There's something happening here. The words of that old song reverberate within me when I think of the events happening in our world and in the Church. Harvey Cox, recently retired from the faculty at Harvard, has delivered a seminal work on his take on where Faith Is, Has Been, and Is Going. The Future of Faith is incredibly approachable by the lay reader, yet Cox's theory on the future of faith is hard-hitting, hopeful, and ground-shaking. I highly recommend this book for the individual reader as well as a group study. Pastors, church leaders, academics, and interested non-Christians will all find places to engage Cox's discussion.
I appreciated this book because of Cox's grasp on history combined with his widespread travels and involvement in inter-faith dialogues across the spectrum. This guy has truly seen it all and his sharp mind and grasp of current events has helped him place this book not within the ivory tower but in the reality of everyday existence.
Something is changing in the sphere of faith. Cox rightly places our current location in between a second and third age of faith. The first age was the Age of the Spirit beginning with Jesus all the way through the persecutions and explosive growth of this underground movement.
The second age was the Age of Belief. This was the period following the Constantinian conversion and the melding of Church and Empire. Catechisms began to appear outlining specific "beliefs" one must hold to be considered a Christian and, upon Constantine's converting the Empire to Christianity, these beliefs also carried with them power and, soon, an elite class of leadership. The clerical class. Now, instead of living in the Faith, one must hold to teachings *about* that faith. Differing theologies were mashed together into one orthodox view and those who missed the cut were labeled heretics... some at the pain of death.
The coming age is Cox's hope and read on the future. This he is calling the Age of the Spirit. He points to many things, to numerous to lay out here, but essentially the role of women in the church has moved away from the male-centered images of Christ and even God to explore further the ways of the Spirit. Also the large numbers of people who have started to identify themselves as spiritual but not religious signals a lack of trust or concern for the institution of the Church. People are realizing that they can have fellowship with each other and God without a mediating influence such as clergy or rote belief systems.
But by and far the most interesting part of Cox's thesis for this reader was his harkening us back to a time when faith did not require one set of beliefs over another. Creeds, statements of beliefs, etc. etc. serve only to divide Christians one from the other he believes. They serve to build walls within the house and each denomination or church or community sits walled off from their brothers and sisters not because they lack a faith in Christ but because they hold different *beliefs about* that faith. Cox sees these belief systems, and their current use in hot button topics in culture, as the rear guard in a system that is fading away.
Just the other night, at a Bible study we hold in a bar in downtown Minneapolis, a young woman told me that she doesn't like going to church because she gets tired of people telling her what to *believe*. Having just read this book I was primed for the ensuing conversation. I think it was mutually edifying and it gives hope to those who are tired of the intra-mural fighting that church can be about more than fighting about whatever the moral issue of the day might be.
I cannot speak more highly of this book. Cox has placed it right in the milieu of contemporary faith issues with a simple, yet shattering, idea. What if we could set aside the arguments over *beliefs* and walk with each other in the *faith*? This is a question that invites a journey. It requires a suspension of what those of us inside the church believe are the *requirements* for membership. Above all, it calls us to be curious about what God is up to in God's world. Can we do it? In the end, it doesn't matter, these changes are coming. My prayer is that we can do this journey with grace and without inflicting more wounds on the other.
Technorati Tags: Book review, emerging church, Harvey Cox, Future of Faith, religion, theology
Isaiah 9: 2-7
“Great Expectations”
Pastor Chris Enstad
We’ve had two children and for each of them there was a time that my wife and I turned to each other and gave thanks to God for giving us 9 months to get ready for each of them to be born. There was much to do in our home for each of them but Liv, our first, she really needed some space cleared in our lives and our homes and our spirits to make her way into this world. WE had to first open the door of what had become our catchall room and basically hire a dumpster to clear out the junk that even relatively broke pastors and teachers seem to be able to accumulate. Then we had to paint that room to make it feel like a nursery, and, being that we weren’t sure if Liv was going to be a boy or a girl, the color choice seemed to be something in the shade of green.
And then the baby showers, then the crib assembly after dutifully researching our purchase on Consumer Reports and Baby 411. Then there were the birthing classes, attended by other scared but not really wanting to show it future parents. And then the waiting. It’s the waiting that really gets to you. That’s when the brain and the heart really take off on their own tangents.
Who will this child be to us? What will the coming of this child do to us and for us? How will our expanded definition of family make its way into our lives, we will gracefully make accommodation for this new way of life, fewer nights out, fewer guys’ nights, less money, less sleep? How will that go for us?
