History

I read some thoughts over at Jason Clark's blog on the importance of church history. Good stuff - it mirrors what I've been thinking about recently.

Personhood

Last night our student ministry met again. We're continuing to work through the issues that we face in our efforts to build community. When people have been hurt and trust has been broken, it's incredibly difficult to regain that trust. On the positive side, one person commented on her blog that she finally feels like she belongs. That's a miracle (her words and mine), and helps me hope for something more.

Someone said something that I found incredibly insightful. "I don't have anywhere that I can be a person. I want to be a person." I'll confess that my eyes were a bit watery after that statement. But what an amazing way to reflect on Christian community! We allow people to have a place where they can be persons - not a number, not a statistic, not a marketing niche or a sexual object or a production unit or any of the other non-person ways of treating people that society thrusts upon us. We assist in the recreation of imago dei. What an incredible thought! I want that for myself, and for the teens that are a part of our community. I want for them to have a place to be persons.

Darwin

One of the things that frustrates me about American evangelicalism is the prevailing attitude of theological Darwinism. Current theologies and practices are always assumed to be the new pinnacle of theological reflection; the old is to be tossed aside like yesterday's stale bread. The end result of such a stance is that many American churches (and American Christians) live lives that are completely unconnected with the greater Christian story. We have no sense of history, of tradition, of love and respect for those who have come before us in the faith. Well, in honesty, we might regard Luther with a certain fondness; after all, he smashed the iron cage of Catholic tradition that hindered the continued development of the Christian species. And didn't Calvin do something important? Or was that Hobbes? And there was some guy named Wes that had a method to his madness...

The tragic irony in such a stance is that the story of the church is now no longer about God and His actions in history - the missio dei. The evolutionary process is now about reaching its ultimate pinnacle - us. We finally have it figured out, unlike those uneducated barbarians Tertullian and Irenaeus. What does Anthony have to teach us? He lived in the desert! God couldn't have talked to him there. What could he possibly have to say about our much more important, much busier lives?

I was discussing with a friend recently how much garbage is produced in the name of Christ. Where are the Lewises, the Chestertons, the Edwardses, the Julians and Johns and Benedicts? I think that our belief in newer-bigger-better-faster actually results in crappier-crappier-crappier, especially as it relates to church life, belief, and practice. We don't build to last anymore - why bother? Those who come after us will only tear down what we've built in the name of progress. And, because we've rejected the historical faith, we make the same mistakes that our predecessors have already struggled with. (There is an opposing perspective to this as well. Some traditions enthrone their history, much like a valued museum piece that is supposedly priceless but which does nobody any good because it hasn't been used, stretched, updated, or repaired in ages...)

So here, for me, is the question - how do we live in community with the historical church? There are many challenges here, but I'm going to list only a few:

• How do we own the mistakes of the past as part of our story without embracing them?


• What can we learn from the arguments, discussions, creeds, and councils that have already taken place? (As an aside, much of our "emerging" theology could use some historical accountability - a lot of what we wrestle with has been wrestled with before. We do ourselves no favors by ignoring that.)


• How do we value our predecessors without worshipping them?


• In the process of "deconstruction", can we both critique and preserve? Can we guard the treasures while at the same time clearing the trash, and will we have the wisdom to know the difference?


• Can we pass on to our descendants (natural and spiritual) lessons that we've learned and trust that we've taught them to handle achievements well (theirs and ours and our predecessors')? In other words, are we "building to last" and teaching our kids to do the same?

Sabbath

I decided to take a bit of a break from the insanity of my life this weekend. I took a day off for no particular reason and read a book. I avoided being online, checking email, and blogging. I spent some great time with my kids and had a chance to catch up with a few friends I haven't seen for a while. Amazingly enough, for the first time in ages, I actually feel somewhat energized. It's an odd feeling. Sabbath is a good practice; I need to be more deliberate about it.

I'm also thinking about what it means to be in community with not just the local church, but also the global and historical church. I'll post something in the next day or so, once I get something cohesive pulled together...

Forgiveness

We started to talk through what we want for our student ministry on Sunday night. A lot of great things were said, but a few really struck me as being incredibly significant. One question came up that, to me, cuts to the heart of what Christian community is about. In the middle of discussing things like love, respect, and commitment, someone asked, "What happens if someone fails to live up to the standards? There's no way that we're going to be able to do this." Very insightful, I believe, because it's true - Christian community is an impossible standard because it is comprised of sinful people. Fortunately, one practice that is central to biblical model of community holds the answer - the practice of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is central to Christian faith and belief. Not only is it significant in a salvific sense, but the teachings and practices of Christ make it clear that it is imperative as a Christian practice. Jesus, in one story, tells of a man who is forgiven a great debt, more than he could hope to repay or even earn in many lifetimes. Immediately after, he hunts down another man who owes him the price of a cup of coffee and has that man thrown into prison. The irony is almost painful - but it is a scenario that is reenacted daily in the lives of the people of God.

We will fail in our attempts to live rightly with one another. Forgiveness is the practice by which we maintain community through failure. Forgiveness is the practice that makes Christian community truly distinctive - without it, Christian community cannot exist.

Homesick

I had a chance to hang with some close friends this weekend who moved away from the area several years ago. There's something divine, some little taste of heaven, that happens between people who are free to be completely real with each other. Discussing theology over a pint and a smoke with close friends is a great thing. Having friends with whom to discuss theology is a greater thing - one that cannot be captured by words in any meaningful sense.

