I come from a tradition that is all about restoring the New Testament church. For this very reason, we like to call ourselves the Restoration Movement. The movement came out of a desire to strip away all of the muck that built up around denominations over the years, and to simply try to be like the church was in the New Testament. Its a great concept, but as I sat in my church history class last week, it occurred to me that it is the wrong one.

The very nature of the church is not the form it takes, but the function it has. At its elemental level, the church is completely organic and without form. It exists for the sake of it’s purpose, not for the sake of its institution. It is a continuation of the work that Jesus started, and it’s function is to teach people what it means to follow Jesus and live within the Kingdom of God. As Lee Camp said, in yet another quote from Mere Discipleship: Typically, many interpret Acts 2 as an account of the “birth” of “the church,” a fair enough interpretation to a great extent. But the assembly of people described there only continues the story of Jesus’ ministry.

This does not mean that the church should be without form, but it does mean that the form the church takes is for the purpose of continuing it’s function in whatever cultural setting it is in. We very much see that, in the first few chapters of Acts, the church was about the relationships that people had, and the apostles passing along what Jesus had taught. However, in Acts 6, we see the church formalizing for the first time. There was a problem with the way food was being distributed. The apostles new that there was more going on than they could care for, so they formally appointed people to care for this issue.

This is the first instance of the church creating structure, and it was in response to what the church was facing within the culture. As history goes on, we see that everytime the church institutes different forms, they are in response to what is happening around the church. In order to respond to heresy, bishops were appointed to designate who truly carried on the work of the apostles. The canon of the Scriptures was formed because heretics were trying to say other books had equal authority.

What does this mean for us today? Is it wrong for the church to exist as an institution? Should the church only exist as underground cell groups. Absolutely not, although that is one way it can exist as well. The church began to form itself to help it pursue it’s mission from the very start. However, we must always remember that any forming that the church does is so that it can best pursue the mission and function of the church within the culture it is in.

I find great freedom in this. Rather than critique how others do church, let’s just evaluate ourselves. Let deeply look at how we do things today that are a result of forms the church has taken, and not a result of us wanting to BE the church in our culture. Lets continue to look at how we can restore what it means to be a follower of Jesus today, and how we can assemble together in pursuit of that.

CNN is bragging that one of their correspodants is maintaining a hurricane blog. Do they not understand that it’s not really a blog without a feed of some sort? It’s really just a glorified news article.

In this instance, I do appreciate the intent. My thoughts and prayers are with those who are in Katrina’s way tonight and tomorrow — whether they are there by choice or not.

In my church history class this past week, the newness of the idea that something could be secular came up several times. The word secular essentially means something that is not at all connected with religion, spirituality, or God. This is really a 20th century concept, and an utterly false one at that.

Through a movement away from religion in the modern world, the idea that something could be secular was popularized. Of course, I think the church enjoyed the definition just as much. We have always found it easier to create a black-white/us-them kind of mentality.

We would be much better off if we completely removed the idea from our thinking and returned to how the church viewed things before the 20th century. Prior to the term secular, the more common idea was the word “profane”. When something was profane, it was a corrupted version of what God had originally created. This makes so much more sense. How much better off would followers of Jesus be if we saw that everything is profane to a degree, and the work of Jesus through the church is to redeem it?

Sex.
Music.
Money.
Food.
People.
Movies.
Desires.
The church.

Just think how it would reshape our thinking if we looked at these things not as secular or Christian, but as corrupted versions of what God orignally created. The great task before followers of Jesus is not to define what is of this world and what isn’t, but to redeem that which has been corrupted.

I’ve talked a lot about Mere Discipleship on here, and I know some others are reading it. I ran across this blog called Mere Discipleship Discussion which focuses on the book. Enjoy.

This is as close to a political post as I’ve ever gotten. It is definitely not the first in a series, so don’t come looking for a sequel. I don’t post about politics, because I am forever wrestling with what the mix of church and politics should look like. But this might be a good start…

A few weeks ago, in our home gathering, we were talking about our church’s value statements. One of the things we wrestled with was how could we care about social justice issues. Often these issues are considered to be political in nature — or at least these are issues that many typically think are best dealt with through politics. The question was raised — how can we care about social justice issues without becoming a political church?

To press it a bit further, should the church even deal with social issues and justice, or should those best be left to politics? There is a something ugly that seems to happen when politics and religion mix as Pat Robertson has proven this week.

Perhaps the church must find a way to be apolitically political. We have to care about these issues. They matter to Jesus, and they matter to the church. But is there a way that they can be dealt with which transcends politics?

NT Wright provided a fascinating thought this week in a message I was listening to. (The transcript of that message is here.) He commented on the trial of Jesus before Pilate in John 18:28-40. Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?”

