The Hsu’s Views

First of all, I was recently reminded of a page at DJ Chuang’s site cataloging a massive amount of resources by or about Tim Keller. I think there are few in N. America today that are as clear in their thinking as Keller is regarding the communication of the gospel in today’s contexts. Similarly, his heart and vision for church planting for the purpose of transforming cities is incredibly helpful. In marveling at the material at DJ’s site, I happened upon a quote that Keller made from the Redeemer Church Planting Manual.

“We believe that, paradoxically, churches grow best not when they aim at church growth as much as when they serve the peace/shalom of the whole city. Saint Augustine believed that citizenship in the City of God made us the very best citizens of the human city.”

If we were to talk about keeping our “eye on the ball,” this seems so timely. It really captures well the captures the reason the church exists. Our purpose is not primarily to grow in size or numbers. It is to participate in missio dei and his kingdom agenda of bringing/restoring His peace/justice or, namely shalom.

The author of this book, David T. Olson, has collected a database of over 200,000 churches and has apparently done a good job of comparing and contrasting those numbers with Census data to present some alarming facts about the state of the church in America.

You can find additional information at the book’s website, including Powerpoint presentations specific to cities like our own, San Diego.

For a six-minute glimpse into the research watch the YouTube teaser below:

Ran across this photo and project over at Jay Lorenzen’s blog. It is a visualization of the Internet created by a projected called The Opte Project. This project was created to make a visual representation of a space that is very much one-dimensional, a metaphysical universe. The data represented and collected here serves a multitude of purposes: Modeling the Internet, analyzing wasted IP space, IP space distribution, detecting the result of natural disasters, weather, war, and esthetics/art.

I’ve been staring at it for some time now and keep asking what it teaches us about networks. I’m especially interested in what it teaches us about the church:

• when viewed as disciples and their many relationships in a community or city.
• when viewed as local churches and ministries in a city.

What do you see?

Recently, in a November 07 meeting, the language of a Covenant Community or an Order has come up in describing the collection of folks that are orbiting around us in the U40 group. In the (ever-?) ongoing discovery of who we are and what God might be calling us to here in San Diego, it was noticed that:

• we are a collection of people who are longing to be with others on the missional journey.
• we have a vision/burden to see San Diego and to some degree Tijuana transformed with the gospel of the Kingdom.
• we are centered-set around Jesus and his Kingdom agenda.

I didn’t really have a good mental map of what a missional Kingdom movement would look like. But last November, after Chris Brewster and Jason Evans began using the language of being like an “order,” the conversation just took off. I left the meeting with a couple of very clear thoughts. First, this was clearly something that just about everyone in the room felt some resonance with. Second, I knew nothing about orders. I still don’t.

But the more think and read about it, I’m intrigued. I like the idea of gathering missional leaders that have a burden for the whole city to choose to covenant together. While not leaving their primary faith communities, there would be a deliberate second order choice to join with others to be the city church. It would value the unique callings that individual brings to the community/order such as church planting, marketplace ministry, arts/media, or educators, etc. At the same time, we covenant to learn from each other who are gifted and called to be involved in justice and sustainability issues, racial reconciliation and homelessness issues (to name only a few.)

So, as these ideas have been bouncing around in the back of my head, I ran across a blog by Len Hjalmarson entitled, “Missional Order - Two Lenses.” If I understand correctly, there is a group of folks associated with Allelon that are talking about forming a missional order of sorts. Len’s post seems to be after a series of meetings at “Seabeck.”

The posts were meaningful to me because I’ve been asking the same questions as these folks:

• What are the common practices that the community would gather around?
• How would a missional order relate with local churches?
• Can you just start an order? Do you need a license from somewhere?

How would something like this work when those of us thinking about this in the U40 crowd have only read about things like this? Len then quoted a passage from Missional Church that I had just been spending much time in. Chapter Seven, written by Alan Roxburgh, details a structure for missional leadership. I spent a good deal of time here because I thought I’d make a presentation for the Feb 08 U40 meeting. We didn’t get to it, but I highlighted the same passage as Len.

In commenting on the role of missional leadership:

“…The leaders’ primary skills are directed toward intentionally forming such orders within the community.

