The Nines

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Church outside the institution

I am finding that the institution of the church is often more of a hindrance to the community of faith then God intended the church to be. This is not a new argument but is a realistic turning point in relation to my personal journey.  I see clearly the church turning to program and away from passion of the missio Dei.  The church begins to decline at that point. The power for posture and position poisons the authenticity of the community. The Church outside the institution concerns itself with equality and eliminates  posture and position. It has it’s focus on Jesus as Lord and service in His mission. It values Kingdom principles over modern statutes creating a paradox the institution can not support. It changes from self possession to  shared expression and creates dynamic in the community. The church must brake out of this cage and be free. What a great day that would be!

LAUSANNE REPORTS

The European Church Today: Reflections on Her Context

By Gordon Showell-Rogers

Looking Back to Look Forward
Europe is hugely varied. Albania and Switzerland could almost be on different planets. However, the entire continent shares a common heritage, geographical space, and some elements of culture in a globalised world. Europe today also shares some significant similarities with the world in which the early Christians lived. It is pluralistic, multicultural, hedonistic, and perhaps as open to new ideas as that century was.

Christians in first century “Europe” (today’s name for the western end of the Eurasian landmass) did not know what a difference they would make. They simply knew that Jesus had died for their sins and had risen from the dead. They understood that the cross and the resurrection had cosmic consequences. As a result, they went out and, by God’s grace, changed the world.

Read more…

Doug Pagitt at Örebro Missionskola and the Emerging Church

Yesterday I was in Örebro to listen to Doug Pagitt pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis Minnesota . He is one of the leaders in the Emerging Church movement in the USA. Doug spoke in the morning session to the students about the Emerging Church or about his Church which is quit unique, it looks like a living room with sofas and tables in a round with the speaker in the center. I wasn’t there for the first meeting so I am not sure what they talked about. In the afternoon meeting he talked about “preaching” from his book; Preaching Re-imagined. He spoke about how preaching should be relational in a dialog and not just a monolog speech, he calls this preaching technique; Progressional Implicatory Dialog. This is about not how the story or the Gospel is applied to our lives but how our lives become a part of the story. It takes a more narrative approach to the understanding the Gospels instead of systematically braking the Bible down to a “how to” book. I guess you will need to buy his book to understand this better.

After the session Doug had to rush off to Oslo but some of us stayed around for a short discussion time which was quite interesting. It seemed that this seminar stirred up a lot of questions which is good. What I heard in this conversation was leaders trying to understand all this but with a modern epistemology. One needs to understand post-modernism and the cultural shift to understand this new kind of Church in a postmodern context. If we continue to think of church in its institutional forms and functions we will continue to miss the point and only become critical of this new approach. Before one criticizes the emerging Church movement one should first study the culture it is trying to reach.

Well now I have a lot to say so I think I will break it down into smaller blog post. I met a blog friend Joachim Elsander at the seminar. Always fun to meet a fellow blogger in person. I told him I like to keep blog posts short and simple and to the point. So there will be more to come later.

Via Mystica

I attended mass in the Church of Sweden that I would label a postmodern experience. The mass was held in Härlanda kyrka in Gothenburg. Via Mystica started in 2002 during the Gothenburg film festival when the Church wanted to join Church with Culture the results was a rockmässa or as it is called now a multimedia mass.

Via Mystica takes a 2000 year old message contextualizes it into a language and postmodern experience using rock music, film and video and mixes it with newly written liturgy. They say it is an old theme that uses a language people today understand.

The theme was; Those that belong to the Way are those on the way.

Människan är alltid på väg, (People are always on the way)
Gud är alltid på väg, (God is always on the way)
Kyrkan är alltid på väg, (The Church is always on the way)

The guest speaker KG Hammer, the former archbishop of Sweden, spoke on these three themes three different times throughout the mass in between music from Switchfoot, Manic Street Preachers, REM, Anastasia, Christina Aguilra, Depeche Mode, the Cardigans, U2 and others performed by a professional band with video/pictures on a big screen as well as liturgy and communion.

I enjoyed the mass for the purpose in which it should be experienced in a contemplative, meditative, spiritual formational way.

I do not often visit the Church of Sweden and from what I could tell of the several hundred guest that were there, they didn’t either. As the procession of the cross and the priest entered in the beginning of the mass a few people stood up, realizing this is what you are suppose to do the rest of us did the same.

I wondered after the mass if the people really received the message and experience for what is was meant to accomplish. It seemed for many that it was just another concert in the church. Some applauded after every song they seemed to be applauding the band and not the message. I am sure that many were encourage by the mass myself included. Even though I might question some of the theology not that it was necessarily wrong but that it was something to think about. It made me wonder if the Church of Sweden preaches a post-modern gospel to a post-modern people. None the less they preached Jesus, the mystery and way of God.

What’s your theological worldview?

