An Ecclesiology that "Starts with the Spirit"

Last weekend at synod assembly you were discussing the decline of Protestantism in America. On Facebook your theology-nerd friend was proclaiming, once again, the Barthian notion that the church is a Word-Event. Meanwhile, your child moves home from college with a book on communio-ecclesiology, and says the source and norm of church is the Eucharist.

Then Brian McLaren comes and knocks on your door and wants to talk about emergent Christianity. That night, you go to an art exhibit and Alan Hirsch is there discussing the missional church. Some Pentecostals walk in and start singing in tongues.

Okay, so this never happened in reality. But if you are paying attention to reflections on ecclesiology (theologies of 'the church') then in all likelihood you've had at least some exposure to almost every single one of these streams.

So which is it? Is the church a word-event, or communion, or missional, or emergent, in decline, or what?

Here's where Cheryl M. Peterson's recent work, Who Is the Church?: An Ecclesiology for the Twenty-first Century, gets to work. In four laconic chapters, Peterson walks the reader through Protestant decline, neo-orthodox Word-Event ecclesiology, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox inflected communio-ecclesiology, and missional/emergent theologies of the 21st century.

Many readers will not find anything especially new hear, but the one thing that will be new is itself worth the time. Peterson ably lays each of these ecclesiologies side-by-side in lucid detail. The early part of her book is analysis, after all, rather than innovation.

So first, Peterson wants us to stop dreaming Christendom dreams. Many if not most people are no longer looking to the church for the kinds of volunteer and community resources they did in the last century. There are many contexts to volunteer and build community in the 21st century. The church is just one. To stop dreaming such dreams, the church needs to discover once again what it is for, and who it is.

One faithful push in this direction is an approach to church as Word-Event. Informed by theologies of Barth and Forde, this ecclesiology sees the church as in a sense "created" by the proclamation of the gospel. This places emphasis on the God who acts, and centers the church in the Word. Peterson's primary concern with this model (a model she views primarily positively, it should be added) is that it focuses on the Spirit's work of gathering the church rather than sending the church.

Vatican II, especially in the work of Yves Congar, centered much of the global conversation on ecclesiology in communion ecclesiology. Here there is a quest for the unity of the church, grounded in God's communion as Trinity, and our communion with God in the Eucharist. Engaging the work of Robert Jenson and Phil Butin (my neighbor here in Fayetteville!), Peterson notes how communio-ecclesiology both centers and de-centers the church. "The gracious privilege of participating in the koinonia of God's trinitarian life cannot be possessed or kept by the church" (Phil Butin, 76).

Which leads us to the missional/emergent tradition currently shaping much of present-day ecclesiological conversation in North America. Engaging especially the work of Craig van Gelder and Darrel Guder, Peterson argues that Van Gelder's Spirit-led ecclesiology offers sufficient critique to the Guder emphasis on the missio Dei in that it notes that the missio Dei begins with the Spirit.

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In the last two chapters, Peterson offers her constructive argument. Drawing on "Pentecostal" insights, Peterson begins with a narrative method, allowing the story in Acts and the creeds itself to narrate  a pneumatologically informed ecclesiology.

Building off of George Lindbeck's Israel-like ecclesiology, and taking this "interfaith" and ecumenical approach with full sincerity, Peterson proposes that the church "receives its particular identity and purpose through the Holy Spirit, which in the Acts narrative is promised by Jesus after his resurrection and received at Pentecost" (105).

From Acts, Peterson takes her cue, and proposes three roles for the Holy Spirit in relation to the church:

1) The Spirit is mission director, guiding and directing the church's witness by giving prophetic speech to various leaders in the church, who are described as being 'filled with the Spirit' in order to witness to Jesus.
2) The Spirit as 'verifying cause' by which certain groups are incorporated into God's eschatological people.
3) The Spirit as supervisor and sustainer of those in Christian community or koinonia.

After a brief chapter illustrating how the ecumenical creeds teach us to develop our ecclesiology "starting with the Spirit," Peterson offers an epilogue, a vision for revival. This is quite different from a "plan for survival" (another type of ecclesiology Peterson warns readers away from in her first chapter).  For Peterson, a Spirit-breathed church will reflect the experience of new life that the Holy Spirit brings in and through us.

