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One of our Imago Dei church plants called Adullam has shared their story in a great book called The Tangible Kingdom. This book will not only help encourage the church’s missional call, but will specifically help you in your understanding of the power of incarnational community in the world. Visit their website www.tangiblekingdom.com for more details or find their book on Amazon.

Just wanted to let you all know I’ll be down in Pasadena next week for Mosaic’s Awaken 2008. Billed as an unleashing of Imagination and Possibilities - this is a great 3 day event focused on showcasing Experience, Experiments, and Experts. This looks like it will be a great opportunity for those of you that plan on attending. For more information or to register at the last minute, here is the link -

http://awaken2008.com/

Hey, I wanted to let you all know about a book that just came out this winter by Paul Metzger. The book is called Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church. It’s a great book that I highly recommend to you all. Paul is a good friend, a respected professor at Multnomah Biblical Seminary, as well as a member of Imago Dei Community. You need to read this one.

Been catching up on life after a crazy fall.  Amazing stuff happening with the Advent Conspiracy we are over 1000 churches on board in some capacity  including the world relief partnership. We take our Advent offering next week at Imago and in January we hope to tell the story of what happened when all those churches worshiped Christ more in 07.  Pretty killer since last year it was just five churches and this year is pretty much went viral.   We are praying that we will have an amazing story to tell of how the church told their amazing story.  Not too late to jump in.

Lots of crazy connections taking place along with it. Morgan Spurlock form Super Size Me e mailed me while he was in town and invited my family and I out to see the premier of What Would Jesus Buy?  Great movie, if it is playing in your town you need to check it out. He was kind enough to come by for one of our services and let me interview him.  You can see it all at Advent Conspiracy site.
My post on the emerging church generated a lot of comments and many of you put forth some deep thinking and time in sharing your appreciation and concerns both of the movement and/or what I had to say. I hope to write more on that in the coming weeks since it seems to be something that many people are wondering, curious, confused, or frustrated by.  The interesting thing that I am learning is that even in the blogoshpere or perhaps especially in the blogosphere we read everything through our own set of lenses or assumptions. Some of you assumed by my use of “orthodoxy” I meant only my own and linked me up with people I know putting me in the same theological camp with them, regardless of knowing if that was true. Other’s of you assumed that the only “orthodoxy” that mattered was the one you held to and everyone else is pretty much out.  It think it would be wise for us to assume less and beleive it or not it is a very cultural thing for us in America to jump to judgment based on sound bites. We are quick to speak slow to listen and we really need to work this out and I am including myself in this one. I get humbled when I hang out with my friends from Africa or the UK even and they are not like that. They wait longer, listen more, and don’t rush to label quite so fast.  Culture … can’t seem to shake it.

I look forward to more dialogue and I would love to start off the conversation on the issue of “Orthodoxy” What historically has made someone “orthodox” and what historically has made someone a “heretic” ?  Do those definitions still apply particularly in regards to the emerging church? What do you do if someone is deemed a heretic?  What does church history tell us, what does scripture say?   I think these questions may help us bring some definition to the “whose in” and “whose out” debate, or perhaps it may muddy the water a bit more.

Just found this link to a great message on the EC by Scot McKnight speaking at Westminster, from Gideon, that I got off of Andrews Jones sight. I talked with Andrew recently it had been some time since we had connected. I still believe he is one of the best thinkers out there and quite unassuming. He has a much more global read on the emerging church conversation and I really respect his life.

This message from Scot McKnight is a strong one. For those of you who have been following our conversation you will benefit from his analysis, which came about from first hand interviews and really brilliant. He captures the guts and values of this thing brings back the missional aspect of what really drove the whole thing in the first place. It is also a movement that God is building, it is growing through small groups of people that are multiplying all over the world. No one should just dismiss it and as you try to get your mind around it this will be a very helpful take on it from an American. The audio is not great but you can hear it fine.

It seems everywhere I go and speak these days people ask me the same question. It is, in some form or another, a version of this: Are you part of the emerging church? If they ask it another way it may be are you Emerging or Emergent? The letter “T” has become very important to them.

My common reply is; We seem to get put in the camp of Emerging, so I suppose we are.

Then the questions move to what the Emerging church believes about this or that. To which I reply the same things Baptists believe about it.

They scratch their head, think about what I have said and then ask, Which Baptist?

To which I reply, “exactly”.

The truth is we don’t know what exactly the emerging church will become. There is a great effort to try to divide it up into categories. I suppose I understand that desire from the vantage point of good people who simply are trying to understand what is going on out there among Christians and they need to have it broken down for them.

The problem I see with the categories, however, is that they appear like a helpful tool but it’s just not that cut and dry. There are no teams yet. They may be forming but there are a lot people just getting into the game, or showing up at practice or just signing up to play.

