We say "incarnational" in order to describe the embodying of the gospel among people in everyday life. By being “incarnational” we seek to follow God who became incarnate in Christ into everyday life to manifest His presence among us. And so we, instead of focusing church in the Sunday morning gathering alone, seek to live the gospel to, in and among the surrounding community. It is the missional way. And of course, these days, it is easier said than done. Nonetheless, this is the practice I endorse for my own life and church.

My question: does such an embodying the gospel require art? Surely the embodiment of the gospel incarnationally requires that we do more than speak about God’s salvation in Christ. It requires we practice the gospel in our life together in community. It requires that we minister it to hurting bodies in our surrounding community. And lastly, it requires we SEE the gospel in all its beauty as a full-orbed reality of life we invite others to participate in. And so it makes sense that the embodiment of the gospel requires the community’s practice of the arts and a recapture of "beauty" as a category of truth for Christian living and witness.

At the risk of being academic here, I offer David Bentley Hart's analysis of beauty within the landscape of postmodernity as the guide that helps us see why art and the category of beauty must play a central role in the church of these postmodern times. In Hart's brilliant The Beauty of the Infinite, he outlines the development of Kant's category of the sublime within postmodern Continental philosophy. He shows how postmodern thinkers separate beauty from the category of the sublime so that beauty now falls under the "representable" in terms of reason, logic and categories of determinacy. While the sublime falls beyond "representation" in either language or form. The sublime is beyond the limits of representation. "Unlike the beautiful, its manifestation is an intuition of the indeterminate .."(P. 45) Hence the attraction of postmodern thought to "the sublime." For postmoderns then, beauty is an object of disdain, too easily domesticated for the forces of power. Hart's agenda is to overcome this false domestication of beauty by the logic and form of the representable. He wants to recover beauty as a participation in God Himself, as that which overcomes the autonomy of the self in worship such that we are shaped and formed into a participation in God's life that is ultimately peace, love and harmony. Hart's book is too magnificent to summarize in this way. Nonetheless, this summary illuminates why, if we are not to fall prey to the Nietzschian trap of postmodern nihilism that denies God incarnates Himself into this world, we must recapture beauty as a category for the revealing of God, the revealing of the good, the revealing of truth.

I said in the Great Giveaway .." to know God is to see His beauty. Until we embrace this notion of truth, art will always be an illustration that merely sets up the sermon." What I was trying to say there, among other things, is that if we would truly incarnate the presence of God, over against a world that has commoditized everything, we must inhabit our faith aesthetically, that art must be more than an introduction to a sermon, it must be part of our worship, and everyday life, not as a commercialized piece of spectral gaze, but as part of our participation in God's glorious redemption of all creation.

Because of all this, plus Bentley-Hart, I believe "incarnational" must involve the manifestation of His beauty out of our organic life in worship and life together. By this I do not refer to the beauty that is achieved through "production excellence” as is so often sought after in the mega church. So often this results in "the production" of a simulacrum beauty detached from our every day incarnational life. Rather, in the way we worship and in the way we live, art is birthed on the canvas, with the camera, in the children's class, on the graphics arts screen that points us to the reality of God revealed in all his beauty around us and in everyday life. In this way, music, dance, and the arts are part of what it means to be present as a witness to the beauty of the Lord. Hopefully this art will adorn our homes, our places of conversation, and in our worship gatherings. Otherwise we fall into the dichotomies of beauty versus the sublime, the truth as rational yet not visible. And worse, truth becomes Gnostic, not embodied for all to see.

And so I argue for art in the church, gatherings and life. I suggest again we need to think carefully about buildings and space (especially after last week's post). I propose that incarnational, yes missional, means we recover beauty as a category for the display of the gospel in and among the world we live.

At our church, Brian Christensen leads the artwork for each time period in the church calendar. He does a great job. We get the children doing art that puts visually how God is revealing the world to them through the gospel. We hang it up in the church. We have had book clubs, novels, discussion of cyber punk fiction. At times, we have an artwork that graces the altar to symbolize for us what we bring to the altar during the particular season we are exploring through Scripture. We have guided art meditations through the art before we begin church from time to time, we are thinking about making it a regular thing. It gets people out of their rational logo centric argumentative mode to engage God in all his mystery and beauty. We have much further to go.

In what ways is beauty manifested as part of life in your missional communities?

Here's another invite to the locals who read this blog. Scot McKnight, blogger extraordinaire will be at up/rooted gathering on Monday, December 11 from 7-9pm. He'll be discussing a topic that has always divided the church, Mariology. I've always thought us protestants needed to understand Catholics more carefully and engage in conversations out of our unity. I think this subject and his newest book, The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus can help heal the divide. Scot has been an excellent conversation partner with missional and emerging church folk as well as me personally regarding my book The Great Giveaway. Scot's a real friend and the world's greatest blogger. See his Jesus Creed.

