There is no aspect of human life that is unrelated to the following of Jesus. The road passes through every dimension of our existence… A spirituality is not restricted to the so-called religious aspects of life: prayer and worship. It is not limited to one sector but is all-embracing, because the whole of human life, personal and communal is involved in the journey. A spirituality is a manner of life that gives profound unity to our prayer, thought, and action.

~Gustavo Gutierrez, We Drink From Our Own Wells.

After Dave Gibbons spoke it was lunch time. I had driven by a Carls Jr. on the way in and thought of going there for lunch, about a 10 minute drive. But on the way to my car I got a bit confused about how to get back to my car.

The event was at Mariner’s church after all, a pretty big church, with a bit of a stream running through it and all kinds of different buildings, a real campus. Worked out for me. Walked by their bookstore, which I saw had a bit of a coffee shop/grill inside. I went inside. Hardly any line (that was to change in about 3 minutes). Got a bacon cheeseburger and a coke, then went outside to sit all by my lonesome. So introverted of me!

That’s where I caught up on my attempts at live-blogging and realized my attempts at live-blogging just weren’t going to be successful.

I shut my computer and went for a long walk around the campus. Sat on a bench near a fountain. Just enjoyed the sun.

Then went to hear Dan Kimball.

He is in a special category for me, truth be told, even though we’ve never met. Every time I’ve run across his writings in various emerging books or forums I tend to agree with his positions. In the book Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Churches there are five emerging church leaders represented. Each, I realized, fits along a theological spectrum. Of these five, I would most closely align with Kimball’s positions, and his attitude.

But that’s not the special category. Dan Kimball endorsed my book, and his doing that was a wonderful encouragement to me and my efforts.

Before the session began I walked up and introduced myself, we chatted a bit–small talk mostly. That’s worth noting because I’m so not the ‘introduce myself’ type of person. I really have issues with the cult of celebrity that happens in the Evangelical world, and have kept away from a lot from conferences because of it. But, you know, he said, “What an encouraging, inspiring, and refreshing book to read! Often we forget the critical importance of acknowledging the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives that this book strongly reminds us of.” And, to me, that brings out a whole lot of gratitude from me. So, I had to say thanks in person.

I sat down, a little bit later he got started. This is what he had to say, or at least what he said that got into my sparse notes, mixed in with my own commentary.

Are our hearts open to people? Do we care for people?

That’s a key question, the question at the heart of mission. Not only pushing us to mission, but pushing us towards a certain expression of mission. There is a whole history of evangelism that doesn’t really care about people and is not open to them. It’s aggressive. It’s programmed. It’s less about others and more of a form of loosely disguised works righteousness. Do we really care about people. Not to make sure they know we’re right. Not to assert dominance or control over them. Do we care for people enough that we will share the reality of a more whole life?

With this includes the reality that we have to break stereotypes, the stereotypes of those outside the faith–who they are, what they are asking, what they seek. Just as, maybe more, vital is to break the stereotypes of Christians. We aren’t like Paul sowing where no others have been. The fields… they’re a mess, filled with flotsam and old cars and rusted refrigerators and all kinds of junk. It’s a burned over society we live in that thinks it knows what Christianity means and who Jesus is. The sad reality is that the loudest voices–those on television, those waving signs, those on the corner with a bullhorn–define the faith.

We have to, Dan Kimball says, reclaim what evangelism means.

Add to this the reality that Christians, when they become Christians, begin a process of separation. Their old culture is not their new culture, and it’s an easy thing to become engrossed in the same and similar. The longer we are Christians, Kimball noted, the lower number of non-Christians we hang out with. And far too often, the hanging out that does happen is artificial or targeted.

Having gone to Christian college, Seminary, lived in the rural mountains, and then back at seminary I’m certainly guilty of this. What’s interesting is that I don’t see it as all that hard to reach out. Be a person, that’s all. Have interests. Gather. This is something that has really hit me the last month or so. I’ve been back from the mountains only since January, back in the city, where there are so many people. I live in a seminary owned apartment complex. And really, I’m in this bubble of education.

I feel it, and want to stretch to get out, not because of evangelism… because I think people are generally fascinating and more so when they’re out of the normal experiences. I feel a need to go beyond the narrow borders for my own benefit, and maybe, just maybe I could add a bit of words or thoughts.

