Archive for the 'Books / Readings' Category

Books / Readings, Church Planting, Community, Ministry Formation, Missional, Spiritual Formation, Third Places, Young Adults

When Sacrilege is a good thing

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Mike Morrell, who runs the Speak Easy blog program that I am a part of. This e-mail was letting me know that Speak Easy had a book that I could review. The book? Sacrilege: Finding Life in the Unorthodox Ways of Jesus by Hugh Halter. As soon as I read the e-mail I went right to the form and filled it out hoping that I wasn’t too late. I hit submit, held my breath, and waited for the confirmation that I indeed got a copy to review for Speak Easy. Seconds later I received that confirmation that i was hoping for, a chance to read the newest book by Hugh.

You see Hugh and his normal writing and ministry partner Matt Smay have influenced me in profound ways in their books The Tangible Kingdom and AND:The Gathered and Scattered Church. And Veritas has used their Tangible Kingdom Primer in developing missional communities (and plan to do so again in the coming year). So I was excited to see what Hugh had to say about following Jesus. And of course the title Sacrilege, which normally is seen as a bad thing in Christian circles, grabbed my attention right away.

The first thing that Halter does in the book’s first chapter is to define what he means by the word sacrilege. He says, “To commit sacrilege is to de-sacredize what is deemed to be sacred….In the Christian sense, to commit sacrilege means to disregard, disrespect, or be irreverent toward those things that have traditionally been considered holy, venerated, or dedicated as sacred. It’s tipping holy cows” At first reading how can sacrilege be a good thing, according to Halter. Just about the time when you are wondering if Halter is trying to just be controversial or provocative, we says this, which sums up what the book is all about, “In actuality, as I’ll show, de-sacredizing what should be de-sacredized is not only good, it begins to move us toward the undercurrent of the real person and Good News of Jesus. Sacrilege is about removing religion from our faith. It’s about securing the integrity of what is most important. It’s about chipping away at people’s false assumptions about who Jesus is and what following him is all about.”

As an Anabaptist I was totally on board where Halter went to show his readers the sacrilegious nature of Jesus, right to the Sermon on the Mount, and more specifically the beatitudes. Halter takes the remainder of the book unpacking the beatitudes and how they flip everything upside down and how following Jesus and living out the beatitudes will fulfill what Jesus wants of his disciples (or apprentices as Halter wants to call those who live for Jesus). Halter says that Jesus, “wanted people to become like him; sacrilegious, incarnational people who lived a contagiously countercultural, kingdom-centered life. (I believe Jesus wanted that when he walked the face of this earth and he also wants that now as well.)

I appreciated the book and what Halter was seeking to do, unpacking Jesus from the religious confines that He has been wrapped up in for 2,000 years and to truly see Jesus as “the ultimate sacrilegious leader.” I resonated with his use of the beatitudes to show the sacrilegious nature of Jesus and how if we follow Jesus, by living out the beatitudes, we’ll be committing sacrilege as well and becoming sacrilegious apprentices.

Here are some quotes from the book that I found helpful or that resonated with me:

“Jesus and the early faith communities lived an intentionally countercultural life without any sense of consumer-oriented fluff- and people still chose to take the leap!” (This is my desire for not only Veritas but for my life as well)

“Biblical apprenticeship is about three things: 1. Becoming just like Jesus. 2. Doing what Jesus did, and 3. doing the above with the types of people Jesus liked spending time with.”

“Jesus messed with people’s paradigms.”

“Jesus utterly jacked up everything people thought about religion and God. And he’s still at it.”

“Jesus loved the Scriptures as they witnessed to him, but his biggest fights were with those who knew the most Scripture.”

“Jesus really doesn’t care how much we know if our knowledge amounts to no change in our lifestyle.”

“Jesus, however, is trying to take people from a small box of religion to the place where they can open up their lives to a huge new world called the kingdom.”

“Although Westernized Christianity pulls us away from risk, confrontation, and getting gritty with real issues, Christ is going to lead us into places that will capture our emotions and reorient our entire perspective about life and why we live it.”

“Being a Christian is about being like Jesus, and sometimes that means taking risks to reach out.”

“Jesus came to expand your life, not keep it the same. His life is fuller than the American Dream, but it’s not as safe.”

“The wall of assumptions will only come down as entire communities band together in unity to live like Christ before the world. This may mean turning from idols of materialism, individualism, consumerism, and religion.”

I’m sure I could go on with various thoughts and quotes that stuck out to me and resonated with me and our journey in planting Veritas as a missional community. But I thought I’d end this blog with a final thought from Hugh that is a deep hope and longing of mine for our community. Hugh says, “Jesus never called people to follow him by themselves. He knew that life in the Kingdom was and still is only available for those committed to community with other apprentices.”

I’m thankful for Mike Morrell and Speak Easy for the opportunity to read and review Sacrilege. Hopefully reading this book can help and remind me to flip some tables and follow the subversive, countercultural, and sacrilegious leader Jesus of Nazareth.

