It's a biographical account of the history of Christian missions. I'm currently reading about the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM), which started in 1886. The SVM was a revival of interest in missions, led by college students. One such missionary that came from this movement was E. Stanley Jones, missionary to the well-educated of India.
He has this to say on Church. I find it fascinating:
"The Church is for the most part a worshipping institution used once or twice a week. This makes the fellowship a momentary thing of an hour or two in seven days. After those few hourse, each goes back into his (or her) compartmentalized life. The Indian mind--in fact, the human mind--wants something that will gather the whole of life into a central control and make it into a fellowship which will not be for an hour or two, but something continuous and all-embracing." (page 332-3 of From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, gender inclusive language and emphasis mine)
It's incredible to me that a missionary in India working in the first half of the 20th century saw what we are just beginning to see in America. The church is meant to be a community that lives the Good News together. The Good News is that it redeems and transforms all of life. It's holistic. Humans are desperate for such an 'all-embracing' faith community. Why aren't we offering it to them?
I'll be at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta next week. It's one of the big megaconferences for next-gen leaders. Our pastoral staff is going, so it should spur some interesting discussions.
To see a 'placard' (an odd word), featuring the main speakers, click here.
I have mixed feelings about conferences. They seem to take a lot of time, energy, and resources for all involved, and I'm usually disappointed by the sessions. Typically, big conferences bring in big authors to talk, which makes sense (big author draw in the attendees). The problem: If you've read their 'big' book, you can pretty much guess what their talk will be about. It's rare that conference speakers actually expand on their thoughts in the book, or offer new insights. The bigger the conference, the bigger the problem, because the size offers very little chance to interact and dialogue with the speaker. Hopefully there will be some brand spankin' new ideas at this conference.
I do like that Catalyst offers resources beyond just the conference itself. They have a blog, a podcast, a monthy e-zine, and some other stuff (like a soduku puzzle). They also try to raise funds for a particular project, such as building wells in Africa, which is great. Their website is 'out there' to say the least. Is it truly an 'out of the box' approach to a conference? Or...Are they trying too hard? I'll let you know.
The best part of any conference I've ever attended is the informal interaction I've had with others. The conversations over lunch, coffee, etc. are priceless.
Aside: My 'real' concern with going: getting to the hotel on Wed. night in time to catch the first episode of the new season of Lost.
Anyone else out there going to be in the A-T-L next week?
27 years ago today I came into the world. Growing up, birthdays were something to get really juiced about. Parties, gifts, the continual excitement of being able to put up one more finger when someone asked me how old I was.
Then came the teenage years. 16....oh to be sixteen! To be able to drive! The freedom!
Then 16 came and went, and 18 was alright. I could vote, buy cigarettes (not that I did, but knowing I could was nice), and register in case there was ever a draft (please Lord, no!).
Then, the big milestone: 21! Oh yeah, 21 baby! Oh wait...I went to Taylor, so 21 wasn't a big deal, since having a celebratory drink would get me thrown out. My driver's license finally went horizontal, so that was a change.
25 was nice. My car insurance went way down, and I can now rent a car without giving Enterprise my soul, so that's good.
But 27? Are there any more milestones to look forward to? Not reallly. Don't get me wrong, I'm not avoiding old age like the plague or anything. I suppose 30 is a big deal, but just because it's a new decade. No real benefit to being 30.
So, yeah, 27 years ago I was born today. I guess birthdays are now good for reflection. They're also a good excuse to spend time with my family, splurge on a night out, and just have some fun.
It's the reflection that seems to be new for this birthday. What have I done with my 26 year? Was it significant? What do I want to do with my 27th?
So many things! So many goals, so many dreams...will I ever get around to them? I hope so.
I'm sure most of you have seen the hilarious Chuck Norris Facts Website. Inspired, I thought I'd come up with some Ed Young facts. Ed Young is superpastor extraordinaire of Fellowship Church, a mega-megachurch in Grapevine, TX (with 5 campuses around the Dallas area and...um...a video campus in Tampa.)
