Dream Awakener

Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be - A Literary Review

Over the next few weeks you will probably see a number of literary reviews. One of the differences between a literary review and a straight up book review is that literary reviews are written to help with future research. So I am writing with the idea that this will guide me to what I want to go back and study.  There are various approaches to literary reviews, but here will be mine.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
DeYoung and Kluck in Why We're Not Emegent: By Two Guys Who Should Be contend that the Emerging Church needs to have a vision for the church that not only speaks about the kingdom of God, but also one that addresses the problems of over-tolerance and under-defined doctrines.

GENERAL OVERVIEW   
Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck team up to address the Emerging Church in specific areas with different approaches.  DeYoung approaches each of his chapters as a theologian and pastor who is concerned about what is true.  He addresses emerging church authors in areas that he has deep questions and concerns about.  His chapter titles, which are quite clever, reveal his concerns: Journey: Are the Pilgrims Still Making Progress?; Bible: Why I Love the Person and Propositions of Jesus; Doctrine: The Drama Is in the Dogma; Modernism: The Boogeyman Cometh; Jesus: Bringer of Peace, Bearer of Wrath; and Listening to All the Churches of Revelation.  Kluck gains his understanding of the emerging church through conversations, books, conferences and church visits, and then shares his opinion as if you were sitting with him at a sports bar.  DeYoung calls for some in the emerging church to repent of false doctrines and others to step up and clarify what they believe.

THOUGHTS TO CONSIDER 
I get the sense that both DeYoung and Kluck have a genuine and loving concern about what they are seeing and hearing in emerging church world. Kluck shares his perspective as a fellow traveler while DeYoung is much more forceful, speaking as a teacher who confidently confronts specific statements that have been written by emerging authors. His critique is more severe for some than others.  If I had to list the people he critique's from those who received the most severe critique to the least it would go something like this: Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor, Peter Rollins, Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, Tony Jones, Erwin McManus, Dave Tomlinson, Donald Miller, Dwight Friesen and Dan Kimball.  DeYoung focuses on authors who flow in the stream of the Emerging church, whether or not they self-identify with the movement.  DeYoung had no critique for Scot McKnight, a self-identified emerging author.  In fact, he praises McKnight for critiquing those in the movement and quotes McKnight’s critique on a number of occasions.

These guys approached their critique with a loving attitude.  They are forceful on doctrines that they consider more vital, and ask for clarification where questions remain.  Many times I joined them in their critique.  At other times I felt that DeYoung would pull out a passage from someone’s writing, analyze and critique it, without understanding the nature of what was said nor the context in which it was stated.  DeYoung critiques the movement for being on a journey without wanting to arrive at a destination.  I don’t think that is accurate for a number of these authors.  I also think a number of emerging authors have sparked some much needed theological discussion that is causing us to reflect more deeply on how modernity has shaped our epistemology and in turn our hermeneutics.   

Throughout the book DeYoung de-emphasizes the epistemological affects of the cultural changes that we are undergoing.  And while he rightly points out how some overly accommodate to postmodernity or ultra-modernity, my sense is that he under-contextualizes the good news, or overly accommodates to modernity. With that said, I am glad that these guys have joined the conversation. I believe that they raise important issues that we need to continue to discuss in a spirit of love and unity.

I'd encourage you to read the book and join the conversation as well.  You can download chapter one for free.  DeYoung's description of the Emerging Church in this chapter is great.  He's a clever writer.

Around the Blogosphere - The Best of This Week in Blogs

  The Amazing Race 
  Originally uploaded by HaMeD!caL

There are many great bloggers who not only write excellent posts, but are avid readers of other blogs.  As readers they typically devote a post, often once a week, where they make a list of links to some of their favorite posts from other blogs that week.  This conglomeration of links goes by many names.  Scot McKnight calls this kind of post  - Weakly Meanderings, John Santic calls it - Speedlinking, Ben Myers calls it - Around the Traps, Tony calls this kind of post - This Week in Blogs, and I call it Choice Blog entries.  Regardless of what name these posts go by, they are often filled with many great links.  So it is my hope to travel around the blogosphere once and week in order to give you the best of this week in blogs. Here is this weeks best in blog links.

