State of the mission – one year later

Fellow San Diegan Jason Evans wrote a thought-provoking piece the other day on missional discernement. It’s good stuff, as usual, from a talented leader. You should read it.

I do have some thoughts on what he wrote regarding being missional, but I’ll share those in more depth later. His post comes at an interesting time for me: today marks one year since announcing the close of our missional church plant, Ikon Community, and that has prompted me to conduct a little ‘missional discernment’ of my own:

What is the status of our ‘mission’ one year after closing our official ministry?

I’ve finally settled into a post-ministry career

Unlike a lot of planters, I didn’t seek to be bi-vocational. For better and for worse I decided to become an entirely non-professional minister. I was (and still remain) convinced that the future of professional ministry in the United States is grim at best, and problematic for trying to connect with post-Christian groups.

But for 2.5 years, and all during our church planting effort, I worked feverishly in vain to find a new career after 12 years in professional ministry. It was more than frustrating, it was humiliating.

Then, not long after closing Ikon, a new opportunity presented itself at my workplace. I’ve been in that new role for 7 months now and I’m hopeful about our family’s fiscal prospects for the first time in years.

Another funny irony is that I am now, essentially, a professional fundraiser – exactly the task I dreaded most while trying to plant a missional church. I went from struggling to raise $40,000 a year for the church plant, to being responsible for raising $9 million a year for a local nonprofit.

(As an aside, what I have learned about fundraising in the last 17 months has immensely impacted my perspective on how we could be funding missional work. There is a great deal missional leaders could learn from the nonprofit sector. Moreover: there is a gigantic window of opportunity to capture massive amounts of wealth as it is transferred from one generation to the next. And that window is rapidly closing; that transfer is happening right now. Churches in particular are doing a poor job of securing that wealth, and by all accounts the next two generations won’t have nearly as much disposable wealth to give.)

We’ve finally settled into our local community

For 2.5 years we really struggled to connect with people. But almost immediately after shutting down Ikon, local relationships began to open up to us in a remarkable way. In fact, in this past year, our family has somehow gained a larger and deeper network of friends than we’ve ever had in our entire lives – mostly with people in our neighborhood.

I recently had lunch with a local church planter and I mentioned this curious development. He asked, “Why do you think this happened immediately after closing your church plant?” I answered, “Because we don’t have an agenda for people anymore.”

And it’s true, we really don’t. At least, not a one-sided agenda for enlisting them into our own little fiefdom. I definitely have a personal interest: I want their friendship, and I want to give them mine. I deeply desire the fraternity and equality reciprocity brings to neighbors.

Almost none of them attend church – certainly none of them are committed to any kind of faith community – and, to be honest, I have no interest in converting them. The idea alone feels like a form of betrayal.

Also, I’ve been humbled by the quality of their community. By and large, Jenell and I agree that these people do friendship and community better than any church we’ve ever been in. I’ve come to realize it is a conceit of the church that we are the authority on ‘true community’, and it may very well be a particular conceit of the missional/emerging church. Just as with nonprofit fundraising, I think Christians have a great deal to learn from secular communities on this matter.

I am starting to gain an interest in Jesus again

In my conclusion to the missional postmortem, I said I needed to learn how to be a Christian without getting paid for it. Well, I still haven’t. My personal faith has been radically stripped. I could write whole books on what I don’t believe anymore, but would struggle to fill a fortune cookie with what I do.

Yet, recently I’m experiencing an interest in Jesus again. In fact, I work with people of all kinds of faiths, and I’m more convinced than ever that we could all learn a great deal about life and love from Christ, regardless of our creed.

Along those lines, our family has started sporadically attending a local Presbyterian church. The place is so uncool it makes me want to weep for joy. Like Lewis once said, a good liturgy should be like lacing up an old shoe; you hardly notice it’s there – which is exactly what I need right now.

So, what is the state of our ‘mission’?

Well, in some ways, I suspect, it’s better than ever. In other ways, not so much. I successfully transitioned out of the professional side of ministry, but dropped ministry along the way. We’ve connected with an unchurched community, but have no desire to get them ‘churched.’ I’m more committed to Jesus, but less committed to Christianity.