Certainly Jesus has an answer to that question. It was only a few chapters earlier in John 14:6 that Jesus claimed the HE is the truth. Wright suggests that Jesus remained silent because Pilate would not be able to accept the answer. The work of Jesus is far greater than the politics of Pilate can understand. However, Jesus goes on to demonstrate his answer by his death and resurrection.

Can this be a model for the church today?
Can we interact not by getting mixed up in politics, but by transcending them?
Can we deal with issues of justice better than politics can, without getting stuck in the muck and mire of politics?

I think it we have to. I think it is our call. If the church believes that following Jesus is the best way, then it must be able to demonstrate that it has the best response to the injustice in our world. We simply must do the dirty work of sorting though what that response can and should look like.

I leave this with one example of what it might look like. This is a quote in Mere Discipleship (pg 45) from a pastor’s sermon in Colorado Springs a number of years ago:

What if there were abortion clinics but nobody went in? What if abortion was a legal choice, but it was a choice nobody took? Changes in the law, blocking abortion clinics, demaning name-calling will not stop abortions. They history of the church through the ages has been the history of changes brought about in society through the church demonstrating and living an alternative vision of life. We need to stop telling our nonbelieving neighbors how wrong their way of life is, and we need to start showing the power of the gospel in the way we live … Let me ask you: Which has greater power? Ten thousand people who fill the streets in front of abortion clinics and shame those seeking abortions, or then thousand people in California who take to the state capital a petition they have signed stating they will take any unwanted child of any age, any color, any physical condition so that they can love that child in the name of Jesus Christ?

Google has announced Google Talk — springing them headfirst into the instant messaging arena. Supposedly, it is going to be able to interact with AIM, Yahoo, and even Apple iChat, although I don’t see options to add any of those accounts yet.

I’ve become addicted to Alias I think. I had always heard what a great show it was, but had never watched until a few months ago. I started watching the 4th season with a friend I was living with, and since I have gone back and watched all of season 1 and most of season 2 to catch up on the story. To be honest, I’m not really that compelled with each individual story, and usually have it on in the background while I am doing other things. Much moreso, I’m interested in how each week ties together in a larger narrative of the story. Each week leaves us hanging between as the greater plot is developed through each episode. (Though I can’t find his original entry, I need to give Will Samson a nod for sharing this idea some months ago.)

We are too fascinated with the idea of a clean finish I think. We want to tie up loose ends and be done with things. Sometimes this can be useful, but sometimes it can be harmful. TV show writers understand that…they want the story to somehow pull you forward to next week, so that you know you are not finished with it. (Of course, even as I type this, my two week old daughter is fussing, and I am torn between comforting her and trying to finish this post — it’s hard to leave things unfinished!)

Scot McKnight posted some suggestions on how to write a few days ago. One of his suggestions was along the same lines. When you are done with one writing project, don’t stop. Go ahead and at least start the next project. This helps you to not feel like you have the big hurdle of the start ahead of you, but that you can just come back and pick up where you left up.

What if we brought this into play in how we did gatherings, whether large or small, in our Jesus communities? We like to think of gatherings as neat little packages that have a nice start and a neat finish. Sometimes we think this way about sermons, and sometimes we think this way about entire worship services. What if we scrapped this whole idea?
What if we stopped with a start and began with an ending?
What if we began each gathering by reflecting on how last weeks’ theme/topic was present with us that week?
What if people had a chance to share how it played out for them?
What if our teaching was devoted not to presenting a nice little package of truth that was neatly wrapped up in a cute outline?
What if people were presented with something compelling to live with and wrestle with all week?
What if we were all left hanging each time we gathered?

Wouldn’t this better reflect to all of us that following Jesus is about how we live?
It’s not about sitting a worship service every week. It’s not about what our doctrine is. I need to be reminded of that. Don’t you?

One more thought along this line, although this one isn’t finished…finish it on your own. The Jewish concept of the day was not the same as ours. For us the day begins not at midnight, or, practically speaking, when we wake up in the morning. But for Jews, the day began when the sun went down. So that means Wednesday is starting for me right about now. How could thinking of our days in this way be useful for this concept of unresolution?

And one final thought…earlier, when Ellie was fussing, I decided to

Google has released the beta version of Google Desktop 2. Google Desktop was already a great little add-in for Windows, and this takes it even further. I am typically wary of adding too much clutter to my Windows machine which slows it down, but when Google releases something like this, I’m definitely going to give it a try!

We humans commonly get in a trap of thinking: “Things will be better when _______________.” When we are in high school, we think everything will be okay when we move out and go to college. When we are single, we think things will be better when we have someone special in our life. When we are engaged, we think they will be better when we are married…and so on.

