Blah Guy

There is a fascinating idea for church going on at a place called Lifechurch.tv. It is an interactive, 13 site, multi-racial and multi-ethnic, group of congregations that have created a network of community. Their current series is called ‘Practical Atheist’ and looks rather intriguing. As well, they offer a number of ways to connect virtually, with a blog, simulcasts, Second Life fellowship. Take a minute and check it out.

While I am always reminding those around me that that real community is determined by the possibility of being punched, I think this helps create community before it comes about.

Thanks to Bart Campolo for this video. Sadly compelling…

When I was in college, I would often go hang out with some friends at a bar in Eugene. We’d listen to jazz; make fun of the waiter, and hit on the cute girls. All that stuff. It was nice. The smell of laughter and the joy of friendship always filled the bar every time we would go. Everyone always seemed to be enjoying themselves to the max. Sometimes, someone would go a little overboard. Not me. And that made for fun when everyone else wasn’t. I used to go into the bathroom when that drunk guy would go in there and sit in the other stall. I‘d begin to whisper lines from The Field of Dreams. “If you build it, he will come.” “Ease his pain.” It was more fun for me than for most of them, trust me. I couldn’t help but laugh. I was also a jerk back then. Not any more, of course.

My dad was almost killed in a bar. Growing up in Montana where there is nothing to do, my dad resorted much of his time to the pleasures of being a winebibber. I always feel uncomfortable asking him about his High School years because there are probably things that I shouldn’t know, or rather, things that I should know to solve some rather exciting FBI case my dad was loosely involved in. He became a drunk very fast. When he met my mom in Medical school, he had already developed a full dependence not only on alcohol, but on just about anything he could get his hands on. Drinks turned to drugs, drugs turned to depression, and depression soon turned to divorce. My parents broke up when I was 9 or so. Today, I have a terrific relationship with my living father because he is no longer an alcoholic. I wish I could say that it was he totally “got saved” or something likes that, but salvation for my father came not through a church service, but a family. Not a family of relatives, but a family of people struggling with the same thing. That family is called AA, alcoholics anonymous. Looking back, I consider all of those weird meetings a total godsend. I would share my name like, “Hello, my name is AJ and…”, and I would never know what to say after that. The alcoholics in the group would say, “…and I’m an alcoholic”. But I was not. So, out loud I would say, “…and I am happy to be here”, which brought an “ahhh” from the group. The old ladies loved it when I said that. But what I was thinking was not the same. I was thinking, “…and my dad is a raging alcoholic, please help him or my mom and dad are never going to be together again.” And, you know what; those people heard my silent prayer. He stopped drinking. He has not drunk anything for 15 years. I am so darn proud of my dad. Seriously.

People, Christians mostly, get so down on AA because they don’t force Jesus down people’s throats. Some churches don’t even let them use their facilities because of it. But AA is not a church. It has never tried to be. AA does not exist to get people to become Christians but to stop drinking and learn to grow. I think AA needs to do what it is trying to do, namely help people stop drinking. It seems as though the church should focus any attention they have on AA’s non-blatantly-Christian approach and find any way they can help in the process; not stand on the outside and complain. AA saved my dad from dying, not the church. It makes me wonder too. Does God get happy over an alcoholic breaking an addiction, or does God just get happy about people who convert to Christianity? God loves both. He loves seeing all of his kids become healthy. He loves seeing anybody become more human. Does he love it when people become Christians? Yes, he does. But He also hates it when Christians forget that God came not just to save Christians, but all the other ones too! He also hates it when the church forgets to celebrate non-believers coming one more step towards faith in experiencing some good ole’ fashion addiction breaking miracle.

Jesus loves AA.

There is considerable discussion today as to what “core beliefs” are necessary for being a Christian, a sort of “what makes you in/out” sort of discussion.

Two problems with this discussion are found in our assumptions. First, that our lists actually matter, as if God comes to me wondering, “What does AJ think the list should be today for everyone to be a good little Christian.”. Secondly, every-one’s list is different. I rarely to never find two lists the same, which from my perspective, appears to create somewhat of a theological “pickle” if you will.

At the same time, I think it is a cop-out to simply say “Jesus” like a 5 year old in Sunday School as an answer to that question.

I love the discussion, but it can only be done in the context of the understanding that this discussion will never end. At any point our little “list” is set, I am checking out of the talk. And at the same time, when the “list” never ends, I can never be in with God.

So, keep the discussion rolling.

Dan Kimball has an excellent discussion going on right now and I would highly encourage you to check it out. I love his style. So will you hopefully!