Around the Traps with Ben Myers
Ben links to entries on Augustine: Theological and Philosophical Conversations to Stale Expressions: The Management-Shaped Church to theologian trading cards and the worst church sign ever. Some interesting reads.

Weekly Meanderings with Scot McKnight
Scot links to posts on: Gender and Race, Philosophy Majors on the Rise, A study by Greg Boyd on violence and God in the Old Testament, Death by Blogging and other interesting links.

Odds and Ends by Mike DeVries
Mike has some great links as well.  He links to Andrew Jones answering MacArthur and Johnson on the issue of contextualization. A primer on the Emerging Church from Stephen Shields, Greg Boyd's exploration of violence in the Hebrew Scripture as well as three great links to articles by N.T. Wright.  Check it out.

The Selfless Way of Christ by Henri Nouwen - A Literary Review

Over the next few weeks you will probably see a number of literary reviews. One of the differences between a literary review and a straight up book review is that literary reviews are written to help with future research. So I am writing with the idea that this will guide me to what I want to go back and study.  There are various approaches to literary reviews, but here will be mine.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
In The Selfless Way of Christ Nouwen maintains that there is a direct relationship between our ministry vocation and our spiritual life, and that as we seek to live out our vocation of following Christ on the downwardly mobile road, we will be tempted to take the upwardly mobile road, therefore we must engage in spiritual formation to be transformed into living Christs.

GENERAL OVERVIEW   
You could summarize this book in three words – vocation, temptation and formation.  Nouwen begins by helping us understand that if we are to be living Christs here and now, we must follow him on the path of downward mobility.  That is our vocation.  But the lure of the upwardly mobile life is daunting.  We will have to face the same temptations Jesus had to face. The temptation to be relevant – this is the need to be appreciated by people and make productivity the basis of our ministry (49). The temptation to be spectacular – acting as if visibility and notoriety were the main criteria of the value of what we are doing (56). Finally the temptation to be powerful – getting some sense of security and control (through money, connections, fame, skills etc) in order to strengthen the illusion that life is ours to dispose of (61).  He concludes by sharing with us three spiritual disciplines with which we need to engage: the discipline of the church, the discipline of the book, and the discipline of the heart, if we want to stay true to our vocation.

THEMES TO REMEMBER
This book is a rich and revealing read.  Every sentence is crafted in such a way as to pierce through the heart and unveil where we stand with God. Nouwen strips us down until we are left naked, vulnerable and exposed.  In a very real and meaningful way, he reminds us of our vocation to follow the one,
"who was from the beginning with God and who was god revealed himself as a small, helpless child; as a refugee in Egypt; as an obedient adolescent and inconspicuous adult: as a penitent disciple of the Baptizer; as a preacher from Galilee, followed by some simple fishermen; as a man who ate with sinners and talked with strangers; as an outcast, a criminal, a threat to his people.  He moved from power to powerlessness, from greatness to smallness, from success to failure, from strength to weakness, from glory to ignominy” (31).

I found much wisdom in this book, but I will just highlight some of his thoughts about spiritual formation, where he asks, “How do we conform our minds and hearts to the mind and heart of the self-emptying Christ?” (69) He states,"Discipleship cannot be realized without discipline.  Discipline in the spiritual life, however, has nothing to do with the discipline of athletics, academic study, or job training, in which physical fitness is achieved, new knowledge is acquired, or a new skill is mastered.  The discipline of the Christian disciple is not to master anything, but rather to be mastered by the Spirit.  True Christian discipline is the human effort to create the space in which the Spirit of Christ can transform us into his lineage” (70).  That last line is essential knowledge that I plan on putting to memory.  It is worth the price of the book.

He spoke with freshness concerning the three recommended disciplines. The discipline of the church is when we gather together weekly and practice the liturgy in order to keep making connections between God’s story and our own. The discipline of the book is allowing the word of God to become flesh in us.  It is more than just reading for instruction or to be informed, it is about being formed.  “By the Word of God we are formed into living Christs” (78).  Finally, the discipline of the heart is about a kind of silence, solitude and prayer that bring us face to face with God and ourselves.  We need to regularly engage the disciplines, because the tension between vocation and temptation is a life long battle (93).

