The Sacred Discipline of Silence

July 31, 2008 | Filed Under missional | 1 Comment

“As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words. They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.”

- Henri Nouwen

Do you talk too much?

Reflecting with Thomas a Kempis

July 30, 2008 | Filed Under missional | No Comments

“Many love Christ as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless him as long as they receive some comfort from him. But if Jesus hides himself and leaves them for a while, they either start complaining or become dejected. Those, on the contrary, who love him for his own sake and not for any comfort of their own, praise him both in trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if Jesus should never comfort them, they would continue to praise and thank him. What power there is in a pure love for Jesus—love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!”

“God often gives in one brief moment that which He has for a long time denied.”

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”

“In Jesus and for Him, enemies and friends alike are to be loved.”

“If thou bear the cross cheerfully, it will bear thee.”

– Thomas a Kempis

Missional Meanderings

July 28, 2008 | Filed Under meanderings, missional | No Comments

Here are several very good articles to add to your reading this week.

Drew Goodmanson’s “Shared Values of Missional Church Communities.”

Scot McKnight’s first four installments on the wonderful “Mission of God” by Christopher Wright: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Tom Davis and “Why Christians S**k.” If you are not familiar with Davis check out a couple posts on his book Red Letters. If you are not sure what the Bible says about God’s heart for the poor check out this list of Scripture.

Brian McLaughlin at Triangular Christianity offers a good reveiw of the first five “new realities” from Reggie McNeal’s Present Future.

Consider Len Hjalmarson’s “Feeding the Beast.”

If you are reading this and have some vested interest in a community of faith - whatever your flavor, old-school or new-school, emerging or submerging - do yourself a favor and stop caring about the following things:

1.  The number of people in your church. Really, it doesn’t matter.

2.  The “relevancy” of your common worship.

3.  How often or if ever a new person shows up at one of your common worship times.

4.  The size of your church budget, building, or paid staff.

5.  What any other church in the world is doing - good or bad or otherwise.

And please start caring about the following things:

1.  Actively looking for the evidence of God’s kingdom - where what he wants done is done - at work, at home, at Starbucks (heaven forbid), at the beach, and anywhere else you might find yourself in the course of living your normal life.

2.  Simple, honest worship.

3.  Having friends that don’t give a rip about your church. Maybe you might just rub off on them.

4.  Giving away money to people who need it; using existing, familiar (and free) spaces for common worship such as homes, restaurants, parks, or community centers; flattening the organization’s need for paid leadership and support roles.

5.  Go on a unique, unreproducible journey with a group of people and rejoice with other groups of people who do the same.

Hunsberger & Missional Faithfulness

July 24, 2008 | Filed Under church, culture, lesslie newbigin, missional | No Comments

All the clearest voices tell us that the corpus Christianum, the Constantinian arrangement, and the world of Christendom that guided our thinking about ourselves for 1500 years, is not coming back.

Our habit of telling our Christian story always as a success story, the habit so ingrained in us by even these later years in which formal Christendom was largely disestablished but functional Christendom continued, is running out of capital. The danger lies in continuing to believe the fiction that this is the way our story goes. The crisis means discovering what new story awaits us, and how the Holy Spirit draws us into the story in a new way.

That brings us to the opportunity side of the crisis. The opportunity is to recover what it means for the church to be missional. This is not just to have missions, or to send missions or missionaries, but to possess a distinctly missional sense of our identity, and to know ourselves to be formed by God as a sent community that bears the marks of the full biblical story of a cross, as well as a resurrection.

Here we are face to face with the challange for which Lesslie Newbigin has become so famous (or, infamous). He imagines what it would be like for the churches of the West to become genuinely engaged in “the missionary encounter of the gospel with our Western culture.”

That this sounds so new tells how far we have lost our missional character because it is in such a continual engagement that our calling and vocation finds it certre.

– George R. Hunsberger from “Birthing Missional Faithfulness: Accents in a North American Movement” in International Review of Mission

Mission & The Fourth Gospel

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under missional | No Comments

The contemporary church desperately needs a self-understanding that will embolden and empower us for ministry in this changing world. In spite of the enormous gap between what the church is and what it is called to be, we have no alternative but to continue to cling to a belief in the church’s identity like that found in the Gospel of John.

Part of our struggle is not with the world or culture “out there”; it is with the world or culture “in here.” Like an athletic team that has a petty dispute within its own ranks, the church’s witness is paled and depreciated.

For clergy and congregational leaders that means, among other things, that we can never divide the ministry within our community and the ministry outside our community. Each nurtures the other. We know that we strengthen our ministry beyond the wall of the church by nurturing hope and enthusiasm among our members; but it is also true that, the more we stretch ourselves out into the world the stronger we become for doing so.