Anyway, Ed has that larger than life persona, so these are all verifiable facts. Trust me.
1. ed young's chief export is creativity 2. ed young has figured out when Christ will return. you can purchase the date on his website for $19.95 3. ed young's hair never gets messed up--never ever 4. ed young's smile cures cancer 5. the glow from ed young's face gives people a suntan (never a sunburn) 6. ed young gave joel osteen his best life now... 7. ed young's communication skills transcend language barriers 8. ed young's hair requires no gel...ever. 9. the quickest way to a man's heart is through one of ed young's conferences 10. ed young's skin is tan...naturally 11. ed young once challenged mark driscoll to a duel of creativity. ed won by smiling a new megachurch into existence, ex nihilo. 12. ed young winks, and a sermon appears on his computer screen 13. ed young holds the patent on creativity. 14. when ed young talks, everyon listens--and cries. 15. the government just passed a law. every tanning booth must now be called an 'ed young booth'.
Now, all you Ed Young disciples, settle down. I'm just having a little fun. Ed Young's a brother in Christ, and this is simply one brother teasing another in love. Although I disagree with some of his methods in ministry (sell, sell, sell), I appreciate that he's trying to reach people with the gospel. I mean, shoot, with that smile...he could be on toothpaste ads or something.
We're having a little fun this week. We've all seen 'that guy' on the road. The one with the fancy schmancy car, the perfect hair, the 'I'm vastly more important than thou' attitude, always in a big hurry to keep up with the Jones. Well, someone you'd least expect has done something about it. Enjoy...
I just finished the missions classic, God's Smugger, by Brother Andrew. Holy cow...read this book! It takes the reader through the journey of Brother Andrew's early life as an 'adrenaline junkie-heavy drinking-reckless Dutch soldier' turned Bible smuggling missionary to the nations of the Iron Curtain.
Each chapter is a gripping real life account of Brother Andrew's travels. It's like reading a good suspense novel. Brother Andrew doesn't gloss over his own shortcomings, nor his fears and trepidations about his work. He simply just tells the miracles as they happened, and gives God the complete credit.
I won't spoil the story for you but I will say that certain books have come into my life at certain times. I believe it's for a reason: to encourage me, teach me, and strengthen my faith. God's Smuggler is serving as one of those books. There are a few themes that run through the entirety of the book:
The power of faith--The book is so full of miracles...There are countless occasions when Brother Andrew should've been arrested, or killed, or stranded or (you get the picture), but God intervened in a miraculous way.
The power of prayer--Prayer was undoubtedly the fuel for this dangerous work serving God under Communism's oppression. Brother Andrew and his coworkers were prayer warriors.
The power of trust--Brother Andrew didn't, upon sensing God's call to work in the Communist countries, apply to an already established missions organization. He simply trusted God, day by day, to provided for his needs, so long as He was following His call. His trust for provision is incredible, and would probably be considered crazy by today's standards.
The power of sacrifice--Brother Andrew has lived a life most today would deem unlivable. He gave up multiple chances for 'the good life', and forsook even the most basic items that we today take for granted, all so that we could continue the work he felt called to.
Faith, prayer, trust, and sacrifice...much needed lessons for me in the 'here and now'.
(As a result of the expanding need for people to serve the persecuted church, Brother Andrew's work eventually developed into a global ministry now called Open Doors. Check them out here.)
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."--Jesus of Nazareth, Matt 11:28-29
I'm hearing rumors of Blogger making some trouble with people's blog feeds. To those of you who subscribe to this feed: are you having trouble with the feed? Let me know, and I'll see what I can do...
Maybe this is why, in the middle of a sea of cornfields, I often feel like I'm on a deserted island.
You can check out a high res image of the map HERE.
the:Shiverian (i found it via Pomomusings) has mapped out most (not all) of the big players in the American emerging church. Notice a trend? Obviously...there are a few to add (Bolger, O'Keefe, Hyatt, Marko, etc), but even these voices are located with all the other dots. This doesn't mean there are no fellow emergents in the middle states, but it does show where the main 'voices' of the movement hail from.
