessed the same phenomena in the early Wimber years as he helped people to come to terms with the person and work of the Spirit.

B. encourages us to speak metaphorically about the concrete reality that spiritual “deathliness” is all around us, hovering over us and gnawing within us. “Speak neither in rage nor with cheap grace, but with the candor born of anguish and passion.” He says, “The prophet does not scold or reprimand. The prophet brings to public expression the dread of endings [change], the collapse of our selfmadeness, the barriers and pecking orders that secure us at each other’s expense and the fearful practice of eating off the table of a hungry brother or sister [rather than serving and giving].” “…It is the task of the prophet to invite [the status quo] to experience what it must, what it most needs to experience and most fears to experience, namely the end [of itself, which can be the beginning of God].”

For me, this “experience” has been no fun. It is not cool to know you have been wrong about significant things. But, at the end we do meet a very patient, kind and loving God who is delighted to work with us to shape us into the kinds of people who will rule with him forever in the renewed cosmos.

Peace,

Todd

posted by todd 12:13 PM

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

The last couple of weeks I have been musing with you in this space about moving to praxis from the stirring rhetoric, concepts and ideals we read in Willard, Wright, Missional Church, etc. We took a detour at my hypothesis that the difficulty may be more “personal” than intellectual. Now I want to come back to The Prophetic Imagination by Brueggemann.

Prophetic Criticism and the Embrace of Pathos (grief):

Grief:

For me, the first reason for grief is the knowledge that “all of us” are caught-up in, committed to and thus part of the problem of the old reality (what Prof. Brueggemann calls “the royal consciousness” which stands opposed to the alternative, prophetic consciousness). None of us, to my knowledge, have a privileged place to stand from where we can pass judgment. I do not primarily have in mind here the postmodern concern over absolute objectivity, though I understand it. I have in mind something that seems to me more like a “moral” issue; the knowledge that we are to some varying degree responsible for the state of the very things we are now trying to change.

Criticism:

The above leads Prof. B. to ask: “How can we have enough freedom to imagine and articulate a real newness in our situation—meaning in our historical space and time”? VERY IMPORTANT: this is not the same as asking if our dreamed of changes are realistic, or politically practical or economically viable.

I think my comment here would only take away from Dr. B. here, so I’ll leave you today with a couple cool quotes:

“To begin with such questions (realistic? etc.) is to concede everything to the [old system] before we begin. We need to ask not whether it is realistic or practical or viable but whether it is imaginable. We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the [old system] that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought.” (Page 39)

“The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same [old system] consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened by the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the [old system] wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” (Page 40)

This says to me that words that articulate a renewed imagination are still important, but not without actions that demonstrate the new reality to which they are pointing. Dr. B. helps me stay in the game. Because I sometimes think I am crazy or going too far, he gives me the courage to keep going.

God…help me to stay positively and intently moving forward. Help me to get the log of the old system I HELPED BUILD out of my eye before I try to “help” others. Help me to truly love the whole body of Christ while simultaneously pressing for a preferable future. Help me to do all this with both courage and genuine humility. Amen
posted by todd 1:56 PM

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

(If you looked at my friend Winn’s blog, here is my interaction. He raises the usual questions; some new one’s as well and provides some stimulating thought from the Apostle Paul.)

Thanks for the interaction Winn. I suppose you know I am not advocating "a list of things that must be done to please God or be authentic". I'm simply looking for a style or pattern of life that leads to better followership of Jesus in the Spirit. I agree with your emphasis on community as we pursue disciplines of any kind--Paul's--or Paul's successors in church history. Where I myself have got stuck at times and where I see others stuck, is HOW to put off, put on, and mortify.

The historic answer, Prot, Cath, Orth, Pent, etc. has been some strategy or practice whereby in a group (like AA or Wesley's model), with a guide/director, practiced certain activities or "disciplines" in grace inspired, Spirit empowered ways. This is not done to "please God" (especially if "salvation” is in view), but to grow in one's ability to actually follow/obey Jesus. Nor were these signs of advanced spirituality or boundary markers of any sort. If they were signs of anything, they were signs of "need for improvement"; like an over-weight person joining a gym, a golfer flailing away on a driving range, etc. The "most spiritual" person is the one who has mastered putting off, putting on and mortifying and thus doesn't need the "discipline" any longer--they have trained themselves to do it in easy and natural ways...the way Tiger hits a golf ball...with room for the occasional mistake! FORE!

