Giving Yourself Away…

So, for this class I have been watching a lot of movies that, according to the prof, illustrate a “postmodern milieu,” whatever that means. So between Blade Runner, What Dreams may Come and The Matrix a theme seems to have arisen that is being played out in this type of movie…giving yourself away.

Then I started skimming through my favorite author of late, Dean Koontz, and started seeing a similar theme. That it is through the primary characters self-giving and sometimes self-sacrifice, that the ultimate good is accomplished. That life is not fully lived if only lived for self. There is more out there than can be seen or even imagined and it is only revealed when you are willing, even desiring, to live beyond the now and live into the future.

What is it that is worth living, or even dying, for? Will we give ourselves away so that others can fully live? So that we can fully live?

Self-sacrifice is the cost of real relationship. Now by self-sacrifice I do not mean it in some self-demeaning, accepting abuse way. I mean that the willingness to live beyond the me and embrace both micro-community of accountable relationships and macro-community of larger relationships. We live interwoven into each other’s lives, realizing that we are changed and molded by every relationship and that in those relationships we are given the opportunity to live Christ.

Isn’t this the way Christ teaches us to live? The life with the shadow of the cross ever before us. Jesus illustrated that to live fully is to embrace the cost of life. I pray that I can live the kind of life that is lived fully and that I live until I die! I can only do this if I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Gracious God, grant me the ability and desire to live and die in your presence and for a purpose far greater than my own. In the name of the One who died that we might live, I pray. Amen.

Live to Tell by Brad J. Kallenberg
Evangelism for a Post-Modern Age

These are the notes I took from Live to Tell. For the past few years I have worked with the North Carolina Conference in developing a program called The Academy of Christian Witness. This idea came about when I discovered, as part of the NC Conference Commission on Evangelism, how few pastors felt comfortable sharing their faith or teaching others how to share their faith. Kallenberg captures the heart of what I have been teaching for the past few years, simply that telling your story, then telling God's story then telling where your story was divinely interupted by God's story is the best way to share your faith. Thankfully, as I struggle in my story, I remain:

Lost in Grace,
Marty

Metaphysical Holism—groups behave like real entities that both constitue each member’s identity and have top-down influence on them.

Linguistic Holism—language is the means by which we think and act in the world and cannot be pried off the world of experience and analyzed in isolation because the conceptual language we speak determines the shape of the world we inhabit.

Epistemological Holism—set of beliefs or paradigm we have of our world that forms an interlocking set that we share with the rest of our community. It is very resilient and typically reisists change. When change comes it comes all at once (paradigm shift).

“Conversion involves a change in social identity. Second, in large measure, this new social identity is accomplished by the acquisition new language skills. Finally, conversion is constituted by a paradigm shift that results in bringing the world into focus in a whole new way.” (p. 46)

“Because conversion involves a change in social identity, evangelism must be a corporate practice, executed by a community that is the source of the new believer’s identity. Second, conversion involves the acquisition of a new conceptual language, evangelism must engage outsiders in conversations spoken in that language. Third, because conversion involves a paradigm shift, evangelism must seek to assist that shift by being dialogical in style and by, wherever possible, enlisting potential converts in telling the story.” (p. 64)

“Conversion is a timeful process of enculturation into community.”
There is a “persuasive power of participation in a form of community.”
The God factor enters in because of “the Spirit-ordained power of narrative.” (p.118)

Metaphors:

Evangelism is more like…
“sailing than proofreading.” (p. 123)
“questing than archery.” (p. 124)
“acting kindly than cobbling.” (p. 124)
“medicine than parallel parking.” (p. 125)

Rethinking Thinking

So we were talking about epistemology today in a class I’m taking on emerging cultures.

Epistemology is about how you know what you know. How do you know what you know? Does it come from inside and is acknowledged outside or does it come from outside and then is affirmed inside? Is there really anything that you “know” that is true, objective knowledge or is it all filtered through the subjective filter of our life?

Wow, that was a mouthful. I’m not even sure it said anything? The next point that struck me today was about understanding. It was tied to epistemology. Why don’t we understand? Communication is about understanding and sometimes when we are communicating with people of different filters and cultures we just can’t understand eachother. That is because we bring to ever circumstance, thought or conversation an internal construct or paradigm that helps us make sense of what we are hearing in light of what we already “know” (see, its getting a confused again, isn’t it?).

Maybe because we think completely differently than we ever have before. Maybe we will need to think completely differently than we are thinking today. For instance, there are some things my brain just hasn’t mastered yet that my nineteen year old son understands instinctually, like HALO. HALO is this complicated battle game that requires you to navigate your persona through obstacles while defending yourself against attack. The controller requires that you move at least four fingers independently of the other to perform separate functions. I can’t hardly walk and chew gum, so this manner of thought and action seems way beyond my ability…it drives me crazy. My son, on the other hand, finds it hilarioius just to walk up to me and blow me away. I guess I have to relearn how to think.

