Cooperation

In several of Toronto's 'gateway communities' - places of entrance to life in Canada (such as Regent Park, Thorncliffe Park Village and St. Jamestown), Christians in and through their churches, in denominational partnerships, and with agencies both spiritual and 'secular,' are joining together in many new ways and on many new levels, to receive, welcome and give practical assistance to people living there.

The United Nations has called Toronto the most culturally and ethnically-diverse city in the world. St. Jamestown includes thousands of new immigrants and is the most culturally-diverse community in Toronto. Here live people as a microcosm of planet earth.

Legal and immigrant counsel, food and clothing, cultural advice and welcome are being given, as well as spiritual counsel (where possible and welcome). Resource-sharing for intentional church planting (building loving, welcoming, inclusive Christian faith and fellowship communities) is being made possible through the creative interventions and leadership of many younger and older leaders, and by missional families moving to live incarnationally on the floors of apartments and townhouses. They come together regularly to pray and to plan - and to try to discern what Jesus is doing, and to join Him if and as He wills, in the challenge of ministry.

This (new and welcome) spirit of cooperation, and meeting to dialogue, share, plan and resource others in these loving tasks in the Spirit and Name of Christ, show a new, greater resolve in mission, by Christians living and sharing ministry together in the Greater Toronto Area.

Newly begun is the pushing through and beyond historical boundaries and barriers of denomination, theory, theology and practice. In a day of perhaps unprecedented mission opportunity and challenge in the GTA, this is not only welcome - but essential. The Body of Christ in harmony and unity, despite and often because of much diversity still, wonderfully reflects the holistic concern of God for ALL of its people -- and the love of God in Christ that sent Him so willing to give Himself for the sake of this black and blue and broken planet.

God so loved the world (the cosmos) that He gave His only Son . . .

Whatever else 'missional' may mean, it means apprentice-followers of Jesus joining in a Spirit of unity and cooperation with Him and with each other in His loving concerns. For, we do need Him and each other much more than we have heretofor believed or put into practice.

Liquid Times

Liquid Modernity (published in the UK as Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty), by Zygmunt Bauman

Review 1.

The passage from 'solid' to 'liquid' modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways to organise their lives. They have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don't add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like 'career' and 'progress' could meaningfully be applied.

Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable - to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty.

Zygmunt Bauman's brilliant writings on liquid modernity have altered the way we think about the contemporary world. In this short book he explores the sources of the endemic uncertainty which shapes our lives today and, in so doing, he provides the reader with a brief and accessible introduction to his highly original account, developed at greater length in his previous books, of life in our liquid modern times.

Review 2.

In this new book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a 'heavy' and 'solid', hardware-focused modernity to a 'light' and 'liquid', software-based modernity. This passage, he argues, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. The new remoteness and un-reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under-defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life-politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frames used to narrate human individual experience and their joint history.This book is dedicated to this task.

Bauman selects five of the basic concepts which have served to make sense of shared human life - emancipation, individuality, time/space, work and community - and traces their successive incarnations and changes of meaning. Liquid Modernity concludes the analysis undertaken in Bauman's two previous books Globalization: The Human Consequences and In Search of Politics. Together these volumes form a brilliant analysis of the changing conditions of social and political life by one of the most original thinkers writing today.

- from reviews on Amazon.com

Gibbs and Bolger Interact re Missional Church

Marks of a Missional Church

Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger were interviewed for a workshop: "Living Missionally."Here are the prep questions that were asked (and a partial summary of my answers):

1. What are the marks of churches (people) who live missionally?
They no longer see the church service as the primary connecting point with those outside the community. Connecting with those outside happens within the culture, by insiders to that culture who express the gospel through how they live.

2. What is it that keeps a church (people) from thinking missionally?
We have been raised with the idea that much of our life and our responsibilities as Christians are reflected in the weekly church service. It is how we think as Christians in Western cultures where 'going to church' has been an essential part of being a Western citizen. Our context has changed, Christendom is crumbling, but the shift to missional living is a huge shift for Western Christians. It might take the Western church fifty to a hundred years to make the shift, and many won't make the journey. In contrast, those Christians outside the west, who have never lived within 'Christendom', do not think of the church service as the connecting point. They have no illusions that those they are serving would be remotely interested in a church service. Instead, they embody the gospel through serving, both in deeds and words. This is a big, big, shift, and it scares a lot of people.