We are called out, called out by God, and then sent into the world. That’s different than the isolation of so much older church forms, where there was evangelism but it was more like a submarine exploring the ocean depths, always returning for more air, or a spaceship sent into the vacuum of space, and unnatural environment, meant for technical duties.

Kimball brought up John 17:15ff.

I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

We do not belong to the world, we belong to Christ, but we are not taken out of the world, but sent into it. We are sanctified and incarnated, representatives of Christ, bearers of the same Spirit.

Kimball noted 1 Peter 3:15-17

In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.

They ask us about the hope in us. That means we have to be present. We have to live the life of Christ in the places where people live, and work, and exist–where hope rather than fear, where hope rather than anger, where hope rather than aggression can be evident within the situations of life. With gentleness, with reverence, with hope, we share the faith in love. Faith, hope and love. So often evangelism is only about forcing the faith. We hope, live lives of hope, we become participants with the Spirit in the ways the Spirit is already working.

This means we have to recalibrate leadership in our era and we have to recalibrate the typical church use of buildings. Instead of the fort we all retreat to, or the home we never leave, the church becomes a training and support center. Leaders are not the centers of attention, they are the motivators, trainers, encouragers, teachers, prophets–creating context of development and edification that allow for us to be renewed in hope and built up in love for when we live our life with God, in this world, for this world, God will be seen clearly evident in us.

We’re all in transition. That’s the way of Christ to walk through these transitions with hope.

We’re all on mission. Kimball shared how when someone in his church goes through their version of membership class and finish they are treated like most churches treat missionaries on their way to a foreign land. The people are prayed over, commissioned, whether they are going to Uganda or down the block. It’s God’s work in mission, living life where the Spirit is calling.

Worship leads into community, which leads into mission, which leads into deeper theology, which leads into worship, and then into community, and into mission, and so on, and so forth

The key to all is being effective in the place, not imposing artificial methods that are out of the ordinary, but instead being truly present, truly participating in a place, along with the place. Debating if there it is a debate place. Eating if it is an eating place. Listening if it is a listening place. Chatting if it is a conversation place. Being truly there, only with the Spirit who is already there and doing more work than we might ever realize. We can only realize the Spirit’s work if we listen for the Spirit and walk with the Spirit and be truly in the place of our particular part of the mission.

Next up, Alan and Deb Hirsch.

My mind wandered a bit while listening to Dave Gibbons. Not in a bad, bored way. In a good way, the sort of way that is sparked by an interesting story or a brilliant comment that launches my brain into tangential directions.

He shared a story during his talk, a story about his mom. When he was younger, college age or so, he had a premonition that his mom was going to die. Instead of going off and away the whole summer he made the decision to spend his time with her, a woman who worked nonstop to provide her kids with a better life. She worked twelve hour days, about six days a week. He could have moved on and had fun. But he had that whisper. And he listened to it. He spent time with her. Took her to work, ate meals, shared moments. Some key moments. In late Fall she was killed by a drunk driver.

Dave Gibbons listened to this whisper and he was given a time with a dear woman he can treasure for the rest of his life.

He heard. He listened. He acted.

Discerning the Spirit isn’t necessarily a hard thing. I think the Spirit speaks pretty frequently and pretty broadly. The Spirit is the Spirit of life, and where life happens the Spirit is there. Moving, shaking, steering, pointing. Sometimes in grand ways, sometimes in seemingly restrictive ways.

We all, I think, hear the Spirit. But not everyone listens, and probably no one listens all the time. It’s a dance, and we’re not very good dancers.

Learning to hear the Spirit is not a matter of getting up one day, hearing a loud voice, and then walking that direction. Hearing the Spirit is listening to the small whispers on a regular basis, that say go, or stop, or wait, or jump. Almost always these are little things, and they happen all the time, every day maybe. Ninety-nine percent aren’t of any particular importance. Just little things, bits and pieces of life that add a sliver of smoothness or a tinge of chaos.

Do we listen to that voice?

The more we do the easier it becomes to hear, and to discern. Teaching discernment is almost impossible because of that fact. It’s a habit not a lesson.

And sometimes it’s counter-intuitive, pushing us into hardship, out of the flow, away from our ambitions. If we respond, however, we find a boon, a participation with God in which he trusts to push us more, sometimes even in the direction of more struggle, so that on the other side of this we are truly and wholly free, free to dance and sing and be.

With the Spirit, the little stuff is all the stuff. It adds up and is a constant training to determine who we truly are and who we truly want to be. We are confronted with moments of Hell or Kingdom at almost every juncture, and when we choose the better path in each wee little moment, we are literally choosing life.