David Bosch said it this way:

“Worldviews are integrative and interpretive frameworks by which order and disorder are judged, they are standards by which reality is managed pursued, sets of hinges on which all our everyday thinking and doing turns.” Believing in the Future, p. 49

Our relationship with Jesus does that to our soul. It re-arranges how we think, believe and live. It calls us to a whole new life…transformation is scary business. Thankfully I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

The Culture of Too Busy

Why are you so busy that you have to talk on your cell phone in the rest stop bathroom stall? During the holidays I’m traveling down the highway between Waynesville and Durham. It is a four hour drive that I make fairly often to pick up my daughter. I usually stop at the same rest stop which is about ½ way between the two places. As I walk into the restroom I hear this guy talking. I look around but don’t see anyone, then I realize, he is sitting in the rest stop bathroom stall talking business on his cell phone. A couple of questions came to mind..

One, why are you so busy you have to talk on your cell phone in the rest stop bathroom stall? I mean is there really any deal that can’t wait a few moments. Remember, back in the day, when you were on the cutting edge if you had an answering machine? When you weren’t home, you just weren’t home. They would call back later. Faith Popcorn, the wacky futurist, says that a lot of people are throwing out their electronic communication equipment, selling their suburban homes and moving to the country. She calls it “unplugging.” The day I heard this guy getting all torqued about something he could not control three-hundred miles away sitting in a public restroom, I almost threw out my cell phone…almost.

Two, does the guy on the other line have any idea where you are? Wouldn’t that gross you out? What if you knew that the guy you were talking business with was sitting in a public rest stop bathroom stall? Would that make you respect him more or less? It just seems kind of odd. In our culture it seems that image is everything. What you where, where you live, who you hang out with all define you. We all have skeletons in our closets. Things that would diminish others views of us. I would think this picture would definitely diminish his co-workers opinions of him, plus if you got that mental picture, wouldn’t it be hard to take him seriously ever again?

Lastly, what if he dropped the phone, would he retrieve it? I’m thinking as tied to that piece of equipment as he was, he would definitely dive in for it. This goes to priorities. What matters? It seems t me two things have a chunk of the market shares of our lives, business and busyness. They both will take all you have to give and require more. When I say business, I’m not just talking about vocation, though that is part of it, I’m talking about anything you give your life to. It could be school or work or a hobby, whatever becomes a time-idol for you. Busyness is the same way. Some of us may not concentrate on one thing but spread ourselves to thin that we are constantly in motion. If I have learned nothing else from therapy it is that busyness is usually a coping mechanism to keep us from reflecting and listening to the still small voice in us and outside of us.

So, if you catch me in the bathroom at a rest stop on the phone, remind me to unplug. Five minutes of silence won’t kill me (or you). Stop, shut up and be silent, then you may find that you will be, like me…

Lost in Grace,

Marty

The Sacramental Prophet…

Reflections on The Church in Emerging Culture edited by Leonard Sweet

My favorite line in The Matrix may well be when Morpheus tells Neo, "there is a difference between knowing the truth and living the truth." It is time the Church decided to live the Truth instead of just acknowledging it's existence.

With passion in heart and pen in hand I read Leonard Sweets collection of articles and responses from five of the Church’s postmodern prophets. In The Church in Emerging Culture Andy Crouch, Michael Horton, Fredrica Mathewes-Green, Brian McLaren and Erwin McManus write and discuss how the church effects the culture and it’s call to transform it and not hide from it. I found myself resonating with of the writers who seem to be at opposite ends of most of the discussion.

Andy Crouch is a Haurwasian leaning Methodist with strong Arminian sentiments and a focused understanding of the power of sacramental theology. His critique of the postmodern understanding of the culture does not seem to jive with my understandings of it, but his reflections on the importance and necessity for the sacraments to form and transform the world is right on. As Crouch states, when reflecting on the consumerist nature of our culture, “the Eucharist is the place where the church practices post consumerism.” (p. 83) He goes on to illustrate biblically and historically how the Church views the Eucharist as a place where real presence meets the real problems of our world. The answers, according to Crouch, can be found in embracing and practicing the sacraments in a much deeper way than the post-enlightment Church has done so in the past. “The sacraments answer the postmodern hunger for a true story after modernity’s impoverished recital of facts and figures.” (p. 85)

On the other end of the sacramental argument is futurist and social justice advocate, Erwin McManus. His church, Mosaic, attracts a rag tag, fugitive group of people who find meaning and transformation in the person and work of Jesus Christ. His critique of the Church is around its bowing to the culture instead of standing over and against the culture to implement change. He states, “To speak of culture we must move from talking about who we are to who we are becoming.” (p. 237) He goes on to argue against the church attempting to live apart from the community when he says, “Whenever the church assumes the role of an institution committed to protecting its constituency from the emerging culture, we reduce our impact to a drop in the bucket.” (p. 238)

