Weary of the Moon

Nemiroff Vodka

I finished off the Pale Ale last night so tonight I opened the cabinet and decided to enjoy a small bit of a vodka I brought back from our last trip to Russia (noting to myself that we'll have to go back soon as I am running out).  Here is a picture of what I am having called Nemiroff.

In looking at the company's website, I found it is a Ukrainian vodka.  This particular bottle is Rye Honey, a flavored vodka, which is really very nice.  If you get an opportunity, you should give it a try.  It is distinctively different from a standard vodka yet the vodka's taste comes through without question.   

A prophetic voice

I'm coming out of a blog hiatus because I want to share something with those friends still reading this space (both of you).  If you've never read Will Samson's writing over at willzhead, you should go ahead and bookmark that page now.  Will is a talented writer, a critical thinker, a pursuer of compassion and justice, and when appropriate a funny guy.  He wrote a post last week called Amos, For Our Times that has stuck with me so I thought I'd give you a link and a snippet.  You should check it out.

So turn your face toward Me now. Seek after Me. Live out My commands. Do you want to be people after My own heart? Then care for the poor, the needy, the marginalized, those for whom My heart has always beat loudly. Cease your endless Bible studies, searching for the answer to righteous living. Commit yourselves to following what I already told you to do. Don’t believe you are pursuing Me if you are not seeking to do justice.

The post challenges me and depresses me all at the same time.  Kind of like reading Amos.

An answer to my question

A week or so ago I asked the question, what is a church?  I saw this story today in the Dallas Morning News about a church that seems to me to understand the answer to the question and what it is to be missional.

As I've tried to say before, I feel great conviction because I don't do these things.  While the Church has responsibility, so do I.

Ambassadors of Christ

I wasn't planning on saying anything about Pat Robertson and his ridiculous and troublesome and potentially harmful comments regarding assassinating the Venezuelan president as so many people have already properly vilified him, and I'm not sure his comments are deserving of more time, but there is one thought that it seems to me needs to be brought forward with regard to the current maelstrom:  Pat Robertson is an ambassador of Christ.  So am I.  So are many of you reading this.

Like it or not Pat Robertson is seen as a Christian "leader."  He wears his beliefs on his sleeve.  I may believe he does so for self-serving reasons, but I am in a position to make some discerning judgments related to whether he and I are on the same page in our beliefs.  Others see him as a Christian and many will see him as representative of Christians.

In his book Wanting More (well worth your money to buy and read), Joel Vestal reminds us that "[w]hen they think of a Christian, many Muslims in the world do not know the difference in practice and belief between Slobodan Milosevic and Billy Graham.  Milosevic, a Serbian Christian, was tried for genocide against Muslims."  Consider those words in light of the firestorm caused by Pat Robertson.  Many in the world see him as representative of Christians and more particularly of American Christians.  How damaging for the cause of Christ can our careless words be. 

We, too, are representatives.  What will the hurting world see from us?  Father, forgive me for failing to represent your character and purpose.

Consuming Christianity

My home church, Pantego Bible Church (Fort Worth, Texas) has as its mission: Transforming people through the work of the Holy Spirit into fully-developing followers of Christ.  The primary "model" employed by Pantego is now referred to as the Connecting Church model.  The former pastor (recently moved to Willow Creek) wrote a book called The Connecting Church in which he spelled out a vision for a church organized around place-based (i.e. geographical) community.  This concept led to the development of community groups of 50 or so people that meet Sunday mornings and all live in the same neighborhood and home groups that are closer to 10-20 folks and live within a closer proximity.  The idea is that we aren't organized around age or life stage but community.  Community is a buzzword used (honestly now) ad naseum at Pantego.  That said, I have appreciated this model and believe it has led to deep friendships I might not otherwise have developed.  The church has its flaws and warts (they are many), but this idea is a good one in my opinion for large churches in metropolitan areas like Dallas/Fort Worth. 

Why the background?  I think the description is necessary to understand the dilemma on which I have ruminated for some time now.  You see, we are built around community.  The [main] problem I have seen is our lack of a missional focus.  We live our lives with each other, meeting needs, etc., but we don't go beyond our "community."  In part the fault lies with us.  There are folks in our neighborhood who certainly don't subscribe to our set of beliefs.  But we don't interact with them as we should.  Maybe we have forgotten how.

As I see it, we have our Christian safety bubble, much like many college-age Christians might find in a local church college group.  We have our needs met within the bubble so why leave?  We can listen to Christian music, watch Christian movies or tv shows (or at least discuss them with other Christians), send our kids to christian schools, etc.  In our area of the U.S. Christianity has become its own subculture.  Because of that I think many people (myself included) sometimes find it difficult to just live life relating to other people (i.e. living missionally).  We no longer have much in common with people who don't share our beliefs because we have cloistered ourselves.  We have become consumers of this form of Christianity that develops fences around us instead of bridges.

Andrew Osenga has a nice post about this consumer-driven mindset and the dangers it holds.  I'm not sure we can truly be missional until we start living life with everyone else.  Somewhere along the way the "being in the world while not being of the world" started to mean something very different.  I don't think we were ever commanded to seclude ourselves. 

