This might be news to you

In a recent post, Andrew aka Tall Skinny Kiwi, who has been back in NZ for a spell, writes:

We are staying for a few days at Ngatiawa which is a monastery in the new-emerging fashion. This used to be a Presbyterian camp in a previous life but has been bought out and changed over and broadened in its use to become a monastic center for protestant youth, with a connection to the Anglicans. Good people here. There are actually 6 urban monasteries in this area under the Urban Vision banner and one rural monastery which adds some balance to the ministry. Ngatiawa is that rural piece of the puzzle - land, cows, gardens, daily prayer in a nice chapel, dung between your toes, etc.

In case it's news to you (as it was to me) that there was a 'new-emerging' monastery called Ngatiawa (which appears to be the joining together of the Maori tribal name Nga Tiawa but may not have particular connections) the following paragraphs from the NZ Urban Vision people may help:

We are a contemporary monastery set in the beautiful Reikorangi valley – inland from Waikanae, on the Kapiti Coast, north of Wellington. Ngatiawa seeks to give priority to nurturing a contemplative life within UV Vision and be an open community for others to experience. We offer prayerful rhythms, retreat and solitude. We enjoy and care for our land, seeking to live more sustainably. We also offer training and team building, as well as plenty of hospitality and recreation in a new way.

Our guest house hosts groups each week from Urban Vision, as well as other friends and neighbours, and church and community groups. Individuals also come to join us for retreat, support, recreation or to explore issues of faith, justice and community and personal wholeness. At least annually we host larger gatherings and festivals, and hope to be a place of connection for others committed to God's love and justice.

All this is great, although the more I read on the site the more it all sounds like what monasteries have been doing pretty much since they began. Certainly they were often more contemplative than active, but reaching out to the marginalised and working justly isn't exactly 'emerging' in regard to the history of monasteries. Just quibbling...!

The Next Christians

The Next Christians: the Good News about the end of Christian America, by Gabe Lyons (author of Un-Christian)

From a review by Scott Wenig:
Lyons sincerely believes that the church is on the cusp of a remarkable transformation, not unlike the era of the Reformation. But to seize the day he offers a word to the wise: the next Christians must emphasize the whole Gospel and stay committed to keeping it first. Our ongoing temptation is to get sidetracked by secondary issues such as theories of cultural engagement, methodologies of outreach, models of doing church and even environmental stewardship. These are not unimportant but they must be subsumed under the larger and more potent agenda of living out the Gospel by the power of the Spirit. As Lyons so astutely notes, ‘where Christians restore, people get saved.’ (p. 193).

From a review by Charles Erlandson:
[Lyons] presents a lot of good tools for understanding different kinds of Christians...Another excellent analysis he presents is the 7 channels of cultural influence employed by the gay movement very successfully. These 7 channels are: Media, Education, Arts and Entertainment, Business, Government, Social Sector, and Church. Unfortunately, Christians have not acted very much like light in these 7 spheres. Because Christians who want to "restore" the world, instead of blending with it or retreating from it, will often be tempted to become like it. Lyons wisely lists 5 practices that will discipline "Next Christians" in their quest to engage and restore the world:

1. Immersed in Scripture (Instead of Entertainment)
2. Observing the Sabbath (Instead of Being Productive)
3. Fasting for Simplicity (Instead of Consuming)
4. Choosing Embodiment (Instead of Being Divided)
5. Postured by Prayer (Instead of Power)

Christians and culture

Marshall Shelley, writing from the most recent Catalyst Conference, sends these notes:

Three forms of interaction with culture:
--Separate from that world. “Fight the enemy.” (Theologically, Christians who take this position focus on Fall and Redemption)
--Become like the culture. “Cultural Christians” blend in, becoming indistinguishable from their surrounding culture. (Theologically, their focus is Creation and doing good deeds.)
--Restoration. Pursue being holy and pure in a fallen world, AND restoring culture. (Theologically, this means Fall, Redemption, AND the Restoration of all things--“all things are become new,” the ministry of reconciliation.) These people are not just critics but creators of a new culture. See a role in the bringing of the kingdom of God to earth.

It would be easy to criticise the first two as being insufficiently Christian. That may not necessarily be the case.

Leaders burn out because they stop learning.

Least you think the only blogger I'm reading at the moment is Len Hjalmarson, be assured that isn't the case. But the following paragraphs from a recent post were worth repeating:

A few years ago I read that many leaders stop learning around the age of thirty-five. There are many reasons: pace is a big one. We demand much of our leaders, and so we push them into action mode where it becomes difficult for them to find time for contemplation, reading, travel, and the kinds of things that root intentional learning.
Yet the verb (mathetes, “disciple”) means “learner..”
Leaders burn out because they stop learning. When we stop learning, we stop growing, and we get stuck. We end up as pragmatists, defending a status quo because we no longer have the energy or ability to imagine other worlds.
This in turn makes it very difficult to open space for others. We lose the ability to be hospitable, to open conversation that generates learning for others. Stuck leaders = stuck system.

"Leaders burn out because they stop learning." Do you believe that? I'm sure it's not the only reason, but it's certainly one that's worth considering....