A couple more things about the disciplines, and then back to Brueggemann tomorrow:

“Grace” is opposed to “earning” not effort; look again at Phil. 3:7ff; James 2:17 and scores of other similar passages. Grace aligns with our effort and works against—in a correcting, teaching sense—our “earning”.

The disciplines are just a way “to make space” (Nouwen) in our life to hear, see and experience God—like Jesus often in prayer at night or early in the morning or fasting, etc. He didn’t need to “please God” (Mt. 3:17) or earn anything from him, nor was he interested in any socially conceived “boundary marker”. It is deeply instructive to ask, “What WAS Jesus interested in”? What was he trying to achieve when he practiced activities or disciplines for the Spirit-life? Why did he practice prayer, etc? Could it have something to do with his lifestyle of: “I only do and say what I hear and see the Father doing…I do nothing on my own, but only what the Father instructs me”, etc.

I hope all you blogger friends know that I am not expert at this stuff, conceptually or in practice. In fact, I was thinking yesterday about the irony that as I’ve been saying all this, my own disciplines need spruced up. But that is the nature of these things…it is a constant adventure. I just try to make it peaceful and joyful, not “religious”, legalistic or socially driven (pleasing or impressing others).

Remember, the point of departure was the almost universally held view that we are all having a hard time moving ourselves and our communities forward from rhetoric to praxis. My thesis is that the challenge is “personal”, not intellectual. I would be grateful to hear a better, alternative thesis. And if someone knows of a better pattern for doing so than the one Winn puts forward (put off, put on, mortify…) or that I put forward I would be delighted to hear it. I am not trying to win an argument, I’m trying to help me and my faith community actually embody the reality of living under the rule and reign of God and to be it’s ambassador.

Hope this helps,

Todd

posted by todd 8:53 AM

Sunday, April 06, 2003

Debbie, Mom and I had a great drive yesterday. Idaho has some spectacular scenery—some of it literally world class. It will be nice, over the next few years to experience the Northwest of our country. I have never been to many of these beautiful places.

As I promised yesterday, here is the deal with the disciplines. (Remember, the context is my hypothesis that moving from rhetoric, concept and ideal to embodied practice is less about intellectual rigor and more about who we really are as persons. Thus, how do we really change so that things like generosity of spirit and self-less love become routine or “positive addictions”. By the way, for a better treatment of this subject, see Dallas Willard’s “The Spirit of the Disciplines” and “Hearing God” and “The Divine Conspiracy”; see also Richard Foster’s “The Celebration of the Disciplines”. Then follow their bibliographies for more good stuff, a la Nouwen, O’Conner [from Church of the Savior], etc.)

Spiritual disciples—done in reliance on the Spirit and the Grace of God—remove the causes of our personal failures. This is true because the disciplines work on the inner or hidden part of our lives from which our “automatic” actions come; things like cussing at or giving particular hand signs to people who drive in ways we do not appreciate.

Think here about Jesus’ words in Matthew 12:33-35—good tree (inner DNA), good fruit; bad tree (essential inner nature, DNA), bad fruit. Any thing else would be biological chaos. Apple trees easily and naturally produce apples. But no matter how hard they may try, no matter how much they may sincerely groan and “religiously” agonize over it, they cannot produce pumpkins. Finally, Jesus says, “The good man brings good things out [from the inside or hidden part] of the good STORED UP IN HIM, and the evil man brings evil things out [from the inside or hidden part] of the evil stored up in him”.