Actually, I really am more keenly aware than ever that different Christian groups mean subtly but significantly different things by the word ‘mission’. For now, suffice it to say that our ‘mission’ is simply to be decent people; that is, good partners, good parents, good friends and good neighbors.

As far as that goes, I think we’re doing alright.

Technorati Tags: Ikon Community, missional

Do this in remembrance of me

Is there a more concrete manifestation of God’s grace than food?

Food nourishes us. Without it we die. Within it reside the elements of the earth, of which we are composed and with which we are daily renewed. Food revolutionizes us through an internal, hourly insurrection of the new overthrowing the old.

Food demonstrates the intimacy of grace and work: it grows as a gift freely and abundantly the world over, yet requires effort to cultivate, process, prepare and store. Through it we have access to become not merely grateful recipients, but faithful stewards of life.

Through food we are conscripted as co-conspirators with the impossible political agenda of the universe: the cause of life over death, daily struggling to resist the entropy of the flesh until, one day, for each of us, death seemingly triumphs – only to become, in the end, food for new life.

Food represents the time-fullness of grace. Often it comes just when needed. And when it does come, food must be consumed soon or risk rotting on the shelf – no longer good for today. Content to teach us patience for tomorrow’s timely gift.

Through food we affirm that life burns more than merely fuel, but runs upon the joy of beauty and flavor as well. We skewer and sauté, dice and drizzle and gift our confections one to another for family, friends, holidays, or simple lunchtime rituals.

At it’s best, food transforms to become the consumable love of others. When we serve a meal, we serve our hearts. With it we accept, affirm, celebrate, please, delight, enjoin, and seal ourselves to one another. (At its worst, food becomes the empty and dangerous substitute of love unrequited or forsaken.)

In all these ways, and more, food feeds not only our bellies, but our hearts and minds too. More than any other single thing, it is with food that God enables the suckling of humanity’s soul.

And yet, even with an abundance of resources, one in five American families with children don’t get enough to eat. This erodes the health, creativity, dignity, and joy of millions of people in the U.S. alone and demonstrates a systemic denial of their basic human right to participate in the gift of food. Worldwide, food insecurity is nothing short of a major crisis, especially, right now, in places like Somalia

This is why ancient Jewish and Christian teachings concerning the just practice of economics draws centrally upon a story about a miracle involving food (Exodus 16 and 2 Corinthians 8). This is why the most politically subversive acts of Jesus involved sharing a meal with others (Matthew 9, Mark 2, Luke 5, etc). This is why Jesus’ very presence is symbolized by a dinner party where everyone gets plenty to eat (1 Corinthians 11) – and not, I might add, by a musical concert. And this is why Jesus’ litmus test for righteousness was not a measure of religious adherence, nor doctrinal purity, nor personal piety, but rather by the simple yet self-giving act of providing relief to the hungry and thirsty, the naked and alone (Matthew 25).

So do something about it.

If you know people who have less, invite them for lunch or dinner – often. If you don’t know people who have less, find them. Get to know them. Have a dinner party, with bread and wine. Treat them as equals, because that’s what they are.

Find a food pantry or food bank nearby and help out. Organize a food drive at work, at school, or in your neighborhood. (If you need it, I can give you step-by-step instructions). Consider giving to UNICEF’s relief fund for the famine in Somalia.

If you happen to be in North County San Diego, Interfaith runs two food pantries – one in Oceanside and one in Escondido – where last year alone we provided 480,000 meals. And we are in desperate need of donations because the need continues to increase.

Where there are hungry people, there is no gospel without food.

Technorati Tags: Food, Food insecurity, food pantries, Grace, nutrition, social gospel

Free books for the eating

My bookshelf is stuffed like a holiday bird – and everyone knows the only grateful way to steward excess wealth is to eat it, give it away, or burn it spectacularly in true Potlatch fashion.

Of course, the burning of books has fallen out of favor in recent years, so these volumes are yours for the taking. One, ten, twenty, or the whole lot. Just name your titles.

