Godgrown

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  Mark 11:16 pm on October 19, 2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Fishing for Justice 

  This morning was a very early morning.  I took Trina in for the dreaded wisdom-teeth-removal operation.  She was strong, and got through it without TOO much pain.  She’s still working through some major adjustment issues (we bought her a dry-erase board, for example), but we’re praying she’ll be back to full health before her trip next week.  Praise be to God for his faithfulness…

  —————- 

  I’ve been reading more from Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution, a book I’ve been wanting to read ever since my Bostonian friend was raving like a lunatic about it last Spring.  Claiborne is a Christ-ian; a radical follower of Christ.  Although he would twinge at the word “radical”, since he sees what he is doing as the ordinary – this is what people who actually follow Jesus’ teachings are supposed to do.  Just listen to a few of his words:

  “We hang out with kids and help them out with homework in our living room, and jump in open fire hydrants on hot summer days.  We share food with those who need it, and eat the beans and rice our neighbor Ms. Sunshine makes for us…We reclaim abandoned lots and make gardens amid the concrete wreckage around us…We hang out on the streets.  We get fined for distributing food.  We go to jail for sleeping under the stars…We wrestle to free ourselves from macrocharity and distant acts of charity that serve to legitimize apathetic lifestyles of good intentions but rob us of the gift of community.”

  Christians have become a society of individuals with “good intentions”.  We write checks to charities, who hand out government cheese.  We donate clothes to Goodwill, or serve at a soup kitchenand feel like we’ve contributed to the homeless “problem” in our city.  We head out on short-term missions trips, and return telling others how “blessed” we are. 

  What a sham.

  I’m convinced that until we begin to truly KNOW the poor we’ve been serving across a desk or a checkbook, we wont be able to ask the bigger, more systemic questions like “Why is he poor and I am not?”  That question cut you to the heart.

  Claiborne says, “We give people fish.  We teach them to fish.  We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond.  And we figure out who polluted it.”

  I don’t think Jesus was all about personal piety and “feeling good”.  His mission went way beyond that.  Know this!  There will be more written on this book coming from this site!

  

  curtis, Mark, miller and one other person are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Steve Jr. 9:56 am on October 21, 2006 Permalink

    Glad you’re liking Shane’s book, Mark. It’s challenging and raw. We hope to head down the highway some weekend coming up to observe the Simple Way in Philly. They’ve been doing the intentional residential community thing for a few years now.

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    miller 6:21 pm on October 21, 2006 Permalink

    hey man, sounds like i gotta read this one! the quote you gave anything like the rest of it?

    i like what i’m hearin’, it sounds like a lot of us are on the same chapter if not the same page.

    peace

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    Mark 6:48 pm on October 21, 2006 Permalink

    I’m only about half way through it right now, but so far I like what I read. It has a distinctively subversive feel to it. I lent the book out to someone today, and have 2 others who want to borrow it after that! Will I ever get to finish it!?

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    curtis 10:42 pm on October 21, 2006 Permalink

    Wow, this book sounds awesome. I threw it on my Amazon wishlist with the other 150 books .

    I particularly liked the author’s thoughts and your interaction with the idea of macrocharity. It puts a finger one something that has long troubled me about instiutionalizing good deeds. Some folks prefer to write a check to have someone else be nice to poor people FOR them so they don’t have to get their hands dirty.

    I observe a similiar phenomenon with institutional ministers though: cut a check to have somebody else study bible and pursue a life of piety and charity FOR you, so you don’t have to, and then listen to their weekly Sunday morning report on how your spiritual life is being done on your behalf.

    It’s so good to see more and more of these kinds of books coming out all the time. Look out!

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  Mark 2:24 pm on October 16, 2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Gettin’ Salty 

  “When is salt not salty?”

  That question has been floating through my mind the last several days. Of course, it comes from Jesus’ perplexing question found in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”
  My only question is, HOW can salt loose its saltiness? There’s absolutely no way! It’s chemically impossible for salt to become unsalty unless its bonds are broken…but then it isn’t salt anymore, it is sodium and chloride. This has got to be one of the dumbest statements Jesus ever makes!

  This past weekend I went to the World Missions Workshop in Lubbock, TX. What an amazing time to meet new people; so many of whom are interested in God’s Mission! Specifically, I was able to bump into Marvin Crowson, Harding University‘s point man for organic church, (a good Q&A with him here). He introduced me to a team who are looking at moving to Chicago in a year and a half to begin living missionally (they will all have day jobs) but they will live their Christian vocation out as missionaries to the city – planting simple churches in apartments, coffee shops, parks, and yes, even Sears Tower. You can imagine my excitement, meeting a whole team that is assembling (a mix from Harding and Lubbock Christian University) who have such a similar vision.
  Beyond meeting cool cats, I found myself bouncing from conversation to conversation, discussing dreams different folks had regarding what the church could look like outside the traditional walls. More and more people are beginning to see this way of living as a legitimate option for church; and that makes me truly excited. Missionaries who have seen organic church as a means for spreading the gospel all over the world are “clicking” as they realize that if it can work around the world, and it works in the New Testament, maybe it can work in North America too.

