The wrestle Pt. I

A while back Jared Bradley asked me to read a book that he had found to be quite significant. He showed me his copy and offered to lend it to me. It was a book I'd heard of, called "A New Kind of Christian" by Brian McLaren; that night I began to give it a read and like Jared, found it compelling.
I got about four chapters in and then decided I wanted my father's perspective on the 4th chapter so I lent him the book. For the next couple of weeks I got away from reading it and by the time it was returned to me, I'd decided that I wanted to buy my own copy because I wanted to be able to mark it up and make notes as I read it through.
I've just spent that past two days powering through my copy and underlining quite a bit of it; it's giving me some real food for thought and I wanted to take time to process some of them here.

Essentially the book unfolds as two friends talk through the differences between faith in a 'modern' context vs. faith in a 'post-modern' world; about the struggle to translate or transfere a faith that, for many, has been passed down to us from either our family or our western culture, in a 'modern' construct.

In a sense I don't know exactly where to start. This book intrigues me but I don't know why. It's quite well written, so that's certainly part of it. I agree with a lot of it, and find myself living out many of the things the book articulates. But other parts are causing a wrestle in me and I'm not sure why.

It certainly is an important book to many among The Canopy, because there are number of people at our church who have read it and have been very impacted by it. It's striking quite a chord.

The statement on the back of the book (which I can only assume was put there by the publisher) reads, "A tale of spiritual renewal for those who thought they had given up on the church". I know they're trying to be provocative but that kind of statement infuriates me! Why? Because I like the church. I always have, since the time I came to faith in Christ and decided that the beliefs I had been raised with were now my beliefs as well. I've talked to many people who use the same language as that statement and most times I find it's an excuse to be cynical and to remove themselves from the Church, instead of sucking it up and being part of a positive solution. Anybody can complain.
(BTW, when you get into the book, you realize just how much that statement is there just to be provocative)

A 'new kind of Christian' would extend to a 'new kind of church' and I wonder how people see The Canopy? Some have come and gone, saying that The Canopy has turned out to be 'just another church'. I've also been told that others in the city see The Canopy as the 'best example of the "emergent church" in Edmonton'. Are we 'just another church'? I've wondered that many a time. Are we too institutional? I don't know; it's not to me! Is the 'institutional' question about the way we are 'structured' or is it more about the way people are living out their faith? (meaning, if we are too institutional, then what is making us that way?)

I've still got to finish the final chapter. (I'm about half way through it). Many more thoughts to process and wrestle through.

5 things you didn't know...

Okay, so in response to Eric 'tagging me' in this game of blog tag... here goes...
5 Things you probably didn't know about me..

1) I like cinnaman toast. It's where you mix some cinnaman into some brown suger, and then butter some toast and then spread it onto the bread. Yes, I'm aware that it's a pretty brutal thing to eat from a health perspective but when I was a kid, my parents and I had this one rare occasions and I loved it every time.

2) I have a real phobia of ever showering in public facilities. I just hate the very idea of it. Bad enough to have to be surrounded by other naked males, but ME do it? persish the thought!! :)

3) I have never stayed overnight in a hospital. The closest I've come was when I had hernia (sp?) surgery, but that was only day stuff.

4) The first date I ever went on was with a girl in grade 10, before I had my drivers license. We had to take the bus and went to see a movie at WEM. When we left we stood forever waiting for the bus, only to find out that the return bus to Southgate had stopped running. I flipped out and started swearing a blue streak! (sailors would have blushed) I was humiliated and had to phone my dad to come and pick us up. It was a nightmare and I never had the courage to ask her out again. What's interesting is that virtually every woman I've ever told that story to over the years has said that I totally should have asked her out again and that my NOT asking her out was the worst part of the story. Her name was Andrea and she had long brown hair down to her waist. (I was really into long hair back then!)

5) Writing is something that I really enjoy. During most of my years in school, I was quite good at writing and even took a class in high school called 'creative writing'. Once I got into University my writing skills were used for papers and not much else. I've gotten away from it but have always wanted to get back to it. That's part of the attraction of having a blog is to discipline myself to get back to it. I'm a long way from where I was!

I'd tag somebody else, but most of the people I'd tag have already been tagged.....so there! :)

Our need for controversy

Today I went to the Canopy blog and saw that there were a large number of comments on the video posts that I asked Eric to post on the blog. I was stunned to read that many of them were quite serious comments and that a good number of people were offended by the videos.
(If you have not seen them, visit the Canopy blog at http://canopyca.blogspot.com/)
It got me thinking about a lot of things; (such as why people took the videos as seriously as they did!) Among them, why we have such a need for controversy in our world.
The vast majority of the blog entries on the Canopy site don't receive any comments at all, and frankly, I think a lot of them warrant some serious discussion and comment. Yet the reality is that it's the controversial posts or blogs that get attention. A good number of people also told me that they thought the posting should not be taken down, because it generated a lot of healthy discussion. If that's the case, then perhaps the goal should be to have as many controversial postings as possible.
I'm known as a pretty serious guy who's perhaps overly intense at times, so I found it quite ironic that I am the one who's thinking that people need to 'chill out' and that I'm saying 'hey, it's just a video!'.
I'm all for people having great debates and discussions.... (hey, maybe one day I'll have such a thing on this blog!) but I don't want to offend people or hurt them or make them mad.
Do we need to sometimes 'risk' offending some people in order to get them talking and thinking?
What makes people respond and take the time to write their thoughts down? Does it require controversy?
Maybe it's not enough to post deep thoughts and eloquent ideas.... maybe you have to stir it up a bit.
(I've certainly been known to stir the pot on occasion... right Eric?)
who knows, perhaps I'll get a couple of comments out of this post!
:)

