tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78768530539934790702024-03-13T10:53:22.000-07:00The Relational MissionSmall Groups, Community & Missional LivingScott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.comBlogger400125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-43889447890492103662017-04-15T06:58:00.001-07:002017-04-15T06:58:27.904-07:00My Blog Has Moved<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am now writing my blog inside the new website for the Center for Community & Mission.<br />
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<a href="http://mscottboren.org/blog">http://mscottboren.org/blog</a><br />
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I have not migrated all of my old posts to the new site, but I hope to do that soon.Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-37690341291120674332016-09-26T09:01:00.000-07:002016-09-26T10:18:02.455-07:00A Theology of "Seeing" GodOur experience of life informs how we see and interpret ideas and new experiences. For instance, being that I grew up on a farm, the way that I see the world has been shaped by those experiences. Therefore when I walk along the aisles of a grocery story, my view of the food that we purchase is different from that of someone who grew up in the city. My understanding of the packaged beef is informed by the fact that I raised cattle and showed them at various fairs for nine years. <br />
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This example states the obvious. Clearly our experience informs how we see something. Those who have been trained in gymnastics see what I cannot see when they watch girls complete in the floor routines or the uneven bars at the summer olympics. An experienced elementary teacher can see individual learning capacities in a room full of kids that I am clueless about. Our experience creates an awareness of certain things while excluding others. It's like a filter that helps us to process what we observe. <br />
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This way of seeing or "filter" is generated by the repeated experience we have around a continual loop. Each time we go around that loop or track, we generate a deeper understanding of what we know. And therefore, the more times we go around that track, the more nuanced our ability to see what we see. There are good aspects of this because it trains our eyes to see. But it can also blind us to that which we do not expect. <br />
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Jesus often spoke of this. After feeding the five thousand, he was warning the disciples about the "yeast of the Pharisees." They thought he was talking about the fact that they did not have any bread. To them he said, "Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?" (Mark 8:18). He was challenging their understanding of what he was saying. Their perception or their ability to see and hear Jesus' meaning did not line up with what Jesus meant. Their filter filtered out the truth. <br />
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In the prologue of John's Gospel we read a general statement about how people did not see Jesus rightly:<br />
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The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. (John 1:9-11).</blockquote>
Light is meant for the eyes so that we can see the truth correctly, but those who saw Jesus did not see him as he was. Their experience did not give them eyes to see who Jesus was. They could not receive the light because they projected their expectations upon the light and therefore interpreted Jesus as being other than who he is. In the first century Jewish context, God's Messiah was supposed to restore Israel as a nation, to re-establish the Temple to its former glory, and to drive out the Romans. (This is the point that N. T. Wright so clearly drives home in his writings about Jesus.) But Jesus did none of these things, at least not as expected. Their cultural expectations of the Messiah kept them from seeing what God was up to through Jesus. <br />
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It is tempting for us today to castigate those blind people for not seeing who Jesus was. However, we do the same things today; we just have a different set of experiences that cause us be blind in different ways. For instance, those of us who live in the United States have been shaped by the pursuit of personal happiness. And while there are many good things about this aspect of our culture, this pursuit can cause us to search high and low for a mechanistic formula that promises such happiness and fulfillment. If we do the right set of actions, then we will attain the level of happiness that we desire. After all, almost every commercial promises to have the secret insight into our personal achievement. <br />
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This life experience of the pursuit of the right formula for personal happiness can easily be projected upon God. As a result, we see God as being a means to an end of our personal fulfillment. If then we follow the right set of instructions, then we will live up to our potential. We will be all that we can be for God. <br />
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The danger of the way that our experiences project expectations upon God is that we cannot see how it could be otherwise. This was the case of faithful first century Israelites. Their interpretation of Jesus—which resulted in him dying on the cross—was faithful to their way of viewing the world. No Messiah would come as a humble servant who washed feet, much less as one who would die on a cross.<br />
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And it is the case today. Because our common life experience trains us to see the world in terms of that which can add to our life and that which will subtract from our life, we tend to evaluate things in terms of goods and services. We invest in that which we view as providing goods and services that will enhance our living. And this is how we can "see" Jesus.<br />
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When we do this, we de-personalize God. He becomes a vendor of spiritual goods and services, a supplier of a product that will make our life better. He becomes the engineer in the sky who provides mechanistic patterns doing the right things so that we can get the right outcomes.<br />
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While there are incredible benefits to knowing and following Jesus, as soon as we see Jesus through this perspective, we actually miss the benefits. The benefits are secondary, which means that we only reap the benefits when we see him for what he is. Jesus did not come and provide a technique for attaining a better life. Instead he came as a person. He showed up and walked among us. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." When God wants to show us what life is really about, he comes in person and invites us into relationship in order to receive life. We don't relate to a formula or a technique. We relate to God.<br />
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The problem is that most of us do not have much experience understanding this view of God. To see God rightly requires revelation, an unveiling, a surprise from the outside of our experience. Most of us project our expectations and experiences upon God. This is normal. We have to be open to having our way of seeing changed. We must hold our perspectives loosely before God and make room for the Spirit to change how we see things. Jesus spoke about it to the disciples in this way:<br />
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“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (Luke 10:22-24).</blockquote>
The disciples did not start following Jesus seeing this truth about Jesus. The prophets and kings of the Old Testament shaped their expectations, but now they were seeing something different about God the Father and the Son who was walking around before them. Their eyes began to see as they were exposed to the revelation of Jesus' life and teaching.<br />
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Think of it this way. Their life experience—and ours today—might be compared to that of walking around a track. Previous experience causes us to interpret life in terms of what we already know. While there might be new things that we learn along the way, these new things do not change the trajectory of the track. They only expand it, adding new lanes, if you will. But the revelation of God in Christ, is not something that we come up with based on past experience. It's an insertion of something other from outside the track of history. A different way of seeing the world is inserted into history, a way that does not fit the expectations of that track. <br />
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The revelation of God comes to us from the outside of us. This means that we must be open to that which does not conform to our experience. God gets to define God. We do not, which means that we must hold our pre-conceived ideas about God and about God's salvation loosely. As soon as we turn our concepts about God into a system that defines God, then we start relating to that system instead of to God. <br />
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This is why seeing God as triune is so crucial. If God were an individual, then at God's core would be his isolation from others. However since Jesus reveals God as being Father, Son, and Spirit, God is inherently relational. God is known then not in the concepts about God, but in the relational space between. God lives in love, in open communication between the three persons, and therefore we know God in this open communication. Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-4488977804238505572016-09-22T10:25:00.000-07:002016-09-22T10:25:14.135-07:00Learning to Trust: A Devotional“Trust the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” —Prov 3:5<br />
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The Bible has a lot to say about trusting God. Isaiah 26:4 reads, “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.” Jesus framed it this way, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt 6:33). The vast story of the Bible seems to highlight story after story that contrasts those who trusted God with those who did not. <br />
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Trust can be imagined with the word picture of the putting our weight upon something. As we see in the passage from Proverbs quote above, trusting the Lord, is set in contrast to “leaning” on our own understanding. When we lean against a wall, we trust that wall. When we sit in a chair, we are putting our weight upon the chair. When we take a step, we lean into the leg that steps out and onto the ground that holds up that leg, thereby trusting our leg and that piece of ground.<br />
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When it comes to the question of trusting God, we can lean on God or lean on what we comprehend. If we were to sit two chairs next to own another, one labeled “God” and the other labeled “Myself.” We cannot sit on two chairs at the same time. We have to choose. If we step forward on a path, we can only put our foot on one path at a time.<br />
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This kind of trust calls for a simple naïveté, a putting our weight on God when it does not make sense in a world that does not operate in this way. Like like Noah building a huge boat when no one had ever seen rain before, we are called to trust God to be our all in the midst of a world where few have seen God come through like that before. Like the boy Samuel who heard God's voice calling him, we are called to trust that God speaks, even though most people might think that such things are just imagined. Like Jesus who picked up his cross and gave up his life for others, we are called to be a servant in the midst of a me-first world. <br />
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Trust means that we take a step with God when we don't know where the path will lead. It may often mean that the path will be covered with a fog where we cannot see anything more than the fact that God is walking beside us. And it definitely means that we cannot predict the outcome. Trust involves more questions than answers. </div>
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Today, we can lean into God, or we can lean into our own thinking, on the things that we can prove and justify. If trusting God coincided with that which we can know and do on our own, then why would we need God? We could just trust our own thoughts and our own abilities to make it happen. Why would the Bible make such wild claims about the promises of God and how God has and does fulfill those promises if in fact trusting God did not require our stepping out into an unknown place, where we don't know if God will be there to hold us up? </div>
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Trusting is about putting all our weight on God. This is the only way that we can walk with God. If we try to trust own understanding and trust God at the same time, we are like a person trying to put his or her foot on two places at the same time. It just doesn't work. The trusting step God is calling you to take will not be fully explained by God up front. It wouldn't require trust if that were the case. Trust is trust because we are stepping out on a path that is covered by clouds, mist, and fog. We trust that God is with us on the path, not the path itself. </div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-8270790347205368352016-09-19T08:13:00.000-07:002016-09-19T08:13:26.971-07:00Knowing God—What Kind of Knowing?“... the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, ...” —Philippians 3:8<br />
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We use the word “know” in many different ways. For instance, someone might ask you if you know Jerry? With this question, you are being asked if you have been introduced to that particular person and thereby have a knowledge of <i>identity</i>. Another use can be imagined if your pastor uses the word “eschatological” in his sermon and you have recently attended a class where he provided an extensive understanding of what that words means. This gives you a knowledge of <i>information</i>. A third use is illustrated by your overhearing a conversation in Spanish and you took a few classes and you actually paid attention and worked at it. As a result of putting the language to use, you are able to understand what they are saying. This is about having a knowledge of <i>practice</i>.<br />
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When we hear Paul talking about the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” we must ask what kind of knowledge he is talking about. Is he talking about knowing the <i>identity</i> of Jesus? Was he referring to <i>information</i> about Jesus? Was his meaning about having a knowledge based on the <i>practice</i> of the faith?<br />
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The answer to each question is both yes and no. Knowing Jesus of course referred to knowledge of his <i>identity</i>, of specific <i>information</i> and of an understanding formed by specific <i>practices</i>. However, the knowing Paul wrote about here went beyond this. This is the kind of knowing that we might refer to as knowledge of <i>union</i>. This kind of knowledge is personal because it affects us at the core of our being. We can experience this kind of union in a variety of ways. For instance, when asking my grandmother how to make one of her dishes, she would say something like, “Well you turn on the oven to medium heat. Then you add mix a bunch of flower with some milk, a bit of water, add a few shakes of salt ...” At that point, it became clear that there was no way that someone could do what she did in the kitchen. She was not working from a technical knowledge of the information about cooking. She was working from a knowledge of cooking that had shaped who she was.<br />
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Information builds upon identity, as we cannot know something that we are not acquainted with. Practice builds upon information. My grandmother did not arrive at that point of knowledge of cooking without practice. However, knowledge of union takes us beyond all three, as illustrated.<br />
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Or think of it this way: someone who grew up on a farm, went off to school to study the science of farming, and then managed a farm for thirty years has been shaped by the vocation of farming. He <i>knows</i> farming. While he might have plenty of knowledge of information about farming, that information is not the ultimate goal. The end goal is the kind of knowledge that arises out of the experience of working on the farm. <br />
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While the knowledge of <i>identity</i>, of <i>information</i>, and of <i>practices</i> are important, if we stop there, we keep that which we are trying to know at arm's length. It remains objective information that we can dissect and analyze. When we apply this to God, it becomes the kind of knowledge where we try to figure out how we can get what we want from God. If I believe the right facts, then I will go to heaven when I die. If I can only learn the right information, then my life with change. If I can start obeying God in the right ways, then I'll be faithful. If I pray the right way, then I will find God's favor. But this kind of knowledge leaves us in control.<br />
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Knowledge of <i>union</i> is the kind of knowledge that we cannot control. If I want to learn how to cook like my grandmother cooked, I have to move beyond my need to control and let the otherness of cooking get inside of me. The same could be said about almost anything we want to know. And it's even more true of God. If I want to know God, it requires that I let the Otherness of God be Other than I am, that is, something that I cannot control or manipulate for my own benefit. It requires that I let the Otherness of God draw me into mystery, into adventure, and into intimacy. It's not the kind of knowledge that we make happen. It's the kind of knowledge that we discover along a journey.<br />
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-2791228536666371132016-05-24T09:23:00.002-07:002016-05-24T09:25:56.833-07:00The Small Groups Bull's-Eye<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKUBLD8peYP5ZO8-j14uC2X-iTeojSDSjYxISEFQ2LVZYG9igxxJrIiDaFT5iWS6K9GTEEe0UQQzb6lChn6pl5dcU3P1NsFqJ_NTiZ5kWXJId00GIb0nNhkBw4KYyKQrm_z-6mfPpoSm4n/s1600/bullseye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKUBLD8peYP5ZO8-j14uC2X-iTeojSDSjYxISEFQ2LVZYG9igxxJrIiDaFT5iWS6K9GTEEe0UQQzb6lChn6pl5dcU3P1NsFqJ_NTiZ5kWXJId00GIb0nNhkBw4KYyKQrm_z-6mfPpoSm4n/s320/bullseye.jpg" width="320" /></a>Groups are the most important aspect of the life of your church! </div>
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Overstatement? Well maybe. But one could easily make the argument that groups will make or break a church as much as any other aspect of a church’s life. After all groups are the web that links people in the church together. They are not simply a strategy of a church. They pervade every aspect of a church, whether there is an explicit group strategy or not.<br />
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I make this claim because churches—as with all other organizations—do life as an organization of sub-groups. In many cases these are formal groups: leadership teams, worship teams, Sunday school classes, home small groups, youth groups, etc. But there are also other kinds of groups, informal connections of people who naturally gather and talk with one another in a way that they don’t talk with others. Just look around before or after a worship service and you will see the groups happen. <br />
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It’s only natural that churches would get stuff done in groups as they are part of the warp and woof of how good living works. All organizations operate as a system of groups. Businesses, governments, teams, classrooms, volunteer foundations, and, yes, churches work as a network of smaller groups. <br />
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We often miss the reality of how groups pervade our lives because they are always present, whether they are healthy and life-giving or not. We are born into a small group called a family. We go to school in groups called classes. We play in groups called teams. We organize our work in groups. Our friendships naturally cluster in groups. We even eat in groups, something that is easily illustrated—for good or bad—by our high school lunch breaks. <br />
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Small groups are everywhere.<br />
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This is just the way relationships naturally work. We cannot relate to everyone we meet with the same level of depth. We even see in this in the life of Jesus. He did not relate to everyone in the same way. He did not come to the entire world 2000 years ago. He came to the people of Israel. Within Israel he related to people at different levels. Like concentric circles, he connected more deeply with smaller groups as he move further into the center. <br />
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He surrounded himself with three intimate confidantes and nine other close friends. Jesus then related to a large group of up to 70 people who followed him in his ministry (See Luke 10). Then there were others who were connected to him, symbolized by those in the Upper Room after his ascension. Beyond this, he related to the crowds of people who did not know him personally (e.g. the crowds who heard the Sermon on the Mount or the 5000 who were miraculously fed). Those around Jesus formed a web of connections where he demonstrated God’s relational kingdom. At the center of this web was a small group.<br />
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<b>What We Need</b><br />