Is it possible to bring these two together? What rings in my heart is what Wesley called the marriage of piety and social justice. Can we practice the real presence of Christ in the sacraments so that we can become the real presence of Christ in the world? Can we stand with one foot anchored in the ancient practices of the Church and speak the language of the emerging culture? That is the challenge for the church today. Perhaps this is, indeed, my challenge. My challenge may be to become a sacramental prophet. One who calls for action informed by the sacraments. One claiming the promise of baptism and desiring to live a life of dying to self. One molded and shaped by the frequent practice of the Eucharist and, thereby, called to feed those who hunger for food as well as righteousness. We, the Church, must be ancient and future without compromise. We must be transformed by our faith so that we can live transformation for a world hungry for mystery. Essentially, it seems to me, that the sacraments provide the mystery to a culture hungry to reach beyond it’s self and the practices of social justice provide the action that speaks louder than words. Thanks be to God that in this struggle I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

There Is No Spoon…

A young “buddah-ish” child sits in the middle of the floor staring at spoons and “bending” them with his mind as Neo walks in to see the Oracle. This scene comes in the middle of this version of a postmodern gospel, The Matrix. This turning point in the movie weaves together the movie’s two messages. Those messages, inextricably woven together, are that we are to question reality and embrace mystery. The Matrix requires the viewer to grapple with the known and seek out the unknown.

How do you bend the spoon? You can’t until you realize that “there is no spoon.” Reality is not really reality. All that you perceive is simply a construct of electric impulses to your brain. The world is a product of your perception, therefore changing your perception allows for the changing of your world. All of reality is, then, up for grabs. Once you become aware that your reality is not reality, you have the ability to control it. To control it, you must first question its very existence.

Isn’t that how we got in to this mess in the first place? We questioned. Neo begins with an unsettling feeling that the world is not complete. That something is askew. He begins questioning and seeking answers. The answers he finds only lead to more questions. His reality isn’t real and the real world is an abysmal place of struggle and pain. Question reality.

The second message is to embrace mystery. Rather than being the definer of his own destiny he must accept that destiny is discovered amidst the struggles of embracing mystery. Signs and symbols lead to actions. Metaphor and encrypted messages from a cookie-baking Oracle provide direction but not decision. Neo discovers that he is no longer living just for himself but is living beyond himself. To fully live his destiny he has to embrace what he cannot believe and live what cannot possibly be true. He has to believe and, perhaps more importantly, allow himself to be believed in. Embrace mystery.

How like the Christian walk? Reality is not formed by perception but by mystery. We have to question reality when viewed through the lens of the Eucharist. Our baptismal eyes, newly formed in light of our embracing of the mystery of Christ, allow us to realize that all that is, is simply perception and not Truth. That which is Truth is far deeper than our ability to perceive. When we begin our faith journey it is not simply the beginning of our life believing in God but beginning to realize that God believes in us. Our God-shaped destiny is out there but seems to be difficult to discern, much less, fulfill. It requires that we question reality and embrace mystery. This is the struggle that I continue as I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Indigenous Faith...Believing Where You Are

All lasting faith is indigenous. It is birthed inside the language and culture of the tribe or group that embraces it. The names for God and the scriptures must be understandable by the people who God is laying claim upon. This explains while colonialist evangelism never made significant inroads into the two thirds world. There was the assumption that to be Christian was to be Western. It can be seen by the Christian expansion of the last decade into these areas of the world that it was not the message that was being rejected but the means of communicating the message.

In Whose Religion is Christianity, Senneh states, “The indigenous discovery of Christianity, by contrast, describes local people encountering the religion through mother tongue discernment and in the light of people’s own needs and experiences.” (Sanneh, 55) Reading Sanneh with the words from United Methodists bishops serving in the two-thirds world ringing in my ears, the symbiosis of their words was like spiritual stereo. While western Christianity barely holds on to its ever waning base, the two thirds world is exploding as the Word becomes flesh to them in their mother tongue. They are embracing God that can be named and claimed in their own language and embracamidstist the circumstances of their life. The Western church must return to a missional understanding of the faith, embracing an ever deepening understanding of the culture, in order to be able to proclaim the gospel effectively again.

What is the mother tongue of the Barnes and Noble, X-box and internet generation coming of age today. It is certainly not the language of the mid-to late nineteen hundreds. It is more attuned to the language of the first century. They are image driven and desire connections far deeper than their parents. They seek to replace broken families with whole relationships. They are spiritual but not religious, worshipful without an object of worship and seeking but not finding. During the next few days there will be multiple posts regarding the language of the post-modern culture as I journal on discoveries in literature, cultural observation and, of course, movies. How can we get them to understand that they are...

Lost in Grace,
Marty