DanSheffield

formation for the wilderness (1st Sun, Lent A)

My normal process in preparing for Sunday gathering reflections is to read through the Lectionary readings for my devotional times in the week before. This morning I read Matthew 4:1-11, where Jesus was led by the Spirit to spend 40 days in the wilderness. I've reflected on this passage, taught on it and preached from it many times over the years. Lots of insights to be gleaned here.

But today I paused again on Jesus' responses to the tempter. There's no discussion, debate, just simple responses from scriptures that he would have been raised with, taught and had memorized. Jesus understood clearly what the tempter was asking in each movement of this passage. He understood because he had a deep picture of God's purposes from the beginning, and he knew there were forces at work trying to dislodge those purposes. Jesus rooted his responses in what God had already said to his people through the writers of Israel's scriptures -- "it is written." When the tempter tried to get Jesus' mind onto human, self-centred possibilities, Jesus refocused on the God of human history.

I think we have to pay attention to the formation of Christian identity and worldview if we want to survive the wildernesses that will come. I engage with lots of Christians who have little or no intentional formation of Christian identity and worldview and see them swinging from one extreme to another in the current social media polarization over so many issues in the public square. We don't get to the place of responding as Jesus did, without deep formation and rootedness.

I've also been reading N T Wright's, Scripture and the Authority of God this past week or so. 

Reading and studying scripture has been seen as central to how we are to grow in the love of God; how we come to understand God and his truth more fully; and how we can develop the moral muscle to live in accordance with the gospel of Jesus even when everything seems to be pulling the other way. 

Wright goes on to say that many denominational groups have written "massive treatises or doctrinal compendia on every possible issue, as though to close things down and relieve ordinary Christians of the need to read, think, and pray with a fresh mind." He suggests that our churches need to insist that reading scripture remains the focal point of our public worship. If the majority of people in our worship communities don't read any scripture during the week, and only have a few sermon text verses read on Sunday, we are not engaging in intentional formation of Christian identity. And our people will be overwhelmed by the wilderness times we are living in.

 

things fall apart

Terror, Brexit and U.S. election have made 2016 the year of Yeats’s ‘Second Coming’ https://t.co/JLmOMCCJRD via @WSJ

A poem written by W B Yeats in 1919, just after WW 1.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

transformation of patience

Just about finished The Patient Ferment of the Early Church by Alan Kreider. Toward the end of the book, he draws a contrast between the practices of the early church in regard to formation and witness, with the emergence of imperial influence (Constantine) on those practices.

When Roman Emperor Constantine began to identify with the Christian faith (around 312AD) subtle shifts emerged in Christian theology and practice which have continued to be factors to the present day. Constantine refused to submit to the normal catechetical practice of the Christian community -- a process of formation, over several years, which focused on reformation of behaviour to match the teachings of Jesus, then baptism and entry in the faith family via the Lord's supper, when biblical teaching and theology moved to the forefront of the ongoing formation process. Constantine said, "thanks, but I will figure it out through my own study." Effectively moving belief to the forefront and behaviour as optional. Constantine was only baptized shortly before his death because he felt the submission of his behaviour to Christian community and teaching might be incompatible with the tasks required of an emperor.

So what changed because of the influence of Constantine and the emergence of Christendom? Kreider suggests 5 areas.

1. Control. Christians had long experience of trusting God for the future. They were reluctant to engage in any kind of strategic thinking about mission (it's completely absent from early church writings). There was no need to manipulate people or events -- it was the exemplary life of Christian communities that attracted people to Jesus. Constantine, on the other hand believed and encouraged church leaders to use means to obtain their desired outcomes. He thought about planning, control and instrumentality all the time, as emperor, why shouldn't church leaders think the same way?
2. Use of Power. Early Christians had no temporal power, so couldn't imagine its use as an instrument of conversion. Any "power" they had was in their own financial resource base and sacrificial service to the needy. The development of generosity and service came about as the result of Christian formation, without the intention of wielding them as a power base. Constantine, on the other hand, offered the power of the state to promote conversion to Christianity. State funds were given for the relief of the poor "as an incentive to turn to the Saviour's teaching." State funds subsidized the construction of Christian worship facilities.
3. Religious coercion. Early Christians didn't believe that worship could be compelled. Tertullian said "compulsion is not God's way of working." Lactantius, an early teacher of Constantine, emphasized, "we teach, we show, we demonstrate." Constantine, on the other hand, used force to crush Christian minority (heretical?) groups and used legislation to intimidate, purify and reject dissent. 
4. Urgency. Early Christians trusted in God's goodness, were relaxed and patient about God's purposes coming to fruition. Christian formation took place over time (up to 3 years of intentional development) to reform behaviour and worldview according to Jesus' teaching and practices. Then seekers were baptized and admitted to the Lord's supper as well as the full Christian community. Constantine, on the other hand had a sense of urgency to standardize, to bring conformity or "homogenization" (perhaps he felt this was necessary for stability in the empire). He was too impatient for the normal catechesis process and baptism. By this impatience he set a precedent, that baptism was not necessary to enter into life as a follower of Jesus, but only to avert eternal damnation. Behavioural formation was not as significant as right belief.
5. Conversion. Early Christians were convinced that conversion was a process that took place over time, it was not an instantaneous or speedy thing. It went deep, it was not superficial. Constantine set the precedent for adhering without submitting to the Christian community or the Christian life. You could pick and choose which parts of the Christian faith fit your lifestyle.

