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Following the m.o. of my friend, Dr. Mark, I am going to blog through certain chapters of Frost and Hirsch's book, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church. This is partly a way to share condensed bits of information to people who have not yet read the book or to refresh the memories of those who have read it already. Moreover, this is an opportunity for me to share my questions with all of you to foster dialogue about these ideas. My ideas and/or questions will be presented in brackets.

Implications of the Incarnation for Mission:

1) "The Incarnation provides us with the missional means by which the gospel can become a genuine part of a people group without damaging the innate cultural frameworks that provide that people group with a sense of meaning and history" (37).

2) "[I]ncarnational mission will mean that in reaching a people group we will need to identify with them in all ways possible without compromising the truth of the gospel itself" (37).

3) "[I]ncarnational mission implies a real and abiding incarnational presence among a group of people" (39).

4) "[I]n terms of its missional stance in relation to context, incarnational mission implies a sending impulse rather than an extractional one" (39).

5) "[I]ncarnational mission means that people will get to experience Jesus on the inside of their culture (meaning systems) and their lives because of our embodying the gospel in an incarnationally appropriate way" (40).

Read Jake's thoughts...

[I'm on board with most of what Frost and Hirsch are suggesting. I, along with most emergentish folks, have become disenchanted with the attractional church that is only concerned with it's own membership numbers. I wonder though, if pitting a centrifugal approach over and against a centripetal approach seems to err in the opposite direction. They note clearly that they do believe people can experience God in a church setting (p. 41). However, this seems to be a throw-away line in the context of their incarnational push. I get the impression that they are calling for a kind of institutional red-Rover, whereby all of the "missional/incarnational" people abandon the "institutional/atractional" folks in their decaying buildings. Who, I wonder, will be left to minister to those people when all of the missional folks leave? We can talk all we want about "organic, dynamic, and noninsitutional" modes of Christianity. I'm concerned for Bill, a 78-year old man at my church who loves his Sunday School class and high-church, traditional worship. Ought I, as a minister of the gospel, tell him, "Sorry Bill, there is no 'sacred space.'" This will never be real to him--he who never fails to mention it when I don't wear a tie to worship.

Frost and Hirsch even make reference to Len Sweet and his that suggestion the church be both inward and outward looking (pp. 45-6) but every anecdote or hypothetical they offer is centrifugal in nature. Why?

Frost and Hirsch use Moltmann's work on the church that resists homogeny and makes room for the Other, which I like. However, the Moltmann references seem to run cross ways with the idea of forming intentional communities centered upon common interests (e.g., the Christian car club on p. 43). They spend the better part of twenty pages vying for an incarnational approach that absorbs the rhythms and vibes of a community in its particularity. How do they suggest we incarnate the gospel in keeping with the five principles I recount above and be utterly open to heterogeneity? They do offer an anecdote about St. Thomas' Crookes approach (p. 53) of vying for homogeneous cells that meet together occasionally. So is this how church should be?

Lastly, I don't like the language they use in describing people traditionally labeled "non-Christians" or "unchurched" as "not-yet-Christians." This smacks of evangelical arrogance to me. It reminds me of the criticism of the "anonymous Christian" motif developed by Rahner and expanded by Hick. If you are a Christ-follower, how would you like being called a "not-yet-Muslim"? I think this type of language is unhelpful in a postmodern, post-Christian world.]

posted by Jake at 2/24/2006 01:51:00 PM

Fides Quaerens Intellectum?

Premodern classical theology was oriented around Anselm's famous phrase fides quaerens intellectum, "faith seeking understanding." In other words, one believes in order to understand. Prior to the "Age of Reason" Christendom itself was the a priori basis upon which intellectual questions were broached. In otherwords, the Church's authority was assumed as fact--faith in that structure was the starting point for everything intellectual. Following Descartes and his intellectual progeny, faith ceased to be the doorway through which one entered the conversation. Descartes wrote, "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." Kierkegaard offered another way with his famous "leap of faith," which was kind of a return to the premodern approach with a more existential and less institutional bend. Unfortunately, Kierkegaard was altogether ignored by his contemporaries and it was the cognitive, the rational, and the empirically verifiable that were given precedence over the emotive and/or metaphysical. The church of modernity co-opted the scientific paradigm to make the Christian faith more respectable to the intelligentsia. As a church-planter I now find myself wondering which is the best avenue to the church? Is there a cruise-lane into the Kingdom? If so, what does it look like?

