Book catch-up

Happy New Year...belatedly.

For those who still catch up on the occasional posts that appear here, I thought I'd give a pointer to an interesting post reviewing (mostly in brief) a bunch of books that the reviewer thought worthy of commendation from his past year's reading.

Byron Borger (I think that's the person who's written the post) runs a Christian bookshop in Dallastown, Central Pennsylvania; it's nominally Presbyterian, but like OC Books (which also began life as a Presbyterian bookshop) he's wide open to Christians of all denominations.  However, this isn't a plug for the shop, but for the books he's commending in his post, which has been done in something of a rush by the look of it, as there are a number of typos scattered throughout (!)

Be that as it may, this list is well worth checking up on, because even if you don't go as wholeheartedly for the whole collection as he does.  There are several books in the list that I've either had my eye on for a while or now plan to get - pensioner's finances willing - and I'm sure you'll find something of interest there too.

N T Wright makes the cut (dare I say, of course) as does Rob Bell (though it seems that the study guide to Love Wins may be even more interesting than the original book, given its list of contributors).   Abraham Kuyper gets a look in twice, Richard Mouw is there, Tim Keller, Philip Jenkins, Craig Bartholomew, Walter Brueggemann, Scot McKnight, and Richard Hays.

Then there are a bunch of authors whose names I don't know (I might if I was still running the bookshop!) but whose books look very intriguing, and there's a variety of publishing houses, well-known and unknown.   The range of topics is broad, and there should be at least one book to satisfy every taste - for me there'd be far more than one book.

Here's the link: Hearts & Minds Bookstore

Church in the Present Tense

Church in the Present Tense: a candid look at what’s emerging - authors: Scot McKnight, Kevin Corcoran, Peter Rollins, Jason Clark.

The book includes a DVD with interviews with the authors, as well as Rowan Williams, Brian McLaren and Jonny Baker.

Jonny Baker has written a lengthy post/review of this scholarly book in which he discusses many of its features and points out some things that are missing (such as women authors and interviewees). The book offers different stances on theology, mission and church, some of which disagree with each other. There are critiques of the church cultures as well as the cultures churches ‘live’ in, of institutionalism and emergence.

By the look of the reviews this is an important book on the current state of ‘church’ in its various forms (though not all of its forms).

At the end of his review, Baker quotes Rowan Williams: Church is what happens when people encounter the risen Jesus Christ; institution is something that comes much later...
Brazos Press 2011.

Different take on leadership?

Bill Kinnon has recently blogged about leadership - obliquely. Early in the post he talks about a video he and his wife Imbi [I think I have that right] are involved in making. In an interview with Chris Wright, Kinnon notes:

One of the questions Imbi asked him was what he thought leadership training needed to look like in the 21st Century. His response hit us both between the eyes.

"I wouldn't start out with training leaders, I'd start out with making disciples."

From that interesting response, Kinnon goes on to quote Scot McKnight, whose pastor is Bill Hybels, a virtual CEO of one of the largest evangelical churches in the States: Willow Creek.

McKnight says: ..I want to put my idea on the line and see where it leads us. We have one leader, and his name is Jesus. I want to bang this home with a quotation from Jesus from Matthew 23, where he seems to be staring at the glow of leadership in the eyes of his disciples, and he does nothing short of deconstructing the glow:

But you are not to be called “Rabbi,” for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth “father,” for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Instead of seeing myself as a leader, I see myself as a follower. Instead of plotting how to lead, I plot how to follow Jesus with others. Instead of seeing myself at the helm of some boat—and mine is small compared to many others—I see myself in the boat, with Jesus at the helm.

Twittering Theology?

I know that Twitter - indeed, social media in general - isn't everyone's cup of tea, and many people are not persuaded of its value in terms of preaching Christ. So it's interesting to read Scot McKnight on the topic and find that he can see value in it for Christian leaders, and for Christians in general.