If you’re in Southern California, shoot me a message and you can come pick them up. I’ll even throw in a cuppa coffee and a friendly chat, if you’re so inclined. If you hail from out of town, send me your address and the shipping fee and I’ll hurry them off (sans latté).

Most of these are assorted nonfiction Christian titles (we’re donating the fiction to our local library). Several are course books from my MAGL program at Fuller Theological Seminary, if that sort of thing interests you.

UPDATE: Titles already claimed are listed in strikeout.

General Theology & References

Who Needs Theology? by Stanley Grenz & Roger Olson (John Chandler)

An Introduction To Ecclesiology by Veli-Matti Karkkainen (Josh Hopping)

Portraits of God by Allan Coppedge

Desiring God by John Piper

From Eternity To Here by Frank Viola

Unprotected Texts by Jennifer Wright Knust

Reading Scripture With The Church Fathers by Christopher Hall (Josh Hopping)

Manners and Customs Of The Bible by James Freeman (Josh Hopping)

The New Ungers Bible Handbook

The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina Volume 1 by Daniel Harrington (Thomas Lyons)

New International Commentary on James by Peter Davids (Thomas Lyons)

Thru The Bible With J Vernon McGee (4 hardcover volumes) (Julie Mnaion)

Missional/Emerging Church

Church Next by Eddie Gibbs

The Good News Of The Kingdom by Van Engen, et al (Aaron Henderson)

The Church Between Gospel And Culture by Hunsberger and Gelder (Geoff Hsu)

The Missionary Congregation, Leadership & Liminality by Alan Roxburgh (Brandon Becker)

The Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuka (Brandon Becker)

God’s Missionary People by Charles Van Engen (Aaron Henderson)

A Credible Witness by Brenda Salter McNeil (Josh Hopping)

Transforming Power by Robert Linthicum (Jason Evans)

The New Global Mission by Samuel Escobar (Brandon Becker)

The Local Church, Agent of Transformation by Tetsunao Yamammori (Josh Hopping)

Announcing the Kingdom by Arthur Glasser (Josh Hopping)

The Power of Place by Dolores Hayden (Geoff Hsu)

The Continuing Conversion of the Church by Darrell Guder (John Chandler)

The Shaping Of Things To Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

Exiles by Michael Frost

A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Pagitt

The New Christians by Tony Jones

Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna

A Theology As Big As The City by Ray Bakke (Brandon Becker)

God So Loves The City by Van Engan, et al (Aaron Henderson)

Treasure in Clay Jars by Lois Barrett, et al (Jason Evans)

Permission Granted by Graham Cooke and Gary Goodell (Julie Mnaion)

Theology & Family

The Family Handbook by Anderson, Browning, et al

Theology and Families by Adrian Thatcher

Authentic Human Sexuality by Judith & Jack Balswick

Men at the Crossroads by Jack Balswick (Josh Kerkoff)

Beyond Sex Roles by Gilbert Bilezikian (Jason Evans)

Marriage and Modernization by Don Browning

Family Ministry by Diana Garland

On Justice

Justice, A Global Adventure by Walter Burghardt (Josh Hopping)

In Pursuit of Justice by James Skillen (Stephanie Struck)

With Justice For All by John Perkins (Josh Hopping)

Churches That Make A Difference by Ron Sider, et al (Thomas Lyons)

Leadership

Character Forged From Conflict by Gary Preston

Barnabas, Encouraging Exhorter by Bobby Clinton (Brandon Becker)

Connecting by Paul Stanley & Robert Clinton (Brandon Becker)

The Foolishness of Preaching by Robert Farrar Capon (Jeff Bassett)

Called to Holy Worldliness by Richard Mouw (Josh Kerkoff)

Lectures To My Students by Charles Spurgeon (Aaron Henderson)

Spiritual Formation

The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard (Thomas Lyons)

The Little Flowers of St Francis by Raphael Brown (Josh Hopping)

The Year of Living Like Jesus by Ed Dobson (John Chandler)

The Mystery and the Fullness by Jennifer Abel

Jesus Brand Spirituality by Ken Wilson (Aaron Henderson)

General

Reinventing American Protestantism by Donald Miller

Under The Overpass by Mike Yankowski

Heaven by Lisa Miller

Generation Me by Jean Twenge

People of the Lie by M. Scottt Peck

A View From The Back Pew by Tim O’Donnell

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker

Technorati Tags: Books, Christianity, gifts, Giveaways, Theology

Jack White and the new horizons of marriage

We interrupt this blogging hiatus to bring you…celebrity gossip.

