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About eight weeks ago my friend Joni asked me if I wanted to come to Phnom Penh with her. She has been a Christian worker among Vietnamese people for nearly three decades. Several years ago she felt inspired to move to Phnom Penh where a large Vietnamese population lives.

“This is it!” she said as we crawled out of the tuk-tuk that drove us from the airport to the ministry center she’s developed in a central part of the city. A large block building, stood before us under the midnight sky. The tuk-tuk driver stacked our suitcases on the sidewalk in front of the center’s massive iron gate. A rat scavenged in a nearby pile of garbage. Cockroaches greeted us as they scurried around our luggage, but thankfully not our feet.

The We Love Kids sign blazed under a fluorescent light above the doorway. A petite Vietnamese woman appeared at the second gate beyond the small entry way. I would learn that her name is Sabaat and she is from a provincial village, having come to the city for a seminar being hosted at the center by one of Joni’s old friends from Viet Nam. Sabaat is not accustomed to the massive set of keys or uncooperative locks on the heavy gates. Her small frame struggles to slide them open, but in we are and it is good to break company with the roaches and sidewalk rat. 

Sabaat, I learn, is Kampuchea-Krom, which means she is half Khmer and half Vietnamese, a common mix in Cambodia. I am learning a lot from Joni about the extensive history Vietnamese and Cambodian people have with one another. It is long and contentious. Sabaat will be leaving in another day to return to her village. She is a pastor and children’s ministry and she also helps encourage other church plants in her area.

She is not yet 30 years old and her husband is not yet a Christian.
I have my own room. It is so hot that when we go to bed I point the fan directly at me. After a quick cooling shower it is bearable to lay down and get some rest.
Our first day here has been rather low key. Low key Cambodia style that is. Here’s a rundown:

• Walked six blocks to Joni’s fave restaurant that serves Western-style breakfast. That wasn’t such a big deal, except for all the intersections we had to navigate teeming with motor scooters, tuk-tuks and cars and trucks. It was like a video game to get from one side to another. There are no stop signs, traffic signals or pedestrian walkways. In short, there are no rules.

• Went by tuk-tuk to Met-Phone, a local carrier that is the service for Joni’s internet which is out. The shop is jammed with at least a dozen people crowded around the counter where two people are working. It’s very unorganized though people are getting helped one at a time. Joni gives me a refresher course in Assertiveness Training. “You have to push your way forward or else you’ll be here all day.” Gotta let go of all the wait-your-turn manners my American culture has instilled in me.

• Go to the best grocery store in the city. Again, the tuk-tuk driver waits outside for us. The store is nicely stocked with a variety of white people food and also Asian items. You can guess which was much more expensive. When we left, three beggar kids made a beeline for us and seeing the bananas in the bags, asked to have some. I immediately defer to Joni who readily gives each barefoot child a couple. But when a Khmer woman holding a baby on her hip approaches us Joni turns away telling me, “She’s a professional beggar and looks to be doing ok.” The woman follows us all the way to the tuk-tuk quietly asking for a handout. I avoid eye contact.

Back at the house Joni decides to unpack the supplies she’s brought for the pastors in the area where Sabaat lives. We are soon laying out mini-audio devices outside on her balcony that are

powered by a solar cell. These devices play the New Testament, half of them in Khmer and the other in Vietnamese. They will be given to illiterate rural residents by the church planters. Joni has been very excited about these devices and asks me to read over the instructions. “You’re more technical than I am, “ she says.

• After a rest we take another tuk-tuk to a nearby Vietnamese slum. The driver becomes visibly nervous when Joni directs him to pull over. She wants to show me up close the poverty of this area. She has had many students come to her school from this area. We see heroin addicts sprawled out on a roadside, piled up like puppies. Naked children come running from behind a wall of corrugated iron happily shouting, “Hello, hello!” We assure the driver we will only be one minute. He is very agitated which agitates me. “Can you tape some of this?” asks Joni. I hastily pull out my Flip video from my bag as more children appear from dilapidated structures. I am trying hard to be discreet but when you are a tattooed white lady standing on a dirt street in a Phnom Penh slum, it’s not easy! When we drive out, our driver becomes more relaxed.