Even though groups are foundational to the way we do life, in our day, grouping well is a challenge. When we consider the reality of the context of how we do life in Western society, the need for the development of community has never been more central. We live in an era of chronic isolation and disconnection. It does not take much effort to survey how sociologists describe Western life to see what is going on. Over the last few decades, cultural observers have used images like the lonely crowd, bowling alone, the saturated self, a society of strangers, intimate strangers, the myth of individualism, and many others. There has never been a time in the history of mankind when we have practiced a way of life that is driven by such isolation. <br />
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We are “hardwired for relationships,” and we intuitively know it. However, our way of life fosters a set of practices that train us to live as if we don’t need them. In the describing this way of life, the authors of the classic book <i>Habits of the Heart</i> write about the mythology of individualism using the classic characters of a cowboy and private detectives as individualistic heroes.<br />
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“Both the cowboy and the hard-boiled detective tell us something important about American individualism. The cowboy, like the detective, can be valuable to society only because he is completely autonomous individual who stands outside it. To serve society, one must be able to stand alone, not needing others, not depending on their judgment, and not submitting to their wishes.”</blockquote>
While we all know that none of us can stand alone against the tide, this mythology shapes us. Our logical conclusions about the need for belonging and connections don’t necessarily form the way we practice life on a daily basis. The environment in which we live forms us without our even knowing it. For example, I grew up on a farm and I learned about life by being formed through the ups and downs of farm life. Those raised in the inner city, for instance, learn how to do life differently. If you are raised in the inner city, you will be shaped the pattens commonly found there. Western society has formed us through the mythology of individualism which means that who I am as an individual is to be prized over my relationships. The habits that correspond to this mythology create life patterns that we practice on a daily basis without ever thinking about it. <br />
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For instance, we tend to operate as if we are able to construct ourselves from nothing so that we can do what we want to do and be whomever we think we should be. We change jobs. We relocate. We create identities online. We switch marriage partners. We form and reform ourselves as if we were a blob of Playdo. If we were to look in the mirror and ask “Who are you?,” the honest response would be, “Who do you want me to be today?”<br />
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<b>What We Want</b><br />
When we take an honest look at how we do life and then compare that to the biblical call to be the church, it does not take long to see the disparity. We could look at many different scriptures to illustrate this, but this one highlights as concretely as any:<br />
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Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Phil 2:1-4)</blockquote>
The word that is translated “others” is the Greek word <i>allelon</i>, which literally means “one another.” The church is called to be a people who live in community with each other and manifest God’s love to each other in these ways. This stands in sharp contrast to the patterns of life that describe our culture. <br />
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We are made for this. We need this. We might even say that we hunger for this. <br />
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When you are hungry, what do you want? The answer is obvious: you want food. If you were to say that they want _____________ (insert your the name of your favorite restaurant), no one would think that you want the actual restaurant. You want the food that is served by that restaurant. The restaurant is simply the form used to provide that food.<br />
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When you say that you want groups to flourish in your church, what is it that we really want? We don’t actually want the form called “small groups” or “missional communities.” We want belonging, community, life together, connection, prayer, sharing, sacrifice, the presence of God together, mutuality, discipleship, leadership development, spiritual gifts, mission.<br />
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Our hope for our groups can easily be summed up with:</div>
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<li>Love God</li>
<li>Love One Another</li>
<li>Be Witnesses in the World. </li>
</ul>
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One of my mentors put it this way, “If you love God, love each other, love those who don’t know Jesus and the train others to do the same, you group will flourish.” <br />
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Some kind of basic explanation like this for what we want to see in groups can be found in almost every book or conference on small groups and missional communities from the last half century. It's remarkable how every resource about groups starts out with the confession that we are aiming for the same things. For instance Bill Donahue writes of four basic components that he hopes to see in groups: <br />
<ul>
<li>Love. “Love is expressed in a variety of ways in group life. First, we express love to God through prayer and worship and by giving him praise. We express love to one another as we serve one another and care for one another in our group.” </li>
<li>Learn. “Learning about Christ and about his will for our lives is a key component of group life. All groups learn—they learn the Scriptures, they learn about one another, and they learn about them- selves.” </li>
<li>Serve. “Service and good works are part of any vibrant, healthy small group. Your group must decide how you will express Christian love to your community or to others in the body.” </li>
<li>Reach. “Groups must make decisions that ensure the group’s purpose and vision are carried out. That means reaching others for Christ.” </li>
</ul>
Steve Gladden writes in his book <i>Leading Small Groups with Purpose</i> that his dream is based on the experience of the early church recording in Acts 2. There he finds the five purposes of the group: Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry, Evangelism, and Worship. (41-42)<br />
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Joel Comiskey has done by far the most research on the worldwide growth of the cell church and has written over 25 books on the topic. While the cell church has not taken off in North America like it has on other continents, the hopes and dreams of what leaders want to see happening in the cell groups looks much the same as those stated by Donahue and Gladden. Comiskey writes,<br />
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“Cells are groups of three to fifteen people who meet weekly outside the church building for the purpose of evangelism, community, and spiritual growth with the goal of making disciples who make disciples, which results in the multiplication of the cell.” </blockquote>
Similar things are stated about what leaders want to see from the groups that are commonly called missional communities. Mike Breen writes of the Up-In-Out dimension of group life. Reggie McNeal summarizes it this way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The up dimension includes worship and efforts toward helping members maintain a dynamic and growing relationship with God, including a personal relationship with Jesus as Savior. Typical in-dimension emphases of community life are the nurture and care of each other, praying for one another, encouraging one another, and attending to the physical, social, economic, and spiritual needs of other members. Out-dimension expressions of service and witness vary from group to group, depending on the particular mission of the community. Some communities target the homeless and others minister in night clubs, some in gated communities, and others convene Alpha groups in their living rooms and office conference centers.” (<i>Missional Communities</i>, 45)</blockquote>
There are a ton of opinions and perspectives on groups. There are statements by thought leaders that they have found the most effective way to do groups. There are promotions that their perspective unlocks the biblical methods of first century church life. There are declarations that we don’t do small groups anymore because they are inward-focused and therefore we need outward-focused missional communities. However, when you survey what each perspective actually espouses, it is easy to see that we all want groups that live out the same things. I summarize them with the words Communion, Relating and Engagement. <br />
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This is the bull's-eye.</div>
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<b>What We Want: Communion with God</b><br />
Right before Jesus went to trail and then to the cross, he prayed for this kind of life together in this way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I’m praying not only for them<br />
But also for those who will believe in me<br />
Because of them and their witness about me.<br />
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—<br />
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,<br />
So they might be one heart and mind with us.<br />
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.<br />
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,<br />
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—<br />
I in them and you in me.<br />
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,<br />
And give the godless world evidence<br />
That you’ve sent me and loved them<br />
In the same way you’ve loved me. (John 17:20-23)</blockquote>
The connection with God that we were made to experience cannot be manufactured by our efforts. The oneness of Jesus’ prayer is oneness that is only realized as we are one in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit. And this is related to how we relate to each other. We cannot be connected to one another without communion with God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it. (<i>Life Together</i>, 38)</blockquote>
We only connect to one another as Christ by the Spirit stands between us. If we lack an upward communion with Christ by the Spirit, then connecting to each other will only be something we manufacture via our efforts.<br />
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<a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/04/rhythms-of-jesus-way-communion.html">For more on Communion click here. </a><br />
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<b>What We Want: Relating with Each Other</b><br />
Jesus prayed that we might be one with each other in the same way that Jesus and the Father are one. Our communion with God unites us in love to one another. This manifests creatively like a great painting. I’m a fan of the Impressionists. Prints of Monet, Renoir and others bring life to a room. However, upon seeing the real thing in person, I entered into and experience that no print can reproduce. Prints, being flat cannot replicate the brush strokes or the depth of the paint on the canvas. The light bounces off the paint in such a way that the images come to life. The characters sitting around the tables looked as if they were inviting me to join them. I stood mesmerized. I didn't just view it. I did not see it. It saw me. It engaged me. It's beauty moved me.<br />
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The experience we long for in our groups is like a work of art. Each one is a masterpiece, but none are the same. Relating is not a cheap print replicated from a past experience or a formulaic concoction promoted by another church across the country. Relating cannot be copied, replicated or mimicked. Every connection experience is unique, a one of kind expression of God's love.<br />
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<a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/04/rhythms-of-jesus-way-relating.html">For more on Relating click here. </a><br />
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<b>What We Want: Engagement with Context</b><br />
According to the prayer of Jesus in John 17, the way that the world will come to believe that Jesus is the manifestation of God is through our connection with one another as we commune with God. Our love for each other demonstrates to the world that we belong to Jesus, that we are his disciples (John 13:35)<br />
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Jesus prayed that we might live in unity, in oneness with one another as we are one with the Father which results in being “witnesses about” Jesus. This is not about developing an evangelism program so that we can get converts to join our groups. This is about living in such a way that our lives are a witness, so that we put on display the beauty and love of Christ in the midst of the world.<br />
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<a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/05/rhythms-of-jesus-way-engagement.html">For more Engagement click here. </a><br />
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<b>What We Want: The Way of Jesus</b><br />
Simply stated: The bull's-eye is groups that live out the way of Jesus. At least that’s what we confess. But what do we get? That's for another time. </div>
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-45317947967237576772016-05-18T04:10:00.001-07:002016-05-18T04:10:18.533-07:00The Way We Pray is the Way We LeadThere is an ancient Latin rule of the church that reads: <i>lex orandi lex credendi</i>, "the law of praying is the law of believing." Or to put it into a slightly different vernacular, "the way that we pray is the way that we believe."<br />
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In other words, our theology is not merely a confession of agreement with an orthodox list of beliefs. Our beliefs about God are manifest and even cultivated by our communion with God. <br />
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So often theology is used as a kind of litmus test that we pass in order to get to the place of doing something for God. So if we believe the right things about God, then we are qualified to work for him. And as a result, it seems that theology has little to do with what we do in the church outside of that which we preach or teach. <br />
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In other words, theology is foundational to things like leadership and the running of the church, but we don't see how it is relevant to what we do when we walk into the church office on Monday morning or what we do as a church council on Wednesday night.<br />
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So on Sunday morning, we pray that God will help us to believe, because we know that we depend upon God to do what only he can do in the transformation of lives. But do we pray in the same way on Monday morning? Or during a council meeting?<br />
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But belief is not merely about a list of theological facts. Theological belief is about life, all of life. We could state it like this: The way that we pray is the way that we work. Or the way that we pray is the way that we parent. Or maybe still: the way that the pray is the way that we play.<br />
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The way that we pray as leaders in the church is the way that we lead.<br />
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The way that we pray as we lead the church reveals what we believe about how God leads the church. Recently, I surveyed about 25 books from the last two decades that are commonly considered to be some of the best on the topic of church leadership. It is remarkable how little ink was used to talk about the relationship between prayer and leadership. Endless pages spent on the crisis that we face in the church. Strategies upon strategies outline 5 ways to make your church outreach oriented, 8 steps to church transformation, 6 patterns for the church of the future, etc.<br />
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But prayer is in most cases virtually absent. <br />
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And where it is present, it is tucked away and presented as if this is something that we already know how to do. Or the focus lies on praying that God will help us live up to his or her full potential as a leader.<br />
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The way we pray is the way we lead.<br />
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Too often we pray by offering words up to God as a transaction. God did his part on the cross and in the resurrection. Now we pray that God will help us do our part. We are saved by grace, by the miracle of the work that only God can do. Church leadership is about our efforts, our strategies and our skills. Prayer is something that we do so that we might be as good a leader as possible. <br />
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We know that we need God when we preach, when we serve communion or during an altar call. But the rest of our leadership seems to fall back up us to pull off.<br />
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Church leadership gets thrown back upon us. It is something that we must accomplish for the sake of God's work. And those of us who are not "great" leaders—which is most of us—read the books by those who are—which is very few—and we try to figure out how to become like them. (Maybe I'm the only one who has done this, and if so, then ignore this.)<br />
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I'm no longer interested in trying to lead like those who get the most done for God. I don't want to implement a list of leadership habits or laws. I'm not sure that God is that interested in my ability to be a great leader.<br />
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Paul confessed to the church at Philippi: <br />
<blockquote>
The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.<br />
I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. (Phil 3:7-11, <i>The Message</i>)</blockquote>
What might it mean to talk about leadership within this frame of reference? What might it mean to see our leadership prowess as mere "dung" in comparison to knowing Christ, to embrace Christ and being embraced by him? How might that mindset change the way we lead?<br />
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The way we pray is the way we lead. We can focus on getting stuff done for God and that's what we will "know." We will be embraced by activities that accomplishes something because that's what we embrace. Or we can know God in the midst of our leadership.<br />
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And this can be part of the life of a leader on Monday mornings and during council meetings, just as much, if not more, than on Sundays.<br />
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Photo Credit: <a class="owner-name truncate" data-rapid_p="125" data-track="attributionNameClick" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/studentsofcalvary/" style="color: #212124; cursor: pointer; display: inline !important; font-family: 'Proxima Nova', 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1; margin-left: 0px; max-width: 250px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 5px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; text-overflow: ellipsis; top: 17px; white-space: nowrap; width: auto;" title="Go to Daniel Maat's photostream">Daniel Maat</a> vai flickr<br />
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-68385628733724663002016-05-15T10:37:00.001-07:002016-05-15T10:37:28.293-07:00Rhythms of the Jesus Way: EngagementOver the last couple of posts, I’ve been talking about the rhythms of the Jesus way. In the first, I proposed the <a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/04/rhythms-of-jesus-way-communion.html">rhythm of communion with the Father</a>. The second introduced the <a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/04/rhythms-of-jesus-way-relating.html">rhythm of relating to one another</a>. Here I want to introduce the rhythm of engagement with the other. <br />
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In <i>Life Together</i>, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s masterpiece on Christian community, he opens with words about mission:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. In the end his disciples abandoned him. On the cross he was all alone, surrounded by criminals and the jeering crowds. He had come for the express purpose of bringing peace to the enemies of God. So Christians, too, belong not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the midst of enemies. There they find their mission, their work.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS5-oojvVVn-PkPMZu-4DiFwr2MqvPyoEchw7l6wY1gZwoW6kb9YQ2KSadGS-kBcL4OK09rEefGDWHTHl1ceXZ4bFmhwUYDMiL4ct11Oo2XXcS2IRZXHgYxfoP6qW-bZ-eNGKA4U1I_fhe/s1600/CRE.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS5-oojvVVn-PkPMZu-4DiFwr2MqvPyoEchw7l6wY1gZwoW6kb9YQ2KSadGS-kBcL4OK09rEefGDWHTHl1ceXZ4bFmhwUYDMiL4ct11Oo2XXcS2IRZXHgYxfoP6qW-bZ-eNGKA4U1I_fhe/s320/CRE.tiff" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>The way of Jesus is found in diasporatic community, not cloistered community. Diaspora is the Greek word used to describe the scattered nature of God’s people throughout the world. And it implies that Christian community is about living in a way that engages the world around us. Bonhoeffer continues: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"According to God’s will, the Christian church is a scattered people, scattered like seed “to all the kingdoms of the earth” (Deut. 28:25). That is the curse and the promise. God’s people must live in distant lands among unbelievers, but they will be the seed of the kingdom of God in all the world.</blockquote>