This can only happen as leaders themselves participate in such orders. Leaders must exert the greatest attnetion and energy at this point for anumber of reasons. First, it is the covenant community that witnesses to the gospel as an alternative logic and narrative within the social context, including in particular the larger unbounded congregation. Second, this area is precisely where leaders have been given almost no preparation; there are few models from which they can learn. The leaders themselves must therefore become a novitiate, embark on a missional apprenticeship, in order to give the kind of direction needed by the emerging missional community. This is a demanding task that cannot be given a secondary role in the church.” (Emphasis mine) (Missional Church, 211)

I’ve no idea where the conversation will go… stay tuned.

I’ve included two paragraphs from a portion of Wayne Grudem’s systematic theology dealing with “church.” It is interesting to me because while the title retains the two normal categories that most systematic theologies use, “local and universal,” Grudem argues that the term church (ekklesia) can legitimately be used for a group of believers at any level from the house church to the church universal. He writes:

3. The church is local and universal
In the New Testament the word “church” may be applied to a group of believers at any level, ranging from a very small group meeting in a private home all the way to the group of all true believers in the universal church. A “house church” is called a “church” in Romans 16:5 (”greet also the church in their house”), 1 Corinthians 16:19 (”Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord”). The church in an entire city is also called “a church” (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; and 1 Thes. 1:1). The church in a region is referred to as a “church” in Acts 9:31: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up.” Finally, the church throughout the entire world can be referred to as “the church.” Paul says, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25) and says, “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers …” (1 Cor. 12:28). In this latter verse the mention of “apostles,” who were not given to any individual church, guarantees that the reference is to the church universal.

We may conclude that the group of God’s people considered at any level from local to universal may rightly be called “a church.” We should not make the mistake of saying that only a church meeting in houses expresses the true nature of the church, or only a church considered at a city-wide level can rightly be called a church, or only the church universal can rightly be called by the name “church.” Rather, the community of God’s people considered at any level can be rightly called a church. — Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1994

I’m interested in knowing what happens if we think of church at the level of the entire city or the region. What happens to passages like 1 Cor 12: 12-31 which speak of the church as a body made up of many parts? We usually think of the passage referring to individuals that use their gifting in the context of their local church. How do things change if when we think of the church of the city as the context?

Hey Folks,

Just a reminder of our next U40 meeting next Saturday, Feb 16th. We will be meeting once again on campus at Point Loma Nazarene University from 9am to 2:00pm.

In the time since we last met conversations around who we are have continued to affirm the central reasons for our continued gathering:

• We want to be participating in God’s Kingdom agenda together
• We want to be fostering missional leaders for the church
• We want to be learning, growing, exploring, dreaming and reimagining
• We want to be networking and developing partnerships, collaborations and alliances.

In our next meeting, tentative plans have us continuing our fellowship in smaller groups around several topics:

• A short description of how the language of a covenant community or an “order” is being used recently in conjunction with U40. Might this be a way to think of what we are about?
• Small group discovery around various metaphors found in scripture to refer to God’s people (ie: church, body, family, etc.) Bring your bibles.
• As we have usually done some learning around different facets of what Kingdom calls us to, I’ve asked Yucan Chiu of Ethnos Church to share a few thoughts on cultural and socioeconomic diversity as a reflection of Kingdom. My friend and CRM colleague Craig Hendrickson may be joining us from Long Beach with similar expertise.
• I’d love for us to spend time in prayer for San Diego and Tijuana.

So, get the word out. Invite other like-minded, missional friends that would be blessed to join us as we learn to represent the Kingdom together.

Date: Saturday, Feb 16th
Time: 9am - 2pm
Place: Point Loma Nazarene University at the Fermanian Business Center.
Directions: here.
U40 Annotated Campus Map: here.

Cost: $10 to cover lunch and coffee
RSVP: Please let me know if you are coming so we can coordinate food and such. geoff [at] thehsus [dot] com. Or RSVP via Facebook.

If you want to read ahead:

• My book report on “Divided by Faith.” - Written for a class, it hits a few key ideas behind this great thought-provoking book. Written in 2005 while still on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ.
• Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America - On pp 201 - 214, Roxburgh diagrams a suggested structure for missional communities that we’ll look at briefly. I’d buy the book simply for the treatment of “Kingdom.”

That should do it for now.

Geoff

I ran across what must be a comprehensive list of resources, articles and interviews of Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. I’m posting it here because I think everyone will benefit from his teaching on the gospel and how to live missionally in the world.

I think he leads the N. American church in the conversation about cities, transforming culture, and church planting in urban contexts. While all these concerns are precisely the sorts of things that I’m thinking about as well in ministry, I listen to his weekly sermons because they feed my understanding of the gospel and deepen my walk with Jesus.

