We are continuing our series on developing a rhythm (rule) of life. Debra Farrington says, "The point of a rule of life, for communities or individuals, is that life should be lived in balance, with God as the focal point. Perhaps that is what attracted me five years ago to the various rules of life. It is so easy for me to live a life that is out of balance, where work or some other aspect of my life takes over. And it is far too tempting for me to place myself at the center of my own universe. Living a rule of life helps me to keep striving for balance -- to be conscious of what I do and why -- and it reminds me to be open to God in all aspects of my daily life."
"When God is the center of our lives, when we know that we are God's beloved, we have the obligation and the great joy of sharing that treasure with others." The Jerusalem Community Rule of Life states this very simply and beautifully: "In your heart God has excavated an immense space where he has placed a precious treasure. From now on you have the twofold duty of receiving and giving: sharing the treasure of the kingdom you bear within you and stretching the area of your tent for those around you."
This part of our rhythm of life deals with reaching out, simplifying our needs, realizing that all we have is from God and belongs to God, and that we are to give according to what we have, and take action against injustice. Here are my rhythm of life in the area of reaching out or outward. As you read through this, take some time to consider your rhythm of life in the outward area.
OUTWARD
Take some time each month to consider how to live a life of simply beauty by reading as well as taking inventory of what I have and what I can give away
Be generous with what God has given me, by giving and serving in secret as well as using my gifts and talents to help those in need by allowing air time in my schedule
Continue to be actively involved with the Solis Foundation, growing in my understanding of Kenya and her people, micro-loans and grants and raising resources to meet the needs of those who are without
Watch films and listen to music that inspires and provokes me to think and care more about justice issues
The last area we will look at in this series is the area of hospitality.
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 Fitch in The Great Giveawaycontends that the evangelical church under the spell of modernity has given her various callings (functions) away; he is calling the church to be the church in our current context of postmodernity.
GENERAL OVERVIEW Fitch works out his thesis first by redefining success and looking at the various practices of the church - Evangelism, Leadership, Worship, Preaching, Justice, Spiritual Formation and Moral Education. He addresses how the evangelical church has given away each of these callings due to her marriage to modernity. He makes the case that the church has structured herself out of meaningful existence. In each chapter of the book he takes one of these core callings of the church and describes how the church has given it away to “the experts” or over to certain techniques. He then proposes some practices for the church to engage in that are rooted in the history of church, so that the church might faithfully live out her calling again, in our postmodern context.
THOUGHTS TO CONSIDER Fitch takes the first chapter to redefine success. He makes the point that the American business culture and individualism has caused the church to be concerned about numbers and size, but the real question should be: “What kind of organization facilitates the inner workings of a local body of Christ that are necessary to properly nurture new believers into followers of Christ and participants in his salvation through the body of Christ?”(38) I found Fitch’s diagnosis of the church brilliant. For the sake of memory, I want to (a) list out each practice he evaluates, (b) describe how the church practiced it in modernity and (c) summarize Fitch’s advice on how the church can reclaim that approach by a different set of practices that are true to the scriptures and our current context of ministry. As a note of caution, this outline does not do justice to the rich insights that Fitch gives us in each chapter. Nor does this chart list all of the advice he gives for each practice. For example, in the practice of evangelism, Fitch talks about the practice of hospitality, prayer, mercy, justice, third space ministry and other things. This chart I developed gives a simple look at how the evangelical church thought about this practice under the spell of modernity, and how she ought to think about this practice in postmodern times. (Click to make larger.)
The explanations and detailed understanding of what Fitch has written is worth reading again and again. I highly recommend this thoughtful book.
This Saturday, April 19th at 7:30 p.m. Artist @ the Fountain presents a screening of Black is for Sunday. There is no cover.
A four person road crew from Invisible Children will be hosting this event. They will be giving updates on what is happening with Invisible Children as well as showing the film. If you are in the LA area and want to come to this film screening, the Fountain Room is located at 4903 Fountain Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90029.
ABOUT "BLACK IS FOR SUNDAY"
Invisible Children's filmmaker Bobby Bailey went back to northern Uganda in March 2007 to spend 10 days living among and like the people displaced for 10 years in one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time. His adventure took him to the heart of the longest running war in Africa and into the life of a child that would change his life forever.
