This is part of a series of reflections on the meaning and importance of doing local theology…

I wrote a letter to friends and family least year to tell them about our approaching move to Austin. In that letter, I described how we looked forward to entering into the life of the city. That phrase, created with little thought, has held on to me ever since. One of our primary goals for the past year, and for the year to come, has been to enter into the life of Austin. We hope and anticipate that we will raise our family and a church community here, and we want to begin by walking the path from newcomer to Austinite.

Entering into the life of Austin has meant a few things. It has meant trying to learn about the history of the city, though published resources on the topic are few. It has meant trying to get our young family out often to meet people and experience activities in the city (like Barton Springs, pictured to the right from a family outing last year). It has meant spending more time listening, and less time “telling” people why we are here. It has also led to a specialized (and perhaps neglected) blog, and several ponderings on this blog about Austin.

In our transition, I have tried hard to discard my assumptions about what Austin would be like. Before we moved, I had shared with many that Austin was considered a unique island in the middle of Texas. The tech industry, creative culture, and liberal reputation often cause Austin to be compared with Seattle or San Francisco. While those comparisons have been made, it has always felt presumptuous to me to assume that living in the Seattle area for three years meant that we would get Austin. Austin is it’s own city. Though it is difficult to not see Austin relative to other cities, we do try to see it for what it is.

Being fairly new to the city gives some disadvantage when wanting to do local theology, and yet I also think it provides the advantage of a fresh and unique perspective. Lesslie Newbigin describes how asking a human to describe their culture is like asking a fish to describe water. It is so much their immediate reality that they will never be able to fully understand it. I think we have come to Austin able to compare and contrast it to Seattle…able to see see what is similar and different. (And yes, I do think they are a lot alike, though Austin has a little more independent feel to it. And a lot of Texas feel to it. But maybe those are one and the same.)

I scratched out these words in a “to-remember” file a few years ago: What does it mean to do theology at the local level first? Theology that is local must be rooted in praxis. It can’t be separated from the reality of daily life. I don’t remember what inspired them…I probably stole them from someone else who I now can’t give credit to. But they capture something vital for me as we think about shaping a church community around life in Austin. Our church community must exist where the theology of the Scriptural narrative offers life and hope to the unique culture of Austin. To enter into the life of the city is to explore where that life already exists, and where we can begin to inject more of it.

Three tweets from this week:

• sun, i love you, i really do. but you are making my grass grow way too fast. can we work something else out? Monday 9:52am
• rain, i love the way you sound out there, i really do. but you are making my grass grow way too fast. can we work something else out? Wednesday 12:29am
• snow, i love you. I really do…in december. but you are making it hard for me to mow the lawn. can we work something else out? Friday 1:43pm

If you are in the Seattle area, or if you’re looking for a good reason to be, I’d encourage you to look into The New Conspirators conference put on by Mustard Seed Associates. Two friends who I greatly respect, Eugene Cho and Dwight Friesen, are among an excellent group of presenters. As Christine Sine described it to me: “we do believe that we are bringing together a broader spectrum from the emerging, missional, monastic & mosaic streams of renewal than any previous conference has done.” I certainly couldn’t argue with that.

I’ve been to a number of more well-known national conferences, but I enjoy these smaller to medium sized ones, that we have our fair share of here in Seattle. The presenters are almost always accessible for further dialogue, and the smaller crowd provides more opportunity to connect with others on a similar journey.

How many seminaries are there where you can look out a classroom window to see Puget Sound, a cruise ship in port across the street, and a faculty member smoking a pipe down by the train tracks?

My amigo JJ has been in town since Monday. Yesterday, I had the deep honor of introducing him to Zoka. Can there possibly be better coffee that Zoka?

On the other hand, lunch yesterday was another attempt to find good wings in Seattle. Seattlites rave about WingDome, so I thought I’d give it another shot. Just like the first time I went with Zach a year ago, it just wasn’t able to satisfy my wing cravings. Can there possibly be any good wings in the Northwest?

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.