Pagan Christianity January 14, 2008

Frank Viola and George Barna have partnered up to write a book called Pagan Christianity (The title itself is a critque of church as we know it.)

When George Barna’s research causes him to question the very shape that the church has taken, questioning the need for buildings that get used for a few hours a week, questioning the programs and staffing arrangements that have become standard operating procedure, when the church growth movement, the rise of the mega church, contemporary worship, none of that has stemmed the steady decline in participation in church as we know it, that’s got to give us pause.

We’re in an exhilerating and frightening age when NOBODY really has a handle on what’s next for the church. We increasingly know that church as it has come to be practiced is pretty much uninteresting and unsustainable.

For some of what Viola and Barna have to say, here’s a gigantic quote from the book:

“WE ARE LIVING IN THE MIDST of a silent revolution of faith. Millions of Christians throughout the world are leaving the old, accepted ways of “doing church” for even older

more to come January 12, 2008

I’ve been a bad blogger lately. I’m hoping to catch up next week. I’d like to do some reflecting on Alan Hirsch’s excellent book, The Forgotten Ways. I’ve read it once and I’m part way through again. Hirsch and Michael Frost collaborated on a book I haven’t read, The Shaping of Things to Come.

These guys are just saying things about the future of God’s mission in the world, in a way that I really connect with.

Anyway, more on this later. And I’m sure we’ll cobble together another event some time in the near future!

Getting our priorities straight January 2, 2008

This month at OVMC, we’ll be teasing out some of the stuff that Michael Frost was getting at in his talk that’s there for the viewing in the last post.

Here’s what we’ll be looking at more specifically:

January 6 Missio Dei — God is always on the move, specifically in our direction. God seeks us. He who created us and has loved us from the beginning, and has sent His Son to redeem us, continues to pursue us — and not just the churchy “us” we’re used to thinking about. God does some of His best work outside the church walls. 

January 13 Participatio Christi—Our role, then, is to participate in what He is doing, to make sure our best energies are engaged when and where the love of Jesus is at work. We neither determine our own agenda, nor merely imitate His, but rather participate in His, according to His call and guidance. 

January 20 Imago Dei—We recognize that each person — outside and inside the church body — is created in the image of God, and thus possess the inherent dignity and value that accompanies it. We recognize also that God has been, and continues to be, at work within them, leading them on a unique and sacred journey. 

January 27 Corpus Christi – The temple’s not on some mountain, or in Jerusalem, or on Memorial Highway in Oley. Our frail bodies are the temple, and collectively we are the Body of Christ, with Jesus himeslf as our head. There is an inherent interconnectedness, and interdependence. In participating with each other, the weak with the strong, the old with the young, the advanced with the beginners, we cooperate with Christ in what He is doing in our midst and beyond.

**some of this wording was taken from another web site. I’ll track down the author and give due credit.

The challenge in all this, illustrated so well by Blind Beggar in this post, is putting church into some kind of reverse osmosis process, where, instead of a once a week Sunday gathering being THE entry point, we become more and more a Corpus Christi that engages with the people and culture around us in meaningful ways, showing up where God has been already showing up, in the shopping malls, the bars, the coffee shops, the soccer fields, where people are just trying to figure out which end is up, not really caring what’s going on in that weird church building they pass on the way to work … anyway, you get the idea …