Is Conversion a Four-Letter Word? Part III

  Ways of seeing 
  Originally uploaded by monoglot

I have appreciated the interaction with this topic thus far.  I finally had a chance today to respond some to your comments in part II, so if you are engaging in this conversation, please check it out.  If this is your first entry you are reading on this topic, you will probably benefit from read the intro and part II, prior to reading this one.  Now for part III. 

How Modernity Affects the Congregations I Serve and Visit
Those who live under the spell of modernity tend to view truth and reality in more black‐and‐white terms instead of color and often limit “the gospel” to the death of Christ, which gives them access to heaven. It is easy for those who live under the meta‐narrative of modernity to slip into the idea that the gospel is a set of objective facts for an individual to “believe” and a sinner’s prayer for individual’s to pray, instead of an invitation to “switch stories” allowing God’s reality to re‐shape them, so that they might partner with Him to bring more of heaven to earth.

The problem I have noticed in the congregations I serve and visit is that when individuals shaped by modernity limit the gospel and/or consider their understanding of the gospel to be the universal timeless “objective” truth, contextualization becomes unnecessary and the gospel becomes a proof text. The idea of "objective" truth has taken such a hold of some that their view of the gospel cannot be questioned or examined. The obvious implications for those who hold this viewpoint are that humility goes out the window and conversation is inessential.  It it just a matter of sharing the "objective" truth.  When this view is taken to an extreme, contextualization becomes demonized because the message is transcendent, and the incarnation is often forgotten.

This narrowing of the gospel tends to separate personal morality from social justice and justification from sanctification in such a way that the good news becomes irrelevant for this life and ineffectual for their own transformation. In other words, the gospel is not experienced as good news, so why share it with others?  But modernity is not the only story affecting people’s view of conversion. In the next post, I want to take a look at how postmodernity has affected people's view of conversion.

A Look at Brokeness and Healing through Two Classic Films Part II

In this series we are taking a look at brokenness and healing through Patch Adams and Good Will Hunting.  In part one, I just gave an overview of these films.  In today's post, I want to take a look at the themes and issues that these movies engage with. 

THEMES AND ISSUES
Both of these films deal with brokenness and healing.  In Patch Adams, Patch first discovers brokenness in himself and then brokenness in the institutions that are supposed to bring about healing.  In Good Will Hunting, we are shown the brokenness of Will long before he is willing to see this brokenness in himself.  We learn through these films that when we are honest with what is broken, we can better find our way to healing.

When it comes to bringing about healing, both of these films display conflict in regard to the best way to bring about wholeness.   They look to answer the question:  how does real healing come about?  In Patch Adams, the conflict is between the institutional way of bringing about healing and the Patch Adams way.  The institution tries to bring healing by creating the perfect doctors who through their objective knowledge, superiority and focus on the disease, can bring about healing.  On the other hand, Patch seeks to bring about healing through the mind and heart, subjective relationships, meeting people where they are at and treating the patient, not just the disease.  In Good Will Hunting, Will thinks that healing can happen through avoidance and book knowledge and Professor Lambeau believes healing can happen by becoming successful in the world’s eyes, while Psychiatrist Sean Maguire recognizes that the way to healing is to face the past honestly, for then one can move toward wholeness and more clearly see what the future holds.

Both of these films reflect on what it means to discover and live out our calling with a sense of passion, despite being pushed and pulled by institutional forces or people. In Patch Adams, we learn that we find our calling when we discover how we can truly help people. Patch learns to live out his calling, despite the institution’s training that tried to choke the life out of him.  In Good Will Hunting, we learn that some people in the world desire to shape our calling through manipulation according to their own personal dreams (what Professor Lambeau was trying to do with Will), while others help us to find our calling through self discovery and healing (what Sean did with Will).  Will found his sense of calling and passion near the end as he decided to go to California to seek his soul mate.

In the next post in this series, I will talk about the insights we gain into Modern/Postmodern Culture from these two films.   

A Look at Brokeness and Healing through Two Classic Films Part I

Introduction
We are broken people living in a broken world, so how should we pursue a sense of wholeness?  How do we find healing? What are we being healed for?  How does our sense of calling in life connect with our ability to find wholeness?  These are a couple of the themes that are addressed in Patch Adams and Good Will Hunting.

