informational to experiential

The following is an insightful excerpt from faith in real life by Mike Tatlock:

Within modernism, people discovered truth through the authority and power of reason–hence it is called the “Age of Reason.” Modernism taught that the rational mind has the power to dissect, analyze, and grasp truth and to draw objective conclusions about reality.

Postmodernity, on the other hand, values multiple subjective truths gained through personal experiences. Many people may still value reason, but only if it is consistent with their experience. We’ve come to discover that information by itself leads to intellectualism, which doesn’t necessarily lead to life change. Many postmoderns don’t want merely to learn about God; they want to taste, feel, hear, and embrace their spirituality in holistic, tangible ways. (pg 66)

There are some in Europe who say postmodernity has made its way through the minds of young Europeans already and the discussion is over for postmodernity. Yet, it is at the core of their identity, and now it is making a sweep across young American minds and challenging American philosophies. While I don’t want to make light of the criticality of postmodernism in America, we also shouldn’t fear its presence.

I believe wholeheartedly that the missional movement creates a place for postmoderns to learn about God by tasting the incarnational Jesus as Matlock states. This can be done through community. Personally, I fail at this far too often and I’ve said it before; I still believe in my heart that the most effective and impactful way of souls to be drawn to Jesus is through life-on-life relationships. It’s not easy because in our modernistic thinking it’s not rational. Yet, in the deepest parts of our human soul we yearn for authentic relationships that allow us to be transparent and transformed.

The chaos we face on this spiritual landscape may not pass anytime soon, but we must be galvanized under the ministry of reconciliation for the redemption of humanity. Let me close with a quote from an MSNBC article about the “Occupy Wall Street” protest titled Insider out: One man’s journey from the front office to Wall St. ‘Occupier’:

I think that most grassroots movements that I am aware of start out messy and disorganized but they do come together because there is some galvanizing need or desire or sense of purpose. – Jon Reiner

grace and peace…

routine – A.W. Tozer

Thoughts from this mornings devotional from A.W. Tozer:

The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes “lord” in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday’s service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut. The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been determines what is, and what is determines what will be.

dialogue and discussion – Leonard Sweet

Excerpt from Nudge by Leonard Sweet:

The best evangelists are those who can first define what people are already thinking and then say it for them as they would like best to say it. This is especially the case for the revoicing of marginalized and repressed voices.

The issue is not to avoid controversy or argument. The issue is for nudging to foster dialogue more than discussion. “Our duty is not to see through one another, but to see one another through.” How many of us, when we come away from a conversation (or a sermon), come away with agreement or disagreement, like or dislike? Or do we come away with new insights, fresh understandings, refreshed connections, and varied ways of looking at things, regardless of whether there is agreement or disagreement?

There is an important difference between dialogue and discussion. Dialogue comes from Greek dia (through) and logos (meaning). Dialogue is the use of words “through,” which flow and flux “meanings” that issue in new perspectives of dissolution and metamorphosis that can only be gained from shared conversation.

Discussion comes from the Latin dis (apart) and quatere (to shake). As Kay Lindahl notes, “It has the same root word as percussion and concussion—to break things up.” A dialogue aims to open things up. A discussion aims to break things up, to answer a question, or to win an argument. Too much evangelism has been discussions aimed to persuade and produce results and not dialogues aimed to explore and connect. A dialogue aims for clarification and connection. A discussion aims for victory and conquest.

As I read this part of the book it was a reiteration of something I’d studied before, but until now had not really learned. I appreciate the clarity Len Sweet offers with this because it’s a game changer on how I should approach my conversations…as a dialogue or a discussion.

peace…

the big squeeze – Dave Gibbons

Excerpt from The Monkey and the Fish by Dave Gibbons (pgs. 126-128):

We ask this question a lot among the community of believers I do life with: What are the bottlenecks of our church? What are the barriers? What squeezes the life out of what is intended to be a sanctuary of strength and a source of life, hope and intimacy?

We also have wondered the same about the church at large.

And one of the biggest issues we’ve come to recognize is similar to what Luther found –there’s a structure, organization, and philosophy that discourages and hinders, if not prevents, the involvement and collaboration of everyday people in the most important parts of church and ministry.

Too often it seems like church ends up being all about place and not nearly enough about people.

Too often it seems like preconceived notions about the form of the church trump the reason for the church’s existence in the first place.

We’re seeing that every time we make church not about a place or form but instead a home where everyone plays—a church without walls—we end up with something liberating, empowering, and engaging.

What’s adding urgency to being a church without walls is that all around the world we’re seeing a dramatic flattening of hierarchies and loosening of structures in significant domains and institutions, and moves toward decentralization that are common during seasons of innovation.

Because of the internet and peer-to-peer platforms like Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and others, ordinary people around the world are participating and collaborating in ways and in spaces they never did before. And they are demonstrating there’s vast expertise and talent out there that just didn’t have a voice or vehicle before. A new collaboration in the world is eradicating fences and removing age-old barriers, bullies, budgets, biases, and bottlenecks.

But what about in the church?

Ponder that for a bit…place or people?

peace…

what and from whence? – Lesslie Newbigin

From Foolishness to the Greeks:

What would be involved in a missionary encounter between the gospel and this whole way of perceiving, thinking and living that we call “modern Western culture”?

From whence comes the voice that can challenge this culture on its own terms, a voice that speaks its own language and yet confronts it with the authentic figure of the crucified and living Christ so that it is stopped in its tracks and turned back from the way of death?

From whence can the voice, not of doom but of deliverance, be spoken so that the modern Western world can hear it as the voice of its Savior and Lord?

These are some critical questions we must ponder, pontificate and ruminate on as we consider the spiritual paradigm shift we find ourselves in as followers of Christ.

past, present and future – Lesslie Newbigin

From Foolishness to the Greeks – Lesslie Newbigin:

All “facts” of history are remembered and recorded because they have been at some time significant for those engaged in the contemporary struggle of living. The way we understand the past is a function of our whole way of meeting the present and the future. The community of faith celebrates the resurrection of Jesus as the ground of assurance that the present and the future are not under the control of blind forces but are open to unlimited possibilities of new life. This is because the living God who was present in the crucified Jesus is now and always the sovereign Lord of history and therefore makes possible a continuing struggle against all that ignores or negates his purpose.

go into all the world

Thoughts from Right Here, Right Now by Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford:

By telling us to “go into all the world,” Jesus was placing the responsibility upon us, his disciples, to gain proximity to those who are not Christians. It is up to us to move toward them. Jesus didn’t demand relationship on religious terms. His terms of relationship were the terms of the kingdom of God. And the constant in the kingdom is the pursuit of redemption and reconciliation for people and all of creation.

In looking back on Right Here, Right Now this is one of the many passages from the book that connected with me. It’s not anything that other church leaders haven’t said before, but Lance’s thought gives a bit more meat to the discipleship bones. He shows us that discipleship is about the work of the kingdom which is the redemption and reconciliation of humanity and all creation.

During my time “off the grid” I will meditate on scripture concerning my being sent, my place in the kingdom, and in having the ministry of reconciliation.

grace and peace…gibby