outside is better

Formation of Community in Eucharistic Practice: Part 2

    By communally reenacting Gods story, through the liturgy, the church shapes itself by its shared common story.  Barry Harvey points out the difference that we must be re-telling a story and not telling it differently.4  This isn’t the case of us modifying how God has enacted, it is the church learning to place itself in both the past, present and future orientation of how God works through the sacraments.  It is through these gifts of grace and mercy that we join with the saints and with God.  It is hard to talk about someone you don’t know or understand, but by coming to the table we stand face to face with the saints that have come before us.  We enact the story in different manners, but it always comes back to a celebration and remembrance of all that God has done for us.  Robert Jenson describes the Eucharist being an “enclosed world”5, the church acting as exactly what it believes it is.  This belief lies in the idea of a Christian timeline that starts with Gods creation and ends in Eschaton.  In the middle of this, God himself broke into the world as human without decreasing his divinity.  The church shows how it’s narrative, enacted in Eucharistic celebration, names the writer of the worlds actual narrative.  This enclosed world is not fictitious and neither is it fanciful or dreamlike.  Through our union with the Holy Spirit we believe it to be a true, enacted viewpoint of how the world operates.

     In order for our liturgy to not be seen as this fanciful thing, the church must embody what it remembers in anamnesis. We can’t assume that the people in our communities already know their background.  The story must be told over and over, not for the sake of being rote, but instead to ingrain itself as a living part of Christian society.  The church must fix the accusation of its failure to be relevant and hypocritical by actually serving as “the event” to which we believe.6  The Gospel must be on our faces, in our words and most evident in our actions.

    One might fear that this is simply creating a new post-modern Christian narrative that answers the questions that the last 50 years of Evangelicalism have caused.  Understanding the Eucharist and it’s formational attributes isn’t creation, but is is a return to how the church found itself for hundreds of years.  They are the involvement in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’s life together.  The Sacraments are a reaction to selfishness and the individual self is “reconstituted through liturgical worship”.7  It is an invitation to participate in what has been going on since the beginning of time and will continue to be going on for all eternity.

    Where emptiness exists, Christ is.  It is the task of the church now is to bring people into the home where this restoration can take place.  The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are the repair of this chasm within the person, and function as the place in which we all come to God.

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4. Harvey, Barry A. 1999. Another City: An Ecclesiological Primer for a Post-Christian World. 1st ed. Trinity Press International, May 1.19

5 Jenson pg.143

6. Jenson pg.147

7. Fitch, David E. 2005. The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies. annotated edition. Baker Books, November 1.  pg. 107

Formation of Community in Eucharistic Practice: Part 1

  A 2 part post from my Sacraments class last week;  

    Throughout the greater spectrum of Evangelicalism, a resurgence of liturgical practice is taking place.  While many would say this is a good thing, and I would agree, it is a careful road to trod for those that are outside of liturgical tradition.  Simply inserting liturgical aspects into mainstream evangelical contemporary worship does a disservice to every element of the tradition, while still not solving the problems of modernity that these ministries in question believe “liturgies” will be correcting.  The characteristic individual ecstatic experience of contemporary services does not align itself with the liturgical tradition.  Finding an answer to the quest that drives these churches can only be found in one place.  Through the Eucharistic service, we re-narrative ourselves communally inside of the eternal story of salvation.  By doing this, we unhinge our individual selves and allow ourselves to instead be placed in a communal rubric that is steeped with the continual, unfolding story of God and His entrance into the world through the person of Jesus Christ.

     Robert W. Jenson starts us of with the basic beginning to our problem, “Modernity was defined by the attempt to live in a universal story without a universal storyteller.”1  In society, by attempting to laud reason and human effort into the formational identity of civilization, we take out a crucial person in the process of life.  Without a viable timeline that situates our existence, we slowly start to crumble out at our personal core, because we aren’t able to find the answers to basic questions.  Even inside of Christianity, because we have lost sense of tradition, we are not able to let scripture and church tradition give us answers.2  We instead have taken tradition out of its proper place, and turned scripture into the weapon of apologetics against any opposition that may threaten our conservative worldview.  Regaining a sense of self identity grounded in Christian memory would allow Christians to be aligned within a sacramental view of humanity instead of a picture of a people stranded on a lifeboat waiting for the current to rescue and bring them home.

