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)

Virtue Reborn

Bill Kinnon, in reviewing a book by Tom Wright called Virtue Reborn (apparently entitled, After You Believe - why Christian character matters in the States) notes late in his review:

What a call for each of us as the church - to work at this life of character building - leading to virtues that will cause us to do the right thing, when the moment comes, as it will for each of us. Where and when only God knows, but when it truly matters will we know it in our bones, marrow, hearts and brains - and do the right thing, make the right decision, becoming Christ-like in our character. Are we the signposts and beachheads of God's future kingdom in this current world? It is not just a matter of "luck" (grace) but rather preparation and work and decision-making so that doing the right thing becomes automatic. (The emphases are his.)

Kinnon sums up the book in this way: [Wright] does a masterful sweep of ethics and its various roots and streams, calling us back to working at Christian virtue - identifying and then avoiding the extremes of grace and works - those two polarizing positions of Christian history. In fact, the book gives us a broad enough and thoroughly orthodox way forward - to begin to become who we already are, in Christ - doing so framed within the church, communally, for the sake of the world, missionally.

Leaders keeping on learning

In the book, Supervision in the Helping Professions, the authors discuss the need to continue to learn and flourish in your work environment. Since this relates to National Mission's ongoing concern for the health of ministers and leaders in the church, I thought I'd add here a couple of lists they include in their chapter on the topic (notes in brackets are mine).

Firstly, in relation to being effective at work:

1. Be in love with learning. Stay at your learning edge and have a learning project.

2. Be clear about your learning style and keep expanding it. [Knowing your learning style helps you be sure that you're learning at your own pace, not at the pace of others.]

3. Attend to your emotional well-being.

4. Increase your capacity to relate to and engage with others. [They suggest going outside your comfort zone of people you relate to easily.]

5. Attend to your physical well-being - diet, exercise, sleep, breaks. [Days off!]

6. Have a personal or spiritual practice. [For Christian leaders, this means not neglecting those spiritual disciplines - they're often one of the first things to fall off this sort of a list.]

7. Find a group of good co-learners/fellow travellers. [People who encourage you - people who can mentor you.]

The second list will appear in a separate post.

Lent

Lent starts on Wednesday - nice and early this year. Bosco Peters, over at the Liturgy site, has provided a box announcing Lent (in purple, of course) which you can see over to the right. (The Liturgy site, by the way, has a huge following amongst people around the world with a liturgical bent. I can't remember what milestone Bosco hit just the other day, but it was substantial.

You can find the code for it on his main page, plus heaps of resources (not necessarily Anglican) for the coming season, including information on what Lent is (for all those Protestants who've forgotten or never knew), and a heap of other material for using in the area of Christian Discipline....

Christian Disciplines

Phyllis Tickle (most recently, author of The Great Emergence) talks briefly about the need for the Christian disciplines in our lives, and the way in which those same disciplines transformed the early church, and also about being convinced that Jesus is God...