God’s kind of community does not happen in an enclave or as an exclusive club. God’s kind of community happens in the midst of life, right in front of those who don’t understand why we worship and love the way we do. <br />
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What does this look like in the local contexts where our groups gather? The answer to this question might seem obvious at first. We think in terms of evangelism, relationship outreach, mission projects, service initiatives, social justice involvement, and the like. In other words, we invest in things that we can do for those <i>outside</i> the community of Christ. That which we do for outsiders is set in contrast to that which we do as a church or small group that we classify as <i>insider</i> activity. <i>Insider</i> stuff includes things like prayer, worship, Bible discussion, fellowship, spiritual disciplines, etc. <i>Outsider</i> stuff is what we do for those who are not a part of us so that they will come and do our insider stuff with us. <br />
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While I’m not challenging the specific actions found within outsider activities—there is actually great value to them—I think we do need a different imagination when it comes to engaging the “other.” Acts 1:8 tells us that we will become “witnesses” and to be a witness is to put on display the truth that we experience. We do not fully do this when we are doing outsider stuff in order to do outreach. For instance, the way that we pray is just as much a witness as doing a service project in our community, or at least it has the potential to be. The same is true about how we relate to one another in love. Our witness is truncated when we limit engagement in our community to some kind of list of outsider actions. <br />
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The challenge that the modern church faces is related to how we break down the barrier between insider and outsider church activities. What does it look like to show people how we commune and how we relate while we are also engaging the other as a part of life as a scattered community?<br />
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To address this is much more complex that giving out some kind of list of things that a group can do in order to be more effective at outreach. We have enough of those kind of things. While I'm not saying that such lists are unnecessary, I am saying that more often than not such lists don't really help that much because we implement them within this insider-outsider mentality. We can implement those ideas and put all kinds of effort into them and still find ourselves in the same place. <br />
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This is one of the reasons I wrote a chapter in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Small-Groups-Way-Jesus/dp/0830836810/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463328994&sr=1-1&keywords=leading+small+groups+in+the+way+of+jesus">Leading Small Groups in The Way of Jesus </a></i>entitled “Hang Out.” We need to learn the art of wasting time with each other in the presence of those who need an encounter God’s love. In this way, they can see who we are as God’s children and give them a reason for asking why we do what we do and why we believe that we believe. <br />
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Too often we turn outreach or "missional" into another way of being an activist. It seems that we get anxious to make an impact, and we are very proud of the impact that we happen to make on the world. But this turns engagement into getting busy for God while we risk our own souls. God said to go and do and we had better go about doing it. This does not seem to be much of a witness to the ways of Jesus. It's more of a witness to what we can get done. Busy, stressed-out Christians who are trying to win the world and grow the church might look noble, but it's not the Jesus way.<br />
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It seems that we are reacting to the tendency for the church to be an escapist enclave. The answer is not found in activism that we might label as "missional. It's found in being with people as we are with God. And there we trust that God will be at work, usually in a much slower way than we would like. Within this mindset we find a ton of practical ways that this can manifest, some of which are very activist in nature.<br />
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If there is anything one practical point to make at this point, it is that we need to learn to practice eating together and while doing so, involving others who are not part of the church.<br />
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Being God’s witness involves showing people how we love with the love of Christ. This is about life, not just about an outreach project. In this way, we can show people who Jesus is. This is engagement with the other. </div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-24068382485294951522016-04-25T11:16:00.000-07:002016-04-25T16:35:46.796-07:00Rhythms of the Jesus Way: Relating<div>
In the previous post, I introduced the <a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/04/rhythms-of-jesus-way-communion.html">rhythm of Communion</a>. In what follows I want to talk about the rhythm of Relating. I've struggled with what to call this rhythm through the years. Something like community or life together flows of the tongue much easier. But there's a reason why I use this word. Let me explain. </div>
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In Western society, friendships are expendable. When we try to connect with others, we often ask questions like, “What’s in this for me?” or “How can this benefit my life?” or “What’s this going to cost me?” Relating does not come naturally to us. Loving others is not something that we do very well or very easily. </div>
<br>It’s easy to criticize this fact. We describe the experience of individualism, isolationism, loneliness, selfishness, etc. Over the last few decades, cultural observers have used images like the lonely crowd, bowling alone, the saturated self, a society of strangers, intimate strangers, the myth of individualism, and many others. There has never been a time in the history of mankind when we have practiced a way of life that is driven by such isolation. While it's easy to diagnose the problem, it’s a lot harder to talk about my own individualism. And it's even hard to actually do something about it. <br><br>Imagine that you are in a conversation with a historian who lives 200 years from now. Somehow she has developed the technology to send you an questionnaire so that she can better understand life in the twenty-first century. Her research is not delving into the history of war or politics, which is the normal stuff for history classes. She is focusing on everyday life to determine how people lived. <br><br>She asks you, “What words might she use to describe how we live today?” Every time I lead a group through this process, the words used always include things like:<br><ul>
<li>Fast-paced, frenzied, time-crunched </li>
<li>Lonely, isolated,</li>
<li>Productive</li>
<li>Unsettled, transient </li>
<li>Binge watching</li>
<li>Extended family scattered</li>
<li>Controlled by fear</li>
<li>Fast-food</li>
<li>Exciting, exhilarating </li>
<li>Technology-driven</li>
<li>Rootless</li>
</ul>
Then she asks you a follow-up question: “What words might use to describe how people ‘do relationships’ today?” Do these words come to mind?: <br><ul>
<li>Avoidance of Conflict </li>
<li>We have too many </li>
<li>Overwhelming </li>
<li>Social media-driven (Facebook and Twitter) </li>
<li>Paper-thin </li>
<li>Surface </li>
<li>Short-term </li>
<li>Nice</li>
</ul>
We know that this is how most of us do life. And we know that it's <i>not</i> how we were made to do life. We were made for relationships, but it seems that we don't do them very well. Groups become the natural go-to fix and churches organize people into groups with hopes that people will somehow develop different patterns simply because they join one. However, we end up with groups of individualists who are trying to connect on a regular basis, but they are not relating in a way that expresses the life of unity. It’s almost as if we are trying to merge individualism with community and hold on to both at the same time, an act of futility. Individualism is based on a certain set of life practices that stand in contradiction to the practices of community, and it keeps groups mired in mediocrity. <div>
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So we use groups to form some kind of relationships that we can produce if we put enough effort into it. And we write books and hold conferences that talk about how great it is. Putting a group of individualists in the same room for a meeting once a week is a good start, but it’s not the goal. </div>
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It's not <i>relating</i> in the way of Jesus. </div>
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<br>The Russian Orthodox pastor Seraphim Sigrist was shaped by an underground church during Soviet reign. He writes, “Community life is a journey toward, and an entering into, a space that is immensely greater than the combination of all personal spaces, and into a life that is far more than that of all our separate lives taken together.”<br><br>This is a new space where who we are as a group is far more than what we add up to be as group members. Here the “I” is grounded in “we.” In other words, who I am is shaped by who we are together. <br><br>And in this sense, I become far more in the midst of this “we” than “I” am when I’m trying to hold on to my individualism. <br><br>This does not mean we give up our individuality. Instead our individuality flourishes when we enter into the Jesus way of relating. Russian theologians have used the word sobornost to describe this. This word is hard to translate into English. Sigrist writes that at the heart of sobornost is “sharing life together without any loss of your true self; we are no longer isolated from each other and no longer isolated from the whole of God’s creation.” We become our true selves while at the same time become more than ourselves. How’s that for a paradox? <div>
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This is far more than the development of a small group program or of some kind of organic missional community experience. It actually is not something that we produce at all. It's not something that we make happen. It's something that we enter, that we participate in as we love the other in the presence of Christ. We love each other through Christ who stands between us by the Spirit and in the same way we are loved. </div>
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This is mystery. This is the reason why I use the awkward word "relating" to describe this rhythm. We know what it means but in all honesty, we only enter into this dynamic when we realize that we don't know how to do it. </div>
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—Adapted from <i>Leading Small Groups in the Way of Jesus</i>, pages 58-59</div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-39785884350478100912016-04-17T14:09:00.000-07:002016-04-17T14:09:02.924-07:00Rhythms of the Jesus Way: CommunionChurches want the Jesus way, or at least that's what we confess. It seems like most church leaders like the idea of talking about the simple purpose of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. Some use the five purposes as developed by Rick Warren. Others use the Up-In-Out idea (Mike Breen). There are lots of ways that people talk about. We know that God wants us to live the way that Jesus did, in <i>communion</i> with the Father, in loving <i>relationships</i> with one another and in gospel <i>engagement</i> with our world.<br />
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We could diagram the rhythms of the Jesus Way like this:<br />
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We all want this in our churches as a whole, in our small groups or missional communities, and for individuals. But how do we get it? Saying that we want it and even setting up a plan to get it is one thing. Actually leading people into it is another.<br />
<br />Is more training what we need? Will more sermons or teaching on the topic change things? How about another book?<div>
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Yes, yes and yes! We need all kinds of proclamations that call out of the normal and present the vision for the way of Jesus. But if we’re leading a others, whether the church as a whole or a small group of people, we need something slightly different. Vision proclamations of what God wants for us might open the door, but they won’t necessarily change the way we live. For that, leaders need ways to ask questions and foster conversations. When we ask good questions, we provide opportunities for people to discover for themselves what the Jesus way means for them. For instance: <br /><ul>
<li>How does the kingdom contrast with the ways of the world, especially in Western cultures? </li>
<li>What does it mean to love God when the world is pulling us in ways that are unloving? </li>
<li>How do things like workaholism, our addiction to power, our need for entertainment and other common patterns hinder the kingdom? </li>
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In the next few posts, I offer some questions around three rhythms of group life that form us in the way of Jesus. These three questions have at their center the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). The first is the rhythm of communion.</div>
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<b>The Questions of Communion</b></div>
<br />Leading with predetermined answers instead of questions propagates this clinging to others because we naturally try to connect to others in order to fix our loneliness. We join a small group and try to relate to others the way we are supposed to do, as outlined by the book or by the pastor. Isolated people try to fix their isolation by clinging to others. Even those who seem strong and independent connect to others in order to get their needs met. We cling like hungry leeches, assuming that this is the way we’ll find answers to our loneliness. <br /><br />The alternative to relating directly to others is to relate to one another in the “space between.” That is the space where Christ exists. The most direct path to ministry is communion with Christ. The only way to relate well is to cling to Christ, the one who lives in the space be- tween us. Nouwen writes: <br /><br />We are connected not as individuals who cling together like melded metals but as individuals who are in Christ, and Christ is in us who are joined together for a journey. The Christ in me is united with the Christ in you. And the Christ in us draws us together. This is not about clinging to each other but mutual identity in Christ.<div>
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<li>Where is the deep loneliness within me?</li>
<li>How do I tend to cling to others to fix my loneliness? </li>
<li>What does it look like for me to find myself in Christ? </li>
<li>How can I share this struggle to find myself in Christ with others in my group?</li>
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In the next post, we will introduce the Questions of Relating and Belonging</div>
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—Adapted from <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Small-Groups-Way-Jesus/dp/0830836810/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460925930&sr=1-1&keywords=leading+small+groups+in+the+way+of+jesus">Leading Small Groups in the Way of Jesus</a></i>, pages 55-58</div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-73520888101273351742016-03-13T18:29:00.003-07:002016-03-13T18:29:43.481-07:00The Pressure To Be a Heroic Pastor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As I sat around the table over lunch with the pastoral staff of a large church in Tennessee, I asked them to share how they practiced sabbath. The senior pastor started off by saying, "I enjoy my job so much. I find that I don't need one." As I consulted with the leadership, it became clear that the life of the church revolved around him and his gifts. He was always speaking, always leading, and always setting the agenda.<br />
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When I landed at the Kansas City airport to lead a weekend of training, the pastor was there to pick me up. He told me that he could not spend much time with me outside of the formal meetings. He had to make some hospital visits, lead a wedding rehearsal, officiate the wedding and then preach three times. He confessed, "I'm so glad my wife and kids are so patient with me. I never see them."<br />
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Such stories, sadly, are not uncommon. As I work with churches, in most cases I find that pastors are pulled in impossible ways to accomplish impossible tasks. To meet expectations would require superpowers. While this is not new in the history of the church, the current situation adds additional pressure. Churches are struggling. What once worked great, and the things we learned to do in seminary are no longer working. Then there are all of these great leaders of mega-churches telling us how we can become like them.<br />
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And one more thing: the missional conversation. Now pastors must not only lead the church organization, but they must also lead their people into mission because people don't come to church any more.<br />
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Pressure, pressure, pressure.<br />
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Last week, I wrote a post on problem of <a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/03/breaking-power-of-heroic-christian.html">heroic Christian leadership</a>. I first reflected on this a few years ago while reading <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Improvisation-Christian-Ethics-Samuel-Wells/dp/1587430711/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457907334&sr=1-1">Improvisation</a></i> by Samuel Wells. In this great book, the author writes about the difference the nature of a hero and contrasts it with the New Testament word "saint" (pages 42-44). He names five distinctions between the two. I want to uses these distinctions to help us understand some about the pressure to be heroic. <br />
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First of all, the hero is at the <i>center</i> of the story because the hero is the one who makes the story worth reading. Wells writes, "The hero steps up and makes everything turn out right." On the other hand, a saint does not make the story work because he is not at its center. At best, he is a peripheral character as the protagonist or the primary agent of action is God.<br />
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The second difference between a hero and a saint is found in the story itself. The story about a hero is told to <i>celebrate the greatness of the hero</i> and how he or she rose above the crowd to overcome horrible circumstances and do what no one else could do. According to Wells, "The story of the hero is told to rejoice in valor. The story of the saint is told to celebrate faith." The saint may not have any great qualities that causes him or her to stand out or to accomplish great feats. The saint is merely faithful.<br />
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On a third level, the hero's story is distinct from that of the saint because the<i> hero fights over a limited resources</i>. The hero is trained to fight over competing goods, to defeat others who will lose out on those resources. Violence and the power of controlling others is core to the activity of the hero. Wells comments, "Whereas the icon of heroism is the soldier, the icon of sanctity is the martyr. The soldier faces death in battle; the martyr faces death by not going to battle." The word martyr is also the Greek word translated as "witness" (see for instance Acts 1:8). The hero wins the war; the saint merely points to one who has already won.<br />
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The fourth contrast comes to light <i>when weaknesses surface</i>. The hero, being the source of victory, cannot fail and must eschew weakness. The saint knows that failure is part of the journey and takes solace that the victory lies in the hands of God, not in his or her actions. "A hero fears failure, flees mistakes, and knows no repentance: the saint knows that light only comes through cracks, that beauty is as much (if not more) about restoration as about creation."<br />
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And finally, <i>the hero "stands alone against the world."</i> He or she is the one of great virtue that stands above the crowd. The hero must fight alone because no one understands their calling; no one can relate to their plight. In fact, the hero depends upon himself and does not need the crowd or close friends. A saint, lives in community, knowing that he depends upon others.<br />
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If the expectations of Christian leadership—both by leaders and followers—is that the Christian leader be a hero, then increased pressure is the only option. The future of the church falls on the shoulders of the pastor. If he or she does the job the right way, then the church will succeed. If the pastor is a better preacher, then more people will come. If the pastor organizes the church in the right way, then more people will get involved. If the pastor gets out into the community, then we will reach more people with the Gospel.<br />
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The pastor is the agent of action, the hero who rises above the norm and makes the church great.<br />
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Something must change. We are called to pastor others out of who we are as saints, not as heroes. But this won't change simply because we want it to. We have long been shaped to lead through practices of hero. And churches have been shaped by practices that cause people to expect their pastors to be heroic. We do these practices without even thinking about them. These practices shape our habits and these habits form our character. In order to operate in a different way, we need new leadership practices, those that align with our identity as saints. <br />