Books / Readings, Change!?!, Community, Leadership, Missional, Understanding Context

Happy New Year or Happy Crisis Year?

I’m reading a book for my Doctor of Ministry program called, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe (Broadway Press, 1997). The authors of this book predict that we’re about to enter a time of extreme crisis, like the world last experienced in World War II. It does this by introducing us to the idea that history is cyclical, with four seasons of life within every 100 years or so. They trace this back to Roman times and call it the Roman Saeculum. Within each of the four seasons, a generation of people are born who experience through the same lenses, attitudes, or points of view.

The first season, or period of time is called the “High”. The major world crisis is over and the future is bright. This has been achieved by a united group of people working against the crisis. “Prophets” are born during the “High”. For our time, this is the Boomer generation.

This season last existed between 1946 and 1960. During this period, our nation rose to become a global super power and the middle class grew tremendously. Society was united, didn’t question authority and was very modernist.

The second season of the saeculum is a time of “Awakening”, or spiritual introspection. Here, it is more important to explore the inner world than the outer world. People start to defy institutions, leaders or culture which helped win victory during the Crisis. Nomads are born during this season and our represented by the Gen X.

The last “Awakening” occurred from 1964 to 1984. It began with campus riots, Viet Nam war protests and a rebellious counter-culture. (Remember the ‘hippies’?) It gave way to more violent crime, family break-ups, and many ‘movements’ which eroded the unity of our nation.

The next season is called a time of “Unraveling”. People have lost their unity. Personal satisfaction is high because, “it’s all about me.” There is great personal expression and personal fulfillment. All the flaws of institutions are exposed and not much gets accomplished by society as a whole. Hero’s are born during this season are are the Millennials in our life time.

The authors date the latest Unraveling from 1985 to perhaps 2005. Society continued to fracture and individualism grew. Mistrust of institutions continued to grow and leaders are constantly questioned and criticized rather than being respected.

The last season of the saeculum is call “Crisis”. This is often a time of world war or other type of major conflagration – everything is a mess. The generation born in this season are called “Artists”.

This book was written in 1997. But in the mid to latter part of this past decade the authors predict that the world will fall back into some type of major crisis. Though no major world war appears to be on the horizon, the world is definitely struggling through financial crises.

So, if we are entering a “Fourth Turning”, or time of “Crisis”, what are some of the implications for the church? How might this impact local congregations, denominations in this country, as well as the church globally?

One way is financial. Few churches have been holding their own financially or growing in resources over they last three years. They often mirror the financial conditions of the community. However, there are upsides to financial problems. They can cause a congregation to rethink its purpose and mission. Congregations who are more vision-driven may pause to seek and discern from God what it should be about during this financially-challenging time. This refocusing effort, if it is based upon the values of the members, can strengthen their commitment and faithfulness to achieve what their vision of God’s calling is.

One result of the “Unraveling” might be the reason why people lost their sense of unity in and responsibility to the denomination and instead see the flaws of the institution. Many congregations now prefer to give to local mission endeavors vs. sending their money away to the denominational headquarters.

For the established church to survive the Fourth Turning (or season of Crisis), locally, denominationally or globally, it will need to refocus its vision and be focused on how to meet the needs of those around it. Over the past thirty years, there has been a big shift from congregations existing to meet the needs members and supporting the denomination, to churches who are equipping members for ministry and sending them out locally to meet community needs. Today, people want to be a part of an organization that’s making a difference they can see. They desire to support change that helps the lives of others or improves their community. Thus larger bodies, denominations, or communions need to help the local congregation with resources which will help them achieve greater success in their local ministry efforts.

Has anyone else read or heard of this book? What are your thoughts for the season or time period we’re entering? How do you think it affects the church?

Books / Readings, Ministry Formation, Missional

Celtic Way of Evangelism

In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, which we celebrate tomorrow, I thought I would share some thoughts from the book “The Celtic Way of Evangelism” by George G. Hunter. (We had an amazing Saint Patrick’s Day Party this past Saturday by the way which I’ll write about tomorrow).

I read the book a few years ago and as I look back on it I realized just how influential this book has been in my life, my theological journey and the ministry and mission of Veritas. Here are some random quotes from the book.

“Indeed, the fact that Patrick understood the people and their language, their issues, and their ways, serves as the most strategically significant single insight that was to drive the wider expansion of Celtic Christianity, and stands as perhaps our greatest single learning from this movement. There is no shortcut to understanding the people. When you understand the people, you will often know waht to say and do, and how. When the people know that the Christian understands tehm, infer that maybe the High God understands them too.”

“The apostolic band would probably welcome responsive people into their group fellowship to worship with them, pray with them, minister to them, converse with them, and break bread together. One band member or another would probably join with each responsive person to reach out to relatives and friends. The mission team typically spent weeks or even months, as a ministering community of faith within the tribe. The church that emerged within that tribe would have been astonishingly indigenous.”

