outside is better

Methodism, Mission and American Heavy Metal

A few weeks ago I read George G. Hunter's new book "The Recovery of a Contagious Methodist Movement." Part of the Adaptive Leadership Series, it was one of the collection of books released prior to this most recent Methodist General Conference.

During my time at Asbury I never took Dr. Hunter, but I knew he was pretty serious. This little book confirmed that thought.

What stuck out the most to me was this idea, found on pages 41-44. A catalytic Christian movement will begin when "hopeless" people are reached. The category of "hopeless" is defined by any people group outside of the established population of a local church. This is radical outreach because it means incorporating people that are definitely "not like us".

The center of the early Methodist movement involved reaching out past established and churched populations. John Wesley's version of this involved miners, field workers and the folks driving the engine of the industrial revolution in England. In America, it took place among others on the outside. The Methodists were famous for going to the hardest, meanest and most "non-churched" and socially "hopeless" parts of the local population.

NPR has a great article showcasing a community in the Northeast and their gathering at the Maryland Deathfest. In "Portraits of an American Metal Festival", Lars Gotrich showcases a deep community. This is just a glance into a pre-existing people group, with a catalytic number of people. They are already connected, share a common set of sensibilities, issues and beliefs.

I would bet in many communities, similar people groups exist. They will have gathering spots, identifiable leaders and local variation. Here is just one example of a culture outside of the boundaries of most local congregations. I bet they don't know the doxology or the difference between a stole or a vestment.

In each of our communities there are countless sub groups of people that we can quickly identify as "not church people". But if we are truly passionate about the saving and healing grace of Jesus Christ, and his commissioning to create disciples...it would be in our interest to start learning about these new groups of people.

We all want to see our churches grow. But until we learn to look outside our own comfort interests and notions of who is in church, we will not see that growth. Jesus went to the outside and Wesley went to the outside. As Methodists, this journey to the outside is part of our DNA. Let us place ourselves back inside of it and find who might previously have called hopeless.

Scott Erickson and the Crucifixion according to Radiohead

Scott Erickson is the artist in residence at Ecclesia in Houston. I have a very short list of churches I am wild about...and Ecclesia is one of them. My wife and I have worshipped there once and it was truly awesome.

Scott is a wonderful artist and teaches so much about the need for a visual culture in worship. Last Easter he put together this performance piece based of the classic stations of the Cross, with video clips and live painting. The soundtrack to the whole evening was taken from rock band Radiohead.

You can read Scott's thoughts here. You can also watch a live video of the whole event. It is worth your 45 or so minutes.

 

Talking about Revelation: Developing an Eschatological Hermaneutic

 I have written before about how local churches need to engage with Revelation. To some, this might be an insurmountable task.

The character of Revelation makes an auditory involvement necessary. In country terms; We need to HEAR Revelation.

Those in the company of preachers must learn to call the church to its eschatological dwelling place.  In the enterprise of the earthly church taking Revelation back, local pastors serve both as truck drivers and road crew.  We direct the energy as well as take care of the movement so that the laity can travel alongside. Intentionally preaching eschatologically means a deliberate admonition of the end that comes across as assured as the deliberate notions of beginning. Our role is to theologically play the childhood game of “connect the dots”. We are story-tellers, not date-setters.   

As pastors we must tell people about the other world,  living in the the subversive act of preached hope. Instead of romantic historical meanderings that lament morals gone amuck, we focus on preached time. Preached time creates the path to New Jerusalem.  This alternate narrative answers the question of who really is in charge.

Whenever I teach Revelation to a new group of people, I start with a question. It goes something like this; "I am going to let you make a decision as to how we will read this book and how I will teach it to you. We can either let Revelation be a book that only pertains to a distinct group of people at only one time in the history of the world or we can read it as though it has informed the church for 2000 years and will continue to speak to us."

I have never had a group take option A. Even if they are hardcore Left Behinders, the second choice just sounds better. If teaching Revelation freaks you out, let the congregation make the first choice. Present to them a basic reading strategy. It will allow you to stay away from so many testy issues.

Revelation doesn't work in a passive setting. We have to be intentional and deliberate with it, but shouldn't we with all scripture?

Related Posts:
The Apocalyptic Pastor
Preaching, Mindmapping and the Apocalypse of John
Christian Time and the End of Times

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end.

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This is a repost from a blog I ran for a few years postmoderneschatology.com. I have decided to merge that content in with this blog and will occasionally post from its archives.

Reading during Lent

A few years ago I picked up the pattern to practice an intentional devotion read throughout season of the calender as well as different parts of the Christian year. Sometimes these readings make alot of sense and at other times I just set aside something to intentional read and pray through.

This lent I wanted to do a light level study of the desert fathers, the Christian monastic tradition found in Egypt from around 300 AD to 600 AD. This tradition is different from the more familiar European monastic tradition most of us are aware off. Instead of living in communities together, most of these lived in either small networks or totally alone.

I am halfway through my readings and think this was the perfect focus in Lent this year. It has provided plenty of new thoughts, truths and depth to my life as a Christian. Here are the books I decided to read.