Even if that means people disagree with us. They, after all, can’t give us eternity the way God can, just a bit of wan judgment that’s really not all that threatening in the long run.

Jonathan Brink posted a provocative comment about the Origins network, making note there are no women in the highest leadership team. I added my thoughts over at his post, as did a whole lot of others, many of whom were familiar to me.

Makes for a lively conversation.

At some point during the day I got to thinking about pushing this inclusion further. After all, the racial mix of Origins is nothing short of extraordinary given the typical emerging/missional reality. The whole day was pretty Southern Californian in its mix. Women, men, all sorts of races, all sorts of types.

I didn’t, however, see anyone who was handicapped. That’s a pretty major issue in this world. Health needs and concerns strike at the root of our being and affect how we view the world, how we interact as a Body. And for the most part it’s still a pretty ignored reality for most who live life healthy.

I’m not charging Origins and accusing them of dismissing the handicapped. I’m asking a bigger question, and one which hits across a whole lot of emerging/missional/traditional networks. Do we need representatives of every perspective at the highest levels in order to be free from perspective bias?

Jesus did not include women in his leadership team, nor the handicapped. He ministered to and with women, he loved the lepers and the lame, bringing holistic healing. Was he perspectively challenged as a young, healthy Jewish male in a Jewish dominated land?

What have we to learn from his ministry style and missional networking? I leave that question open.

What are your thoughts?

The first breakout session at the Origins day on Tuesday gave me a lot of options.

I had to find my box, after all. Was I a Pioneer, Entrepreneur, Innovator, Activist, or Explorer?

I don’t know. I’m a PhD student right now. What’s that? An Irrelevant? I turned the page to see if there was an Ivory Tower session where a balding man in a tweed coat discussed esoteric issues that would be sure to confuse the masses thus rendering them just senseless enough to beat them over the head and drag them into our church.

I don’t really have a particular sense of my own category. I’m not an activist, I know that, even as I affirm activism. I’m a contemplative, if anything, a guy who likes the mountains and forests and tends to be entirely introverted. That means I’m definitely not an entrepreneur. Which is good, because that’s a tricky word to spell a lot.

My family, historically, were pioneers, people who left the settled lands to find something unsettled. Pioneers were the kind of people who went west in a small group, gathering up their worldly possessions, leaving behind the known and safe, to find a better, more full life.

I like that. Maybe I’m a pioneer.

Dave Gibbons was the speaker at the first session of Pioneers. Now that’s even more interesting.

I’ve never heard him speak before, and only knew the barest about him, but I’ve been running into his church for about ten years or more. He started a church in Irvine in the early 90s. Called it Newsong.

I went to NewSong since 1992, worked there in various ways for a bit. “I go to NewSong,” I’d tell people who ask, and in Seminary lots of people ask. “Oh! I’ve heard of that, in Irvine!” they’d reply. “No, another one,” I’d say, “In Covina” or later I’d say “In San Dimas.” They got a new building.

NewSong in San Dimas hit it’s stride in the early 1990s and began a bit of a slide in the mid 90s, and quite the slide in the earlier parts of this decade. For a while there it was the NewSong to know. But, Dieter left, the mission became confused, people left, others came. It went from being on the cutting edge to being somewhere on the dull edge to being pretty far from the edge all together. It’s dangerous on the edge! A person might slip and fall or cut themselves. Better to gather everyone and move them away, fence off the edge altogether and arrange the occasional bus trip to have a look at it every so often, guided by a certain few ‘trustworthy’ guides who really never looked over the edge themselves as much as could talk about the dangers of edgeness and provide a certain comfortable fretting and theological sounding leadership points.

The other Newsong, the one in Irvine, became the Newsong to know, because Dave Gibbons started it, stayed with it, and led it through transitions finding a great rhythm along the way.

So, I went to be a pioneer and hear what Dave Gibbons had to say. Very glad I did.

Hear are my notes of what he said, with a bit of my own added commentary:

We are, he said, in a time of great transition. All of society is in transition. The church is in transition. The economic situation is in transition. Transition abounds. During times of transition your vision can get distorted.

My NewSong is certainly a testimony to this truth.

How we are engaging transition determines who we are and what we are to become. And so, it seems necessary to have, as Gibbons called it, a theology of transition.