Social media like Facebook and Twitter has received an abundance of critique, not the least of which is that social media users are self-absorbed. But I wonder if we might turn answers on Twitter to the question “What are you doing?” or on Facebook’s status update into an opportunity for self-examination. It might even be an opportunity for Twitter and Facebook users to examine not just what they are doing but how it aligns with our mission.

For a typical anti-viewpoint on Twitter, check out this blog post from Alan Rudnick, in a blog called On the Bema in Ballston. (Don't ask me, I have no idea why it's called that.)

iGens and self-esteem

"Emerging adults (those between 18 and 30) form a generation that is largely insensitive to the potency of God's holiness, and are therefore insensitive to the magnificence of his grace, the shocking nature of his love, and that gratitude forms the core of the Christian life. Some today complain about these matters. But I doubt very much that ramping up moral exhortations and warning about an endless hell are the proper places to begin with emerging adults.

"The typical emerging adult, if I can capture the trend in one expression, is a "self in a castle." That is to say, the "self" is protected from the onslaughts of those who will attack it. I suspect that this is something unique in history. Never has a generation been more in tune with the self and more protective of the self. How did we get here? What led to the self-in-a-castle condition among this generation, whom I call the iGens?"

So writes Scot McKnight in an article entitled The Gospel for iGens in the Leadership Journal online. Scot cites two particular instances of influences which while aiming to be good, actually appeared to have done damage: Mr Rogers, the popular children's storyteller, and Sesame Street.

Mr Rogers...gave to the current generation a free-standing consciousness that daily says, "I am okay."
Sesame Street...focused on "We are all okay." "...even if current iGens did not directly watch Sesame Street, the themes of the show express a movement that gets at the central attribute of iGens....self-esteem."

Author Jean Twenge concurs: the American educational system and other cultural forces have so focused on self-esteem that they are producing a generation of potential narcissists. This sentence summarizes her assessment of iGens: "The individual has always come first, and feeling good about yourself has always been a primary virtue."

Twenge wrote a book: Generation Me - Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable than Ever Before.

McKnight points out: Note what [Twenge]'s not saying: iGens are not selfish or spoiled. Instead, they are intoxicated with the impact of 40 years of education that has focused singularly on self-esteem as the entitlement of each and every person for nothing more than being alive. As Twenge puts it, "GenMe is not self-absorbed; we're self-important."

This is an excellent article which aims to show how to reach these young people "who have the healthiest, most robust egos in the history of the West." Read the rest here, since this applies not just to American children, but all those influenced by the American culture.

Shane Hipps responds

Just to keep you up to date with an ongoing conversation on virtual community that we began several posts ago, in which Shane Hipps said in a videoed interview (shown on the Out of Ur blog) that he didn't think virtual communities were real communities. This was responded to by Scot McKnight a few days later, and since then Hipps has replied, trying to expand on his video interview, in which, rightly, he said he was struggling to get across something for which he only had a few minutes and little preparation.
As he says in the most recent post: First, my language in the video was less nuanced than it might have been in written form. That is my tendency in a spontaneous oral interview. I will try to be more precise here.
As always the comments are full of insights, such as the following from Phil someone:
We are getting so far from the truth that I am finding it hard to believe what I am reading. The Father did not send a book, or a CD, or an article, or a music album, or a recorded sermon: He sent a Person, His Son, and said, "As the Father sent Me, into the world as a person, even so in the same way I am sending you." Paul echoes this: "You know what kind of MEN we proved to be among you." God COMMANDS us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves--not our blog posts or websites or Facebook locations--but ourselves TOGETHER. Church happens with people, together, in His name, where He agrees to come too! When will we get it???

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.

Missional Shift or Drift

Leadership Journal conducted a survey in May 2008 asking nearly 700 evangelical pastors how their perceptions of the gospel and mission currently compare with their understanding a decade ago. The results were illuminating, and have been summarised in a report by Helen Lee. What follows here is a brief look at some of the highlights.