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What might that look like?<br />
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Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/65173856@N03/6793562687/in/photolist-9nR951-pALsJH-9oSjMo-pSXLT4-pAD4h6-a31jiB-gRMipa-7CvihP-6w4kqK-pTgRhj-pAFfjL-cp42L-psd1KC-akMvBA-4nsX3Q-9KcAHT-9oPeYB-d6vZJ1-bmjMva-pSXXNa-pAz9CB-2FALPU-9nPwqn-pQUXVY-pAFvzf-q3M9tf-zaRpr-7AAMKy-dhRbr1-oWmarE-pACtFQ-581iF-c9Gy8-pAD426-6VhE2p-72Vqvs-pAKeW1-6dci7T-pnWtgM-oWgSGe-pAD2vk-cEXyq1-79m7fg-e5SMbK-pFUhyX-pACSpz-pAEGjy-5WwmPZ-7ztf58-cp42m">Bill Spence via Flickr</a><br />
<br />Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-64543941127099789772016-03-07T08:12:00.000-08:002016-03-07T08:16:25.446-08:00Breaking the Power of Heroic Christian Leadership<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My wife and I like to listen to <i>Mike and Mike</i>, the morning radio talk show on ESPN. Last week, one of the hosts talked about his disdain for the Oscars. He said something like, "Why would I want to watch something where people get together and give awards to each other." I actually like the Oscars, but I think that this observation about it says a lot about our world. We live in a day of adulation. We like to adore those who stand out in unique ways. <br />
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In fact, it seems that in our culture there is an addiction to adoring certain people. When I lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, a few of us were sitting at a coffee shop when someone who looked like Tom Selleck walked in. As he stood in line with his six foot four inch frame, we stared, saying things like, "That has to be him. Who else could look like that and be that tall?" Somebody said that he owned a house nearby. But this man had a full beard so we were unsure. For the next ten minutes our conversation turned toward whether or not this was in fact the man from<i> Magnum P.I.</i> Finally someone went up to him and asked.<br />
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My friend returned and told us that the man said, "No, but I get that a lot." Then my friend commented that the man sounded so much like Tom Selleck that he did not believe him. So this sparked another line of conversation of why he would not tell us the truth. It was like we got a shot of some kind of chemical compound that created a euphoria because someone famous came into our presence. It was almost like it made us significant.<br />
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We do this in the Christian world too, more than any of us would like to admit. We tend to set certain people up on a pedestal. In the sitcom <i>The Soul Man</i>, Cedric the Entertainer played the role of a pastor who had been a recording artist. He said in one of the early episodes, "Preachers are rock stars for Jesus." And while we might discount such statements as hyperbole for TV, think about how you might respond if you saw your favorite preacher or Christian author walking down the aisle at Wal-Mart. The culture of adulation has crept into our way of thinking about the church, our life in Christ and, of course, leadership.<br />
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Adulation affects both the one being adulated and those doing it. And both are troubling. <br />
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<i>First let's look at those who are being adored. </i><br />
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Jean Vanier writes, “There are few things worse than adulation. It stifles love. It kills people who want a life which is real, made up of gift and loving presence. Adulation is a poison which, if it gets too deep, can make the whole body sick.” (<i>Community and Growth</i>, 263). Adulation sets up a person as being better than the masses. In the church, it means that we presume that an individual has a connection to the divine that the rest of us do not. They have a unique connection to the holy and thereby they become spiritual heroes. Instead of the leader simply offering his or her gifts out of love while others do the same, he or she gets set apart to rise above the rest.</div>
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There is grave danger in this because the leader can quickly assume that the adulation of the masses reflects truth, that he or she actually has a unique access to a holy pipeline. Then the leader is forced to keep this up. He or she is expected to be a hero. By definition, a hero is simply one who denies weakness, pursues greatness, and puts forth all effort for the common good of others. But there is a problem. To be heroic means that one eschews repentance, as such is a sign of weakness. <br />
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There is little that kills the soul as much as the pursuit of Christian heroism. Leaders who get caught up in this find themselves working 60-80 hours per week for the sake of the church. They make all of the hospital visits, do all of the pastoral counseling, and are constantly thinking about how the church can "take the next step." <br />
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The leader has no opportunity to be human as he or she must offer a facade in order to meet the expectations of those offering adulation. <br />
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Within these expectations, the leader is forced to surround himself or herself with those who show him due respect that fits the heroic position. Dialogue, feedback, and real conversation are not an option. While leaders might say they want honest relationships, the framework of spiritual heroism hinders it. <br />
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<i>Now let's consider the affects of adulation on those who do the adulating. </i><br />
Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Pope Francis, Tim Keller, Samuel Wells, T. D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Brian McLaren—note I've tried to cover a wide range of those held up a church heroes—do not possess any special access to the throne room of God that you do not possess. When we assume that they do, then the goal of discipleship turns into the pursuit of becoming heroic.<br />
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Let me put it differently. When I offer adulation to a Christian leader, then I set myself on a path of unrealistic expectations. I assume that growth in Christ means that I move from my present state of weakness to a state of heroic strength. This means that the more I grow in Christ the more unrealistic it is for me to actually be honest before Christ. </div>
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Heroic Christianity works against my actually living in Christ. I, then, am not free to offer my gifts to the community. I feel compelled to live up to the expectations of the Christian leader I adulate and try to become heroic in his or her image. </div>
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<i>From Adulation to Dialogue</i></div>
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I think that the reason we assume that our leaders need to be Christian heroes is because we lack a sense of the presence of the Spirit. Instead of the church being about God and God leading and shaping God's people, we operate as if the future of the church depends upon us and our actions. The leader becomes the generator of the church's life. Therefore we are constantly looking for those who look like they have a special connection with the holy who can produce this.<br />
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In our world where the secular mindset reigns, we do life as if God is hidden behind a curtain. We are left to ourselves to figure it out. Only the special few, the heroes, are able to get behind the veil and see what God is really up to. </div>
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We lack an imagination of "God with us" in there here and now, in the everydayness of going to work, cooking our meals, or laying down to sleep. The best we have is a sermon, a podcast, or a book by one of our favorite heroes so that we can get through another day out in the real world.<br />
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We have been formed by practices of heroic Christianity. This is the water we swim in. While we affirm beliefs like the priesthood of all believers, that's not the way we practice our faith. And it's not the way we tend to lead our churches. </div>
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This is not meant to denigrate the importance of Christian leaders or good teaching—whether through speaking or writing. I only want to reframe it, <i>to move way from adulation to dialogue.</i> Christian leadership is not about setting up a hero who has it right while lining up everyone else behind that hero. It's about setting up space to listen to the Spirit in our midst. What does this mean? It means that we must develop leadership practices that cultivate environments of dialogue and discovery so we can learn together God is doing in our midst.<br />
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Heros shut this down. What we need are leadership practices that resemble gardening, that is tending to the mystery of what the Spirit is growing, which is what we cannot produce. Or we might say leadership is more about discerning and spiritual direction. What does this look like? How is it different from heroic leadership? What are the leadership practice that lead us into this space? </div>
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Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chiele-/6318241250/in/photolist-4cv4QV-4cz2FG-ozt7yQ-8ecPZ7-8CMsST-7WQwEK-7Ha9pC-7cBoYS-4cvaqz-4cz7vC-4cz2MJ-4cv84c-4cv9Zg-4nc68n-4czrrq-4czoa3-nGi3UJ-7BhKJp-4cv1Ze-3KXbqV-bV832y-D28pU-4cv6kD-4cvnp4-4cyYQ5-ejHxhi-9Wndoz-aZu4wZ-4czeYE-4cv8sa-4cv7ba-4czpwY-4cv2pc-6x19Dx-4cv8Qp-9v5WxE-aCjCZY-9smkNa-4czkNb-4cziRC-4cvaYz-4cznN1-4czdUq-bSBsuX-4cvnnB-4cuYkF-e7R1FQ-4cv2MP-4cza8w-nQfj2z">Letitbe. via Flickr</a><br />
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-40274506324190526112016-02-29T05:17:00.000-08:002016-02-29T09:23:21.666-08:00The Myth of Heroic Christianity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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God did not call us to be heroes. He did not challenge us to be zealots. And he did not invite us to be radicals. Instead he renamed us. He called us "saints," that is holy or set apart for him. Think of it this way: to be holy is a bit like those special dishes that were passed down to your mom that you only used once a year at Christmas. They were distinct from the everyday. They were treated with special care. God's church, God's people, are his group of saints, God's advertisement to the world.<br />
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Of course we don't look like saints. And by the way, neither did the people in churches during the first century, but Paul addressed them as "God's holy ones" nonetheless. </div>
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However, we live with the myth that the success of the church depends upon us. And since we are far from looking like saints, the clarion call to heroic Christianity, to zealous discipleship and to radical mission looks so appealing to serious Christians. Being that the average church is so average, we must feel compelled to make sure that someone does something about that. </div>
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This stuff will preach. It's a shame that it falls short of the truth. </div>
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Following Jesus is about embracing our identity as saints whether we look like it or not. And the way we do this is to simply walk the path with Jesus taking the next step along the way by the presence of the Spirit. It's not about great leaps of faith, wild acts of love, or renegade efforts against the status quo. It's not about being a spectacle. It's about making space for the Spirit to help us walk the next step in the presence of Jesus. </div>
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Heroic faith calls for success and triumph on the journey. It leaves no room for failure because heroes have to be the center of the story. Yet if there is anything I’ve learned on this journey, it is that the failures along the way teach us more than the successes. Life involves suffering. It means hitting walls and falling down. And we so often talk about getting up every time we fall, but what about when we just don't have it in us to get up again? </div>
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We like to talk about successes in our life in Christ, but we don't talk so much about the difficulties, the failures, or when doubt or fear overwhelm us. We have bought into a triumphal view of God's kingdom that assumes God is more present when we are on the mountain than when we are in the "valley of the shadow of death." But it's in the valleys where God shapes us in ways that are not possible on the mountain tops. In the valleys God shapes our “who-ness” to become the kind of person that is able to make room for the Spirit to move through us to love others. <br />
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There are some things that we can only learn through the school of hard knocks. Honestly, I wish this weren’t the case. I had much rather learn the right way to follow Jesus from a book or a sermon and simply avoid the personal struggle. However, God does not invite us into a rule following contract. He does not expect us to follows the five steps to being a great Christian as some kind of external standard of heroic Christianity. That only puts the work of Christ back upon us, which is not, after all, the work of Christ. He invites us to learn to love him and others, and since there is no formula for love, we are invited on a journey to have love woven into our being. This requires the work of the Spirit.<br />
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Learning to love like this will break us. There is just no other way because following Jesus involves serving others. As we serve, we begin to see that the needs are too big and our weaknesses are too great. Heroism turns serving others into a way that "I" get the attention, which is not love. Zealotry just stirs up energy that I produce something for another. Again, that's about me not the other. And radical service tries to stand out against the status quo. Yet again, that puts me at the center of attention. Such an attitude might cause us to feel like we are rising above the norm of failure, but the facade can only carry us so far. Our most heroic efforts will eventually cause us to beat against the rocks of the needs in the world, where instead of the rocks breaking, we are broken. </div>
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We don't like this. We try to avoid it. We work harder and we search for alternative strategies. But eventually reality sets in. Brokenness prevails. </div>
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We are not heroes. We are simply saints.</div>
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When we come to the end of ourselves, we have a choice between three options. We can be <i>broken apart</i>, which means that our pain controls us and usually spills out on others at their harm. We can be <i>broken but bandaged</i>, which means we cover up the pain while pressing on, trying to rise above. Or we can be <i>broken open</i>. We can embrace our brokenness and allow God to create a new future out of it. This third option is the only way to embrace our identity as saints. Henri Nouwen wrote a wonderful little book called the <i>Wounded Healer</i>, where he writes, <br />
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“No minister can save anyone. He can only offer himself as a guide to fearful people. Yet, paradoxically, it is precisely in this guidance that the first signs of hope become visible. This is because a shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing, when understood as a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.<br />
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Through this common search, hospitality becomes community. Hospitality becomes community as it creates a unity based on the shared confession of our basic brokenness and on a shared hope. This hope in turn leads us far beyond the boundaries of human togetherness to Him who calls His people away from the land of slavery to the land of freedom. …<br />
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A Christian community is therefore a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision. Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength” (94).</blockquote>
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There are no heroes on the journey with Jesus. You are not the center of the story. Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2). He is the protagonist of this story and we live by faith in him.<br />
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Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/froderberg/9611914972/in/photolist-6SLZvu-h5Zux9-psdFW-6SY2xB-9eJ29R-2ukRg-x4vHvJ-5hSbjk-aPNfmr-gRuJLr-fn7DPF-7LPKUW-qQnx3n-rTKDai-6axhRA-aB3zf6-boSN6g-7zjn8e-5WCWB5-zbQZxw-79fVEu-9ER9Z7-z4QPaP-88oUiC-dzZf37-6uYiWM-ocxsuS-4YeZ5q-rvqueE-9shw1B-5TwVUs-aVdfx8-wPK9H-4WaMnv-zD7QCB-p5BaJn-dt7EKH-8Ym2bR-fDnzrW-8WBqdN-btXQLU-9Z2qhM-CPbcJm-uoHyvp-yvXzAj-5V448F-cUWN3-amStwR-22Pipw-69kcfW">Magnus Froderberg</a> via Flickr</div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-56125204635492044842016-02-22T04:45:00.000-08:002016-02-22T04:49:14.334-08:00Old Wine vs. New Wine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgptNmevQjX3GP02I7ZTt7MIcjYnLNPOLiHjf7_ON5C9-LmGnoBgFXBH8yalX_7UFuvw76QdP5OihoS9oUTzsk4AqdGEB22Kj43m18-yLBWBNG2n7FiToQPiYSoT7fXXWRATbA7RcPR8ZfL/s1600/OldWine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgptNmevQjX3GP02I7ZTt7MIcjYnLNPOLiHjf7_ON5C9-LmGnoBgFXBH8yalX_7UFuvw76QdP5OihoS9oUTzsk4AqdGEB22Kj43m18-yLBWBNG2n7FiToQPiYSoT7fXXWRATbA7RcPR8ZfL/s400/OldWine.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Over the <a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/02/new-church-structures-wont-change-people.html">last couple of posts</a>, I’ve been reflecting on the parable of the wine and the wineskins. In Luke’s version, there is a sentence not found in either Matthew or Mark. It reads:<br />
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<i>“No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:37-39).</i><br />
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The final sentence is unique to Luke and for this reason it deserves special attention. On the surface, it seems to confused the issue because the ending is not about new wineskins but about the wine. And it's saying that the old wine is better.<br />
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The final sentence of a parable like this is crucial to understanding it. It’s a bit like the punch line of a joke. If you skip it, the meaning changes. <br />
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For the longest time, I concluded that Jesus is contradicting himself since he said that the new wine is less desirable than the old. Since his being present with the disciples is the new wine (see <a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-wine-is-more-important-than-wineskin.html">previous post</a>) then why isn’t his presence desirable? That won't preach. And honestly, who wants to say that the presence of Jesus is less desirable than that which came before. What about the miracles? What about the kingdom? What about the healing? What about the "setting the captives free"? Who wouldn't want the "new wine"?<br />
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However, if you know much about wine, Jesus' observation isn't actually shocking. Wine that has not been aged is tart and even bitter. It's not something anyone naturally desires.<br />
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In the Christian world, we talk about “new wine” as if it is something to be prefered, as if we are ignoring the facts about "new wine." There is a long tradition in the church of pursuing and promoting the "new wine." And we promote it so that we can promote our new wineskins. Jesus’ comments don't ignore reality as they tap into the common understanding that old wine does actually taste better. And when you taste the new, no one wants more.</div>
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So what do we do with this parable? </div>
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Jesus is simply using a common experience about life to explain what it means to be his disciple. The question to which Jesus is responding is about discipleship. The disciples of John the Baptist were asking why Jesus' disciples did not fast. In other words, why weren't they doing the normal stuff that prepares the way for the Messiah. (Note: this is not about following rules. This is about trying to figure out the right way to be Israelites in order to clear a path for God's Messianic deliverance). Jesus' response was to say that the bridegroom had come. The bridegroom is an image of the Messiah and since Jesus had come, they were no longer looking forward for God's deliverer.<br />
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However, there is a catch. The wine of Jesus' presence, that is the way of life that he offers, does not fit common expectations. It will taste like bitter wine to most. Doing something new—like following a Messiah on a journey to the cross—will not be something people are lining up to do. The old ways of doing a certain set of practices to make a way for the Messiah will be be more attractive than actually being in the presence of the Messiah. When Jesus followers tasted the truth of Jesus, they often returned back to their old comfort zones. </div>