Not long ago I predicted the coming of “term marriage.” Well, it looks like that possibility might actually be sprouting in the rich soil of popular American celebrity life.

Divorce among celebrities, of course, is nothing new. It has long been a popular American spectator sport. What’s new is the happy, even jovial celebrity divorce. This, I propose, is not only novel, it is the harbinger of a genuinely new cultural institution just beyond the horizon: term marriage.

Exhibit A: Psychologist Judith Sills’ commentary on the “failure” of Al and Tipper Gore’s 40 year marriage. Who says this is a failure? asked Sills, when they clearly had many beautiful years? That is, after all, far more successful than most marriages in the United States. Why not celebrate what they had for so long rather than condemn its ending?

Exhibit B: Yesterday it was reported that Jack White and his wife Karen Elson have invited their friends and family to a “divorce party.” Yes, it’s time for Jack and Karen to end their marriage, but this is no somber affair. After all, they enjoyed 6 successful years together. Their divorce simply marks a transition to a renegotiated friendship.

Commenter Dr. Jane Greer loves Jack and Karen’s approach, remarking,

“All I can say is good for them. Throwing this party is an important way to remember and hold on to the good times in their marriage, celebrating the way they were, but no longer are.”

I believe these are merely the leading edge indicators of a steadily rising tide that harkens the emergence of a new kind of marital contract being negotiated right before our eyes by the icons of national secular mores. Celebrities are the priests of our culture and they set a prophetic tone for what is good and right in our society. I don’t mean that as a judgment; it’s simply a fact.

You may disagree but I think this is a big deal. In fact, I would argue it’s a far bigger cultural shift than gay marriage, because the latter is simply an extension of essentially traditional conservative family ideals into the realm of homosexuality. This may be very uncomfortable for people unaccustomed to same sex relationships, but it isn’t really an innovation of the marriage covenant itself.

The real innovation will be the legal removal, in part or by degrees, of the contractual restraints of fidelity and perpetuity that are intended to incubate intimacy between two formerly distinct people. Practically speaking, this is what we already see with the culturally-curious-yet-familiar practice of “open marriage” (which is hardly new) as well as the still culturally shunned (and yet even more ancient) practices of polygamous and polyamory marriages.

(For the record, I think term marriage will be the bridge that connects us to the utterly free practice of virtually any form of institutionalized relationship between consenting adults of any number, any gender, and for nearly any period of time).

These new forms marriage contracts would be, on the positive side, contracts of greater freedom and peace (albeit in a very limited sense of those words)…and that is precisely why cultural commentators like Judish Sills and Jane Greer gush over these enlightened celebrity splits – because they appear to be far better alternatives to the cliché of anger and abuse that divorce has come to represent over the past 40 years. And frankly, I think they’re right. Some people should terminate their marriages and peaceful departures are far better than violent ones.

But in my view, and perhaps ironically, these new marriages will require contracts of significant individual vulnerability and isolation in order to achieve the kind of peace and freedom our society values most. Personally, I don’t think the trade-off is worth it. Better still to find a mate with whom you can spend a lifetime learning to love – a task which requires a large enough space with high enough walls to overcome the unhappiness, conflict and boredom that, at times, will inevitably arise between any two people on any journey of significance.

But then, I still believe in a genuine two-shall-become-one-flesh kind of human intimacy (call me old-fashioned). Still, whatever you may think of innovative marriages, I remain convinced they are coming in institutional form sooner rather than later.

For better or for worse.

Technorati Tags: Divorce, Jack White, Marriage, News, Term Marriage

On giving up my faith for Lent

I’m giving up my faith for Lent.

