The Divine Name

The Unfolding Mystery of the Divine Name: The God of Sinai in Our Midst - Michael P. Knowles

When Moses asked God to show him his glory, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed his name. And from that name cascaded a promise of grace and love, compassion and faithfulness, forgiveness and slowness to anger. The story is told in Exodus 34:5-7, but the resonant name reverberates through the corridors of Scripture.

Michael Knowles teases out the rich dimensions and implications of this name by listening carefully to Exodus 34 and its biblical echoes. He particularly tunes his ear to the spiritual meditations of later sages. In tracing the unfolding mystery of the divine name throughout the span of Israel's story, he finds it startlingly resolved in the God of Sinai becoming present in our midst.

The manifold name of God has long captivated those who trace their spiritual ancestry to Abraham, whether they are Jewish, Christian or Muslim. This book brings this spiritual quest into dialogue with Scripture and tradition, and invites us to experience this God of the eternal name.

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Available on Amazon

Review

"A fascinating and erudite study. Don't be misled by the title: Knowles's goal is to get at the very heart of the Bible's presentation of God through a careful survey of selected texts. His work will surely be of interest to scholars and lay readers alike." (James Kugel, author, The Bible As It Was )

"Michael Knowles has organized his theological reflection around the self-disclosure of God in Exodus 34, a wise decision indeed. The result of his close textual study is a full, free-ranging theological exposition that probes not only the biblical text but the use to which the text has been variously put in the Christian tradition. The book teems with fresh insight and will reward a careful reading." (Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary )
"How marvelous it would be if Christians started believing that God is as Scripture portrays him, and as Dr. Knowles expounds its portrayal with such a wideness of vision and breadth of insight." (John Goldingay, David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary )

Our Neighbour . . .

It is a rebuke and opportunity for many of us, myself included, that Mother Theresa has said, "I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbour. Do you know your next door neighbour?"

Potters and Pots

We have this treasure, writes St. Paul, in earthen vessels . . .

It may seem to us sometimes that the biblical analogy of God's being the Potter and we being the clay pots that he creates and shapes for His purposes, make Him and His Province to be such that we are mere, passive, almost inanimate objects.

Following the insight and words of the prophet Isaiah (in chapter 64) again we may think that in the 'working with clay analogy' we are passive and God is totally in control/charge.

Apparently one might think that, until one starts working with clay. (I've not done that: I'll take the word of others who have).

An initial steps involved when working with clay is called Wedging – where you work hard 'to beat the life out of the clay.' Actually you are beating and kneading out air bubbles. If you don't, the bubbles will make the new creation crack when it hits the kiln. Or, it may blow up and, potentially everything around it. There are ‘bubbles’ that need to be removed from our lives if we are to be and achieve the purposes of our Creator.

Another step involved is something called Centering – a difficult process because (who would have known?) clay is naturally very resistant. One’s whole body weight has to be pushed into the play until you feel no anomaly as the clay is going around in your hands – until you know it’s ‘centred.’ If it isn’t centred, it will be wobbly or collapse entirely.

God is always wanting us to centre our lives in and around Him. What in our lives need to be centred around the Lord?

In Jeremiah 13, we find that the pot that was created became marred in the potter’s hand so he crushed the clay and formed into another pot. Similarly, God moulds us into different shapes and purposes, painful as that often seems to us. It is His doing even though we often (usually?) resist the process.

Am I accepting of God’s God’s centred will and priorities for my present and future? How am I active in working with, rather than resisting what God is doing in shaping me (or other aspects of my life and ministry)?

Can we discern and welcome the changes He is bringing?

Do they indicate that there is a lack of alignment, a difference or out-of-step aspects to my life in general, or in some particular are

How do we listen, look, trust and acquiesce more without giving up our responsibility and part? Could even our brokenness, resistance and doubt be part of what is repaired strengthened for the good as we the clay sometimes wrestle with the Potter in what He is doing and in how He is doing it?  

 

Hiding in our Hearts God's Word

I suppose there are some obvious ways of hiding God's Word within our hearts, as did the Psalmist. I would think it has to do with:

1.  Time:   to do with time-spent (how much, how long, how deep?); when and where and how(?) might also be factored in here. Would reading from a book be better, say than reading on-line (with attending links and distractions)?

