House & Simple Churches :: Friends blog

http://www.kezrush.com/2008/07/corny-4th.html

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=223

Ever since my post on missional I’ve been neglecting the running commentary that is the Ravens. Been distracted. A mission, so to speak.

I’m going to continue being distracted from written commentary until next Thursday, so hold on, I’ve things brewing in my head but haven’t quite gotten the focus to get them down. Unless, of course, inspiration strikes and I just gotta write it down.

Have a wonderful, happy, joyous 4th of July!!

http://www.kezrush.com/2008/07/sondra-graduation-photos.html

http://www.kezrush.com/2008/07/grace-based-parenting_8510.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/325990972/

In Matthew 29:29-32 Jesus blasts those who are determined to maintain the illusion that they represent Israel’s righteousness (the pharisees) because of their failure to acknowledge the role of the prophetic in their midst. Here is a powerful series of comments on this text by Stanley Hauerwas in his fantastic commentary on Matthew (highly recommended).

This is a sobering list of failure and judgment, with descriptions of hypocrisy and failure in which we cannot help but see ourselves. It is surely the case, for example, that many are kept from entering the kingdom by the lives we lead as Christians. Our problem is very simple–we simply do not know how to live as a people who believe that Jesus is the resurrected Lord. the joy and freedom that should name the lives of those freed from the demons become lost amid attempts to make our difference depend on matters that do not matter. We become adept at praising the prophets of the past, having lost the ability to discern the prophets among us.

Jesus describes the scribes and the Pharisees as “blind guides”. That they are blind is not unrelated to their desire to be guides. Those who would lead others often fear those they lead, and in particular they fear hurting those they lead. They think it is their task to make the life of those they lead secure. Yet a people who depend on prophets can never live lives of safety. A people required to remember that they area people whose forebears have murdered the righteous cannot live lives of safety. Those who would lead too often must hide from themselves what they know to be true because they think that those whom they lead cannot bear the truth. The blindness of the Pharisees and the scribes is a blindness that threatens the church no less than any people. The only difference between the Pharisees and those who would lead Jesus’ people is that the latter lead a people who have no reason to fear the truth.

Jesus’ condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees is sobering, but we dare not overlook the fact that the criticism Jesus makes of the scribes and Pharisees assumes that the people he is calling to be his church will need to be a people like the Pharisees and scribes. He even says that he will send prophets and scribes to the synagogues and towns of Israel. The church will need persons called to positions that help the church avoid hypocrisy through agents of direction to keep before the church the vision of the kingdom; the church will needs agents of memory to help the church read its scripture and tradition; the church will needs agents of linguistic self-consciousness to guard the church from mental laziness; the church will needs agents of order and due process to isnure unity and encourage participation in the decisions of the church (quote from Yoder, 1984,28-34)

Each of these agents will be tempted to hypocrisy. There is no guarantee that ensures we will lives lives of integrity. Hypocrisy can be avoided only if the church is a community capable of truthful speech. If such a community is missing, then those who would lead are doomed. Jesus’ condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees is severe, [but his]…description of how those called to help Israel live faithfully have come to lead false lives is suffused with pathos. His condemnations are harsh, but what could be worse for the scribes and Pharisees, like any of us, to get the lives they think they wanted.

Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary of the Bible (Brazos; 2006) 199-200

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SolarCrash/~3/325408215/

This summer we’ll be taking Solar Crash offline for a night.

I just secured a night club for an evening celebrating creativity and spirituality.

All proceeds will be going to drilling a well and providing clean water.

I still need help of every type imaginable.  Artists, thinkers, musicians, organizers, designers, talent scouts, poets, planners, craftspeople, you name it.

If you can help, or know someone who might be able to, drop me a note.

You can find some more preliminary info on the event here.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/325014314/freeze-p

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/324488730/deconstr

http://www.kezrush.com/2008/07/vic-and-cassie-wedding.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/323703240/

Missional church requires a missional ministry and leadership system.  For the most part, the Christendom church obscured the need for a fully fledged missional leadership system because the self understanding of the church became fundamentally non-missional. Because all citizens were deemed to be Christians all what was really needed were the pastoral and teaching ministries to care for and teach the congregation. These were eventually instituted as offices in the church and became the principal metaphors for church leadership. The net effect is that the whole system weighted itself in favor of maintenance and pastoral care and that these became hegemonic in practice and therefore and both fragmented and distorted the total mission and ministry of the church in favor of only part of its calling.

A direct consequence of this was that the apostolic, the prophetic, and the evangelistic, ministries and leadership styles were marginalized and effectively ‘exiled’ from the church’s official ministry and leadership. This is not to say that these ministries have totally disappeared. Far from it: many within current and historical church life have exercised these ministries without specifically being tagged ‘apostles’ or ‘prophets’, but by and large these lacked formal legitimacy and recognition and they have tended to be exercised outside of the context of the local church, denominational systems, and seminaries. This ‘exiling’ in part gave rise to the development of parachurch agencies and missional orders, each with a somewhat atomized ministry focus. E.g. the Navigators arose out of a calling to evangelize and disciple people outside of the church structures because the church was not effective (or interested?) in this. Sojourners emerged to represent the social justice concerns that the church by and large ignores. World Vision as an Aid and Development agency, etc. But in these were generally initiated and maintained the APE type leadership styles. This divorce of APE from PT has been disastrous for the local church and has damaged the cause of Christ and his mission.

In order to understand the different nature of each of these ministries we need to briefly explore the core task/functions of each, the effect when it monopolizes and dominates in isolation from the others, and the effect when it is integrated with the other ministries. The easiest way to do this is within a comparative table. It is as follows…