The danger that I see is that people, particularly Americans love to quickly categorize people so they can either turn them into a celebrity or a demon. We really don’t want to read what they have written or take the time to get to know them. We simply want to know what category they fit in so we can pronounce our judgment if we disagree with them or subscribe to their podcast if we like what they said.

These categories are going to turn out to be very harmful to the church. The emerging church has not been around for very long. There are some beautiful expressions that are sprouting up all over the place, they are organic works of the Spirit of God living in and through the life of his followers. We should be very cautious to squelch this. It is a young and fragile thing that if we fail to create a safe context for it to grow it will either shrivel up and die, or become high jacked by the more mature plants and therefore will not really be a fresh move of God at all.

This is a new thing that God is doing and we should respect it as such. When we force the emerging church to define themselves in order to put them into camps it is the equivalent of telling a ten year old to declare what his major in college is going to be. Telling him that if he does not hurry up and figure it out, then there is no telling where he will end up. We are essentially scaring the hell out of him. Putting a yoke upon him that will crush all the life and creativity that is, by nature of being young, the thing we are all attracted to in the first place.

I don’t want to appear naive about what is going on. Some of the theological conversations in the emerging circles are of concern. What is great about this however is that we have 2000 years of orthodoxy to help us determine what heresy is. Our common cannon and creeds allow us to determine what the Gospel is and when we have departed from it. The further breakdowns of evangelical, protestant, Catholic, Anglican and Eastern orthodox break it down even further. When we move outside the boundaries of orthodoxy then we cease to be part of “the” church. It is the equivalent of that ten year old telling us that he wants to be a dragon when he grows up. We need to correct him and let him know thats not going to be possible. If he does grow up to think he is a dragon he will no longer be any good to anyone, just like a church that lives outside the boundaries of orthodoxy.  Jumping around flapping your wings thinking your are breathing fire and sounding like a nut job.

Historical orthodoxy allows us to make sure that what does grow up in the emerging church does in fact grow up to be a part of “the” historical Christian church. If they grow up and leave the roots of orthodoxy thinking that somehow our cannon and creeds have bound them up in some sort of oppressive legalism they will simply be the equivalent of adult men bounding around trying to fly cursing the “oppressive” laws of gravity and winglessness.

In short there will be emerging churches and leaders who after emerging will in the end no longer be part of “the” historical church of Jesus Christ. We will know that because again, we have our cannon and creeds that tell us the core message about the Triune God. If we depart from that we move from Christian brother or sister to a harmful wolf.

The truth is though that for every one of those who grow up to be a useless “dragon”, there may be thousands who emerge to produce amazing new wine skins that will take the gospel to countless people who would otherwise not have heard it or seen it in action. There will be important contributions made to theological and ecclesiological work. However if we insist that this young emerging church declare their college major right now, we may be killing the very thing that God is doing by putting a yoke upon them that God did not ask them to carry, but was one that we invented out of the fear of what they might become.

It equally important that we help the emerging church grow up into “Adulthood” not “Dragons”, but as we do it is just as important that we give them space to grow up into what God is “emerging” in them. They need to know about the theological conversation that has been going on for two thousand years and just where those boundaries are between orthodoxy and heresy are.

As for me and Imago, we are part of this emerging movement of God, however we were on the front end. Those of us that have been at this for awhile now are far enough along on our trajectory. We are well on our way to being adult expressions of “the” historical church or to leaping about trying to be dragons. It is not us that I am primarily concerned with.

I feel a certain amount of responsibility to create space for what is coming up behind us. I have built my faith on the foundation of orthodoxy and the gospel of the reformers. I am grateful beyond measure to our great theologians. Yet I hope that we will add to that foundation for what God is emerging. I think there is a lot of room for theological progress. Not denying the foundation but building on it. The cultural questions we are wrestling with are not the same questions as Calvin and Luther or Edwards. The God that we believe in is.

That means there is much for us to learn from the dead men who are still speaking while we seek to find the theological truths that will be good news to our culture and their questions.

Given that, I hope that we can leave the next generation great theology on the Kingdom of God that seems to have gotten confused in the enlightenment. I hope that we can expand our theology of the Trinity from a static doctrine to a dynamic and living theology of community and transformation. I hope that we can shut up long enough to listen to the voices in the rest of the non-western world so we can learn from them a theology of suffering and sacrifice.

In the end I am most familiar with the American version of the emerging church, and as good Americans we tend to be pioneers who can build and out build the other guy. We are winners who do it bigger and better than anybody. But it may be just this that will cause us to miss the point of what God wants to emerge. Perhaps God is emerging something that is counter cultural to the way we have been doing it. He may be bringing about something that is seemingly small and insignificant but that will over time grow into something richer and fuller and more transformational than we have seen in some time.

