GraceStreet- a company of exiles

Merton thought

“The things I thought were so important – because of the effort I put into them – have turned out to be of small value. And the things I was never able to either to measure or to expect were the things that mattered.” Thomas Merton

Popham Beach

Deb and I have a planned bike ride today along this road at Popham Beach. We were married in this chapel 36 years ago. There's something about a landscape that continues to unfold its beauty and mystery. Popham has the artists skillful craft of omission. It is a place that reveals itself on its own terms. It is a fine teacher.

“As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene….No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.

“Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot.      Mr. E

Divine Commodity

Skye Jethani, Managing editor of Leadership Journal and is now the author of Divine Commodity. Here's a quote.

 

"The common assumption within the North American church is that with the right curriculum, the right principles, produce the ministry outcomes we envision. This plug-and-play approach to ministry makes God a predictable, mechanical device and it assumes his Spirit resides within organizations and systems rather than people. In addition, this model of ministry requires a significant investment of money to pay for the buildings, programs, staff, and resources to run the programming. It depends upon the laity’s willingness to give their surplus time and surplus money to keep the church’s programmatic engines running.

But what happens when people have less surplus time and less surplus money—like in a protracted economic recession? Will the mission of the gospel simply have to wait until we can pay for more LCD screens and multi-media auditoriums? Or will we rediscover a different way of participating in God’s re-creative mission?"

 

But what happens when people have less surplus time and less surplus money—like in a protracted economic recession? Will the mission of the gospel simply have to wait until we can pay for more LCD screens and multi-media auditoriums? Or will we rediscover a different way of participating in God’s re-creative mission?

This economic meltdown might prove to be one of God’s greatest blessings to the modern church. We may find that the gospel is an incarnate reality living within and among the people of God, not a program to be designed and marketed. And we may find that the reality of the Good News is transmitted via the human/divine medium of relationship, not simply the electric impulses of digital media.

As far as simple/practical things church leaders can do during this recession to help their congregation detach from consumerism, let me offer two ideas:

 

1. Look for programmatic redundancies and simplify your church’s institutional footprint. If another faith community has a pre-existing ministry, participate in the work they have already initiated rather than launching or continuing your own. Most churches believe that in order to have an impact in the community they need to start programs. In some cases this may be true, but why does everything have to be under our church’s banner? Rick McKinley from Imago Dei in Portland, Oregon, likes to say “No logo, no ego.” (*Often considered banners of the empire. Remember the building campaign slogans or the new initiative slogans that where used to get folks to give or attend? When these slogans are considered God Inspired then anyone that disagree's with THE VISION is considered suspect). Christian unity, reduce institutional overhead costs, and engage more people with their gifts.

 

2. Change what your church measures. Dallas Willard has said that most church measure the ABCs: attendance, buildings, and cash. These are all institutional markers, not necessarily missional markers. Determine a way to measure how many people in your congregation have at least one meaningful relationship with another believer (other than their spouse) with whom they can be vulnerable and challenged to grow. Or begin to measure how often people are engaging Scripture on their own and praying.

 

These measurements are not to be legalistic, but to communicate that what’s most important is engaging God and fellow believers and not just institutional programs. What we measure reveals what we value. And this isn’t simply to help the laity experience transformation, but church leaders. We, perhaps more than anyone, need to find release from consumerism’s grip on our minds and hearts.

 

*Italics mine.

homelessness

“Homelessness is not only of bricks, but homelessness comes from that terrible loneliness that the unwanted, the unloved, know along the way. Are we there? Do we know them? Do we see them?”  Mother Teresa

I mean, I don't think I'm alone when I look at the homeless person or the bum or the psychotic or the drunk or the drug addict or the criminal and see their baby pictures in my mind's eye. You don't think they were cute like every other baby?
Dustin Hoffman

"Don't try to drive the homeless into places we find suitable. Help them survive in places they find suitable."

Daniel Quinn

Matthew 25:34-35 "Then the King will say to those at His right, 'Come, my Father's blessed ones, receive your inheritance of the Kingdom which has been divinely intended for you ever since the creation of the world. For when I was hungry, you gave me food; when I was thirsty, you gave me drink; when I was homeless, you gave me a welcome.'"

Learning to recover

Len posted this recently. www.nextreformation.com

“God’s dream for radical newness will require discipline. Not discipline connected to punishment or shame, but discipline that roots us in Christ, deepening our connection to God and one another. This rootedness will come from having consistent, ordered ways in which we remain open to Grace, and they will be unique to each one of us. Grace constantly seeks entrance into our souls in order to effect change, but Grace will never force her way in. Discipline is the means by which we open ourselves to the sort of radical change that has always been God’s intention for us.” Gordon Cosby

From the earliest days of the church, after Gordon Cosby returned from World War II, a core assumption has been that the greatest impact on the world comes about by small, highly committed and disciplined communities of people focused on outward mission, inward transformation, and loving, accountable community. Church history, COS members point out, shows this to almost always have been true. Gordon is convinced that size actually inhibits effectiveness, that it works against a community of people being truly counter-cultural, to having depth, to breaking addictions to the culture, to truly witnessing to the gospel. “Large numbers,” he says, “tend almost inevitably toward depersonalization and institutionalism, toward a lessening of commitment. So we resist the temptation to power that comes through numbers.”

Church of the Savior, from Cutting Edge Magazine, Interviewed by Jeff Bailey.

In order for missional communities and churches to successfully form, Alan Roxburgh has noted that “leaders will need to become like novices, learning to recover practices that have become alien to current church experience…it requires waiting and listening to the Spirit’s directions…in a strange Cutting Edge Magazine. land.” -Alan Roxbury

Augustine’s exhortation to leaders: “The first task of leaders is repentance.”

The hidden Christ

Henri Nouwen writes,

 The resurrection of Jesus was a hidden event. Jesus didn't rise from the grave to baffle his opponents, to make a victory statement, or to prove to those who crucified him that he was right after all. Jesus rose as a sign to those who had loved him and followed him that God's divine love is stronger than death. To the women and men who had committed themselves to him, he revealed that his mission had been fulfilled. To those who shared in his ministry, he gave the sacred task to call all people into the new life with him.  The world didn't take notice. Only those whom he called by name, with whom he broke bread, and to whom he spoke words of peace were aware of what happened. Still, it was this hidden event that freed humanity from the shackles of death.”

 

 

The Anguish of an Absence

The terrible mystery of Holy Saturday, its abyss of silence, has thus acquired a crushing reality in these days of ours. Cardinal Ratzinger

the day of that unprecedented paradox we express in the Creed with the words: “Descended into hell”, became a partaker of our solitudes.

The empty day…The King Sleeps and there is a great silence over the land.

the day of that unprecedented paradox we express in the Creed with the words: “Descended into hell”, became a partaker of our solitudes.

a future not our own.

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Archbishop Oscar Romero