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Emergent

the Mission Church Trustees don’t want you to think about

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mission of church to revitalize buildingsI find myself driving around my neighborhoods and the nashville area eyeing properties that are vacant or left dilapidated and wonder, “Wonder what that could be for the church?” Warehouse spaces could be food pantries, shopping areas could be start up businesses for job training centers, some areas could be reclaimed for the land for community parks/playgrounds/gardens, maybe some building/neighborhood could be renovated for some intentional living communities are just some of my thoughts on re-claiming space. Those are just dreaming ideas for me at this time.

However, with this dreaming I am super intrigued by Hope Church’s efforts to re-claim their neighborhood areas and create safe livable housing for people who might, for whatever reason, get stuck in squaller conditions.

For more than a decade, the 700-member church off John Young Parkway has been buying and rehabilitating Washington Shores buildings to revitalize the area.

“We’re not a church that solely exists within these four walls,” Wiggins said one recent morning in his office. “We are a church that is taking our faith to the community.”

Surely this isn’t without a headache or some troubled moments, but when is something meaningful completely stress free? What would it take for the church, general, seek out ways similar to this as a way to meat the needs of the people and be some vision of Kingdom? I would love to be a part of a church that does that.

Maybe in stead of taking hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to make our sanctuaries cooler (in figurative sense, or the HVAC sense if you want) but take some portion of that to invest in community improvements or making sure those who are struggling can live safely and with dignity. That’d be a cool break of some cycles of poverty and self-service that I couldn’t imagine Jesus seeing any other way than a good thing.

It would take time, but home runs have be earned after some batting practice and a few foul balls, but you never get there unless you imagine you can do it and then actually go out and do it.

Missional Drive Church?

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I was pretty impressed with this pastor who has started a ‘Drive In’ church. Wasn’t so much impressed that he’s doing a drive in church, that seems rather silly to me. I was impressed that he is choosing to do sermons outside in the Texas heat wave this summer. That is just insane.

Vans and trucks drove into the parking lot of Lovejoy High School to be part of “Sanctuary Under the Sky,” Rev. David Ray’s new drive-in church.

“The sound is transmitted over the car radio so they just tune into the frequency that it’s set to. They can hear, they’re encouraged to participate. Everything that the congregation is asked to do is printed in the bulletin,” said Ray.

Ray, pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Master, stands in the parking lot conducting the service as churchgoers watch through their dashboard windows.

What caught me by surprise with this story is that he was a Presbyterian pastor. Not the normal kind the norm of worship for a mainline minister. So as with any bored moment I went and looked up ‘drive in church‘ and come to realize, he doesn’t actually know how to look for others doing the same thing (claimed in article that he’s only one doing this that he’s aware of), because it seems other churches have driveinchurch.net websites. Turns out a Disciples of Christ church has been at this for almost 50 years. In their history this is their reasoning for a drive in church.

The purpose of these services was to reach a large number of people with the good news including tourists, the physically challenged and provide an opportunity for the whole family to worship together. The Drive-In Church is new and different, yet it is deeply spiritual and reverently worshipful. As our Pastor was quoted in The Washington Post in a recent article on our church. “We worship outdoors, by the sea as did Jesus.”

So has me wondering, is this like the first emergent / missional / emerging / post-modern church?

Or maybe, is the car such a comfort buffer that we prevent ourselves from ever actually being community because we never get in proximal distance to one another?

the Fabulous Female Theologians of Twitter (some of)

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No, this isn’t some calendar shoot idea, though admittedly that would be quite amusing. Yesterday Bill Reichart posted a Top 10 Theologians on Twitter and I shot back that there were no women theologians and that they all seemed to be the same stock white males that get thrown out everywhere. So Bill asked for me to add to the list. I am happy to because not that I am in any disagreement with the list (though some of the 10 are not close to my top theologians, but that’s just a flavor thing) my critique wasn’t done in a mean spirit. It is the trouble with making a list, someone gets left out.

So in the spirit of sharing, here are some Female Theologians of Twitter (not in any particular order)

Rachel Held Evans gets my first & easiest nod, mostly because we have actually hung out before. Watching her growing audience and the prophetic voice she is speaking from has been great to watch over the years. Seriously, if someone is going to take the bible seriously enough to sleep in a tent in the front yard when she is on her menstruation period has to get some props, or a honk as you drive by.

Maggi Dawn who has been a voice through the alt worship scene of the UK for over a decade plus is now moving to Yale University as their Dean of Chapel and Associate Professor of Theology which she did similar to at Cambridge for the decade prior. Also a published author as any good minister in the academic circles would be. She has also been a prolific blogger and speaker to add onto her list of good works.