I think there is a reason God does not speak like a piece of “chain email”? God does not always, and rarely does, speak uniformly to his church. He will give different messages to different people. Not different truth. God does not seem to lie. But he will present truth in so many different ways to so many different people because people hear truth differently. And people always have differing views and opinions on truth. It is like putting a coffee cup in the middle of the room and saying to the people standing around it, “what do you see?” This is okay, yet frustrating at times.

Yves Congar, theologian and overall brilliant guy, argues that the Holy Spirit speaks in two main ways. Personally and institutionally, meaning that he speaks to individuals and groups alike. The problem with this is truth can look so vastly different to both groups.

I have been wondering. Is my preaching an email or a blog?

Do I send people unwanted messages or are they coming to me to learn and sit at my feet? Don’t we always want to create ministries where people who want to come can come in freedom and not oppression?

That is the problem with text-messaging. You can’t text tears. Jesus didn’t text humanity his love. He came and showed it.

I have more than ever taken the theological stance that theology as a whole is a conversation, not a science nor system. In reality, I submit, in some way it must always be to some degree one of the two. For what is science but watching the wonders of the thing you are studying. Jurgen Moltmann writes, with eloquence, about this concept in “The Trinity and the Kingdom”. And to be big headed enough to consider your own voice in the conversation as being the final say, is well, what shall we say, absolutely dumb. When I talk theology, with anyone, I am entering a conversation that has been ongoing for thousands of years. Why is the title of this entry “Reformed”?

My concern lies with the very nature of “Reformed”. Neither did Luther nor Calvin expect us to think that this new “Form” which they “re’d” would be complete. Rather, I would argue they both (Especially Luther who wanted “reformation”, not “separation” from the Catholic church) saw their own contributions to theology as part of a longer conversation, not one that they ended with their own voice.

Here is my point. The reformed faith has one problem, its past tense-ness. It is reform-ed. Past tense. It was reform, not is, not will be. I would like to argue a new name for the reformed brand of theology. Reform(ing).

Why?

Luther sought to create change from the inside, a change which he no doubt saw being a beginning, not an end with himself. And if he were here, I think he would remind us:

“You ain’t done yet bucko”.

His nails weren’t the ones that solved the world’s real problems.

Take some time and read the conversation over on organicjesus.org There are some excellent thoughts on the reformed faith you would do good to read.

So then, what is the preacher’s job?

One guy at our church was famous for saying, when he saw a brother or sister in the faith, “The Jesus in me sees the Jesus in you and says, Hello Jesus!” That sums up preaching.

The preachers job is to find out what Jesus is doing in people and say something about it. That is why a preacher must have a relationship with the people he is preaching to. If he does not, it would be like a fly fisherman loading up his bag, tying a fly, driving to Montana, casting his line in the water, pulling up a big ole’ stick and saying, “Whew! Imagine that”, because he has no dam blabbed idea what a fish looks like. We can’t be fishers of men until we learn to be men and know what they look like. But when we know the struggles of the people, the dirt, the skinny, the jokes, the laughter, the frustrations, those are all things Jesus is desperately dying to teach the people about. So when we preach, we first find what Jesus is doing in people, then have the guts to say something about it.

Practical preaching for the sake of practical preaching is a sin. But practical preaching because the preacher knows that is what Jesus is doing and that is what He told you to talk about is obedience. The difference cannot be told except by the preacher. That is why some of the biggest churches in the world get bigger while the smaller churches in the world keep getting smaller. When people can make their consumeristic choices between some message that is going to be safe and contain something that can help them live better over a very unsafe message that was born out of obedience, they will make the same choice every single time. Not because they are bad, but because Western consumerism is branded into their brain. Buy the best product out there. The problem with prophetic preaching is it is rarely the best product on the market. At least not in their minds because “best” equals “feels or tastes best”. Best does not mean any more “Best” in terms of the truest. Prophetic preaching can be a message of hope like Jonah or a message of wrath like Isaiah. Our job is to be what God has called us to be, no more no less

Here is what I think. I think that God can put a Jonah and a Isaiah in the same city. What? Wouldn’t God want the whole city to hear about salvation or their coming destruction. God has a way of putting more than one preacher in the same city because it will be Jesus inside of them who will draw the hearer to where they need to go. We must stop focusing on how to get people into our doors and focus on what Jesus is telling us to say and he will do the job of drawing people (The Apostle John…”I draw people through the Father”). The magnetism of the Holy Spirit works and we should let it.