And who will this little child be to the world? Being people of faith we take it almost for granted that we know how our child will be seen by God, as a child of His own hand, created good and well-pleasing to his eye. But what about the world? How will this child be in the world? Will they grow up to fulfill their call? Will they be healthy? Will they be good? So many questions, so many expectations.
It’s the waiting that really gets to you isn’t it?
Today, today we have been given a very special birth announcement. For you see, Mary is pregnant, and she will give birth to a baby boy. And his name shall be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. All authority shall rest upon his shoulders. There shall be endless peace from his throne. He will establish and uphold his rule with justice and righteousness from this time onward and forevermore.
Wonderful, Mighty, Everlasting, Prince.
Great expectations indeed. But it’s the waiting that gets you in the end. What do you do with the waiting?
Well, just as in our own families, and if not in your own immediate family it makes sense to think that someone had to make way in their lives for us to appear, we take this time to prepare. To get ready for the birth of this little, baby.
Little, not big, not accomplished, he hasn’t earned his stripes or been given this rule after a long associate rulership in some other kingdom somewhere. This king of ours comes to us in the diminutive of an infant.
A baby. This little baby comes to us fully human and fully divine. This baby comes to us not in a netflix remailer, ready to be returned to sender after viewing. This baby comes to us not as some human-like form but who is just God in miniature with a fully loaded hard drive with full conscious of what his mission and ministry would be to us. This baby was not born knowing his life would be cut short by his fellow humanity. This baby was born not knowing that his own people would reject him. And yet this baby was born. Fully human. God truly gave to his creation his only begotten Son so that in his true humanity we would find the fellowship and unity that would save us for if this baby were not born a baby how could we have ever been saved?
Who will this baby be for us? How will we make room for Him in our lives, our homes, and our hearts? Will we receive him as the gift he was intended for us by God? Are we excited for Him, or maybe we are scared knowing that once this child is born things will never… be… the… same… again?
How will the world receive him and his message? Will they accept his mission and calling in the world? Will they trust that in his life and ministry we are catching glimpses of the kingdom of God? Will the world have faith that in God’s kingdom our worldly math never adds up and seemingly never does His?
Being people of the Book we already know how Christ’s story goes and yet the church does this seemingly silly thing every year and we wait, and watch, and prepare for the birth of this little baby.
I pray that we can all take a moment to savor this announcement and then I pray that we can all take seriously this season of preparation as we get ready for the birth that will truly change the world once and for all people.
Pull up a dumpster both physically and spiritually, get rid of all the clutter that hinders your ability to fully worship our Savior, our Counselor. Repaint your life in confessing your sins and receiving the absolving word of your God.
And finally, help the world prepare for the coming of a king. Spread this good news near and far. A child has been born to us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Technorati Tags: lectionary, Advent, sermons
"Most people tell you the want to get out of kindergarten, but don't believe them. Don't believe them! All they want you to do is mend their broken toys. 'Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success.' This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That's all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don't really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful." --Tony de Mello _Awareness_
Technorati Tags: Anthony de Mello
I like the way people like Jon and Mindy Hurst work. I appreciate people who can take complicated and misused or abused concepts and place them in a context in which they might be rationally considered, discussed, and enacted. The Hurst's have done this with the hot-button concept of truth in their book Through the River. From Pilate's question to the arrested Jesus, "What is truth?" to our post-modern contemporary skirmishes between individuals and denominations, truth is a concept that often resists the close scrutiny we assume we must have all given it at some point in our lives. The Hurst's have come along with the analogy of River Town and the three populations that represent three distinct ways of looking at the truth. Assumptions that we make about ourselves and others views are the basis for many of the tensions that arise between people. The Hurst's ability to describe the philosophical areas of Positivism, Instrumentalism, and Critical Realism are a great launching point for serious communities to learn to engage each other with love to truly advance the cause of Christ.
I am, of course, concerned that those who most NEED this book will not be the ones who READ this book but one can always pray, right?
Technorati Tags: truth
Simple Life is a big book. That was my first impression. My second was this: those authors must have a sense of humor if they think I have the time to read this book on creating a Simple Life!
The reality is this, something is wrong with how people are living life and the Rainer's (father and son) have not only put their finger on the problem, as many have, but, have even done research into the issue with a strong sample and a margin of error of 2.9%.