2.  Understanding:  to do with seeking to understand what one is reading (inductive study, comparison, reading whole bits, getting time, order, history right . . .); what does it say? what does it mean? what does it mean for me? - for others? . . .

3.  Meditation:  to do with contemplation, musing, entering the story, personalizing (here Lectio Divina would be helpful)

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Lectio Divina (Latin for divine reading) is a traditional Christian practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God and to increase the knowledge of the Bible. It does not treat Scripture as texts to be studied, but as the Living Word of God in which God addresses one personally.

Traditionally Lectio Divina has 4 separate steps: read, meditate, pray and contemplate. First a passage of Scripture is read, then its meaning is reflected upon. This is followed by prayer and contemplation on God's Word (and His words to me, as one might discern and seek to live and apply them).

The Mind and the Deep Heart - Influencers

'Your Word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You,' wrote the Psalmist.

What is the deep heart, and how can we 'hide' things there that will influence what we do - and don't do? Is this related to the 'renewing of the mind' to which St. Paul refers, in Romans 12? Is 'the heart' and 'the mind' different references (one Jewish and the other more Hellenistic) to the locus of thought, feeling and action?

Is this another way of talking about 'the centre' of our being, the depths of our soul, the deep well, the place within from which springs all thought, feeling and action?

To really make yourself go, 'hmmm,' read Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.' (See Amazon's blurb to this book, at the bottom of this article)

Contemporary research reveals that our brains are very 'plastic.' Rather than being programmed and fixed with thoughts, impressions and feelings for life, they are constantly being rewired, with new 'rivulets' of the mind being formed by what we take in, and how we take it in, seemingly making new ways for interaction within and then responses without.

We are constantly being 'programmed' and reprogrammed in new ways. Various areas of the brain light up, expand to increase capacity for the unique interactions that fire there and that are being stored there. As this happens, other areas of the brain, those not being used (as much, or any more) are taken over by the new and expanding synapse-interactions.

What we put in, allow to come in, look at, hear about, think about, changes our brain, changes our mind. (Our eye is part of the brain. We take in through the eye and the image(s) cannot be filtered. The images are noted and stored within. Added to, stored in our brain, it changes us, whether we want it to or not)

If we don't keep up with our apprehending of the 'good' then the 'bad' will take over.

Hiding has the sense of 'the secret' - even of something precious. There is almost a 'sneaking' something out of the external world and bringing it within to be stored, protected and treasured. If we allow our minds to be filled (and filled up) with that which is not of God, not of the good and of the best of creation and of the plan and will of God for true human-ness, then there will sooner or later be no room for the good and the best, nor for the redemptive cure for the curse that ails us and the confusion that besets us.

This is not to hunker down and not think, nor some spiritually-inapt way of bubble-wrapping our lives, either externally or internally. It is to say, however, that we should be as careful as possible as to what is allowed to gain entrance to our deep heart, of what we look at, think about - and the ways we do it, and that despite our best efforts that we can't filter everything harmful out (we need a Redeemer, a Forgiver, a Healer to cleanse and set us free), and that we should seek to treasure and hide the those truths that God has revealed, both in Creation and through Revelation of Holy Scripture.

Above all, we need to invite into our deep person, to hide in our heart the Word that is Christ, the One in and through Whom God 'became flesh and dwelt among us for awhile' and who continues to indwell each follower of Jesus by His Spirit, those who have opened and who continually open their lives to His entrance-knock and entry.

If we hide God's Word in our hearts, God's Word will become fleshed out in our daily lives. If we don't, it won't; someone else's 'word' - will be lived out by us. With all that we take in, and when we don't pause or allow reflection for filter, to consider whether we agree or not with what is being presented to us, then we will be 'molded' into the ways of the world.

(The 'world' in Scripture (which we are not 'to love') is that which is in rebellion to God. It is 'all the areas of creation and human being and becoming' that have been influenced negatively, are broken and only show God's plan now in a distorted way, much as does a cracked or curved-out-of-shape mirror). There is 'total depravity' in the world in that everything, every place and every one has been influenced, shares, suffers, is broken, experiences sin. That is not to say that everything and every place and every one has been 'totalled' by sin and is the worst they can possibly be.)