We will never get to see it however, if we are impatient with the process, if we don’t have time or grace to allow it to emerge and if we insist that it be just like it always has been with newer logo’s and cooler hair cuts. If we do this then we may never get to see the very thing that God was doing.

In the end I hope that we don’t force this young church to hurry and grow up. I hope that they will find the sacred space to discover who God is calling them to be and imaginative new expressions of our historic Gospel will be set out on display. I hope that those young children that want to grow up to be dragons when they are older will get grounded in some good theology that sets them on a healthy road. And finally, I hope that those of us that have gone before them will not be so full of fear that we kill their vision and quench the Spirit, for I fear that we will have to answer for that one day.

Thanks to all who took me up on the offer for a free book in exchange for a review. I am out of books at the minute so sorry to all of you who were hoping for one. They are available at most stores and on the web. I appreciate the larger community of Christ helping to get the word out!

I heard this statement a few years ago.  I thought there was a book by the same title, but I did not read it and could not find it on Amazon so it must be a subtitle.  Either way, I don’t think I needed to read the book because the statement itself is enough.

When fall hits in ministry it often feels like a whirlwind.  New people, new events, growth, re-organize, re-structure and re-group.  Too often I get lost in the details of “pulling it off” and easily forget the why.

My wife is keeping things running with the Advent conspiracy, and with more and more churches getting on board her job is growing.  The other day she was swamped and we were talking and I remembered this statement.  It brought everything into perspective.  Amidst the deadlines, the projects and all the activity we can’t forget the why.

When you get stuck in details and the constant asking of how; how are we going to get this done, how are we going to make that happen, how are we going to survive another change, the answer rarely comes in a life-giving way. You may find a functional answer but not a compelling one.  It is only when we call a time out to reflect on why we are doing it in the first place that the how comes into focus.

I find myself going to the why more and more.  The why energizes me.  It is the fuel that keeps the how in its place. Otherwise the how crawls up onto the throne and begins to dictate my life, my weekly schedule and my seemingly eternal future.  How is a slave driver when left unsubmitted to the why.  I have to remember that if Jesus could rise from the dead, surely he can help us answer how we will publicize our next event, or open a new class room for the growing kids ministry.

The why inspires me, gets me excited and energizes me to take another shot at it for another day.  The why for me is bigger than just a mission statement of taking the whole Gospel to the whole person to the whole world, though that does bring me back into focus.  It is when I push into that statement a bit more that the why takes over.  The stories of people who are encountering the living Christ.  Their lives of being transformed from death to life.  The least of these of the world experiencing the life-giving power of Christ’s love through the merciful acts of his people.  They have names and faces and beautiful stories.  They represent marriages being made whole, childhoods being redeemed and futures for their children that are being created in Christ.

Tonight my friend Chris sent me a video that he shot while in Nicaragua.  We partnered with his church and another friend of ours named Greg and his church to pool our money at Christmas for the advent conspiracy and use it to build wells with Living Water, a well-drilling organization.  They shot a video of the celebration and dedication of a newly dug well for a group of people living in a garbage dump.  Little kids walked around in the most horrible conditions.  The only water they had came in every three weeks or so, plus whatever they could collect from the rain.  Imagine your child walking around a garbage dump for three weeks without a bath?  Exactly!  Hard to even imagine isn’t it?  Their prayer last Christmas was a simple one. “All we want for Christmas is a cup of clean water.”

The video that was shot was exactly a beautiful mess.  In the midst of these horrible conditions water began to flow from the well.  Kids played under the spouting fountain, with smiles that you have not seen on a child’s face even on Christmas morning.  The people from the states brought slip-n-slides, and little swimming pools and threw a huge barbecue to dedicate the well.  It was an amazing site, and all I could think was, what a God! What a God!

Those faces are still playing in my head as I write this.  Tomorrow my team and I will discuss How we are going to pull off another Advent Conspiracy Christmas.  There are tons of details, lots of questions and even more prayers.  I don’t know how we will pull it all off.  But I do know one thing.  We will.  Because the Why is so compelling, so God drenched and Kingdom fulfilling that it can’t be stopped.

So just a word of encouragement as you find yourself flying into the fall with the task master How whipping you on the back.  Put him in his place and stop for ten minutes, and remember why.  Because whatever you’re doing for the Kingdom is so much bigger than the details of how you’re going to do it.  And when the answer to why is deeply embedded within your heart it will be the creative drive that answers every how.

We just finished one of our all church events in the city called Love Portland

It was a great success as hundreds of people from Imago went out and served our city.  You can see a promo video for it here as well.