Compared to ten years ago, they found

• Pastors are focusing more on the Gospels than on the Epistles.
• More pastors believe the gospel is advanced by demonstration and not simply proclamation.
• More pastors say the goal of evangelism is to grow "the" church rather than to grow "my" church.
• More pastors believe partnering with other local churches is essential to accomplishing their mission.
  

Scot McKnight says, "The shifts have actually been going on for maybe 25 or 30 years. There has, though, been a surge in the last ten years. Evangelicals rediscovered the Gospels, and began to reframe their understanding of the gospel in terms of the Kingdom and not just justification."

Five changes are gaining momentum in congregations all across the country:

* Affirming the whole gospel
* Not looking to a megachurch model
* Focusing on making disciples
* Encouraging a missional mindset as a means of spiritual formation
* Establishing partnerships to advance the gospel

Smaller more adaptable churches are being seen as more viable than mega-churches. David Platt said, "We've learned that we don't have to bring people into a building to accomplish our mission." And Dave Gibbons says, "The pastor is now a subcategory of the church. I am now thinking about how to gear everything so that the laity is leading. It's all about how to make our congregation feel as though they are the leaders of the church as opposed to the pastoral staff."

Larry Grays, pastor of Midtown Bridge Church in Atlanta, whose congregants are mostly urban professionals between 20 and 40 years old, has learned that his people want more opportunities to serve the community around them. As a result, Sunday mornings have become less important as the emphasis shifts to inculcating a mentality that service should be a seven-days-a-week commitment.

Partnerships between churches are increasing, and a humility regarding non-Western churches in growing. Gibbons again: "We tend to be patronizing, thinking that we know more, but often it's the locals who know more, and we need to partner with the government, with educational institutions, or other organizations instead of going alone."

Some cautions are aired: don't move from one extreme to the other, from the seeming severity of the Epistles to the social action of the Gospels, from proclamation to 'demonstration evangelism', from leading your congregation to suddenly expecting them to take the initiative.

The full report is here.

How do YOU read the Bible?

In a talk at this year's 'Catalyst' Scot McKnight outlined five flawed ways many people read the Bible. I'll only include the headings and a brief note; the fuller version can be read here.

The Morsels of Law Approach: searching the Bible for all the commandments, and then only obeying those that suit.
The Morsels of Blessings Approach: doing the same thing with the blessings - although probably tending to believe more of the blessings than the commandments.
The Rorschach Approach: reading the book from your own political/psychological/whatever perspective.
The Systematic Theology Approach: pulling all the relevant bits together into an organised whole, but leaving out all the 'other' bits.
The Maestro Approach: in which one 'master' book of the Bible is taken as the focus for all other books.

McKnight's says: These five approaches are all very common, and all very flawed. We must read the Bible as a story. But it’s not just a story that we read, it is a story that we live. “We must let the Bible’s story become our story,” he said, “so that it becomes us, and we become it.”

The emerging church has not really emerged

The title of this post comes from a series of personal observations about trends in Queensland churches - so don't take it as a statement of fact...!

John Sweetman has written ten observations about the church, and has this to say about the emerging church:
Experiments are continuing in Queensland, but there are few success stories yet. Perhaps the conservative nature of Queensland means that new things happen more slowly. Perhaps the emerging church will never have a strong following but will minister to a niche market. Time may tell.

The emerging (or emergent) church idea has been all the rage in recent years. Maybe it's time has come, maybe it hasn't; maybe it's only part of the whole. There's an excellent overview of it on Wikipedia (fast becoming the encyclopedia of choice!), but for an even more detailed view, check on Scot McKnights, 'Five Streams of the Emerging Church' in which he quotes Eddie Gibbs' definition of 'emerging church':

Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses nine practices. Emerging churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.

McKnight checks out the points in this definition, and goes much further. Well worth a visit.