But much of this is to talk only of individual disciples. The Bible speaks more about the collection of the People of God, the Commonwealth of Israel, the Community that is the Church, to and in and through whom He wills to set His world ('the cosmos' He so loved) free. This is another article. Yet also, however, the Church needs to hear God's Word and to store 'within its heart' too the eternal truths of God, so that the Church, re-membered and through all of its parts, may live out in our times the ways of God and the will of God. In this sense too, how we (as the ,) hear, listen, store, treasure and hide God's Word to us and for us and for our day, is as important as 'what now is that Word(?)' for our day. The 'what' and the 'how' of God's Word's entrance will influence the depth or shallowness of the way we live out the Message so desperately needed in our time.

Whose 'word' am I allowing primarily to shape my thinking, my life, my living? Immersed in what 'word' do I spend most of my time? Is my way of seeing life, my world-view, a product of God's Story - rich, diverse and compelling as it is, or am I being nuanced, courted and romanced by ways of thinking that I take in, which become my ways of thinking an acting, who's ends are 'Death' rather than the Life that Jesus called 'abundant.'

And not only 'am I hiding God's Word within' - but how am I hiding it, and what difference does this make?

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'The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.'

“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?

Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways.

Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.

Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.

Three Seeds

The Seed of the Woman 

Genesis 3:14f - Garden of Eden - So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

We think of the promises to Adam and Eve, in God’s purposes as revealed back even in the Garden. Right there in Genesis three, God speaks to the woman, and to the man, and to the serpent. That the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head. The seed of the serpent will bruise the heel of the woman’s seed. One is a death blow – a capital blow (head = caput), which happened to Satan in the death of Christ and in His resurrection, victorious over the grave and sin and hell – over the old Serpent, the Devil. That’s one seed.

The Seed of Abraham

The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

This involved & included: covenant: promises, covenant blessings (and curses)  - land, health, prosperity, long-life; covenant responsibilities – love, defend, worship, fight for, honour; covenant symbols – Sabbath, Circumcision, Passover

There’s another seed where God. Finlay Edge talked about this when I was a young pastor. Through you and through your seed I will bless all the nations (the ethne – the peoples) of the earth.  God comes to Abraham one day and says, in effect, I have not given up on this old world, I want to fix, to reclaim the world, I want to bless the world, I want to bless all the peoples of the world – and I want to do it through you; will you be my man? In fact I will bless you and make you to be a great people; and through your and through your seed (note singular), I will bless all the nations of the earth.’

It’s not talking about nation-states as we might today, say the way some colonial power divided up countries without awareness or care that they were dividing traditional tribes and provoking new problems that they thought they could solve but doling out pieces of geography on a map as if they were pieces of a game of RISK. It’s talking about different cultures, sub-cultures, people-groups in the world. We’re talking about Somalis as opposed to Oromos.

We’re talking about ski-crowd, as opposed to horse-back-riding crowd, or hockey moms and dads who are elsewhere other than church most winter Sunday mornings. The ways in which humanity slices and dices society – and also some aspects of the way that God has made us.

Abraham believed / obeyed God – and (says Paul in Romans), God credited righteousness (right standing and rightness) to him. Note ‘seed’ is singular and Paul goes on about this in Galatians to say that, really, Jesus is the promised ‘seed’ of Abraham, and – if you and I are ‘in Christ’ than we are blessed with faithful Abraham, with Jesus heir to all the covenant promise and blessings AND to join with Jesus (and God and Abraham, in spirit, in blessing all the ethne (the peoples) of the earth.

Ours is a missional task because, in paying attention to God (His Word, His will) and seeing that he so loved the cosmos (Jn 3:16 – that is a holistic word: of people, places and things – holistic, the whole of the world and all of its life, structures, purposes, outcomes, etc.)

Paul takes great pains in his letter to the Galatians to tell us that God was not talking only about, or primarily about Old Testament Israel, as the seed of Abraham – as sons and daughters, as servants of the living God. Of course, they are the children, the seed of Abraham (physically speaking), but Jesus in the Gospels told the heart-harded Pharisess of his day that God was well able to raise up children of Abraham the very stones around them (afterall he has already made all of us human creatures out of the dust and elements of the earth and the rest of us, in fact the larger part of us, physically consists of water.

Paul points out that the true circumcision, the true Israel, is no longer physical Israel but the Church, the NT Israel of God. It’s no longer physical, national but the spiritual seed. (That’s why Baptists only baptize those who by faith and repentance come to Christ as the spiritual seed of Abraham, rather than baptizing (in an Old Testament, even Judaizing way) those who are mere physical descendants of believing parents). The church is comprised of those who are circumcised in heart and who have been baptized as a sign of that being ‘cut off’ and that ordeal that implies may I be cut off and my progeny; may I be cursed and drowned if I renege on my covenant commitment and promise to you, O Lord Christ.