Once in a while I think we are granted tastes of the beautiful, the noble, the eternal, in order to capture our imaginations and inflame our hunger for the fulfillment of those things. Every moment of wonder is at heart eschatological - it cannot help but fade, lingering as a vague homesickness for a somewhere we have yet to experience. Homesickness is a Christian virtue; it is at the center of all Christian longing for eternal things. Tonight I am homesick, and I am at peace.

Tomorrow - more thoughts on community. Our student ministry meets again tomorrow night; please pray for us. I also have a number of thoughts brewing in our continuing dialogue on community. For now, though, I am enjoying the experience of community in a way that I haven't in some time.

Becoming

Geoff's post on the community/worship dialectic got my brain ticking again. He mentions that both "worship and community are eschatological concepts, always progressing toward the consumation of Creation." Great insight, and one that I think begins to address a nagging question or two that I've been deliberately avoiding - what are the characteristics/practices/identifiers of community? How does this thing work anyway?

Maintaining my earlier contention that sin is at least in part relational in nature, it seems to me that true community as envisioned by Christ is something for which we still hope. "I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." This is His prayer for us - but we live in a state of flux, caught between two worlds and two identities, struggling to be aliens and strangers but often simply going native.

The reality of sin is that we are caught in the act of becoming - we are a new creation that, apparently, hasn't taken final form. Christian community, then, this side of heaven is marred by the same sin that has always warped and twisted human relationships. Despite our best efforts, we will at some point fail to keep our end of the bargain. We will hurt or be hurt, speak when we shouldn't or stay silent when we should, listen to the wrong thing or ignore the right thing, fail to serve or bless or love or live. Christian community represents an ideal that fallen humans are incapable of keeping.

This side of heaven, the practices and hallmarks of Christian community are in the process of becoming. Forgiveness, love, and service are more necessary when broken people need forgiving, loving, and serving. Community isn't realized or accomplished; it's built, repaired, defended, strengthened, and cherished. In a sense, Christian community reflects a continual re-Creation of the imago dei made necessary by the constant battering of a sinful existence. This Creational orientation can't help but look forward to the time when it will be completed; when, on the other side of heaven, our broken image is restored and we become the people we have been created to be.

Beginnings

I've been a bit behind in posting this week. In part, a lot of the things I've been writing about have been hitting a bit close to home. We've been having some good conversations here and at Geoff's blog on the subject of community, and I think there have been a lot constructive, thoughtful, and interesting things said. However, it's been difficult for me to write about something that I'm not experiencing, so I had to take a step back from it for a bit to regain some perspective.

I've mentioned before that I lead the high school ministry for a church in the Philadelphia suburbs. It's a fun, challenging, and at times frustrating task. Recently, I've really been struggling with our group dynamics and our inability to develop any real sense of commitment or unity in our group. It's a problem that a lot of the teens feel deeply, and we've talked about it both privately and publicly - but we can't seem to make any headway, despite the good intentions of everyone to contribute positively.

Tonight we had an amazing meeting where someone opened up to the group and something happened. I'm not sure what exactly that was - but something is different. For the first time in a while, we left feeling connected. We also made a commitment to start over. Next week, we're going to have our first meeting as a new group, and the first thing we're going to do is draft a group covenant. It's nothing revolutionary, but we're all going to commit to living rightly with each other, and also to hold each other accountable to those things. In short, we're giving each other permission to share in each of our lives. It was an amazing thing - I'm incredibly proud of our teens tonight.

It illustrated something foundational for me though. As a leader, my task is like a gardener. I need to do my best to provide the appropriate environment for growth - nutritious soil, the right amount of water, protection from bugs and disease, etc. But I can't make anything grow. Growth is spontaneous and natural. It happens on its own terms and timetable. It can follow patterns but is never predictable. And, ultimately, its only source is God.

I think community is like that.

Image

After several days of pondering, I've decided to attempt to answer, in part, my earlier questions. I have come to the conclusion that the process of building community is creative - not creative in the sense of unique and original, but creative in the Genesis sense, creative in the sense of forming something from nothing, of participating with God in structuring the universe to His glory. Perhaps it would be better to think of it as being re-creative, of rebuilding what was damaged in the Fall. God's calling a people for the purposes of blessing the world is an act of creation that reaches back to humanity's original design and stands, then, fundamentally in opposition to isolation caused by sin.

Imago dei represents, at least in part, the capacity and necessity for humans to be in relationship with God and each other. One of the immediate consequences of rebellion in the Genesis narrative was broken relationship with both, symbolized by the immediate need for clothing - the loss of innocence, trust, and intimacy that originally characterized human relationship. Sin is, I believe, fundamentally a warping or twisting of the imago dei such that humanity can no longer enjoy right relationship with God and our neighbor. It seems to me that the rest of scripture can quite comfortably be read in this trajectory. The Law, according to Jesus, was foundationally about right relationship with God and neighbor. However, because of the warping of the imago dei, we are unable to do so. If the gospel is God's response to humanity's sinful condition, the gospel must, then, call God's people back to right relationship with God and neighbor. Salvation is the process of restoring the imago dei in God's people.

So what does this mean for the Christian? Is it merely an exercise in interpretation? I believe that it means that any formulation of the gospel that does not include the call to return to right relationship with God and neighbor is, by definition, incomplete. The gospel is a call to join God's people in a community that is in the process of together re-creating the imago dei in one another through Christ. As such, the practices of commmunity, such as love, forgiveness, giving, serving, worship (see Geoff's post on worship and community), reconciliation, and justice-seeking, are essential to the true preaching of the gospel. It's not just about "getting right with God", but also about living rightly with each other.