Their research showed them four areas that people generally find themselves yearning for something simpler: Time, Relationships, Money, and God. The interesting thing about people who are mired in the morass of busyness is this: what of what they are doing can truly be called bad? Work to provide for family? Sports to stay healthy and active? Schoolwork to get good grades and get into college? These are the very issues that church pastors and leaders bump up against all the time... and your members' level of church involvement is not going to figure large into their future earnings or the school their child is going to get into... so what we are left with is a diagnosis that we hear all the time as church leaders. We're TOO BUSY! So, what to do about it? Yell louder, lay bigger guilt trips? Close up shop?
Well, first thing, get this book... read it. Yes, it is thick; but it reads fast. Even the analogies make sense; I'm sure a couple of them will show up in a future sermon or two.
The authors have four core ideas around which the four areas for simplification circle. The foundational key is to remember that this process is a *journey* and that in itself is a freeing idea!
The first idea is *clarity*. Clarity means we know where we are going. The authors challenge the readers to develop an actual plan, when one follows a plan change results. When we don't the status quo reigns supreme.
The second idea is *movement*. Congestion is bad. A congested sinus will get infected. Congested traffic causes heart attacks. The authors show the readers how to use intentionality and incrementality to knock down the roadblocks to change and simplification. We all know that one big systemic change is way too tiring and scary to attempt and here is a way to get at real change in small, noticeable ways.
The third idea is *alignment*. Lives get out of alignment slowly and usually unnoticeably. Debt doesn't just show up overnight just like my spare tire didn't. You don't get overbusy in one day either. Eliminating some of the GOOD STUFF is key to aligning our lives around what really matters to us!
The final idea is *focus*. Focus means that some things just don't get done no matter how good they are.
The entire book is written about the dash. The dash. You know, that hash mark between your birth and death date that will appear on your grave marker one day? How are you going to live your life in that dash? And, when the sleep of blessed death comes to you one day, how will you be remembered? As one who was overbusy or one who learned how to life a life that mattered, a life that was lived according to why God created us in the first place?
Technorati Tags: Simple Life, Thom Rainer and Art Rainer
The Rise and Fall of the Christian Coalition by Joel Vaughn is an insider's account of the political machine known as the Christian Coalition. The Coalition experienced a meteoric rise in popularity and power in the 1990's under the leadership of Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson. Vaughn's book is an insider's tale that is great for those who truly enjoy "inside baseball" in the world of politics and the Christian conservative movement.
I found this book to be not only engaging but it is replete with teachable moments in regards to a. anyone thinking of starting a political movement b. anyone who works in the grey areas of church and politics and c. yet another warning to anyone involved in an organization that is personality driven on the necessity for succession planning years in advance.
My two criticisms of this book are that there are numerous typo and editorial gaffes (one being the misspelling of my former senator Rod Grams' name) and that, while organized along a timeline, the book itself seems unfocused at times. Vaughn sometimes seems to have an anecdote that had to be in the book and so he squeezed it in disrupting the natural flow of the story itself.
That being said, I was interested to see just how political, rather than religious, the Christian Coalition was. It truly showed me that in politics, which is a zero sum game, often the teaching and life of Jesus are supplanted by "issues" based movements. I wonder if Jesus would have been able to write this book, or start this movement, with chapters detailing how big his movement had become, which famous names had signed on, and how much money was coming into the downstairs countroom on a daily basis.
Vaughn did not intend his book to be about the religious and theological importance of the Christian Coalition, but as a pastor I have to step back and wonder just how useful it is for the Church to become involved in politics at all? It seems to me that it is the Church that gets used in those moments (and I'm talking about the liberal AND conservative churches and politicians) and left behind for whatever the next hot-button issue is or whichever organization will attract money and votes.
Regardless, I do find that this book was moderately insightful and definitely informative. This book would be a good read in a political science course of an undergraduate institution or by any leader who is building a movement of his or her own.
Technorati Tags: Christian Coalition
September 20, 2009
Acts 16: 25-34
Singing, Praying, Speaking the Word ‘til the Walls Come Down
Pastor Chris Enstad
Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
If you were thrown in prison under false charges and the walls of that prison were shaken by the hand of God so that your path to freedom lay right there in front of you, what would you? The answer to that question is at the very root and foundation of who we are being called to be as Christians in the world as individuals, families, and groups, from the very tiniest members of the body to the oldest.
The actions of Paul and Silas that we just heard read this morning are an example of two men with a faith that was alive, who were planting churches that they expected to be active in the world, and were representatives of a movement of a people who are grounded in the story of God and his Son Jesus Christ to the point that it had moved well out of the rational, head-located, knowledge based ideas of faith and theology into actual lives that lived in expectation that God was active in the world and that wherever God was stuff would happen. Amazing transformative stuff.. There is often a difference between hearing that Jesus died for you and seeing the result of that truth in someone’s life.