How does one “store up good things in them” so that they can then easily and naturally act from them? The grace inspired and Spirit empowered disciplines. Obviously, there are whole books written on the topic; surely more than I can say in a blog entry. But, let me try to say a couple more helpful things:

Ø If Jesus, our master teacher, is to be believed, life is lived from the inside out (See MT. 23: 25-28. This passage has Jesus’ lessons from dishwashing and grave cleaning.) This is why ideas and words—exterior things—lack transformative power. Not that they are bad, just impotent (when they stand alone) when it comes to spiritual transformation into Christlikenes so that we can embody being the sent people of God.

Ø The disciplines are “indirect effort”. In practicing them, we do what is currently under our control with the intent, hope and expectation that they will enable to do what we dream of in our idealistic language. Watch The Karate Kid” with his in mind. You will see how Daniel-san learns karate in very indirect ways. By doing what he can—scrub floors, paint fences and waxing cars—he becomes the kind of person who can naturally and easily defend himself from even expert karate punches and kicks. Lesson: we cannot “try” to be good (remember the apples and pumpkins); we must “train” (“store up good in us”) to be good.

Darn, there is still more to be said, but I’ve got to go again. My mom is leaving this morning to visit a friend in Ogden, UT and I’ve got to take her to the Greyhound station. I’ll finish tomorrow and then well get back to “professor” Brueggemann…

posted by todd 9:04 AM

Saturday, April 05, 2003

Sorry for the blank blogging week…my bad. I had a busy week and was out of the office one day. Ask Keck for details on this; his reply should be better than most $8.00 movies. I know I never stop thinking about this stuff and I know many of you enjoy the interaction as well, so I am truly sorry if you came looking for a friend to interact with this week and there was “no one home”. Okay, enough of that; I know you let me off the hook…

We left off thinking (with the help of Walter Brueggemann) about how one moves--ourselves and our communities of faith—from concepts or good ideas to practicing, or better yet, naturally and easily embodying these new realities. Keck gave me a cool new phrase yesterday as we were talking about taking on new habits: “positive addictions”. It resonated with the phrase because it felt so “real” to me, so “Romans 7”. I often feel trapped in addictions to bad behavior, errant thoughts, messed-up emotions--anxiety, depression, fear of failure, etc.

This of course always drives me back to the “inner” or “hidden journey” where I have to work on (read spiritual disciplines) what “kind” of tree I am, because a bad tree (in its inner DNA) cannot produce good fruit—God help me! This understanding—that we act from inner, hidden parts that are addicted to sinful stuff—is in my judgment a helpful bridge from rhetoric to praxis.

Here is what I mean: most of this stuff is not rocket science or brain surgery. Concepts like love, generosity, otherliness, etc., are not intellectually rigorous. Rather, being very intuitive to most people on a conceptual or rhetorical level, they expose our addictions (think of Jesus’ words about dirty insides of cups, bad DNA and insides of tombs) to selfishness, self-protection and acquiring more goods.

This is a bleak picture—and this all that many people ever see. Only seeing the bad DNA of their own souls they remain ever stuck in the thought and its accompanying reality: “I can never change; when I try, I fail; when I try harder I just end up a more religious, but less good human being. Take heart, there is a fruitful, natural way forward to honest spiritual transformation into Christlikeness. It is the historic, 2000-year way of the spiritual disciplines.

I’ll come in again early tomorrow morning and say some more about the grace-oriented, peace-filled way of the disciplines. When “I work WITH them”, “they really work ON me” and give me hope for taking on some new “positive addictions”.

Then next week I’ll come back to Brueggemann. He helps us see how the prophets broke through the fog of bad praxis (Israel is almost never rebuked for bad doctrine and almost always for failure to practice their parts in God’s Story) to move Israel to be the Sent People of God. Brueggemann looks at Jeremiah as an example of how passionate grief-filled criticism is a part of the prophetic way.

Gotta go…my mom is in town from southern California and Debbie and I are taking her for a drive through the Sawtooth Mountains to Sun Valley & Ketchum.

God willing I’ll be back here tomorrow…

posted by todd 9:36 AM

Sunday, March 30, 2003

Our blogging community has been talking a great deal about “words”; “mere" words, the usefulness of words, etc. We care about this because in some sense, all of us are trying to change ourselves and be “change agents”. We are attempting to help people see what is means to be a Christian, to be the church, to develop authentic spirituality, to engage in proper and healthy ways with reconceived-of Christian leadership, to go on the inward, outward and community journey, etc.

