For All God’s Worth by NT Wright

I’m not sure if it’s being in Paris or whatever, but this book seemed to be written to me at the right time. Let me read you a quote that may or may not affect you, but really challenged me and my direction in life.

“…But the second level of calling, which may, and I pray will, come to some of you, is the calling to be all this for the church. It is the call, in other words, to full-time Christian ministry at whatever level, including that of ordination. Ordination isn’t the be-all and end -all of Christian ministry; but the church desperately needs ordained clergy, needs them now as much as ever, and I would be surprised if out of the readers of a book like this God were not calling someone, perhaps several, to give their life in imitation of Paul in imitation of Christ: to hold on to Christ with one hand and hold on to the church with the other, to share and feel the agony of the church’s follies and failings, and to know the power of Christ to restore and heal the church and set her feet back on the right path. That vocation not to be lightly dismissed. (pg. 100)”

Now this is a loaded quote, and depending on how or of you know me, there are many ways this quote could be interpreted. Therefore let me just say that I know that my life is involved in purposes of the church, and the way that looks is still part of my journey, but ever since I started the open house and now my new job I feel that calling more than ever. I am not convinced it has to look a certain way, but I know that it will be a huge part of my life. Now to say something about this book in particular, I would like to rate it a 4.5/5 for church planting purposes. It will renew your vision of God and the role of the church in the world, which I desperately need taught to me over and over again. NT does an amazing job of connecting the worship of God and the role of the people of God, revealing how God uses us to His ends. He remembers us and that turns into action for us and by us. He also brings unity into the mix, and addresses unity in light of justification by faith; justification is a thus a doctrine leading to unity in Christ as all of us are justified equally and therefore should participate in the life of Christ together. Wright says:

“…the doctrine which declares that all who believe in the Messiah Jesus belong at the same table, no matter what their ethnic, geographical, gender or class background.”

Lastly, in this short review of a powerful book, Wright paints a picture of the church (in the last chapter particularly building upon the whole book) that is the church I want to Pastor. It is a church focused on the Beatitudes, and his teaching of the beatitudes changes the face of the church. Wright says:

“The church is here to be the Voice to the world; the Voice that does not claim great things for itself, but simply urges the world to get ready for the God who comes in the power of judgment and love. We are to live, and we are to speak in such a way as to do for our generation, more or less, what John did for his: to demonstrate and announce that there is a different way of being human, the way of love, the way of God, and so to bring to the world the news (good news to the weary, bad news for the bullies) that the creator of the world is also the comforter of the world…”

This is a powerful statement and gets me excited for life…even as a Pastor.

quotes from Reggie McNeil

The church in North America is not like the Pharisees–we are the Pharisees, and Jesus does not like Pharisees.

The Pharisees clumped together and built a parallel culture–refuge theology is Pharisaical. When dealing with Pharisaism, we are dealing with a religion that has nothing to do with Jesus. They have a heart for religion, but not a heart for God.

People who live by a missionary set of values cannot abide those with a “club member” set of values.

The missional church is the most radical resorting of Christians since the reformation. Those who are missional have more in common with those in other tribes than with those in their own tribe who don’t get it.

Kingdom growth is profoundly anti- what we have typically been doing.

These are quotes from Reggie McNeil that I ran across here. What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

All The Ideas Living In My Head by Don Everts

This little book came at a good time for me. Basically Don talks about how we think and uses the picture of your head being a busy household and the different people are ideas that interact with each other. What I love about this picture is that it celebrates having many ideas about different subjects all together, but it also makes the interaction real. You see when people interact in a house, sometimes their wrong or right, or junior or senior and need to leave or stay or get the better room. I am not sure if you are following but it makes thinking more real for me and it also celebrates diverse thinking, without losing the critical nature of thinking that is important.

I teach a lot of different ideas at the open house, and some are received well and others are shot down, but I have never been upset with presenting the ideas because if I don’t then I won’t learn and others won’t challenge or ask themselves whether the idea should be considered.

Right now we are going through Genesis and its been a blast. New ideas, ruffling feathers, but some great thinking is coming out. Cool stuff. Thanks Don. I give you a 4/5 for church planting stimulation.

missional training 3.: incarnational living

I thought the IIB crew might be into these notes from our last missional training event here in Calgary, especially the three points of incarnational living.