What does that mean?

It means that in my tradition faith itself tends to be seen as the presence of something, the accumulation of which at certain quantities (nobody really knows how much) will cause mountains to move, businesses to succeed, sicknesses to recede, etc.

It means that in my experience the faith is like a charming general store in a peculiar southern town, where candy, and coffee, and sugar, and flour, and tobacco plugs, and foreign fashions shipped over the ocean, and tools for building and cleaning and repairing every contraption known to man are displayed in glass canisters and behind counters and in topically organized merchandise rows, the buying of which equips patrons for the rigors of Modern life and comforts clientele against the bitter promise of a long anticipated winter that comes before spring.

It means that in practice my faith has begun to feel like the backyard labrynth of a country junker; rusted husks of cars and trucks; stolen street signs and auctioned traffic lights; seas of binder clips and moleskine notebooks; mounds of keyboards and mice and computer monitors; broken spokes and towers of rubber tires; heaps of comic books and textbooks and repair manuals turning to pulp on the lawn.

And yet I keep collecting more.

How can I give up meat or chocolate or ice cream when faith is my grossest consumer indulgence?

So, I hope to spend the next forty days de-accumulating four decades of spiritual hoarding. It means I hope to take kenosis seriously and finally empty my begging bowl. It means I plan to explore faith as absence rather than presence.

And yes, it does mean, for me at least, that in order to do so honestly – in order to take kenosis seriously – I must be willing to risk the loss of faith.

So, how will I do this?

Schedule:

• Confession – Days 1-10: I will attempt to be honest about my actual faith. I’ll spend time examining my choices, actions, habits, relationships, etc. This will be a time of deconstruction.
• Wilderness – Days 11-20: I’ll walk through a journey of trying to discover how I should (and if I should) replace whatever I’ve discarded.
• Testing – Days 21 – 30: I’ll practice approaching my life from whatever changed perspectives I may have encountered up to this point. That shift may be subtle or radical; it may just be a more sincere and consistent practice of what I already profess.
• Covenant – Days 31 – 40: I will reflect on the period of testing, make whatever adjustments I think are necessary, and attempt to establish a renewed rhythm of life that faithfully reflects what I truly value.

• Days 1-3 of each period I’ll take inventory and write conclusions.
• Days 4-8 of each period I’ll explore resources that challenge my faith.
• Days 9-10 of each period I’ll rest and reflect.

Resources:

• Study: I’ll read from a variety of sources – including religious and secular works.
• Reflection: I’ll journal privately. I may or may not pray. I suspect I will be driven to pray more or I will abandon prayer entirely.
• Relationships: I’ll do this with the help of key relationships, beginning with those I’m closest to but extending to others on the periphery of my life when I approach topics that seem most relevant to their areas of wisdom.

I’ll need to take conspicuous steps to lean into the relational portion of this journey. I’m not interested in devising my own personal system of spirituality. That’s probably what I’ve already done. I’m hoping to discover a holistic life of faith grounded in an epistemology I can have confidence in. (I don’t necessarily mean a religious faith – I think everyone lives by faith in something). However, my current epistemological leanings dictate that truth is reflected in the web of my entire context, including history, tradition, culture, and relationships as well as my own personal abilities (indeed, over and above my own personal abilities).

Ironically, that will mean visiting a few churches. I need to see church, and the Christian faith, differently.

It also means, among other practices, I’ll blog about some of my experiences. This week, my blogging will follow the Confession theme, and, appropriately, I’ll conclude my processing of the closing of Ikon Community. I’m counting on the interaction here to take its place in what I hope will become a web of meaning that will be woven over the next 40 days.

Consider yourself invited.

Any suggestions?

Technorati Tags: Disciplines, Faith, Lent

Banksy hits Oceanside

Ah, irony. My favorite flavor.

Oceanside would like nothing better than to clean up its gang-and-graffiti stained reputation by attracting new businesses to re-create an idyllic beach-front ambiance on historic Coast Highway.

Businesses like Bull Taco, an edgy new taco shop about a half mile from my house, are exactly what this town wants.

