Last week was a busy week for conferences (plus I officiated a wedding). The EkklesiaProject Conference was Mon-Tues-Wed and the Emergent Midwest Gathering was Fri-Sat. Here are some highlights from Ekklesia first.

The Ekklesiaproject conference focused on Learning Christ – Congregational Formation. Stephen Fowl spoke to us out of Phillipians. He translated Phil 1:27 as “Do this one thing: order your common life in a manner worthy of the gospel.” He said this verse is the centerpiece – the punch line for the entire epistle. Fowl said this is the task Paul gives the Phillipians and it is one the primary tasks Paul leaves the church of the 21st century. The rest of the epistle is unfolding communal practices of imitation in becoming like Christ as set around the pivotal Phil 2:5-11. He put forth a wonderful insight out of Phil 3:15 “Let as many of us as are mature display this way of thinking, feeling and acting. If any of you are inclined to adopt a different pattern of thinking, feeling and acting, God will reveal to you the proper mindset to adopt.” He said that last phrase illustrates the difference between Stalinist formation and a formation where God is at work. In other words there is certainty for Paul as to what is the way of Christ, but no need to coerce it for God will work it out through faithfulness over time. I could say more but I recommend Stephen Fowl’s theological commentary on Phillipians.

Mark Lau Branson (from Fuller) presented a workshop where he talked about the work of leading transformation in congregations. It described the difference between STANDARD CHURCH PROBLEM SOLVING, i.e. go into a church, study the problems, talk solutions and then propose a plan to implement solutions – and APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY, i.e. asking questions about where God has been at work and then stoking the imagination as to how to further participate in these ways as a body. He called the latter interpretive leadership. He said the deadest churches he had been had still been places where God had been wonderfully at work, but there were no witnesses. He said every epistle of Paul (except Galations) begins with a thanksgiving prayer. Branson asked “when you begin like that, how does that shape your imagination?” He said starting out with appreciative questions about where God is working shapes the imagination totally differently than starting out by asking what’s wrong with this church, where have we failed? What are the problems in this church? Branson then went on to describe his work in a small little Methodist church dying in Oakland. The example of this one missional community is stunning. It’s impact began in the local community school, tutoring, led to changes in school lunch, class size, school funding, state wide! He said hospitality for the NT takes place in the neighbor’s home, on the neighbor’s turf. He described powerfully a community getting engaged missionally in their neighborhood. I came away stoked! I recommend his Memories, Hopes and Conversations.

My last highlight from the ekklesiaproject conference is some Hauerwasianisms … things Stanley Hauerwas said in the panel discussion that ended the afternoon on Tuesday. (I think Stanley said at least most of these). I could comment all of these, but there’s no space in this post. Stanley said:

• Truth that is desperate is a lie
• It is peculiar to American Christians to be able to say “Jesus is Lord and that’s my personal opinion”
• Stanley talked about the immobilization of the church. He said pastors should quit doing everything … and then told of his pastor in South Bend who would announce from the pulpit for four straight weeks “The altar cloth is dirty and needs cleaning and ironing.” Stanley complained why doesn’t he just do it … but that would have missed the whole point.
• Politics is the art of the possible, but the great question is who defines what is possible.(a quote from someone else)
• Locality is crucial. Of course, I want the war in Iraq to end – but I want the janitors at Duke University to have a living wage.
• National politics is like the Roman circus in first century Rome. It is entertainment to keep us distracted from the real issues.
• Voting is a form of violence. You vote once, then 51% tells the 49% what to do.
• Think about the effort it takes to come together and hear everyone – the church does not vote.

The MIDWEST EMERGENT CONFERENCE
I also went to the Midwest Emergent Conference in the Burbs. I could only go Friday during the day because I officiated a wedding for a great couple at our church, Fri nite and Sat morning. I offer just a few comments. Mike and Julie Clawson are to be commended for the great work they did pulling this altogether. (And I wish I could remember the name of the woman who worked alongside Mike and made this happen to commend her as well). I learned just a little bit more about what is going on amidst the Emergent conversations. I benefited from excellent conversations with Will Samson, Tony Jones among many other friends I see from time to time.