We began, as we are wont, with a meditation, reading through Luke 15 in groups and teaching one another each parable. Collectively they carry a message that is one of my favorite statements made by the life of Jesus: that God seeks us out, chases us down, and anxiously awaits our return to Him. I learned some new stuff too. The reason that the father ran out to meet the son was to get to him before the village discovered him, because they would have banned him and left him outside of the father’s reach. Putting a robe, sandals, and ring on him were a way of restoring him to his place in the family, but throwing him a party was the way to restore him to the community. That’s why they slaughtered a calf: it was big enough to feed the entire village. Now imagine the Pharisees’ reaction when they realized that Jesus was talking about God’s desire for all these sinners He kept eating with. Nobody likes being the pouty older son.

Cam began the learning time by drawing the five values of missional church on a whiteboard in a circle, and pointed out that even though we’re focusing on one of the five for this training, because this is about a renewed theological vision, you can’t separate these out or drop one of them and remain a missional church. These are parts of a singular theological vision of what the church is to be and do.

The three essentials of incarnational living are 1) prayer, 2) story telling, and 3) hospitality.

A missional church prays a lot, about everything. We pray for each other, for the community, for the people we want to talk to about Jesus, for the people we do talk to, for the people who listen and don’t through things, for provision, for boldness, and generally for anything else you can think of that has to do with God’s purpose in the world. We’ve a lot to be talking with God about.

A missional church tells stories. We tell our stories to each other, we collect stories from the people we meet, and most of all, we tell Jesus’ stories. The story of the cross and of our salvation, but other stories too, stories of our failures, stories of our dreams, stories of Jesus, the things He said, the things He did, and the stories He told. We discussed the articles Believers or Disciples, and What is the Gospel? . It was said that one reason we don’t tell more stories is because of the story we’ve been taught to tell. The gospel includes people, the personal, creation, and the world, and the more of all these stories we have to tell, the more we will be telling stories.

Pop quiz. What’s the opposite of the law? It’s not grace. Nope, it’s lawlessness. Grace is the power of God working in us to fulfill the purpose of the law. Sounds a bit like all those prophecies we’ve been reading.

A missional church practices hospitality. This is more than just offering people a lemonade when they show up; it’s about valuing others enough to make space for them in your life. It’s hard to offer hospitality to your community when you’re too busy to ever actually be in it. We spent a long time on Jeremiah 29:4-7, which was God’s word to the exiles on how to live amongst people who don’t follow the same God. We did some great meditating on what it means to settle in, plant crops, and make a home in a culture where people purchase “starter homes.” You’ll find this reflected in the NT and in Romans 12:14-13:7 and Luke 10, our final meditation of the day.

Cam told the story of one of their people who showed up to meet with him and the elders not knowing what to do. The neighbors he’d been working so hard to build friendships with and love had invited him to play on the neighborhood football team, but they played on Sunday mornings. This is where it would have been really nice to have Caireen in the room. Fortunately, Cam and the rest of his crew knew what to do: they blessed him and sent him out to be Jesus amongst them, and prayed for him in the service all 10 weeks he was gone.

This was a great day, and I’ve not done it justice because so much of it was story telling, and all I’ve given you is a synopsis of the big ideas. I only hope that they are enough for you to find and tell your own stories.

Books worth stealing
Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes | Kenneth E. Bailey

The Connecting Church | Randy Frazee

quote.: worship

The forces of the culture industries act as technologies of desire, forming and shaping us into desires that then must be satiated by the market. Global economic forces order the cities into the production of desire and ways to satiate it. Even experimental psychology reveals the complexity of human emotions that form in relation to appraisals of reality. Different emotions are formed deep within alternative interpretations of reality. Postmodern writers question whether psychological notions of well-being are not really the disguised constructions of the marketplace or society for effective adaptation to consumer life. According to all of these thinkers, the ways in which the self and its emotions are constructed socially are out of power interests residing in a given culture. In short, any illusion that we can trust our experience as innately given has been undermined by postmodernity. Our experiences and emotions are being formed by the cultures and histories we find ourselves in.