3. When people (church) suddenly "get it", what does that mean? ... and what do you think brings the revelation?
Christian leaders are burned out. They spend an inordinate amount of hours just keeping the machine running, both in mainline and seeker/purpose driven/gen-x churches. They know no other way to do ministry, and if running the machine isn't it, then what is? When these Christians discover a more organic way of serving God, of emulating Jesus, it gives them hope. They do not need to leave the faith to find integrity or rest. Granted, this shakes up their world, and their future is anything but smooth. But they find a passion again, like a first love, and it sustains them for the tough road ahead...

4. What is/are the hardest obstacle(s) for people/church to overcome in order to being living missionally?
Early in the 21st century, the American church is trained to consume, to be recipients of ministry, to go to church to 'get needs met'. It is how we are formed in the culture, and the church does not train us to be any different. To be active, to be a producer in the faith community, to share the burden, are the birth pangs in the formation of a missional community. Facilitating this type of transformation is one of the most important tasks of leaders today...

5. What is/are the most exciting examples of a people/church who is/are living missionally?
In my book with Eddie Gibbs, I share many, many stories that reveal what missional living in the postmodern West looks like...I couldn't be more excited about these people or their journeys...

6. What was it that drew you into seeking what you found? ... what did you find?
Like many of the people I interviewed, I was on a journey. Was there a way that I could express my faith in my world that would have some integrity? That would look like Jesus? That wouldn't make Christians look unnecessarily weird? As I began to spend time with these leaders and these communities, I found hope. They were asking the same questions! They became my teachers -- and more importantly, my friends...

Thinking Shift

Being 'missional' is not just another phase or some kind of program. It is what the Body of Christ is called to be and do. We must shift our thinking in ways such as those of Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, "Breaking the Missional Code" (Broadman & Holman, 2006) . . .

From programs to processes

From demographics to discernment

From models to missions

From attractional to incarnational

From uniformity to diversity

From professional to passionate

From seating to sending

From decisions to disciples

From additional to exponential

From monuments to movements

Musing and Moving

Some Questions for individuals, pastors, leaders - as we try to move forward in ministry . . .

• What are we all about as a community of faith ?

• Where do we put our energies as a church? (money, manpower, management, mission, maintenance)

• Where does our church express her care for our community?

• What does our community (network) think about our church?

• What other kinds of places would people consider their church in your community?

• How can we make our churches safe havens for people who never come to church? (they need a safe person to be with; stop trying to manoeuvre the conversation around to ‘spiritual talk'; most people feel judged in church)

• Are our church’s people nervous or hopeful when old ways give way to new ways?

Christianity deserves to be expressed in the idioms and culture of the host culture. Aall theology is the interplay between church, culture and Scripture. Reformed theology, for example (at least in the way it was thought through and expressed) was great for its era. Is it time for new theology and belief systems? (not for change of belief)

• We have the opportunity of re-writing what Christianity should look like for our era.

• Christianity adopts to the culture wherever it goes. Other religions still looks like, dress like, act like, think like the founding people and culture where it came from . . . (for example Islam)

• What kind of influence do young people in your church have in setting church culture?

• Must we always plan things – or can we allow for the unexpected? (people before paper, plans and programs; put pen down; turn around from the computer)

How do we sense the Spirit of God in our midst? – or doesn’t it matter? . . .


Some Suggestions for Church Development

• KISS - Keep it simple

• Eliminate some (most?) committees – establish the right ones (stress collaborative 'teams') (too often it’s all about personal turf)

• Pray more – especially as leaders (pray, not as a tack-on, an embarrassment, a necessity)

• Deeper transparency with each other. (trust others; let them trust you; be trust-worthy - this can be terrifying, risky - for once they know you, they can use stuff against you)

• No more games - power games, control issues or turf wars. (let gracious truth and gentleness pervade every office; be who God’s designed you to be & don’t pretend to be somebody else)

• Learn to love oppositional people - they may be hurt, divorced, their life will be shattered (learn to love them. Some day you may need to confront them - or comfort them; don’t let their actions dictate yours)

• Encourage leaders to spend time with ever generation in the church (learn how they see things; otherwise, you will only construct programs for the generation you listen to; ask - what would worship look like in the language of your culture?)