    The fundamental problem of individual religion is that it fractures the person away from the body of Christ.  It makes personal experience the key, by grounding an experience with God.  Instead of starting a quest to be enwrapped in God as partakers of His divine nature, we chase the idea that through “better” worship, we can reign God in.  The person involved begins to practice an isolated individualism.  We begin to realize that we have developed a spiritual amnesia, and know that the answer is somehow found inside of the church.  The only problem is that the church has forgotten who it is.

     The story of God takes us outside of our self-referenced system and puts us into the continual narrative of Gods saving history.  By allowing ourselves to be defined in the moral, ethical, and devotional boundaries of the church we find entrance into this story.  Once there, we begin to realize how we all play a part in it.  Inside of this story our “dead ends”3 are instead turned into Gods story.  Our own experience in the world isn’t wiped away, but assimilated and redeemed in any way necessary............

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1. Jenson, Robert W. “How the World List Its Story” in The NEW RELIGIOUS HUMANISTS. ed. Gregory Wolfe. Free Press, 1997. pg 141.

2. These thoughts and presuppositions are framed by the authors experience of growing up in a specific form of conservative evangelicalism, that would consider itself successful, but is admitting to decreasing participation.  I realize that they may be considered broad generalizations by some, but I ask that you examine the particular context of experience and practice.

3. Desilva, David A. 2008. Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation Through the Book of Common Prayer. IVP Books, September.  pg 169

The Post-Evangelical landscape of Vacation Bible School.

Anyone that grew up in church has memories of VBS.  My Dad was actually thrown out of VBS when he was a kid, and I am sure I was close.  For the last three years I have done VBS here in Nicholasville, and the past two have had me leading the music.  For those that don't know me, the thought of a 300lb man leading 6 yr olds in singing and motions is a sight to take in.  I also can do last years main song note for note (and move for move) still.  The things that I used to revolt against when I was in middle school have come back to haunt me.

For those of the "post-evangelical" persuasion, we all have lists of things that we wish churches would cancel.  My top three are listed below.
1. Sunday evening services
2. Handbell choirs
3. "Specials"

But I would want to get in the thunderdome with whoever would place VBS on this list.  Let me preface this by saying that I really don't look forward to doing it every year.  It pretty much takes up the whole week and really throws off my schedule.  I will have to field the inevitable comments from well-meaning old ladies regarding the literature, schedule, behavior of children and why we bought the generic goldfish crackers.

My church had 45 kids in it that would not have encountered church otherwise.  We were able to touch multiple families that have no connection to any church.  We saw some kids start a spiritual journey and parents turn to us because they knew they needed help. For those churches that exist around affluence, VBS may seem like a babysitting service, but if your church is surrounded by a population steeped in despair VBS is a great way to reach out.

Its not about walking kids through the Roman Road...but identifying your church has a place of care and a marker of the kingdom.  Take advantage of the people that you meet, and make sure to let the parents know who you are.  Establish relationships with anyone you can.  I am always amazed at how people attach themselves to churches just because someone made them feel special for a brief moment of time.

In a culture that is particularly forgotten about, the enroad is often through the kids in the neighborhood.  When we re-think VBS we learn a few things.

1.  Through games, songs, and quick lessons we start to teach children the Biblical Narrative that the entire world is apart of.

2.  We are able to shape Worldviews by teaching kids about places outside of the bubble they live in.  Often the lower-middle class doesn't drift outside of couple of hours.  I have kids in my church that rarely travel the 10 minutes to Lexington.  

3.  The church is instantly put in communication with more families that it may often deal with in several months. 

4.  I think many of the kids this week rarely saw a male role-model that was willing to interact with them.

So what do you think about VBS?

Telling the Truth about ecclesiology in the local church.