Peterson's book is a great starter book on a pneumatologically-informed ecclesiology. I look forward to her next book, which I hope will be an even more in-depth constructive theology of the church that starts in the Spirit.

Great Summer Reads 2013

I know, I know. Not everyone goes around creating summer syllabi. And most of us
are completely able on our own to select books to read while chilling at the coffee shop or lounging in a canoe.

Nevertheless, I can't help myself. So here are five-ish recommendations, great books to read this summer that won't leave you disappointed, may change your life, and at the very least will give your head some elevation if you packed your tent but forgot your pillow.

First, consider reading a straight up work of ecclesiology. Friend and colleague Cheryl Peterson has a new work out about which I'm totally excited. Periodically we need to be invited to re-think what we mean by "church." Cheryl's book "starts with the Spirit" as it considers what the church is for, what the church is.

Second, Rich Melheim's offers a compelling case for energizing simple faith formation rituals in the home. He not only encourages us, but offers us a path for making it happen. We are going to try and get Rich to come to Northwest Arkansas this fall. He's fun and full of energy and you will love this book.

Third, a book quite like Melheim's by Bruce Feiler, New York Times best-selling author, is also about helping families flourish. My wife and I are reading it this year and going out for meals and conversation around it.

Fourth, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you read The New Digital Age. Since Google has such an incredible influence on all of us, it isn't bad to know a little bit about the approach to our era their leading thinkers and leaders are considering.

Finally, I'm going to recommend two serious works of theology. This won't be for everyone, but if you've never read or seldom read theology, you might try it out. Retrieving Nicea is the more difficult read of the two, but helps offer historical context for Nicene Trinitarian theology. The other From Pentecost to the Triune God is a work by a Pentecostal on Trinitarian theology. It's very, very readable, and helps readers think about the Trinity starting from the Spirit.

As a kind of "sixth," let me recommend a book you can download for free, and that will free you and your community to "How Much Is Enough: A Deeper Look at Stewardship In Age of Abundance" to live in God's abundance. I'm recommending to all of my parishioners who lead our stewardship ministries or who hope to encourage us to greater faithfulness in this area to read this set of essays some time during the summer.
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This is the bonus section. Other books I'm recommending or plan to read, in various genres:

A book on writing: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

A book on disorder: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

A book on leadership: The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

Another Pentecostal book: Spirit of Love: A Trinitarian Theology of Grace

A theological book on creativity: Resurrection City: A Theology of Improvisation (Prophetic Christianity)

My main sci-fi read this summer: The Human Division

A book on improv: Bossypants

A book on liturgy: Liturgy as a Way of Life (The Church and Postmodern Culture): Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship

Rob Bell: Drops Like Stars: A Few Thoughts on Creativity and Suffering

A literary novel: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel

A critique of the internet: Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory

I most definitely and especially welcome readers' recommendations in the comments. Happy reading this summer!

And if you've read this far, two more books, forthcoming in the summer or early fall, that need to go in your purchase queue:

Tolkien, Elves, and Resurrection

Excerpted from Tolkien's:

ON FAIRY-STORIES

But the 'consolation' of fairy-stories has another as­pect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. I almost would venture to assert that all com­plete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite. I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function.

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous 'turn' (for there is no true ·end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essen­tially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale - or otherworld - setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never· to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and·in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

It is the mark of a good fairy-story; of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the 'turn' comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.

Even modern fairy-stories can produce this effect sometimes. It is not an easy thing to do; it depends on the whole story which is the setting of the turn, and yet it reflects a glory backwards. A tale that in any measure succeeds in· this point has not wholly failed, whatever flaws it may possess; and whatever mixture or confusion of purpose.

This 'joy' which I have selected as the mark of the true fairy-story (or romance), or as the seal upon it, merits more consideration.

Probably every writer making a secondary world; in fantasy, every sub - creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: 'inner consistency of reality'' it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the 'joy' in successful Fantasy can thus be explained :as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a 'consolation' for the sorrow of this world,· but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, 'Is it true?'