Paul in Galatians that ‘the Seed’ is singular, not plural – and that it refers to Jesus the anointed one (Messiah, the Christ). And if we are ‘in Christ’ we are the children of promise of faithful Abraham, to us now resound the covenant promises, blessings – and responsibilities. All of the covenant promises and all of the covenant purposes now are ours who with Christ are called bless all the ethne of the earth.

Paul sees the church as inheriting the corporate vocation of God's covenant people, Israel. Paul is concerned with defining and maintaining a corporate identity for his young churches, which are emphatically countercultural communities. His letters should be read primarily as instruments of community formation.

A loving, purpose-full God sends human messengers forth to declare his truth and reveal his plans - and to model His loving, righteous ways. As with Abraham, the father and founder of the by-then idolotrous, wandering-at-heart nation, Israel, God reveals that He wants to bring all of the world's peoples (and all places and things) back in line with God's original creation purposes - that He wants to bless all the peoples of the earth; and that He wants to do it through His People, all of them His servants - individuals, a nation, a Church that unique reveal and bridge His mercy and grace to all.

This calling and sending of individuals, a nation, pre-eminently in a Son and His Church, reveals the mission-heart of God, who through such frail instruments is re-creating all that has been distorted, marred or thwarted, vis a vis original Creation purposes. Isaiah is to speak for God - and so today are we as His Church, Christ’s Body on earth. Like him, we too are to go and (by the total witness of our lives and our lips) to call out to those who will hear, who will see their own need for cleansing and restoration for (and to) the purposes God has uniquely called them.

God comes still to us - as individuals, as His People, the Church today. We worship His holiness and power. We bow before Him. We acknowledge again our unworthiness to be near Him, let alone to serve Him. We are in awe that in fresh and powerful, still compelling ways, He reveals Himself and ourselves anew to us. And we remember that He comes near that (such privilege !) He might again release us to the tasks of showing and telling His purposes - His love, mercy and grace - everywhere, in all of life, to all people.

Abraham was ‘called out’ before he was ‘called to.’ Perhaps one cannot live a mission–shaped life if one does not leave somewhere, some people, some family, some friends, some things that are precious. One cannot go without having a sacrificial heart, willing to do without, do with less; willing to strike out in a new way for God along Life’s Journey – following, heeding, obeying.

One can live in the same house and with the same people and have ‘gone out’ and one can travel miles away and never really have ‘gone out’ in obedience and faith. The geography is not necessarily the point; the obedience, the heart-attitude, the inclination and intent is.

Abraham – God called – I want to bless all the peoples of the earth; and, guess what? – I want to do it through you. Through you I will bless all the peoples of the earth. Will you join me in this great reclamation project? Will you be my man in this? Will you dare to believe that through you and through your ‘seed’ this will be accomplished. You will be the father of faith, the father of peoples, the father of this faithful/obedient way of joining in what I am doing – called, elect for these purposes; unique, set aside, special, holy and active instruments and conduits of my grace, forgiveness, mercy, new starts – so that people through the second Adam (indeed the true ‘Seed’ of Abraham) can be fully restored to true humanity, to original creation-mandate purposes.

 The Seed that is Jesus

I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  (John 12)

Jesus – ‘seed’ (singular) - not seeds. See Paul's argument in Galatians 3:16 - The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ.

This means that all who are ‘in Christ’ are called not only to the blessings and responsibilities of Abraham and the People of God. We are also called to mission - the Mission of God; Jews and Gentiles by the Spirit of Jesus as a Light to the World.

The Challenge of Small Town Ministry

It can be a great privilege and delight to be called to minister and serve within the context of a church in a small town or village. It's very possible that one may find that there are limited resources, at least comparatively speaking. Facilities may be old and declining  with a scarcity of dollars with which to repair or add to the church-building resource.

When the church and town are close enough to more urban centres for their to be commuters, they may be too tired for meetings through the week, upon their return home each evenings so they will not want to serve in the governance or activities of the church that meet then.