Perhaps there is some truth to this, but I think it is a dangerous way to live. I’ve seen too many people have a serious let-down after that next thing happened. The transition didn’t bring with it all that they hoped, and in a sense, they were let down even more. The problem is this: when we go through a transition, there is one thing we take with us — ourselves! Rather than hope for a situation change to make things better, we are better off working on ourselves in the situation we are in.

The process of moving presented me with hope of some things I might use this life transition to change about how I do some things. One of these was that I wanted to be a little more organized in my work spaces. My desk at both work and home have always been messy and cluttered. I wanted to change that. Now, my home office is also my work office. The potential for chaos as these forces clash could be unbelieveable, but I have worked hard. When we moved in, I spent a few days really trying to get my office nicely organized and to have a place for everything. This was a good start, but I’m noticing that things are slowly starting to stack here and there. It isn’t bad, but I see the buildup happening, and I need to keep on top of it. The point is…it is still my office, and I am still prone to stacks. Changing offices doesn’t change me.

I think followers of Jesus are often guilty of the same thing in how we view eternity. Generally, we think that this life is one where we are stuck and trapped in this harder life that Jesus has called us to live, but that he will pay us all back in the resurrection. We think being a Chrstian is just about suffering for a great reward later. We have to escape this thinking.

As far as now goes, I believe fully that following Jesus now is the best way to live. Yes, it means I give more of myself than I often want to. Yes, it means I sacrifice. Yes, it means I suffer at times. But I wouldn’t trade it. I don’t try to live this life with an undercurrent thought of: “God, you owe me for this.” I think some of our “suffer now, reward later” thinking reveals that kind of thinking.

The other side of it is this. Do we truly think that the resurrection will be a time where we have all we want, all the time. Does that sound like a satisfying way to live forever? Or is that just our consumer mentality projected on to eternity? Think of what broke when Adam and Eve ate that fruit in the garden…for the first time, they “wanted”. The serpent convinced them that they needed something they didn’t have. Prior to that, the shalom of the garden was that they didn’t “want”, but just enjoyed the company of God and each other. Perhaps we should think of the resurrection not as a time where we will be able to get without limit, but where we will be able to give without limit. It will be full relationships between us and God, where everyone will be able to give without fear of what they will miss out on.

This is why how we view following Jesus now is so important. It is a preview and a preparation for what eternity will bring. If we view this time as a sacrifice for the rewards to come, it corrupts us. Instead, the way we live in this life is a glimpse for all to see of what it will look like when God fully restores all things. My most fulfilling times in this life are when I use gifts that God has given me for the benefit of others. Shouldn’t I think that the resurrection holds an even greater fulfillment of this same thing?

(Mike DeVries post on “Rabbi Zalman Marcus on Heaven and Hell [part 1]“ helped me formulate some of these thoughts, and I encourage you to read it as well.)

Beliefnet has this interview with Rob Bell.

If you are using my old subvergence.org feed, this is likely the post you will see, so please update your feedreader. There is a bloglines subscribe link below, and here is a link to the current feed. If you have no idea what I’m talking about (ahem, JJ), then you are probably okay.

Subvergence.org is still working, for the time being anyway, for email and through the webbrowser, but it will no longer provide an updated feed.

Doug Pagitt posted about this article that he wrote for Relevant in order to give a synopsis of sorts of what it means to be an emerging church.

There are many different understandings that people have out there of what it means to be emerging. Because of this, I usually shy away from the term in favor of missional, even though that might be less descriptive as a whole. However, I resonate with the characterisitics he describes in the article. If these were how people understood the emerging church as a whole, I would welcome the label.

Being defined as an emerging church should less be defined as what your church community doesn’t have (ie formal leadership, worship services, buildings, organs, contemporary worship, structure, republicans) or does have (house churches, candles, bivocational pastors, democrats). Instead, it should be defined as what your church community is trying to be. The methods you use don’t matter as much as the what your community is striving to accomplish. (Obviously if the methods get in the way of what you are trying to become, that is another matter.)

Though he almost seems to think his article is too simplistic (thin is the word he uses), I think Doug Pagitt has captured the heart of what being an emerging church should be.

I watched The Real DaVinci Code on Discovery last night. It’s the first DaVinci code show I’ve seen where they seriously explore the facts behind the book and conclude that Dan Brown didn’t do his research well enough. He holds that the Priory of Sion, a key organization in the book, does in fact exist as he describes it. The show reveals the hoax behind it.

With the movie coming out next year, this show is worth watching, and it is good to be up on the facts. The show will be on Discovery again later today, and then in looks like they are rebroadcasting it again on some of the channels in the Discovery family in the coming days.

Zach Lind interviewed Rob Bell this week and has made it available on his blog. It is definitely worth a listen as Rob talks about his passion for music, Velvet Elvis, and more. I see a future career as a talk show host for Zach if the drumming thing doesn’t work out for him. Here’s a direct link to the mp3. Thanks Zach!

…is here!