This demise of modernity sounds the alarm for contemporary worship leaders because they can no longer count on self-expression alone to produce a truthful experience of God in worship. We can no longer safely assume that truthful emotions and experiences will automatically be awakened when we sing “praise and worship” songs long enough for an emotional catharsis in Christian worship. Many worshipers after all come into worship having been shaped by a post-Christian culture. Perhaps in the past, congregants came to worship with a repertoire of emotions and experiences already formed in the church or Christian cultural influences. In the past, worship leaders could awaken or even revive emotions that were already formed in the congregation. But today, many worshipers enter the sanctuary with emotions and experiences formed in another world. In the post-Christian cultures, we can no longer assume that our people’s emotions and experiences have been formed out of a righteous past or culture that recognizes Jesus is Lord.

The Great Giveaway | David Fitch

I really do like this quote. It’s a good reminder that not everyone having a strong emotional response to worship is being formed by it into a follower of Jesus. When we come into worship with preconceptions that aren’t changed, indulging them in a worship experience doesn’t make them better. Worship was always supposed to be transformational and immersive more than merely experiential. When the Hebrew people came to worship God, it always cost them something, and they never left the same as they had come.

My frustration with this quote (and with the whole chapter on worship it’s part of) is that it doesn’t even try to address Imago Dei: what it means that we are all, to some extent, bearers of the image of God. Yes, we come into worship pre-formed by many things other than Jesus, but if it’s in Him that we live and move and have our being (as Paul said), then isn’t there something in all of us to awaken?

on the vine

If you’re sitting around right now wondering what in the world to watch online while you procrastinate something important, why not choose one of these edifying options rather than wasting your time on silly youtube monkeys?

Eddie
The MTN crew I kick about with have posted all four sessions from the recent Day with Eddie Gibbs, in Vancouver. Edmund is a prof at Fuller Theological Seminary, and he has lots of great stuff to say with his delightful British accent. He may be best known in pop Christianity for his book on Emerging Churches.

MTN.: A Day with Eddie Gibbs

Shapevine
Shapevine’s latest schedule for free live webcasts just hit the mailing list. I might hang with Len this afternoon, just because I like him. The site has been upgraded to a slick new look, and they’ll be adding resources for interactive learning soon. I’m holding out to see whether this really will become a hub for interactive learning, or whether it’s just an online “conference in a can.” So far the chat and blog stuff they’ve added is all available to me in better formats elsewhere, so I’m not that interested in doing more than sucking resources from them. Mayhap the fault is with me?

the corporate ladder and finding fulfilment

As you read the title of this post, you’re probably wondering why I’m still allowed to post onto a church planting blog.  Hear me out on this cos I’ve been wrestling with this for a while.  As most of you know, I’m presently working full-time as a physical therapist in Calgary.  My training and my job is very specialized.  In fact, I spent the first 6 years after graduation doing post-graduate work in a specialty area treating orthopaedic conditions.  After 6 years, I achieved the highest post-graduate training I can achieve in this field.  I’ve been practising now for 11 years.   And in terms of a salary, I’ve already reached my plateau (unless I start my own practise).  What I struggle with a lot is the question: what next?  What happens when in your mid 30s, you find yourself at the top of the ladder?  You either find another ladder or you stay fulfilled perched on the one you’re on.  As a physio, I can’t really find another ladder.  But I’m finding that perched on top of this one, there are days, many days when the experience feels stale.  I check my motivation at this point:  climbing ladders not solely for financial or material gain but personal growth, personal challenge.  Do you ever think about this?  Have you ever been there?   A fisherman fishes…that’s all he does.  What happens when he gets tired of fishing?  A plumber plumbs, a baker bakes.  I realize that I’m not the only profession in the world that experiences this.  Is fulfillment then a cultural luxury? As church planters, we experience some of form of this as well…a sense of dissatisfaction, a sense of restlessness. What do you do with these feelings?

Creating content: a church that benefits a community by producing

So bare with me on this thought…as it isn’t totally thought through yet, but have we ever thought of church as a group of people gathering together to produce something?