Uprooted will be meeting in a different location, and a totally different suburb this time. Pastor Fred has graciously offered to host us at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Park Ridge (near O'Hare) this month. (The address is 1006 Gillick St, Park Ridge IL 60068.) This means that for those of you in the north suburbs or downtown, we'll be a lot closer to you this time! I hope you are able to come and join us, especially if we haven't seen you in a while due to the distance.

I shall be posting more in the coming days on "Contrary Thoughts on Being Incarnational."
Before I do, are any Chicago Area emerging/missional people out there interested in coming to the Ancient-Evangelical Future Conference? I posted earlier on the subject "Does Brian McLaren Need Bob Webber?" Brian will be speaking Thursday night Dec 7th on the title "Does the Emerging Church Have an Ancient Future?" at 7 p.m. at Northern. Lauren Winner will be speaking on Dec 9th Saturday morning 9 a.m. on the subject of our Hebrew heritage, postmodernity, narrative and doing theology and church in our times. This is all at Northern Seminary. There will be breakout sessions, panel discussions, and alot of interaction. If there are any interested in coming, I know its quite expensive. But I have been able to get a deal for any emerging/missional types interested in coming to just these two presentations and surrounding events for 50 bucks. It's still alot. But if any of you can afford it, we'll try to have some time together for discussion and mutual encouragement. I will be responding to Brian's presentation Thursday nite. Perhaps we can all meet afterwards. Check it out and let me know by emailing me at fitchest@earthlink.net If we get ten people who'd like to do this, we can get it at 50 bucks a piece. Not trying to hype this thing. I just think it would be a cool thing to participate in.

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PERNELL IS INTERVIEWING STEVE TAYLOR OVER AT HIS BLOG
Also, just a heads up, Pernell is interviewing Steve Taylor about his book "The Out of Bounds Church" over on his blog. Some good stuff going on over there for those who know the book. I invite you to check it out.

Is buying a building or inhabiting a building always contra being missional? Upon first instinct, the answer would be yes. Certainly missional gatherings would hesitate investing in a traditional church building. But are there times when inhabiting a building might itself be incarnational according to missional logic?

One positive thing about the end of modernity is that truth can not be held captive by the rational, the strictly representational, the logocentric. It must be embodied. And so we, who live in these times, naturally resist any attempts to strip truth of its embodiment. For some missional church folk, this speaks the Incarnation. Missional living, we say, must be incarnational.

But if truth is to be embodied, if we are not going to be limited to engaging God only with words, if beauty is to be a category for truth, then we have to embody ourselves in a physical presense in the community. This might mean inhabiting a building. I am sure many, perhaps the majority, of missional communities will gravitate towards meeting in homes. Yet, if taking up embodiment in a community will require that this community see us, watch our way of life, see they way we welcome and engage the hurting, see God in our architecture, our meals, our artwork and worship, there might be times when we take residence a place that is visible to the community. I know this goes against all missional thinking, so I am just asking, at what point does a building become incarnational? At what point does a building which embodies ministry to the poor, the art of the Story and grandeur of God, the sacred space of His presense, whereby we practice reconciliation by the very conmfirgurement of the furniature, become incarnational?

I understand the resistance of missional churches to own buildings. They are cumbersome, require resourses, and often push the church into an "attractional mentality" as opposed to a missional/incarnational one where the church is dispersed into the world of engagement. This is all good. But I argue that there are times and places (not all times and all places) where buildings, sanctuaries, physical architectural embodiments of the Body of Christ, might be the very expression of such an incarnational inhabiting community. In other words part of incarnation might be the very brick and mortar, architecture, and sacred space we gather which exemplifies and points all who would see toward the reality of God.

There might be therefore, a stage in the development of certain missional communities when a building of some sort makes sense. Some of our best examples of missional communities have made investment in such buildings (Solomon’s Porch MN, Jacob’s Well MO). We might need buildings, indeed buildings that resist the appearance that Christ is another thing for distribution at a Walmart. Please not a big box church. We might need a building where artists render the theology of our life together upon its space. We might need a building to feed the poor, to give sanctuary to the victimized. We might need a physical space that wipes the blank stare off modern people's eyes to see a reoriented world under the Lordship of Christ.