After I got back from youth cap last week I spent a couple of days recovering by watching way to much television.  I am the kind of guy who loves commercials, and these new Ally back commercials took the cake.

After a few laughs, I realized that these commercials paint of picture of what happens in the local church many times.  In our attempts at revival style evangelism, we often promise a life that is better than anything else, but is all actuality barely differs from the secular world.  I have never seen hidden print in a church bulletin, or stipulations to what church membership "actually" requires, or a list of social norms that an attender must hold to...but these exist within the church.

When we base our entire ecclesiology (theology of the church) on evangelism and salvation experiences, we are dropping the other end of the ball when it comes to our existing members and others that need care.  Even Willow Creek recognized that they did a bad job of this, and published the findings in their Reveal study.  Ask any average Protestant church member what the purpose of the local church is, and you are more than likely to get an evangelism oriented answer.  You may not believe me, but I am not trying to dog evangelism, but to put it in its proper place within the greater corpus of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Through Jesus a new life is offered, but in the name of organization I think we all to often fail at this.  The quest is to build Churches that are self-sustaining outposts of the kingdom of God, providing the type of caren(physical, emotional and spiritual) that people need.  When new members are brought in (either through salvation or transfer), we must stay attached to them to make sure that they are able to transition from a mode of taking into sustaining.

My church had a woman join about 5-6 months ago.  At first she seemed to be a great member and brought TONS of children into our church, almost tripling our childrens church attendance.  But after a couple of month, she started slowly dropping off and we have barely seen her in 2 months.  We see her children from time to time, and we have kept a good handful of the other kids she brought, but I think we lost her.  She needs more than we can give.  I am not talking about financial help, but the type of sustaining pastoral care that is best brought about by a community, not an individual.  Her not coming isn't a result of her backing down, but us not fulfilling what we promised when she became a member.

Here are just a few things I think we need to learn to exhibit and practice.
1.  Build churches of care-giving.  There is no such thing as sedentary membership.  The days of coming on Sunday and listening to a sermon and that constituting membership are gone.  I love how 1 Peter sets up the idea of a boundary of church membership, and inside that boundary is safety, love and the ability to meet needs.  This is what we need to grow towards.

2.  Define moral boundaries in order to define holiness. In many smaller churches, there is always one member that can get a great fight going.  All to often these are power struggles.  In larger churches, there maybe a different type of problem regarding moral lapse.  Going back to 1 Peter, a clearly defined boundary that can be interpreted today as "church membership" does state what characteristics are examples of Godliness.  These are not set up to have "holy clubs", but to protect leadership and pastoral staff.  If this is enacted, it means that those who are at the margins are not excluded, but constantly encouraged in their faith until they are at this point.  Holiness should always be lifted not as an unreachable place, but an expected goal.  The issue here will be defining 21st century holiness and coming to terms with classic 19th century holiness. 

3.  Build a worshiping community that is focused on God and his actions, instead of humans and our emotions.  The consumer culture of worship has to go.  It promotes experience over embodiment and abiding.  But this also means our sermons, prayers and actions during "church".  I would imagine that this would look like more formal situations and more informal situations of worship, instead of re-working current ideas and Sunday hours.

4.  Be honest about what your church offers.  If you can only pull of a couple of services a week and a few pastoral visitations, don't pretend that you are in the same leagues as the big churches you respect.

These are just a few that came to the top of my head.  I became convicted lately that I don't offer to many answers. 

Summer Rhythms

Every summer is different.  I normally try to make a list of things I want to accomplish every summer, but I have decided to forgo that this year.  Instead, I want to spend time praying, thinking, reading, writing and getting things in better order. 

Over the last couple of months I have really fallen in love with this trashy little town and my itty bitty church.  They seem to go hand in hand.  I love seeing older folks become passionate about their faith again and I even more enjoy when my friends I meet around town find out they can talk to me about God and not get bible thumped. 

Ever since the last "7 bowls of...." post, I have become a huge fan of Chucks "Confessions of a Small Church Pastor" blog.  He really brings up some great stuff for those of us that don't exist inside of the Megasphere of church, either at a large church or at a church pretending to be large.