Church Growth Principles Remain

In an article entitled The Top Five Church Growth Principles, by Charles Arn (the son of Win Arn), briefly discusses the five main reasons why churches grow. It isn't programmes (we knew that, didn't we?); it isn't sound and light and huge displays of talent (of course!); it isn't a host of other things we've come up with over the years.

The five things are simple, and have been with us for a long time:

1. Disciple-making is the priority. Yup, that's what churches are there for.
2. Social networks are the vehicle - and while Mr Arn probably doesn't mean virtual social networks, it's that old connection of people to people that counts.
3. Felt needs are the connecting point. Starting where people are at...
4. Relationships are the glue. Being connected to people in the church is what stops people sliding out the back door.
5. Transitions provide the window of opportunity. When someone's going through a crisis, then they need Christ.

The links throughout are people, community, friendships, caring for others, love. Pretty simple, really. Now, go forth and multiply!

The Unlikely Disciple

Karen Swallow Prior writes in a recent Books and Culture article about a book that's a kind of follow-up to A. J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically, in which the author tried to follow the Old Testament laws to the letter.

Prior begins her article:

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University isn't the book its author, Kevin Roose, thought it would be. It's certainly not the book he pitched to his publisher as a left hook in the ongoing fisticuffs between secularists and believers. And it's not the book I anticipated when I first heard rumors among students at Liberty University, where I teach, that a young man from Brown University had come here and spent a semester undercover in order to write an exposé on command central for one side in America's culture wars.

It's not the book it was supposed to be because, as it turns out, Liberty University wasn't what it was supposed to be.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Cheryl Lawrie and tables

Cheryl Lawrie, who is the project worker on an alternative worship project in the Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, writes a blog called hold....this space. She's posted an interesting thought in progress on the subject of whether we invite people to 'our' table, or go and sit at 'theirs.' I hope she won't mind me pretty much quoting it in full:

We were talking this morning in a breakfast meeting about alternative communities - why the ongoing regular community stuff doesn’t seem to fit too easily into what we’re doing in this project… and why what we’re doing fits awkwardly into the church… this is where the conversation went… [it’s a thought in progress, bear that in mind!]

Most conversations about new forms of church or christian community are about rethinking the table at which the disciples sit. True confession… this project doesn’t emerge from any interest in that table, or even really in the disciples. i think the really interesting stuff of the gospels is the other stories - the tables Jesus went to where the disciples weren’t invited, or where they were so absent no-one thought to mention their presence - the afternoons at Mary and Martha’s, the nameless person’s house where Jesus met the syro-phonoecian woman, dinner at Levi’s house, dinner with Peter’s mother, the ‘water into wine’ wedding table… i think they’re the fun tables.

Interestingly, there’s not a lot of evidence in the gospels that the people around those tables wanted a seat at the disciples’ table - the main event, as such. Which makes it interesting, then, that most conversation about inclusion [and about new forms of Christian community] involves making sure there’s space for everyone at the disciples’ table - the presupposition being that there is only the one table around which everyone should sit. It gives those around the table an enormous amount of power. Perhaps that’s a myth perpetuated by them – because we have been taught to look at things from the disciples’ perspective we think there’s only one table - but the disciples were never as good as Jesus at recognising the other tables.

Perhaps another way of understanding inclusion and generosity is recognising that Jesus doesn’t sit at just one table, and that the disciples don’t host the other tables, or get to decide what happens there. Often they don’t even get invited. Those other tables are out of their control… and will mostly exist out of their line of vision.

If that’s the case, the ultimate act of inclusion for Christian communities is to encourage the possibility there might be other tables [fun tables, with good food - just as good as the church’s table] where God might just turn up, because the story of God is not about inclusion into the Church’s table, but inclusion into a story of life. Because as we know, you don’t have to be a disciple for god to seek you out, and just because you’re a disciple doesn’t mean you get the very best of who God is, and turning into a disciple isn’t the anticipated, or even desired, outcome of every encounter with the story of life…

Which is why we don’t believe that every act of worship, every sacred space should emanate from, or be directed back towards the church’s table. And why we have to look much broader than the disciples for our models of community.

There's also an interesting article (with a picture of Cheryl Lawrie) here. It's entitled Unorthodox media carry message of Holy Week, and first appeard in the Melbourne Age.

MAKING DISCIPLES' above 'GROWING HEALTHY CHURCHES'

Neoleader suggests we should prioritize 'MAKING DISCIPLES' above 'GROWING HEALTHY CHURCHES'.

I've included the headings to the post here - check out his comments on the blog.

> Otherwise there might be a lot of people who never come to faith.

> Otherwise I might be tempted to do what is best for the church, rather than the person.

> Otherwise I might spend all my time celebrating the things that make our church healthier, rather than the stuff that is happening outside the church.

> Otherwise I might try and convince all our Christians to serve inside the church, and give 10% of their money to the church.

> Otherwise I will do whatever I can to make our church healthy and growing, even if it is sick and dying.

There'll be follow-up discussions on:

We should prioritize 'GROWING HEALTHY CHURCHES' above 'MAKING DISCIPLES'

We should consider them both to be equally important.