A few months ago, I realized this was “prophetic work”. Prophetic in the OT (up to John the Baptist) sense of seeing that God has “struck a line” on a board and that he expects us to build with reference to that line, to be “square with it” (cf. I Cor. 3:10, etc.). I could see that we were telling (with the help of Willard, Wright, Newbigin, Peterson, etc.) a vastly different Story, that calling people to live by it was not a normal, Sunday school, bible study kind of thing. It rocks people’s world, makes them question long-standing beliefs, etc. This brings up the “pastoral” (walking with people through this hand-in-hand once they “get it”) elements of our work, but that is a discussion for another day.

It was the "rocking people’s world" part of this that led me to search for a competent guide for prophetic work. Brueggemann is, in our day, the best of those guides. What you will get from him is conceptual. As you read these highlights I have selected, keep before your conscious mind the question “how can I use this, put it into practice, shape my acts and words as a change agent?”

Here are three quick points to help us get started, to give you a taste of Brueggemann. Remember, go slow; the idea is to shape your imagination so that you can shape the imagination of others.

The Prophetic Imagination
By Walter Brueggemann

Hypothesis:
“The task of prophetic ministry it to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to consciousness and perception of the dominant (in our case religious) culture around us.”

1. Prophetic ministry in the Bible meant rather regular, direct and confrontational encounters with established power(s). This approach seemed to “fund” and “authorize” bold, courageous and obedient lifestyles. But, in our cultural situation the church has been so co-opted by the world that we can’t do this—we as “insiders” (to some degree co-opted ourselves) need to be more cunning, more nuanced and ironic.

2. Prophetic “acts of imagination” offer and propose “alternative worlds” which the community can live into and practice. Human transformation depends upon transformed imaginations.

3. But, how does one act out imaginative alternatives in a community of faith (i.e. Israel in Egypt; us in a consumer culture) which on the whole does not understand that there are any alternatives or is not willing to embrace such if they come along?

I'll do more tommorow--I'm out of time. Hmmm...telling an alternative, subversive Story; offering an alternative world, shaping an alternative imagination and consciouness...I gotta go think, speak and act on those for a while...

Hope this helps, your friend,

Todd

posted by todd 8:39 AM

Saturday, March 29, 2003

I said a week or so ago on my blog that I was wrestling with the whole idea of words and their power—or lack thereof—in the work we are doing. I easily resonate with what my friends Mark, Alan, Eric and Jason—among others are saying. I know that I am very frustrated about not “doing” more of what I dream about. I haven’t started a “mission” yet in Boise, nor have I started a new missional community.

I’ve had what I thought were good reasons for this. We just moved, I wanted to focus on helping my family get through the transition, we are building a house, my long-time close colleague, LeAnn, died; I wanted to get to know the people in Rembrandt’s Community, etc. I still don’t think those are bad reasons and only less than three months have gone by…but still, I learn and grow best and help others best when I don’t MERELY “peddle rhetoric” as Mark encouraged us the other day. I couldn’t live that way with a good conscious. None of us want to do that…

Peddler: one who sells merchandise (i.e. fruit, etc.) on the street or from door-to-door; one who deals in or promotes something intangible (immaterial, i.e. without “matter”).

Rhetoric: the art and skill of speaking or writing effectively; insincere or grandiose language.

It seems to me that we do want to “sell” (as a metaphor) something; but we want to make it “material” through the living of a Kingdom-oriented life and through the creation of Kingdom/missional communities. Further, we do want to communicate effectively. (At least I do, as someone who is often used by God in the gift of teaching. Take rhetoric—positively conceived—from a teacher/coach and there is not much left. But I’m sure you do as well no matter what your main gift pattern may be.) But (and I think this may be what my friends are getting at), we need to make our words “sincere” and “material” by our works. Wimber was pure gold here: words and works go together, always. Jesus “worked” (did stuff) THEN he explained it.