But this morning, Bull Taco owner Justin Lewis was dismayed to discover his shop had been vandalized by a stencil-graffiti rat. Wearing Hollywood sunglasses. Flying a kite. With a kite-flying and fleeing immigrant family emblazoned upon said kite.

Fortunately, before Lewis could paint over the crime-depicting-crime (“As the owner of a restaurant, it feels weird that I have a rat on the wall.”), reporters had turned up to chronicle what appears to be the latest occurrence of a global phenomenon.

Yes, Banksy appears to have hit Oceanside.

Put us on the map baby. We have arrived.

Technorati Tags: Banksy, Graffiti, Oceanside

Missional Postmortem: Some personal struggles, part 1

After reading last week’s installment Jenell informed me that I hadn’t been honest. She’s right. The truth is, I failed to mention that we face two of the most difficult personal hurdles of our lives during the past two years.

So here goes. A bit more honesty.

The first struggle – my two-year long effort to find solid work – was the least significant of the two. I’ve written a bit about this already, but I’ll confess that I wasn’t prepared for the emotional toll of being in prolonged unemployment and the crisis of faith it would trigger. Until June of 2008 (at which time I was 37 years old), I’d never applied for a job I didn’t get. I took pride in that.

No more. For over two years I submitted hundreds of resume’s without a meaningful response. I cobbled together a part-time income doing freelance writing, web work, and other odd contract jobs and temporary gigs, but was never able to fully provide. This seemed to flatly contradict the deeply personal sense of calling and promise I felt God had given us.

There were legitimate complications – I was a part-time student, I was looking for work outside my established career, our relocation coincided with the onset of the Great Recession – blah, blah, blah (quit yer whining). But despite ready rationalizations, I took this as confirmation of the lifelong fear that I am utterly inadequate.

How do I express this?

The need to fulfill (to fully fill) the daily renewing void of hunger and desire in oneself and those nearest your heart is intrinsic to being a human animal; but the need to do so creatively and productively – and (let’s face it) to be recognized for it – is intrinsic to being made an image (or ikon) of God.

The void itself is a gift, which anticipates the gift that fills it. This what we are: empty begging bowls; that are periodically filled to overflowing; that fill others from our abundance; that do it again. This is literally our human vocation. It’s a noble humility.

Imagine, then, the agony of pushing one’s empty bowl toward God, in faith – day after day and year after year – only to bring it back still empty, or merely dribbled with the spittle of one’s own desperation (some of you don’t need to imagine, you know this feeling). Now, faith itself drives you to a fairly limited number of unpleasant explanations for this cosmic stinginess.

My temptation is to suspect divine rejection, the emotional by-product of which can only be God-loathing, self-loathing, or both.

Don’t worry, I’m not there anymore and I do have a theology that helps me reconcile this (insert parable here about blindness and sight). But it turns out that rational convictions and irrational ones are rival siblings that rarely reconcile. Besides, I know what you’re thinking and you’re quite right: this is bigger than vocational angst. I have been looking for the epistemological bottom-line for quite some time now and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

So the loss of certainty is the price I’ve paid for a career in ministry, a theological education, and a long and painful walk of obedience to a God I seem habitually unable to disdain despite his apparent indifference. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look people in the eye again and give easy answers. There’s no un-eating the apple. Yet that’s what most people want to hear from a pastor; the simple innocence of Eden before the fall, not the scarred wisdom of Jerusalem after the eschaton.

Still, I did gain something from the loss.

I’ve begun to see this sense of futility as one of the significant challenges to faith in the courtroom of postmodernity. Once you feel the agony of unrequited faith, I think you begin to apprehend the general perspective of atheism.

We tend to see Modernity as the age of anti-faith rationalism, but I think it was actually the age of mans most earnest supplications – risks of faith that largely went unanswered. ‘Postmodernity’ is the resulting malaise. Modernity’s bowl of faith was returned empty time and time again, and that emptiness indicts the cocksure certainty of our Janus-headed enlightenment cults of religion and science, which often conspired to deliver the emptiest promises of the past ‘Christian century.’