Part of Merediths summer schedule is going to bed while its still light outside.  The last few nights have gotten pretty boring, but I decided to do something I really enjoy tonight and more nights.  I want to get to know the town better, but also have a change to pray for it.  So I have decided to take regular walks around town to just be around more, and also to get some exercise.  I think that ministers have to place themselves inside of their community in order for their church to really serve it's purpose, so this is an attempt at that.  I have always been amazed at the amount of people that walk around here, so its not like I will be out by myself.  But it makes me happy.

Well, I am off.  Have a good night.

The Semi-Sabbatical

Over the last few weeks I have spent most of my time decompressing.  I read some, cleaned and organized alot and gardened.  I still had some bits of work to do, but I didn't let that interfere with spending time with friends and family.  My parents came in town and we spent a great half week driving around central Kentucky and seeing a bunch of horse related stuff.  Mom and Dad even got to see the horses run at Churchhill Downs.  It was great to see them really enjoy themselves. 

I cleaned alot.  Some of you know that I have the habit of really cluttering up space.  Being a pack rat runs in my genes, and I have started to combat that this year.  My shop is now set up alot better for projects and I am working on getting a few things taken care of.

I have also been gardening.  This is a fairly new passion, but I think it is really important for people to take food into their own hands.  Last year I had a few plants, and helped out my buddy Justin in his "big" garden.  This year I maximaized the space that I had at my house, and I have 3 separate beds as well as a cackle of plants in pots.  I am starting to have a few tomatoes come in, so it really gratifiying.

Meredith and I are also having to say goodbye.  2 sets of friends and their children are leaving this week.  When you live in a transisent society like seminary, goodbyes are inevitable.  It is sad to see Jason, Hannah, Margot and Eloise as well as Adam, Dru and Israel leave, but I know they are getting on with life.

So my few weeks of laying low are over, but I feel that I did alot.  When I think of rest now, I think more in terms of biblical rest, like in Hebrews 4.  Rest is something that is done in reaction to something, not just being lazy.  Even in rest though, we are still participating in the glory and glorification of God.

What has to be learned by the American Church...not just evangelicals

I have been in the process of writing my follow up to my last post regarding communal doctrine.  I want to make sure it is really sweet, but in the process I came up with this list, which I am imagining to be a work in progess.  Feel free to push back or add to this.

What has to be learned by the American Church:

Fundamentalists:

• Issues regarding authority need be re-thought.  You simply make claims about biblical issues that just can't be substantiated with the History of Judeo-Christian tradition. (Read Craig D. Allert;s "A high view of scripture?")
• Speaking of traditon, it should be recognized more.  How do you think Christianity was transmitted pre-text? D. H. Williams is a great starting place.
• Proper Trinitarian Thoughts, an emphasis on all three members and teaching on how they properly interact with one another.

Traditional/Liturgical

• The difference between issues of justice and evangelism needs to be fleshed out.  While the justice piece has been important in the Mainline Protestant churches,  it is not thought of as an evangelical practice with kingdom/gospel dimensions.
• The Holy Spirit and His place within the sphere of worship.  It is evident in the words of your liturgies, but it needs to be put in practice.
• Cultural adaptation needs to happen, this means that things change in order to keep things refreshed.  This won't destroy the richness that is a positive trait, but will allow it to continue to be what it has always been, but in a way that translates to the non or de-churched.

Again, these are just working lists.  I want to think about an Evangelical list and a Pentecostal/Charismatic list.  I really see these not as destructive, but as ways that the church can hopefully grow in the 21st century.  For those that minister in "Non-Sexy" churches, and are searching for re-vitalization, I think these are points that have to be thought of.  The more people I meet on the street that consider themselves "religious" have no denominational or traditional loyalty, they just want to see a Church that functions like Jesus lived.

The Church and the World

Sorry if the rash of Bible reviews this week was a turn-off.  I was fulfilling some past due obligations.  Plus, as a Bible geek, I love getting to see different editions.  It makes me miss selling Bibles to people.