The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): 'If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.' That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the 'eucatastrophe' we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater - it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. The use of this word gives a hint of my epilogue. It is a serious and dangerous matter. It is presumptuous of me to touch upon such a theme; but if by grace what I say has in any respect any validity, it is, of course, only one facet of a truth incalculably rich: finite only because the capacity of Man for whom this was done· is finite.

I would venture to say that approaching the Chris­ tian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the cor­ rupt making; creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels - peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: 'mythical' in their perfect, self-contained sig­nificance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe: But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's ·history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the 'inner consistency of reality'. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.

It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be 'primarily' true, its narra­ tive to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had pos­ sessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would·have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree (The Art is ·here in the story itself rather than in the telling; for the Author of the story was not the evangelists); as the joy which the 'turn' in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimport­ant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is pre-eminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. Because this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men - and of elves.

Legend and History have met and fused. But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the 'happy ending'. The Christian has­ still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be rede­emed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.

Want to hear more? Listen to these podcasts, lectures by Professor Gregory Walter of St. Olaf College on "what a fairy story is.

Part One:  http://bit.ly/WTyOhH

Part Two:  http://bit.ly/VVA5os

Missional Networks Spread by Losing Control: Presentation at ELCA Three Leadership Tables Workshop

Clint Schnekloth @ Three Leadership Tables workshop from ELCA Churchwide Organization on Vimeo.

Confessions of a church insider to those not affiliated with a church

Can I seek your forgiveness in advance? What I write here may be wrong in all sorts of ways. But I'm listening, I really am. I'm trying to understand.

Here's what I know. We in North America live in a culture that has thoroughly imbibed Christian faith. It's in the air, the water. It's so much a part of our history, in some ways we can't even know how much our perception of family, volunteering, work, and leisure, are "Christian."

On the other hand, I live in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It's a very religious town. It's a very religious state. Yet even here, in what some call the Bible Belt, I encounter more people who do not affiliate with a congregation than those who do.

So many of my neighbors who are culturally Christian don't formally affiliate with a church.

And on many levels a lot of adults I know who are not affiliated with a church live more Christian lives, and are more deeply faithful, than some people who go to church.

This leaves me in sort of a pickle. I am proud of the way many of my non-churchgoing neighbors comport themselves in the community and world. With no religious ostentation, no secondary layer of do-goodism, they just go about their business. They make quality things. They work and play well with others. They serve in the community. They provide food for their children. 

They're not perfect. Like those inside the church, they could use a good challenge sometimes, even a swift kick in the pants. They make bad choices. They shout at people on the phone. They hoard their wealth.

You know what I mean. In other words, the outward marks of the lives of non-churchgoers are, on almost every level, identical to the outward marks of the life of those who wake up and go to church Sunday morning.

In addition, generally speaking, they believe. They have faith. It is articulate or inarticulate to greater or lesser degrees. But they have faith. And specifically they have faith in Christ. They believe Christ makes a difference in their life, in the world. Those who do not go to church often have more than a general religious sensibility. They identify with the life and proclamation of Jesus.

In this way also they are just like churchgoers. I know more than one lifelong churchgoer who cannot articulate the Christian faith better than those who have rarely darkened the doors of a church building.

But then on Sunday mornings, while us churchgoers head off for worship, they head off for, well, whatever it is they do on Sunday mornings. Frankly, stuff I'd also like to do some Sunday mornings--read the paper, go for a run, drink coffee, mow the lawn, sleep in.

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So here comes the conundrum. There are many days, most days, when I want to invite them in to our congregational life. And I do. I'm proud of what we do, and who we are. I'm constantly inviting others.

Then there are days when I have my doubts. Why should I interrupt their lives? Why should I convince them to add an additional layer of outward religiosity to lives that are already in many aspects faithful, spirit-filled, and good? Is it even possible that by getting them to affiliate with us, I will distract them or draw them away from excellent ministry in which they would otherwise be engaged, although not overtly on behalf of the church?

In other words, is it possible that by asking them to join us as church, they will in fact become less of what we want them to be as church than prior to their affiliation? 