In this film, you will meet Sunday. Only 15 years old, there isn't a part of his life that hasn't been affected by the war. Orphaned at a young age, he lives in a displacement camp and struggles to survive amid the affects of poverty, disease, and malnutrition. Having no family left to depend on, he must try to provide for himself.
But without enough time to work and go to class, Sunday can't make the money needed to pay his fees and is asked to leave school. The war that has already taken so much from him now threatens to take the most valuable thing he has left: a future.
Come check out the screening. Spread the word. This Saturday, April 19th at 7:30 p.m. The Fountain Room 4903 Fountain Avenue Hollywood, CA 90029 There is no cover, but you can buy black bracelets to help the children in Uganda.
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.
So by way of recap, here is the complete series of posts on the topic: Is Conversion a Four-Letter Word?
Here is the outline. You can basically click on any section that interests you, but it is best to read from beginning to end. Feel free to make comments or give thoughts on any section. As you notice, I have provided a bibliography at the end. You will also find links to great books throughout. I hope you enjoy the read.
Now we are coming to the last two parts of this series. Wednesday's post will be the final one. I would love to hear from you on what you have thought about this series. Are you finding it beneficial? What have you liked, disliked, question or affirm? On with today's installment.
PART III – For Those Who Consider Conversion a Four-Letter Word “The Christian gospel has sometimes been made the tool of an imperialism, and of that we have to repent. But at its heart it is the denial of all imperialisms, for at its center there is the cross where all imperialisms are humbled and we are invited to find the center of human unity in the One who was made nothing so that all might be one. The very heart of the biblical vision for the unity of humankind is that its center is not an imperial power but a slain Lamb.” (Newbigin 1989:159)
As we have seen, both modernity and postmodernity, in their own ways, have contributed to conversion being a four-letter word by many people today. Yet how we view conversion, the particular lens through which we view it, and the places where we stand to view it are all critical if conversion is to become desirable once again. I believe the issues in these posts are best handled by becoming a language teacher. As a language teacher, I intend to embody the language of faith and teach the grammar of faith to others, whether it’s through public preaching, personal encounters, or group discussions. In this way, whether one is under the spell of modernity or postmodernity, as he learns the language of faith, he will re-engage in God’s mission with a sense of vigor. To get specific on how I would do this, I have provided a couple of personal grammar lessons. Listen in.
Advice for Those Influenced by Modernity If you have a hard time letting go of the concept of “objective” truth, love to argue people into the faith, and only view the gospel as your ticket to heaven, then I have some good news for you. First, while you may believe that absolute objective truth is what our culture needs, I would suggest that what our culture needs is a church that believes the truth so absolutely that she actually lives it out (Fitch 2007:57). We need to move from an apologetics of argument to an apologetics of embodiment. We need to move from getting people to assent to four spiritual laws or points-on-a-bridge diagram to inviting people to switch stories, so that they might enter into the kingdom of God in all its glory.
This is a kingdom where the life and teachings of Jesus give discipleship real teeth - where we learn to follow the Liberator of those who have been oppressed by the system, the Lover of those who have been rejected by society, and the Deliverer of those who have been seduced by consumerism. Our story is not just a private one dealing with personal morality but also a public one dealing with powers and principalities that need redemption. Our story is centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Our story in not limited to the death of Christ and the hereafter, but it is also about the kingdom that is at hand. Our story doesn’t end with the annihilation of the earth, but a remade heaven and earth. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we can be confident that there will come a day when our cries for justice will be heard, our thirst for God will be quenched, our connection with each other will be deep, and our longing for beauty will be realized. (Wright 2006: 225-240)
The Good News is that “It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.” (Moltmann 1977:64) We are not required to be salesmen for God, but rather journalists, proclaiming to the world that God’s reign is at hand (Hunsberger in Hunsberger 1996:23). And as we proclaim this good news, we must embody it as a community. In the words of Bryan Stone, “the church does not really need an evangelistic strategy. The church is the evangelistic strategy.” (Stone 2007:15).
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 Serveand 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.
If you keep up with the the news even just a little, I'm sure you have seen a sound bite or two of Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Maybe you saw a clip of his message that he shared the Sunday after 9/11. We watched the clips, many got angry, but I want to say how many of you went beyond the sound bite to understand the context?