Kreider's summary thought is that it became very difficult for Christian leaders to maintain their beliefs, values and practices once they were presented with power, resources and legitimacy.

...for those with ears to hear...

Casual Contact

I'm digging into Alan Kreider's new book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. Think of it as a major update on Michael Green's classic from several decades ago, Evangelism in the Early Church -- a book that profoundly impacted my thinking and practice.

"If the early church had strategies for converting people, they did not teach these or write about them. As Origen put it in a Sunday sermon:

"You catechumens -- who gathered you into the church? What goad compelled you to leave your houses and come together in this assembly? We did not go to you from house to house. The Almighty Father put this zeal into your hearts by his invisible power."

"How then did the church grow? Scholars have seen the church's growth as coming about through something modest: "casual contact." Contact could come about in innumerable ways through the translocal networks of family and profession in which most people participated. Masters interacted with slaves; residents met neighbours; and above all believers networked with relatives and work colleagues. In all these relationships "affective bonds" were formed. The most reliable means of communicating the attractiveness of the faith to others and enticing them to investigate things further was the Christians' character, bearing, and behaviour. The habitus of the individual Christian was crucial."

Reflecting on "Gutsy"

Good books, whether fiction or non-fiction (and I read a lot of both), 1) keep your attention -- you want to see where the story is going to take you, and 2) they give you pause to reflect on your own story and memories -- you feel the story because it resonates, somehow, with your own. That is what reading Jared Siebert's book, Gutsy: (Mis)Adventures in Canadian Church Planting did for me. I like the front cover picture even -- a kid in a superhero costume diving into the deep end of the pool!

(Disclaimer: Jared is a long-time colleague of mine with whom I have worked on a lot of projects over the years, including him being the denominational overseer for the faith community experiment my wife and I have been involved in for the past 7 years.)

This book kept my attention because Jared gave an update and an analysis of a story that some of us have been following over the past couple decades in Canada. The story of real attempts to birth faith communities that resonate with people living outside Christendom in our Canadian context. I have met a good number of the church planters in his book and know something of their stories. And I have been involved in trying to respond to some of the same concerns they were exploring as they planted.

This book also gave me pause to reflect on my own story -- it resonated as authentic. My wife and I were involved in the successful planting of a missional, multicultural church in urban South Africa in the 1990s. "Successful" in the sense that a continuing congregation was birthed; that we met the goals and intentions of the original vision; and that we both had a positive experience of leading a supportive, encouraging core team. The book also gave me pause to reflect on our second, more recent experience that has been markedly different. A key factor, of course, is that South Africa is still profoundly impacted by Christendom -- doing a few things differently and well, meant that people joined in with us. Canada, on the other hand, and the city we have been living in, has left Christendom behind. We did not attempt to engage with church people, or people with Christian memory, we have been engaged with people having no religious affiliation, perhaps even mildly hostile to the Christian story. And so the stories in Jared's book resonate deeply with me. Our work has largely been an experiment in imagining how different forms and approaches to Christian community will connect. Very similar to the stories in the book.

Chapter 7 in the book, "Do you know what success looks like?" was helpful. He says, "It is most important that church plants have a clear sense of their collective calling... your calling can be found in the reasons you decided to plant in the first place." That prompted my memories back to the first urges my wife and I had in 2009 about what we felt the Lord was calling us to do. 

Thanks for your service to the Canadian church and church planters in doing this work, Jared.

mission, witness and prevenient grace

I just finished reading my friend and missionary colleague Chris Payk's great little book, Grace First: Christian Mission and Prevenient Grace in John Wesley. It is the product of his master's thesis a few years ago, with a foreword by Howard Snyder. Chris and family are have been living in Taipei, Taiwan for some years and he is starting work on a Ph.D -- courses conducted and dissertation to be completed in Mandarin Chinese.