For the church this transition involves transitioning from a powerful, commanding force who can institute its policies and assert them over people. Instead, the church now only has soft power, able to convince through attraction, discussion, earned influence. Coercion is no longer possible. We have to instead find community.

Gibbons turned to Luke 17:11ff for guidance.

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. hen Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

He made such good points that I, apparently, chose to listen more than write, so I don’t have written down his particular use of this passage. Sorry about that. It was good though.

My notes continue with his development of the points. He noted that the greatest miracles happen in the transitions.

In the transitions we discover hybrid models, neither old nor brand new, but rather a participation with both that allows for movement without demanding absolute change before moving. Gibbons example was the Toyota Prius. The Prius is the car to have because of its environmental presence in this Green moment. Toyota became the #1 car manufacturer, beating out for the first time GM. GM kept to the old model, not predicting the transition, making H3 in the face of a growing gas crisis. It’s what Americans bought, after all, what they wanted. Until, of course, they didn’t. And they didn’t pretty quickly. The Big 3 American manufacturers tanked. Required government intervention to avoid bankruptcy.

The Prius is not the perfect environmental car. It’s not wholly electric. It’s not solar powered. It is a step. A transition. Because Toyota predicted the transition, got a model into the mix, they became the leaders of this present moment. In the transition hybrid models become key, steps as the wider infrastructure changes.

In this, as Gibbons put it, we honor the past while we fuel the fringe. We’re good, after all, at condemning the past for all its mistakes, and church history is filled with them, as is present history. In emerging/missional it’s typical to criticize Hybels or Rick Warren or others for embracing the attractional consumerism. But, they were doing what they thought was right to do. They had a role, and indeed freed us all a bit for this moment in which we can make more steps, fixing what is broken, learning from mistakes and victories. Gibbons made the interesting point that his Asian heritage helps in this. Asian cultures honor the ancestors, their past. We can learn from that, even as we push towards what is new, and better, and more freeing.

In times of transition we discover intersectional living, where ideas, plans, problems, solutions, and teaching can come, and must come, from all kinds of directions. The church which is not in intersection is not learning, and indeed is likely missing the broad work of the Holy Spirit.

Transition also involves turbulence, and this turbulence leads to different emphases and different forms.

Gibbons then moves to his next emphasis, one I find particularly interesting given my recent studies.

There has to be a priority for the fringe. There has to be liberation.

“If you reach the marginalized, you reach the masses.” This is a huge statement, a complete transition from the older forms of evangelism typified by Young Life, who sought to first reach the influential then use their influence to reach the masses. But, in that the dominant remain the dominant, and the dominated remain the dominated. There is no real need for the Holy Spirit. People who are good at life aren’t desperate for God’s life and so won’t live, and change, in response to the curious calls of the Spirit. The desperate will. The outcasts will. The fringes will. They become illustrations of the Spirit, incarnations, taking up a life that this world did not offer and reflecting a life that is the life that is and is to come from God.

The key in this is not to perfect a system then implement. That was the trouble at my NewSong. They were so cautious they would take literally years in bureaucratic discussion, so trying to make everyone happy no one was happy. No one was helped. Nothing worked, and what was working was dismantled for the new system, so nothing was left.

Start walking, Dave Gibbons said. Start doing. The rules for revolutionaries include the fact that to make real change you have to “put out a version 1.0″. It’s not perfect, it’s not ideal, it’s not the best possible ideal, but it’s the something that can be tested in the wild, explored, poked, discovered, enhanced. Weaknesses can be seen, strengths enjoyed. Start. Do. Contribute. Don’t wait. Act. Make the change that can be seen and experienced, then make more changes. If you wait for the perfect, or sit on the past, you become GM, bankrupt and embarrassed. No one wants what you have to offer anymore.

Finally, Dave Gibbons talked about leadership. The sign of a mature leader, he said, is gratitude. Mature leaders are aware of the people around them, who contributes, who participates, who adds, who provides. They are aware of how they’ve been taught before and how they are still being taught from all directions. They are in constant amazement of the work of God that is going on around them, that doesn’t need them, but can use them. This is an issue of valuation, a realization that just because a person has been healed doesn’t mean they’re whole. Leaders, such as Moses, are constantly still being led and trained in their maturity and they need the whole people of God as guides and helps.

Because of this, relationships always trump vision. This is what I’ve long thought, but I’ve rarely seen in practice. In churches vision almost always has trumped the people. The people are allowed to drift away, they are tossed aside or abandoned for this sake of supposed vision. Jesus, however, was always about people. People are the vision he had. He saw them for who they were, truly saw them, was there with them.

