Post-Missional?

So I saw an advertisement today for a whole new way of being church that is both post-modern and post-missional! Really? I mean, really? I am certainly someone who has defended the use of the "post-" reality world, but are we really going to talk about being post-missional? Isn't that akin to being post-purposeful or post-worshipful? I guess the "missional" seminars and cookie-programs have run their course, so to sell new seminars and books we had to create a "post-missional" mandate.

Pendulums, Converts, and Robust Faith

Growing up in a fundamentalist, evangelical Baptist congregation in rural Indiana, my congregation had a constant in-flow of "new converts" from liberal, mainline Protestant congregations and from the Roman Catholic Church. These new members would hear the message of individual repentence and the hope of being "saved." Often, these converts were middle-aged adults who had stopped going to church after high school. They would talk very negatively about their past church experiences as dead ritual, as places that produced a lot of guilt, and as places that believed you "work your way to heaven."

As an adult, I have found so many people like myself who grew up in a fundamentalist, evangelical, conservative background who have "converted" to these more liturgical based denominations-- often liberal Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox. We long for a worship that does not depend on me and my experience and what I can get out of church/God. We want a faith that is about the community and world rather than the individual. We long for rituals that will create space for worship, and we want a faith that seeks to do God's will here on Earth just as it is in heaven. These former evangelicals, including myself, often talk negatively about our conservative backgrounds.

In some ways, these two groups represent two seperate faiths. But I always believe they were meant to be one faith that is balanced. Each strand by itself is a fallacy. Together they make up the truth of the Christian faith. God wants to change me, convert me, and save me. God also is greatly concerned with communities, social justice, the ritual of worship. God cannot be bound by ritual and thus speaks openly and newly to us. We cannot just have such a casual relationship either, thus we have orders of worship that story us in the ways and nature of God. I have the hope of being changed because I am part of a greater community. That community as a chance of being renewed and becoming God's kingdom because God has changed me.

Selling Out-- A Confused Rambling!

Recently, I have been re-reading Dr. David Fitch's The Great Giveaway-- Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism and Other Modern Maladies. I met Fitch several years ago when I was serving as an Associate Pastor in Indiana. He is a very intellectual person with a keen sense of how the conservative church has been infected by modernism (of course the liberals are too, but they self-admittedly were servants of modernism, whereas, the conservatives continue to maintain their integrity in the midst of such a great compromise).

In my first reading of Fitch, I initially agreed with just about everything he said. Those who know me know that I often rant about how the church has been taken captive by democratic individualism, capitalistic choice, militant justice, and corporate domination. I very much agree with Christian Smith's conclusion that overall the American Christian is actually a believer in moralistic therapeutic deism-- that great American religion that is being exported to the world through the media and missionaries.

Fitch makes some very good points about how the church is captive in this book. For example, in chapter three, he discusses how the church's ideas of leadership have been taken captive by corporate America. And I can agree with this. The pastor has become CEO, evangelism is now marketing, church growth is about increasing shareholder value and market share. We look to business for our ideas and ideals about teams, organization, structures, and vision. We look for entrepreneurs for church planting. Churches seek to be effective rather than faithful, and Christian teachers find a way to show how scripture and theology make those two things synonymous with one another. We are definitely captive.

However, upon my second reading I feel a huge tug to pull back from this. He criticizes the idea at the beginning of chapter three that "leadership principles" are universal. Thus, Maxwell can write a book called The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Fitch writes, "The implicit bottom-line understanding here is that leadership principles are not determined in specific ways by the person and work of Jesus Christ that demand allegiance to him in order to make sense."

I find myself completely agreeing, and yet disagreeing completely at the same time (if that is truly possible!). Jesus Christ changes everything. Jesus Christ should be the mediator of everything. Jesus Christ should be the lens to look at everything. But... good leaders seem to be able to lead well with or without Jesus. Good leadership principles seem to work with or without Jesus. The Empire marches on successfully. And while noting this, perhaps not all things in the empire are truly of the empire.