Paul and Silas had been thrown in prison for pulling a demon out of a young girl. That girl was being used to make money for her family by telling people their futures and so, by healing her, Paul and Silas were accused of taking away the family’s source of income… so, of to prison they were sent.
We come upon these two men in the text we just heard read singing hymns and praying to God. And the other prisoners were listening. Now, we don’t know much about how those songs were being sung or how those prayers were being prayed, but, I believe it is safe to infer that they were not singing and praying in fear and trembling because the scene of the other prisoners listening seems to suggest that there was at least a modicum of respect being shown these two men, again, falsely imprisoned, and singing hymns and praying to God.
The hand of God shook the prison so much so that not only were the doors rent from their hinges but the shackles fell off of the prisoners. They were free. And they stayed.
The guard, having dishonored his position, was prepared to kill himself when Paul and Silas called out. “We are still here!” Who are these men who, when the walls of their prison were torn down, and their shackles removed, had the courage and desire to stay right here? I mean, who does that?
Exactly. What kind of a person is so confident in their future, who is so sure of their status before God, who has placed their trust in their inheritance of everlasting life, that they would rather stay put then run. That they were prepared to speak the Word of Jesus Christ even to their guard who, if they had let him fall on his sword, would have made their escape even easier! What kind of person would be prepared to do such a thing?
Well, there is Paul. There is Silas. And, brothers and sisters, there is each and every one of you.
More on that in a moment.
After preaching to the guard he invited the two men to his house and had his entire household baptized that day. They shared a feast, the celebrated the conversion of the guard, a guard who, himself, had heard the word of God, seen its effect on how people live their lives, and his entire household was baptized that day.
Folks, when the Word of God is heard, read, preached, or taught, whether at church and even in our homes… stuff starts to happen. Lives are transformed, prison walls some falsely encaging us, some of our own making, start to shatter and fall, and rather than run, rather then let someone or something drive us hither and thither, we stay put to discern where God is going to use us, and all of that powerful stuff starts happening all over again.
Isn’t this an amazing God? Isn’t this an amazing story, a story of Jesus Christ that is a living Word, a Word that breaks into our lives with the power to create something new?
What if, what if we rose up people and families that had the power and presence to engage with the world like Paul and Silas did? What if we unleashed the members of this to truly take their authority as priests of God seriously and taught God’s word to their children, to themselves, and then went out into the world to share that Good News with others and made that service a priority ahead of all other priorities in their lives? What if?
Well, that is exactly what we are praying is going to start happening right here at Mount Olivet. Building on all of the great work that our families and staff have been doing for the past several years, this is the year we, as a family, are going to break out of the way things have always been done in the church, where the staff is the repository of all things Christian and we drop our kids off to receive this knowledge in the hopes not that they will be transformed as much as just that they learn to behave and be good kids. To a new, in fact old, way of being the church where we come to this place to worship God, to learn maybe something new about God, to hear and engage with this Living Word in community with each other, but then return to our homes to convert our very lives over to God and, in that conversion, engage with the world not out of our anxieties or tiredness or never-enoughness but with peace that passes all understanding, with joy and thanksgiving that God is active in the world saving others maybe even through our hands our hearts, and with the sense that all is good, there is always enough, and how could we not give to God the first fruits not just of our treasure but of our talents, our time, our hearts, and our hands each and every day?
Wouldn’t it be something for someone to walk into this place expecting to be spectators and instead they are invited to participate with us in our work together in God’s mission field?
Wouldn’t it be something for a youth to be a non-anxious presence in a kids life that isn’t one of the “cool” kids because they have little regard for what status others attach to them knowing that it is what God already thinks of him or her that really matters? And that they would live their lives that way?
We are inviting all of our families, young and old, with kids, empty nesters, our older wiser Lutherans, to join with each other in exploring new ways of finding the time, space, and priority to make God’s Word a regular part of our lives. Wherever God’s Word shows up, things start to happen. Is your family life really a picture of the walking dead? Is your marriage on cruise control? Are you spinning your wheels looking for purpose because you last child moved out and all of the sudden you have all of this time on your hands? Are you retired and feeling like you have so much to offer and no way to connect with these families that are moving so incredibly fast through life that they blow right by you?
Stay tuned, and show up.
Technorati Tags: sermons