DanSheffield

spiritual maturity -- a possession or a process?

I'm reading a thoughtful little book by  Asbury Seminary prof, Robert Mulholland Jr, Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation. Here's a sample:

I do not know what your perception of Christian discipleship might be, but much contemporary Christian spirituality tends to view the spiritual life as a static possession rather than a dynamic and ever-developing growth toward wholeness in the image of Christ. When spirituality is viewed as a static possession, the way to spiritual wholeness is seen as the acquisition of information and techniques that enable us to gain possession of the desired state of spirituality. Discipleship is perceived as "my" spiritual life and tend be defined by actions that ensure its possession. Thus the endless quest for techniques, methods, programs by which we hope to "achieve" spiritual fulfillment. The hidden premise behind all of this is the unquestioned assumption that we alone are in control of our spirituality. In brief, we assume we are in control of our relationship with God.

When spirituality is viewed as a journey, however, the way to spiritual wholeness is seen to lie in an increasingly faith response to the One whose purpose shapes our path, whose grace redeems our detours, who power liberates up from crippling bondages of the prior journey and who transforming prescence meets us at each turn in the road. In other words, wholistic spirituality is a pilgrimage of deepening responsiveness to  God's control of our life and being

ecclesiological shifts - Murray

Almost a decade ago, I read Stuart Murray's Church Planting: Laying Foundations. Finally, someone with a theological reflection on pragmatic, church growth-style methods and metrics -- who also had significant 'hands-on' planting experience -- a reflective practitioner. A few years later he wrote Church After Christendom, speaking out of his experience in Britain (not the USA). He offers several markers for viewing our present ministry context:

• the church has moved from the center to the margin
• Christians now represent a minority opinion
• Christians are no longer 'settlers' shaping the heart of society, but sojourners, aliens, pilgrims who are no longer 'at home'
• In the past Christians had special status (ie tax-free properties, etc), now we are just one community among many in a plural society
• Christians no longer have power or control, we can only exercise influence through witnessing to our story and its implications
• We are no longer maintaining a supposedly Christian status quo, we are on mission within a contested environment
• Institutional approaches to church life must be renewed again to function as movement

 

Well, He is.

quote from Canadian novelist David Adams Richards...

I believe all of us, even those who are atheists, seek God -- or at the very least none of us would be unhappy if God appeared and told us that the universe was actually His creation. Oh, we might put Him on trial for making it so hard and get angry at Him, too, but we would be very happy that He is here. Well, He is.

 

authentic engagement

I tend to throw around, in conversation, the phrase "authentic engagement." I know what I am thinking as I use that language, but not everybody I talk with does.

I've been reading a book by Robert Quinn, entitled: Building the Bridge As You Walk On It: a guide for leading change. Quinn gives a definition of 'authentic engagement'

this person is principled and ethical while also involved and engaged. The person thus brings an integrated, whole, or authentic self to his or her activity. When this happens, he or she experiences increased awareness and accesses resources not available in a less integrated state. The person loves what he or she does, which becomes a calling or labour of love.

When I use the phrase it is often in the context of leadership in Christian community. That is, we need principled, disciplined, self-aware, vulnerable, teachable leaders who bring all of those qualities to the practice of their everyday involvement with people who are seeking spiritual direction and those who are actively following Jesus. The tendency is always to swing to one side or the other -- the principled, ethical person who is not actively engaged, which comes across as self-righteous -- or the commited, active, engaged person who is lacking principles or spiritual foundation, which comes across as pragmatic or compromised.

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]

Pinnock tribute at SBL

At the recent meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, evangelical theologian and blogger, Scot McKnight was asked to give a tribute to Dr Clark Pinnock who passed away last year in Hamilton, where he was professor emeritus at McMaster Div College (one of my alma maters). I am, of course, always happy to reflect on the life and work of Clark, who lived in the same neighbourhood where my family lived for several years.

Clark Pinnock and the New Testament: 

A Man on the Move

When I was asked to offer a presentation about Clark’s hermeneutics I thought back to my college days when I bought and read his 1971 book called Biblical Revelation. That book was one of the impulses that made me think of studying at Trinity because Clark taught there, though by the time I arrived Clark had moved on to Regent and then to McMaster. The invitation also made me think of Clark’s “revision” of that book on Scripture in his book The Scripture Principle, which I still think was a courageous book in its day.

for the rest of Scot's post, look here

conscientious objection from FMs during WWI

Came across an interesting historical note in a book published just a couple years ago, Crisis of Conscience: conscientious objection in Canada during the First World War, by Amy Shaw.

It specifically references several Free Methodists who sought to register as conscientious objectors but instead were court-martialed and jailed.

The Toronto Globe reported that one 20-year-old from Housey's Rapids, Ontario, justified his behaviour by referring to the biblical injunction "Thou shalt not kill." Furthermore, "he had never seen anything in the Bible justifying revenge, and because he was a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus he refused to take up arms." His older brother also objected saying, "Because the Lord's word tells us to not take part in any of the things of this world, I object to perform any kind of military service."

Both were sentenced to life imprisonment in Kingston Penitentiary, but were discharged in Feb 1919, after the end of the war.

read the clip in google here.

the white poppy in Canada

reflecting God's glory together

newly published book from William Carey Library -- Reflecting God's Glory Together: Diversity in Evangelical Mission, includes a chapter I wrote, "Can Multicultural Social Theory Help Us in Leading Multicultural Faith Communities?"

A version of the paper can be Download Can Multicultural Social Theory-EMS.

the antidote to craving

When our happiness fails to appear -- when we are tired, weary, and spent -- we turn to the marketplace for help. There, we are offered something that looks very much like happiness -- a tantalizing substitute for happiness -- something more easily acquired, more quickly and conveniently bought and sold. We are offered the satisfaction of desire...

The more hurried and rushed we are, the more we are willing to trade happiness for desire -- and, over time, the less we are able to discern the difference between the two...

The antidote to craving is rest; we quench our thirst with sabbath tranquility. We invite a time in which we can taste what we have been given, take delight in what we have, and see that it is good. We focus less on our lack, and more on our abundance. As we do, our thirst and hunger for more than we need begins to fall away...

If we do not disengage, if we stay on the wheel of desire, if we do not stop and pray and walk, the pattern of our addictive craving is free to escalate without limit, until we inadvertently create a terrible suffering for ourselves and those we love.

Meister Eckhart, the medieval Christian mystic, asserted that if the only prayer we ever prayed our whole life was "thank you," that would be enough. Gratefulness cultivates a visceral experience of having enough.

from Wayne Muller's Sabbath.