Plot Summary of Patch Adams
We meet Hunter Adams in the Psychiatric Institution, where he admits himself after attempting to take his life.  He goes to find healing from the doctors, but instead finds healing through the patients.  He finds healing as he helps the patients, thus earning the nickname “Patch.”  Arthur Mendelson asks Patch a question that sticks with him through the film, “How many fingers do you see?”  Through this question, Arthur helps Patch to focus beyond the problem in order to find solutions.  One of the keys to healing is looking at life from a different perspective.

Two years later Patch finds himself at a Medical Institution to get trained to be a doctor.  While Dean Wilcott and the institution want to “train the humanity” out of the students and make them Doctors, Patch Adams sees a need to bring humanity back into the healing process.  This sets up a major conflict between the institutional way of treating diseases to the Patch Adams way of bringing healing.

In the end, Patch realizes he needs to create a space outside of the institution, in order to bring a sense of healing to people.  As he takes this journey, he is able to dodge the arrows of the institution and endure the loss of the love of his life, because he realizes that wholeness comes when we are willing to lose our life by helping others.

Plot Summary of Good Will Hunting
Will Hunting lives in the tough part of South Boston with his buddies and works as a janitor at M.I.T..  He can solve math problems better than the M.I.T. professors, but has difficulty working through the issues of his own life.

Will is a genius when it comes to book knowledge, but an infant when it comes to understanding himself.  While he can speak about economics, science, history and art better than most people on the planet, he finds himself getting in fights, stealing cars and incapable of building a meaningful relationship with a woman.

He avoids a jail sentence by taking the invitation to work with Professor Lambeau and making a commitment to meet with a therapist.  Sean, the fifth therapist, helps Will to understand that there is much more to life than just book knowledge, and that the way to wholeness is by living, by experiencing, and by making commitments to imperfect people. 

Professor Lambeau wants Will to start thinking about the future and use his gifts to become successful.  Yet Sean, his therapist, wants Will to honestly face his past and find healing first.  As Will honestly works through his past and becomes more whole, he is able to take the risk to follow his heart, and leave his friends and a successful career to explore what it means to follow his passions and pursue life with a soul mate.

In part II I will take a look that the themes and issues these films bring up, and then in part III look at the insights the modernity and postmodernity make on these two films.

Artist @ the Fountain Presents: The Black Tongued Bells

For THREE nights ONLY, (February 28th, 29th and March 1st) the Fountain Room will be transformed into a professional theatre, with elaborate sets, lighting, and sound.

Upon arrival, you will enter into the living breathing swamplands of the Louisiana Bayou, and you will be taken on a journey back in time, to the depression era of the early 1900's.

With a cast of seven, through clothing, set design, and music, you will venture back nearly 100 years, to witness first hand, what life might have been like during such a pivotal point in
American history.

To accomplish this with a powerful sense of realism, the Director has chosen the colorful life and times of legendary Blues and Gospel artist "Laurence Douglas Miner", born and raised on the outskirts of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1923. The story is delivered through the classic theatrical medium of "narrative" and "song", with Laurence himself as the storyteller. It is not made clear in the history books, whether or not Laurence was a real, or fictitious character of the era, and in the end, it is up to you, the audience, to decide. Laurence takes us on an enlightening roller coaster ride of stories and songs, and he treats us to an eye opening and entertaining glimpse of life in these economically troubled times.

Through his music, he turned the "Blues" into "Gospel", and oppression into hope. He will captivate you, and move you to your feet, your soul will dance it's way home after this performance, guaranteed!

If you are in the Los Angeles area, you will want to check this concert.  You can call 323.284.8081 to reserve your tickets. Most of the proceeds will be going to help people in Kenya who have been going through crises.  This event is sponsored by Artist @ the Fountain, an organization that I co-founded with Daichi Kimura where we appreciate artists as well as fight for social justice.

A Mosaic of Faces of Friends

There are a number of social networks around, but so far I have found facebook to be one of the more meaningful and helpful ones.  I spend more time blogging than on any social network, but I have found facebook helpful in many ways.  It has helped me to keep up with old friends, help local friends know about upcoming events and other friends about good causes to be aware of.  Here is my profile and a number of faces of my friends.