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Before we condemn "those faithless ones," it's important to recognize that this is a normal part of life. The old adage "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" is appropriate. The old wine represents those patterns of life with which we become accustomed. We don't think about them. They are just habits that make the life as we know it the kind of life that we like. This is one reason why we experience culture shock when we move to another country. Nothing "feels" right and therefore we feel lost. It's only natural that we are drawn back to what we find comfortable.<br />
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Jesus' presence was new wine, and his ways "stirred the pot." His wine was tart and bitter. His presence was, and still is comforting, but rarely comfortable. When God gets up close and personal, we begin to see the world in a different light. It calls for new wineskins.<br />
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But the emphasis here is not on the new, the next, or the novel. The emphasis lies on the fact that the disciples were <i>with</i> Jesus. This is the only reason that there is new wine and therefore a need for a new wineskin. Jesus was not a future expectation for them. He was a present reality in their midst.<br />
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Neither is God isnow a future expectation for us. We are in Christ. The Spirit lives in us. We are with God. And God surrounds us. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be with him.<br />
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But rarely do we think that being with God is enough. We expect results. We expect to do the stuff that Jesus did. We want to make a kingdom difference in the world. And sometimes it feels like the old wine can get more stuff done than the new wine we experience in Jesus' presence. <br />
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The list of things that need to change in the world are endless. We need new wine and new wineskins all over the place. Some of these places might include:<br />
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<li>Personal issues</li>
<li>Relationship patterns</li>
<li>Work Struggles</li>
<li>Political concerns</li>
<li>Violence and war</li>
<li>Racism</li>
<li>Famine</li>
<li>Then of course there is the church that so many want to change. </li>
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The common path to making a difference in these arenas is to attack them head-on, to make a plan and develop a strategy and structure that will change things. In no way am I saying that such efforts are unnecessary. But it seems to me that we find ourselves in a never-ending loop of trying to fix one thing after another. We often end up doing what we think God wants us to do, but we are doing it without him. God is up there telling us what to do, and it's up to us to pull it off. And while we do a lot of good things this way, this is not discipleship.</div>
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The wine of God in Christ did come to change the world. God entered into our life from the inside, at the lowest levels of society and he changed it from the bottom up. </div>
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However, the change Jesus brought is veiled. It's only seen by those who view that the world is different because God is <i>with</i> us. They realize that God did not come to fix the world, or at least he does not fix like we fix. </div>
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The first goal of God with us is to be with us, not to change the world. Changing in the world—new wineskins—is a derivative. The world is simply different because God is with us and being with us is the point of it all. This changes the world, but in a way that we don't expect. It's slow. It does not feel productive. It's hard to measure. </div>
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And thus it tastes like tart, bitter wine. We get impatient with the way the new wine works. How does church leadership put on their annual report the ways that they were with God? How do we talk about leadership by saying that Sabbath rest is crucial to leading God's people? How does a pastor convey to his church that spending extended time with God is more important that being available to answer the phone 24/7? </div>
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So we are tempted to return to the old wine. We get busy, busy, busy, caught up in the rat race of trying to make a difference, of trying to change things for the better. </div>
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The wine of Jesus will not change the wineskins of the world the way we expect them to be fixed. Nor with the wineskins of the church. The call is to be with God. God's goal is not to fix everything externally while we remain alienated from being with God. He comes to be with us and as we are with him, then, usually in small ways, new wineskins develop that fit the patterns of being with God.</div>
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And thus everything changes. </div>
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For those who have eyes to see.<br />
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Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/osmium/2352677577/in/photolist-4zU65v-c2eXh9-c2eXdY-c2eXsf-hXUtUw-4Pzy56-pxKyee-46YHry-9ZaXMk-oGjd42-9ZaWDx-owbzLb-9THrGp-c2eXjW-e1s843-p3jLFS-ijkESU-9GJCbL-63B2r2-qZZ4vw-orLMmp-e4n376-bDj6rv-6uN5pm-9rJeGK-pvwkgd-ddRhEg-eappWT-r11f9i-7tpFdQ-pavuLw-9a9eWF-fPhxqP-8o238c-kxLBkC-6Mmvkf-qXxk5g-dgyPgV-AUZtqX-tFVJWE-bM2dat-k2p7G6-aC7Vpk-6LnxvY-aiWDgq-6LnxBu-9X3edV-4E3VCf-a6zAyH-aswGgV">Josh Galloway</a> via Flickr</div>
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-7084998866160769072016-02-16T08:32:00.002-08:002016-02-16T08:56:21.679-08:00New Church Structures Won't Change People<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the <a href="http://scottboren.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-wine-is-more-important-than-wineskin.html">last post</a>, I discussed Jesus' comments about putting new wine into new wineskins. Here, I want to continue this conversation because the issues concerning the way of life in a church (wine) and the structures of the church (wineskin) are much more complex than they might appear or than we like them to be. <br />
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I've found that most of us prefer a plan, a method that has proven effective elsewhere, and if we learn how to make that method (the wineskin) work then I will get similar results. For instance, we might read a book like Reggie McNeal's <i>Missional Communities</i> and survey the various new ways that churches are grouping in order to promote creative forms of community and mission. We pick the one we like the best and then try to copy their methods.<br />
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We can learn much from experiments and creative structures that have been developed in other churches. In fact, one of the best ways to help people catch a vision for a different of being the church is to observe it elsewhere. However, there are a few things that we commonly overlook.<br />
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In the early 1990s I was a part of a new wineskin, an organic/missional experimental church in Houston. Of course we did not call it organic or missional, but that’s what we were. We did not fit the normal patterns of church life as we tested new ways of forming and living in community. We did not have traditional expectations of church life and if you spent any time with us this was very clear. <br />
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We saw many people embark upon a new relationship with Jesus, and we had a very strong leadership core. Those who came to Jesus for the first time through the relationships in our church joined right into our life quite well. To them the structures of our life as a church was all that they knew. I remember one person returning from vacation and sharing her shock at the how the traditional church she visited operated.<br />
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In addition to knew Christians, we also had many join us who had been a part of traditional churches. Those of us from this category did not flourish in this new wineskin experience quite as easily. It was not hard for us to commit to the vision. Many who joined were fed up with traditional church forms and some had been hurt by church life or were simply burned out. Our vision for this new way of being the church was compelling and, for most, easy to commit to. <br />
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However, there was a problem. We had been shaped and formed by the practices of previous churches. We didn't suddenly leave behind these patterns when we moved into this new experimental church. That "old wine," if you will, came with us. And that included things like expectations, patterns of leadership, and participation habits that were woven into the way that we did church. It's impossible to leave such things behind simply because we choose to do something else. <br />
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The practices of our former church life had formed us and because of this formation the old wine was poured into a new wineskin. Let me illustrate: Some tried to get the church leadership to perform traditional roles, even though they were told up front that the leadership would not do those things. Others would ask where we did Bible study, and the leaders would lay out all of the places where the Bible is woven into the life of the church, but because we did not have a specific ministry called "Bible study" they could not get it.<br />
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This is not unique to church life. For instance, if someone has been a successful section manager in a department store and then takes a new job managing a small retail store, the old "wine" of the former job doesn't disappear. Some of the work patterns might transfer well, but many will not. For instance, in a large department store, the manager of a specific department has a very limited role that focuses on one section of the store and has the support of various other management divisions that make the whole store work. Whereas in a small boutique, the manager has to take care of almost everything. One cannot simply choose to change and expect to flourish in the new role. And providing some kind of up-front training will only set the right course. The new employee must do the hard work to embrace and be shaped by the patterns of work that fit the vision and strategy of the new employer. </div>
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The employee won't necessarily change simply because he is in a new store. He could have been very successful in his former role, but when you put him in a new role (a new structure) he naturally will continue operating according to old patterns because those patterns proved effective in the past. And when stress rises, he will even more ardently depend upon those old patterns. When stress comes, the first thing we do is to return to what we already know how to do, even if we logically know that it won't work. </div>
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Many Christians today are frustrated with the church. They know they want something else. And the natural response is to look at a different structure of church life. And who is to blame them when there are so many church structure prophets promising entry into the ecclesial promised land with the adoption of their strategy. While these prophets might very well have experienced something akin to ecclesial bliss, others adopt their methods and find themselves wander around in the land of banality. </div>
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And after a couple years, they go looking for another strategy.<br />
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In many ways, this is exactly what the disciples faced while following Jesus. They followed him because he gave them a vision for the kingdom of God. However, they brought with them a definition of what the kingdom of God should look like. For instance, Simon the Zealot—like all Jewish Zealots of the time—would have assumed that the kingdom of God would come when the Israelites rose up and violently drove out the Romans. Matthew the tax collector—whose vocation required him to collaborate and compromise with the Roman authorities—would have had a more realistic vision of trying to work with the power players in the Roman government. As the Gospels clearly illustrate repeatedly, none of the disciples assumed that the cross was going to be part of the vision of the kingdom. Self-sacrificial love did not play a part in the common Jewish vision for God's Messiah. <br />
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Putting the twelve disciples in a new structure did not change their understanding of how God's kingdom work. They brought with them patterns of following God. Even though Jesus gave them a new structure (the small group of discipleship) for three years, all except John walked away from it when Jesus went to the cross. Afterward, the fishermen in the group of disciples returned to their old life patterns—they went fishing—when they did not know what else to do. The natural tendency within us all is to return to our former conform zone—old life structures—when God is trying to form new wine within us. But to deal with that topic requires another post altogether. <br />
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About ten years ago, a staff member of a large church in Florida shared how her senior pastor had read the book <i>Missional Church</i> written by a team led by Darrell Guder. He passed out the book to his staff and church counsel and told them, "This is our vision. This is what we shape all of our ministries from this point on." Of course this did not work. Sadly, I've heard this story repeated with quite a number of different books on church vision and strategy. As with the staff member from Florida shared, almost always, this fixation on structures and strategies never deals with the real issues that actually gives life to those structures and strategies. </div>
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New forms of church life are not alive because of the new forms. "New wineskins” don’t transform “old wine” into “new.” Most of the time it just creates “whiners” who don't understand why things have changed. They are stuck in the old wine, the old ways that don't line up with the new vision. It takes new wine, and in the case of this parable, this is about the living presence of Jesus in our midst. We are reminded of this when we participate in communion. We drink the blood of Christ as a physical reminder that the blood of Christ is within us. He took on our death so that we might enter into his life. He shed his blood for us so that the life symbolized by that blood can flow through us. </div>
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Let us receive this new life.<br />
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Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wishardofoz/4951430876/in/photolist-8xxnTS-ahuYAM-PWSBX-FCVo3-s61zgy-kdhGtH-rSMWLj-7W3zFo-rxgREU-2mJfYP-BX3Md6-4R5dFr-2mJfZZ-acHgid-9Y6WMC-bDX8YP-B2MZz-4efoBR-daz6X-7AvEuA-4BsfQK-dth8Ag-bpSZ8Z-tahg4u-66xWes-dK2wvL-7EUVT7-nArx5V-FCRVE-c4B42N-7LoRnc-nAds3a-bkxw5R-7FNshM-6eLpBK-7FNw18-7FNu5z-7FSpsm-7FNqkR-7FSgid-aejuAY-7FNv3F-7FSnBf-2U3XJd-e7RsiL-6aisE8-88ExH2-qa9DJE-qJ9Yak-6fPJVz">Ray</a> via Flickr</div>
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-69612457316196167142016-02-09T09:36:00.001-08:002016-02-09T09:36:43.850-08:00The "Wine" is More Important than the "Wineskin"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was in my early twenties, I started working for an organization that helped pastors wrestle with questions about how we experience community and mission in the church. More specifically, we focused on how we need to rethink the structures of the church in order to help the church see different results. In those days, my focus lay on castigating old church structures in order to make a way for newer, more flexible, more organic forms of church life. <br /><br />Over the last 25 years, there have been many who have promoted different structural options for how we can organize the church differently. Some include: cell church, meta-church, church of small groups, the post-denominational church, organic churches, movement churches, and post-congregational churches. All of these options have at one point or another claimed that the old way of doing church is dying and this new structure is "the" way of the church's future. <br /><br />Along the way, the school of hard knocks has taught me a few things about church structures. They are important, but not as important as I once thought. One of the first clues that redirected my thinking about church structures came when I was pastoring in Vancouver, Canada after I made a presentation regarding my plans for how to restructure our church. At that point, I was a cell church idealist. I thought I knew how the ideal church should be structured and I laid it out in as clear of terms as possible. I called it the "pure" cell church. An elder responded with incredible candor and gentleness, "I have no desire for our church to be a “pure” anything. I stood in conflicted silence trying to reconcile his comments. He embodied in his life and his group the kind of life and leadership that correlated with the structure that I was proposing. He was not a church traditionalist who was trying to hold on to the past. Nor was he a pragmatist looking for the best way to make the church work better. He and his wife are two of the most relational, hospitable and God loving people I've ever met. <br /><br />I could not understand why he didn’t want to talk about the structure. He was much more interested in the how we were living out community. He wanted to see the “way of Jesus” in community and in our neighborhood. While he did not put it in those exact terms, that's where our conversations led.<br /><br />While we both wanted to see the same thing, however, my allegiance to structural labels got in the way. He understood that the way we might structure the church means very little if we are not leading and living in a way that supports the life of the structure. My ideals for the way the church should theoretically be structured got in the way of seeing what actually brings life to those structures. To put it another way: the wineskin doesn’t make the wine. The only reason we would ever need a new wineskin is because we are a people who embody the new wine of Jesus. Let's consider what Jesus said about this. <br /><br /><div>
Jesus said, "Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” </div>
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Many through the years have called for the church to develop new church wineskins, new forms of life, instead of holding on to the church structures of the past. This is a valid argument. When we hold onto the structures and institutional forms of the past, we can miss the fact that patterns and practices of our old structures blind us to new opportunities. </div>
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It is quite easy to evaluate church structures and toss verbal grenades at those who hold on to them. The solution, we presume, is to offer people a new wineskin. But that is not the solution that Jesus offers. </div>
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Jesus' short parable about the wineskin—one that is partnered with the parable of the patched garment—is told in response to a specific question from John the Baptist's disciples: “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” (Matt 9:14). This is not necessarily a question about religious forms or the structures of Jewish life. There is nothing here about how the Temple is organized or how the synagogues work. It is a question about how Jesus' disciples practice their faith. To this Jesus responds: “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast" (vs. 15). This section of Scripture—which is included in a very similar way in all three of the Synoptic Gospels—is really not about religious structures at all. While John's disciples wanted to ask about the way that Jesus' disciples practiced their faith, i.e. how they were being discipled, Jesus turns the tables. </div>
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His answer is about his presence. The presence of the bridegroom—this is an image of the expectant Messiah—calls for a different response. While the Pharisees and John's disciples were looking forward to the Messiah, here, Jesus is saying that the Messiah has already come. </div>
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In this context, we read about the wine and the wineskin. Jesus is saying that the disciples are practicing their faith differently because Jesus was present with them. The presence of God's saving Messiah changes the way that the followers of God are to respond. To put it clearly:</div>
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Jesus' Messianic Presence = New Faith Practices</div>
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New faith practices ≠ Jesus' Messianic Presence</div>
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Any new form of church life will not magically produce some kind of new life in God. For instance, getting together in a small group, or in a missional community, or in a triad for discipleship—while all good things to do—won't produce new wine. They are just wineskins for the wine. </div>
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The wine gives cause for the new wineskin. The question is What is the new wine? In my book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Small-Groups-Way-Jesus/dp/0830836810/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455038865&sr=1-1&keywords=leading+small+groups+in+the+way+of+jesus">Leading Small Groups in the Way of Jesus</a></i> I write, </div>
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“If my group reaches lost people and grows but there is no love, we are only a growing shell of emptiness. If my group raises up new leaders and multiplies but there is no love, we are only multiplying a form of spiritual cancer. If my group gets serious about discipleship and dives deep into the Word but there is no love, we are puffed up hoarders of information. If my group serves and goes forth on mission but there is no love, we are like a chicken with its head cut off. If my group gets lots of people in my church connected but there is no love, we are no better than a salesperson who sells products for a living.” </div>