So this was our first day, our low-key first day in the capitol of Cambodia. In a few days we will travel to Sabaat’s province where Joni is scheduled to do some training with area church planters and also train them in how to use the audio bible devices. It is eight hours by bus. We’ll stay in a hotel in the province capitol, and then we’ll have to hire motorbike drivers to transport us to the actual village. “There’s a Vietnamese slum back there, too,” says Joni, “hidden away. You would never even know it’s there. You can’t believe the poverty and the kids….many of them are HIV from their mothers who were prostitutes.” I am saving my questions for when we get there. And I can tell you that Joni’s story of how such a remote area got on her radar is fascinating. I’m saving that for a later post.

Ok. Time to go take another cooling shower. Even my perspiration is sweating! Tomorrow, we’ll be visiting an area known as Saigon Bridge, an even bigger slum area than the one Joni gave me a peek of today. We’ll also be contacting some of her former students to see how they’re doing. I’m hoping the internet issue at her house will be resolved. We’ve been to the Met Phone shop twice and she has also called them twice. For now, we are at an internet café. Hopefully the wi-fi signal will be restored so I can post more often!

I received this email yesterday. Thought it was worth posting.

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My answer:  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there is and will continue to be massive confusion on the term “organic church.” The word has been hijacked and turned into something very human, very man-centered, and taken captive by the network marketing movement of the business world. What many are calling “organic” just isn’t. Not even close. And Jesus Christ is not central to it.

In every case I’ve seen where people say, “I tried it and it doesn’t work,” it’s a straw-man. They are talking about something very different from what the NT envisions as a local ekklesia birthed by God. Typically, it’s someone who has never experienced authentic organic church life as a non-leader first. Often these folks aren’t called by God to the work, they weren’t prepared properly, and they were never sent out by an existing organic church. They “went” but they weren’t “sent.” And they had little to no experience or preparation. You can’t establish that which you’ve not experienced yourself.

So of course it doesn’t work. As I argue in “Finding Organic Church,” how could it when we defy the spiritual principles that God has written in the bloodstream of the universe and that are consistent all throughout the NT.

Further: what some are calling the “organic church Movement” simply doesn’t exist.

I’ve written on this in two articles here and here, and of course at length in the two books you mentioned.

You’re free to pass on these articles if you think it will help. I am very encouraged that more and more people are recognizing that the organic expression of the church of Jesus Christ is far deeper than they once thought (or had been taught). So the confusion is not universal, thank God.

"I'm not sure where I'll land, but I know that I don't hold a traditional view any longer," said the seasoned pastor and bible teacher in a recent phone conversation. "I am open to other ideas about the eternity of hell." The pastor went on to reveal that he had contacted a few of his ministry colleagues asking them about this question: Is hell an eternal reality? Or is this doctrine invented by man?" He received a number of replies including the predictable, "Be cautious where you are treading." But he was most surprised when his most respected colleague and bible teacher, the one with the strongest teaching chops, told him, "I don't ascribe to the traditional view any longer either."

Traditionalism is a commitment to upholding a set of beliefs and views and defending them from being discounted or rejected. Christian traditionalists, for example, tend to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, lived a life beset with holiness and miracles, suffered death by crucifixion, and rose from the tomb on the third day. Other traditional beliefs include the idea that women are blocked from spiritual leadership over men and that men are the head of not only the home but also the church; that the bible is the inerrant word of God...and the idea that hell is a place of eternal condemnation for those souls who have not received Christ as their Savior.

I am a happy traditionalist about a number of things. I choose to believe and am content being committed to the view that Jesus is the Son of God, and that he did indeed die by death on a cross and then supernaturally overcame death by resurrection. This I believe.

In this way, you can say I am a traditionalist.

However, there are a number of things that I am not willing to maintain a rigid, unmoving position of traditionalism. Like the question of women in leadership, etc... and also the doctrine of eternal damnation...aka Hell.