To all those who meet in houses, I am sure all of this can be done in a house gathering. It is just as possible that art, meal, archichecture, furniature, everthing can embody the incarnational Christ in a living room. But sometimes it might be ok to say, you just need a building. Not for some large big box grandiosity where the sign of the cross is not visible. Not for some monstrous spending that dwarfs and disfigures the surrounding community with corporate presense. But a church inhabiting the community which visibly embodies the life of Christ in our midst. I think sometimes (not all the times, and it requires discernment) such a building is incarnational.

I think of all of the dying vestiges of a past churchlife in the cities where the life of His Body once lived but somehow died or moved on - where the old buildings are left empty in city neighbourhoods desperately needing a visible witness of the new life made possible in Christ. As long as the missional incarnational DNA remains, I say these buildings might be the very places for a re-incarnation of the gospel.

Our church started in a church building left after the previous church was closed. We filled it with art, camped out on its property, and now seek to engage the community from its launching pad. It provides the base for the Presense in the bland suburbs. In the midst of the urban landscape, and especially the suburbs, there may be times (not all the time) when such old buildings provide the basis for a uniqiue physical presense? What do you think?.

Next time I’ll post on “Beauty and Incarnational: Contrary Thoughts on Being Incarnational 2” and the next time after that - “The Centrality of the Gathering-Eucharist Formation: Contrary Thoughts on Being Incarnational 3.”

Having planted a missional church from 10 people, and having gone through much pain and joy, I have wondered … what if you could warn people up front what this all would mean for their lives and expectations before they started gathering together. What expectations would you warn those first gathering people against? And if you did deliver such a warning list , would there be anyone left to gather? It’s kind of like marriage, or doing a Ph.D… if you truly knew the cost going in would you still do it? But looking back after going through it, you wouldn’t give up the experience and joy for anything. So perhaps it is best for people NOT to know all of what they (and you) are going to have to go through in a missional church plant.
Of course, I couldn’t have written such a warning because I did not even know all of what I was getting into and what God was calling us to.
Neverthless, looking back, here’s what my warning list would like like to all those who would join a missional church gathering. As Life on the Vine looks to plant another gathering in the future, maybe such a warning list would ease the way for them. Would you give such a list to people as you begin a church gathering? What expectations would you warn against?
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TEN THINGS ANYONE WHO JOINS IN A TWENTY FIRST CENTURY MISSIONAL CHURCH PLANT SHOULD NOT EXPECT

1.) Should not expect to regularly come to church for just one hour, get what you need for your own personal growth and development, and your kid’s needs, and then leave til next Sunday. Expect mission to change your life. Expect however a richer life than you could have ever imagined.

2.) Should not expect that Jesus will fit in with every consumerist capitalist assumption, lifestyle, schedule or accoutrement you may have adopted before coming here. Expect to be freed from a lot of crap you will find out you never needed.

3.) Should not expect to be anonymous, unknown or be able to disappear in this church Body. Expect to be known and loved, supported in a glorious journey.

4.) Should not expect production style excellence all the time on Sunday worship gatherings. Expect organic, simple and authentic beauty.

5.) Should not expect a raucous "light out" youth program that entertains the teenagers, puts on a show that gets the kids "pumped up," all without parental involvement. Instead as the years go by, with our children as part of our life, worship and mission (and when the light shows dim and the cool youth pastor with the spiked hair burns out) expect our youth to have an authentic relationship with God thru Christ that carries them through a lifetime of journey with God.

6.) Should not expect to always "feel good,"or ecstatic on Sunday mornings. Expect that there will ALSO be times of confession, lament, self-examination and just plain silence.

7.) Should not expect a lot of sermons that promise you God will prosper you with "the life you've always wanted" if you’ll just believe Him and step out on faith and give some more money for a bigger sanctuary. Expect sustenance for the journey.

8.) Should not expect rapid growth whereby we grow this church from 10 to a thousand in three years. Expect slower organic inefficient growth that engages people’s lives where they are at and sees troubled people who would have nothing to do with the gospel marvelously saved.

9.) Should not expect all the meetings to happen in a church building. Expect a lot of the gatherings will be in homes, or sites of mission.

10.) Should not expect arguments over style of music, color of carpet, or even doctrinal outlier issues like dispensationalism. Expect mission to drive the conversation.

O AND BY THE WAY … Should not expect that community comes to you …. I am sorry but true community in Christ will take some "effort"and a reshuffling of priorities for both you and your kids. Yes I know you want people to come to you and reach out to you and you’re hurting and busy. But assuming you are a follower of Christ (this message is not for strangers to the gospel) you must learn that the answer to all those things is to enter into the practices of "being the Body" in Christ, including sitting, eating, sharing and praying together.

If anyone out there is interested in this kind of place … join us or another missional church gathering somewhere.