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Without the wine of the love of Christ, the kind of self-sacrificial love expressed by Jesus on the cross, then any new church structure will fall far short of what we hope and long to see. The elder in my church understood this. The structures are important when we put them in the proper place. After all, no one wants to "drink" your wineskin; it does not matter how creative it might be. </div>
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Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eduardo_siquier_cortes/21407137336/in/photolist-yBFb7L-4R6gAh-4Vw4Gw-9pzxSD-bArXRE-Mag79-4GUNap-eb21RE-iaEKV-iaEKX-iaEKY-iaEKU-hXVejK-tddWdx-BtxMes-6sPSxx-5mFVEi-wK1pt-hXUtUw-qaS9w1-48bZrt-gFC3t-bAr1Cm-bPkE4K-bAr1zs-bAr1xj-bPkDXk-bAr1um-bPkDTn-bAr1r7-bAr1oC-CeZVM-CeZQn-CeZLe-CeZEv-CeZxS-4pcoFV-4pcoda-4s2mnb-4ULagD-zqxMCV-95w9S-5u3YGW-5pTmLg-9ek4EY-b5Weav-dz5Wjm-gqFzuB-r6aLEN-7NDgfG">Eduardo Siquier Cortez</a> via Flickr</div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-79900517406854233872015-10-26T10:36:00.000-07:002015-10-26T10:36:38.535-07:00Jesus-Looking Community: The Goal of Every Church & Small GroupWhen Jesus came 2000 years ago, he did not just offer a message of salvation that resulted in a different belief structure. He offered a different way of life—called the kingdom of God—that included a different kind of vision for community. The Jesus-looking kingdom was not something anyone would have expected. No one—this cannot be reiterated enough—no one could have pre- dicted that God’s way would look like self-sacrificial love hanging on a cross. The king the nation of Israel expected was not supposed to die.<br />
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The Israelites of the first century expected a normal king—their word for this was “Messiah,” which is <i>christos</i> in the Greek New estament—but that’s not what they got. And most did not see what was going on. John put it this way: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:9-11). They did not have ears to hear Jesus and his way.<br />
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The people of Israel had a different imagination for the kind of kingdom God would bring and this included a specific vision for community. Four popular versions of community of the time illustrate this point:<br />
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<i>A realistic vision for the kingdom: </i> This was the strategy of the Sadducees and the Herodians. These two groups, each in their own way, asked, “What is possible within the circumstances at hand?” Since the Romans were in charge, they tried to make the best of things and work within the rules of the power brokers. <br />
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<i>A radical vision for the kingdom: </i>The Zealots took this approach. They sought to establish Israel by meeting the violence of the Romans with equivalent violence. They were training to drive out the Romans with power.</div>
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<i>An exclusive vision for the kingdom:</i> A group called the Essenses adopted this strategy. They withdrew to the desert to escape the pollution of the culture so they could set up the new kingdom of God in pure form. </div>
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<i>An ideal vision for the kingdom:</i> The Pharisees followed this pattern. While they lived among the populace, they established an ideal way of doing “church” that separated themselves from the culture at large. Their goal was to find the right way to serve God so that others would join them and thereby usher in the kingdom of God.</div>
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Jesus vision did not fit any of these paradigms and, as a result, most people did not see or hear what Jesus was up to. He created a kingdom of God movement by establishing a Jesus-looking community that stood in contrast to the popular versions of community at the time. </div>
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Often our small group visions fall short of Jesus-looking community in similar ways.<br />
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<i>Realistic community. </i>Instead of starting with God’s dream to redeem all things, we start with the realities we face in life. Since we are busy, overwhelmed and underresourced, we look at how we can lead groups in a way that does not infringe too much on group members. We lower expectations to something like “attend the meeting.”<br />
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<i>Radical community.</i> With these group leaders there is no room for compromise. They call Christians to step out and go above and beyond, to sacrifice to extremes. Activism, mission and outreach consume small groups that take this approach. Zealous progress toward passionate Christianity and getting something done for the kingdom is the focus. The focus too often lies so much on the action or the mission that these groups end up doing violence to others and themselves. They rally around the cause, but in doing so they miss the way of Jesus. <br />
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<i>Exclusive community. </i> The most common form this takes is called “Bible study.” We get together to talk about the information of the Bible and learn some very good facts about the Bible. Insider information shaped by insider language creates a group that has little to do with normal life outside the group, and new people are welcome only if they speak our language.<br />
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<i>Idealistic community.</i> Idealism causes us to find the “right” way of doing church and small groups. We assume that if we unlock this right way, we will unlock the life of God in our midst. Usually this involves arguments about the way the early church operated and how to follow that biblical approach. Here’s the problem: through the years there have been so many “right” interpretations of the way New Testament house churches operated that any claim to rightness can be countered endlessly. We just don’t have enough detailed explanation about first-century house churches to define an ideal New Testament model. </div>
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Jesus offers us something that we all want, but we cannot produce. We can produce the four visions of community listed above. But only the life of Christ through the power of the Spirit can generate Jesus-looking community. </div>
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We enter into this life by embracing the three rhythms of Jesus-looking life together.<br />
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<li>Communion with God.</li>
<li>Relating well to one another. </li>
<li>Engagement with our world. </li>
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Discipleship or spiritual information is simply learning to do these three things with one another. </div>
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The truth of the matter is that this is really not that complex. There is no secret path to lead your group into Jesus-looking community. It's really about making the space in our life together so that the Spirit can teach us an alternative pattern of Jesus-looking spiritual formation. We want some kind of plan or program that will produce this kind of life. But it just does not exist. The Spirit does not work that way. </div>
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However there are some things we can do in order to make this kind of space for the Spirit to work in our groups or in our relationships: </div>
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<li>Work with people who are expressing a desire for more than just attending a small group meeting. A sign that the Spirit is working in people is found when people are stirred up and dissatisfied with mediocrity. You cannot force this or will your group into this kind of life. Pray for the Spirit to raise up a hunger. </li>
<li>Enter into conversations over meals—food really helps create an environment to talk about what the Spirit is doing—with those who want more. Ask questions of one another and see where the conversations lead. I offer some questions around Jesus-looking community in my book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Small-Groups-Way-Jesus/dp/0830836810/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445879966&sr=1-1&keywords=leading+small+groups+in+the+way+of+jesus">Leading Small Groups in the Way of Jesus</a> </i>(pages 56-62). </li>
<li>Experiment with some communal spiritual practices that will shape a different way of being in community with one another. I offer some examples in my book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Missional-Small-Groups-Community-Difference/dp/0801072301/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445880096&sr=1-1&keywords=missional+small+groups">Missional Small Groups</a>.</i> You cannot program Jesus-looking community. You discover it. </li>
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Just as Jesus led his followers down an alternative path that no one expected, the Spirit of Jesus wants to do the same today. In fact this is already happening. The question for us is: Are we making space in our personal lives and in our life together—whether in our groups, with our families or in our friendships—to hear what the Spirit is saying. </div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-76821709763437337942015-09-27T13:08:00.001-07:002015-09-27T16:15:17.795-07:008 Practices of Great Small Group LeadersMost of the time, when we think leading a small group or a missional community, we think in terms of techniques. We live in a world driven by techniques. If you have a problem, someone out there has a solution they’re willing to sell you. If you follow their secret knowledge, then you’ll get different results. If you want to make money, there’s a plan for that. If you want to be happy, then follow the steps some expert outlines for you. <br>
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This technique mindset works like this: if you want to experience x, then follow the a + b + c formula. For group leadership, these techniques usually sound something like the following:<br>
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<li>Four steps to leading a great small group discussion </li>
<li>Three keys to building community </li>
<li>Seven ways to pray for your group members </li>
<li>Six rules for leading worship in groups </li>
<li>Five ways to reach the community with the gospel </li>
<li>How to ask great questions that generate discussion </li>
<li>How to contact group members between meetings </li>
<li>A surefire strategy for developing a new leader</li>
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While there is a place for group leadership techniques—I’ve written and continue to write in that vein—it’s just not enough. I would argue it’s not even the place to start when it comes to great group experiences. Most of the things that lead groups into great experiences do not depend on our ability to do a technique properly. While how-to training is a good thing, real breakthroughs in people’s lives almost always call for something other than techniques.</div>
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Let me be clear: a technique without God's presence and love is only a man-made step around a never-ending loop of having to find the next technique. But there is an alternative.<br>
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<b>What's the Alternative?</b><br>
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To find an alternative, we must think briefly about the end or the goal of our group experience. The end we envision for our small groups will dictate the kinds of practices we adopt as leaders. Over the years there have been many different “ends” offered for small groups or missional communities. They include things like evangelism, discipleship, getting people connected, Bible study, multiplication of groups, or creating a Jesus movement. Those with the goal of evangelistic growth will focus on practices to reach the lost. Those that seek Bible study will spend great effort honing their Bible study skills. And if these are the "end" of your group, you can find a technique that will get you there. Just search the web and find a resource.<br>
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Over the years I’ve wondered if the apostle Paul might write something like this today: “If my group reaches lost people and grows but there is no love, we are only a growing shell of emptiness. If my group raises up new leaders and multiplies but there is no love, we are only multiplying a form of spiritual cancer. If my group gets serious about discipleship and dives deep into the Word but there is no love, we are puffed up hoarders of information. If my group serves and goes forth on mission but there is no love, we are like a chicken with its head cut off. If my group gets lots of people in my church connected but there is no love, we are no better than a salesperson who sells products for a living.”<br>
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While the "ends" often promoted are good, they are secondary. They are not the ultimate end that God has in mind. I would like to suggest that the ultimate end is to lead others in "the way of Jesus." With this end in mind, we are simply talking about becoming the kind of leaders who live in the love of God demonstrated on the cross, allowing God’s love to move through us. The end is God’s love, and since God loves the world (John 3:16), we are simply joining him in the continuing work of the Spirit to love the world with crosslike love. Therefore, we need leadership practices that will align us with how God’s Spirit is moving. We are creating environments in our groups so that people can grow in this crosslike love. This is the end. This is the goal.<br>
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I wish someone had sat me down and pumped into my head this one truth about training leaders to love before they started giving me lessons on the technical aspects of leading groups. If someone had done that—or if I had listened if someone did say it to me—it would have spared me a lot of stress. Instead of struggling to figure out what I was doing wrong in my implementation of leadership techniques, I would have known the limitations of those techniques. This is not to belittle the technical side of group leadership. We just need to recognize its proper place.<br>
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Only love can beget love. And only the love of God can give a technique any value.<br>
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Of course, no one starts out with the ability to love like Jesus. We need practices that equip and guide us along the way. Over the years I’ve observed that those who grow in crosslike love engage in a common set of practices. They include: <br>
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<li>Practice 1: Hear the rhythms of the Jesus way </li>
<li>Practice 2: Gather in the presence </li>
<li>Practice 3: Lead collaboratively </li>
<li>Practice 4: Be yourself </li>
<li>Practice 5: Hang out </li>
<li>Practice 6: Make a difference </li>
<li>Practice 7: Fight well </li>
<li>Practice 8: Point the way to the cross </li>
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This is not meant to be a list of things we do, a list that replaces other lists that describe what small groups leaders do. These practices do not work when we treat them in an “a + b + c = great leader- ship” way. When we do this, we turn the way of Jesus into something we produce. The way of Jesus is already happening in the world. These practices are meant to help us step on to the way and participate in what God is doing in our world.<br>
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These eight practices are not developed in a linear fashion. They act like spokes on a wheel moving us forward. None of them comes before the others. Nor do we outgrow any of them. We never master them, as they are practices of a lifetime. In the early stages of our leadership development, the wheel may be small and move slowly. </div>
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At times the spokes may be uneven so we move forward in a clunky manner. But as we follow Jesus and allow the Spirit to shape us, our ability to participate with God and walk with Jesus on his way expands. Our job is to put ourselves in a place where the Spirit of God can shape us in these practices. </div>
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This is the focus of my book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Small-Groups-Way-Jesus/dp/0830836810/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443377370&sr=1-1&keywords=leading+small+groups+in+the+way+of+jesus">Leading Small Groups in The Way of Jesus</a></i>. Over the next few weeks, I will briefly introduce each of these eight practices. </div>
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—Adapted from <i>Leading Small Groups in the Way of Jesus</i>, Pages 29-45</div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-43337582627090140842015-08-31T04:50:00.000-07:002015-08-31T05:22:58.656-07:00Only God Reveals God's Mission<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” —Hebrews 1:3<br><br>God is only known by us if God himself reveals himself to us. I do not have the ability to see God rightly from within the way that I see the world. Left to myself, I am stuck in a closed loop, like a race car perpetually racing around the same track. Every new thought, every new perception is simply an incremental advance upon what is already known.<br><br>In other words, when it comes to God and my understanding of God, my "looped" way limits, dulls and even prevents me from seeing what God is really like. Therefore I project my experience in my loop of life upon God. I cannot <i>not</i> do this. <br><br>This has in fact shaped much of the history of various conceptions of god. We need not go beyond Greek mythology to see how the gods were projections from life that we <i>can</i> experience on earth onto the life that <i>could not</i> be experienced. The experience of earth was cast upon the experience of heaven, just in a supposedly perfected way. If life experienced in a human culture deems power to be of utmost importance, then god is a perfection or ultimate expression of that power. And if the ultimate power in the land looks like a violent monarch who gets his way by inflicting fear, then ultimate power of the universe is simply a perfected version of such a monarch. <br><br>This approach to understanding God has continued in many different streams of thought, even within Christianity. We could talk in terms of systematic theology, but I'd like to explore this in terms of our spiritual theology. We read the Bible and see that God is called Father. For some this is a good thing because they have or had good, faithful fathers. For many others, however, this is a hopeless expression. The name Father does not stir up positive images. Their experience here on earth has looped them into a perpetually limited understanding of what it means for God to be Father. <br><br>Only if God redefines Father according to the way that the Father is Father can we understand who God the Father is. Only if God breaks into our loop from the outside can we see God for who God is. This applies to both those with good earthly fathers and those with horrible father experiences. God's Fatherhood is analogous to faithful fatherhood in this life, but it is as different as life on the moon would be from life on earth. <br><br>Only when something outside this closed loop of earth enters into that loop and introduces a new way can we catch a glimpse of God's way of being God. <br><br>When we dive into the truth that only God can reveal God—as the Church Father, Hilary put it, "God cannot be apprehended except through himself"—then we see that we are not left to ourselves to figure out who God is. Jesus broke into our looped way of thinking about God to set us on a new course. As the "exact representation of [God's] being," we must allow the image of Jesus to be burned into our imaginations. <br><br>This applies to God's mission and our participation in God's mission as much as anything else. We are not left to ourselves to figure out God's mission in the world. <div>
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The work of the mission of Jesus was a revelation that broke into the looped life of this world. Jesus broke into the Jewish world of messianic expectations. The Christ was the Jewish Messiah, the one who would deliver the Jews from foreign oppression by driving out the Romans, rebuild Jerusalem to it's royal glory and restore the majesty of the Temple. In other words, the Messiah would be the greatest of all rulers in the world as defined by worldly rulers.<br><br>But that's not the way God entered into the loop. God came in weakness, as a servant of all servants, revealing true power, demonstrating the surprising impact of love, and turning the world up on its end.<br><br>The way that God works in the world can only be revealed by God. The work of God today does not, cannot and must not diverge from the way of the work of Jesus.<br><br>God defines what the work of God looks like. The work of God today does not, cannot and must diverge from the way of the work of Jesus looked two thousand years ago. It's far too easy for us to say that God worked through Jesus in that way then but he is leading us to do the work of God in a different way now.<br><br>The work of Jesus then is a marker, a paradigm definer, of what the mission of God looks like today. Left to ourselves we will project out good ideas of mission upon what we think God wants us to do. We will try to do God's mission within the loop of our life experience. </div>
