GraceStreet- a company of exiles

Nouwen thought

“…Every time there are losses there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper…”

Absent

I was having some difficulties posting recently and found myself a bit out of the loop. Sanity has been restored, (relatively speaking) the center appears to be holding. Liminal space is that place between stories where I find myself more often then not. Ambiguity and silence often define that landscape. But....the hope is wonderful.

Canadian Michael Jones writes,

“At the present time we are between stories—too often we lead by rote, by script by credentials, by strategy or tactics, by our five-year plan or by what the expert says. We subscribe to the flashlight world and make absolute its qualities of purpose, direction, focus, willfulness, action and clear sightedness. We miss how, as these qualities when they fall put of balance, become absolutes. They reinforce the myths of perfection, absolute truth, separation, efficiency, scarcity and control. We hunger for what the candlelight brings—for landscape, music, art, subtlety nuance and the gifts they bring of ambiguity, trust, silence, courage, surrender, willingness, connection and risk.

“So the leader needs to balance not one, but two-bottom lines. The first is strategic, focused on assessing, prioritizing and reporting. Most leaders must learn to succeed in an outcome oriented, mission based and document driven world. But there is also another bottom line, one that speaks to our own longing and to the timeless needs and wisdom of the heart—what we may think of as ‘leadership by unfolding’ (1) The leader’s work is to somehow find balance between the intellect’s passion for strategy, action and outcome with the heart and the imagination’s affinity for the unknown. These myths are a natural result of an over emphasis on cultivating the strategic mind without at the same time cultivating the intelligence of an empathic and imaginative heart.”

Transforming Leadership Through the Power of the Imagination

In The Next Evangelicalism, Soong-Chan Rah writes,

“Most modern, Western  interpretation of the Acts 2 passage emphasizes the preaching and public proclamation elements of the narrative. Peter’s sermoon (Acts 2:14-40) serves as the impetus for the growth of the church in Acts 2:41 and 47. Emphasis is placed upon the statement that “with many other words he (Peter) warned them; and he pleaded with them” (Acts 2:40). In most English translations, Acts 2:41 (”Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day”) is marked off as the culmination of Peter’s sermon and not as part of the following section describing the community life of the church. The twentieth century’s prioritizing of the sermon as a means of persuasion reflects the importance of preaching, and verbal proclamation in evangelism and church growth.

“But what if Acts 2:41 serves as a bridge between Peter’s sermon and the life of the church as described in Acts 2:42-47? Or what if Acts 2:41actually belongs structurally to the last section of Acts 2 rather than the first section of Acts 2? If we examine Acts 2:41-47 as one unit, a structure emerges for these verses that points to another explanation for the growth of the church. Acts 2:41 and 47 serve as framing verses for what occurs between Acts 2:42 and 46. The structure of this passage, therefore, follows the chiastic structure so commonly found in Greek literature. The passage develops in this manner:

A. Numerical growth of the church (Acts 2:41)
…B. characteristics of church life (Acts 2:42-42)
…– fellowship (teaching, breaking bread, prayer)
…– outsiders are amazed
…—-  C. Self-sacrificial life of the church (Acts 2:44-45)
…B. Characteristics of church life
…– fellowship (meeting in the temple, breaking bread, praise)
…– outsiders are amazed
A. Numerical growth of the church (Acts 2:47b)

“In using the chiastic structure, Luke may be pointing to a different interpretation of the growth of the church in the first century. Chiastic structures often focus on the relationship between the outside statements’ (A) relationship to the center of the structure (C). The center of this chiastic structure becomes the focus of how the outside statements come to pass. So instead of seeing evangelism and church growth as the effect of the cause of verbal proclamation and the preaching of the gospel by Peter, should we instead see evangelism and church growth as a product of the demonstration of the gospel in the self-sacrifical living of the church? Have we overemphasized the personalized, verbal proclamation of the gospel while ignoring the public demonstration of the gospel — through racial reconciliation, social service, social action and justice?

“The church growth movement of the twentieth century reflects the cultural values of individualism, materialism, and racism..” (106-107)

www.nextreformation.com

“Romans Road, Evangelism Explosion, The Four Spiritual Laws, The Bridge - approach the “lost person” from a position of power. They come to the lost person with a prepackaged message that assumes one gospel fits all. They assume the questions to be asked and the answers that shall be given before we have even listened. (intellectually, and more important attitudinally - we are saying with our posture that we already know what you need, what your problem is, and we’re right and you’re wrong - none-Christians come away feeling like “I’m one of your ‘cases’”).  I contend this is contrary to the gospel. For the gospel always comes incarnationally: i.e. humbly, entering in to hear each person/ culture in its own language. The one message fits all implies that everyone has the same problem. Only in Christendom, where everyone was already pre-initiated and where the cultural problems are homogenous, would this make sense..”

Another great Merton thought

'What do I fear most? To forget who I am, to be lost in what I am not.'

Thomas Merton, Journal 1966

Dear Bishop,

… Suddenly I feel the urgent need to cast aside all theories and discussions, all efforts at strategy, and simply go to these people and do the work among them for which I came to Africa. I would propose cutting myself off from the schools and the hospital and just go and talk to them about God and the Christian message. Outside of this, I have no theory, no plan, no strategy, no gimmick, no idea of what will come. I feel rather naked. I will begin as soon as possible … (Vincent J. Donovan)

 

'One reason why the Church does not impress the world more may be because we are too much bent on impressing it, more bent on impressing than on confessing. We labour on the world rather than overflow on it. We have a deeper sense of its need than of our own fulness, of its problems than of our answer … We are tempted to forget that we have not, in the first place, either to impress the world or to save it, but heartily and mightily to confess in word and deed a saviour who has done both, who has done it for ourselves, and who is doing it every day’. - PT Forsyth, ‘The Soul of Christ and the Cross of Christ’. London Quarterly Review 116 (1911), 193.