“So the British leaders were offended and angered that Patrick was spending priority time with ‘pagans’, ‘sinners’, and ‘barbarians'”

The Celtic model of reaching people: 1. You first establish community with people, or bring them into fellowship of your community of faith. 2. Within fellowship, you engage in conversation, ministry, prayer, and worship. 3. In time, as the discover that they now believe, you invite them to commit.” (Sometimes what we call belonging before believing)

“Evangelism is now about ‘helping people to belong so that they can believe.”

“The Irish and other Celtic peoples were predominately right-brained and, in reaching them, Christianity adapted remarkably from it’s earlier Roman reliance upon words, propositions, concepts and theological abstractions.”

Those are just a few of the thoughts from this great book. As I flipped through it, I realized that I need to read this book again very soon.

I close with this prayer from Saint Patrick:

…Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

Books / Readings

Thy Kingdom Connected

The other week I received the book “Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church can learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks” by Dwight J. Friesen from the Ooze Viral Bloggers. I get a book about once a month, read it, and then post my thoughts on this blog and also on the Ooze Viral Bloggers site. It’s a great deal. I get free books out of it, and all I have to do is write about the books.

The book is about Network theory and what the church can learn from it. I’m not sure exactly what I was getting when I chose the book. Maybe I expected more “practical” applications to Network theory. As a church planter I am looking for ways of using things like Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet to interact with people, get the word out about Veritas, and develop missional opportunities. After adjusting my expectations about a chapter into it, I began to connect with alot of what Friesen was getting at.

The three biggest connections that were helpful to me were the Bounded Set/Centered Set discussion, the chapter on Network Ecology, and the discussion about Christ Commons and Christ Clusters.

The discussion on Bounded and Center sets reminded me of the same theme in the book “The Shaping of Things to Come.” A Bounded set is all about boundaries. Therefore making it easy to determine who is in and who isn’t. Alot of the times with Bounded sets within the Christian community there are clearly defined lines of what makes a follower of Jesus, and alot of those things are, in my opinion, peripheral issues. Things like what political party you belong to, whether you smoke or drink, what you “look like”, etc.. A Centered set however is all about direction. It’s about orienting around a center or “hub”. It doesn’t matter how close to the center you are, it matters if you are moving toward the center. And so for the church, with Jesus as the center, or “hub” we need to be a centered set, encouragiing people to move toward the center.

Hopefully Veritas is the kind of place that lives out a centered set instead of a bounded set. He want to focus on the center (Jesus) and help people make their way towards the center. To orientate their life toward movement toward the center and not the other way. That is not to say that we don’t have ideas what makes a follower of Jesus. We just don’t focus on alot of external things that people can too often get hung up on.

This is what Friesen says about missional communities and centered sets, “The centered paradigm has some clear advantages for thinking about spiritual formation because it focuses on what is central while allowing for porous boundaries. The centered paradigm helps Christ followers orient themselves in terms of who God is as revealed in Christ. And the issue is not external boundaries but movement with the Holy Spirit toward Christ. The centered paradigm still maintains a distinction between being a Christian and not being a Christian, but its emphasis is not on maintaining the external boundaries in order to preserve personal purity in order to ensure that one is “in”. Rather, the distinction is for the sake of cluster identity. Centered paradigms also allow for and encourage variation among Christians. All are seen as being on different paths along their Christ-centered journeys, and that’s a good thing.”

Next time I’ll look at the chapter on Network ecology and the idea of being closed while at the same time being open. So this looks to be a 3 part blog on “Thy Kingdom Connected.” Hopefully I’ll do the next two blogs before I leave for Deep Creek Lake in Maryland for some Snowboarding on Thursday.

Books / Readings, Church Planting, Decline/Growth

Evaluating your Faith Community

I have been wading through the dense work that is “Thy Kingdom Connected”. I am struggling to figure out how the thoughts, words, and philosophy works itself out in my context. I am still working on that and will be for a while if not for as long as I’m alive. But as I sit here in Starbucks reading I came upon a great quote regarding how you evaluate the effectiveness of your faith community. And this has helped me, because last week I was struggling alot with trying to evaluate the community and was always coming back to the same old metric of numbers. Here is what I just read that is so helpful. Read this, ponder it, and wrestle with it.

“To determine how your church is doing, don’t gauge it by the individuals in your church, or even in comparison to what other churches are doing; go to God’s bigger narrative. How is your local faith community participating with God in God’s dream for the re-creation of heaven and earth? How is your church participating in the flourishing of God’s dream of abundant life for all?”

And so I need to ask myself, “How is Veritas currently participating with God in God’s dream? And how can Veritas begin to participate with God in God’s dream?” Those are two great questions that I will be wrestling with and also asking others within Veritas what they think.

I’ll be blogging later this week with more reflections from “Thy Kingdom Connected.”

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