  So when is salt not salty? What about this salt shaker seen here? Is the salt in it salty? How do you know? How can you prove it? Truly, no one really knows if salt is salty unless they taste it. So why does Jesus talk to us about salt loosing its saltiness? Because it is our nature to hang out in the salt shaker! We’d rather sit pretty with all the other salt, bickering over who is the “purest” salt crystal of the bunch, while the world dies of hunger. The world is hungry for something that tastes good – something that awakens their appetite for God. When we fight and complain over meaningless arguments (find one here), we totally lose sight of where Jesus wants his Church – out of the salt shaker and into the world!  If we stay inside the church – we are GOOD FOR NOTHING.
  Maybe that’s why I liked going to WMW so much – it reminded me that for too much of my life I have stayed inside the salt shaker, moaning about how all the rest of the salt doesn’t look tasty enough.  Maybe I should get out of this “bubble” and start meeting people I can “get salty” with.

  

  Mark, chad, and horton are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    horton 8:46 pm on October 16, 2006 Permalink

    Another angle is meeting people you can “get fruity” with – but that expression might be misconstrued! I love the concept of “living missionally”.

    Later,
    Horton

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    chad 10:38 pm on October 16, 2006 Permalink

    Great post. This is why I am so glad that I was a mission major. You spend time with crowds like that and you’re so motivated to get out of the salt shaker and flavor the world.

    I like the point about avoiding pointless fighting among believers. But, regarding the Freed-Hardeman discussion, while it may not have been the most edifying, at least talks for unity are taking place–whether all like or not. To the extent such unity can be achieved, the Body of Christ will be better able to disperse saltiness throughout the world without making the body look so wrotten.

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    Mark 8:56 am on October 17, 2006 Permalink

    Thanks Chad. I think you’re right on in many ways. Unity comes before mission. However, I think the question FH was asking was, “Can we find unity in correct thinking?” I think this approach to unity is foundationally misconstrued; but a stab at unity nonetheless. What if instead of basing unity on who holds the truth, what if we came together under the revelation that the TRUTH HOLDS US!? This Truth is infinite in depth, and if we wait until we have mapped it all out, we’ll only find our “exploration team for unity through correctness” split off from us a long time ago. Keep me thinking on this though – I’m doing some reading on unity in my Restoration History class right now…probably should get back to that!

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  Mark 2:44 pm on October 12, 2006 Permalink | Reply
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  How to Live as an Incarnational Community 

  Living as an incarnational expression cannot be done alone.  If we as the church TRULY ARE (not just symbolically, but tangibly) the body of Christ in this world, then as a COMMUNITY we are called to live incarnationally.  As this will inevitably bring great glory to God, living this way also produces several inherent problems.

  First, much like any kind of group work, it’s tough to get over the lethargy of an unintentional community.  People who are at rest, tend to stay at rest.  Leaders of faith communities will be charged by God with the responsibility of speaking to the dry bones, and encouraged by God to speak prophetically about what THIS portion of Christ’s Body could like in THIS context at THIS point in history.  Brainstorming, dream casting and carving out opportunities to grow into a more missional incarnation will be essential for every group of God’s called-out ones.

  Plan a time to get together and draw up any number of wild, hair-brained ideas.  Nothing is discarded at first, and everyone has something to contribute, because everyone who has accepted the Lordship of Christ has his Spirit living inside him or her.  View this as a “holy experiment” and set a specific, time-bound goal (like experiencing a full day of Sabbath together for six weeks, or choosing to meet and worship at a local coffee house for the remainder of a semester).  Find opportunities throughout the experiment’s time period to reflect on the incarnational praxis.  Afterward, do an group discussion and evaluation.  What sorts of things did we learn?  What things would we do better, or not do next time?  How can we tell others (who know Christ, and who don’t) about our experience together?

  A second problem arises when we see the “incarnation” as a “lowering of self”.  It is at this point that the great analogy of the incarnation begins to break down.  We, unlike Jesus, are not descending from our heavenly culture to the dirty, sinful culture of the “other”.  We are learning to traverse cultural and parallel chasms, not descend holy mountain tops.  We are just as marred by sin as anyone else, (even though our minds tell us differently).  Most of the time, this can be done by allowing people opportunities to share their hearts honestly with people of the new culture.  Hate and prejudice comes through fear, and fear comes through ignorance.  Breaking down walls of separation through friendship (done in community) is essential for incarnational living.

  Holy experiments are essential to incarnational living.  And going into those experiments with a humble mindset will allow the community to enter a culture as Jesus would: as a humble learner.

  

  Mark, and Jerry are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Jerry 7:29 pm on October 16, 2006 Permalink

    Incarnation without community cant occur.

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    Mark 10:28 am on October 17, 2006 Permalink

    that’s an interesting comment Jerry. Thanks for the input. I’m wondering why so many ministers/Christians in general think it is their job to personally save the world (i.e. incarnate all by their lonesome). WE are the body of Christ, eh?