If you are an mp3 listener, turn your attention to the Audio/Visual section and listen away.

In Street Signs, Bakke makes a comment that helps put into words some thoughts I’ve been hearing come from my lips when talking about the various forms that might (or ought) to proliferate for the coming generation of church.

While I have a preference for the small and intimate environments of small faith communities, I think I sincerely believe that the form is really not the question we should be asking. It strikes me (today) that when we ask the question, “What is the form that will take us into the future?” we are looking for a somewhat formulaic answer. We are looking for the new magic pill.

If however, we ask who is Christ, and what is the mission that he calls his followers on, we are closer to asking the right question. The issue of church forms should be driven by the nature of the mission.

In exegeting our cities, Bakke writes,

There is no one city; but there are many sectors to a city. Here are some to think about: a commercial city, media city, ethnic city, political city, convention city… Huge diverse populations live in these sectors. Add the mix of languages, cultures, religions, and the 24-hour reality of modern economics, and you begin to understand that one size does not reach all. We need “Tall steeple” first churches and classic churches that speak to poor and organize on behalf of the powerless. We need churches to be family for the lonely and clinics for the wounded, abused, and broken. We need all the expertise emerging in the body of Christ, and we need professors in our schools who can organizes cities as laboratories where our newest pastors and missionaries can imbibe those kingdom specializations.

We need all the different forms, despite some the inherent weaknesses of each of the forms that exist. If we allow that all the forms exist, is that all we need to say? Do we just need more churches of every kind? Or, do we follow Redeemer Presbyterian Church’s lead in seeking to plant more “gospel preaching, Kingdom-minded” churches, regardless of denomination. My understanding of Tim Keller’s gospel let’s me say “yes” to Redeemers approach, but there seems to be more.

It seems that the many different forms of church in a city must also develop an appreciation for all the other forms: simple church, high church, networked organic movements. There needs to be a sense of being the church in the city which is neither an understanding of church that is local church or (universal) the Church, but church of the city (with a middle-case “c.”)

So, I don’t want to say, “all kinds of church forms” are necessary and by those comments communicate and all forms are justified and business as usual can continue. That is the last thing I want to say. I want to say all kinds of church forms are required because with a common Kingdom vision, missional outlook, and sense of being the church in the city, then we will be closer to being the transformative Kingdom agent that I hope the church can be.

This book is a collection of the knowledge and the approach that Bakke and Sharpe have been espousing after years thinking about cities and how to help unfold the kingdom through the work of the church in those cities. Central to their approach is to recognize where God is already working in any given city to embrace, celebrate and come alongside that work. These signs of God’s working help to point a new direction in urban ministry.

One idea from this book that is particularly useful in my work here in San Diego is viewing the city as one’s parish. During the 2007 wildfires of San Diego, I noticed a difference in how our church, Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church (www.transformedlives.org) seems to approach our community, versus many evangelical churches. The parish mentality allows a church to see an entire geographical region as their area of responsibility. In contrast many evangelical churches see their audience as a subset of this region, namely those who have made a decision for Christ and joins our community to worship.

During the fires, our church identified 70 families from the church who lost their homes to the fire. Many of those 70 are people whose names have made it onto the attendance rolls of the church somehow over the years. Many of those we are seeking to be a blessing to are not involved in the same way we might expect from an evangelical church. Nonetheless, because of our church’s parish mentality, we view a much larger subset of people affected by the fire as our own. In fact, the number of families we are seeking to bless in our community is now 140, fully one-third of the 400 affected homes in our community.

I see firsthand how this parish mentality changed the boundaries of who gets ministered to in the church. The somewhat exclusive category of those who are “in” is much larger with the parish mentality. Those who are “marginally in” but ministered to in a parish mentality church, might be considered “out” in a non-parish mentality church. It seems that we should err on the side of ministering to those on the edges rather than only those clearly “in.” But need to be clear that the parish mentality that we are to develop must include both the immediate community as well as the whole city as the parish. The parish mentality must be coupled with broader sense of the church in the city.

Fast Company had an interesting article recognizing the urbanization trend of the world and identifying the cities that will actually flourish because they are drawing smart people. These “Fast Cities,” are:

“…cauldrons of creativity where the most important ideas and the organizations of tomorrow are centered. They attract the best and the brightest. The are great places to work and live.”

The cities are listed in categories like Urban innovators, culture centers, startup hubs, and high-tech hot spots. San Diego appears as “on the verge.”