1. Athanasius : The Life of Antony -St. Athanasius. The book that started it all, a biography of the first well known desert Father, St. Anthony. Written by church father St. Athanasius, this biography called many to the life of the desert. It is possibly the easiest book written by a church father, I would encourage it to just about anyone.

2. Desert Father: In the Desert with Saint Anthony-a modern look at Anthony, it is written from the perspective of the author's investigation into the Desert life. He has conversations with Lazarus, a contemporary hermit living close to Anthony's cave.

3. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Cistercian Studies) -A collection of the proverbs of those who followed Anthony into the Desert. Many of these sayings influenced early church theological development and the movement of devotion and discipline that carries through to our own modern Christianity.

This has been a great devotional cycle for Lent and I will be excited to finish it and see where it leads. What are you reading this Lent?

 

What The Walking Dead teaches us about Eschatology

If you were one of the many people glued to your television set Sunday night to take in the season finale of The Walking Dead, you certainly enjoyed yourself. While critics have been rough on this season, complaining at the lack of zombies and an increased focus on character development, the writers and producers made sure to give people plenty of the undead to finish the season up. Sunday nights episode was the most viewed show in AMC history.

Zombies fascinate me. Most folks that read or follow me on the internet are aware of that. I think zombies provide the perfect postmodern secular eschatological narrative (how was that for big words?). To mainstream it, zombies tell the best “end of the world” story for folks living in current western society. Zombies interact well with the base level religious past we have in America and are a perfect product of postmodernity. The answers they give fall into the framework Robert Jenson came up when he described postmodern culture as an attempt “to write a Universal story without a universal storyteller.”

I want to offer you three lessons the season finale teaches us about secular eschatology.

A human created heaven can’t survive.
Herschel’s farm provided the backdrop for the entire season. It offered shelter, an alternative to the chaos outside. When the group did leave, violence and fear always came with it. The forest outside the farm functioned as the biblical metaphor of wilderness; with Daryl’s vision quest, various encounters with walker’s, a place of “lostness” and Carl’s odd coming of age in episode 11.

The farm was the character that provided silent security. Towards the end of the season, the various disputes between the two parties calmed and the farm appeared to be a place of finality in the minds of the group. This idyllic vision is shattered. Through either fear of more humans or the herd of walkers that overran it, heaven was earthly in a very real way.

The end of the episode featured the apocalyptic vision of “the prison”, the next arc in the Walking Dead story, an opposite utopian outpost amidst a world of the undead. Where the farm offered freedom, the prison now parallels our own current cultures view of the world. It is a place safe because it is defensible. There are no pretenses of the former life. Human control cannot bring about positive change. The only thing we can do is rewrite a story to be a narrative of control and defense. The Utopian imagination has turned into a Dystopian reality.

Glen provided the perfect end to the farm Sunday night while urging Maggie to leave. “Get off the farm...it’s lost.”

An Alternative Timeline.
Doom is always coming. In the opener last night, walkers are seen in Atlanta looking up at a black helicopter. In the first episode of The Walking Dead, Rick see’s a black helicopter over the streets of Atlanta.

The next few scenes show a herd of walkers steadily growing and moving out of Atlanta and across the countryside. When Carl fires his gun and kills Shane, the herd locates and moves toward the farm. It is that moment the two stories, unfolding simultaneously and independent of each other co-exist. The herd overtakes the farm and causes the breakdown of the hopeful society of survivors.

It took one act to change everything. One single “accident” changed time. If a secular society believes a random event caused the world into being, it takes another random event to destroy itself. No one can control or prevent this. It isn’t a question of “if” but “when”

Faith isn’t denied, but irrelevant.
Faith was a running thread throughout the season. Herschel and Rick had plenty of honest conversations about it. Herschel and Maggie had conversations about Christian conviction. Once Shane opened the barn, things changed. We discovered Hershel had a drinking problem and for an episode it came back. But after the incident in town, Hershel was different. His faith was never totally denied, but it had changed. The enlightenment came because he become aware of life outside the farm (see #1). In the current framework of zombie apocalypse, Hershels faith had no relevance.

Even in the worst situations faith wasn’t denied. We saw a glimpse of old Hershel in the finale while he was talking to Rick. The language of faith and hope cuts through humanity and a desire for it will always be present.

Possibly the best line though was “Christ promised the resurrection of the dead. I just thought he had a little something different in mind.” Hershel’s hermeneutical paradigm was blown.

The examples of faith are a perfect mirror for our culture. Faith and religion are major threads in our history and cannot be denied. The influence western society at every place. Even in a completely secular framework, it must be dealt with because how it has formed us. In that way it will always be relevant, but the context will be the plumbline to how it is viewed.

I hope these three lessons showed you how the Walking Dead gives a perfect example of a secular eschatology. I love the show and can’t wait till season three!

Book Review: Called;?! Following a Future Filled with the Possible

Called:?! is the first offering from @jdwalt, the previous vice president of community life and dean of the chapel at Asbury Seminary. JD currently the Associate Vice President for Advancement and Special Counsel to the President. He also happened to be my boss for five years and is a dear friend...so this review might be a little biased :) The book is part of the resourcing website Seedbed and can be purchased here.