A couple of years ago I was talking to an old pastor friend of mine (I seem to have lots of friends who are pastors!!). This man, very intelligent and solid in his faith and also his character, indicated that for the first time in his life, he was willing...WILLING... to reexamine the traditional view that women ought not to teach over a man. {there are a few New Testament verses that this traditional view was built upon and it is considered by many Christians to be a biblical point of view and is therefore not up for debate. I am choosing not to enter a biblical defense or offense, though I have researched this topic extensively including much bible scholarship. If you are interested in such research, there are many sites and books that provide such information}

Ok, so back to this pastor - he was in his mid-forties at the time of our conversation. All he had known his whole life was that women have certain roles, and being a pastor or a church elder was not among them. He maintained this traditional view with little to no challenge for decades. But suddenly, as a seasoned man of God, he began to discover others he respected rejecting this view and embracing what is called an egalitarian view of women, or the point of view that women can access all roles and offices of authority. He was in the midst of exploring this new way of thinking (for him) and was tiptoeing cautiously into this new vista of thought. I hid my annoyance when he said, "I'm afraid that it might be a trendy view just because the world thinks it's cool to believe this way." I held back from saying, "Since when is bucking up against injustice and inequity a trendy view?"

I am too much of a diplomat at times to a fault!

Traditionalism for many Christ followers is much less a boundary to keep us on the straight and narrow as it is a strait jacket to keep us restrained from possibilities and recalibrating of miscalculations.

When someone comes along and boldly rejects a traditionalistic position and favors a new point of view, they are sometimes labeled a heretic, or as someone who has ventured off the true path into a pit of heresy.

A heretic is defined as:

one who dissents from an accepted belief or doctrine

It has been said many times that today's heretics are often the agents of change and breakers of tradition. They are the trailblazers for the rest of us, the ones who have broken free from the asylum of traditionalism.  As such, they are typically accused by the doctrine police as heretics. 

Heresy hunters are not new to our modern era. They are an old dog that's been prowling and sniffing around the beliefs of others for millennium. Only nowadays we don't need to worry about being arrested or burned at the stake (though in some nations there are religious extremists of all kinds of beliefs who will execute perceived heretics).

Breaking the back of traditionalism is uncomfortable for many. There is one's own psychic protest that must be overcome. There is often close friends and family who will distance themselves from the rebellious traditionalist. (just ask Bishop Carlton Pearson)

Breaking rank with the party line, no matter the party, will cause some degree of disturbance. The more influence and wider platform one has, the bigger the disturbance.

Which is why I am sympathetic to those who are professional Christians and feel a heavy burden to tread carefully into heretical territory. They are not only influential to others, but they very well might be jeapordizing their reputations and also their livelihoods.

Breaking the back of traditionalism is each person's journey. Some of us will do so with great relish while others with weeping and sorrow or trepidation and angst. I want to suggest that it is the special mandate of Christians to be willing to confront the old dog of tradition. It's what our Founder did. Jesus was heretical in what he taught and how he related to other people. He was a super bad ass when it came to pulling down the walls of those traditions that did not represent the kingdom or character of his Father. He is our Trail Blazer.

http://frankviola.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/my-interview-with-1-christian-blogger-tim-challies/

What would it be?

I know what mine would be. I would sermonize about No Us or Them. In today's religious culture we are not a whole lot different than the spiritual elitism of yesterday. Many pastors and reverends and bishops and what have you live at a safe distance from the average person sitting in their congregation. Some churches have become so large that the pastor does not even know who half or even a quarter of his own spiritual community!

If you have read me for any length of time then you know I am not fond of the megachurch model. I'm not. And this is one of many reasons why. It creates an overinflated sense of importance for the leader and and a spectatorship mentality of many in the audience....and that's what it becomes. An audience viewing religious theater Sunday after entertaining Sunday morning.

What if you had the floor for a half hour to be heard out by America's church leaders. What would you preach on?