Which bring me to what I think is the crux of the debate... what is the role of general revelation? Although we are fallen-- or bent as C.S. Lewis liked to say, we still are able to do good in the world even if we do not follow Jesus. God's fingerprint is on his creation. These things can miss the mark most of the time, but they are not totally off. Sometimes, they just need a little correction. Or do they need a total re-haul. Do they need to be re-formatted-- erase and start all over? Except that even in Jesus Christ making us new creatures, we are not re-formatted like a hard drive (or are we?). We are still us! Yet, somehow different.

At this point some one always says, "It's a mystery. We can't comprehend how Christ works in us and changes us. We are not able to grasp how things are "already but not yet." The problem with this is that we have a real world, with real problems, and real debates like the one of the role of corporate America and the church. I don't want our churches to have a CEO like GM in the 1950s, but what if our CEO is more like Steve Jobs. That would be cool! Steve has a lot to teach us in the church. And Jesus would have some things to say to Apple as well. But now, it seems as if we have just put Steve and Jesus on the same elevation. Isn't Jesus supposed to be at the top? And yet, I could see Jesus serving Steve Jobs, even submitting himself to Steve Jobs.

If we are going that far, Jesus submits himself to sin and death-- even a humiliating and cursed death of a cross. Jesus submits himself to desecration-- which means he desecrates himself. The death on the cross actually made him an unclean sacrifice, unacceptable to God according to the Torah. He wasn't valid. Thus, he would be rejected by God in a similar way that Cain's sacrifice was rejected by God. It would be like breaking a sheep's legs and then trying to offer it in sacrifice at the temple. Nope! Such a sacrifice is invalid.

I want the church to learn some lessons from Starbucks and Google. Starbucks get something about team work-- and work in general for that matter. When the college ministries director and I went to the local fraternities as a way of our congregation reaching out to them, we came back proclaiming that fraternity to have better community and friendship and hospitality than our own congregation. To which people reply, well yes, I'm sure they do have some sort of good community. But it certainly isn't the fulfilling type of community that Christ offers. True! It might not be... but hey, it seems better than what we see in most congregations.

We talk about these Christ-ideals as if we have them and that we can provide them to people by simply giving them the gospel or believe that if they join up with us they will experience such a Jesus. But they don't experience such a Jesus, or such a community, or such a great way of leadership because we ourselves who believe in Jesus don't experience such a thing. The culture at some cutting-edge businesses is way better than in most congregations.

And that fact-- and I will restate FACT-- makes me doubt most of my typical thinking and ideas about culture. I preach the same message found in Fitch's book. I have stated on paper and screen and said out loud much of what he says in his book. I can't really find many lines I disagree with. But, I FEEL a sense that the ideas presented by him and that I hold so tenaciously are off in some way.

Re-writing Scripture

Speaker & scholar Phyllis Tickle believes that our generation is seeing the end of "sola scriptura," the Protestant idea of Scriptural authority correcting and superseding Christian tradition and papal authority. She believes that this end has been brought about in three movements:

1) Christians Against Slavery-- the bible does not say that one can't have slaves or should not have slaves, and yet most Christians today believe that slavery is wrong, against the will of God, and was only permissible in the bible due to cultural constraints.

2) Christian Acceptance of Feminine Authority-- according to Tickle, Paul speaks clearly against women being in authoritative positions in the church and seems to indicate that women should have very little spoken participation in the congregational setting. Tickle and a growing majority in Christian circles believes that this was a localized teaching from Paul, that he meant something else, that such a mandate does not apply today, or that he was just plain wrong.

3) Christian Acceptance of Homosexuality-- the western church is increasingly more tolerant of homosexuality and other sexual/gender issues despite the clear teaching in scripture (Tickle believes that the Bible very clearly stands against this-- and she seems to indicate that she disagrees with the Scriptures on this point, as well as feminine authority and slavery.).

Readers of my blog will have a wide variety of views on each of these three points. The point is not to debate any of these issues, but to shine light on a shift taking place. Many Christians in America today would say they believe in the Bible as their final authority and yet most of us would say genocide is morally wrong and against the will of God-- even though it is commanded by God to the Israelites. We would add that it is wrong for us to enslave other people (and people groups) because we are all created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity. Most of us would then create complicated and complex arguments for why the Bible does command genocide in a few instances and how that is wrong today, as well as complicated arguments for why slavery is wrong but not stated as such in Scripture.