In some way, this blog entry has two topics. One is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the second is the effects of living in a Sound Bite Society. There is a book entitled: The Sound Bite Society that talks about the affects of living in a Sound Bite Society.
We all know how these define the texture and culture of the modern electronic media. And we also know why our media climate resembles a dust storm on a barren plain: the bottom line of audience share. The impatience of the camera and the microphone, their need to gobble up one image or phrase and move on to the next. No depth or context; no background; no past, no future; no sometimes, no maybe, no why. But what does such a media environment really mean - how does it shape the values and ideals that underlie our political life?"
"No depth or context; no background; no past, no future; no sometimes, no maybe, no why." That statement is an amazing one to think about, and it is one that I believe has been true about the treatment of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While I don't know much about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, I can say this: I felt one way after watching the media sound bites and listening to the political pundits talk about Wright and a different way after getting just a little more of the context from which the sound bite had been taken. I wanted to see if this is true for you as well. (Which is why I have supplied a clip below). Being able to see a little more of the context of some of the sound bites I have been watching, gave me an appetite to want to get an even larger context of his message and life, so that I can make more of an informed decision about what I think about Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright.
I also thought about this, what would it look like if Jesus lived in our sound bit society today? If the media wanted to demonize Jesus, I think that they might pick some of these sound bites:
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife
and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot
be my disciple." Luke 14:26
"Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division." Luke 12:51
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean... You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?" Matt. 23:27,33
"The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. "First let the children eat all they want," he (Jesus) told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs." "Lord," she replied, "even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Mark 7:26-28
I think that would be enough to demonize Jesus, don't you think? But you cannot understand Jesus apart from his Jewish culture and apart from the context of his entire life and message, can you?
I began thinking about this yesterday: What if someone took some (potentially incriminating) sound bites of my preaching without giving any context, how would I feel about that? Actually, I have done interviews with newspapers and sometimes after reading the article I asked myself: How in the heck did that get that out of what I said, and why did they choose to use that quote but left out the context in which that quote was said. Has that ever happened to you? It helped me to realize that it is difficult to be a journalist and that sound bites can obviously be misleading.
With all that said I want you to do something for me. If you haven't already, check out one of the sound bites on Rev. Jeremiah Wright and then watch the following clip that gives us just a little more context and let me know what you think. What do you think about living in a sound bite society? What are the dangers of being a people shaped by sound bites? I would love to have a little discussion on this, if you are up to it.
Here is a bit more of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright's message on the Sunday after 9/11. Make sure you watch all the way to the end.
If you haven't had the chance to read Scot McKnight's article entitled The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel - reviving forgotten chapters in the story of redemption, I would encourage you to take a moment and read it. My friend Scot McKnight at the Jesus Creed reminds us how a world with big problems is in need of a large an full-bodied gospel.
The article begins like this:
"Our problems are not small. The most cursory glance at the newspaper will remind us of global crises like AIDS, local catastrophes of senseless violence, family failures, ecological threats, and church skirmishes. These problems resist easy solutions. They are robust—powerful, pervasive, and systemic.
Do we have a gospel big enough for these problems? Do we have the confidence to declare that these robust problems, all of which begin with sin against God and then creep into the world like cancer, have been conquered by a robust gospel? When I read the Gospels, I see a Lion of Judah who roared with a kingdom gospel that challenged both Israel's and Rome's mighty men, gathered up the sick and dying and made them whole, and united the purity-obsessed "clean" and the shame-laden "unclean" around one table. When I read the apostle Paul, I see a man who carried a gospel that he believed could save as well as unite Gentiles and barbarians with Abraham's sacred descendants. I do not think their gospel was too small." Highlights of the 8 Marks 1. The robust gospel is a story - with a beginning, a problem and a lengthy history. To preach the gospel and to believe the gospel is to offer and enter into a story.
2. The robust gospel places transactions in the context of persons - the gospel is more than the transactions of imputation it is also personal.
3.The robust gospel deals with a robust problem - the problem is both personal and cosmic in nature, and so it the gospel.
4.A robust gospel has a grand vision - while the little gospel promises personal salvation and eternal life, the robust gospel doesn't stop there, it also promises a new society and a new creation.