   

Super Tuesday - A Look at Faith and Politics

So today is Super Tuesday in the United States where people have the opportunity to go and vote in the primaries, helping the Democratic and Republican parties find their candidate for President.  It is called Super Tuesday because it is when the greatest number of states hold primary elections to select delegates to their perspective national conventions.  From California to New York people will be lining up to vote for their favorite candidate.  This year has been a record turn out in each state that has held primaries.  The democratic race between Hillary and Obama is tight (so your vote really counts if you are voting democratic) and it seems that McCain has a significant lead in the Republican race (it is still good to vote if you are voting republican).

In light of this being Super Tuesday, I thought I would direct you to an interesting article.  It is an article written by James K.A. Smith, the author of Whose Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Dirrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (an excellent read).  In this article he reviews Greg Boyd's book The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.  Smith shares what he likes about the book, and he also critiques it. 

I will give you just a taste of the article.  Here is a little of what James Smith liked, "Boyd's intervention into the discussion is welcome. He is bold (1,000 members of his congregation left after hearing the sermons that gave birth to the book), passionate, and discerning, while still attempting to be charitable. Boyd doesn't pull punches, denouncing the nationalistic "idolatry" of American evangelicalism, which often fuses the cross and the flag. "Because the myth that America is a Christian nation has led many to associate America with Christ," he writes in his introduction, "many now hear the Good News of Jesus only as American news, capitalistic news, imperialistic news, exploitive news, antigay news, or Republican news. And whether justified or not, many people want nothing to do with it."

And in the introduction to his critique of the book he says, "While there is much to appreciate in Boyd's exposure of the Religious Right's idolatries, the question becomes: Does Boyd swing back to the other extreme? No doubt he imagines that he is charting a third way, but there are at least three factors of his proposal that indicate it is simply pietism resurrected."  You will have to go to the article to read the rest.

Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my hero's. He has inspired me in so many ways, how he was able to be both peaceful and prophetic at the same time.  If you want to learn more about Martin Luther King Jr, check out some of his sermons like Loving Your Enemies or Rediscoving Lost Values, or some of his famous speeches like I Have a Dream, you can go to the Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institue that is hosted by Stanford.

Also, click here to check out some of the quotes by Martin Luther King that have inspired me.

Emerging Churches by Gibbs and Bolger - A Literary Review

With a lot of tension in the air about Emerging Churches and Emergent in particular, I think if you want to get a sense of this movement, Gibbs and Bolger give us a lot of help in their book Emerging Churches. Whatever you think about Emerging churches, (I have given some of my thoughts here a while ago) one cannot avoid the brutal truth that the church needs to take Newbigin's advice and embody herself in our new context.  To get a better sense of the Emerging Church, a must read is Scot McKnight's - Five Streams of the Emerging Church - an article in Christianity Today.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
 Gibbs and Bolger are convinced that the church in the West is a modern institution in a postmodern world and that she will continue to dwindle in numbers if she doesn’t embody the gospel within this postmodern context. 

GENERAL OVERVIEW
Gibbs and Bolger begin with giving eleven reasons why we must study and engage our current culture. They follow this with defining the emerging church, and distinguishing it from other forms of church.  In the heart of the book they identify three core practices of emerging churches and the six practices that unfold from these.  While the first three are imperative for any church they considered “emerging,” not all nine were.  The book closes with 50 stories of emerging church leaders.

THEMES TO RE-VISIT
Gibbs and Bolger give us  eleven compelling reasons to study and engage our current culture:

1. Because of the Incarnation
2. Because Cultural Understanding Has Always Been Essential to Good Mission Practice
3. Because Christendom and Modernity Are in Rapid Decline
4. Because the West is in the Midst of Huge Cultural Shifts
5. Because the Church is in Decline
6. Because the Majority of Current Church Practices Are Cultural Accomodations to a Society The No Longer Exists
7. Because the Primary Mode and Style of Communication in Western Culture Have Changed
8. Because a New Culture Means That New Organizational Structures Are Required
9. Because Boomers Are the Last Generation That is Happy with Modern Churches
10. Because of the Increasing Appeal of Spirituality Derived from Other Religions
11. Because Many Christians No Longer Follow the Religion of Their Parents 16-23)

The three core practices are explained in chapters 3, 4 and 5.  They are:

    1. Identifying with the life of Jesus
    2. Transforming secular space
    3. Living as community

The six that flow from those three are described in chapters 6-11.  They are:

    1. Welcoming the stranger
    2. Serving with generosity
    3. Participating as producers
    4. Creating as created beings
    5. Leading as a body
    6. Merging ancient and contemporary spirituality.

