hey, i thought i'd shoot this out to you as a resource to consider...you may already be on the up-swing of this.

our church is getting connected to something called Advent Conspiracy. it was started last year by just a couple of churches to re-think & re-do Christmas. it's all about turning Christmas on it's head, as far as we understand it. our focus has usually been on consumerism & centered on us getting more gear. this effort is more on relationships & not bowing to the building of the "empire".

anyhow, the site tells the story much better. check it out...

Here is a good post by Ben Edson on communitas. I just started Exiles by Frost, so I haven't gotten to the part that Ben is talking about. Ben's last paragraph really resonates with me.

"This is where i think that my vocation is, to be a point of dialect with the communitas and normal society, between the emerging church and the church catholic. I think that this is a step on from some of the early emerging churches, who were not interested in dialect, but only communitas. This is not a a value judgement as we would not be able to have the current dialect without the earlier experiences of liminality."

I sit back and wait for good times to create a new ChOG dialect. It's hard to learn a new language, much less create a new one.

(Anyone want to right a book with me? I got one brewin.' )


ht: jonnybaker

Labels: books, ChOG practice, ChOG theology, migration, shifting

here's a book that you may be interested in.

i had read a review of this book in relevant mag. & was interested. then my wife picked it up for me on sat.
a year of living biblically by a.j. jacobs. i have only just begun it. now he is not a religious guy. he says he's jewish, but jewish like the olive garden is italian. so the book's also pretty funny.

i find it interesting that so much is being written & said about spiritual/biblical/God-oriented stuff from those who wouldn't consider themselves any of those things [spiritual, biblical, God-oriented].

Labels: books, humor

I think the best way to do this would be multiple posts, but I never end up doing that. So sorry I am making this a massive post, to get it over with. I will try to just report to you what my impressions were. I'm not a journalist, so here it goes.

It was another good year in MI. Jeannette Flynn was our speaker. I'll be honest, I've heard her a few times, and I haven't always liked her delivery. Although I've always liked her content. Sometimes she speaks in some sort of apologetic tone. The times that she's delivered with "authority" I've really been challenged by it. I don't think it's the tone in and of itself, it's that she has this other style that seems to me to be more affective. I'm not hatin' I'm just glad that she brought what I think as her "A game." OK, critique over on to the meat.

The theme this year was Doing Less, Being More. I was excited when I noticed the theme. This is something that I've really been trying to champion. I haven't always done well at this, but I've tried.

Session I: Jeannette started off talking about the word Missional. How this word really didn't come to be until the mid/late 90s. MS Word still "red lines" it until you add it to the dictionary. I was a little scared until she said that She wants us all to have a positive out look on that word. She then referred to the book Shaped By God's Heart by Milfred Minatrea. Great news because my new lead pastor [David Colp] has been sharing it with staff for about a month now. She shared a great truth about exploring. If you want people to build a great ship don't talk about lumber and how to build it. Show people the vastness of the sea and they'll build a great ship! She challenged us to look back at what it means to be on the mission as followers of Jesus. She framed this with John 1:35-41. Jesus asked them what they want? They then spent the day with him. Andrew, after a day with Jesus goes and tells his brother Peter "I have found the Messiah." She summed up that point by saying, we don't really know Jesus. We live life like it's salvation by works. Ouch, but true. She then told a story about her grand daughter Bethany. Jeannette picked up Bethany from preschool, and she was in the back seat singing "God hates me, God hates me." Jeannette asked her "Why are you singing that honey?" Bethany replied " my teacher told me that God doesn't love little girls who don't obey." Being missional is us knowing AND living the message of Jesus. How many times have we said things like Bethany's teachers, in an attempt to get people to do what we want then to do? The disciples and Jesus hung out all day. We just have to know what they talked about don't we? She said "We live in a world where we must get as much done as possible in the day." But Jesus said for us to remain in him. [John 15] (Jeannette almost lost me with saying "abide" rather than remain, about 30 times in that section. I got over myself and listened.) Andrew shared Jesus with his brother Peter after he spent time with Jesus. She went into prayer with this "Ministry can just about kill ya. So be in the presence of Jesus."