There may be limitations of community resources and services of one kind or another. One may find that the church has a 'bad history' and in rural areas, that sticks. Gossip travels quickly and church family feuds last longer.  The church and the pastor's house is very much a glass-house and the family may suffer from 'over-visibility.' 

It may be that sports or other recreational events and activities have taken over the life of the town, especially with those who have lost or seldom had connections with a local faith community.

The families of both church and community may be very much inter-woven and this can result in embarrassing results from inadvertent comments or actions. (The inter-connections can also work very positively too, as relational interaction and communication help to spread the good things that are happening and as the good news of the Gospel is lived and shared.

Many students leave the community and thus also the church programs, ministry and influence, upon completion of high school. The community may offer few job opportunities. This results often in the overall aging of communities and with major 'holes' and missing demographics of youth and young families.  Some people leave to get out of town - to get away. A few come back hoping to rediscover what they have left, and perhaps even to embrace once more what they have found to be missing in their life, in values, lifestyle and general 'way of life.' 

 The church may have several or a remaining few ruling families who are entrenched and powerful there due, perhaps to history and tradition, to being powerful personalities, or being influential through their wealth and distribution or with-holding of it, as for them ministry situations and opinions might dictate. They may expect things to be done in their way, which is of course 'the right way' in their opinion. They may be 'provincial' in that they have not seen more of the world than the confines of their own land, town and general area. They may be suspicious of any who might usurp their place and influence and whether consciously or not, they may seek to 'freeze out' newcomers and/or try to 'neutralize' any suggestions for change or 'betterment' that the newcomer may bring. To use a metaphor-like example from old England, when the Squire and the Parson got along, ministry did also, apace; when they did not see eye to eye, it was not the Squire who moved, but the Pastor who would have to. 

But it is not just true of those who wield power and influence in the church and community. Many people will be wondering if the new pastor has come to love them or to seek to change them. Will he/she come to judge the old and suggest an embracing of new, albeit at present, foreign (even strange and unwanted) ways of doing ministry in the church and community.

Small town ways and attitudes suggest that folk may be suspicious of newcomers, of those who are 'from away.' It may take several years, decades even, for the 'newcomer' to feel that they have equal footing, that they belong and that their voice and actions are respected rather than tolerated; that they are even welcome.

There may be the appearance and even the wording of needing or wanting change 'if this church is to survive, to grow, to move into even more fruitful ministry in this day. The new pastor may find, however, that in fact very little change is wanted or will be tolerated. It may even seem bizarre to discover that some would rather that this church die than that any new or significant changes be introduced and attempted. It will take time, trust - many years and lots of coffee, riding combines, relational interactions of integrity and mutual appreciation, before the shared ministry can and will happen. Many pastors leave before they see the fruits of such trust and relationship. They may leave just before fruitful times can break forth.

With all of the above, however, it is true to say that rural living and rural church ministry can be some of the most fruitful and effective ministry-locales and enabling of Kingdom work today. It can be a place of learning and discovery, of patience and endurance, of learning the natural and supernatural rhythms of the Eternal, where also Kingdom signs and realities can be set up and lived into.

Change Carefully

We must be careful in our love/or hate of the Church (a lover's quarrel?) and see to it that we love the brothers and sisters, whatever may be their faults - and not take on the task of accusing the brothers, which the Evil One has taken on as his primary task. We may critique and seek to correct - to protest and to reform, but we must do it very gently, very carefully.

When thinking about the old and the new, and of attitudes within the emergent community, with whose frustration and critique with regard to the established church, I often tend to agree, I think of the following needful corrective and warning of Paul Johnson, in his book, 'The Recovery of Freedom.' "The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."

Doing Church

 

We know how to ‘do church’ but we have not yet learned, perhaps, how to ‘do mission’ – here at home, here in our own contexts with our own neighbours and realities. 

We know about running churches, about ‘church work’ – but we have forgotten what it means to be the People of God on mission.

We know how to ‘run our churches,’ perhaps, but in some cases we’ve run them into the ground, run out of stream, run out of creativity and fresh ideas - run out of people (or run people out). We know how to run our churches; do we know how to be missionaries? - for indeed we must discover or rediscover the missional impulse and enterprise for which Christ called and calls His Church.  