Work with the Spirit, work with people. That is what shapes the vision and allows it to become more whole and more alive and more fruitful than ever thought possible.

That’s what Dave Gibbons had to say. He is, by the way, one of the three key figures who put together the Origins network. So, his thoughts on these things are an interesting perspective on Origins as a whole.

I have a tendency to go on and on about preliminary observations but not get to my actual main comments.

So, before the day is done I’m going to go ahead and make my post about at least one of the sessions.

Erwin McManus, pastor of Mosaic in Los Angeles and one of the main folks putting together the Origins network. Here are my notes, mixed with my commentary then and now:

Does what I’m doing matter? That’s a big question. Use of time and effort and energy. In this time of transition, transition of seemingly all of society, including the church, is what I’m doing matter?

How do we tweak the transition so what is done is done in a way that matters.

He reads Acts 17:16ff.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

The city was full of idols, McManus points out. So what does Paul do? Goes to the synagogue, talks to the already religious people.

McManus sees this as a cognitive dissonance, a contrast of goals and methods. I disagree with him. I think Paul followed a plan and was being led by the Spirit to do what he did. Paul wasn’t limited to a particular audience at this point. Nor was his message safe in any place. In a city filled with crime one might ask the police what they are doing. In a city filled with idols one might go and talk to those who are against idolatry, talking, listening, learning… indeed arguing. Paul was pretty sharp, and probably a bit beyond too much criticism as to his missional instincts.

McManus is making a particular point, however, and while I don’t think this passage in Acts was the best example (and maybe I heard his use of it wrong–that’s quite possible), he has good points to make.

And this is where the discussion of the three spaces comes up. This wasn’t new for me, as I’ve sat and heard others talk about this, and talked about it with others, McManus added some interesting texture.

First place. This is where I had to laugh at myself. After my comment before about seeing the guy looking at the bird and beach and sailing pictures I said there’s a guy I could be friends with. “There’s just something about him.”

It’s easy to be friends with people just like us. We like people who are just like us. People like us when we’re like them and they’re like us. We get each other. We’re comfortable. We share interests and we view the world the same way.

Churches are quite easily these kinds of places, especially in the buffet of churches we can choose from, picking among those we just fit with, so we can sit and interact feeling comforted by a lot of us gathered together talking about Him. This isn’t an evil, per se. Churches have a place, and a home, a first place where we invite others in to join us in our space, are natural human response.

The first place is the place of authority, of power, of comfort, of safety. The religious place.

The second place is the place we go out into as neutral ground. The marketplace. The place we work, the place others work. People are allowed to argue, to have opinions, to come from different backgrounds and expectations. The law says so. No discrimination. It’s not necessarily a free place, but in a way it is because the restriction itself forces us out of the place of power and comfort. Far too often Christians have sought to pull people out of these places, to pluck men and women out of the marketplace and put them into leadership in the first place, the church. We invite people from the second place to the first, so we can then get control and influence over them.

However, what if we were to maintain our relevance in the second place, excelling in our places so we become models and symbols of God’s life in us. We live the hope that is in us by living the life we are called to live, wherever we are called. We are called, as McManus says, to maintain relevance in the second place. Christianity that removes people from ‘the world’ is not the Christianity of Christ who came into the world to save the world. We like to make converts and then encourage them to disincarnate. We remove ourselves from life as most people know it to find safety in the pseudo-kingdom of the Christian bubble.

The third place is the place of gathering. Where others meet, not for a demanded cause or necessity, but because of some other voluntary choice. In these places we have no power, no inherent authority, no real control. We can’t force our way in and expect people to listen or care about our message. We can be invited. We can be humble, letting go what we think we are owed, and become incarnations in these places. We can have the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus. We can be a presence, and with that presence find conversation, friendship, camaraderie, respect flowing naturally as human community is good at, trusting that the Spirit who is working in us is working in this world. The Spirit who has called us, who fills us with Christ, is after all the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit who seeks the lost. The Spirit is the missionary who we follow. People aren’t looking for apologetics or encyclopedic knowledge, as McManus puts it. They are looking for presence. Most people are quite open to God, but they’re not open to manipulation or artificial interactions with ulterior motives. Even if we think we have a good cause, the cause is not furthered by pushing people away from God because of our own angst filled desires to make us feel like we’re about God’s work. It’s not works righteousness after all. We live in grace, we respond in grace, we walk with God in his work, trusting him to work. We called to show up, to be a presence, to be someone who listens and who, in the ripe moments, responds to questions asked and opportunities given–just as Jesus did.