JD wrote a great little book focused on understanding the biblical pattern of calling in regards to all people answering and engaging God at a personal level, whether it is vocational or in another area. Taking on the idea of the called life opens up the Christian to any possibility within creation.

The book takes the reader on a 21 day journey to reflect what it means to be called. Each short reflection opens with an extended scripture reading. Woven through the short devotional challenge are poems, songs and quotations from the pages of Church History. Walt is able to trace the idea of calling across scripture, and assisting the reader in understanding this is something God desires to do. The ability to do this is the opposite side from prooftexting, but the evidence of years of prayerful and careful reading and personal interpretation.

Day 16 sums up the purpose of the book well. The author chose to bold this phrase;

The reality of being called by God should be a normal occurence among God's people.

JD spends 70 pages telling this story over and over. Each day the reader is led to a new place of reflection. For those who might turn to this book to find answers to questions, you will be disapointed. What you will find is a book that encourages you to ask even more questions...but then builds in the learned knowledge that God hears and answers.

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Check out the short trailer on vimeo.

The rhythmic life

I like a life of rhythms. It works well for me because I am naturally not a fan of the highly disciplined life. It works great for my wife. I prefer to have practices I know will happen on certain days. Those seem more natural to me.

The only issue stemming from the practice happens when life changes and new practices/rhythms must be found. For years, I spent Saturday mornings working on homework or "work work" at the little coffeehouse I worked at. I would settled down with a bowl of cheese grits and pound out the type of stuff I always got done on Saturday. It was usually outlining papers I needed to write, organizing research, exploring new forms of communication and media to integrate into work, etc...

But life changes. I am no longer in school and I know am part of the pastoral staff at St. Paul's. Finding the new rhythm is the last part of settling in...even after 9 months here. I can now look at my whole schedule and see what events benefit from the rhythmic life.

I think rhythms are harder to fall into than disciplines. I say so because I feel rhythms are inherently different than disciplines. Disciplines are added into our life for specific purposes. These can have practical reasons, like taking out the trash on a specific day, following an exercise schedule or beginning a systematic reading of scripture. I participate in disciplines. But I have to work on them and they can't be as fluid as rhythms. At times, it takes disciplines to form rhythms. They are together..hand in hand.

Rhythms take time to build. You have to find out if they work or not. Sometimes you might really want to set one...but you find out after a few weeks it just won't work with your schedule. Monday mornings aren't the best time for quiet reflection or Saturday afternoons end up being to busy to retreat for private prayer.

But I encourage you to make a list of things you aren't satisfied with. Things that might take time to do. Explore the option of a patterned but open-ended time to practice these things. Sometimes it is practical (like my Saturday home or current Saturday sermon prep) or it can be really laid back. My laid back is usually stealing 30 minutes in mid-morning for a time of reading.

Redeem your time. Forget the grind. Still your souls and begin some rhythms.

Re-envisioning 2012

Earlier this year I began the year off with some pretty high goals. I thought I would launch back into another cycle of a heavy systematic read through the bible and reflect on each of John Wesley's sermons, once a week. I even went to the trouble of enlisting a bunch of people and starting a couple of blogs on the project.

It lasted about three weeks.

The pace of 2012 caught up to me really quick. Each of us has these moments in time where we realize we might have bitten off more than we can chew. I did that. I hadn't really taken the time to see where I felt my heart would be this year and I fell off the wagon pretty quick.

 

For those comitted to a life of devotion, as each Christian should, we need to realize how the seasons of life might change. At times we have to change the oil and at other times we need to put a new transmission in. For the last few years of my seminary season I benefited from a different devotional style than I need now. So I changed things out.

We all have to do this at times.

How have you had to change your devotional life in the past?

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This is also the break from my blogging silence. I am looking forward to sharing things with you again.

Radio Silence

Over the next month or so I will be working on my written work for ordination as an Elder in the United Methodist Church. For those who don't know, this involves answering 16 theological questions that are then followed by an oral examination. Since I came into methodism from another denomination and I went to a school (Asbury) outside of the official schools, the examination might be rather streneous. To not stress, I won't be blogging for the next month or so.

I am also taking the time to really examine what my site and writings will look like in the future. Since moving back into the local church I have been conflicted regarding content. I want to take this time to prayerfully investigate what this side of my ministry will continue to look like.

Thanks for hanging in. I will still be on twitter and facebook, so I won't totally go silent.

Reading together

Over the last month or so, I have been drumming up folks to read scripture together in the new year. Last week, John Meunier also mentioned reading Wesley's Standard 52 through the year and some people expressed interest in doing so together.

I like reading with people, even if our only connection is via the internet. To facilitate greater interaction, I started two simple little blogs for both projects. They will be tweaked out in greater measure over the next few days, but if you are interested in either project, consider joining and contributing to them sites.

Let's walk this journey together!

standard52.tumblr.com

90daybible.tumblr.com