There is a difference between ‘church work’ and the work of the church which, in the latter, has to do with what happens when the Holy Spirit flows in and through us. When that happens – we can’t get enough of ministry. Oh, we get tired, yes – but it’s different somehow – not as exhausting as trying to do church work.  
A lot of things we use to take for granted and do as a matter of course, in ‘normal’ church life and ministry, now seems no longer to be effective, to be working. Faster, further, harder, more of the same doesn’t seem to ‘cut it.’ (We remember the definition of insanity - of doing the same thing(s) over and over while, somehow, expecting different outcomes and results.)

What Kind of Church is Needed?

Before ever I want to invite my neighbor to church, I want my local church to be a place that helps me be missional in the everyday contexts and contours of my life, with my neighbour, in my neighbourhood – where I work and where I work out.

And what if, in addition, as a Christian father, husband, neighbor, I was responsible somehow to help raise the sense of community  (through just plain neighbourliness)? And given the privilege of helping my neighbour find his or her destiny (or sense of true fulfillment and purpose in being alive) – with compelling reason to get up each morning.

What kind of church might help me do that? What kind of denomination would help that church be that kind of church?

Incredible Privilege

We have been called into the almost incredible privilege of being God’s agents of grace, love and mercy, His servants of reconciliation, peace and hope? 

We are called to get in on the blessing. We are called to obedience and to live out and to share with others what God is doing in our lives, in and through us. As we overflow with that and intentionally and sacrificially share our lives so that others ‘get in on the blessing’ then we will get a ‘kick-back’ so to speak. 

We will get blessing all over us when we join in God’s plans and purposes and in his desire that the whole world (at least those who will have Him) will be set right through us, weak vessels and conduits as we are.

If We Are Not Missional

‘If we are not missional, our churches will die? I think that’s true. We will simply miss out, set aside as not able to discern and appreciate and live out God’s purpose in and through our lives. Jesus will simply remove the candlesticks where the flames have gone out. They are no longer doing their job, each in their small corner.

Church and Commodity

We have bought into the culture of commodity and production. We have been seduced by ‘empire’ around us. We claim Jesus to be Lord but we listen to other lords who through media and model and manatras have seduced us into living life their way, the way of the world, which is not the alternative, upsidedown culture of the Christ. Walmart or McDonalds – we go because we have needs and wants.

But what would happen if you were a church that said to those who gathered and walked and worked together – ‘It’s not about you, it’s not firstly about your needs, let alone wants. Even concerns, needs, wants with regard to our family – all of that might be met, as a by-product of our seeking another way, a more bilblical way, a missional way of following Jesus, of being church in our times.

Seek first the Kingdom; get in on God’s missional agenda – and all these things will be added to you (at least the things we truly need – God knows).

Loss of Missional Understanding

Are we in danger or have we actually missed the point of why the Church exits, why were called out and into? C. S. Lewis once observed "there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God, to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it."

What are we to do when a local church has been reduced to a remnant of faithful, albeit disheartened people, especially compared to days of former strength and glory?  Surely, it has now got to do something radical (but what?) - for mere survival (if it is to survive). And can it possibly thrive once more – perchance to rediscover its missional identity - each congregant becoming a passionate disciple of Jesus, and the entire church joining with Him in what He is doing – globally where and when possible, in the life of the particular community and communities all around it.

Churches in an UnChurched Culture

Canada was once a 'churched' culture. It no longer is that. When it was thus (in Church- and King/Queen- and Country-culture), most people went to church (meaning they attended local church buildings, entered church programs and joined in the community life and ministry of such congregations). Pastors and churches simply announced the time of their 'services,' opened their doors and people came in to receive what was offered and to give and share the gifts, resources, vision and love of Christ that held them together as a 'colony of Heaven.'

When I was a boy, even unbelieving neighbours did not cut their lawns nor run their tractors on a Sunday. Before Sunday sports and wide-open shopping, that was a day when a Christian or Christendom consensus dictated much of how life was lived in Canadian communities. There was at least a respect and then grudging tolerance for the culture of Christendom. It was not worth going against the majority view even of other non-practicing Christians that Sunday was to be considered a special day, a ‘day of rest’ - the Sabbath. Certain things were not to be done on that day out of respect for Christians, if not out of love for God.

When people gathered, we had pastors and teachers to help lead and shape their individual and collective life and witness – much of it lived in the context of the gathering in the church building and the inherent Christian nurture and witness programs carried out in that primary context.

That day is gone.

You Won?