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I want to explore this more. I just wonder how much of the conversation about the mission of the church has been shaped by this looped life experience. How much are we "doing" mission without God revealing his mission? </div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-57419463107357814112015-08-26T05:31:00.000-07:002015-08-26T05:39:55.572-07:00Reading the Bible as If God Is Working<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“[W]e preach Christ crucified, which is a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” —1 Corinthians 1:23 CEB<br />
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The Bible is the most unique book ever written. The reasons for this are many, but the fact that it claims to be the word of God and that the central figure claimed to be God, but that God was killed on the cross makes this the most unusual kind of story ever. As Paul wrote, it is foolishness and a scandal. This one attribute, the reality that God died on a cross, while the most shocking claim in history, reveals a God that is at work in this world in ways that we cannot predict or control. It reveals truth that comes to us from God, not something that we could ever drum up. This foolish truth of the Bible must cause us to ask: What kind of book is this? <br />
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Of course, we often read the Bible by domesticating it. The truth of the Bible is so beyond what we expect that we try to fit its message into already conceived notions. We read it to confirm what we already believe. Like a dog chasing its tail, we find passages that reinforce what we already think is true. For instance, for years I assumed that almost every passage pointed to a call to conversion, to an invitation to unbelievers to become believers. Later I realized that the only reason I assumed this is because this was the way that sermons were crafted in my tradition. The sermons were preached to lead to a call to conversion. <br />
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With this mindset, once one is converted then the point of biblical truth is to retell that truth so that others can get converted. Since the converted are supposedly on the inside of the truth, the insiders are tempted to feel like they have control of Biblical truth. The foolish scandal is not for me; it's for others. <br />
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As a result, we read the Bible as if God is not working in the text. <br />
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But to say that God is at work in the Bible, that we should read the Bible as if God is at work in the world, is to say something that's devoid of meaning. It's something to which we too often agree with too quickly. Familiarity has bred banality. Of course God is speaking and working through the Bible, we silently ponder. <br />
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But God is working, by the Spirit, through the grand story of the Bible. And as soon as we lose the ability to be shocked by the scandal and the foolishness of this story, we lose touch with the God of this story. <br />
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This is not a story that reinforces my already entrenched beliefs. This is the story of God that comes from outside of me, outside of my experiences, outside of our established preconceived notions to reveal God and God's ways. The only way to know God is for God to pull back on the curtains. Our kind of thinking would never come up with the God revealed in the Bible. Who would ever create a story with a God who dies on a cross, rises and then ascends? And then he leaves behind a group of followers who are told to mimic this cross-like life.<br />
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This is foolishness. This is scandalous. </div>
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The story of God does not fit, and until we are shocked by this story—again and again—then we are stuck trying to domestic God into what we think God should be. We are mired in our own thoughts about God, self and this world. This is the reason why the story must be repeated.<br />
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God is at work in this world, but the work of God never looks like something we would come up with. The way of God is a revelation, something that comes from outside of us. This story reveals a God who washes feet and invites the rest of to join him in washing the feet of others. This story reveals a God who invites the first to be last. This story challenges us to take up our cross and follow Jesus. This story invites us to believe a foolish scandal. </div>
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There God is at work. </div>
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-44760650631831540482015-08-25T05:06:00.001-07:002015-08-25T05:06:37.938-07:00Praying as If God Is Working<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was in high school, our church youth group would sit every week and talk about the Bible. It was a small church and usually we only had four or five people in our youth meetings. At the end of our discussions our youth pastor would ask something like: What does this mean for your life? <br /><br />I distinctly remember one night when we all responded with "Pray and read the Bible." But in my mind I thought, "We always say that. Is that all there is?" <br /><br />I've come to see that there is nothing beyond prayer.<br /><br />At the same time, I've also realized that that everything lies beyond prayer.<br /><br />Communion with God is the ultimate of life. It's the reason that God created. We were made for communion. Our lives are true to the extent that we live in unity with God. <br /><br />Our lives are out of sorts to the degree that we are not living in communion with God. Prayer makes or breaks our souls. <br /><br />However, there is far more than prayer. Prayer itself is not the goal, the end game. God is the goal. Living in the love who God is the aim. Prayer I can do. Prayer I can make happen. That is, I can do the kind of prayer where I feel like I've done my spiritual duty for the day after I say Amen and get back the rest of life. This is the kind of prayer which I have come to call "Praying as if God is <i>not</i> at work." <br /><br />In this kind of prayer, I feel the need to rise up to some kind of spiritual level where God is. <i>If</i> I follow the right plan, <i>if</i> I work at it hard enough, <i>if</i> I pray long enough, <i>if ..., if ..., if</i>... Then I will rise to the realm of God's life and I will see God work.<br /><br />It's as if we are trying to twist God's arm to do something. And if God does not do it, then we need to look for a different "<i>If</i> ..." formulas that supposedly will unlock God's work in the world.<br /><br />And there are a ton of different "ifs" out there on the market. I've prayed through ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), through the Lord's Prayer, through the Tabernacle. I've written my prayers. I've done lectio divina. I've practiced the presence. And I've done the Jesus prayer. Then there is fasting, enduring prayer, praying out loud, praying in tongues, and praying the promises of God. And of course there was the ever popular "prayer of Jabez." All of these can be helpful, but if they are used as an "if ..." in order to get God to do something, then we miss the point.<br /><br />We pray as if God is not working, as if God's work starts with us. Prayer, then becomes a means for us to rise to a spiritual plain, to enter into the realm where God is at work. It's as if we look at this world as less than real, as less than the place where God works and our job is to find that real space of God.<br /><br />Then prayer becomes a way that we try to transform ourselves so that we can do spiritual things. <br /><br />But the surprising revelation of God, the Incarnation, reveals that God comes to us. We don't go to God. Jesus came and "pitched a tent" in the midst of the real world (John 1:14 MSG). He did not create a formula to help us rise above the world. He entered the world and established the mess of this world as the realm in which God works. <br /><br />Prayer is not a means for us to somehow rise up a spiritual latter to unlock spiritual secrets. Prayer is a way of communing with the God who is already present with us, already working all around us. <br /><br />God initiates the conversation in prayer. We don't. God leads the conversation. We don't. Jesus is the great high priest before the Father, offering continual intercession on our behalf (Heb 9). the Spirit prays through us in our weakness (Rom 8:26).<br /><br />God comes and meets us right where we are and he takes our weak, feeble, honest prayers and redeems them. God works with reality, not with our religious wishdreams and formulas. <br /><br />God is working right where we are. That's where prayer is prayer.Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-34965708995054233462015-08-24T05:02:00.001-07:002015-08-24T05:02:16.634-07:00Where is God at Work?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Jesus replied, "My Father is still working, and I am working too." John 5:17</div>
<br />God is already at work. He has been working while I have slept. While I rest, God loves. God loves and works in love in order to restore all of creation. God is moving in love to offer love. Today begins with the love of God which has been at work and continues to work. <div>
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It does not begin with me.<br /><br />God's mission flows out of God's being. God does love because God is love. God's actions align with God's being. God's being is love. God's actions are love. And this love looks like Jesus hanging on the cross. God works in the world with cruciform love. <br /><br />God's mission in the world does not begin with me or with the church. How could anything like cruciform love begin with me? I would never opt for that. I would never have enough wisdom or creativity to love people like that. <br /><br />God's mission of cruciform love begins, continues and ends with the love and work of God. To fail to see this lowers the mission of God to what I can produce. And since I can save no one or no thing, then what good would it be to root the mission in my efforts. I have nothing to offer the world. </div>
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<br />At the same time, I have so much to offer the world. I have the meaning of the world within me. It's in me but it's not of me. I'm defined by this meaning, but this meaning is not mine. It's fully in me, but it's far beyond me. I chose what to do with this it, but I don't control it.<br /><br />The meaning of God, and life and my life, is not a list of facts that I can describe, even though there are facts about this meaning. This meaning is woven into me, remaking me, forming me. It's not about me, but I'm more fully involved in this than anything else. I'm not the center of it, but I a wrapped up in it so much that my center becomes re-centered. <br /><br />This is the mystery of love. <br /><br />This is the mystery of the cross.<br /><br />This is the mystery of God. Beyond me. Beyond the world. But fully in me, fully in the world. And turning everything around. <br /></div>
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God is at work in the world, and because I'm in God through Christ by the Spirit then I'm also in the work of God. I do not produce this work. I do not make this work happen. I do not produce the results that God wants. I might be involved in "small acts with great love." I might be working to make a difference. I might be doing something worthy of headlines (most likely not) or I might might be doing a lot of small things that no one will notice (this is almost every day), but either way, the work I do is wrapped up in the life of God.<br /><br />God loves. God works are love. And I'm in this love and work. Today in my connecting with my wife, Shawna. In my time with the kids. In my "work" activities. In conversations with neighbors, clients, friends, and parents at soccer games. Through our meals, in our dialogue, and as we do what we do. Even in online conversations. </div>
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Where we are, there God is. God loves. The cross is at work in love. </div>
Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-66224939073984345452015-03-01T10:17:00.000-08:002015-03-01T10:17:29.376-08:00The Foundation for Training Small Group Leaders<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Over the years, there have been a myriad of programs, books, and seminars on small group leadership. Most of them focus on practical techniques for how to do small groups in the “right” way. They address questions like: </div>
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<li>How to lead a group discussion.</li>
<li>How to facilitate an icebreaker.</li>
<li>How to grow your group?</li>
<li>How to lead worship in the group? </li>
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While understanding these techniques of group leadership is important, I found that doing these techniques well does not make for <i>great</i> groups. At best, you will get <i>good</i> group meetings. <br /><br />Leading a group by following the right techniques is a bit like trying to love your spouse because you follow a set of rules for a good marriage. It will leave you wondering why it's not working when you are doing what all the books tell you to do.<br /><br />The foundation for leading a group well lies in the end that you imagine. If all you want is a good group meeting, then follow the techniques. But if you want a group that “lives in love,” that lives out what Paul instructs “And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity” (Col 3:14), then we need something more. We need practices or a “way” that lines up with this “end.”<br /><br />The leadership practices that we adopt will possess within them the seed or DNA of the end that is envisioned. The end we envision for our small groups will dictate the kinds of practices we adopt as leaders. Over the years there have been many different “ends” offered for small groups or missional communities. They include things like evangelism, discipleship, getting people connected, Bible study, multiplication of groups, or creating a Jesus movement. Those with the goal of evangelistic growth will focus on practices to reach the lost. Those that seek Bible study will spend great effort honing their Bible study skills. <br /><br />I’ve wondered if the apostle Paul might write something like this today: “If my group reaches lost people and grows but there is no love, we are only a growing shell of emptiness. If my group raises up new leaders and multiplies but there is no love, we are only multiplying a form of spiritual cancer. If my group gets serious about discipleship and dives deep into the Word but there is no love, we are puffed up hoarders of information. If my group serves and goes forth on mission but there is no love, we are like a chicken with its head cut off. If my group gets lots of people in my church connected but there is no love, we are no better than a salesperson who sells products for a living.” <br /><br />Our actions, our goals, our vision and even our results matter little if we don’t have love, because love defines the way of Jesus. <br /><br />The way of Jesus defines the nature of our practices. The practices are shaped by the essence of who God is and, as 1 John 4:8 states, “God is love.” Love is at the core of God’s being. <br /><br />We lead out of love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Therefore, love of others is an overflow of our love received from God. I don’t mean this in abstract terms, as in when we make orthodox statements regarding how much Jesus demonstrated his love for us on the cross. I’m referring to the experience of God’s love. Love is not love if it’s abstract. Love is about encounter. We are relational only be- cause we have experienced God’s relational love for us. Too often we forget this. We focus so much on the lists of things a Christian should and should not do that we fail to see that we love only be- cause we have first experienced God’s love. <br /><br />We need to fill the word love with God’s way of love if we are going to receive and experience the kind of love that God is. God gets to define the way that he loves. We don’t. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). The way of Jesus is the way of love demonstrated on the cross. The practices of Jesus’ way will be practices that train us to “take up [our] cross daily and follow [him]” (Luke 9:23). <br /><br />Think of how this contrasts with our normal patterns of relating. Our world most often trains us in practices where we value ourselves at the expense of others. Sadly, this way of the world has crept into the church and formed the way we lead. The way of Jesus love turns this around: <i>we value others at expense to ourselves.</i> <br /><br />When we talk about leading in the way of Jesus, we are simply talking about becoming the kind of leaders who live in the love of God demonstrated on the cross, allowing God’s love to move through us. The end is God’s love, and since God loves the world (John 3:16), we are simply joining him in the continuing work of the Spirit to love the world with crosslike love. We need leadership practices that will align us with how God’s Spirit is moving. We are creating environments in our groups so that people can grow in this crosslike love. This is the end. This is the goal. <br /><br />So if you want to train leaders in your church, begin with this foundation. No! Don’t just begin with this foundation. Weave this truth, this way, through all of your training. If any of our training or leadership practices are not permeated with the law of love, then they must be tossed aside. It doesn’t matter if people like it. It doesn’t matter if it works. We cannot keep doing it even if our groups are growing. <br /><br />Our measurement of the kind of leadership we need is not whether it produces results. Our measurement must always be whether or not it trains our leaders to live in love, to lead in love, the kind of love demonstrated by the cross of Christ.<br /><br />—Adapted from <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Small-Groups-Way-Jesus/dp/0830836810/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425232773&sr=1-1">Leading Small Groups in the Way of Jesus</a></i>, pages 39-44<br /> Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-43695159475425059412014-10-05T09:56:00.000-07:002014-10-05T09:56:48.704-07:00Practicing the Missional ChurchI have many fond memories of the church of my childhood, Foote Baptist Church, located in McKinney, Texas, in what was then a rural setting north of Dallas about 30 miles. One of the most significant memories was the altar call, the time at the end of the three weekly services when the pastor would extend an invitation to make decision for Christ. This decision time was the culmination of the entire service. It was a call to walk the aisle and make a public demonstration that a person was “getting saved.”<br />
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Later, I was a part of a charismatic church in Houston. At the end of our services, we too emphasized an altar call, though the invitation was not as focused on people making decisions for salvation as much as making decisions to come and get a touch from God’s presence. <br /><br />However, both focused on the importance of making a decision.<br />
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This practice of making a decision has been shaped historically by the revivalist experiences of the American church. The first and second Great Awakenings, followed by 200 years of tent revival meetings, has taught us this. Speakers would articulate a clear message and they would call people to express this decision publicly. This decision-making spirituality is part of our way of doing church.<br />
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The call to a decision inside church meetings illustrates much of the way we do Christianity in other arenas. We are deciders. As a default, without even thinking about it, we live according to a decision-based Christianity. It forms a kind of rhythm to the way we do spirituality. It's a kind of music our lives play without our even thinking about it. <br />
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While some might argue that this decision-focused mentality is specific to the Evangelical tradition of the church—scholars have defined Evanglicalism around the core of “conversionism,” (See David Fitch’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Evangelicalism-Discerning-Faithfulness-Mission-Theopolitical/dp/1606086847/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412527965&sr=1-1&keywords=the+end+of+evangelicalism"><i>The End of Evangelicalism?</i></a>)—the idea of focusing on decisions is much more pervasive. Decision-focused living shapes how we think, without our even necessarily thinking about it. The assumption is that if we want something, then we should decide for that something and then stay focused on that something. Then if we do this, then we will get that something.<br />
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But reality does not work this way. If I were a salesperson, I might decide to increase my sales every month, but focusing on increasing my sales numbers won’t change anything. I have to learn to focus on the practices that will lead to greater sales.<br />
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Sometimes, in Christianity, we have have this belief that if we decide for the right thing, then the floodgates of the good life will open up. If I decide to believe the right doctrines, or if I decide to repent in the right way, or if I decide to act in the right ways, etc, then all will be well.<br />
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In some circles, this decision-based mentality has crept into the missional church conversation. If we see the truth of doctrine of the <i>missio dei</i> (that God is a missional God), and we understand that the church is a missional church (that we are participants in God’s missional nature), then we decide to be missional. Then we get to work doing the stuff that fits with being missional, things like evangelism, social justice, discipleship, movement multiplication. Then we establish metrics that will measure our missional focus.<br />
