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  • Mark 8:02 am on April 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: flash mob   

    Pray4Chicago Reflections 

    Pray4Chicago’s “flash mob” event was so fun, exhausting and a big success!  (see pictures above or at this link)  We plan to have these once a quarter or so, and continue to develop the website all throughout the year.  Alan has been such a great help in helping make this project become a reality, and many props and thanks go out to him and Sara for letting us host the event at their place.  (Read his thoughts on the event here.)

    But the majority of time was not spent at their apartment.  It began with all the participants showing up to gain some orientation on what they were up to for the day.  For many, this was their first crack at prayer-walking, and needed some basics on what it was all about.

    We shared some of our Chicago mission’s vision, gave some practical training on how to “pray with your eyes open” (something I was never allowed to do as a kid! :) ) and how to essentially see a city with God’s eyes.  We tried to be as specific as possible, but in the end, we knew that keeping things open for imaginations to run wild was the whole idea.  After a time of Q & A, we teamed people up in pairs, and sent them out to various city neighborhoods with maps, cameras, and journals.

    Their job was to discover what they felt like God was doing in the city.  Different than other census reports or spiritual mapping projects, the goal of this event was to develop inspiration, not gather information.  Our dream is to see a vibrant family of Jesus in every neighborhood in Chicago – and then beyond that in close reach of every person in Chicago. So we need to know how to join God in planting a community of faith in each neighborhood.  What would it mean to be the church in Little Village?  In Lakeview?  In the South Loop?

    The groups came back with amazing stories, profound discoveries, and changed hearts.  Read their reports here! I hope that some will return, I hope that more will get to experience this in the future.  One thing we hope to do next time is involve more of the house churches in our network in the event, as well as incorporate a more continued presence of prayer in between the “flash mob” events we do quarterly.  (The next one is August 8th – if you want to be a part of this, contact me!)

    What if teams of people began walking the streets and praying for a neighborhood every week?  What relationships might develop?  Who might invite these teams into their lives?  Isn’t this how churches started in the first century?

    I’m really thankful for each participant who gave their Saturday to this project.  I hope that it was as meaningful and inspirational to them as it was helpful for Alan and I, who now know a LOT more about these neighborhoods and hope to cultivate a community of faith their through the power of God.  May these followers of Christ never stop prayer walking, and like tilling the soil, may their shoes plough paths for other missionaries to follow them into these Chicago neighborhoods and plant a church in the midst of the city.

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    • Tim C 8:44 pm on April 28, 2009 Permalink

      Hey Mark,

      Would love to see some of the training stuff you guys use to help people become prayer walkers. Do you have any of that stuff online?

  • Mark 5:30 pm on April 24, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , julian of norwich, thomas merton   

    Ora et Labora 

    I have a deep desire to see transformation in people’s lives and in the lives of communities and society as a whole.  But how can I know what that transformation looks like when I am myself completely immersed into that broken society?  Check this great quote from Thomas Merton:

    mertonTrue solitude is the home of the person, false solitude the refuge of the individualist.  The person is constituted by a uniquely subsisting capacity to love – by a radical ability to care for all beings made by God and loved by Him.  Such a capacity is destroyed by the loss of perspective.  Without a certain element of solitude there can be no compassion because when a man is lost in the wheels of a social machine he is no longer aware of human needs as a matter of personal responsibility. One can escape from men by plunging into the midst of a crowd.

    So there are several kinds of solitude, and several types of social engagement.  True solitude aims to reorient one’s self from the opiates and poisons of society’s evil side (by the way, I’m not chatting about it much in this post, but I absolutely believe society is a mysterious blend of good and evil).  But there is an escapism that we see in lots of parts of our culture that functions to serve the individual.  The retired businessman after working tirelessly for decades now moves to Ft. Lauderdale to fade away into shuffleboard and iced teas (when his wisdom is needed the most!).  Or consider the spiritual nun who withdraws into her inner life and becomes useless to the world.

    “You are so heavenly-minded that they are of no earthly good.” — Johnny Cash

    There’s also the danger that we may dive some completely into our work of changing society and helping those in our care that we ourselves become lost in a sea of confusion.  I feel like this happens to me on multiple levels.  The news has become a crutch for me – I think I’m addicted, and its time to fast.  It was not long ago that I knew next to nothing of world events, now I think I have no opinion about what’s happening because I am continually listening to the stories and opinions of others.  Let me step back from the careening course of human events and gain a bit of global perspective. And on a personal level, its hard for me to have a word of healing to someone hurting or their lifestyle is headed for disaster when I have no bearing to point them toward.  My life as a missionary must be filled with reconnecting with God to help me in being the wounded healer Henri Nouwen talks about.

    14th Century Julian of Norwich was kept locked in the basement under a church and left in complete isolation.  It wasn’t torture, that was her job!  She was an anchoress, and I completely recommend learning more about this part of Christian history.  There was nothing more than a small space for food to come in and refuse to go out.  The village cared for her, and from that small opening she counseled and spoke wisdom to the village.  Even in the midst of the Black Plague and a series of pheasant revolts, she wrote of the motherly love of God, and even wrote the first known English book penned by a woman.  She was completely isolated, but completely engaged in the issues of her community.

