The Hsu’s Views

“…the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this…” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Extract of a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his brother Karl-Friedrick on the 14th of January, 1935. (Source: John Skinner, Northumbria Community.)

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.

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.

My friends Rex and Connie are doing a great job of raising awareness on the issues of mental health. Upon losing their son took his life two years ago, the Kennemers have been active in promoting the work of several great organizations that come alongside the roughly one in five American teenages that have diagnosable, treatable mental illness.

Consider coming to a double event on Dec 28. First a Forum that includes a keynote speaker, Q&A, and breakout sessions. Second, there will be a concert and art show that evening hosted by Molly Jensen.

I’ve been looking at the The Celtic Way of Evangelism again. Here are a few more thoughts to add to the first post:

Apparently, when St. Patrick arrived among the Irish Celts, there were probably some Irish Christians, but what Patrick and his people did was launch a movement. This movement had a very different feel from Roman Christianity largely due to the distance and isolation of these lands. “This movement, compared to the Roman wing of the One Church was more imaginative, and less cerebral, closer to nature and its creatures, and emphasized the “immanence” and “providence” of the Triune God more than his “transcendence.” (26)

Celtic semi-monastic communities formed consisting of some who chose a more traditional monastic path, but the communities also included scholars, artisians, craftsmen, and families including children. These communities were typically under some sort of lay leadership, seeing little need for ordained priests. “They were essentially lay movements.” (28)

It is clear that as the church begins to navigate into the challenging waters of rapid discontinuous change and a shifting worldviews, it really needs to recover a sense of being a movement. Not just movement in name or by way of a label. It must be a lay movement that allows Jesus’ gospel of the Kingdom to be good news to the new pagan world that we find ourselves in today. There needs to be a freedom to operate “far from Rome.”

Hunter is doing a good job showing how Patrick’s isolation from Rome allowed him to contextualize the gospel in such a way that its expression was both Christian and Heathen. It did not utilize institutional ways, but took on forms that made sense for the Celtic settlements. It took on forms that were shaped by an understanding of mission, and not the extension of an institution.

I know, you’re thinking that my posting pace has already indicated a vacational posture…

I’m literally running out the door, but ran across a couple of cool posts that I just have to connect you with.

First, The Great Giveaway. Here is Alan Hirsh’s review, and one at NextReformation which is more extensive.

Second, I ran across a nice article by Drew over at goodmanson.com on the “Missional” definition that we’ve been playing with here.

Here is a bit of the firestorm set off in anticipation of Ed Stetzer’s article on the term “missional.”

Finally, I just added the JollyBlogger to my RSS reader. There are some very insightful posts and I look forward to reading over there.

Bill Easum has a nice chapter in his book on how Christianity is best understood as an organic movement. He notes that many theories about congregational life are flawed because they begin with an institutional or mechanical worldview. He writes:

“Christianity is concerned with the unfolding of the Kingdom of God in this world, not the longevity of organizations. Much of the prophetic message was focused on the unfaithful leadership of those who put institutional law above bringing about change in the world…” P. 17

There are a few other “zingers” in the book, but it was written in 2001 and I wouldn’t be surprised if the critique against mechanistic approaches to church required the stronger prophetic stance that he takes here. I still suspect a twinge of modernity in his writing, but I’m thankful for his observations on organic movements.

Movements:

• Follow a leader - in our case it’s Jesus.
• Embody the spirit of the founder - it’s followers emulate the leader.
• Are guided by mission rather than rules - principle vs. rules(?)
• Are mobile rather than static - we are to be ready, willing and able to go wherever Jesus leads.
• Depend on contextual people - we are tuned in to the culture of our community.

Now, it is a bit vogue to bash the traditional attractional church. Before you jump on the bandwagon, I’d recommend “The Missional Leader” by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk. I just started it and I think I’ll recommend it to all my friends that are trying to engage the missional conversation in their institutional churches. It takes a very positive approach to the reality that the vast majority of God’s children are in these contexts. You’ll hear more about the book from me here. Stay tuned!

John Franke has penned a great article over at Allelon regarding the centrality of mission as the central organizing principle for the church. This stems from the character of God himself and is captured by the term missio Dei. How is God missional by nature?

This missional pattern is captured in the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). God is missional by nature. The love of God lived out and expressed in the context of the eternal community of love gives rise to the missional character of God who seeks to extend the love shared by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into the created order. According to David Bosch, mission is derived from the very nature of God and must be situated in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity rather than ecclesiology or soteriology. In this context the logic of the classical doctrine of the missio Dei expressed as God the Father sending the Son, and the Father and the Son sending the Spirit may be expanded to include yet anther movement: “Father, Son, and Spirit sending the church into the world” (David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991], 390). In this context, the church is seen as the instrument of God’s mission and its various historical, global, and contemporary embodiments may be viewed as a series of local iterations of God’s universal mission to all of creation.

It is an excellent article even it if is a bit technical. His comments regarding how we should approach the doing and teaching of theology are important.

In the ongoing effort to catalog what different people consider “missional,” here is the list from the Gospel and Our Culture Network. GOCN are the folks that began the conversation about thinking as missionaries to the West. There are lots of great articles that are perhaps a bit more technical and scholarly, but accessible.

The twelve hallmarks of a missional church:

1. The missional church proclaims the gospel.
2. The missional church is a community where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus.
3. The Bible is normative in this church’s life.
4. The church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death, and resurrection of its Lord.
5. The church seeks to discern God’s specific missional location for the entire community and for all of its members.
6. A missional community is indicated by how Christians behave toward one another.
7. It is a community that practices reconciliation.
8. People within the community hold themselves accountable to one another in love.
9. The church practices hospitality.
10. Worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future.
11. This community has a vital public witness.
12. There is a recognition that the church itself is an incomplete expression of the reign of God.

Frost and Hirsch in “The Shaping of Things to Come” add three principles. Each of these three form a chapter in their book.

1. The missional church is incarnational, not attractional in its ecclesiology.
2. The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality.
3. The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a heirarchical, mode of leadership.

Thanks to my buddy Doug who let me know about a great paper about living missionally in the suburbs. It appeared at Alan Hirsch’s website, and the comments it has spurred are worth reading as well. I’ve been wrestling with what needs exist in my neighborhood where crime is low, schools are good and people are relatively affluent.

I happen to live near apartments with rent subsidies, so I knew where there were people that lived “on the edge,” but who else had needs in my community? I know of many single parents that are constantly juggling work and family. From our association with the schools, we knew that many kids could use some tutoring (or perhaps parenting.) Is that it?

In addition to identifying where the needs where, we need to think about what the church needs to be to be missional in suburbia. This paper by Todd Hiestand, a pastor in Pennslyvania, was excellent in identifying the nature of our mission to the world, and how to address the issues that prevent us from living missionally in the suburbs. These are:

1. Individualism
2. Comfort
3. Consumerism
4. Tolerance of injustice

Also of interest and on this topic is an entry by Paul Fromont of Prodigal Kiwi. Great thoughts and resources to chase down.