5. A robust gospel includes the life of Jesus as well as his resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit alongside Good Friday - If our only problem is individual guilt, the solution can be reduced to Good Friday. But as we acknowledge our problem in its true biblical proportions, we need more than Good Friday: we need Christmas as Incarnation, Good Friday as Substitution and Paradigm and the stripping of systemic powers from their illegitimate thrones, Easter as New Creation, and Pentecost as Empowerment.
6. A robust gospel demands not only faith but everything - the biblical view of the gospel is a view of faith that involves trust, surrender, commitment and obedience.
7. A robust gospel includes the robust Spirit of God - the gospel is animated b God's powerful Spirit, and its result is Spirit-empowerment for new living.
8. A robust gospel emerges from and leads others to the church - the gospels intent, in facts its substance, is the creation of God's new society with Jesus on the throne.
"When the mouths of the world's rulers remain silent about injustice, their hands invariably commit acts of violence. This language of human hands where no justice exists is terrible. It is there that the distress and pain of the human body originates. It is there that the persecuted, captive, beaten church longs for deliverance from this body! Do we still hear it? Christ is speaking here! He experienced the unrighteous judgment, he fell into the hands of men. Innocence is accusing the unrighteous world. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I've been reading the book The Church Between Gospel and Culture and found this gem of a passage. The book is a collection of essays dealing with mission in North America. This passage is found in an essay by David Lowes Watson entitled: Christ All in All: The Recovery of the Gospel for Evangelism in the United States. In the second half of his essay he asks and answers four questions:
What is the Gospel?
What is Our Context?
What Makes the Gospel Good News in This Context?
How Does Contextual Response to the Gospel Further Illumine Its Good News?
Here is a passage from the first section: What is the Gospel? A very important question for our day and in our context. He says, "Mortimer Arias... draws attention to the fact that there are two dimensions to the gospel: the gospel about Jesus, and the gospel of Jesus. The gospel about Jesus is the message that gives our evangelism is personal form and includes the priestly work of Christ and the atoning grace through which we are reconciled to God. The new life we experience through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is pivotal to this message, which brings lost, sinful human beings to repentance and forgiveness. It is at the very heart of the gospel.
No less at the heart of the gospel, however, is the prophetic announcement of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth: the promise of good news for the poor, release for captives, sight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. (Luke 4:18-19). If, however, the only aspect of the gospel with which we evangelize is the invitation to personal forgiveness and reconciliation, our message can easily become personalized to the point of gnosticism. When this happens, the prophetic good news of Jesus Christ - his advocacy of God's justice for the poor and abused of the world - is by definition consigned to other ministries of the church, to be addressed as a consequence of evangelism (perhaps), but not as an integral part of the gospel we are commissioned to take into the world. The promise of Jesus announcing God's coming shalom are then proclaimed not as good news for the world here and now but as projections for the hereafter, thereby setting the tone for a discipleship that minimizes Christ's directive to join him at work in the world, ministering to the little ones who still suffer and starve.
This bifurcation of the gospel is at the heart of the age-old divide between evangelism and social ethics, a divide that remains theologically unbridged, albeit heavily veneered at present with collegialities of common social concern. Until the issue is addressed hermeneutically, however, these collegialities will have little impact one the average American congregation, the hermeneutical locus of evangelism. The question is not how to link evangelism with social ethics, but rather how to incorporate the social and systemic hope of the gospel into our evangelism at the outset. The evangel must be the cutting edge of social and systemic, no less than personal, transformation. If not, the prophetic tradition of the Scriptures is severed, and the social and systemic dimensions of the gospel cease to be good news from God. They focus instead on what is wrong with the world, rather than on what God is doing to put it right. Much more detrimental to the coming basileia tou theou, Jesus of Nazereth becomes a gnostic Christ available only to the privilaged - who are by no means always the poor, the blind, the captives or the oppressed."
This guy sums up what I wrote in a series not too long ago entitled A Holistic Gospel. Check it out if you haven't read it yet.
Having many personal friends who are Kenyans, my heart continues to go out to those who have had family members killed (death toll is over 600 now) to the over 180,000 people who have been displaced, to the many who are experiencing hunger.