According to Wesley, prevenient grace is given by God to draw, enlighten, and convict persons. Church leaders would be wise to analyze the church's ministries in order to determine whether or not the divine-human relationship in each ministry is the primary concern, so as to identify where ministry energies are being mobilized, and to what extent the church's social, cultural and worldview models are culturally sensitive in light of the transcultural character of prevenient grace. This would help the church to be as effective as possible in communicating the realities of the gospel. (p91)

These Wesleyan insights have helped shape content for the study curriculum that my colleague Jared Siebert and I have developed over the past couple years, Bearing Faithful Witness. One of the sessions explores the Cornelius story in Acts 10, where God had been preparing him in various ways for the visit of Peter, who had likewise been prepared in advance to engage with this outsider to the Jewish tradition. Chris Payk urges us to "pay attention, to notice" where God has already been at work, because that helps us to shape our conversations as we build bridges between God's prevenient activity and the fuller revelation of the Jesus story.

dwindling demand and Christian formation (Thiessen III)

Recapping my first post on "The Meaning of Sunday" -- It is no surprise to most Canadians that Christian religious presence is dwindling in our society. In fact the fastest growing sector in Canadian society is those who identify as having "No Religious Affiliation" -- now at 24% of our population (Census 2011). Over the pastcouple months I have been digging into the research of Canadian sociologist Joel Thiessen in his book The Meaning of Sunday(2015). Thiessen's work is based on qualitative social research that he conducted with 90 participants, 30 each of whom he describes as: "active affiliates" (those who regularly participate in a Christian community), "marginal affiliates" (those who rarely participate but still identify as some sort of Christian), and "religious nones" (those who have no involvement in a religious community). 

While some in the Christian community want to make the issue of dwindling numbers a matter of "supply" -- that is, if we had a better product, whether preaching, music, programming, spiritual vitality, etc. -- numbers would return, Thiessen's research encourages us to take a broader look.

Although reported almost as a sub-text, Thiessen gives us a glimpse into why "active affiliates" pursue their spiritual convictions so ardently, and, also a glimpse into why young adults might remain as "active affiliates" when their generation is increasingly identifying as having no religious affiliation. 

Active affiliates gave the following reasons for why they feel "rewarded" by active participation in a faith community:

1. the greatest benefit is the sense of community they experience with fellow believers -- things like: encouragement in common beliefs and practices, honesty, vulnerability, emotional and physical support, accountability, mutual aid
2. a sense of meaning, direction and purpose that they receive from their faith; common belief, public and private practices, provide a source of meaning in life. A dependable God and a dependable faith community are mutually affirming in staving off anomie and alienation
3. allows for development and affirmation of their faith via ongoing learning opportunities, corporate worship experiences and commonly invoked prayers -- there is something about collective activity that maintains and sustains this perspective differently than solitary religious expression.

Thiessen uses the language of "master status" to describe this kind of religious expression that informs all aspects of one's life.

Thiessen identifies religious socialization as the key determinant in whether a young adult identifies as a "none" -- i.e., no religious affiliation. This makes sense in the increasing number of young adults who have been raised in families which likewise have no religious affiliation. For several decades now (1960s-2010's), each generation has raised more children who have no religious identification in their family of origin (and therefore no formation in any particular beliefs or practices). The result becomes exponential at a certain point (hence 2001/16% -2011/24%). 

What is perhaps most challenging about Thiessen's findings (again, as a bit of a sub-text) is the number of marginals and nones who were raised in "active" homes but chose to leave the faith expression of their parents. He firmly places the essential cause as "lack of religious socialization" -- parents did not form their children in the beliefs and practices of their faith. "Lack of religious transmission in the home is an important contributor to declining levels of religiosity across cohorts..."

When parents share the same faith, they are more likely to pass on their faith to their children... Young people are prone to maintain the faith when their parents are actively involved in their religious group, when parents bring their children to religious services, when young people are actively involved in a religious group and maintain personal religious practices, when they have good relationships with older mentors who are religious and when they are given responsibilities in their religious group.

Thiessen goes on to describe a few more societal factors that have shaped the worldviews of even "active affiliates" that have led active, believing Christians to fall prey to practices and viewpoints that produce the outcomes now being described in statistical terms as "dwindling demands" for what churches offer.

In my view there are clear "takeaways" from Thiessen's research that impact:

1. our disciple-making practices (Christian formation) for the adults/parents in our congregations.
2. our support for parental Christian formation of their own kids; rather than "out-sourcing" that responsibility to local churches
3. our understanding of corporate worship and gathered community -- does this experience pay attention to, and include the participation of, the children and teens among us?

 

practice gives the words their sense

Just about finished reading Wittgenstein's biography by Ray Monk. Some thoughts from the last year of his life...

