A week and a half before school starts…for the last time. I would be in 20th grade this year if school was still counting, which is unbelievably too long. I’ve known very little about life outside of school, and its time I get to learning. (Funny…leave school to begin learning? One of life’s little ironies I suppose.) The school structures that I’ve been a part of for so long has been good ones. And I’ve enjoyed the overall trajectory that the Lord has sent me on through it all. But its definitely time to finish strong and to FINISH. It all comes down to this year.

My classes this fall are looking good. I’m taking two graduate classes; the first is Theology of Mission with Ed Matthews, and the second is Readings in Christian Spirituality with Jeff Childers. Since I have no clue (i.e. no syllabus emailed to me yet) about Matthews’ class, I’ve gotta rant and rave about my ‘Readings’ class. It’s looking really neat! Here are the 15 books (read, “ZOIKS”) I’ll be reading this semester.

What I’ve loved about my previous class with Childers is that his preference and expertise is on Christian communities not at the hub of Western examination. Christian expansion which coincided with the Western Roman Empire is only a slice of the pie, but that is all we’re ever taught. But what about the Syriac desert fathers of Edessa? What about Byzantium Christianity? Or the Celts? Or the early Anabaptists? Or the lesser known feminine mystics like Julian of Norwich? There is so much more to learn than my own little branches on the tree of God’s great family.

In a similar vein, I’ve been enjoying another Newsboys song (Newsboys? I feel like I’m back in High School again!) called ‘The Mission’: (listen here)

When the runners came from Bethlehem
All breathless with good news
They were passing a baton forward through time
The commission, from God’s lips to our ears
Carried by his saints two thousand years
Connects us all to the same lifeline
As I fix my eyes ahead
I can feel the spirit’s breath…

(AND) I CAN HEAR THE MISSION BELL RINGING OUT LOUD AND CLEAR
IT’S THE REVOLUTION JESUS STARTED, AND IT’S HERE
ECHOING ACROSS THE WORLD FROM THE SHORES OF GALILEE
I CAN HEAR THE MISSION BELL CALL FOR YOU AND ME
I WANNA RUN WITH FIRE
IT’S MY HEART’S DESIRE
LIFTING YOUR LOVE HIGHER

In the history of our faith’s arrivals
Great awakenings, Welsh revivals
Saints and martyrs, summoned by a new birth
Patrick’s save of the Irish nation
William Carey’s expectation
Lambs & lions
Called to the ends of the earth
Gotta put my hand to the plow
Not looking back, not now…

I have a feeling I’ll be exploring lots of uncharted territory this semester, and at the same time, I’ll be finding myself all over the place.

MEGAChurch - the hip thing on the church scene from the 50’s to the 90’s. Focuses on huge facilities, enormous budgets, a professional team of ministers to pull off a fantastic show, and producing the best “goods and services” within a short, specific amount of time each week. Funny enough, its popularity coincided with the “bigger is better” mentality of food courts, fast-food restaurants, and HUGE portion sizes.

m e t a-Church - the hip thing on the church scene in our world today. Focuses on a local, relationally tied network of family-sized churches where no one is the “leader” except the Holy Spirit. Funny enough, its popularity coincides with the “local” and “organic” food craze that is sweeping our nation.

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Check out this awesome book by Roger Gehring, House Church and Mission. It is his published dissertation on how churches were formed and how they functioned in the 1st Century. Some points on Gehring’s work to consider from Scot McKnight:

1. Jesus centered his ministry in Peter’s house in Capernaum (Mark 1:29, 33; 2:1; 3:20; 9:33) and from there he launched missional work and in that home they prayed, worshiped, and learned at the feet of Jesus. There is solid archaeological data for this stuff.
2. Jesus sent his disciples out and expected them to establish missional centers in communities by founding a house church. (Matthew 10)
3. The Jerusalem church was established through house churches (Acts 2:42-47).
4. Paul’s ministry was to establish house church missional centers (Romans 16).

The basic history of church architecture development is:

1. House churches until about 150 AD.
2. Church houses (houses converted into houses devoted almost entirely, or at least several major rooms, to church). Until 250 AD or so.
3. Basilica/hall-length churches. From c. 250 on.

“…You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to GOD HIMSELF, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to JESUS, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people…”

– Early Christian Sermon, Hebrews 12:22-24

This being toward the end of a powerful sermon on perseverance, I am amazed at the awkwardity (a new word a good friend mentioned to me and is working to get it into Webster’s!) of the circumstances surrounding this sermon. These Christians, possibly 12-15 men and women are huddled together in a small room of a multi-housing apartment complex. Some have lost their homes because they’ve been rejected by their Jewish parents or their pagan husband. Others have been beaten, lost their jobs, and lost their property (Heb. 10:34).

And yet this is how the preacher-man talks to them? Talking of high n’ mighty mountains, angels, and being in the presence of GOD HIMSELF?!? If I were one of these persecuted, low-life Christians, I’d be just about ready to walk over to the preacher jabbering on about such nonsense and smack him upside the head. The NERVE! And yet these words somehow made it into the Holy Writ.

Maybe its because Christians…the true followers of Christ who were hunted down for their beliefs, knew that it was precisely in their not seeing their earthly power and glory in the following-Christ lifestyle that they saw all the more how amazing was their God of the unseen world. Throughout the sermon, the author of Hebrews prefers the “unseen, unshakable” reality as opposed to the “world that will fall away”.

In the Roman and pagan world of the first century, temples lined the streets, and each of them were embellished with visible reminders of the gods watching over everyone. The simpler, the less adorned, and the humble gatherings of Christian worship that were blatantly lacking icons, idols, and bloody sacrifices may have been what was most inspiring about the early Christian faith. Many non-Christians at that time suspected Christianity to be a simple philosophy, others saw it as a dangerous cult. No one who stood outside the circle understood exactly what this little movement was all about.

Today, Christianity in America has taken on the aspects of many of the pompous pagan religions of the first century. We build bigger and bigger sanctuaries, and have more and more elaborate worship services designed to attract the overindulged, and over-entertained consumer. And we do it well. We truck them in by the thousands, and give the preachers of these mega-temples salaries that well surpass those of their pagan forefathers…TV air time, book signing deals…the works. We’ve bought into the lifestyle that kept so many first century Romans (Jews, and others as well!) so inoculated to the Truth - that this is not about a flashy event; its about a way of life.

We have not come to what is seen, to stages, praise bands, multi-plexes, and unchanged, unfulfilled, mediocre lives; but we have come to what is unseen: to a simple collective of friends who love their Lord, love each other, and are convinced that they are on a mission with their Lord to save the world. When we stop to think of the idiocy of it all: no leader but Christ, no temple but our hearts, no sacrifice but ourselves, worshiping our Lord God may seem simplistic. But do not be deceived. We have come to a mountain that is far more real than anything we can see with our eyes, we have come to the mountain of the LORD GOD.