Who wrecked our church, our denomination, our plans? Why are we challenging what and how – we believe and do? Why don’t people come and get committed to what we believe and do? Why isn’t all we do working anymore? Why do people not come to our church, get committed, enter our programs, end up running them?

To whom do we ‘throw the torch’ of ministry? Will we close down this church after all these ears? How will we survive? Will we die before we get this figured out? We opposed all those new worship songs, because how else will young people learn theology other than through singing the good old hymns?  Now, it’s: "Where did they all go?"

Well, you won; you froze them out. How can a church do local mission when we can’t even keep our own kids? We’ve lost several generations now.

Reason for Discouragement

What are we to do when a local church has been reduced to a remnant of faithful, albeit disheartened people, especially compared to days of former strength and glory?

Surely, it has now got to do something radical (but what?) - for mere survival (if it is to survive). And can it possibly thrive once more – perchance to rediscover its missional identity - each congregant becoming a passionate disciple of Jesus, and the entire church joining with Him in what He is doing – globally where and when possible, in the life of the particular community and communities all around it.

In her book, 'Small Wonder,' Barbara Kingsolver writes -The closest my heart has come to breaking lately was on the day my little girl arrived home from school and ran to me, her face tense with expectation, asking, "Are they still having that war in Afghanistan?"

I suppose there are a lot of things that may break our heart. The passing of a loved one, the absence of a friend, the hopes and fears that turn into dashed dreams and the reality finally happening: something we had greatly feared actually happens.

"As if," she continues, "the world were such a place that in one afternoon. while kindergartners were working hard to master the letter I, it would decide to lay down its arms..."

Said her daughter: "If people are just going to keep doing that, I wish I'd never been born."

Kingsolver writes that she "sat on the floor and held her tightly to keep my own spirit from draining through the soles of my feet . . ."

And she continues: "It used to be, on many days, that I could close my eyes and sense myself to be perfectly happy. I have wondered lately if that feeling will ever come back. It's a worthy thing to wonder, but maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe . . . the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, 'twixt two extremes of passion - joy and grief,' as Shakespeare put it."

One tries to keep balanced, or get balanced, tries to keep keeping on, to make sense when there's little sense - only mystery and more mystery, beyond any possible explanation; and when there is mostly silence when one tries to pray, or when one hopes a voice may respond to one's attempts at meaningful - even simple, basic conversation.

Discontented Towards God's Way

Steve Andrews, Lead Pastor, Kensington Community Church has said: I planted my church, and God grew it big. We've done externally-focused, church planting, and multi-site, and we'll keep doing them. But there are not enough years left in my life to simply keep growing this thing bigger. 

I'm interested in something more viral. I'm interested in changing the conversation from 'where is our next one' to 'how do we release 250 of our members to take our city?'

I quite agree - and I think, so does Scripture.

Whether large or small, the missional purpose (and strategy?) of the Church (and each local congregation) should be not so much about getting people into church (i.e. building, our programs, etc.) but more about training, equipping, encouraging and releasing God's people that they may be missioners in their community. 

It's not about getting people to come; it's about getting God's people to go - or just to return to where they live and play, work and work-out, daily, Monday through Saturday.

After people are introduced (by being shown and told) to Christ, they will then want to come together into the community of God's People. But that is not where mission and evangelism happens; that is rather where the fruit of such witness gathers. We have mistaken where to fish, where the harvest truly is and where the harvesting is primarily to occur.

On the Verge

In their book, On the Verge: A Journey Into the Future of the Apostolic Church, Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson argue that " the church is on the verge of massive, category shifting, change. Contemporary church growth, despite its many blessings, has failed to stem the decline of Christianity in the West. 

We are now facing the fact that more of the same will not produce different results. Our times require a different kind of church---an apostolic, reproducing, movement where every person is living a mission-sent life. 

Many of the best and brightest leaders in the contemporary church are now making the shift in the way they think, lead, and organize. Motivated partly by a vision of the church as ancient as it is new, and with a driving desire to see Biblical Christianity establish itself in Western cultural contexts, we are indeed seeing a new form of the church emerge in our day. 

Hirsch and Ferguson call this 'apostolic movement' because it is more resonant with the form of church that we witness in the pages of the New Testament and in the great missional movements of history. 

In this book, Hirsch and Ferguson share a rich array of theology, theory, and best practices, along with inspiring stories about leaders who have rightly diagnosed their churches' failure to embrace a biblical model of mission and have moved toward a fuller expression of the gospel. 

