DanSheffield

Frank Viola on what's central to the church's life and mission

Frank Viola is a thoughtful, reflective practitioner. Here are some recent thots from his blog.

The big sweeping epic of God’s timeless purpose is centered on a bride, a house, a body, and a family. These four elements make up the grand narrative of the Bible. The mission of God—the Missio Dei—is wrapped up with each of them.

God’s mission demands more than a theological head-nod of agreement. It demands practical expression. The Lord wants a people who embody the bride, the house, the body, and the family in every city on this planet.

In this post and the next, we will briefly explore the practical question of what it looks like when a local fellowship of believers fulfills what God is after and His eternal purpose moves from eternity to here.

He goes on to flesh out what he means by connecting

• Communion and the bride
• Corporate display and the house
• Community life and the body
• Commission and the family of God in every city

Read the rest of his post here.

traditional western aid has had its day

Ben Knapen, the minister of international cooperation for the Kingdom of the Netherlands has an interesting perspective on international aid. The Netherlands has an excellent track record of insightful development practices around the world. Here are a couple thoughts from his article in DEVEX...

A third reason behind the disappearance of the old aid architecture is the change in global poverty patterns. To begin with, the number of poor countries is on the decline. The International Development Association, the division of the World Bank concerned with lending money to poor countries, is expected to lose more than half of its clients in the next 10 to 15 years. At present, 68 countries are categorized as “poor”; by around 2025 that number will have fallen to around 36. Most of them will be those tragic places we call “failing states”: Afghanistan, Yemen, Congo and the like.

The idea of spending a proportion of gross domestic product on development aid originated in a world that came in only two flavors: poor countries and rich countries. The aim of development aid was an international and more equitable redistribution of wealth. But the spectacular drop in the number of poor countries shows that the dominant practice of dividing the world into poor countries and rich countries is no longer accurate.

See the whole article here.

Transitioning to a multicultural congregation

Thanks to Missio Dei, the online journal of Tyndale Seminary in Toronto for publishing an article I wrote on the process of transitioning to a multicultural congregation.

In the 1980s a new church was ini­ti­ated in the north-​​west Greater Toronto Area. It was devel­oped as an essen­tially white, Anglo-​​European back­ground con­gre­ga­tion. Early on, how­ever, peo­ple from other cul­tural back­grounds began to attend largely because of a per­ceived com­mon denom­i­na­tional her­itage. In the mid-​​90s the con­gre­ga­tion went through a lead­er­ship hem­or­rhage that left the group with a largely Caribbean-​​background mem­ber­ship. For almost a decade they have been led by an Anglo-​​European back­ground pas­tor with a degree of inter­cul­tural sen­si­tiv­ity. Now their con­gre­ga­tion is at a cross­roads and the pas­tor is won­der­ing how to engage his lead­er­ship team in a dia­logue about becom­ing an inten­tion­ally mul­ti­cul­tural com­mu­nity. One leader spelled it out: “we are multi-​​ethnic in com­po­si­tion, but it’s really only one cul­ture group that influ­ences the decision-​​making.”

look here for the rest of the article

Howard Snyder on "Creation Healed"

Just finished reading Howard Snyder's Salvation Means Creation Healed.

Here is a video clip of him giving an interview that summarizes nicely his thoughts in the book very well.

 

Kurelek Christmas - The Holy Family as [Inuit]

My favourite Christmas reflection -- artwork and narrative. Canadian artist William Kurelek's A Northern Nativity: christmas dreams of a prairie boy is a stunning collection of images and incarnational imaginings.  Kurelek (1927-1977) based this book on his own childhood dreams (in the Depression years) coupled with his adult life experience -- on the theme that Christ came to all people, everywhere. What would happen if He came now? He imagines that the nativity takes place in northern snows. He dreams that the Christ child is born to Eskimos, to Indians, to Blacks, that the Nativity takes place in a fisherman’s hut, a garage, a cowboy’s barn, that the holy family is given refuge in a city mission, a grain barn, and a country school. Try getting through one page without tears... that the God of the universe knows, recognizes, accepts and incarnates in all cultures, spaces and worldviews.

The Holy Family as [Eskimo]

Against a deep black sky, the northern lights play -- and the perpetual night of outer space is pricked with the sharp jabs of a million stars. Fluted snow fields stretch toward the horizon where hummocky crags of ice have been piled up by the crunch of the tide against the land. In a seal hunter's half-igloo shelter sit a woman and child. The child is fondling a roly-poly husky pup. Nearby, a fur-clad man is tending some sleigh dogs. Around his head, a strange light flickers. It also surrounds the faces of the mother and child.

A surge of excitement fills Willam as he recognizes the Holy Family -- the simple, saintly Joseph; the virgin Mary, gentlest of mothers; and the infant Jesus, the Son of God Himself.

William feels an urge to sing in celebration of the scene. But the words of the carol come out jumbled... "And Arctic nature sings, and Arctic nature sings..." He sees himself asleep at the edge of the dream, and he wants to wake himself up so that he will remember forever the picture and the joy it brought him.

[see last year's post, here]

top 3 posts on my blog in 2011

Google analytics tells me that the top three posts viewed on my blog in 2011 were:

Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, over at my Multicultural Leader blog

Mubarak: shame and honour; interesting how things have turned out in Egypt now...