While these nine practices were the focus of the book the other vital element that they mentioned, but didn’t go in-depth with, is the various theologians that have helped to shape the emerging movement.  They mentioned a number of people, including – N.T. Wright, Leslie Newbigin, Dallas Willard, David Bosch and John Howard Yoder.

The subheadings within each chapter make it easy to navigate and get further descriptions of each of the nine practices quickly, and hearing how people are practicing these nine essentials from the mouths of the practioners makes this book worth reading and studying again.

Happy New Year 2008 from NYC!!!

A friend of mine Ephany from Kenya and I went to NYC from my parents house in Ohio.  Ephany wanted to see NYC before heading back to his country, so I took him.  We met other friends of ours yesterday and traveled to some common sites in the city. 

We are staying with Jon Tyson a friend of mine who is a church planter in Manhattan.  The church he serves is called Origins and really seems to be connecting with the city.  Jon is a passionate man, with a huge heart for this city.  He has been incredibly hospitable to us.

We spent New Year's Eve roaming around the city meeting people from all over the world.  For Christmas I got a Cannon HV20 and was able to get some video footage that I hope to post after I get home.  I probably won't have time before that to edit and post it.  I haven't really worked with video much, but that is one thing that I hope to do more of this coming year.  I would love to have more video posts on this blog.  We'll see.

At around 11 p.m. last night, we went to a New Year's Eve party on 51st street.  It was a party that was raising money for a safe house in NYC for victims of human trafficking.  Jon invited us and we met a number of people.

After the party, I went around the streets talking with people getting some video footage of what New York is like on New Year's Eve after the ball has dropped.  There is high energy and many friendly people here.  I had a great time. 

I want to wish you a Happy New Year this coming year and encourage you to take a moment to reflect on this past year.  I plan to take some time in the next couple of days to examine the past year of my life.  I want to look and see what things were life-giving and what was life-draining.  I want to look over the year and remember the times I walked with the Lord and the times I didn't.  I want to take some time to ask God to forgive me for the times I didn't walk with Him and to help me to walk closer with Him in the coming year.  I will take some time to review each of my roles in life and consider how God would have me focus for the coming year. I hope that you might do something similar. 

May this coming year be a rich and rewarding year for you!

Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin - A Literary Review

Today I wanted to share with you another literary review.  Kester's book really moved me and caused me to think about many things more deeply. I hope you enjoy the review.  It's worth the read.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
Brewin in signs of Emergence contends that the current demise of the church in the West is not to be blamed on the lack of personal holiness, but on old wineskins, and that the church must empower people (herself) to honestly face change and evolve, or become extinct.

GENERAL OVERVIEW
Brewin looks to Fowler’s stages of faith, urban theory, the science of emergence as well as the story of scripture to help us consider how to evolve, so that we might “become wombs of the divine, allowing God to fertilize our creativity and give birth to newness” (67).   Brewin calls for evolutionary change, not revolutionary change (43) and suggests that our first step is to stop.  Like the season of advent, we are to pause.  To rest.  To wait.  Just like a woman cannot speed up her pregnancy, the church cannot try and fix herself with a new program to make everything okay.  After waiting he suggests that the church needs to be born again, that is the church needs to rebirth into her host culture and to re-emerge from the bottom up.  He uses emergence theory to help describe the character of the emergent church, one that dances between the dangers or rigidity on the one hand and anarchy on the other.  He then calls the church to discover God in the city, to learn to be a gift exchange culture in the midst of a consumeristic culture, and reevaluate our dirt boundaries, what we consider clean and unclean. 