We live life. We live life with God, and we live life among other people. We live life this way we bring God into spaces, not out of proselytizing fervor. Out of a love that loves as God loves, a patience that is patient as God is patient, a hope that hopes with God’s eternal hope. We live. We let others live as they will live. We are there to walk with the Spirit and be a light, as a light is needed.

This requires a deep spirituality, of course, something a lot of people are too impatient to find–to the detriment of all the spaces.

We live a life that deserves to be heard and people begin to listen and wonder and ask. Everyone, McManus says, has a potential created by God, yearned for by God, asked for by God, to enliven them. We can be bearers of this message of life. If we are able to truly see, truly “be there”, and speak the words that God is speaking in each moment. That’s a hope for people, not a hope for power.

To reach the third space, however, all too often (maybe always) a person has to give up popularity in the first space. We have to talk with those who are rejected and speak of God in ways that is uncomfortable. This isn’t heresy, this is Spirituality. Jesus was condemned for being a babbler, a drunkard, a glutton, who ate with sinners, tax collectors and lepers. He utterly rejected the charges religious people put against him, saying that those who called him a heretic, a blasphemer, did not themselves know the God they sought to serve.

And that’s the danger and challenge. We have to let go trying to fit in all spaces if we want to fit in the spaces God seeks us to be and is working. If we want to be God’s light in the third space we let go illusions of grandeur and safety in the first places.

That’s a huge statement. And a huge challenge. And a huge call.

McManus followed this up by saying, “They follow you, and learn to follow your identity, because they do not yet know God’s identity.”

That’s true. But that’s a bit troubling to me. Because no matter how much we know God, no matter how solid we are, we don’t have enough identity to give anything to others. The search for identity can only find sustenance and satisfaction in the Spirit, who is the bringer of whole life. I’m troubled a bit by this because the handing over of identity, and taking it up, is just about the most common reality in churches. That’s why pastors have so much power. People see their identity in their pastor, and pastors feed off the identity of their followers. Everyone loses, because no one, not even the pastor, is tapping into God.

We have to point always to God, letting people go away from us as they seek God’s work in their lives. Otherwise hierarchy and authoritarianism once again rule, grieving the Spirit.

And that’s my thoughts on this first Origins session.

The danger of growing up in the church, thriving in the church, being in the church for education and leadership and vocation, is that there’s a big danger of growing cynicism. The I’ve seen it all and I’m right about my negative comments attitude.

Perception is important and opinions are valid, but cynicism is a vicious beast that gets into the soul and undermines productivity, hope, passion, and life itself. It is a gateway drug to deeper sins if not addressed.

I’m trying to write my experiences at Origins yesterday as they came, so added my bit of snark as I wrote it down in my notes.

Next up on the page, just after a few lines about Erwin McManus’s introduction I have written in big letters, with a star next to it.

DON’T BE CYNICAL

I caught myself, caught myself assessing and critiquing rather than being in the moment, accepting what was given in the heart it was shared.

I didn’t want to embrace that attitude. It whispered at my soul and I indulged it for a moment, then said no.

This is an important post, a comment all by itself, because it’s easy not only for me, but for others in these new movements to become cynical, and suspect, and derisive of others. I heard the comments like I used made against others during the day–the sort of acceptable mocking of TBN, or Osteen, or others.

DON’T BE CYNICAL.

Get over it. If you’re caught in it through damage and disaster and hut that might take awhile. But get away from it.

It does no one any good, even if it feels good in the moment, justifying a hidden self-superiority. Be it whatever topic you want to choose such as women in ministry, or liturgy, or Scripture, or music, or personal grooming, or whatever–it’s a bad road to go down when the initial reaction always starts with a negative.

Don’t be cynical, Patrick.

Okay. I’ll try to do better.

A few weeks ago Amy and I felt a call, so we ventured outwards, into the city, to the blighted neighborhood called Beverly Hills.

We, in fact, drove over the hill from the Valley to get to the Hills where Wheaton Alumni were gathering for one of their occasional club meetings. The pastor of Beverly Hills Presbyterian graciously opened the doors of his church for our little gathering. He and his wife are also, apparently, Wheaton alums. We both knew the secret handshake created by Jonathan Blanchard and passed down generation to generation. They at the door recognized us as members of this not-so-secret society and allowed us entry where we were greeted by fellow alums and cocktail shrimps.