This, I think, is Mark’s proper burden: let’s make some of the missional communities that actually live out the implications of the new way we are learning to understand the Gospel (i.e. Willard, Wright, etc.), THEN lets talk about it; or do both simultaneously. The bottom line: talk ALONE won’t get it done.

Thinking about this for the last week or so reminded me of reading The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann last fall. I enjoy writing book summaries of good books I read. I view it as way to “allelon” my friends and colleagues. Tomorrow I will come in early (before going to hear N.T. Wright speak—can you believe he is going to be in Boise! Ya hoo! What a hoot!) to do a summary of TPI. I think Brueggemann can really help us think through the prophetic aspect of our work to call forth in ourselves and in the people with work with a new way of being Christian and of being the church.

Just a teaser hint: You’ll see that “prophetic” means words and deeds, rhetoric and action. And…that it is all pretty scary. There is a reason “no one wants to be a prophet…” And one way to avoid it is to avoid half the work: to use rhetoric alone…

Blog with you tomorrow,

Todd

posted by todd 9:21 AM

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Rant: “to talk in a noisy, excited, bombastic, extravagant and declaratory (to set forth or explain) way”.

Well, here goes, another first for Hunter…my first cyber-rant!!!!!

It’s been week since I last blogged. I didn’t have any inspiration. Even this morning my all-things-technology-coach, Eric, was imploring me to write—still no inspiration. Then I checked my email… I am normally a VERY patient person; ask anyone who knows me well. But, this (just so happens, Vineyard) pastor ticked me off. He told a lady in his church “he had problems with my ‘re-imagining’ God.”

First, I’ve never talked or written about re-imaging God. I’ve talked AND WILL CONINUE to talk about re-imaging the church and what it actually means to be a Christian. I am not ashamed about trying to align my life with the aims of God with regard to his desire for an obedient people who would live in his Story as the ambassadors of his Kingdom. If this makes me dangerous, “unbiblical and questionable”, then bring it on!

I am in good company with all the reformers—not least Wimber. (I can remember when the Vineyard was reform and change minded, not defensive and protectionist of a past that will never be recaptured or relived. Get over it—do what your hero Wimber said, “take the best and GO!” Move on, grow, have his guts, don’t become like one of his many critics sitting in the stands commentating and criticizing while others are actually being players) Not that it ultimately matters, but I feel I am in line with Wimber trying to understand the full implications of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Doesn’t it make sense that if we are to do this it might require re-thinking some theology?

Second, bring before your conscious mind your imagination about God. Do you suppose that imagination is absolutely, 100% correct? If not, and I’m sure mine is flawed, what would be wrong, theoretically, with “re-imagining God”? I am a biblically and theologically driven person. I would never change except as guided by superior insights. I would happily admit to being wrong about something and change. Does this make me a dangerous person? I think the dangerous person is the one unwilling to change and grow as the Spirit gives more insight (See John 14-16, I John 2 & I Cor. 12-14). The questionable person is the lazy pastor preaching “Sermon Services” sermons and refusing to become a learner for themselves. No significant move forward for the church has ever came that way; nor can it.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine why anyone would be satisfied with “church as we have know it”. And aren’t current forms of church rooted in our imaginations about church/Christianity/God? Further, they are rooted in a “reality” that no longer exists in their former ways—modernity and Christendom. To quote my friend Brain Mc Laren, “if you have a new world, you need a new church”. Not in a pragmatic sense (at least not for me), but PM and PC provide a “prophetic” reason to re-examine our approaches to theology and church. Thank God, or I may have never done it. I may have stayed in the conservative evangelical reductionisms of “being a Christian means saying a prayer so that you can go to heaven when you die”.

How can anyone defend the “born again” church people like Barna (thank you George), Gallop and the sociologists of religion describe? And be sure, this form of religion is rooted in deficient ideas/imaginations about God/Jesus/The Spirit/their aims, etc. And if you can’t defend it, then darn it--get busy changing it! Forget the carping, fearful, lazy—I can’t do too much change --I might lose my paycheck—people.

Wow, rants sound more defensive than I like to be…oops…I guess I need to learn to rant.

posted by todd 10:23 AM