• Think inside and outside your box (find what works and what doesn’t work; ask - what could make us less comfortable but would actually propel us forward a bit ?)

• Build relationship- building events (food is always a good start)

• Financially support community events (people think the church is always looking for money; turn it around; surprise them; overwhelm them with love and practical care responses)

You must also realign your own life to rise to the challenge (express faith through life experiences - not linear-sequential arguments; it’s story time; people want to tell their story (their life-story) (don’t 'witness' to people - listen to them; respond, love, talk, answer their questions if or when they ask it) (speak one language - don’t use ‘Christianeze’ - don’t use red-flag words; don’t use content-less words)

Reconnected to the God that made you in a rich relationship with Jesus Christ (get over your guilt - find the forgiveness you seek in Christ and then believe you are forgiven - for the past, completely; and for all you’re ever going to do that displeases the Father)

Consider: if there were no heaven or hell; threat or punishment or promise of reward – would you be a Christian? Had there been no Fall, and you were totally and freely human - what would you be doing ? . . .

Let go of your sin - Christ has paid for it; it’s all gone – you’re free.

Learn to fall in love. (do you love people? do you fall in love with them? are you romanced and romancing, richer and deeper?)

Consider: how do you receive love? (many in ministry don’t receive it very well. If you can't receive love, you won’t know how to give it) (We’re used to being judged and that’s what we tend to pass on - our criticism, our fear . . .)

Lose the intensity ( you don’t need to win; let up with the eye contact - you’re scaring them to death)

Don’t feel you have to do everything - leave God some room to work : - ) (Believe that God is already working in others, as He is in you) (maybe you won’t sense a thing . . . give God time and room . . .)

Perhaps we're trying to be too good at what we do – and maybe we need to get out of the way (open a channel to God and keep it open - be a wee bit of pipe through which God's Spirit flows, like water, a conduit for His power.

Take hold of your time (don’t fill it; be willing to lose control - we end up missing opportunities of our life in our attempt to control everything; relax and follow God into life, more)

Experience different forms of Christian faith (Coptic, Orthodox, Charismatic, Catholic, Baptists, etc. - be concerned that people really come to know Jesus Christ - not just about Him; but trust that there are windows and avenues, perhaps in other Christian faith experiences that can enrich you and others)

Study cultural history; church history; the Bible (seek deeply a life of prayer and dependence upon the Saviour; look for a sense of serenity, inner rest and inner stability)

Ask 'normal people' (those who do not yet know Christ if they see you as a Christian. (am I getting through? - ask them); ask people who never go to church (Jesus spent most of his time with ‘normal people’)

Show people a picture of God, as best you can - the way He really is; help them see themselves the way they really are; then, they’ll see and hear and respond — some day.

The Good News We Share

God’s Presence and Power is very near and He is setting right people, places and things.

The Gospel Includes . . . .a Sacrificial Way (atonement), a Messianic Way (fulfilling promises to Israel), a Mystical Way (receiving eternal life; being in Christ), a Legal Way (a righteous judge who pronounces the unrighteous righteous; justified), a Personal Way (a Father reconciling His wayward children), a Salvitic Way (slaves who are rescued), a Cosmic Way (a universal Lord; victor over all evil powers and demonic).

There are four common elements in the Gospel:

1. The Gospel is always about Jesus. It is presented in different ways by different authors in different epistles. For example, Paul talks much of Jesus, the Risen Lord; John notes His majesty and Authority; Peter shows how Jesus was fulfilling Old Testament prophecies.

2. The Gospel is always portrayed as God’s responses to our sin and its consequences. There is a response to the guilt we feel, to the loneliness we feel. There is help for our sense of the lack of meaning or our lack of sense of identity. The Gospel connects with that. It brings reconciliation and healing where there is sickness & brokenness in a fallen world - where there are broken relationships.