In the first session, Tony Jones talked about the need to move beyond the polarities of liberal and conservative and not let our theology be defined by such binary ways of looking at the world. He talked about avoiding a “third way” still held captive to the rationalities of modernity because it is still defined against conservative and liberal.

Doug Pagitt then argued for a wholistic gospel that includes teaching both about Jesus and about the kingdom of God. He seemed to imply strategically that the kingdom of God should be separated from Jesus. He got a lot of hands with questions on that. He also reminded us that the kingdom is bigger than the church and that God is at work everywhere, whether urban, or suburban or rural. He rightfully emphasized that wherever God is active and working in the world, we want to join in with that.

I also showed up at the book party for Will Samson’s Justice in the Burbs. Will’s doing Ph.D. work at U of Kentucky. I enjoyed our talk. I like the ground he is covering in his Ph D work. and we will be having him at Northern in the fall.

The week was hectic. The highlight of the conferences was meeting great people. I suggest the words of Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt point to the two central questions for the future of both emergent, emerging churches, and missional communities. As I look back on the Ekklesia time from the Emergent time, I believe Hauerwas would agree with what Tony and Doug said (on at least that last statement I described by Doug). Yet I see in the Hauerwasian club a post modern suspicion towards the possibilities of true justice being forwarded through the politics of America. Sometimes Stanley is almost Foucaultian in his relinquishing of any ability of cooperative justice efforts to overcome the totalizing powers of capitalism and democracy. Personally, I’d like to see missional/emerging thinkers engage the ever ubiquitous Fo
ucault and derivatives thereof on this issue. What about you? Does Stanley’s words about local justice, and his comments on national politics disturb the ease with which we say the missional mantra “God is already at work in the world, the church’s job is to find ways to join in.” I still believe these basic tenets, I merely suggest that our theology and ecclesiology must be robust behind these statements in order for them to mean anything substantive. I shall post more on this in the future.

This morning Matt, one of the pastors at our gathering, and I met to discuss what’s happening in our body, plans for the fall, and basically how things are going. A phrase Matt said stuck out from the conversation that was worth remembering:

Our worst housegathering is our best housegathering.

Matt described how some house gatherings really struggle. We gather in homes as missional orders in the geographical neighborhoods. Part of the missional order is to be with people that we don’t choose to be with but rather are with in geographical proximity. Part of the missional journey then is learning how to talk share, support, pray for and edify people that are different than you. Sometimes, especially at the beginning, it is not a feel good time, a comfortable time or even an enjoyable experience. And so, as we were talking between us, we thought of times, when someone had to be challenged more than once to stick with a housegathering. Often people are challenged to rethink the instinct to leave something ‘which just isn’t clicking.’ Many times we pastors might be thinking “this house gathering is our most dysfunctional gathering,” Age group differences, lack of affinity between people, even theological differences make a missional house gathering a struggle in our suburban culture where people are so accustomed to choosing their friends. We’d find ourselves saying this is our worst housegathering. But then a major breakthrough, some trust, and the true story of someone would come out in said housegathering and incredible learning, healing and a heart for mission would burst forth. The maintaining of the difference in the composition of the house gathering was the very thing that made it a place for learning how to love. Something unimaginable, something profoundly deep, life expanding and mission inspiring would take place. IN OTHER WORDS, IT IS THE HOUSEGATHERING STRUGGLING THE MOST WITH DIFFERENCE, our worst housegathering that would become our best housegathering. And it was the preserving of difference that made way for such a missional order of community where a.) people can learn to love the other and b.) become places of hospitality, ministry and service for Christ’s mission.

Charles Taylor, the brilliant philosopher of language, epistemology, and history of modernity offers the following description of pseudo community in modernity.

The primacy of self-fulfillment, particularly in its therapeutic variants, generates the notion that the only associations one can identify with are those formed voluntarily and which foster “self-fulfillment, such as the “life-style enclaves” in which people of similar interests or situations cluster – e.g. the retirement suburbs of the South, or revocable romantic relationships. Beyond these associations lies the domain of strategic relations, where instrumental considerations are paramount. The therapeutic outlook seems to conceive community on the model of associations like Parents without Partners, a body which is highly useful for its members while they are in a given predicament, but to which there is no call to feel any allegiance once one is no longer in need. (Sources of the Self p. 508).