Is there a way to do more church by being less church?

Is this what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had in mind when he outlined some notes on "religionless Christianity"?

For example, he writes to Eberhard Bethage on July 18, 1944:

[Religious humanity] must therefore live in the godless world, without attempting to gloss over or explain its ungodliness in some religious way or other. We must live a "secular" life, and thereby share in God's sufferings. We may live a "secular" life (as one who has been freed from false religious obligations and inhibitions). To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a human--not a type of human, but the human that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.

Or again to Eberhard Bethage on July 21, 1944:

During the last year or so I've come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity. The Christian is not a homo religiosus, but simply a human, as Jesus was a human...

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So if I ask inquirers returning to the church why they are returning, what do they say? Well, for the many who after long absence come back, I often hear, "I missed it." Missed what? Well, "it." Pretty much what I miss if I miss a Sunday worship. Things like liturgy, sermons, the people, Eucharist, hymns. The whole "going to church" gig. There is a kind of meaning-making in the church that can't be had by other means.

"There was just something missing in my life." Worship seems to re-frame things for us in ways we can't always comprehend. There are fathom-less depths to gathering for Christian worship in community that are often numinous even if difficult to articulate.

So, this leaves me with a couple of confessions. First, I confess that part of me wants to figure out how to turn church completely inside out. What if there were a way to bring everything people seek from "going to church" out into the daily lives of people, so that the thing they miss could come to them in the already present vocations they engage in from day to day. This is the this-wordliness of Christinaity.

Although I have trouble imagining what this might look like, it takes my breath away considering possibilities.

A second confession is more dangerous to say aloud. Essentially, the question becomes: By inviting people to church, are there any ways in which I make them less Christian? Let me give some examples. If they give 10% of their income to a local shelter, but when they join the church they hear our stewardship appeal and divert some of their giving to us, is this a good thing? 

If, prior to coming to worship on Sunday mornings, they used to use that time to care for an ailing neighbor, catch up on essential conversation with their spouse, and simply rest, is that a worthy swap of time?

Or, if by becoming more overtly Christian or religious, those we have invited into our community now think there are especially "Christian" ways to do ordinary things, is there danger here? I think there is.

Gregory Walter writes, in his recent blog post, "I would much prefer, if there is a Christian difference in giving, to see how the economy of God's promise alters or frees up ordinary giving so that we can engage in ordinary giving in all its conflict and impurity [as opposed to giving that supposedly has some missional or ecclesial or evangelical 'end']."

And what kinds of habits are new members of our community learning when they become part of our community of faith? Are we really being as faithfully Christian in this community as we should? If those outside the church are being more faithful than those inside the church (and some are) perhaps the more evangelical posture is to tell people not to go to church, not to join my church.

These are simply thought experiments. Remember, I said at the beginning this post could go all kinds of ways wrong. Perhaps I'm completely off-track.

But here's what is on my heart. I really want to invite my friends and neighbors who are not currently attending a church to come join us at mine. I can imagine the many, many ways in which our church would be stronger, and do better ministry if they were a part of our community of faith. I desperately want to invite them in ways that strengthen us, and offer them a context where they can grow spiritually, and be strengthened in faith and life.

But I'm somewhat suspicious of my motives. So I don't want to invite for the wrong reasons. And I'm especially concerned that by inviting them, they'll hear implicit in the invitation a judgment on them that I actually don't have. 

I want to offer space for those currently not affiliated to rediscover what they miss, while honoring what is already Spirit-filled in their daily vocations and work and life. It's going to be different for each family, really each individual. 

And before I try to change their habits and invite them to become a part of what I do weekly, I want to make sure I have examined myself and motivations so what I invite them into serves not me but the free course of the gospel in the world.

Or something like that.

The Vine and the Bible: A Meditation on Video Loops and my new iPhone

Neo-Luddite Confession

 I honestly thought, recently, that by navigating to Instagram and getting my first iPhone this past week, I was catching up with developments in social media. I'm a textual kind of guy, after all. I blog, preach sermons, write books. My favorite method of communication in the social media era is the status update.