Obviously the Gospel of John supplies us no quick fix for the life of the church in the next decades. Nor is its witness entirely unambiguous. However, this gospel may provide some clarity in terms of who God wants us to be and what God wants us to do. Certainly in a church that is sometimes dominated by Pauline conceptions of the church and its ministry, the Fourth Gospel, too, deserves a hearing.

– Robert Kysar, “As you Sent Me: Identity and Mission in the Fourth Gospel” Word & World, Fall 2001

Planting Organic Churches That Reproduce

July 16, 2008 | Filed Under missional | 7 Comments

On Saturday, August 23rd we will sponsor a one day Church Planting seminar at Parkway Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kansas. The seminar will be led by Joel Comiskey (Ph.D. Fuller Seminary).

Joel is an internationally recognized cell church consultant, church planter and author of more than twenty books, including his latest due out this fall titled Planting Church That Reproduce: Starting a Network of Simple Churches.

The seminar will be from 9:00am to 4:00pm. In the seminar Joel will discuss the need for planting simple churches, how to get started, and how to raise up and train leaders to cultivate a church planting movement. There will be no charge for the seminar but registration is necessary. If you are in the area and are interested in joining us or have questions about the seminar let me know.

A Sense of Mission From John’s Gospel

July 14, 2008 | Filed Under missional | 2 Comments

The doctrine of the church which we have found in John seems to me to call for some revisions of our conventional ecclesiology.

The time-honored notae ecclesiae, the marks of the church, are preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments. Says Calvin: “Wherever we find the word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a Church of God.”

[However] if we are on the right track in these studies, then surely the preeminent mark of the church is engagement in mission to the world.

If mission defines who Christ is, and if Christ sends us as he was sent, then mission defines who we are. We can preach the word and celebrate the sacraments in all solemnity, propriety, and purity, but if we are doing nothing to speak the words of God and to do the works of God in the world, if we have no concern for liberation, justice, compassion, and peace, can we claim the name of church? I think not.

– A Sense of Mission: Guidance From the Gospel of John by Albert Curry Winn

Praying with Saint Benedict

July 12, 2008 | Filed Under hospitality, prayer | 2 Comments

O Lord, I place myself in Your hands and dedicate myself to You. I pledge myself to do Your will in all things:

To love the Lord God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength.

Not to kill, not to steal, not to covet, not to bear false witness, to honor all persons.

Not to do to another what I should not want done to myself.

To love fasting. To relieve the poor.
To clothe the naked. To visit the sick.

To bury the dead. To help those in trouble.
To console the sorrowing. To hold myself aloof from worldly ways.
To prefer nothing to the love of Christ. More>>

Hirsch and Out of Ur

July 9, 2008 | Filed Under missional | 2 Comments

I finally listened to the Alan Hirsch’s podcast on Out of Ur. The audio is well worth the 12 minutes it takes to listen to. Hirsch responds — similarly to his post as part of last month’s missional synchronized blog — to the need for clarity on the use of the word “missional.”

Two thoughts that stayed with me after listening. First, I appreciate Hirsch’s passion for maintaining usage of the word. I think it is a helpful word when rightly defined and applied. As Hirsch asks during the postcast, “If not missional, what other word would we use?”

Second, I like his emphasis to add the word “incarnational” to bring greater clarity. When adopting a missionary stance towards the culture in the west, it is very helpful to think about the need to be “missional-incarnational,” with “missional” speaking to our “sentness” and “incarnational” speaking to the way we live “embedded” lives.

The Tension With Being Missional

July 7, 2008 | Filed Under missional | 6 Comments

Recently I have listened to several people raise concerns over the tension between cultivating a missional direction for their lives and the need to gather as a congregation for worship and spiritual nourishment. This is one of the reasons I stated in my article on Missional: More Than a Buzz Word that we must begin with spiritual formation.

If we are to “go and be” then we need to be experiencing spiritual transformation to ensure that we have the capacity to impact the lives around us. I think it is also important to be reminded of Darrell Guder’s description of the church when he states that the church is the “called and sent people of God.” We cannot neglect one over the other. We are both “called” and ”sent.”

Along this line of discussion here is a very good post over at Swinging From the Vine titled “Potential Problems with Missional” where Makeesha offers a corrective on the risk of ”compulsive activism.”

Here is a small piece of her post:

It would be a tragedy if a missional paradigm shift caused people to forget about God. Sabbath and setting aside time to gather in sacramental community to worship the One always needs to be central. I strongly believe we need a push away from the “performed” Sunday service that usually does more to drain the people than glorify God but that doesn’t mean we should abandon the gathering completely. After all, as a Christ follower, I still believe in the need for the breath of God to infuse our lives.

Silence Communicates - Part II

July 2, 2008 | Filed Under georges boujakly, spiritual formation | No Comments

Another culprit (to experiencing silence) is our tendency to talk too much. Our worship is voluminous with words. We fill our worship with talk (The Lord is in his temple, let the earth keep silent). Not only when we worship, but in every way.