And I’ve begun to see that while atheists call religion a crutch, atheism itself is a big warm blanket, comforting its wearer from the bitter cold of an empty universe on the one hand and the horror of divine contempt on the other. I don’t mean that as a denigration. More than once this past year I begged for that blanket. But that bowl came back empty too.

In a world where the promises of gods and scientists fail to fully fill the empty ikons of the earth, what remains? For now it appears that ambition replaces creativity and entertainment replaces exaltation. I know because that’s what people I meet settle for. That’s often what I settle for. It doesn’t satiate, but for many it’s better than nothing.

And It just so happens these are the only two incarnations of science or religion that enjoy much popular currency today. Give them ambition and give them entertainment, for God or for profit, and you will earn a living.

I’m still not satisfied, but in a land of famine the one with a little eats like a king. So I keep pushing my bowl toward the sky, praying for a little to fill myself and a little to share.

Technorati Tags: gifts, ikons, image of God, Missional Postmortem, personal, Vocation

What is the incarnational response to the Mount Soledad Cross controversy?

The Mount Soledad Cross has been declared unconstitutional by the Federal 9th circuit court of appeals. The controversy surrounding this cross has been hot for over two decades, but the cross itself has been present since 1913.

Here’s a quote from the court’s opinion:

Overall, a reasonable observer viewing the memorial would be confronted with an initial dedication for religious purposes, its long history of religious use, widespread public recognition of the cross as a Christian symbol, and the history of religious discrimination in La Jolla,” McKeown wrote. “These factors cast a long shadow of sectarianism over the memorial that has not been overcome by the fact that it is also dedicated to fallen soldiers, or by its comparatively short history of secular events…. The use of such a distinctively Christian symbol to honor all veterans sends a strong message of endorsement and exclusion. It suggests that the government is so connected to a particular religion that it treats that religion’s symbolism as its own, as universal. To many non-Christian veterans, this claim of universality is alienating.

Predictably, conservative Christian activists are decrying it.

Here are questions that bother me:

What are the truths, untruths, and half-truths of this case, and which truth is weightiest?

And, what public stance on this issue is required of Christians who adopt an incarnational posture?

Technorati Tags: Church and State, Court decisions, Mount Soledad Cross

Top 10 Least Popular Posts of 2010

It’s the last day of the year and bloggers everywhere are recapping their most popular posts. I figured I’d do something a bit different, so here are the top ten Pastoralia posts that touched a nerve this year.

They’re not necessarily the most visited or the most commented. They’re just the one’s that earned me a little ire, prompted stern private emails, and caused people to unfriend me on facebook. In no particular order.

Enjoy.

• Bonding vs Bridging Communities: Fear & Retribution in Fundamentalism
• 5 Arguments Against the Use of Marketing and Media in Church
• Men Are In Charge Because the Bible Says So
• Why The Bible Is Insufficient For Mission
• The Prostitution of the Gospel Through Marketing
• What About God As The Monster? An Open Letter To Brian McLaren
• Does It Matter If We Know Jesus?
• Al And Tipper Gore And The Advent of Term Marriage
• Pat Robertson Falls From the Ladder of Being (And So Do We)
• Vineyard Churches at the Crossroads

Technorati Tags: Top 10

Missional Postmortem: Complicating factors and personal reflections

I started this postmortem with the timeline of our missional church plant and then covered certain unorthodox decisions that I thought should be taken into consideration. Today, I want to cover some factors that weren’t illuminated by those posts.

I don’t offer these as excuses. They didn’t cause us to fail. But they did contribute to the complexity of trying to establish a missionally-minded, post-Christendom community of faith.

1) We started from scratch in a town where we had no roots or relationships
I could rattle off a list of “missional” and/or “emerging” churches that are established and succeeding after several years on the ground – but a large majority of them were birthed in familiar contexts. Many were kick-started from an existing congregation. Many were started by a small handful of disgruntled ex-pastors and church leaders who already knew each other. Some merged with existing, struggling congregations.