    Thomas Merton is himself a Trappist monk whose vows called him to even more severe isolation than most monastic orders, yet he claims that his isolation was not self-centered but world-centered, challenging his readers saying:

    “Go into the desert not to escape other men but in order to find them in God.”

    Somehow even through his profoundly isolated lifestyle, he managed to participate significantly in the civil rights movement, fought nuclear proliferation, and developed dialogue between major world faiths and Christianity.  The more he retreated from the world, the more influential he became.

    Jesus seemed to have this figured out.  He would teach in the Temple courts during the day, then retreat to Olive Mountain at night.  He would spend weeks alone in the badlands, and would emerge ready to change the world.

    I must find some rhythm of rest and work.  Ora et labora. “Prayer and work.” is written on my quotes wall.  I think this is a good place to start – and turning off the news tap for awhile…instead I’ll make my own (good) news!

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    • Josh Frank 7:16 pm on April 24, 2009 Permalink

      I wish we lived just a little closer and we could share morning prayer or some other regular practice together.

      Peace (and silence and solitude) be with you, my friend.

    • Lisa Barnes 5:28 pm on April 25, 2009 Permalink

      Thanks for the quote. Nice post. It was a helpful reminder for me to reflect on my own need for solitude and how to integrate it with my social life.

    • Tim C 8:16 pm on April 26, 2009 Permalink

      Always struggled with Solitude. Thought about the movie The Village when reading this.

  • Mark 9:25 am on April 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Street Seminary 

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    Am I really here in Chicago to plant churches?  Is that really a passion in my heart that trumps all others?  Any job that was worthy of Christ’s attention is something I’d be willing to stake my life on, and yet he doesn’t plant a single church in his lifetime.  He doesn’t even try.  Instead he cultivates the transformed lives of 12 missionaries – 12 world changers – out of the most common people.

    Maybe my paradigm is about to change again.  Maybe this has more to do with inspiring world changers than about gathering people together.  If its just about putting people in a room, which is typically what has defined successful “church planting” and “missions” for the last 3 centuries, and especially during the Church Growth Movement of the last generation.  We think that gatherings are important, but they shouldn’t be obligatory.

    If someone had just one hour to give to this mission each week, (in today’s hyper-busy world that’s not uncommon), I’d rather them spend it intentionally being Jesus in the world rather than filling a seat in our larger gatherings.  This isn’t me bashing on large gatherings, I’m simply thinking about why we gather.  Gathering Christians should happen as a natural result of the need to resource each other’s common vision for greater impact – not about coming to receive my spiritual goods and services.  (I’ve been hearing about the Divine Commodity, by Skye Jethani, a book about consumer religion in America.  I might check it out as I think through this.)

    If my role is to “make disciples/missionaries/apprentices” rather than planting churches, and expecting churches to grow organically out of the mission of these disciples, then this must be at the forefront of my thoughts and praxis.

    There are so many Christians in America ready to do something meaningful – something world changing.  But they don’t feel ready because they’ve never been initiated into the missionary life.  Therefore they continue to come crawling back to the Sunday service looking for sustenance to keep them going for another week.  Mentors and profs in graduate school gave me the tools to learn about God, and thankfully pointed me to a ever-flowing relationship with God himself…but now I’ve got to take that to the streets – what about a “Street Seminary” that offers the world-changing, peace-bringing, Jesus-living life to everyday Christians?

    The first step is persuading them that living as a Christian in the big, bad city is not about survival, its about challenging the Darkness.  After that, I’m still thinking…

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    • Kevin Bowman 10:33 am on April 17, 2009 Permalink

      Have you heard of City Seminary – It is attempting to do exactly this, by giving guys from the neighborhood the equipping attention they would recieve in a traditional seminary setting in one night a week. Most of these guys have no college at all in the past, but the program is designed with that in mind!

      Not exactly what you were thinking, but very neat!

    • Mark 10:41 am on April 17, 2009 Permalink

      kevin, i hadn’t heard of this group – very cool! Looks like right now, their webspace is not up and running (here). How involved with this group have you been? Would you recommend it to people in Chicago who are ready to be trained for missional engagement with their culture? Thanks for the heads up!

    • Kevin Bowman 2:52 pm on April 17, 2009 Permalink

      I have not had any involvement personally. One of the guys with MissionUSA Glen Fitzjerell, who hosts The Bridge which we attend on Tuesday nights, as well a Ted Powers the director of Church planting for PCUSA is who started it. The other guy who works for Mission USA is a student. I know a handful of the Hope House guys from Lawndale are also students.

    • Tim C 9:03 pm on April 19, 2009 Permalink

      Hey Mark,

      these thoughts are so liberating when you really let them sink in. I am in the sinking in stage, and it is great!

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