Actually I should like to say that in this case too the words you utter or what you think as you utter them are not what matters, so much as the difference they make at various points in your life. How do I know that two people mean the same when each says he believes in God? And the same goes for belief in the Trinity. A theology which insists on the use of certain particular words and phrases, and outlaws others, does not make anything clearer (Karl Barth). It gesticulates with words, as one might say, because it wants to say something and does not know how to express it. Practice gives the words their sense.

what would lead to greater involvement? (Thiessen)

Recapping my first post on "The Meaning of Sunday" -- It is no surprise to most Canadians that Christian religious presence is dwindling in our society. In fact the fastest growing sector in Canadian society is those who identify as having "No Religious Affiliation" -- now at 24% of our population (Census 2011). Over the past month I have been digging into the research of Canadian sociologist Joel Thiessen in his book The Meaning of Sunday(2015). Thiessen's work is based on qualitative social research that he conducted with 90 participants, 30 each of whom he describes as: "active affiliates" (those who regularly participate in a Christian community), "marginal affiliates" (those who rarely participate but still identify as some sort of Christian), and "religious nones" (those who have no involvement in a religious community). 

While some in the Christian community want to make the issue of dwindling numbers a matter of "supply" -- that is, if we had a better product, whether preaching, music, programming, spiritual vitality, etc. -- numbers would return, Thiessen's research encourages us to take a broader look.

Thiessen says he seriously doubts whether marginal affiliates and religious nones (even though they might go to a candlelight service at Christmas or want to get married in a church) continue to give much thought to faith issues. In his research only about 35% of marginals and nones said they might consider greater involvement in a faith community -- more than half said they had no interest at all. So he asked those who expressed some interest in greater involvement, what would actually lead them to increased attendance in a faith community?

1. 18% of those who don't participate actively in any faith community said: if they could find and experience a true sense of community, they would consider greater involvement. By this they meant -- if I wanted to find new friendships I might consider a faith community, or if some of my present friends were to take greater interest in a faith community I might join them, and if I knew more people at a church I might participate more actively ("as soon as I have that belonging I think I would definitely be more likely to go").
2. 16% of those who don't participate actively said: family factors of some sort might prompt them to greater involvement -- such as getting married, having children, finding good programming for children, and even rethinking things when the kids leave home. Some sense of church as a place that might give appropriate moral grounding for children -- that the parents don't feel adequate for. One reason for not following through on this was fear of beliefs being taught that the parents no longer adhere to. 
3. 11% said: if religious groups were less exclusive they might consider greater involvement -- ie., don't judge others beliefs or behaviours, keep faith out of politics, don't proselytise, and let people think for themselves. 
4. 11% said things about the way church is "done" -- pointing to more relevant preaching, charismatic leadership and engaging music.
5. 10% said if religious communities were seen to live out their faith in more concrete terms -- i.e., active participation in humanitarian efforts, public service, etc.
6. 6% said if there was a church they could relate to within closer proximity.
7. 6% said if their life was less busy they might consider greater involvement.

Important to remember from this info -- these are factors just for the small sector (35% of marginals and none) who said they "might" consider greater involvement if...

And Thiessen's point -- most of these factors, including the most substantial ones, are largely beyond the control of church "strategies" for increasing attendance, they are intangibles that are dependent upon 1) authentic disciple-making, creating an environment of caring koinonia and outward-oriented, authentic friending; and 2) family life factors that have nothing to do with people "in" church.

Thiessen also makes the point that, for the most part, people will continue being in the future, what they have been in the past -- something significant would have to intervene for most of the marginal affiliates and religious nones to make any changes to their present approach to faith issues.

 

(1 more post to come on thoughts about, for me, the most important reflection on Thiessen's research -- the role of Christian community in shaping belief, belonging and behaviour, that might have any hope of catching the attention of the majority of the Canadian population.)

when thinking is disagreeable and even nasty...

morning reflections from Wittgenstein (I've been reading his biography the last couple months).... these comments relate to a lot of stuff that is going on in the public forum/world stage these days...

Thinking is sometimes easy, often difficult but at the same time thrilling. But when it's most important it's just disagreeable, that is when it threatens to rob one of one's pet notions and to leave one all bewildered and with a feeling of worthlessness. In these cases I and others shrink from thinking or can only get ourselves to think after a long sort of struggle. I believe that you too know this situation and I wish you lots of courage! though I haven't got it myself. We are all sick people.

...what is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., and if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life, if it does not make you more conscientious...

You see, I know its difficult to think well about 'certainty', 'probability', 'perception', etc. But it is, if possible, still more difficult to think, or try to think, really honestly about your life and other people's lives. And the trouble is that thinking about these things is not thrilling, but often downright nasty. And when it's nasty then it's most important.