Couldn't get the pictures to come out here. So go here to read the whole story and see the pics:

http://frankviola.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/christ%E2%80%99s-love-expressed-in-organic-church-life-%E2%80%93-a-recent-testimony/

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Registration is only $45 per person for the entire event (that's unheard of).

Sign up soon as it is filling up fast. Details here: http://www.ThresholdEvent.com

i am “missional” because i love the incarnation of Christ here on earth & think that was the big idea that Jesus was getting at.  he “became flesh and moved into the neighborhood” and calls us to do the same. while i have a lot of friends who i deeply respect in the missional conversation, i am often annoyed because it seems like it’s becoming a new exciting trend for most attractional churches now.  of course there are a lot of fringe conversations i love & appreciate, but it seems to me that there’s a group of “louder” voices that i don’t really identify with because the power & voice tends to rest in the boys.  to me it also kind of feels a little like it’s become a new pet project for evangelicals, to become more “missional.”  sorry if that sounds harsh.  i love the incarnational thoughts but still think so many issues of power & equality & what it means to be “poor” aren’t being addressed.  some of the delivery seems to focus on “we are supposed to help those poor people” instead of learning that “we are those poor people.”

from Kathy Escobar, pastor, The Refuge in Colorado

 

Totally. Kathy, who is a friend of mine and who I will be seeing in just a couple of weeks at Convergence,  is one of the most missional-minded women that I know. A former megachurch staffer, Kathy and her friend Karl abandoned the supersize form of church with all of it's trappings with the hope of creating a faith community in the organic earth of the people who make it so. Thus, The Refuge was born, a church that "serves the suburban poor." 

Missional is likely to become the new darling of Christendom in the US.  This is not a bad thing. I'm not criticizing. I just wanna say that I hope the missional movement will not gentrify like the Emerging Church kinda did.

Gentrify :  renovate so as to make it conform to middle-class aspirations; "gentrify a row of old houses"; "gentrify the old center of town"

There are a lot of amazing missional writers, thinkers and most especially, practioners. Missional practiconers don't spend much time, I've noticed, pausing to analyze their missional strategey. They just do it. They just Be Jesus to the community and people they find themselves with. Theology is a sidetrip, not the whole journey, for people on mission.

Catholics are brilliant at the whole missional gig. They've been doing it for hundreds of years. My daughter attends a LaSalle Catholic high school that focuses on making a college prepartory education accessible for all, especially low-income families. This is because way back in the day in France only the elite and aristocratic were afforded educatoinal opportunities. No money, no power = no education. Jean Baptist De LaSalle felt a calling to enter the margins with the poor and focus on providing education for their sons. (not sure why not girls as well, but hey baby steps people, baby steps)  The point is that De LaSalle got close enough with a group of people that he was able to identify a felt need and then address it. He didn't start a seminary nor a conference. He organized curriculum, secured sites for study, found and trained teachers, and created ways for poor French boys to get an education. And there was resistance each step of his journey, with the academics and tutors of his time protesting and trying to block his way. imagine!

I would love to see a LaSallian mindset in the missional river as it fords it's way through byways and highways across America's landscape of Christians. Let there be radical inclusion of the practioners among us who do not have large platforms nor a large followership of Twitter fans. Let's promote the other rather than ourselves. If you have the mic, hand it off to someone who doesn't. If you have credentials, make room for some poor French boys (and girls) to learn from you. Give it away. To those who can't give you anything back.

The true manifestation of missional, of the Presence of Jesus, ought to bear some degree of obscurity and steadfast resolve to maintain always a posture of humility and servanthood. The best servants are invisible. They clean and scrub and wash up and cook and sweep and quietly do the unglamourous work of life without an announcement. Jesus served under the radar more often than not. He was a cryptic sort of mystic. Not a rockstar.

I feel Kathy's concerns. She and I, women that we are, can sit you down and tell you stories all day and long into the night of how our wonderful brothers unwittingly create brotherhoods and socieities that are exclusive of women and non-professionals. Missional cannot and must not become dominated by academia nor personalities. The Way of Jesus tells us a better way. That is my hope for the winds of change that are gusting up within and outside of That Gloroius Beauty aka The Church.