Bishop Vashti McKenzie who is the first female ever elected to the highest office of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) in its 200 year history and has served there since 2000. She’s pretty cool when it comes to social media podcasting, blogging, and putting up a 12k follower list on twitter (which is the largest for this listing, i think).

Diane Butler Bass first came onto my radar with her book the Practicing Congregation by Alban Press (a great read) and has been a favorite of mine since then. Probably her most prominent book has been Christianity for the rest of Us, which has actually sat in my to be read pile for some time. Promise Diane, I will get to it. &:~)

Tami Heim & Toni Birdsong I am grouping together because they are the duo behind Sticky Jesus. Met them at a TN Christian Chamber event a few months back and they are just delightful. I don’t believe they have the academic theology pedigree, but old friend Stan Grenz put its that everyone is a theologian and under that and considering their prolific capacity and passion to sharing Christ they get on my list & should be on yours.

 

Given, this list was actually a bit difficult to produce in that many prominent female theologians don’t do twitter, or started an account but are rather quiet on them. My criteria for this was rather simple in that they needed to be ‘active’ (totally subjective to according to me) and have around or over 1k followers. That cut into some of my list of people I like to read like a @lnwiner. Thought about adding in some folks like a @sandramccracken but she’s touring now and most of her tweets are about shows at the time of this posting, not quite a time of high theology for her now. Thought about some of the famous pastor wives, but ultimately discounted them because those seem to be ‘team’ influencers. One thing I thought was interesting was that there wasn’t any tribute twitter accounts to people like  Julian of Norwich. Sadly, Teresa of Avila went quiet a few years ago.. Mother Teresa is somewhat alive in bots and tribute accounts.

Most though, I have this idea that Twitter isn’t the medium for the lady. Maybe it was the culturing of its early adopters but Twitter in many ways has a feel of self promotion mixed in with its sharing and conversation & I don’t think it is part of the female drive to get into puffing out the chest to show a “this is what I have to say” everyone.

All guy lists are not anything out of the norm. Andy Rowell put together an add on list a few years back and all his peeps were dudes, and he’s someone who is very open to the various people who take on leadership of the church. So maybe we need more ladies doing their theology thing on twitter, maybe not, someone has to be acting out their theology out in the real world and we are probably better off having the ladies do that while us fellas talk amongst ourselves about who is best.

So feel free to comment away and add more of the lovely ladies of twitter for this listing.. it really is just a start of a hopeful full recognition

The Book of Discipline The Musical #umc #umclead #tnac2011

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With the success of “The Book of Mormon”  & our United Methodist Church Annual Conferences happening around the UMC over the past month and half. Some friends & I had running imaginations that “The Book of Discipline” is just as confusing as the Book of Mormon so why not create a equally compelling broadway play that can debut right before General Conference in 2012.

“The Book of Discipline” a musical based on the doctrinal works of the United Methodist Church. Musical numbers would include:

  • “Prevenient Grace, How Sweet the Realization”
  • “Where As, Hence, Be It”
  • “Christ, from whom All Committees Flow”
  • “Take My Life and Let it SPRC”
  • “I am a Methodist…and Methodists just whatever…”
  • “Depth of Resolutions”
  • “Jesus, Lover of my Social Principles”
  • “Lo He comes with Consensus Descending”
  • “Where As, Hence, Be It Therefore”
  • “Oh Come and Dwell in, this huge book we Created”
  • “Oh for a Thousand ‘Vital Congregations’ To Sing”

Creators & Contributors to “The Book of Discipline” the musical Heather Bennett, Russell Hale, Brad Smith, & you who leave ideas in the comments.

 

Feel Bad for the God who Wasn’t There

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In my ongoing documentary watching courtesy of my newfound Netflix subscription I watched “The God Who Wasn’t There.” I remember when this was hitting the release date and it had its natural pub and buzz as denying God can be a real sassy topic. It never interested me as I’ve seen the “Religulous” or “The Root of All Evil” (aka. God Delusion) and could pretty much script the whole documentary.

Well, if I’m already paying for my subscription and it is available, why not? So I watched the documentary and it was as predicted. It took on more so the modern theology of focusing on the resurrection as the only real part of the story. Took a whole bunch of Christian pop culture of the time (the Passion of the Christ gets a good reflection). This is all circles back around as the director/narrator shares that he grew up in a fundamental educational environment. He even takes on his private school principal/dean on some of these theological teachings.

As the movie went on and on I was less impressed by the case against a “God who wasn’t there” but felt bad for him because the God who he had been taught about actually wasn’t there. God wasn’t there because he had been taught a shallow part of the story of God’s workings with his people. There wasn’t anything of grace, dreams, loving others, caring for the poor & less fortunate, and more. There is a God who is there, in my belief, and I’m saddened by this case the many replicating cases out there where people were taught short of the full spectrum of a God who loves them.