THEMES TO REMEMBER
I appreciate how Brewin intertwines the story of Jesus and our current post-world context in a way that frees us to imagine.  He uses the scripture, poetry, and science to call us to evolve.  By using the rebirth idea, he helps us to realize that “failure” is a natural part of evolution,  “we must be aware of our expectations.  The newness that will be born will be incomplete and immature.  It will be newness not fully formed and unable to speak.  It will be newness defenseless and unable to justify itself to its seniors.  It will be newness that is born into a culture and therefore totally and naturally immersed in the codes, the language, this history and life of that which it comes to serve.” (67,68)

Brewin reminds us that just as Sabbath was man for man, and not man for the Sabbath, structures must serve us, not us serve them (46).  Brewin also calls us to face the pain of exile and reminds us that it doesn’t matter if God abandoned us or we abandoned Him, “what is patently clear is that the church is experiencing separation, delamination, marginalization, trivialization, and exile from the world it seeks to service.  And therefore it is experiencing these things from God too, for if the church is not connected to its host culture and society, it is not where God wants it to be, and therefore not where God is” (50).  Drawing on Brueggemann’s study of Jeremiah, he reminds us that that the first step through the journey of exile is grief. Quoting Brueggemann he notes: “Indeed, he surmises that only through grief can newness become a possibility” (51).  Brewin gives a lot of rich but uncommon advice that I can appreciate.

    His thoughts on the character of Emergent systems is helpful:

    1. Emergent systems are open systems
    2. Emergent systems are adaptable systems
    3. Emergent systems are learning systems
    4. Emergent systems have distributed knowledge
    5. Emergent systems model servant leadership
    6. Emergent systems only evolve in places between anarchy and rigidity (97-117)

    The chart on page 117 is helpful, as well as chapter 6 where he calls the church to be a hub of gift exchange and chapter 7 where he calls us to redefine what is dirty and what is clean.  If you get a minute, check out Kester's blog. 

Around the Blogosphere - The Best of This Week in Blogs

  The Amazing Race 
  Originally uploaded by HaMeD!caL

There are many great bloggers who not only write excellent posts, but are avid readers of other blogs.  As readers they typically devote a post, often once a week, where they make a list of links to some of their favorite posts from other blogs that week.  This conglomeration of links goes by many names.  Scot McKnight calls this kind of post  - Weakly Meanderings, John Santic calls it - Speedlinking, Ben Myers calls it - Around the Traps, Tony calls this kind of post - This Week in Blogs, and I call it Choice Blog entries.  Regardless of what name these posts go by, they are often filled with many great links.  So it is my hope to travel around the blogosphere once and week in order to give you the best of this week in blogs.  This is my first installment. 

Weekly Meanderings by Scot McKnight
This week Scot takes us from the food pantries in Chicago to Jesus Creed prayer beads, to global crises and discussions on the kingdom and church.

Speedlinking by John Santic
This week John links to some musings on global capitalism, to Advent Conspiracy, as well as some facts that will make you gasp.

Around the Traps by Ben Myers
This week Ben links us to some rich listening resources, to a book review, as well as some Kierkegaardian posts.

This Week in Blogs by Tony
Tony takes us to Jason Clark's thoughts on the theory of creativity, to a short piece on dying to self, as well as an informative piece on building an ideation team.

I hope you enjoyed this trip around the blogosphere.  Come back for more next week.

Choice Blog Entries - McLaren, Willow Creek, Communication

  .cristaleira. 
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Must Everything Change?
This is Scot McKnights 18th post and summary of his thoughts on Brian McLaren's new book:  Everything Must Change.  I have been reading this book and have been just as invigorated as Scot has, and I have a few questions of my own.  Scot says, "This book needs to be seen as a definitive book for emergent and from now on no one can speak responsibly about emergent without knowing this book.  As you know, I am using "emerging" for the larger movement and "emergent" for the think tank facilitated by Emergent Village."  I may do some blog entries  on this book in the future, we will see.  Let me know if you have an interest for me to interact with the book.

What Willowcreek's "Reveal" Reveals
I was just doing an interview this past with with David Fitch and he has posted an intriguing and very thoughtful post on Willow Creeks own self-reflection about itself.  In David's recent post, he poses questions that go deep and he is open for some serious discussion on what are important areas for all of us to be thinking about. 

What to Say and How to Say It
At Jason Clark's blog it looks like he is doing a collaborative series on communication.  This entry is dealing with the receiver, the medium and the message as well as the form and structure.  A past entry that you can connect to from this entry is on a reader-response hermeneutic.