I think the first place I heard about this was in Steve Taylor’s book Out of Bounds Church, but while out for breakfast today in Victoria I started reading this local free magazine called the metropolitan and I was overwhelmed with some ideas.

Now currently our little experiment called the open house (I have my reasons for using “experiment” and they have more to do with the nature of our community, not the commitment levels) is once again rethinking our role, space, and existence in east Vancouver and I find it stressful, yet incredibly exciting. We have so many open, flexible and creative people that the possibilities are endless for what we can become. And as I dream about what we can be, and think through what we have become I am beginning to dream about what it would mean for our church to be a creator of content for our community.

This was seriously spurred on through this magazine i read today, mainly because the content of this magazine was simple, to the point and free and even though I have counter opinions to the actual substance I read, I really appreciated how they have provided for the Victoria downtown community. There is something special about a group of people who come together to produce something, to dream ideas of what to produce and then passing it on to their neighbors for free. One might call that a “church experience”, purely in the nature of the community (producing, working, sharing all these things together).

Now what if our church ceased to gather for the sake of gathering, ceased to worship just to worship, but instead gathered together each week to dream, learn from each other, imagine and the produce something for the benefit of our community. And I mean something seriously tangible, not abstract. I mean a magazine, or a business, or a __________, you fill in the blank.

These ideas get me excited, and I hope I can continue to dream in this way with our church, because there is something powerful in creating beautiful, free, beneficial content for our neighbourhood, and I want to be a part of that kind of church.

Book 5/48: Mavericks at Work by William Taylor and Polly LaBarre

Having just finished Mavericks at Work: Why the most original minds in business win by William Taylor and Polly LaBarre, I would like to start by saying that in church planting terms (as I like to rate books by) this is a bust. This is a book about ideas for businesses (too many examples I must add), and it’s a no holds barred approach. The writers don’t shy away from how these companies market, find talent and run their business and I found it incredibly conniving, especially in the way that they measure success, so in that regard (as one who dreams about a little more ethical approach to success) I found myself left wanting.

In a business sense the writers try to cover too much ground. From clever business ideas, to marketing those ideas, to hiring the right people, to coming up with the right gimmick, i was overwhelmed form the start. I have ready many of these types of books and this one is on its way to the closet thrift shop (unless you leave a comment here and I will send it to you).

In writing terms the book was too repetitive. Concepts and examples (did I mention about there were too many already) we repeated over and over, almost driving me insane.

So in the end I give this book a 1.5/5 and why the 0.5? Well for the following 5 questions that ask you to work through for your business that I found helpful. Here they are, think them through and don’t buy this book.
1. Why should great people join your organization?
2. Do you know a great person when you see one?
3. Can you find great people who aren’t looking for you?
4. Are you great at teaching great people how your organization works and wins?
5. Does your organization work as distinctively as it competes?

Book 4/48: The E-Myth by Michael Gerber

It is 3am and at about 1:30am I finished reading the E-myth by Michael Gerber. Why I am up at 3am is the Keg’s problem (not bad food, just a little too much), but now that I still am I thought I would write a few thoughts on the E-myth.

I started reading it because my wife thought it was a good read, and one of my favourite thinkers recommended it here. All I can really say is that I had trouble getting through the first half of the book, but once I made it to some more of the practical steps of small business creation in the second half I definitely was drawn in.

Basically Mr. Gerber takes you along in a story of a lady who has started her personal business called All About Pies and is about to quit. He helps her re-imagine her business, as she was so caught up in the making of the pies, that she didn’t know how to run her business. So Gerber helps her create systems, and the classic turn-key project so that she can get back to why she started the business in the first place. She was so overwhelmed by all the work, she couldn’t take it anymore, but with Gerber’s help she was able to refocus and dream again.

I am not sure what type of ranking I would give it on a church planting scale or a small business scale, probably more towards a 3/5 because many people have found it quite helpful. But on a personal level, this book didn’t do it for me. I found the stories were boring and drawn out, and the advice almost didn’t fit within the context of the stories.

If you are thinking of starting a church (or a small business), I wouldn’t recommend this book, instead learn your demographic, your people and maybe read a little Seth Godin to get you going. The E-Myth will be there when you run out of popular entrepreneurial books to read.