Neighbourhood stumbling blocks;

there's light beyond the thicket and the fog

pic from earlier this week, while retreating, reading and writing...

is what we are doing (in our congregational life) making disciples?

with some colleagues I have been doing some reflecting the last few weeks on "discipleship" and what we are really supposed to be doing with this thing we call 'church.'

It's interesting to note that nowhere in the new testament are we asked to 'plant churches.' Partly because, if we are 'in Jesus,' we are the Church, the body of Christ; in that sense, God has already 'planted The Church.'  What we are given is the mandate to 'make disciples.' Try this... Jesus said,“I’m leaving; the Holy Spirit will guide you; now go and make disciples yourselves – incorporate them into our family and help them learn to be a follower in the same way I taught you!”

So, as we go about this business of 'making disciples,' people are naturally brought into a collective/community setting -- cuz that's how Jesus did it. That little 'called-out', counter-cultural, collective/ecclesia is the setting in which we make disciples. I think our greatest challenge is that we have made the assignment about "initiate a collective and find ways to sustain it," rather than about the real assignment -- make disciples.

Then we get preoccupied with those elements that sustain a congregation: worship, community, spiritual formation, service, and evangelism -- all necessary, but not the main point of congregational life. Congregational life is just a context to 'make disciples.' But what if we asked ourselves -- is what we are doing (in our congregational life) making disciples?, or just forming Christian consumers/attenders/congregational sustainers (or whatever...)?

Overlay the "things" we do in the name of church in that box where it says 'make disciples' and ask, "are we making disciples as we do these things?"

And that is a profoundly Wesleyan question as well. This is one of my favourite John Wesley quotes:

"What is the end (or purpose) of all ecclesiastical (church) order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God, and to build them up in His fear and love? Order, then, is valuable so far as it answers these ends; and if it answers them not, it is worth nothing."

 [hang on, for further thoughts on "what kind of disciples are we making, with the things we do?"]

 

josh garrels -- music for the soul and mind

Thanks to Al D. for pointing me in the direction of Josh Garrels, a great singer-songwriter.

So far, this is my favourite -- a revisiting of the old gospel song, "Farther Along"

Read his lyrics here/below and then give a listen to the live performance

 
Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by

Tempted and tried, I wondered why
The good man died, the bad man thrives
And Jesus cries because he loves em’ both
We’re all cast-aways in need of ropes
Hangin’ on by the last threads of our hope
In a house of mirrors full of smoke
Confusing illusions I’ve seen

Where did I go wrong, I sang along
To every chorus of the song
That the devil wrote like a piper at the gates
Leading mice and men down to their fates
But some will courageously escape
The seductive voice with a heart of faith
While walkin’ that line back home

So much more to life than we’ve been told
It’s full of beauty that will unfold
And shine like you struck gold my wayward son
That deadweight burden weighs a ton
Go down into the river and let it run
And wash away all the things you’ve done
Forgiveness alright

Chorus

Still I get hard pressed on every side
Between the rock and a compromise
Like the truth and pack of lies fightin’ for my soul
And I’ve got no place left go
Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown
More glory than the world has known
Keeps me ramblin’ on

Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall
I’m free to love once and for all
And even when I fall I’ll get back up
For the joy that overflows my cup
Heaven filled me with more than enough
Broke down my levee and my bluff
Let the flood wash me

And one day when the sky rolls back on us
Some rejoice and the others fuss
Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess
That the son of god is forever blessed
His is the kingdom, we’re the guests
So put your voice up to the test
Sing Lord, come soon

Chorus

Egypt -- alternative reflections

An estimated 70,000 Egyptian Christians gathered on November 11, 2011 for praise, worship, and prayer at St. Simon Church in Cairo while millions around the globe followed the event live on TV and the Internet. This was a significant event: It was the largest Christian gathering in the modern history of Egypt; it brought together, for the first time, all Christian denominations: Coptic Orthodox, Catholics, and all branches of Protestant and Evangelical Christians. The prayer meeting that started at 6:00 PM continued uninterrupted till 6:00 AM the following day!

Canadian evangelical leader, Brian Stiller comments here on this prayer event, as well as the current situation in Egypt.

Tyndale Seminary prof, Dr Wafik Wahba, offers this interpretation of life in Egypt since the "Arab Spring"

This historic day of prayer took place at a momentous juncture considering the current situation in Egypt. Nine months to the date, on February 11, 2011 the former President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, was forced out of office. The January 25th leaderless revolution, that surprised the world, seemed to have succeeded in putting an end to decades of oppression and corruption. However, the following nine months saw nothing but chaos, brutality, and frustration. More than 12,000 people have been detained and tortured by military tribunals mainly for speaking up against the injustices and lack of freedom. Hundreds of people have lost their lives due to the lack of security. Tourism and the economy in general are on a free fall since the revolution. A sense of despair and frustration is gripping the people, especially the younger generation, who stood up against the escalating injustices and paid with their lives demanding freedom and basic human rights. The culmination of this sense of despair reached an unprecedented level on October 9, 2011 when the army brutally massacred 27 Christians and injured more than 300 in downtown Cairo. The peaceful demonstrators, both Christians and Muslims, were demanding basic human rights respecting the establishment of places of worship that were previously destroyed by the government. They took their frustration to the streets in peaceful demonstrations after repeated attacks on churches, Christians, homes and businesses owned by Christians. The demonstrators were run over by military tanks that literally crushed them. This was seen around the globe and was condemned by international governments and human rights’ groups, however, no word of apology was offered by Egyptian officials.

see more of his commentary here