Emergent Brethren

I have been doing a lot of thinking over the last year regarding Suburbia. Mostly in relation to what does it mean to be missional in the suburbs. My wife and I wrestled with this question and whether we needed to move to a more “urban” area in order to be missional…but I think that is, in one way, a cop out. Being missional is about where you are planted. Yes you can be missional in the urban area…the needs are easier to see. But you can also be missional in suburbia. I got to see a great example of that at a church in Bucks County called the Well. Todd Hiestand is the Pastor and he has written a great deal about being missional in suburbia, which has been tremendously helpful to my journey.

So the other day while in my favorite bookstore, Ollies…(good stuff cheap) I found the above book “Death by Suburb” by David Goetz. So I picked up and began reading. Goetz lays out 8 toxins of Suburbia and 8 Spiritual practices to counteract the toxin.

The 8 toxins are: I am in control of my life, I am what I do and what I own, I want my neighbors life, My life should be easier than this, I need to make a difference with my life, My Church is the problem, What will this relationship do for me, and I need to get more done in less time.

The 8 Spiritual practices that he lays out are: The Prayer of Silence, The journey through the self, Friendship with those who have no immortality symbols, Accepting my cross with grace and patience, Pursuing action, not results, Staying put in your church, Building deep and meaningful relationships, and Falling in love with a day.

Here are some quotes from the book that resonated with me:

“I think my suburb, as safe and religiously coated as it is, keeps me from Jesus. Or at least, my suburb (and the religion of the suburbs) obscures the real Jesus. The living patterns of the good life affect me more than I know. Yet the same environmental factors that numb me to the things of God also hold out great promise. I don’t need to escape the suburbs. I need to find Jesus here.”

“The kingdom of God often appears plain, ordinary, small, in the moment.”

“Even in suburbia all moments are infused with the Sacred. God is really present where I live…”

“The practice of solitude may be the most important spiritual discipline for the suburbs. And it is probably one of the most difficult to practice here.”

“A friend with a special needs child (and five other kids as well) recently said to me that he thought one spiritual issue of our community (which has a median household income of 75,000) is how hard we work at appearing not to have any issues. ‘The sad thing’ he says, ‘is that you wind up with a bunch of folks who appear to have it all, but are miserable. They’re trapped in the attractive veneer of being ‘perfect people.’ That, by its very nature, negates the transparency to form a deeper bond with a human being.”

“The perfect suburban life is bogus.”

“Coveting may be the most toxic indulgence of the suburbs, and the life practice to overcome it requires the discipline to face another kind of person. This person is not like me. This person in not like my neighbor, whose house I covet. This person is invisible to me, because I am facing in the wrong direction- toward those I perceive to have more than I.”

There are a lot more quotes that I could share but I close with this one…

“forget trying to live a safe, gated life.”

A few years ago at the National Pastor’s Convention, one of the freebee’s given to everyone was the just released book called Chasing a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars (by Mark Batterson, Multnomah Press). As I was clearing-out some stuff from my office last month, I ran across this book. I thought it might be a good one to take on our vacation/job hunting trip to Hawaii. I was right, there’s lots of inspiration in this book!

The book is based on an obscure story in the Old Testament of Beniah, who chased and killed a lion (2 Sam. 23:20-21). It’s not a story I remembered in my Old Testament reading, but it now certainly is a story that has impacted my life.

There are many great quotes that I’d love to share, but it would take-up too much room here. I scanned the book, after reading it to pull-out my top 10, but have decided that even that’s too many.

So, here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“. . . success is making the most of every opportunity. Spiritual maturity is seeing and seizing God-ordained opportunities. Think of every opportunity as God’s gift to you. What you do with those opportunities is your gift to God. I’m absolutely convinced that our greatest regrets in life will be missed opportunities.” p. 17

“Guaranteed Uncertainty: To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation.” quote from Oswald Chambers, p.79

Faith doesn’t reduce uncertainty. Faith embraces uncertainty. p.85

Jesus never promised security. What he promised was uncertainty. . . I know that part of us wants God to take us to a 3 act play with a clearly defined plot. . . But Jesus takes us to the Improv instead. We want the entire script up front, but that would undermine our dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Following Jesus and keeping in step with the Spirit require the art of improvisation. We’ve got to develop an affinity for uncertainty and lear to enjoy the journey.” p.90

“Have you read the Bible lately? Faith is risky business. The goal of faith is not the elimination of risk. In fact, the greatest risk is taking no risks.” (Think of the Parable of the Talents) p. 109

Failing to take a risk is almost like losing a jigsaw puzzle piece of your life. It leaves a gaping hole. When we get to the end of our lives, our greatest regrets will be the missing pieces.” p. 115-116

To the average person, the circumstances presented to Benaiah were problems to run away from, not opportunities to be seized. But Benaiah didn’t see a 500 pound problem. He saw a lion skin hanging in his tent. p. 132-133

This book probably means a lot more to me now, than if I had read it 3 years ago. I now find myself in a situation I didn’t choose (being laid-off by the Mission and Ministry Board). A few people have tried to encourage me to see this as a time of new opportunity, of pursuing dreams and passions that I might not have done by staying in my former position. So, I’m here in Hawaii with my wife to explore a dream we’ve had for 10 years: living here and serving God.