(Aside): Just an observation...it looks a little like this:
We midwestern emergents have some serious work to do...
The Gospel in a Pomo Society 5.0: Putting Reaon in its Place
15 September 2006
It’s been too long since I’ve posted on Newbigin's The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. I’ll try to be more consistent. Thanks for your patience…
In his 5th chapter, Newbigin explores the interplay between reason, revelation, and experience in the foundations of our belief. A warning: If you’re a philosopher, you’ll probably either really, really love or really, really hate this chapter. His primary motive is to answer the question: “How are we to understand the proper roles of and the interrelations between these three factors in seeking firm foundations for our belief?”
The modernist view is to often place reason on an equal plane with revelation and experience. Newbigin resists this. His basic argument can be outlined as such
Reason is a faculty that can only function within a ‘continuing linguistic and cultural tradition’ (53) In other words: we only make ‘sense’ of things using language and the culture in which we live.
To reference Berger, every human society has a reigning ‘plausibility structure’ of assumptions and practices which determine what beliefs are plausible and which ones are not. (53)
“It is easier to see the working of the plausibility structure in a culture of a different time or place than it is to recognize it in one’s own.” (53) This is so true. We all, by nature, are ethnocentric beings.
So why put reason in it’s place? Why demote it from this sacred triumvirate of Reason, Revelation, and Experience? According to Newbigin, “we cannot reason except by the use of language. Language embodies the ways in which a continuing community has learned to grasp its experience in a coherent way…In learning a language, we are being inducted into tradition.” (53-4)
Also, “We learn to use our reasoning powers by entering into the experiences, the discoveries, the debates, and the disagreements of those who have gone before us. A tradition of reasoning is never static.” (54) Thus, those who live in the reigning plausibility structure determine what makes sense and what does not.
The development of such a tradition of rational reasoning is “never unrelated to the social, political, economic, military, and cultural changes which the society in question is going through.” (54) In other words, the accepted reasoning is embedded within and embodied in the life of a community.
At this point, Newbigin encounters a common objection: Isn’t this merely relativism? He provides three critical points of response:
1.“All traditions of rational discourse are continually changing in effort to makes sense of experience.” (55) ‘Old’ traditions face a crisis when presented with a new situation. A rival tradition and reasoning appears to meet the new situation, offering a new way of thinking and interacting with reality. A new vision for the present and into the future. This, my friends, is a paradigm shift.
This process, for Newbigin, demonstrates “that while all exercise of rationality is within a social tradition, the tradition is not ultimate; it is subject to the test of adequacy to the realities which it seeks to grasp. Trust is grasped, can only be grasped, within a tradition, but traditions can be judged adequate or inadequate in respect of their perceived capacity to lead their adherents into the truth.” (55)
Yeah, brilliant…truth is never void of context. It is understood not merely in a vacuum, but in life and through a reigning plausibility structure.
2. Which brings us to Newbigin’s second point on the relativism question: “Traditions of rationality are embodied in languages” (55) To illustrate the present, modernism has it’s own distinct language, as does postmodernism. Postmodernism is only a serious threat to the modern plausibility structure because of those postmoderns who are able to learn the language of modernism.
This is where translation comes in (which, by the way, is a subject Andrew Walls has written brilliantly about). This is why ministries who try to reach postmoderns from the safety of their modern confines don’t work: because their translating their modern message for a pomo audience, and the meaning is jumbled. Newbigin akins it to translating poetry from one language to another (56). The depth, breadth, and much of the meaning of the poems are lost in translation.
Simply, people cling to plausibility structures, whether it be modern or postmodern, because they believe that their plausibility structure most adequately copes with their reality.
3. Back to Newbigin’s musings on relativism, he refutes the claim by stating that relativism is itself a claim about something: that reality is unknowable. The logic fails. Furthermore, “The Christian…will relativize the reigning plausibility structure in the light of the gospel. There is no disembodied reason which can act as an impartial umpire between the rival claims” of modern/postmodern or any other issue.” (57)
In summary, Newbigin offers a brilliant analysis of the struggles taking place in our church today. The reigning plausibility structure of the ‘modern, seeker-sensitive, baby-boomer, business model’ church is being challenged by a new plausibility structure, expressing itself in ‘emerging, postmodern, monastic, communal’ forms. We find ourselves living in the middle of this paradigm shift. It’s exciting and scary.