I worry that so much of what evangelicals call community is built on affinity, self-fulfillment and common interest. And when people change, or needs change, we up and leave the community we have chosen to participate in. The group is easily discarded for some other community that best fits my needs and lifestyle. Missional orders are of a different ilk. They are built on difference and the common commitment to mission. And because of this, amazing growth and supernatural engagements with God working in us and thru us in the neighborhood are possible. The housegatherings we might think the most dysfunctional are the best housegatherings.

What has been your experience of difference in your house gathering?

I’m teaching my summer class in the Northern D.Min program this week. The class, “church in the postmodern context,” is both an exploration of ecclesiology, and the cultural categories of modernity verus postmodernity. It is built on my own book the Great Giveaway as well as Jaimie K Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Also foundational is Nancy Murphy’s (along with James McClendon) “Distinguishing Modern and PostModern Theologies.”Modern Theology 1989 (which can be downloaded from the web). From these introductory texts we explore a host of fine writings in the field of postmodernity, Scripture and theology to work on an analysis of each student’s ministry issue in their Doctor of Ministry program. It’s always a busy and stimulating week. I’ll be back posting in a couple of days.

In the Great Giveaway (ch. 2) I argued that the new post-Enlightenment generations will not trust the highly produced worship seeker-sensitive Sunday morning services of the mega church. They trust community, places to connect, authentic lived truth, the organic beauty of a simple worship liturgy. I wrote:

Postmoderns … suspect the machinations of consumer-oriented messages to have power over them to make “buy” decisions. Instead postmoderns recognize truth most where it is lived day to day one with another. The postmodern is convinced of truth through participation, not consumer appeals, through wholly lived display, not reasoned arguments. Seeker services will still work for the boomers and those raised in modernity either by age or in the Evangelical subculture. These people of modernity were taught to trust only their individual minds or experiences. Postmoderns however know their minds or experiences can be manipulated. Modernist boomers are suspicious of tradition in the true Enlightenment sense. They are the ultimate feeling generation, self indulgent and focused on their own “felt needs.” Post modernity however, finds a generation that suspects the blatant consumer oriented persuasion of the dominant media. Their “felt needs” have an ever shorter MTV-like life span. Some of this Next generation sees marketing and advertising as capitalist intrusions with an agenda into forming people certain ways so as to benefit certain economic power interests. They respect truth that is lived. The postmodern generation may enjoy the show for a short while. But they are looking for a home; a community wherein a belonging can take root and the moral fabric of truth can be borne out. If postmodern culture is for real, seeker services are running out of time. The next generation seeks community over anonymity and is over dosed on consumer appeals to felt needs. Postmoderns desire something bigger to be transformed in to.

Now comes this stunning post by my friend Darryl Dash reporting on the popular Canadian radio host Drew Marshall’s experiment to hire non-Christians to visit churches and report back on their experiences (reminiscent of this and this). These accounts, that Darryl reports on, seem to substantiate what I (and many others) was writing about. I urge you to read Darryl’s post. It is stunning at how the need for this development, of going from produced church to organic community, is eerily recited back to us in the reports of these two non Christians.

Canada, by most accounts, is ahead of United States in the march to post Christendom. I grew up there, spend much time there and count many Canadians as good friends. Yet I believe in Canada many evangelicals will still insist on the mega-church as the answer to contextualize Christianity for the challenges of a hyper-busy consumerist late capitalist society. This report however argues against that. In the United States, I believe (more than in Canada) evangelicals will continue to build mega churches to warehouse the existing Christian base in our population. But we will die in two generations if we do not seed and support the missional efforts of the missional church/ emerging church movement.

What do you think about the imminent future of the mega-church in Canada and the United States?Do the reports of the non-Christians in Darryl’s post substantiate the thesis as articulated above? Can the mega church change to survive in post Christendom?

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I’m in Indiana for a few days relaxing at the home of my wife’s family. Hope everyone is having (or had) some nice getaway time for either July 4th or Canada Day weekend.