Tag Archives: new creation

I’m not in Kansas anymore

Leave a reply

I was ordained 40 years ago at a church in Kansas, but I’m not in Kansas anymore. I live in upstate New York, but it is much more than a statement about location. I live in a different world. You do too. The 21st century is a world away from 1970, especially in that small Kansas town. We live in a chaotic world, yet God is bringing something good out of the chaos of our times.

In Acts 10-11, Peter’s life is totally changed in a matter of days. Obedient to a vision God gives to Peter, where God tells him to do something he was always taught the Scriptures forbade, his world is transformed. Now he knows God accepts people he was taught to reject. And he follows the Spirit’s lead.

The world could never go back to the way it was before that day, and it will never go back to the way it was in the 20th century. The world of Google and Facebook is not just about new technology; it’s an emerging world that is fundamentally different. And the emerging Church is different in the same way -

  • Creating communities of trusting relationships
  • Sharing and giving away what we know and create
  • Giving everyone an opportunity to be part of what God is doing
  • Staying flexible, traveling light, changing as we need to
  • Connecting with people anywhere, anytime around common causes

Isn’t this what God calls the Church to be? But it’s not descriptive of much of the Church’s history, nor of the 20th century Church.It is, however, increasingly descriptive of the Emergent Church.

Listen to this sermon on the occasion of my 40th anniversary of ordination.

The Church as Network

Leave a reply

In her book on the Emergent or Emerging Church (The Great Emergence), Phyllis Tickle says: “What is happening is something much closer to what mathematicians and physicists call network theory. That is, a vital whole – in this case, the Church, capital C – is not really “a thing” or entity so much as it is a network in exactly the same way that the Internet or the World Wide Web is…The end result of this understanding of dynamic structure is the realization that no one of the member parts or connecting networks has the whole or entire “truth” or anything, either as such and/or when independent of the others….It employs total egalitarianism, a respect for worth of the hoi polloi that even pure democracy never had….” (p.152)

Churches and their leaders need to understand that the world of Google and Facebook is not simply about changing technology. This is a new kind of world, and the Church is becoming something new and different. Questions of where “authority” resides and who “decides” about beliefs, behaviors, and belonging already have different answers than they had a generation ago – if they have “answers” at all. Our language itself is insufficient for this new world, but we have to keep writing and talking and working through it together.

What in the world is God doing?

Leave a reply

The mainline Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church that dominated American religious life in the 20th century have been in decline for over 30 years. The seminaries they founded and supported – and that trained most of their ministers and priests – have also been in decline and many are in serious financial trouble. For the majority of Christian churches in the U.S. during the 20th century, ministers could only be ordained in order to serve those churches following at least three years of study at one of the recognized seminaries.

Today many of the larger churches do not belong to any of those denominations, often growing up as “nondenominational,” independent congregations. Or they belong to other Christian groups without the same restrictive requirements for education and ordination. Other theological schools have grown up to serve those churches and/or ministers and leaders have been mentored and trained within the congregations they now serve.

In the past 15 years, more and more people who feel called by God to serve in ministry are serving in leadership in congregations where they feel called. Often they have other jobs and careers, families, and homes, and they want to serve where they are. They are asking for theological education to come to them, offered in an integrated model of education with online study, mentoring, local study groups, and similar options that will enable them to be more fully educated and trained for the ministry they are already engaged in. I believe this is part of the new thing God is doing in our day.

Cooperation: the spirit of a new age

Leave a reply

A few years ago I went on a 15-day retreat at Loyola House in Guelph, Canada. One beautiful afternoon, I went on a 2-hour walk through the woods, along the creek, through a marsh. I had been praying a lot with questions about the connectedness, the interdependence, of life. As I walked and watched the birds and animals and insects and flowers – all of nature around me – my thoughts turned toward a theme of “cooperation and competition.”

I realized how our culture turns toward competition as the primary model for how we interact, not only with people but with all of creation. The stories of our lives – and the stories of TV, movies, books, songs, and commercials – are mostly about who “wins.” Who is the best, brightest, and most beautiful? The most profitable, most powerful, most popular? Who “dominates the airwaves” and “rises to the top of the polls”? Our language is filled with the metaphors of competition.

As I kept walking, I realized that God’s intention for creation was for cooperation rather than competition. The beauty around me came out of the reality of animals, plants, weather, time – and even people – working together in an entirely natural way. When I got to a particularly moist, damp spot in the woods, and the mosquitoes swarmed around me and settled on my skin to draw some blood, I did wonder about the “beauty” of cooperation. I did not feel particularly cooperative at that moment. Yet it was more their habitat than mine, and I departed quickly.

The Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, speak of a new age, a new creation, that God is bringing to reality. Through Christ Jesus, we are part of that new creation and called to help create this new age. The spirit of this age is cooperation and not competition, recognizing our interdependence rather than claiming an unreal independence, and connecting with one another and with all of creation through God’s Spirit.