On the Verge will help church leaders discover how these forerunners and their insights are launching a new apostolic movement---and how any church can get involved.

-- Amazon Review

They Won't Come; We Must Go

Today’s church has a strategic problem and a missionary problem, say Dave Ferguson and Alan Hirsch, authors of On the Verge: A Journey Into the Future of the Apostolic Church. 

“Most churches are built on a model of people coming to our churches and us offering a positive church experience,” Ferguson says. “The good news is that about 40 to 50 percent of the population still wants that. The bad news is that the other 60 percent are not looking for that at all.”

The Church on Mission

We know that there are certain realities in being missionaries. We have sent our best – our best people, our children, our money and resources; we have sent up to our Lord prayers on their behalf –but we have perhaps thought inwardly: ‘Thank God, I don’t have to go.’

I submit that if we don’t think and act missionally, deeply and profoundly through our lives here ‘at home,’ our churches will die. In many places throughout North American, such deaths are all too frequent.

We are called to live missionally each day and in every aspect of life on this planet. It is our creaturely and New-Creaturely responsibility and possibility, now, in Christ. ‘There is not one inch of our Heavenly Father’s Creation about which He does not say, ‘that is Mine!’ (thank you Abraham Kuyper)

Missional Priests

Martin Luther and the Reformers recovered the Bible’s teaching concerning the priesthood of every believer, so that each Christ-apprentice in each and every aspect of life, whatever their vocation and wherever lived, can be said to be a minister of the Gospel.

Further Biblical reflection reveals that while each believer indeed is to be a minister, we are to be missioners as well, for we have been called into ‘the Missio Dei’ – the Mission of God.

God calls a People, a universal (and locally) congregated Body. To it, every Jesus-follower is called, individually and together to join in the mission of God, announcing and showing the already-present Rule of God and setting up sign posts to its future, full manifestation on planet earth.

God so loved and so loves the world, the cosmos, that He sent His Son . . .

God is on Mission and He is calling persons to be His People, joining God’s reclamation of this planet and all on it, bringing back to God’s self and purposes the People, Places and Things He so loves.

Gospel Living IS Integral Mission

It is a joy to examine the many aspects and all there may be of the scope of life on this planet. Hence too the goal of our Christ-following involvement in mission-shaped living and ministry in introducing people to it, showing and telling, and looking to the Gospel and to God’s Spirit to enable people to live it, giving them the original and the new potential to be free, whole and fully human again, as is God’s intent.

We may call it “word/deed” or “integral mission.” We may stress the call of the Gospel and the inherent need for many, many mission-shapes in its introduction and expression in our world. We may witness to the need of all persons for a balance of the demands of the inner life (of soul and spirit) with those of the outer person (health, food, community). But the fact that we have to talk clearly about balancing humanity’s social needs and spiritual needs arises out of the Church’s failure, historically and often still, to hold it all together – to think and act holistically and integrally in all of life.

We have had to recover and/or rediscover the biblical mandates and many balances (including paradoxes) inherent in the Gospel. The split that developed into the fundamentalism of both ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ (making it into ‘either / or’ rather than a biblical ‘both / and’) at least in its most recent historical manifestations, began to take shape after the US Civil War, towards the end of the 19th century. Prior to that separation between the social and the spiritual was not as much evidenced in the West.

A certain eschatological escapism beginning to be popularized at that time held that it was more important to feed the soul than to feed the body, for instance, for even if the person receiving such ministry died of starvation, at least they’d get to Heaven. One popular evangelist put it: I do not have time to polish the lamps on a sinking ship; the ship is sinking and God has given me a life-boat, and I intend to save all of the sinking souls I can before the end comes. (That same evangelist, wonderfully inconsistent, visited wounded soldiers in Civil War camps and hospitals, caring for their whole persons as well as sharing the way of Love and Salvation of Christ.

But we have indeed had to rediscover biblical balance – what John Stott called the two wings of the airplane – the necessity of the social AND the spiritual, if the message of the Gospel is to fly in each generation. I prefer terms that don’t allow for either/or distinctions but, rather, that explore and enter intothe ways in which each area of life may take shape and be lived out under Biblical guidance and Gospel influence. This includes each and all of the 360 degrees of the fully-human existence and potential that surrounds us – all aspects and spheres of creaturely life on this planet.