snowy afternoon reflections on our journey...
I have spent copious amounts of time sifting through the chapters of my/our church leadership and strategy, desperately wanting to be positive and proactive. I wont dare to try to articulate all that I have concluded, as I am long winded to begin with, but I do have a couple things I think that I think.
I have figured out that we/churches don’t value people who won’t be at the majority of meetings, attend all the events, and make sure that all their significant friendships are within the congregation. The word ‘value’ may cause some tension in that sentence, but at the end of the day, its true. We feel frustrated, annoyed and down right indignant that they are not committed enough to the ‘vision’. The potentially spiralling vortex of ‘fellowship’ sucks you in, and requires all of you, leaving you completely socially disconnected from your neighbours, your community. And ‘we’ are not satisfied with half-hearted allegiance or commitment. It demands your all, always…
And in the process we often create cultures that will not allow questions, probing, or nay-sayers. We control with fear and in so doing, we loose the ability to inspire with faith.
And yet I find people all over our country who long for a community of fellow travellers. They long to journey with others of faith. They dream of ‘doing’ something of significance. The yearn to change the world with others. Unfortunately many of them have forgotten how to dream. They live in paradoxical frustration. Yearning to belong to something that transcends where we are and awakens the DNA of transformation that the people of God carry. Yet frustrated and angry because the only framework that we can see in our minds eye is what we have known the Church to be. And how many people do you know who at a gut level recognize that we are striking out at the plate?
I have looked for language to describe this. Alan Hirsch said something in one of his books that captures it for me. Its the ideas of God’s people developing communitas. Communitas is an intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness. It describes the dynamics of a Christian community inspired to overcome their instincts to look inward and 'structure in a way that serves US and to instead form themselves around a common mission that calls them on a dangerous journey to unknown places'.
A mission that demands that we shake off our collective security and to plunge into the world of action. Action that produces disorientation, experimentation, risk, and sometimes failure. But also allows us to encounter God and each other in a way that would have never been possible otherwise.
Michael Frost in his book ‘Exiles’, uses the illustration of the story of a community of rabbits in Richard Adam’s Watership Down . “Fiver, a small nervous rabbit, has a premonition something terrible is going to happen to their Sandleford warren. And he’s right; a housing developer is planning to build on their field. Fiver tells his brother Hazel and they try to warn their aging Chief Rabbit, to no avail—he doesn’t believe them. Hazel and Fiver decide they must leave, and are joined by other rabbits in their search for a new home. And no sooner than they have left, the bulldozers come and destroy the warrens and all the other rabbits. To cut the long story short, the adventure takes the rabbits out of the safety of their warrens where they do very un-rabbitlike things; like crossing rivers, fields, and roads. (Rabbits, like the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings), seldom travel far from their burrows.) At nights, out of their burrows, and feeling very insecure, they comfort and encourage each other by re-telling tales of the adventures of the great rabbit hero; El-Ahrairah and they are inspired by his story to continue their journey. They come across many other warrens and they try to warn them. They even get imprisoned and escape, but they eventually do get to Watership Down which becomes their new home, and once they find females to mate with, they settle down and start again.”
This children’s story accesses something in all of us. Its the same thing that is accessed when we watch movies about the belittled underdog who nobody thinks can win, and yet in epic fashion they dig deep down and pull out something so dramatic and powerful that we are all moved and long to be a part of THAT STORY. Its why we are moved by ideas and situations in stories that are related to adventure, the role of danger in personal growth, leadership, communitas, and the innate capacity of life to adapt when threatened by mortal danger.
What will it take to inspire us in such fashion? Where collectively we are moved to get out of our burrows and do things that defy our all too human instincts to burrow down in denial and our western 1st world penchant for safety and security.
We must be re-inspired for by telling again of the incredible and dangerous stories of Jesus Christ...the martyrs...the men and women of faith who throughout history responded to this same yearning in their own generation!
All our heroes are people. Just like you. Just like me. The only difference between them and where we are today is a decision. One that thrusts us into tomorrow, as Jim Elliot put it, with a willingness to ‘live to the hilt’. Living dangerously. What does that look like?
j
wow...lots to chew on here. dude...you gotta learn to break it all up into little chunks. :)
your comments about what our communities of faith often value are true...unfortunately. and like we've talked about in the past, this journey missionburnaby's on has exposed some of my own tendencies. by choosing to move away from a 'career' in Christianity (which isn't a derogatory term), i've had to wrestle a lot with how ministry is often shaped and scheduled by those who are 'centred' in the church. there have been many days in the last year that i've wondered... 'is this how most people live for jesus?' the fatigue and pressures of 'regular' life often create tension within communities of faith i think. how would this be different in 'communitas'? and are we being successful in sparking 'communitas'? hmmmmm...
you said... 'Living dangerously. What does that look like?' in studying the historical jesus, i've seen that regardless of what you reduce jesus and his teaching to, there are some 'basic' assumptions we can make. one...we know that jesus was executed by the Romans...most likely because he was causing popular unrest and religious 'instability', two things the Romans didn't like seeing in Jerusalem (for more, read a history text). second...we can see from the collected teachings of jesus an obvious criticism of nominal/political religion, an clear afront to what jesus saw as being the way to God. and third...we can hear a call to a different type of life...one surrendered to love and captivated by justice, two things that our holy texts show as God's primary character traits. in the end...jesus' life and teachings led him into opposition and murderous institutions...a life lived dangerously. looking at jesus this way leads me to the admission that...
lots of days i'm not sure how to answer your/jesus' question...of what it looks like for me to live for him. some days i feel like it's caught up in choosing to engage an education that regularly challenges some our core assumptions while making me feel like an idiot in the process. gulp. and other days it feels like i'm most like jesus when i'm caressing my tired wife...and when i'm comforting my shrieking kids. sigh.
and that's part of how i end up going full-circle...wondering where we are at as a community. wondering if the choices i'm making in the 'trenches' of my life reflect the 'danger' that jesus calls US to. i'm not so sure the decisions you mentioned are always grand...or even noticeable. i think that what makes them 'dangerous' is the meaning that they carry with them. the ins-and-outs of life can be monotonous...but our daily choices to be selfless, tender, and hospitable are what make us most like jesus. they are what mark us over the span of time. it's not as if we can reduce the life of jesus to one decision to die; i'm thinking he'd been making small choices (like putting himself second) for a long time. and that how i want to live...incrementally less and less religious.
enough for now.
sw