We didn’t know anyone in Oceanside. We have some family in Carlsbad and Vista, but we’d never lived in this area before. I am now asking myself this important question for the first time: “Why would anyone in this town be interested in walking down some alternative church path with me?”

Answer: “Because I’m a pretty good communicator.” That’s it. Let’s face it, that’s not enough.

2) North San Diego County is a relatively conservative context
The strongest churches here extoll conservative evangelical tenets: the inerrancy of scripture; the submissiveness of women; the threat of evolution to the faith; God’s divine blessing on capitalism and Western democracy; an understanding of salvation as the assurance of heaven after death for those who confess specific boundary-marking tenets.

In my observation – precisely because our culture is in a liminal time – one of the best ways to carve out a market niche for new churches in America right now is to preach the revival of Christendom values over-and-against the evils of culture and dress it up as “missional.” As far as I can tell, San Diego is a great place to do that.

Good missionaries adapt to culture. I’d just prefer to adapt to the future of our culture rather than it’s past. That’s a tough gig and I still haven’t figured out how to connect effectively with people on the fringe. I do know this: It’s easier to build coalitions for restoring former glory than it is to lead people into the uncertain possibilities of what could be. I’d rather fail at the latter than succeed at the former.

3) We were a geographically scattered group in an overly busy culture
For the first year or so Jenell and I followed a series of organically occurring relationships that eventually became the group we gathered. That’s was always the plan. So far so good.

However, as Modern suburban Americans we don’t live in the neighborhood – we just sleep there. We live at work, at school, at family gatherings, and at recreation spots. Americans also live incredibly busy lives, so these are the places we tend to meet people “organically.” Consequently, the community we gathered was scattered. Our people lived in Oceanside, Vista, Bonsall, Escondido, Carlsbad, and Encinitas (we only had 7 households!).

This not only contradicted our vision (neighborhood-based missional communities), it made it tough to cultivate a strong sense of community. I think it also placed an implied pressure on our people to move toward becoming leaders in their own neighborhoods. I don’t think it was wise to do that.

4) We mostly tapped into a network of existing Christians
Because we didn’t have deep roots in the community, the few networks we could tap (mostly family and denominational connections) yielded connections with people who were already Christians and (very often) already attending church somewhere.

I’m grateful for these relationships. They’re people exploring different perspectives of the faith, or coming out of difficult situations with a previous church. It was valid to gather with these folks and they’ve become important friends to us.

But, among other things, this meant we quickly took on the nature of being some sort of rogue small group in the area – and Jenell and I could never be reconciled to that. We weren’t interested in wresting people away from their churches and we weren’t interested in remaining a house church either.

We did a fair amount of work in the community that exposed us to new people, but probably because we were so scattered and busy we were never very good at folding people in.

5) De-institutionalizing did not solve the attractional problem, it just informalized it.
If you have any kind of gathering (and I think you must) most people will default to a passive mode. Most people still want to hear from the most inspiring person in the room. Most people still cling to the shelter of silence or anonymity.

Getting out into the community helps. Setting the room up differently helps. Telling the right stories helps. Asking the right questions helps. Food helps. I think this patron/client posture is a challenge that can be overcome and I think it’s imperative to overcome it. But we are swimming against a very strong tide.

And.

Someone must take responsibility for the work of creating that safe, enriching, more egalitarian environment. Because it is work and it requires gifting, character, time, and most of all, willingness. If you don’t want to call that someone a “leader” because you can’t find that word in scripture, or because it’s too laden with corporate/power baggage, fine (I’m sympathetic). But you’re still going to need those people, they still have to shoulder a weight of responsibly that most folks eschew.

In order to avoid the attractional tide, no one person (or couple) can fill this role. You must refuse to do it, and you must establish some form of plurality early on – even if it’s a small plurality that others can observe for a time.

This is what we failed to do and, in the end, it’s why we shut down Ikon. We had people with the gifts and the character, but not the time or the willingness to bear the burden of responsibility alongside us. Probably because we didn’t have deep enough relationships.

Technorati Tags: Ikon Community, Missional Church, Missional Postmortem