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But like the sales person who has decided to sell more product by focusing on his sales numbers, we often fall into the trap of focusing on the end results, thereby forcing us to do the try-harder approach to be more missional. We don’t get what we decide for by focusing on what we decide for. We don’t get missional, in other words, by focusing on missional. Or if we were to put it in a different way, we don’t make a difference in the world by focusing on making a difference. (This is the point behind my introductory book on missional living entitled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Difference-Makers-Action-Guide-Followers/dp/0801015081/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412528011&sr=1-1&keywords=difference+makers+boren"><i>Difference Makers</i></a>.)<br />
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That’s like a husband who decides that he wants a great marriage and focuses on all of the leading indicators of what a great marriage should look like. Everyday he makes a list of all the things that great husbands do and don’t do. But the problem is that he is not actually practicing the things that demonstrate love for his wife because he is so concerned about being the “right” kind of husband.<br />
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We participate in God’s missional life by developing practices that will shape us into being the kind of people who are missional. Doing a bunch of stuff that looks missional might make for good stories in books and on blogs, but doing missional stuff does not necessarily mean that we are missional.<br />
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Consider the salesperson again. If he wants to increase his sales, he must develop practices, most of which will be unseen, that will make him a better salesperson. This might include learning more about his products, going to a sales seminar, and showing more interest in his clients. It might also require him to deal with hidden character issues like impatience or that he needs to work on following through with his commitments. This takes time, effort, and lots of repetition.<br />
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We don’t become missional simply because we decide to be so. Missional is an act of the Spirit who transforms us from the inside out. For this we need missional practices. We must develop disciplines or practices that shape us for the journey. Tim Morey writes in his book Embodying Our Faith, “A spiritual discipline is any practice that enables a person to do through training what he or she is not able to do simply by trying. They are practices, relationships and experiences that bring our minds and bodies into cooperation with God’s work in our lives, making us more capable of receiving more of his life and power.”<br />
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According to Lyn Dykstra, “Practices are patterns of communal action that create openings in our lives where the grace, mercy and presence of God may be known to us. They are places where the power of God is experienced. In the end, they are not ultimately our practices but forms of participation in the practice of God.” These practices train us to move beyond doing missional stuff as if we were the if we were the agents of change to participating in the work of God, who is the acting in our world.<br />
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We are shaped by practices. The problem is that most of us who have been around the church for any length of time have been shaped by practices that conform to the ways of the attractional church. We know how to do the attractional church without even thinking about it. It’s part of who we are. That’s the way practices work. We practice them until they become part of us.<br />
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Practices are specific in nature. They are the specific actions we are going to make a part of our lives that will make space in our souls for the Spirit to work in an through us. They are both a work of the Spirit and they are things that we do. We are participating in the life of the Spirit as we do them.<br />
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In my book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Missional-Small-Groups-Community-Difference/dp/0801072301/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412528044&sr=1-1&keywords=missional+small+groups"><i>Missional Small Groups</i></a>, I introduce 21 different practices that can shape individuals and communities for mission. As we move into a few of them and they generate a way of life in Christ and with one another that is missional. Practices shape this way as we develop through basic rhythms that are organized into three categories.<br />
<ul>
<li>Missional Communion—A way of connecting with God together that shapes our life patterns so that we are no longer shaped by those of this world but changed from the inside out and thereby can impact people in our neighborhoods.</li>
<li>Missional Relating—A way of loving one another that stands in contrast to typical relational patterns of the culture, of mutual service and self-sacrifice that is visible to others and impacts them.</li>
<li>Missional Engagement—A way of being in neighborhoods and in networks (friends, next-door neighbors, family members, co- workers) that displays Christ’s love in tangible ways.</li>
</ul>
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All three of these rhythms are “missional.” The way we pray and the way we love one another shapes how we participate in God’s missional nature. We cannot say that missional is only about doing stuff like evangelism and social justice. As we move into these three rhythms, we find that missional manifest in the overlap of the three.<br />
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As we practice these rhythms of life, we learn to play a different kind of music, missional music that is not based on our deciding for something and then acting, but the kind of music that flows out of us because it is part of who we are. Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-11563188042791356962014-09-30T14:39:00.001-07:002014-09-30T14:39:30.555-07:00What Story is Your Small Group or Missional Community Telling?Group strategies abound. Some refer to them as small group, others as missional communities. There are a lot of right ways to do groups. Some will argue about where they should or should not meet. Others talk focus on things like when they should meet, whether they should be mixed gender to gender specific, whether they should target a specific demographic or be geographically based, whether they should be closed or open, whether they should be long-term groups or short-term groups and whether they should study the sermon or choose their own topics. Should the oversight system be flat or a pyramid? Should the leadership system be based on the advice of Jethro to Moses in Exodus 18 or upon Jesus' strategy of choosing the twelve? And there is quite a bit of discussion about whether small groups of 8-15 or mid-sized groups of 20-50 are preferable. We could talk for hours about the various nuances and distinctions between strategies.<br />
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Discussions around all of these issues are important. And no doubt if you have spent any time in the literature about small groups and missional communities, you will have your own preferences and even justifications for the conclusions that you have drawn.<br />
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Here's the thing: there are a lot of group strategies that will work. I've seen all of the strategies that are being promoted today flourish. I've also seen them all fail. There is no grouping "silver bullet." There is no magical formula. Anyone who promotes their specific approach as being "the" best or "the" most biblical only stands in a long line of many others who have said the very same things over the last 50 years. I know this only because I once stood in this line myself.<br />
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Time, and a lot of listening to the journeys of various leaders and pastors, has taught me that the key will never be found in any specific strategy, although we can learn much from each one that has been developed. Instead, central to the development of group life, whatever specific strategy you adopt, is to think in terms of the story that your groups tell. If the stories being lived in and through the groups are compelling then the group system will develop, even to the point of taking on it's own organic life. If the stories that we live in our groups are not compelling, they go through the motions and we have to prop them up with more structures, new strategies. <br />
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Think about it this way: while we, as pastors and leaders, ask all kinds of strategy questions that are related to the topics above, these are not the questions that the group leaders nor the group members are asking—single moms with three kids, overworked accountants who are afraid their job is on the line, teachers who work with kids who are being neglected, (insert a description of one or two people in your church). And the life that they live together in the groups is what make the groups work. If the groups are not working at that level—at the level of the story that they experience—then it matters very little how we tweak the actual strategy.<br />
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My point is this: small groups depend upon relationships. A specific strategy cannot produce loving relationships. The strategy can create environments that promote the development of these loving relationships, but only relationships beget relationships. It's organic. It's fluid. And it cannot be forced contrived or controlled.<br />
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Assume that finding the right small group strategies is the key to flourishing groups is similar to assuming that a novel is quality because it printed and bound or published on Kindle. The story makes the novel. This does not make the form of the book unimportant. But when reading a good novel, I don't think that much about how it is made.<br />
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Therefore, the job for us is to think stories first and then to think about the strategies that will foster what we want to see in those stories.<br />
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There are four basic stories that I have observed in groups, and I've seen all of these stories occur in a variety of strategies.<br />
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The first story is called <i>personal improvemen</i>t. This is the group experience where individuals participate because it is personally beneficial. The people involved are either drawn to a topic or to a group of people like themselves, and participation is high until it becomes inconvenient. Nothing in group members’ personal life is required to change to participate. <u>The key distinctive of this story is that people attend as long as it benefits them.</u><br />
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<i>Lifestyle adjustment</i> identifies the second story. People view such groups as beneficial, and therefore group members are willing to adjust their life schedules to prioritize attendance at a weekly or biweekly meeting. Usually people make longer-term commitments to attend such groups because they’re good for one’s spiritual journey. But the group is not great. It’s a good-meeting group that requires some adjustment in schedules, but most often there’s little commitment to living out community and mission beyond the group meetings. <u>The key distinctive is that people make schedule adjustments to prioritize meeting regularly.</u><br />
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The third story is called <i>relational re-vision</i>. In this narrative, groups have a sense of urgency to operate according to a distinct set of practices that will form them into a community that stands out in our world. They recognize that loving one another does not come naturally in an individualistic, fast-paced culture that dominates modern life. They know that they have to learn a new way of living, that it will take practice and that it will take time. <u>The key distinctive here is that the group is committed to learning how to live in community with one another in a way that stands in contrast to typical patterns of life.</u><br />
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<i>Missional re-creation</i> describes the final story. As a group begins to practice these distinctive patterns and the way of Jesus becomes part of its being, the group will follow the Spirit on creative paths of life together as members engage the community. They will engage the neighborhood, determine needs, meet those needs and, as a result, change as a group. Through the dialogue with those in the local context, the actual forms and patterns of life will be shaped by the context. A few from one group might meet with a group of shift workers at a bar they frequent after getting off work early in the morning. Others will adopt a home for mentally challenged individuals. And still others will come around a family that lives in a mindset of poverty and walk with them into a new way of being. The specific form is not the point. The key distinctive is that the group takes on unexpected manifestations that have an organic impact on the world around the group.<br />
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Most groups settle for one of the first two stories. Most hope for the latter two. It’s tempting to judge the first two and say that they are off the way of Jesus and elevate the latter two to special Jesus way status. And while in some ways this is true, we cannot make this conclusion. All are on the way of Jesus because the Spirit of God is drawing us from where we are further down the way. We don’t get to take the next step on the way from where we wish we were. Jesus works with us where we are. \<br />
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In other words, we don't move into the third and fourth stories only because we have good intentions to do so or because we develop clear vision for them. Groups rise and fall through our life together, the lived experience, not because we mandate something called community or announce that we want to be missional.<br />
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When you think in terms of stories, you can see how various groups and specific individuals live all four of them at the same time. The question then we must as is this: What does it mean to develop a system that will facilitate movement from the first and second stories into the third and fourth? <br />
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This is where the call to practice rhythms that will form us into the kind of people who live out the third and fourth stories. This I will discuss in tomorrow's post.<br />
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Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7876853053993479070.post-91244873225457323222014-09-19T07:04:00.000-07:002014-09-19T07:14:32.754-07:00How Do You Describe God?: A Devotional on "God is love."<i>Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone
who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love
does not know God, because God is love. —1 John 4:7-8</i><br />
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How would you describe God if a friend asked you to do so? What words would you use to explain what God is like? Well actually the words at your disposal comprise a very long list. Let's consider a few.<br />
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First, the classic attributes of God that theologians have analyzed for centuries provide some guidance. They include such smart-sounding words as:</div>
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• Eternal (God has no beginning or end; He has always existed<br />
• Transcendent (God is above and beyond the limits of our world<br />
• Omnipotent (God is all-powerful<br />
• Omniscient (God is all-knowing<br />
• Omni-present (God’s is present everywhere<br />
• Holy (God is absolutely unique and perfect)<br />
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Or we can use some words that are a little more popular, and say that God is: good, trustworthy, generous, faithful, glorious, worthy, beautiful, wonderful and great.<br />
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Then we might include a few words that the Old Testament writers use to describe God's character. We usually find these words as names given to God at the end of a story where an Old Testament character encounters God in a unique way. Some of these include:<br />
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• EL SHADDAI: God Almighty or "God All Sufficient." (Gen. 17:1, 2)<br />
• JEHOVAH-JIREH: "The Lord will Provide." (Gen. 22:14)<br />
• JEHOVAH-ROPHE: "The Lord Who Heals" (Ex. 15:22-26)<br />
• JEHOVAH-NISSI: "The Lord Our Banner." (Ex. 17:15)<br />
• JEHOVAH-M'KADDESH: "The Lord Who Sanctifies" (Leviticus 20:7-8)<br />
• JEHOVAH-SHALOM: "The Lord Our Peace" (Judges 6:24)<br />
• JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU "The Lord Our Righteousness" (Jer. 23:5)<br />
• JEHOVAH-ROHI: "The Lord Our Shepherd" (Psa. 23)<br />
• JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH: "The Lord is There" (Ezek. 48:35) <br />
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The list of attributes or characteristics of God can get quite long. But do we simply pick and choose which attribute we like best to describe God? Do we use one of our favorite stories to explain God's nature? Or is there a way to talk about God's center or God's essence?<br />
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There is one very unique name revealed in the Old Testament: Yahwah, which is the most sacred, revered and holy name of all. It reveals God's uniqueness, God's distinctiveness from all the other so-called gods that vied for the allegiance of the Israelites. It's meaning is obscure though, something like "I Am what I Am" or "I Will Be what I Will Be." It seems to communicate that the nature and character of the true God will be revealed as we walk with God in reality. In other words, God is not something that we read about in the Bible or in a textbook and then think "Oh now I know what God is like." Instead, we get to know God relationally as we walk with God.<br />
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The writers of the Old Testament were very clear about the mysterious, non-abstract reality of relating to God. The Bible does not contain abstract lists to describe God, but instead it is a book comprised primarily of stories about experiences with this mysterious God. And these stories reveal a personal God who personally gets involved with the world to save the world from itself.<br />
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When we think about God as a list of attributes, it is too easy for us to construe the mystery of God into a Wizard of Oz experience. God becomes the great wizard behind the veal of heaven that no one has seen and everyone has a theory about. We learn to talk about god the wizard and fail to talk to him. But the reality is that the Bible reveals a God who refuses to stand behind any curtain. Our God does not even require that we find a special path for salvation like "yellow brick road." Instead out of his personal nature God comes down from behind the veal of heaven and journeys down that road to meet us where we are.<br />
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Yahweh, the great “I am,” the God experienced in the moment by moment journey, takes this journey out of love. As the Apostle John states "God is love." Love is not something that can be defined in abstract terms, even though we may try. Love is discovered on a journey with the other. Love is up close and personal, involved and invested. Love is what love is and love will be what love will be.<br />
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Love is not simply one of the characteristics of God. It is the central essence from which all of God 's characteristics flow. From years of growing up in the church, my imagination about God was shaped by the singing of “How Great Thou Art.” After my childhood understanding finally figured out who “Art” was, I began to sing this song as if God's greatness, God's wonder, God's overwhelming awesomeness lay at the center of who God is. I saw God as the authoritative school principal in the sky who had lots of decisions to make and a world to run. God is Great after all and you had better not tick him off.<br />
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“We should never talk speak of any other attribute of God outside of the context of love. To do so is to risk a terrible misrepresentation of his character, which in turn leads to a distortion of the gospel. Christian talk about God must always start with love and introduce the language of power only in that context. (Chalk, 63)<br />
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God cannot not love. It is impossible for God to change his stance or position toward us, for if he did not love, he would not be God. His position toward us was revealed most completely through his self-sacrificial love displayed on the cross and this will not change.<br />
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Truly God is Great but God's greatness is a sub-characteristic of God's love. Love lies at the center of God just like a four-chambered, blood-pumping muscle we call the heart is central to being human. God's greatness, wonder, majesty and glory are a result of God's great love, wondrous self-investment, majestic sacrifice and glorious passion for others.<br />
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Love ... This is our God.<br />
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<br />Scott Borenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624761118291127303noreply@blogger.com0