We all, regardless of which plausibility structure we adhere to, would do well to heed the words of Newbigin:
“As a Christian I seek so to live within the biblical tradition, using its language as my language, its models as the models through which I make sense of experience, its story as the clue to my story, that I help to strengthen and carry forward this tradition of rationality…” (65)
Yesterday I finished Through Gates of Splendor, by Elisabeth (Betty) Elliot. It's a gripping account of the true story of 5 missionaries martyred in the jungles of Ecuador. Sound familiar? That's because it's the same (basically) story recently popularized by the film End of the Spear.
If you watched the movie and the story moved you, you'll love this book. It gives the backdrop of the story; what brought these 5 men to that beach to give their lives for the cause of Christ.
The author was wife to Jim Elliot, one of the 5 men who lost his life. She quotes often from Jim's writings and diaries. Man, that guy could write!
My favorite of Jim Elliot's quotes comes from his diary, reflecting upon trying to serve God in the U.S.:
"The problem of meeting a culture with truth from God is the most difficult kind of thing. Once comes as a renovator, a conditioner of society, and society is in no mood to be conditioned. The fixedness of the human mind is the 'wall of Jericho' to Gospel preaching. God must shake, or there will be no shaking." (p. 20)
It's high time God shook things up...and it's high time we stop getting in the way.
The book is an inspiring source of faith, hope, and sacrifice. God's glory has certainly shone through the tragedy. The blood shed that day has certainly been a seed planted, watered, and cared for to a miraculous fruition of God's love and peace among indigenous tribes.
This week's installment: Homer Simpson on God and Church. It's a sad and frank representation of many men. It's even more sad that so many churches have not stirred men's souls.
Today I get away. No computer. Just me, my Bible, my moleskine, and a few books. It's my quarterly (I'm working towards making it monthly) day o' retreat, where I recharge, catch up on my reading, and get away from the wired world.
It's a day where I "remain in Christ" for a change, since I tend to just ask him to remain in me all the time, so that I bear fruit. I'm working on that being a more balanced relationship, as I meditate upon John 15:1-8.
The other monumental task for today that I can't leave out...today we overnight express mail all of our adoption documents to Chicago to be 'legalized'. This is the first time that all of our documents will leave our possession, and it makes us a bit anxious. Pray that the USPS gets this one right!
It's high time for the prosperity gospel be shown for what it is: BANKRUPT
Best/worst quote from the article: "Who would want to get in on something where you're miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven?... I believe God wants to give us nice things." --Joyce Meyer
I dunno, maybe the life, message, and sacrifice of Jesus? Just a thought...
What do ya think? At least the presidential election would be funny...(for a change) And bipartisan...(also a change) And smart...(is that possible?) (You can buy a Stewart/Colbert '08 campaign t-shirt here.)
Out of Ur has a provacative post on preaching here. It's a timely post for me. This week I've had 2 distinct conversations with twentysomethings asking me how I go about the duty of preaching. They raise some crucial questions:
How does one go about the preaching task?
What does one hope to accomplish by preaching?
Many would say, in the spirit of Jon Piper, that the purpose of preaching is to glorify God. I agree.
But this still leaves a lot of room for debate on how one achieves this. The baby-boomer, seeker-sensitive, megachurch, modern evangelical movement has stressed the need for 'practical' sermons. Distill a message to 3 main points that you can 'take with you' like a happy meal. Most youth ministries (not all, some are coming around) practice this as well.
But I have some serious reservations about this method.
1. It assumes that Scripture isn't practical...it therefore must be 'made practical'. Now, I believe in contextualization (translating and communicating the text to engage a specific, local culture), but authentic contextualization doesn't have to start with the position that the texts aren't very practical. Rather, it embraces their complexities and affords some friendly, yet difficult 'wrestling room' with the culture. Contextualization is cut off when the scriptures are distilled down to a few mere principles...
