An ex-bookseller dares to speak...

As a Baptist who works with a bunch of people who adhere in their own Presbyterian way to the Reformed tradition (indeed, the catchphrase of the last Moderator was 'Reformed and Reforming') I sometimes have to help them see beyond their Reformed borders. (As, no doubt, they try to help me see beyond my Catholic/Pentecostal/Baptist borders.)

Which is why I'm linking to a piece David Fitch has done on the Out of Ur blog in which he asks, Is the New Calvinism really New Fundamentalism? He makes a good case as having some serious concerns that it may be, and indeed even in New Zealand I've heard the occasional piping Presbyterian voice talking about the 'essence of Presbyterianism' with the kind of (dare I say it) smug tone indicating that Presbyterians (Reformed) have pretty much got it right and most others have got it wrong. Whatever 'it' actually is.

Shoot me down as a hybrid Catholic/Pentecostal/Baptist-ex-Christian bookseller who's been exposed to far to many different Christian viewpoints. That's fine. At least David Fitch appears to making sense.....

Making Ideas Happen

Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, by Scott Belsky.

This book first came to my notice on the Out of Ur blog, where it’s highly recommended by reviewer, Scott Wenig.

He writes:

Belsky’s passion is to help people put their best ideas into action. As the founder and CEO of Behance, a company devoted to empowering and organizing the creative world, he and his team interviewed hundreds of productive people and teams over a six year period to discover the principles behind their success. The result of their empirical research is this book, a systematic presentation of the necessary steps needed to bring ideas to fruition.

In my opinion, a great number of pastors and Christian leaders could readily benefit from Making Ideas Happen. We’re often creative, idea-oriented types who love to cast the vision or promote the mission of our church or organization. But, as one noted Christian leader has said about vision sermons and mission statements, “If it’s hanging on the wall but it ain’t happening down the hall, it ain’t happening.” Belsky has given us an accessible guide to creating church and ministry systems that will produce what we’ve preached and promised.

It’s helpful, of course, to read the whole review, and there are a number of other positive ones on Amazon. And if you’ve got ten minutes of down time, check out the Behance site (I assume it’s related to ‘enhance’) – there are some wonderfully creative and inspiring people networked there.

Belsky notes: “very seldom is anything accomplished alone” and there is “tremendous power waiting to be unleashed in the network” of most groups.

'Postchurch'

The Out of Ur blog has posted two pieces by Frank Viola on the 'postchurch.'

In the first, Viola takes issues with the idea that any gathering of two or three constitutes 'church,' as many claim it does. I've probably done it myself, although I think I've kept the sense of a larger church body in mind at the time. Perhaps two or three gathered together is a temporary, fluid bit of the Body. Viola brings more clarity to the issue by pointing out the context in which the verse about two or three gathered together occurs, and shows that it has little to do with random groups of people proclaiming themselves as a 'church,' and a great deal to do with the Body as we know it working to get things right within itself by the Holy Spirit.

In his second post, he offers six 'tests' which he says the idea of the 'postchurch'-2-or-3-gathered fail. Whether you agree with these or not, he's making a valid point that people gathering together on an ad hoc basis without reference to the wider church tend to be avoiding the very things the Body as a whole can deal with (when it's functioning properly, of course!)

As always, the comments following the posts are (almost always) as illuminating as the posts themselves.

Viola, by the way, isn't an advocate for the 'institutional' church in the way we commonly know it these days. He doesn't see value in the hierarchical church, or the business model church, or any other church that's based on something the world has cooked up.

[And apropos of the business model, I watched the movie, Network, the other night. Thirty years on, its satire is as devastating as ever. Here's one of the characters on the value of business to the world: We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that . . . perfect world . . . in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.]

More on Virtual Community - and Top Blogs

At the risk of pointing you too often towards the Out of Ur site (though it is regarded now as one of the top Christian blogs), I just want to follow up on the last post in which Shane Hipps talked about virtual communities not being 'real' communities.
Scot McKnight has written a brief but sensible response to this - and, as always, the comments that follow the post are well worth a look.

In regard to the 'top' blogs, Matt and Madeleine Flanagan have given a very up-to-date list of the top New Zealand Christian blogs. The Flanagans give the reasons behind the rankings, based on the stats from two other sites: Half Done and Tumeke, neither of which are familiar to me. In fact, only three of those listed below are ones I've heard of previously. Plainly I'm not moving in the right blog circles!

1. NZ Conservative
2. Something Should Go Here, Maybe Later
3. The Briefing Room
4. MandM
5. Kiwi Polemicist
6. Say Hello to my Little Friend
7. Put up Thy Sword
8. Samuel Dennis
9. Contra Celsum
10. Star Studded Super Step

It would be interesting to spend an afternoon checking out these blogs to see what they've got to say. And for those with absolutely nothing else to do, check out Kent Schaffer's 60 Top Christian Blogs from around the world.