Session II: We are constantly in a struggle between being and doing. She began to unpack what being really is, a word that we are familiar with: holiness. For us holiness has become about what we do and don't do. We have bought into this false holiness teaching. This teaching causes us to be fake, because we want to seem holy to others. She said" I hope you feel God releasing you, freeing you tonight." She jumped into Acts 2. Holiness is based in Christ. When Christ lived out holiness, it drew people to him. Not always religious people was it? His holiness healed them, restored them, empowered them. You can do all the right things, keep all the commnads and not be holy. After the Holy Spirit came they were all out in the street talking to people they had nothing in common with. People that they didn't look like, act like, smell like. Jeannette went into a story about traveling home after a speaking gig. She was tired and ready to have a long flight alone. Guess what, there was a young tattooed mother, with kids that plopped next to her at the gate. Jeannette talked to her, and thought, oh no, those poor kids. The mom spoke to her in a toungue that was unfamilar to her (ha ha), that she didn't know what she was gonna do, with the kids an extra two hours, they were banking on eating on the plain, and she had no way of calling anyone at her destination. (I don't remember who was gonna be wating at the other airport.) So, hesitantly Jeannette offered the mother her cell phone, and took them down the concourse to a hot dog cart. The young mother looked at her like, "what do you want lady?" She helpped her and her kids on the plain. wished her well at her seat, and said good bye thinking, "Ok, now that I've done my good deed I can relax." She looked at her ticket, I think you know where this is going, Jeannette's seat was right next to the young mom and her kids. The kids slept while she spent the flight talking while God interpreted what she was saying. Holiness is really about the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus to us. If the Church of God did nothing else in 2008 but Acts 2:42 we'd be doin' alright. Jeannette hung on the word devoted. Devoted to the Word, devoted to each other, devoted to prayer. Randy segway: This speaks to the three flames in our ChOG logo, Salvation, Holiness, Unity. For me, that's a journey not a mission statement or motto. We follow the savior around and we get to know him (salvation), then his presence changes us (holiness), and we become more about others, more selfless in the Body (unity) and to the world. Jeannette let us in on something that she has recently gone through. She candidated for a church, and didn't get it. We are not practicing what we preach, things like holiness and women in ministry. Morrice Berquist once gave an analogy about power lines. When crews are getting ready to install new power lines, they set the new lines on the ground off to the side. They never set them underneath the hot lines. why? Because the power will jump and make the new, disconnected lines go hot. All we have to do, is get ourselves inline with God, and we will be connected to the source. We will have what we need.

Session III: 1968, it's the Jetts vs the Raiders. The game was gonna go long, and the movie Heidi was supposed to air. The executive producer had a decision to make: Stay with the close game, or go to Heidi. He went to Heidi, and the nation missed one of the best game endings ever. In OT the Raiders scored two touchdowns to win it...nobody saw it. To this day Sports Illustrated has the Heidi Award, for bad TV productions. In 2 Corinthians 2:14 there is picture of a triumphal parade after battle. As God leads us, we leave His fragrance behind us. What type of fragrance do we leave behind? (Ironically, I stepped in dog poop this morning and I can still smell it on my shoe. I'm going to wash it off now.) (I'm back.) We can chose to complain, or have joy. We need to check ourselves regularly to see what fragrance we're leaving behind. We reward people who do a lot of the right things, but don't leave the fragrance of Christ behind them. We shouldn't be stomping on each other, berating each other. There's no fragrance of Christ in those things. In a triumphal parade we bring discipline, not for punishment, but for health. We don't take action with leaders or pastors unless they steal from the treasury or sleep around. Gossip, discord, deception we don't do anything about. We must stand up and do something. Those things stick. when Jeannette was growing up in Newton Falls Ohio, if she was running in the sanctuary, she knew she would get stopped by just about anyone, not just her parents. Why? Out of love, they wanted to help her know what was respectful and the way to go about worshiping God. It was restorative discipline, not punishment. We must restore Christ-like righteousness. ("now Christ lives in me") We teach the triumphal parade, but we live like CEOs. we hear the word integrity a lot. Jeannette says she has thought that integrity means, you do what you say you're going to do. It really means that the internal strength of something has no flaws so it will stand up to something. Like the integrity of the frame of the hotel ballroom we were in. (the same thought as, "you're as strong as your weakest link.) If the structural integrity of a building is compromised, the building will fall. We must be transformed from one moment to the next so we have real integrity. You can say you love your brother and if they have a real need and you don't do anything, you don't really love them. "The danger in doing the right thing is that I don't have to be a person of integrity." We are to be like clay vessels. they are fragile, but God is in us. From Genesis to Revelation, God's people face pain and trials. The triumphal parade includes perseverance. At the end, I don't take the doing. It's the being that stands before God. What we're going through are temporary. (2 Cor 4:17-18) We need to focus on the unseen. That's what will last.

It was a challenging GA. I'm glad that Jeannette came. I think we need to be smacked up side the head with things like this. If we are going to be a community, a movement and not somthing else, we need to have deep relationship with each other, in our town, accords town, our counties, states, nations and the world. It's starts with us though doesn't it? Well, I'm gonna go hang out with Jesus, like Andrew before me. I've found the messiah (John 1:41).

Labels: ChOG mixers, migration, missional

I am sure you have read the recent Willow Creek confession by Hybels,

“We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and
became Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self-feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their Bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.”

Speaking at the Leadership Summit, Hybels summarized the findings this way:

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

Having spent thirty years creating and promoting a multi-million dollar organization driven by programs and measuring participation, and convincing other church leaders to do the same, you can see why Hybels called this research “the wake up call” of his adult life.

In other words, spiritual growth doesn’t happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage.

Diana Butler Bass says, “Notice what Hybels says is missing: intentionality, practice, and vitality.”

Bass says these are the same three points confirmed by her 2004 research on mainline churches which found: “Congregations that intentionally engage Christian practices are congregations that experience new vitality” (The Practicing Congregation, Alban Institute).

She explains, “Intentionality involves choice and taking responsibility for individual and communal spirituality; ... practice is not a program, rather it is a meaningful way of life; and … vitality cannot be measured in terms of numbers as it means spiritual health and maturity. A vital congregation is one where all people—including the pastor—are growing members of an organic community of spiritual practice.”

**********
Andy's questions . . . .

Where within your ministries do you see the worship of the program driven strategy?

Do you rely on participation as a measurement of spirituality?

Have you seen any confessions from leadership, "We made a mistake" where the new paradigm had taken over what really matters?

Is your pastor, or are you, lacking practice?