Ideas for blog posts (April 28)

I really enjoyed the discussion last night and found it personally challenging. Thanks very much to all of you who spoke up.Two of my suggestions for blog posts this week come from the blog posts last week.

1. Susan Gill wrote: "I’m more and more convinced that all our talk about Missional Church and some of the values we’ve considered are really about discipleship. Truly being a Christ-follower is about seeking and obeying God’s will and the way we go about that will surely encompass missional values – hospitality, inclusiveness, valuing the other, art etc." I'd love to hear your reflections on the connection between discipleship and a missional outlook.

2. Graeme Flett wrote, responding to something Craig said: "As I recall you [Craig] said something to the tune of 'is it not missional when it is about the other?' I think this is a really apt thought as the word missional can become the in-cliché used to justify all sorts of entrepreneur activity and yet miss the point. I share your sentiments here. I wonder whether consideration of ‘the other’ helpfully sifts the authenticity of our own Christian spirituality! It certainly challenges mine." I'd love to hear your reflections on whether a focus on the other should play a small or large part in the definition of “missional.”

My third idea for blog posts is to make further comparisons between the idea of liminality and the topics we talked about last night. We made some connections between liminality and the leader as a poet. What about the connections between liminality and the other aspects of leadership we talked about, especially apostolic leadership?

Yesterday, before the audioconference, I looked around online to find definitions for “liminal.” I couldn’t find my notes during the audioconference, but of course they turned up as soon as we signed off. Here are some of the ways to describe the meaning of the word:
- From the Latin word, limen, meaning threshold
- A psychological, neurological or metaphysical subjective state of being on the threshold or between two existential planes
- Pertaining to threshold or entrance
- A blurry boundary zone between 2 established and clear spatial areas. Or, when referring to time, a liminal moment is a blurry boundary period between 2 segments of time.
- “a betwixt and between place”

I also found an interview with a novelist who was talking about the liminal characteristics of his novel, and he said that he believes life isn’t really being lived unless it’s a series of transformations. I was interested in the connection he made between liminality and transformation. That parallels, in a small way, what I was saying in the audioconference about my view that Christian ministry often involves liminal moments, because ministry involves watching God, through the gospel of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, transform our lives and the lives of people with whom we minister.

Another book

I've been meaning to tell you that Kevin Ward, who many of you will know and who teaches in our department and at the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership, told me recently that he thinks the best book on the missional church is The Ministry of the Missional Church by Craig Van Gelder. (Unfortunately I learned this far too late to include it in the coursebook.) The amazon.com listing for the book has some nice description about halfway down and three reader reviews at the bottom:
http://www.amazon.com/Ministry-Missional-Church-Community-Spirit/dp/080109139X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240647148&sr=1-1
Van Gelder has written several other books about the missional church as well.

Too bad it's in Los Angeles

I did an MDiv degree at Fuller Seminary, so I get their alumni emails. I just got one announcing a conference I wish we could all attend. I thought you might enjoy reading about it:
http://www.fuller.edu/academics/school-of-theology/dmin/CE/McNeal.aspx

More books

Here are some more books on topics related to the missional church. These are all in the University of Otago library.

Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor and Chaos by Tim Keel. Keel is the pastor of Jacob’s Well, an emergent church in Kansas City, USA, that I admire quite a bit and a blogger who I enjoy. In this book Keel describes a number of priorities I think are very important for Christian leaders in our time, including narrative and metaphor, as the sub-title suggests. He does a good job giving his take on the cultural challenges of our time, and there are bits and pieces that help the reader understand the priorities of Jacob’s Well.

The New Friars: The Emergent Movement Serving the World’s Poor by Scott A. Bessenecker. I loved reading about the many ways younger Christians are engaging in service to the poor. The New Zealand based movement, Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor, is described in some detail. The blending of a contemplative approach and a concern for justice seems admirable to me and appropriate for our time.

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren. This 2004 book is an important presentation of the ideas that shape the emergent movement. The subtitle gives the feel of the book: “Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist +anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian.”

StormFront: The Good News of God by James V. Brownson, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Barry A. Harvery and Charles C. West. This is one more book in the “Gospel and our Culture Series,” which has provided several books for this paper. These authors use some interesting language, i.e. “storm” for some of the characteristics of our time.

Ideas for blog posts (April 22)

I have three ideas for blog posts this week.

(1) I'd love to hear more about how and where you have observed that spiritual formation happens in New Zealand. I'm particularly interested in the connection between prayer and spiritual formation. Any thoughts?

(2) I'd love to hear more about what you think is the significance of liminality. Thank you very much, Craig, for your clear and helpful summary of Alan Roxburgh's thoughts in the last minute of the audioconference. I'd love to hear more from you about why that chapter seemed significant to you, and I'd love to hear others' thoughts about the concept of liminality.