I'm not advocating boycotting all forms of Christian goods/services.  We have to find balance though.  Otherwise we will see our bridges disappear.

Literate Christianity

I came across this post at emerging.forministry.com (read about the site here) and wanted to pass it along.  They are commenting on an article written by Michael Spencer (who blogs at internet monk) called "The Last Gasps of Literate Christianity."  Their commentary and his article (which follows their commentary at the linked site) are both well worth reading and considering.  The ultimate question I came away with was this: What will be the ultimate impact on the Church from our lack of Biblical literacy and our preaching a message of "how to make life better" versus proclaiming biblical truths (and yes, I understand those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive if you consider the "good life" the life lived following the path of Jesus rather than having a nice house in a nice neighborhood with nice kids . . . )?

More Difficult Questions on Church Growth

I think a lot of what I was attempting to say in the Shallow Waters post dealt with the way we are growing the church in America.  I struggled in writing that post with just how to say what I was feeling and thinking about the various issues (church growth, pop theology, poverty, etc.) as well as how those things relate to my current experience.  I must admit I often fail to humbly ask questions and tend to do a better job being a critic.  Maybe it is the lawyer in me . . . or it could be sin . . . or those two things could have some relationship.;)

In any event, Steve Nicholson over at two and two makes five (one of my favorite blog titles by the way) brought these same thoughts together in a way that made sense to me (and made me somewhat jealous for not being able to synthesize them so well).  Read what Steve has to say about Church and Money.  For those of you in my circle of "real" friends, I'd love for us to give some thought to how we answer these questions from our church.  For those of you I only know through the blogosphere, please fell free to share your thoughts.  I think this is a critical issue facing the church in America.

Choke Me in the Shallow Waters

Remember that song by Edie Brickell?  "Choke me in the shallow waters before I get too deep."   I can't help but look around and wonder if people are saying that or if they just don't even realize they are in the shallow water.  Maybe it is just an issue of comfort and safety.  At the risk of sounding elitist (something I commented to Terri earlier tonight I didn't want  to do), I look around and see so much shallowness in our southern (particularly) evangelical subculture.  It really makes me sick.  I want desperately to deepen my relationships with others and thus my community, but it is a never-ending stream of shallow water. 

Example:  I am probably stepping into it a bit here based on who reads this blog, but here it is.  Our church is offering a Ladies' Summer Book Club which will read the book Captivating:  Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul.  Why do I, as a male, care about this?  Because I think it perpetuates shallow stereotypes.  No, I haven't read the book, so please don't avoid it simply because of what you read here.  I have discussed Eldredge's other books (Wild at Heart) with folks, and I came away nonplussed.  A couple of reviews from Amazon:

John Eldredge became the Robert Bly of evangelicalism with his blockbuster Wild at Heart. Now he teams up with his wife, Stasi, to encourage women to connect with their deepest desires. To facilitate this, the Eldredges reveal in the first chapter what every woman's three core desires are: to be romanced, to play a role in her own adventures and to display beauty.

Every little girl has dreams of being swept up into a great adventure, of being the beautiful princess. Sadly, when women grow up, they are often swept up into a life filled merely with duty and demands. Many Christian women are tired, struggling under the weight of the pressure to be a "good servant," a nurturing caregiver, or a capable home manager.

What Wild at Heart did for men, Captivating can do for women. This groundbreaking book shows readers the glorious design of women before the fall, describes how the feminine heart can be restored, and casts a vision for the power, freedom, and beauty of a woman released to be all she was meant to be. 

Who says those are every woman's deepest desires?  Not being a woman myself, I went to my source (my wife) and asked her.  She reported she in fact had other deep desires like seeing God glorified, seeing our  son become a godly man, seeing justice done in the world, hearing the Scripture rightly divided, etc.  She further told me that not once growing up did she ever dream of being the beautiful princess.  Now surely some women do have these desires and some girls do dream of being the beautiful princess, but that's not the claim.  The claim is all, and that is a shallow stereotype.    I fail to see how the book is groundbreaking in any sense of the word.  Bottom line, what are we studying in the church?  It just seems like pop theology to me.  It is no small wonder why I often wonder whether I am sitting in church or on the set of Oprah. 

Where is the depth?   This lined up well with two blog posts I read today.  The first from Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi) sharing Barna's research that despite churches in America spending close to a trillion dollars in the past two decades on domestic ministry there has been no noticeable impact on people coming to Christ.  The second from Joel Vestal sharing a survey from April of this year related to the top ten issues to Southern Baptists.  Joel decried that global outreach, justice, and mission did not make the list.  I guess we're just too busy being wild at heart.   

Terri summed it up well for me in saying, "While it may say some good things, it also subtly reinforces and perpetuates false assumptions and stereotypes about women (as did the author’s book about men) that in my opinion do more harm than good (and seem to be based more on psychology than biblical principles)."

Okay, that's the end of the rant.  Again, I haven't read the book.  I'm trying to speak to an issue larger than just one book.  As far as the book goes,  I found a blog post from Michael Spencer (the internet monk) from last summer that shares some of these same thoughts but is also much more generous.  I point you there for further reflection.