I am reflecting on it tonight and wanted to share some insights from the event.

1. The church is perhaps the most untapped resource in the world for good.

It is amazing to see what power there is in hundreds of people serving the needs of others.  The viral nature of just going out and doing good in the name of Jesus has unlimited potential.  The spirit of God orchestrates the most amazing connections and relational pathways to share the Father’s love with those who need it.  Story after story confirmed this. The brilliant design of Jesus in setting up the church amazes me.  You don’t have to be big to have influence for the gospel, you just have to love your city.  I started to wonder what would happen if every church in America just adopted a school that was economically depressed and loved the families in it in tangible ways.  Or, if every church took on a section of town that had great need and just tried to ask what would God have us do to demonstrate His love to this area.

2. Someone needs to lead.

It is so easy to sit around and read about someone else doing something - this article, that book, another great survey. Don’t you get sick of those stories? I do, because they are not our stories.  We are too content to just dream about what someone else is doing.  Pastors need to lead and quit waiting around.  Or, YOU need to lead.  Pick a place, get some friends give yourself to it.  We are suffering in the church - not from persecution but from our own apathy towards the things God cares the most about.  All that can change pretty quick if someone would simply lead.  It takes hard work, lots of conversations and lots of prayer and faith but soon you find yourself in the middle of something that is so big and redemptive that you could not imagine giving your life to something else.  But if no one leads nothing ever changes.

3. Doing what God loves changes us

I must have heard 20 people tell me how much it changed them to be involved with Love Portland.  They were able to risk relationally, give sacrificially, and let go of their preconceived notions of what THOSE people are like. The heart of God is always moving us toward the other, and often that is the very place our own hearts don’t want to go.  But when the Spirit breaks through and we do what God prompts us, we receive the most.  It is one of those upside down paradoxes of the Kingdom of God.  We give to get, we die to live, we become greatest by becoming least.  If we really believe what Jesus is teaching us we should boldly lead our people into this mission with the confidence that their own spiritual formation will be incomplete until they love each other.

4. Join the city in what they are already doing

Too often we (the church) think we need to invent and brand everything that we do in the city.  This just perpetuates the false shell of our own subculture.  Instead look for opportunities that already exist in the city.  There are tons of non-profits in your town.  They are dying for people who will join them in their work.  We get to saddle up to people who share Kingdom passion.  They may not know it is Kingdom passion because they may not know the King yet.  But as you serve them and with them serve others you gain a voice into their lives and they into yours.  You also build viability for the Gospel.  They begin to trust that you are not going to try to colonize their organization and make t-shirts that say “We saved Bob’s Aids Hospice.”

5. No Logo, No Ego

We are guilty in the church for wanting to take credit for everything we do.  That is quite different from not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing.  We call the press to come and see us put a blanket on a homeless guy.  I think Jesus has some pretty stern words for that.  Instead we are learning that in joining these others we don’t need to get our name on their letterhead.  In fact, our name never needs to be mentioned.  We just don’t even go down those roads.  If the press never learns of what we do, who cares?  The one who sent us sees it all and He is the one we are serving.

We are also learning to be humble.  It is too easy to announce that the church has found the answers to someone else’s problems and then present our 7 step strategy to fix it.  We don’t know their needs.  We don’t live in their world so we are learning to listen.  It is a lesson we keep learning.  Instead of telling them what we are here to do, we begin by asking what would be the greatest benefit to them.  What would they love for us to do?  Then we adapt to that and serve their needs. The end result is that at first they are astonished.  This is not the kind of help most are used to.  Then they begin to trust you.  This is trust you need to earn without a word, let your actions speak first.  Finally you get invited in for a long-term sustainable mission.

After the Love Portland event the other day one of the principals asked if we could come back throughout the year and lead their students in continuing to work on the garden and teach them principles of creation care.  The theater we worked at has opened their doors for us to do events on faith and art.  It doesn’t take much - just humility.

Part of leading our people into the mission of God is leading them to do justice.  We need to wed this piece tightly to the proclamation of the message of Jesus.  The irony is that one without the other is like offering someone a pair of pants with only one leg.  The message of a loving God who is bringing new life through Jesus’ death and resurrection is easy to hear after you have experienced that love through the justice of God’s people.

I could go on and on but those are some of the key things I am learning and I think they are essential for any church that wants to lead into mission. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

All out of Free ones!  Thanks to those of you who wrote reviews! 

Well, This Beautiful Mess is coming up on the one year release date and I realized that I have a few boxes left. If you are willing to post a review on your blog I would be happy to send you a free copy. Just shoot me an e-mail and an address and I will get it off to you. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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