(3) We talked briefly about the idea of a third place. I believe one way a church with a building can serve its community is by providing space for a third place. I'd love to hear your comments about how you've seen churches do that. If you want to read what I wrote about the church as a third place in my thesis, here's where you can read it:
http://www.lynnebaab.com/academic.htm
Click on chapter 7. There is a section of that chapter entitled "A Third Place" which begins on page 190. The part that directly addresses the church as a third place is only three pages long. I just re-read that section, and I had forgotten that one characteristic of a third place, according to the people who originated the idea, is that a third place makes possible conversation that is open-ended, freewheeling, and not goal-oriented. It's thought-provoking to consider the place of that kind of conversation in a congregation. Here's the citation for the origin of the concept of a third place:
Oldenburg, R. & Brissett, D. (1982). The third place. Qualitative Sociology, 5(4), 265-284.
(Note the format of this citation is the APA format, not the Chicago format that our department requires. If you read the article and want to cite it for an assignment, you'll need to change the format of the citation.)

Ideas for blog posts (31 March)

Thanks for all the great discussion last night. I really appreciate the way you are engaging with the ideas in the readings.

I’ve got two ideas for blog posts this week. Of course, you are free to write about anything related to the missional church.

1. Last night we talked a bit about some of the dichotomies set up by the various authors, and we noted that some of them seem to be false dichotomies. For example, “more about prayer than planning,” in the first Stetzer (2006, p. 164) reading. I’d prefer to talk about prayer as a part of every stage of planning, prayer as a significant part of the way time is allocated in every planning meeting, and personal prayer for the congregation's plans as a major responsibility of all leaders of a congregation. Perhaps there are dichotomies like that one that you’d like to discuss in a blog post.

2. One of the ideas we didn’t discuss very much is the notion of a community being incarnational in its focus. I’d like to suggest that as a second option for blog posts this week. What do you think it means to be incarnational or to think in an incarnational way? What do you think it looks like in practice to be incarnational in your focus? In what ways is Jesus’ incarnation a model for us in ministry and in what ways is Jesus unique and not a model for us? What are the connections between incarnational ministry and the various characteristics of a missional church?

Some new books in the Otago library

When I knew I was going to be teaching this paper on the missional church, I ordered several dozen books for the University of Otago library. Some of them are directly related to the missional church, and others are simply about trends in church life. Some of them came in after I prepared the course book last spring. I spent a lot of the summer reading the books I’d ordered, and I want to tell you about some more of them. All of these are in the Otago library, so you can request them.

The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier by Tony Jones. I told you that I studied American emergent churches as a part of my PhD, and I loved this book. Jones does a great job describing the ways emergent churches are engaging in ministry in new ways. Because I resonate so strongly with what they're doing, I was surprised at the opposition they have received, and Jones explains the issues that have caused them to get criticism.

Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World by Bob Roberts, Jr. Roberts uses “glocal” to describe our new world – we’re part of a global world in so many new ways, but the local has become more significant as well. I wish I’d had this book in time to include it in the coursebook, because I think the global-local issues are so significant for missional churches.

Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation by Carol Howard Merritt. Merritt is an American Presbyterian minister in her 30s. She’s writing for mainline congregations who want to do a better job ministering to people in her age group and younger. Until I read her book, I hadn’t realized how often younger Christians in churches feel criticized by older Christians. She does a good job describing the debt challenges faced by her generation, which is one of several ways she believes the faith of younger Christians is impacted. I'm very curious if Christians in New Zealand in their 20s and 30s would resonate with what she writes.

Choosing Partnership, Sharing Ministry by Marcia Barnes Bailey. The author has served as a co-pastor of a church in the United States, and the book focuses on the benefits of shared pastoral roles. With the flattening of hierarchies, it seems to me that co-pastor roles are becoming more common.

The Church and the Dechurched: Mending a Damaged Faith by Mary Tuomi Hammond. The author uses “dechurched” to describe people who have lost a faith they valued or left a church community because of a bad experience. She has vivid stories about what happened to people that will break your heart.

Missional House Churches: Reaching Our Communities with the Gospel by J. D. Payne. The author interviewed people in 30 house churches around the United States.

A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture by Rick Barger. I’m very concerned about the ways church has become one more consumer commodity, so I was really glad to find a book that addresses that topic.

Mandate to Difference: An Invitation to the Contemporary Church by Walter Brueggemann. This book is a collection of talks Brueggemann gave in a variety of settings a few years ago. It’s not a systematic discussion of anything, but some of the topics relate to things we’re talking about in this paper.

The Missional Church in Context: Helping Congregations Develop Contextual Ministry edited by Craig Van Gelder. Eight essays give different viewpoints about how churches can minister in their own context more effectively, including multi-cultural settings.

Leadership Next: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture by Eddie Gibbs. Gibbs discusses the ways leadership patterns in churches must change in order to engage with our culture.

Gracism: The Art of Inclusion by David A. Anderson. I am convinced that welcome and inclusion need to be discussed by congregations and need to be affirmed in new ways for our time. The author is an African-American who draws on his own experience as pastor of a multi-cultural church in Washington, DC.