Hopefully you noticed the new design of what was "the Great Giveaway" blog. I changed the the blog to reflect that the conversations here will no longer be centered around the book, the Great Giveaway, (the blog had long since moved on) but upon the wider issues of missional church, pomo, evangelicalism and the struggles of pastoring in these times. If you are a regular here, please note the change in web address. We’re hoping to get an RSS feed or something on the blog to help those interested in staying connected to the blog. It will take some time to get the other features up and running. I only blog once a week, and I continue to plan on keeping to that schedule on the topics listed above. The posts are mostly out of my reading, research, and conversations I'm having with missional pastors and thinkers. I owe the new blog look to the wonderful work of Nathan Colquhoun and Pernell Goodyear who introduced me to Nathan. All I can say is thanks and I owe you man, although Christian friends aren’t allowed to reciprocate acts of such kindness in a “transactional” manner.

As the archives reveal, November marks a whole year that I have been blogging but that hardly tells the story of where I’ve been these past twelve months. For these past twelve months have been filled with blessings no one in their right mind could have ever imagined.

For starters, in this past year, I have seen our church grow missionally in ways I did not foresee. It didn’t always make everyone happy. And so it’s been a year of growth with plenty of tumult to go with it. New ands amazing leadership has emerged. I am going to be more focused on preaching and leading the direction of the church, reducing my load while increasing my vigor for God’s work at Life on the Vine, a truly amazing community of Christ in the W suburbs.

In this past year, I published a book, the Great Giveaway, which I really thought only my mom and my wife would read. God has blessed it. The notes, e-mails, I have received from all around N. America have been humbling, and the friends I have made all over N. America have been absolutely stunning. I have learned so much from so many in one short year’s time.

In this past year, I had a bit of a health scare. Everything’s good now. But I came home from Russia and was doing radio interviews, trying to earn money on the side for our adoption, handling a growing little church and … man… the body gave out. It was a time of challenge and self-examination.

In this past year, I was asked to submit application for the B R Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary, a place I have taught at and cherished for years. And God blessed me with the position. I embark on this starting January 1.

In this past year, I have traveled and made presentations on various issues facing the churches of N America. I have been present with pastors, with emerging church leaders, with para church organizational leaders, on campus with seminary students. To list some highlights, in March I was at Forum for Evangelical Theology at Garret Evangelical, in April I was at the Conference on Christianity and Consumerism (although my podcast burned up) in Minneapolis, in May I was at the Freeway Cafe (Emerging Church Mecca of Canada)speaking at the Resonate Echo event in Hamilton Ontario, in July I was at C&MA General Assembly speaking twice in Edmonton, I presented at Emergent Canada in Edmonton that same week, I was at the Theology and Culture Think Tank at Minneapolis in Sept, I also presented at the Foursquare Great Lakes pastor’s conference also in Minneapolis in September. These highlights don't even begin to summarize the tons of conversations I had with missional pastors, friends, leaders. The changes in leadership in the church is truly seismic.

As I said, in this past year the book, the Great Giveaway, came out and was reviewed well. Highlights were Jordon Cooper, Scott McKnight, Darryl Dash, Len Hjalmarson, Richard Vincent, Precipice Mag, Christianity Today, Brian Houghtaling, Christian BookPreviews, There were many more not available any longer througfh a link. Thanks especially to all the bloggers. I owe a great debt to all of you.

Lastly, in this past year, we received our first child into our home .. wow… what a precious gift God sent into our lives. We went to Russia, and adopted Max (whole name is “Elmer Maxim”). I just could have never dreamed this journey would be so rich. My wife Rae Ann is an awesome mom.

In this coming year, I hope to post more regularly, once a week if not more. I hope to use this blog here for more conversations. I am going to vigorously combine my teaching at Seminary with pastoring. I am working on developing a missional church Think-Tank. And I am working on a new book entitled “These Kinds of People: Evangelical Fundamentalism and the Moral Life - How we got to be these kinds of people and where we go from here.” It is a character and virtues analysis of evangelicalism in terms of its doctrine and practices. What kinds of character has it produced? How does the world view evangelicalism? What kind of people need we be to reflect the gospel in our politics, our economics and our sexuality? I am combining some of my most instinctive allegiances to Hauerwas, McIntyre, Yoder, Milbank, and others with some of the political cultural theorists of the Continent I have been delving into - Zizek and Badiou among others. This is the book I have long wanted to write. It will take me three years to cover much needed academic territory as well as make it readable to those of us who seek a reinvigoration of the ecclesiological life, practice and witness and spiritual transformation of what's left of evangelicalism in N. America.

Thanks for reading this past year. Thanks to those who comment!!! I hope to be much more involved as the whirlwind of the past twelve months has settled into a quiet storm.

Blessings ... David Fitch