3. The Gospel always brings benefits and blessings that stem from faith. We receive forgiveness; we receive also the Gift (and the gifts) of the Holy Spirit. We receive His enabling and power to do ministry and to look and live like Jesus. We are joined together into community (addressing our needs related to being lonely, isolated, alienated). There is reconciliation (with God & people); and new life (for people who feel they are dead).

4. The Gospel always invites a response. It calls for repentance and faith - and for a turning away from my own way, toward God’s way.

We need more faithfulness and integrity to the Gospel and sensitive and awareness of people and their need. We must be both deeply immersed in the Gospel and deeply immersed in the world, for we are living between two worlds.

The Gospel, as story, can be told in many different ways - according to different ages, cultures, etc. Though it is the same basic story, it must be adapted to its hearers.

Christian theologian, professor and writer, N.T. Wright, notes that we can think of the Gospel as a six act play

1. The creation of a beautiful, alive, incredible world - male & female live in mirror image of the One who made them . . .

2. Things go horribly wrong: humans try to play God - instead of the dance with one another, with God and with creation - they become self-centred and angry . . .

3. God starts over with one couple and talks of restoration of the dance for all nations . . .

4. The climax comes when God, the Author, writes himself into the story - making it possible for us to meet and interact with the Author . . . He speaks and explains the dreams & hopes we have for this world; He does this in the Person and Name of Jesus . . .

5. The Story (History) is still being written - by the choices and actions and words we make. Our job is to submit our role to the director of the play, to seek His script and the way he’s shaped us, and our world, to play our part with individuality, creativity and courage . . .

6. We receive tantalizing glimpses of what’s coming - restoration to beauty and order and place. We become aware of a dance of beauty and harmony that is once again to be fully restored. We come to see that the seeming end is only the beginning of the real story . . .

The big story of the gospel avoids our magic, fairy-godmother story of little events about Jesus. It takes the focus off God meeting 'my needs' - important and true as aspects of that thinking and approach may be . . . Repentance is not just being sorry for little things: it is a decision to throw in my whole lot with the big Story that God is writing in the world - to find my place in the big story of the universe - to steer my canoe into the stream of history of God’s activity, into what God is doing in history in all of time

We need the Big Picture and the Micro-Picture (the personal) - to see God’s work in creation to end of time. The effects will impact each person differently - individually, for each one is searching for his or her true Way and true Home.

We need to juggle these things - the big picture AND individual personal interaction at point of need, questioning, wrestling and search. Otherwise it is all too cold, personal and distant. the Gospel also comes at the micro-level to the individual - so one may well ask: What is the Gospel according to you? In what sense is Jesus good news in your life today?

“Every year you grow you will find me bigger” . . . Aslan, The Tales of Narnia

Change Agents

I'd like to prove Eddie Gibb (in a quote from ChurchNext) wrong, since I work for a denomination . . . but then he does begin with 'Generally . . . ' Still, a great challenge to contribute as objectively and as best I can.

"Generally, those most aware of the cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity are people who are not locked into the power structures. Those who shoulder the responsibility for the functioning and survival of hierarchies and local churches tend to be too preoccupied in bailing out the boat to be setting anew course. Change agents are most likely to be pioneering church planters who have no congregational history to deal with and who are immersed in the culture of the people they endeavour to reach."

Andrew Grove writes: "People who have no emotional stake in a decision can see what needs to be done sooner."

Servant Leaders

"The serving leader has a way of helping everyone else to succeed. Almost before we've spotted a Serving Leader, we notice this symptom - people all around are flourishing."
- THE SERVANT LEADER - Jennings and Stahl-Wert

"Excellent leaders are humble enough to be led by the people they lead."
- Henry Nouwen

Leading

"Heart-shaping does not progress linearly. Its dynamic reflects more of a layering process, similar to the process used in music studios in recording various sound tracks that are then mixed together to create a single piece. The sub-stories within the leader's life are going on simultaneously and are interacting with one another. Sometimes one is pushed more to the foreground of attention, but no chapter in the leader's life story stands on its own."

-- A WORK OF HEART - Reggie McNeal