2. The method tends to pander to the lowest common denominator of cognition. "Dumb it down so that everyone understands," is a crude, simplistic version of the mindset. However, I believe in the power of the collective wisdom of a community. I could devote a whole series on social network theory and the local faith community, but for now, let me pose a what if:
What if, instead of a 'practical' monologue sermon from a pastor ('speeching', to use Pagitt's term), meant simply to be digested by the community...What if, instead, the congregation was allowed to wrestle with the text, in a communal dialogue? Instead of stripping away the difficult-ness of the texts, what if we, as a community, worked through it together, with the purpose of all leaving with a better understanding?
3. WWJP? What would Jesus preach? It seems that, His sermons were practical, but they were practical by default, not by design. His sermons seemed to frustrate and confuse as much as they clarified. They raised questions, sparked controversy, but eventually led to transformed minds...and souls.
4. The method exalts practicality at the sake of repentance. The original meaning of repentance, is to have 'one's mind changed'. Instead of attempting to merely modify behavior through 'practicality'...what if we engaged minds (and hearts, and hands) through our preaching, so that we have transformed minds that are better equipped to be fruitful, here and now?
Just some thoughts...I'm by no means an expert on preaching. Shoot, Dustin Bagby has a degree in Preaching (which, coincidentally, is posing problems in finding him a job) , so he's infinitely more equipped to answer these questions than I am. Right D?
I think I first saw this on Bob Hyat's blog....anywho, it's a hilariously authentic look at the megachurch movement, via King of the Hill. Brilliant...
As I mentioned in a recent post, things are moving along in our adoption journey. So many questions are dominating my brain today:
Has she been born yet? If not, when?
Where in Guatemala is she?
What does she look like?
What will 'that day' (when we first get to hold her) be like?
When will that day be? When!?
How much debt will I be in as a result? (Not that, in the grand scheme of things, this even matters...but I am curious)
This all has very little to do with 'exploring the intersection of emerging theology and rural life', but hey, blogs are for writing free of rules, right?
We made it back from Oklahoma safe and sound. I'll post a pic or two in the next day or so.
I'll be posting some more thoughtful pieces in the next few days. Until then...some random things happening in my life:
LifeShapes--Our VOX Leadership Forum is journeying together through LifeShapes. It's a series of geometric lenses through which we can view, evaluate, and live a life that follows Christ. It's very simple, yet very powerful. It's not a program (thank the Lord), but rather a framework for living life. Our first gathering was last night, and it was a fantastic time. We talked about the circle of learning that happens in our life, particularly in the kairos moments that God brings our way. Good stuff...
Alcohol--Tomorrow, at our VOX Gathering, I'll be preaching on alcohol. Should be interesting...(I'm updating my resume just in case!)
Adoption--Our adoption process is ongoing. Here's the latest scoop: We've compiled all of our documents for our dossier (the 'file' about us that goes to Guatemala). We had them all notarized (the local level)...today they will be certified (the county level). Next week they will be authenticated (the state level) and legalized (the federal level). Yeah, ridiculous. I'm not sure each piece of paper has enough room for that many stamps and seals, but alas, we must bow to the bureaucracy.
God is providing for this adoption in some amazing ways. How little faith we have had, yet he continues to provide. Thanks to all of you who have committed to pray and support us. We are overwhelmed by the love. The biggest fees are yet to come, but we know that God will provide, in His time, and in His way.
Hebrew--Starting Hebrew II this week. Ugh...Fooey on verb forms
Ohio State plays Texas this Saturday--GO BUCKS! I will watch every down on Saturday night. Troy Smith for the Heisman!
The views on drewmoser.com are solely my opinions. They are not necessarily the official views of any organization with which I'm affiliated (VOX Ohio, AEMC, Nieu Communities, etc.). There. I've covered my rear.
I'm reading From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, by Ruth Tucker. Incredible book! A must read for everyone!