Here is part of an email I received on Sunday from my friend Bishop Kaaleng, who chairs a board that helps to serve over a hundred churches all around Kenya. Here is what he wrote (keep in mind that Swahili and Turkana are his first two languages):
"What happened after election in Kenya,... in moi's bridge houses were burnt, in Eldoret the church was burnt and
people dead, in kisumu supermarket were burnt 40 people were dead, in
Soi pastor house was destroyed, 28 children and his family run to
Eldoret army camp these were oprphans children.
In Lodwar were doing
fine with my family and the church. We need your prayers because many
people now need relief food, cloths and medicine. The red cross was
asking the Government if they can assist with the relief but the
opposition rejected. No food transported to our place. most people of kenya are affected now.There was no communication from December up to now, so pray for us. waiting to hear from you."
Bishopkaaleng and family
There is some good news coming from Kenya. BBC reports that the opposition has canceled the protests that were to take place today in hopes that international mediation might help to solve the crises. In the meantime, though, Kenya is facing both a health crises, as well as a hunger crises.
One way you can help is to pray for the people in Kenya at this time. And if you want to help these groups of churches that I am connected with in Kenya, you can send a check to help out. (I give you more detailed information below) I will personally be wiring some money to the board of these churches in Kenya at some point in the near future. Last month we wired some money from the Solis Foundation to give micro grants to start ten new businesses, and Kairos also sent some money to help with the orphanages in the Turkana region of Kenya. It is a ministry called, The Unembraced - picture is on the left, you can click it to enlargen it.
The gift that you send would go to the board who will then distribute it to the different regions to meet the needs from the damage done due to the chaos that has been happening in Kenya. If you desire to support the Kenyans in this way, please make the check out to "Kairos Los Angeles", and in the memo please put "Kenya Crises". One hundred percent of the proceeds will be going to help this current crises. You can mail you check to:
Kairos Los Angeles Attn: JR Woodward 5217 Hollywood Blvd Studio 520 Los Angeles, CA 90027
Please continue to pray for these people, and if you have a desire, send a check to help them out as well. While some parts of Kenya are still facing difficulties, there does seem to be some relief in other areas. So I leave you with an email that I received from some medical missionaries just twelve hours ago, that shares at least some good news.
"Great news for the peace of Kenya…the rallies scheduled for tomorrow have been cancelled. I’m not sure if that’s a reflection of talks between the parties, but it’s really good news for getting things back to normal.
We
are starting to see more staff coming back to the hospital. More
patients are coming day by day. Surgical clinic could be
interesting tomorrow…we haven’t had one with all of this in about three weeks. Dr. White had to treat two patientsFriday
night (gunshot to the chest and abdomen/arrow shot to the chest) who
had been shot on Monday. It took them all that time to make it to
the hospital. Amazing they survived as both had significant lung injuries. The young man I had to help with last night is doing well. He had an arrow lodged in the largest vein in his abdomen and coming out of his pancreas. Tight spot to have an arrow…but we seem to have gotten him through it. Thank God.
The
person helping me operate this morning is also a pastor. His name
is Daniel. He had between 500 and 600 people at his church
yesterday praying for thepeace
and safety of Kenya and our area. Apparently it was an experience
to be there. Unfortunately one of those families came home to
nothing but the rubble of a house burned to the ground. It is
unclear how it happened (violence or mishap). However, today we are seeing a more peaceful scene.
Several
people were able to leave the hospital grounds today and make business
runs into Bomet. Daniel was one of those as he desperately needed
chicken feed for the 400 that he raises for eggs or meat. The
concern was that tomorrow’s
scheduled rallies would close the roads down again and halt business
yet again. Not having food or available transport is certainly
impacting what we see in the hospital these days. So it is great news that we will have another peaceful day tomorrow."
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:
Because of the Incarnation
Because Cultural Understanding Has Always Been Essential to Good Mission Practice
Because Christendom and Modernity Are in Rapid Decline
Because the West is in the Midst of Huge Cultural Shifts
Because the Church is in Decline
Because the Majority of Current Church Practices Are Cultural Accomodations to a Society The No Longer Exists
Because the Primary Mode and Style of Communication in Western Culture Have Changed
Because a New Culture Means That New Organizational Structures Are Required
Because Boomers Are the Last Generation That is Happy with Modern Churches
Because of the Increasing Appeal of Spirituality Derived from Other Religions
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 practic
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