Jerry Root was the featured speaker.

I never had Jerry Root for a class. Amy did. In fact he was her advisor, and she was, in both their words, his “favorite student”. Though, maybe he says that to all his cute, singer/songwriter students. Indeed, my friend Peter had him while at Biola and Root was one of his favorite professors.

One more important thing to note. In September of 2007, as the story goes, I made my way to Wheaton for my 10 year reunion. Before that time I had been in various conversation with Amy. The talking had fallen into a decided lull by that summer before, and when I heard she was going to be in Wheaton at the same time as me I wasn’t sure whether to mention my own travel plans.

I did mention them. On my first day there we met up at Wheaton, in front of Blanchard Hall. We walked around campus, she being my companion to revisiting old haunts. Toward the end of the day she mentioned wanting to say hi to Dr. Root. I said, “okay!” We waited and talked outside his class until it was over in the late evening. Then went inside. They said hi, she introduced me to him, and we talked some more, moving on to his office after a bit. He had walked to class, and it was getting pretty late, so I offered to drive him back. He said sure thing, more chance to talk.

We piled into my rental car. I drove the few miles to his house. He invited us in.

Then he offered us something to drink.

While we talked I shared some Scotch with Dr. Root in his living room. Amy had mead. Didn’t like it over much. Her at least. I liked mine much.

Amy flew back home the next day. It was a nice afternoon of hanging out, a resurgence of a friendship.

I walked by Jerry Root later that week while he was talking to someone else. I forget the exact words but he said he enjoyed meeting me and hoped to see me at the wedding. Our wedding. Amy and my wedding.

That was a bit awkward. I chuckled kindly and moved along.

What I learned later was that he had included Amy on his list of people he prayed for everyday, and among the things he prayed for? That she would find a great husband.

So, I never had Jerry Root but in a way, without knowing my name, he had been praying for me for a long while too. And he was the first to see the future of Amy and me.

That’s worth enduring the struggles of Beverly Hills for. He talked. We chatted. Had a nice evening.

This was a long lead in to what I wanted to mention:

His lecture is now posted online:

Dr. Jerry Root, Assistant Professor of Evangelism/Associate Director of the Institute of Strategic Evangelism, Billy Graham Center

Spiritual Maturity and the Good News

In Romans 1 the Apostle Paul said the Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.” Throughout Church history, Christians have understood that the Gospel allows believers to redefine who they are in Christ. Christian maturity is growing in grace in a way that leads to the discovery of God’s purposes and calling in the believer’s life. Dr. Root will explore some features relative to how the Gospel transforms and redefines us by the love of God. By considering this, we can discover God’s intention for our lives—to use each of us “for Christ and His Kingdom.”

Have a listen to Jerry Root in this mp3 download.

As I mentioned yesterday, live-blogging the actual sessions didn’t work out. Some of the rooms had no internet access, and the others had rows of chairs that made typing onto a laptop a particular silliness.

But I took notes, and while my notes are not entirely coherent I’ll try to piece together the vague intended prompts I jotted down and see what comes up. There were five sessions total yesterday. Erwin McManus led the main session in the morning then the conference broke up into five different forums, each with three speakers. Erwin McManus led the ending session. Going to a particular forum did not commit a person for the day. I started off with the Pioneers, listened to Dave Gibbons and Dan Kimball, then wandered over to the explorers to hear Alan and Deb Hirsch.

Here are my now likely congealed notes from the opening session, or at least my attempt to make them somewhat palatable for the blog. Before Erwin McManus spoke there were assorted other introductory announcements, and other typical entertain the troops sort of stuff. I’ll start with these, and then work my way later into the actual lectures.

“Be Here”

That was the admonishment that was included with the opening comments. Preceded by more lively “can I hear you” sort of crowd wrangling and followed by announcements and such.

Be here. In an age of blogging, and twitter, and blackberries, we have a hard time being where we are at. We all have those friends who spend wherever they are at, whoever they are with, always somewhere else with someone else–texting, cell-talking, whatever.

We are never actually here.

So, when the call was made to ‘be here’ I appreciated that. There are relationships, insights, experiences that cannot be replicated, and if in our desire to process and share we are never ‘here’ we never really are alive. Amy has mentioned one problem she has with the scrapbooking world is the fact they are always about making the scrapbook about the experiences, so much so the scrapbook yet to be is always present, but the present is never itself present.