Gagarin said too much when he returned from space. The Russian cosmonaut pompously declared for the world to hear that he visited the heavens and God was nowhere to be found. A priest in Moscow responded: “If you have not seen him on earth, you will never see him in heaven.” Touché! A charge of too much talk will stick against this Russian cosmonaut. Will it stick on you?

“Too much talk restricts our capacity to listen, (to ourselves and to God) it banishes mindfulness and opens the door to distraction and escapism,” said Michael Casey. We become convinced we are correct in our own conclusions when we talk too much. We begin to think we are wise. When we talk too much the insidious and arrogant attitudes of superiority, manipulation, and dominance become permanent residents when they should only be strangers in the night. When we speak, let us speak rarely, briefly, directly, and simply in imitation of Christ. Let Peter’s tendency of too much talk signal our need and the value of silence as prayer.

Columba Stewart explains that “the issue becomes more clearly one of stewardship. Language is a gift that can be used thoughtfully or thoughtlessly, humbly or proudly. Someone constantly aware of the presence of God will know when and how to speak.” Or if speech is even necessary!

In prayer, silence (within and without) is about learning to listen. I suggest the following course of action for noise reduction.

1. One day a week, reduce or eliminate the external noise in your home after 6:00 p.m.

No gadgets blaring, no talking until the following morning.

Follow Anthony Bloom’s advice: “Settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do. Say ‘I am now with myself,’ and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short time you will most likely feel bored.” I hope not. But if we feel bored with ourselves just think how bored others must feel in our presence.

Let the silence teach us. We will learn that often we live by reflection, or reaction. We will learn that often we live not from the inside out but from the outside in; that our life is only a response to incitement, to excitement. We are empty inside. “We are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and the richness we assume that there is within ourselves” (Anthony Bloom).

Find out who is at home in you. Access the One who inhabits your soul. Then, when you wake up in the morning let these words ring true: “Open my mouth, O Lord, that I may sing your praises!” Graduate to two times a week.

2. Eliminate sarcasm and put downs.

If you do, you will be doing everyone a favor and contributing in a major way to noise reduction, to too much talk. Observe any television program designed to entertain. You will hardly find talk which isn’t put downs and sarcasm.

“When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise” (Proverbs 10:19). Even stronger are these words: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21).

“Silence is golden” we were told back when. It still is, and the value of gold at true of the market increases daily for those who cultivate a life of prayer and Walk with the Master.

For a related post check out You Talk Too Much

Silence Communicates

July 1, 2008 | Filed Under georges boujakly, spiritual formation | No Comments

In response to last week’s synchronized blog dealing with the word “missional” I wrote a post in which I tried to deal with both the theological distinctions that I believe should be included when defining the word, as well as five practical issues that are necessary to consider when attempting to foster a missional mindset. The first of these practical issues was the need to start with an emphasis on spiritual formation.

With that topic in mind, here is a very good aritcle on the discipline of silence written by my friend Georges Boujakly. I am going to share the first part of his article today and the rest of it tomorrow. Here is part one:

Silence Communicates

Silence communicates. Silence has to be explained. Silence is capable of a variety of emotions, thoughts, conditions (states of mind), and attitudes. When the principal enters the classroom, a hush prevails. When the child refuses to answer for his actions, rebellion is not hard to see. When a witness to a crime refuses to testify to save the innocent, silence destroys. Sometimes silence is hard to explain.

How would you interpret Aaron’s silence (Lev. 10:3)? Is it grief, rebellion, or submission? How about God’s silence in Psalm 44:23 and 83:1? Consider Jesus’ silence at his trial (compare Mark 14:61 with Isaiah. 53:7)? There is no escaping it, silence speaks; sometimes more than words can say.

Confession: Often I am uncomfortable with silence and its partner listening. I would rather speak than listen. Especially in prayer. My sympathy is more with the one who says “listen, Lord, for your servant is speaking” than with young Samuel when Eli coached him to “speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” In my prayer silence is the underdog. How about you? I’m pulling for the underdog.

Several barriers are to blame. I will only name two. The first culprit is noise. We are always filling our world with noise. 90 decibels or more is nothing for restaurants. Church sometimes fares worse, depending on the music and the excitement of the preacher. Especially so when silence has taken a prolonged vacation from our worship! In life, the electronic gadgets we enjoy contribute a lion’s share to the noises of our lives.

Silence is hard to do. The screams of consumerism, materialism, diversion, and entertainment are hard to ignore. But we must.

Prayer depends on silence. Silence and its friend listening are the life spring of prayer. We must strive to live in conscious awareness of the presence and activity of the God we say we love with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Silence as prayer is a good habit that will rescue us from the noises of life. Silence is a great help in living and praying in the present moment, the only moment we truly have.