The influential mystic, Evelyn Underhill, in her book The Essentials of Mysticism, describes three capacities or faculties endowed upon humanity--the thinking faculty, the feeling faculty, and the willing or acting faculty. I'm assuming prima facie that one, a combination, or all of these are essential to faith in Christ and his rule. As a Christian seasoned now two decades, I have seen how different approaches have been used to connect individuals with God and the church. As a young evangelical fear (a prominent aspect of the feeling faculty) was the modus operandi for my entree into the Christian faith. A preacher, literally, scared the hell out of me. That feeling led me to walk an aisle, pray a prayer and take a baptismal plunge. I am not criticizing this as much as I am describing my experience. I have friends who became Christ-followers by reading Mere Christianity or A Case for Christ; quite a use of intellectual capacity. I have heard hundreds of essay-like sermons, in which the minutiae of the faith were explicated with precision. Tapping into the intellectual faculty seems to be the dominant mode for many mainline churches and seminaries I have visited. Now we have postmodern, missional approaches that suggest belonging over believing, is the key to communicating the Gospel to postmoderns.

So here are my questions: which approach is better? Or is one better? Ought we proceed with a utilitarian approach to communicating the Gospel? What implications does this have for seeker sensitive, traditional, charismatic, missional manifestations of the Church? Peace.

posted by Jake at 2/21/2006 12:00:00 PM

Frogs in a Pot

Once upon a time there were a bunch of frogs that lived in a great big pot. The frogs decided that it would be best if they divided themselves into groups within the big pot and pretty much keep to themselves. As other frogs hopped by the great big pot, the frogs in the water would invite these hopping passersby to join them for a dip in the water. One day some of the frogs realized that their watery habitation was getting warmer. Some frogs refused to acknowledge this. "The water is not getting warmer," they insisted, "that is just a lie made up by an evil group of frogs to try and keep others from getting in the water with us." As the days passed, fewer and fewer frogs found the water as comfortable as they had remembered it. Many frogs left the ever-warming waters for other, cooler habitats. The frogs that remained croaked even louder trying to get more and more frogs to join them in their watery dwelling.

Things continued like this for many years until only a handful of frogs remained. Those frogs were now relying on their tadpoles to carry on the croaking, to insure that future generations of frogs would not forsake their hallowed pot and its scalding water. In desperation one group of frogs decided to get all of their tadpoles to attend a retreat for young, frog-leaders. They talked about ways to croak convincingly, so other frogs would join the pot. They learned about other boiling pots that needed frog-leaders and ways to get these frogs to call the fledgling tadpoles as their leaders. Many of the young frogs even attended a session with the chief-frog of all the pots. He tried to convince these burgeoning frog-leaders that they should stay in the pot or find another pot if the order of cooking frogs was to continue.

One hippie-frog showed up to this gathering of young, frog-leaders and he didn't look like the others. He didn't wear his froggy-polo shirt and froggy-khakis. Nor did his froggy-hairs look like the others froggy-dews. He spent the weekend trying to convince the other young frogs that the water in the pot was getting hotter and that they would all soon be dead if they didn't get out. Many refused to listen. "The water isn't going to boil," they said. "We just need to learn how to croak better and everything will be fine."

As the retreat drew to a close the head of the young, frog-leaders weekend announced that they needed three new members for a froggy-steering committee to plan future gatherings of young, frog-leaders. Despite his frustration with the weekend, the hippie-frog decided to throw his name into the pot, hoping that he could contribute a different croak to the conversation. A few days passed and the leader of the froggy-steering committee informed the hippie-frog that while his croak was appreciated, the older frogs had urged these younger frogs to stay away from such divisive croakers. They were only looking for "institutionalized" croakers. So how did the hippie-frog respond? He decided to keep croaking; hoping against hope that his colleagues would stay their froggy-asses out of the boiling water. Some frogs will listen and will learn a new language of croaking and will immerse themselves in communities with those who prefer cooler ponds to the boiling pot water. Others will slowly cook and die.

posted by Jake at 2/16/2006 07:00:00 AM

Katrina and Tony

ATTN: Sorry to those of you who tried to read my blog and instead encountered a camo-clad, Turkism man. This is the second time my blog has been hacked. I think it's a problem with blogger. Anyway, I'm up and running again.

I just got back from a week-long mission trip I led to Biloxi. During our time there we repaired homes damaged by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. I had a great time working with our team and I was reminded of why I entered full-time Christian ministry in the first place. One of the highlights of the trip for me was getting to work with Tony (pictured below). Tony is a 62-year old man whose house was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. When we met him, he was utterly without hope. By the end of the week our team was able to clear away debris from his house, tear out all of his ceiling and insulation, rewire his entire house, build two exterior walls and cover them with Tyvek, put in doors and sheetrock two rooms. You can check-out some pictures here. There is a lot of backstory to this endeavor that I don't have the energy to type out, but suffice it to say that Tony experienced a touch of grace this week from our team. The irony of the whole thing is that we were blessed through the process as well. The trip was successful and our team returned safely. Thank you to those of you who prayed for us!

(Tony holding his building permit with some members of our Katrina Team)

The Incarnational Approach

Fides Quaerens Intellectum?

Frogs in a Pot

Katrina and Tony