The author, Mark Batterson, also writes on page 30, “God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go.”. What a comforting thought! God is seeking to guide us in greater ways than our seeking to be in God’s will. But as the author says over and over again, we have to take risks, and not wait for every detail to line-up before stepping out.

How do you take risks? What needs to be in place before you “step-out in faith”? What’s your dream? What steps do you need to take to reach that dream?

I’d love to hear from you!

Jeff

Saturday afternoon I picked up the mail and found that I had received my next book for being a part of the Ooze Viral Bloggers…and it came on my birthday. The book is called “So Beautiful” by Leonard Sweet. I have spent some time reading it and I am in the 2nd chapter. I will be blogging about each chapter over the next several days as I read it.

In the book Sweet talks about two types of Church, the APC Church (Attractional, Propositional, and Colonial) and the MRI Church (Missional, Relational, Incarnational). The book is laid out in 5 chapters. The first is the Introduction, followed by one chapter for each part of the MRI, and the epilogue. Just like every Sweet book I have ever read So Beautiful is amazingly researched (you should see the footnotes at the back of the book..I think they go on for 45 pages.) He also loves acrostics….MRI, APC, EPIC.

There is so much in the introduction but here are a few quotes that stand out to me:

“The attractional church thinks that if they build it, and build it hip and cool, people will come.”

“The church that is missional had better know how to attract people to Christ.”

“APC Creates A- Members, P- Believers, C- Consumers. MRI creates M-Missionaries, R-Disciples, I- World Changers.”

“Jesus gave us ‘the form of a religion without religion’ or alternatively, an ‘irreligious religion’ or an ‘antireligion’ Jesus didn’t do establishment church.”

“Christianity minus Christ equals religion”

“These are the best of times to be the church. These are the worst of times to be a church”- Reggie McNeal

“We become imago Dei by participating in the Missio Dei”

“There is no spiritual life. There is only life. One life where the spiritual is not separate but the whole.”

“Missional is not a program arm of the church or a line item in the budget. It is living a life born in the very being of God.”

“You can’t program MRI into the church anymore than you can program missional or program relational or program incarnational. The words missional, relational, and incarnational are not tag phrases in the slanguage of faith but the operatic sweep of the gospel in brevity, beauty, and threeness.”

I’ll share more from the introduction and the chapters over the next few days. It’s a good book so far and one that I would recommend to anyone.

I am becoming a fan of Scot McKnight… Recently I read Scot’s newest book, “The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking how you read the Bible” and really appreciated the encouragement to look at our relationship with the Bible in a new light. Especially appreciated his in depth application of the process he shares in the final chapters of the book, where he looks at women in ministry in the bible. Great read!

I also very much appreciated Scot’s book “The Jesus Creed” and am using that material along with his devotional book Living the Jesus Creed as my Lenten theme at Community of Joy.

Scot has a way of getting you to think differently and more deeply than you might otherwise think. Highly recommend these books.

I wanted to add to the comments on books.

I recently finished Tribal Church by Carol Howard Merritt. I really enjoyed her explanations for why young adults have different needs in these years than in previous years. She urges inter-generational relationships and caring for one another as family.  One can adopt a young adult as easily as one can adopt an elder. She shared a great vision for small churches as those who train the new pastors, and thus help the quality of pastors for all churches, big and small. She has a radical idea for the Brethren, that all salaries should come from one source. This enables the in-debt new pastor to be at a small church without filing bankruptcy.

I can’t say enough good about Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne. He reminded me why I am Anabaptist, pacifist, and what the Kingdom of God is truly about.  I love it when people who are discovering the teachings of the Kingdom of God and are not Anabaptist come to new understandings. They are often better at explaining than we birthright Brethren are. The book is unusual, more like peeking into a journal than reading a book.

I also recommend The Search to Belong by Joseph R. Myers.  (Rethinking Intimacy, community and small groups).This is a book on how people connect and come into community.  It offers insight on the type of connecting spaces people need..from the intimate space, to the wide open community space to just a sharing lightly space.  It really helped me see why some small group ministries fail, and why some worship services fail, as well.  The back page says “What kinds of community do people want?  What does it take for churhes to cultivate environments where all levels of community spontaneously emerge and thrive?  What kind of language should you use and avoid when discussing community in your church?  How can you evaluate community health in your church or organization and in yourself?  I was surprised to learn that what I “knew” wasn’t really accurate or even helpful.