lessons in milk

This morning my son Josiah was having breakfast: a bowl of Cheerios. While he was eating he was studying a catalogue of Thomas the Train Engine toys. (his favorite toy, to be sure!). As I passed through the kitchen I said to him, "Josiah, focus on your cereal or you'll spill your cereal."
A few minutes later, I heard him cry out to me from the kitchen, announcing that he had spilled his cereal and it was running off the table and onto his seat. (all this was about 10 min. before we needed to be out the door to get he and Rebekah to school!)
I was certainly a bit irritated, but managed to hold it together as I cleared up the mess.
What stood out for me was his response when I said to him, "Josiah, why didn't you listen to me when I told you this would happen?"
Josiah's answer was great: "I did. My ears listened."
For some reason, it made me think at that moment about how often Jesus has told me to do something or not to do something and my ears have listened but I didn't do what he said.
James said "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." (James 1:22)
Recently I've been reading a lot in the Scriptures where there are those same exhortations to not only listen but to ACT on what we hear.
Sometimes I see a lot of myself in my son!

Comments on church shopping pt. 1

"During my conversation with Greg and Margaret at Starbucks, I asked how they came to choose Faith Community as their new church. "Did you pray as a family about this decision?" No.
"Did you involve your small group or seek the wisdom of an elder in the decision?" No.
"Did you investigate the church's doctrine, history, or philosophy of ministry?" No.
"Did you base your decision on anything other than what you 'liked'?" No.
Believe it or not, Greg and Margaret are educated professionals capable of making intelligent decisions. How then do we make sense of their impulsive church shopping?
Being fully formed in a consumer worldview, Greg and Margaret intuitively accepted that the personal enrichment and fulfillment of desire is the highest good. As a result, they chose the church that best satisfied their family's preferences without bothering to consult their community, the Bible, or the Holy Spirit to gauge the legitimacy of those desires. After all, in consumerism a desire is never illegitimate, it is only unmet."

The above is a quote from an article that provoked my thinking quite a bit.
It was written by Skye Jethani, and essentially discusses the impact that our consumer culture has had on Christians in North America. In particular, he speaks to the reality that for most people, church is another 'product' that is 'consumed' based on our personal choices.
(the entire article can be found at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2006/003/3.28.html

I've encountered many people who have changed churches for exactly the same reasons as the people in Skye's article. In many ways its become a completely normal part of church life but surprisingly, I don't have a problem with it. I don't like it, but I don't spend time worrying about it either. The core issue when people leave is that it's painful. There is a loss of relationship and often we take it personally because we feel it reflects negatively on us. 'What's wrong with our church?' is the typical question that gets raised.

‘Church shopping’ has long been decried as a negative dimension of North American church life. So what is the problem?

Skye gets to the root issue:
“In consumer Christianity, however, church leaders function as religious baristas, supplying spiritual goods for people to choose from based on their preferences. Our concern becomes not whether people are growing, but whether they are satisfied. An unhappy member, like an unhappy customer, will find satisfaction elsewhere.”

The desire/concern is to keep people coming back to your church, and Skye is right in pointing out that this motivation is sadly lacking in substance!

However, what I feel he is missing is this: I don’t think the issue is whether or not people should be choosing the church they feel is best; the issue of leaving one church for another is that relationships are broken. We don’t leave one ‘institution’ for another; when we leave a church we are leaving relationships. If we keep moving from church to church, we limit ourselves to shallow relationships and Jesus is clear that relationships are the key context in which our hearts can be transformed into His likeness.

One of the tragedies of modern day divorce rates is that people are simply giving up on relationships and seeking new ones, all the while failing to realize that long term committed relationships are essential for our maturity and spiritual growth. The same applies in the church: if we continually leave current relationships in search of new and better ones, then we will fail to be transformed into the image of Christ.

When The Canopy was planted, we believed that people would ‘come for the worship and stay for the preaching’. 4 years later, I realize how wrong that idea was! People come to a church for a variety of reasons, but they stay because of relationships. Not the music or the preaching or even the church vision; In fact, I believe that people will stay in a community, even in spite of the music and the preaching, if there are strong relationships.
If a commitment to relationships (both good and bad) is not there, then people will often move on in search of something else. From my perspective, if they are moving on, then why not choose a church where you like what’s going on. If you don’t, it’s like suffering through a movie you don’t like! Move on and find something you do like.

There will always be a segment of the people who move around all the time from church to church. I don’t really care all that much if people leave; I’m certainly not going to scramble around trying to be a ‘spiritual barista’!
That said, there is a real need for people to understand the essential nature of relationships, which require a long-term commitment. Jesus called us to love one another in order that we might be continually transformed into His likeness. So we need to be committed to a group of believers in the good times and in the bad, and not allow ourselves to be tempted to always look for greener pastures.