So setting myself the challenge of communicating via images is kind of like asking a poet to paint their poem.

Not surprisingly, most of the first Instagram images I posted were of books (admittedly highly stylized with the Instagram patinas). This is a snapshot of my current profile on Instagram, for example.

But this week I started capturing short video interviews of youth in our congregation, hopefully for use at our strategic planning event tomorrow and perhaps for confirmation and worship in upcoming weeks. Today, while shooting some of these videos at our confirmation retreat, the kids asked (almost in unison), Are you making a Vine?

If you haven't yet heard of Vine, you're not alone, even if you soon will be. I hadn't heard of it. Well, I think I had scrolled past it recently while looking at possible apps to download for my iPhone. When I saw the description, "Vine is the best way to see and share life in motion. Create short, beautiful, looping videos in a simple and fun way for your friends and family to see," I immediately thought, Hmmmm.... looping videos, video creation. No, not so much.

But all of the twelve year olds had heard of Vine, and when they saw me making videos for worship, it's what immediately came into their minds.

This was when I realized that by migrating to Instagram, I had only caught up in the sense that being four steps behind counts as "catching up."

High schoolers, perhaps Millenials, are all migrating to Instagram and away from Facebook, and for various reason. For a great interview on some of these reasons, see Mark Zuckerberg's recent conversation with Wired magazine. In fact, for many many many reasons, read this interview. His insights into the shift to smaller groups on-line, and much more, is essential insight into how the web is changing (and responding to) community in the 21st century.

So, that generational cohort is "visual," but normal visual. Apparently the next cohort is hyper- or super-visual. It's not enough that images be images. Images have to loop and move and twist and adapt. 

Why does this matter for Christian faith? 

Well, from an educational perspective it matters quite a lot. Adults still think a great way to teach children bible stories is to give them crayons and have them draw pictures of what they hear described. But in this era, I am beginning to wonder if Christian education by necessity needs to include handing the whole class iPhones, and saying, "Go, make a Vine of this bible story. Post it and share it with your friends. Let's find out what they think about it."

Then send them off and see what they come back with.

And in fact, in this new media era, this exercise can be done without even gathering for class. Just text the challenge out to them, and get them working. New media requires our attention. We are invited to consider how to layer into our existing faith formation and worship practices.

For example, once kids have created some Vine looping videos, why not share them during worship, at the offering. Who says you can only share special music at the offering? Who made that rule up? Why not memes, or Vine videos, or a slideshow of Instagram photos from the past week?

And who will do this? Is Adapt social media creations for worship an item on our Time & Talent Survey? If not, why not?

In fact, new media is inviting us into a wholesale re-appraisal of how to conduct faith formation. None of us have even scratched the surface. Take any new development--iPad apps, social media, venues for creativity in all kinds of places--and ask yourself, What does it mean for us to explore Christian faith here, in this place, with these tools?

Old and new media layer like tells

And these new media don't replace existing media. Instead, they layer old upon new and mix them together in creative fashion. Like tells archaeologists excavate in Israel, you can find ancient media compressed right next to or even inside new media. For example, if the confirmation youth need to look up the Bible verse you are hoping they'll "Vine," they can of course simply navigate to that great Bible app for the iPhone published by Lifechurch.tv. This is another app I downloaded today. With it, you can stream all kinds of translations to your phone. You can also download translations, and audio recordings of some of the most popular translations. On the drive home from the confirmation retreat, I listened to four chapters of the gospel of John read from the NIV translation.

In this sense, my intuition to post photos of books to Instagram wasn't as out-of-touch as all that. A good book, posted as an Instagram-edited photo (or even better, scanned in some kind of looping video on Vine) might illustrate as much as anything the interconnections of all these media. A conversation expanding underneath in the comments, and a series of likes--well, that starts to look like a community around books. 

Know any other community that gathers regularly around a book?

The Hardest Question

If you're looking for quirky, cutting-edge commentary on the lectionary, consider The Hardest Question. 

This week, a phenomenological approach to glory and the gospel:

http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/easter5cgospel/

And a vision of heaven's descent to us:

http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/easter5cnt/