Hmmm… This was very interesting but not surprising. I know this would have looked much different 10 years ago and may look much different in 10 months.

What’s your theological worldview?

Here are my results;

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern, You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern		82%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan		79%
Neo orthodox		71%
Classical Liberal		54%
Charismatic/Pentecostal		54%
Fundamentalist		43%
Reformed Evangelical		36%
Modern Liberal		32%
Roman Catholic		14%

What’s your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

I like this one too;

You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God’s most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.

Shapevine

 

Check out Shapevine a place for missional leaders to meet and engage in live learning environments with webinars, video cafes, blogs, podcast, featuring some influential leaders and authors such as Alan Hirsch, Reggie McNeil, Carol Davis, Michael Frost, Neil Cole, Brian McLaren, Andrew Jones, Leonard Sweet, Tony & Felicity Dale and others.

Join here

Follow your heart

A soldier in the army of God or a servant in the Kingdom of God. Charismatic with a evangelistic approach or Emerging Church with a missional approach. Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Neo-Orthodox, etc.

Our theology determines our identity and our relationship to God.

Follow your heart……. Follow Jesus!

Being an individual!

 ”The majority of people are not afraid of holding a wrong opinion, as they are holding an opinion alone” Kierkegaard

I was recently at a place where I refused to participate in a meeting where I felt they were practicing something that was theologically wrong. I have participated in these types of meetings before only to be discouraged, disappointed and seeing people disillusioned. After the meeting I was asked why I didn’t participate I told the person asking and he said to me that it is a leadership test. As a leader I should be able to participate even if I don’t agree.

As I began to think about his comment I realised that I will probably fail every leadership test put before me because I don’t see myself as a leader of a church (church plant) but a servant of Christ. If I am measured by the benchmark of man I will only fail.

The Kingdom of God is a paradox. If you want to be a leader you have to be a servant. If you want to be first you must be last. If you want to live you have to die. If you want to receive you have to give. If you want to be exalted you have to be humble.

As Kierkegaard says you should not follow the crowd. You need to make decisions and choices yourself. Perhaps someone will say this is individualism. Perhaps it is. As the Word says … we are all members individually. I write on another blog I have that I am an individual that is part of a bigger community. When we know who we are in Christ as an individual then we can share  with the community our giftings and talents. When we know who we are as an individual we have a freedom to be ourselves and can love others for being themselves. When we know who we are as an individual we will not be tossed by the wind with every doctrine of man. When we know who we are as an individual we are secure in our faith. Not that we have obtained it all for we press on learning and growing and making mistakes. In our weakness we are made strong. Learn to walk the way of Christ on your own then you will be able to walk with with others with much more confidence and you will not be led down the wrong path by the crowd.

“The cohesiveness of community comes from each one’s being a single individual.” Kierkegaard

What do you think?

Watch this video from Solomon’s Porch Church Minneapolis MN. Some people feel alarmed, others feel like wow this is a church I could go to.  Remember that the emerging church is a broad term. This is just one example of an “emergent” church.

 What are your thoughts?

Biggest issue in the 21st Century

Global Warming

 Got this picture from Alan Hirsch’s site. He is disscussing this as he says, “I think this will prove to be the biggest issue facing the human race in the 21st Century, and that includes us as a church.” Not the panties but Gobal warming!

Dr. Eddie Gibbs on the Emerging Church

No Perfect People Allowed

creating a COME AS YOU ARE culture in the CHURCH

No Perfect People Allowed

“What do a Buddhist, a biker couple, a gay-rights activist, a transient, a high-tech engineer, a Muslim, a twenty-something single mom, a Jew, a couple living together, and an atheist all have in common? They are the future church.”

This is how John Burke starts his book, No Perfect People Allowed. I got this book a couple of years ago when it was the book of the year for our denomination.

The Back Cover:

The church is facing its greatest challenges – and its greatest opportunities – in our postmodern, post-Christian world. God is drawing thousands of spiritually curious “imperfect people” to become his church – but how we doing at welcoming them?

No Perfect People Allowed shows you how to deconstruct the five main barriers standing between emerging generations and your church by creating the right culture. From inspiring stories of real people once far from God, to practical ideas that can be applied by any local church, this book offers a refreshing vision of potential and power of the Body of Christ to transform lives today.

John Burke will be at the Willowcreek A2 Conference in Örebro Sweden, February 2-3, 2007. I’ll be there too.

Robert Webber

I read this on blog Tro & Tänk:

“Thus, it may be said broadly that the story of Christianity moves from a focus on mystery in the classical period, to institution in the medieval era, to individualism in the Reformation era, to reason in the modern era, in the post-modern era,  back to mystery.”

Robert E. Webber, Ancient – Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World”

McLaren ppt

Here are  Power Point slides Brian McLaren used on his visit to Sweden Last year.

The Post-Modern Transition: ministry in a new world

Emerging Missional Churches