Quantum Kingdom

Dwight Friesen is on faculty at Mars Hill Grad School. It’s looks like I will finally take a class from him next semester, and I’m looking forward to it. Once again the standard disclaimer applies — I doubt these notes will do his ideas, or the others offered through discussion, any justice.

We began with discussion, and these are some summary of ideas that were shared:

With so many of us coming from an evangelical background, our understandings of gospel are growing larger. With that, it makes you wonder what new forms of church will be needed to help us cope with that understanding.

When Christianity becomes issue driven, whether conversions or justice or whatever, we lose the beauty of this faith. It is about being present in an incarnational encounter with the other so that the very life of God is manifest.

Dwight’s Proposal: What if mission and relation were not just values, but structural and organizational ideas?
-Think of churches as silos and the kingdom as networks

Basics of Network Theories
-Nodes – people/organizations
-Relationships – connections between the nodes
-Clusters happen within networks when a node becomes a hub with a number of connections
-What would it look like to think of clusters as unique localized embodiements of kingdom realities?
-The church is Christ-clusters
-Leadership changes to the idea of hubbing
o The best hubs always give away their best resources – they pass others along
o Much like Google pass me on to what I need
-Mission becomes weak links
o The strength of a network is multiple weak links, not just one central main hub
-A hubbing leader finds where reconciliation seems impossible and to go where no one has gone before in making a connection

What is the purpose of the church in the world?
-The Christian calling is “and’ing”
o Wherever there is a sense that there is a divide, we work to bridge it
o Reconciliation is not just between God and man but between men – it is the calling of the church

Euro-Emerging Revolutionaries (Positive Church)

I’ve been reading Jason Clark’s blog for the past few years, and had a few good interactions with him on email, so I was excited to meet him in person. I think he represents a great voice for the church, and I doubt these notes do his ideas any justice.

Premise: There seem to be two options in the changing culture that we are facing:
-Dig in deep, hold on to what we have and resist
-Believe that God has left the church and everyone should walk away from it.

The Via Media – What is the alternative to those two polarities?

What happens when you ask what is wrong with Christians rather than what is wrong with church?
-There is room to critique church, but, that can’t be the only issue.
-We need a vision for church that is not based in what we don’t want church to be – that’s pathology

Instead, let’s construct a positive vision for the what the church should be
-The emerging church has critiqued the church and engaged culture, but it has lacked a critique of the culture
-Universalism has never led to a missional church movement toward growth
-We are going too far with anti-structuralism and the naïve belief that the grace of God is not located in church
-When people say they have no problem with Jesus, but don’t like the church, they’re not thinking about the Jesus who is the head of the church
o It is not possible to separate Jesus from the church
-We are going to have to rediscover in a new way, the way to say to people, “Will you give control of your life to Christ?”
-It’s so easy to fall into the pattern of talking idealism and not doing anything
-Most Christians who are leaving church are talking idealistically about why they don’t need church, but the reality is that they are converting a religious system where they don’t need church

What might this look like?
-Look at the marketplaces of church
o Joe Myers four spaces where people interact – Public, Social, Private and Intimate
o Churches need to understand how to work in all four spaces, or we need churches that excel in all of them
-Look at the media of church
o The church has always been at the front of implementing technology
o Today, we’ve never been more connected than ever, and disconnected at the same time
o And we still need space to be truly message
-Look at the message of church
o Maybe part of the problem is what we communicate
o The message is about the kingdom, not just heaven after death!
o This is not just about that, but about placing the whole of your life into the kingdom
o How can we find new language to help people understand that Christianity is not just about going to heaven when you die?

I was exchanging emails with Mike DeVries this morning and he asked me how the Revolution Conference was going so far…

I find myself struggling to engage in this first session. I’ve spent plenty of time grappling with some of the ideas, and the theories, of how the church is changing with the culture. I think there will be a lot of insight to be gleaned out of this, but I just hope I can stay engaged enough to hear those bits. I’m just sitting in the back knowing that I think a lot of this is good, but wondering how to really engage in all of these ideas with the people I minister with week after week.

I’m at the Revolution Conference this weekend. I’ll probably try to share a few notes here and there, but right now, I’m sitting next to Justin Baeder who is typing feverishly, so go visit his blog.

Note: Bob Hyatt is also blogging more extensively than I am.

I just added a banner to my sidebar to help spread the word about the You Say You Want a Revolution Conference. It is November 3-4 in the Seattle area. I attended Off The Map’s conference last November, and it was unlike any conference I’ve been too.

Based on my experience last year, I didn’t waste any time registering for this year’s conference when it became available. I appreciate the conversation that Off the Map is working to create. I’m also happy too see that this year’s conference is featuring Brian McLaren and George Barna. Whether you agree with them or not, I believe both of these two men have some valuable things to say, and I look forward to the dialogue between them.

Early bird pricing is pretty well discounted, but the deadline for that is Thursday, so get registered. In the meantime, you can keep up with the conference through their new blog.