The last few months has seen my head return to a thread that it followed for a couple of years.  As this year has confirmed my call to the local church, I have been thinking so much about how Churches interact with the world around them.  A great book to stir thoughts is Barry Harvey's "Can These Bones Live?", I have been reading it bit by bit for the last six months and it never disappoints me.  Here is a quote I have been thinking about this morning.

"Christian convictions about God, the world and the relationship between them, which were painstakingly cultivated over several centuries, once formed an integral aspect of the hermeneutical practice that constituted the body of Christ.  Over the past few centuries, however, these doctrines gradually became deracinated systems of belief divorced from other practices and virtues of the church.  The shared beliefs of the Christian community were no longer tied to the church's public worship and work but were transferred into free-floating, interchangeable sets of ideas from which individuals could pick and choose according to their personal tastes."

Individual belief has become core to many people in todays church.  People want to find the church community that best expresses their own individualism.  Thats why ministers have had to turn into marketing agents.  Think how many times a church is known by a specific ministry and other christian communities define it has "that churches thing."  I venture to say that this can get so bad, that core orthodox beliefs can become an optional thing in some peoples minds, because highlighting a specific core belief can become a local church or denominations "thing." 

This practice of being careful about how the church related to the world around it slowly became irrelevant when Christianity became mainstreamed, and it was no longer not only safe, but popular to participate in.  In a world that is slowly becoming more post "Culturally-Christian", I think it is time for the Church to come back together and realize that the classic actions of hospitality, safety, worship, and celebration are acts that are exemplified by Christ in the way that we should practice them.

Next...what communal doctrine actually does for the Church

Clean workbench

Clean workbench
Originally uploaded by chadbrooks

It is always nice to clean.  January has been a "cleaning" time of mine the last several years.  I usually have a list of things that I would like to accomplish.  These are things that I think would make life easier or more enjoyable.  Those that know me can quickly figure out that I am using the term cleaning very loosely.  I am a bit of a packrat/clutter fan.  I have gotten better since marrying Meredith, cause she has shown me the light.

When I think cleaning it is more like arranging.  Putting things in order to enjoy life better.  That does mean traditional cleaning at times, and at others it is more like accomplishing or even starting.

I hinted in my last post about a secret that I figured out this last semester that made things so much better.  I quit allowing a stressful and busy schedule to identify who I am and to affect the amount of peace that I carry with me.  That taught me to slow down when there wasn't the time too, and also to learn to relax very well when I had the time.

It also pointed me towards the idea that for years I (among other friends) had been dreaming about the future, and just acknowledging the present as a place I had to be for the time being.  Then I started to see that I had been living life like that for years, and that I was on a path to be an old man that had never accomplished anything he wanted to do.  So I quit living for the schedule and started living for life.  It actually allowed for the schedule to get done better and quicker and life to be alot more fun.

So here is to the January "cleaning", when hopefully practices will be laid out to make this year on of the best ever.

Living Life

At work we do this peace/chaos scale..from 1 to 10 on both.  The reason we do it is to understand where we are as a team, but also to see the relationship between peace and chaos and how they affect creativity.  If you are higher on peace JD likes to call it the "shalom zone".

I have had an epiphany this semester.  My chaos doesn't affect my peace-meaning that I don't let the things I need to do get in the way of life.  I still get stuff done, and better than many people, but I have decided to live life, and not think about living life in the future.

It makes things easier and also makes it easier when you have a s&%tload of things to do (like I do right now).  I think it allows us really think about abiding in and with God while living your life in a way that doesn't have regrets.

I have spent the last two nights with some old friends, and their is talk about me going on tour with them this summer for some dates.  That means I need to keep on trucking through my writing and start getting stuff ready for the kind of environment they play in.  I also feel the need to do a short demo with larger instrumentation of "normal" worship music, so I can get back into that again.  I never led worship by myself, the only kind of music I ever did "solo" was country and western music, so it is a new experience and I am ready to have people playing with me in that regard.

Well-I need to shower and crash.