Pastors have this bad too. They are often always elsewhere, looking past the person in front of them. Looking around. It’s a frenzy of sorts, a technological acedia where nothing matters except what is elsewhere. The consequence, of course, is the loss of real contemplation, of real absorption, of indeed real spirituality. Jesus was marked quite clearly by truly being present. He was incarnation, and not just as a theological assertion. He was incarnated into each moment, each location, truly present in a way that truly acknowledged whoever was with him. People were alive and real and valued.

“Be here.”

I found it hard to be there, honestly, in the focus on enjoying the moment sort of way. I had that outsider perspective I mentioned yesterday. But this call hit me and I tried to ‘be there’ as much as I could.

This focusing, this getting people to realize their location and purpose was, in true churchy fashion, followed immediately by an improv comedy troupe who, after asking questions from the audience, decided to improv a skit on married love while at a Washington Nationals baseball game. Yes, I know. Extremely fitting for our immediate context. It was well done, but more in a clapping sort of way than a laughing. Mood breaker #1.

Following this there was video, a documentary type video about an artist focusing on “water art”. Well, mock documentary. It was making fun of pretentious creative explorations that seem to be so common. Ha ha. It’s an emerging/missional conference… ha-ha artists are dumb! Not like us pastors with our wit and snappy ways of talking that everyone finds so important and charming!

Next there was music, a woman with a guitar on a stool, next to a man with a guitar also on a stool. She sang.

I’ve been spoiled. Amy is really good at that sort of thing. Amy has friends who are really good at that sort of thing. I thought the singer was good but a bit too affected for my tastes, too much voice modulation seeking after the edgy angsty songwriter style. Too… intentional about it. I’m not a much of a music critic though, so I’ll bow to those with better sensibilities.

Found out that this all was contributions by folks from Mosaic, a sort of intro to the world we were about to hear about.

After this, Erwin McManus came up and began to talk. I’ll get to my notes about him in the next post. For now, I’ll just add that, for whatever reason, his style and delivery reminded me quite a bit of Jeff Goldblum. I’d never noticed that before.

Had the main intro session, with Irwin McManus as the main speaker, then had my first Lab session with Dave Gibbons.

I’m resistant to popular preachers. I go in with a bit of cynicism, and I acknowledge that. So, I somewhat am instinctively looking for a disagreement, not to be pulled in.

But…

I liked Irwin McManus. A big step for me, as I’ve not liked it when I’ve heard him before–always a great preacher, but there was in the past an undefined frustration I didn’t know what to do with but left a bad taste in my mouth, and not because of the usual reasons people dismiss emerging/missional/pomo/etc. preachers. Nothing new in his message–another “1st, 2nd, 3rd space” message. Maybe it was that he worked with 1st and 2nd spaces more than most, leaving only a tiny bit at the end for 3rd.

If you don’t know what this language means… don’t worry. It’s likely that feels natural to you, but is only something that pastor and minister types might find radical.

Next up was Dave Gibbons of New Song church. No, the other one. Not the one I went to. The one that kept its mission and matured with it rather than falling into the grasp of pseudo-Leadership gurus and ego-management enablers who thought doing something new was about doing things 20 years old, making the church fully embrace that which other churches were realizing was causing the problems. My NewSong became that which it was formed to contrast. The other New Song, in Irvine, Dave Gibbons church still is pushing the edge.

And while I’m resistant to big church pastors these days. I really liked what he had to say.

It was new for these circles in a refreshing way, and encouraging because he, in practice, is basically working out a lot of what I’ve been seeing in ministry and theology over the years. A confirmation of sorts, said and acted on much better than I have.

It’s weird because I hear in his words a bit of what I was pushing in my own NewSong, but couldn’t find voice or influence and was pushed aside for pepole with better resumes and more ingratiating smiles.

That’s not a bitter comment, well maybe a little it is. More so, I am in the place God wants me now, doing what he wants me to do. There are a lot of people now making the moves in ministry that need to be made, but not too many yet in theology. That’s changing and I’m hoping to be part of that change, especially since now I’m finding approval and camaraderie at Fuller to do this present task.

I’m not happy blogging while they’re talking, so I took notes. I’m going to go through those notes tomorrow or so and write up better each of the particular insights the speakers had, so bear with me as I put off for later in writing what I thought would be good writing today.

Next up… Dan Kimball.