Tickle believes that we come to such conclusions based out of reason and experience. We "know" that slavery is wrong. We feel it in our gut. Thus, this belief supersedes that of scripture and we will then shape the scriptures and our theology to create an accommodated argument for our belief.

I do believe she is correct in saying that we are seeing the end of sola scriptura. I think we are beginning to see a new era emerge-- a place where theology is shaped by scripture but not controlled by scripture. Although I would argue that this is exactly what has been happening over the past 2000 years, it will become more visible and blatant in our time. Rather than appealing to cut-and-paste scripture verses as evidence for our systematic theology, theology will occur by appealing to themes in scripture and then departing from them to create something new. Essentially, we will blatantly state that our new theological thought is inspired by Jesus but contradicts Scripture in "such and such" ways and that this is okay and on purpose.

A good example of this will be departing from the Genesis narrative of creation and forming a theology that has evolution as its framing story but have a Yahwist-inspired value weaving throughout as opposed to a social-Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest value weaving throughout. Theologians will then argue that the Yahwist writer strain in the Torah was doing this when writing his parts of Genesis-- taking the general framework of Enuma Elish (the Babylonian Creation myth) but asserting Yahweh as creator who speaks forth creation in a loving, caring way rather than humanity and creation emerging out of the blood and violence and chaos of the gods. Thus, the new era will create its owns "scriptures" in the vein of the Bible, in a similar strain as that of the Bible, but wholly new and different.

We will appeal to various authorities for such a web of belief-- The Old and New Testaments, reason, science, experience, art and beauty, other religions/faiths/myths, Christian tradition and theology, technology, etc. Some believe that the Emergent churches (and Tickle seems to indicate this as well) are bringing about such a way of life. I'm not totally on board with that because many in the Emergent circles would never engage in the ways that I have outlined above. However, I do think Emergent is paving a road for this too occur and will converge with many other movements in theology and practice that will allow for such a way to EMERGE.

Thoughts? Questions? Push-backs?

Do Traditional Churches Still Have a Place?

A friend and I were exploring this topic yesterday. I was in a particularly negative mood yesterday and my friend was upbeat but realistic. He said something like this, "I'm not sure if 10 years from now if these places [referring to traditional churches] will still be around in the same way they are today."

I have pondered this question many times over the past decade. Two reasons exist for this: 1) The growing clarity that these churches are out of sync with a non-Christian culture; 2) I'm completely in love with the worship in many of these churches. I took my youth group to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco two weeks ago... wow! Such a beautiful building that hosts many prayer services each day, spiritual seekers walking the labyrinths, and pilgrims interested in a church that loves all types of people. Last spring, I took my group to Chicago. While there, we visited Fourth Presbyterian (right across from the water tower on the magnificent mile). It's an old building with amazing art, sculptures, windows, pipe organ, and vast architecture. While there, the choir was practicing for their Easter worship services.... I thought I was in heaven or at least in Boondock Saints (you know the scene at the beginning where they receive their "call").

Thus, I return to my question about these churches having a place. I find their worship to be so very inspirational, yet they are so out of touch with wider society. Not that I see all that they do as grand either. Traditional churches often waste tons of money on their traditional trappings. They have an amazing tradition and liturgical resources, yet lack the creativity to improvise on it. They tend to put the majority of their resources into corporate worship services rather than seeing worship as a broader idea encompassing all of life (this is often very true of contemporary mega-churches as well). So ask, "Do traditional churches still have a [significant] place? Do they have a role to play?"

Non-Biblical Communion

About a week ago, Dave Dack posted on the subject of communion. He had a conversation with a friend in regards to the frequency of having communion. James, a friend of mine posted a great comment to the post: "Communion is a time for us to put aside lesser allegiances for the sake of the kingdom. "

This got me thinking about my own ideas of communion. First, I should note that I think the Eucharist should be the center of our worship together. However, in saying that I know that a strong biblical argument can't be made for such a notion. Nevertheless, I do not think you can make any strong biblical argument for our modern practices of communion-- tiny manufactured bread bits, Welch's Grape Juice in tiny cups, and a table where no one actually eats. Even those who use wine like Jesus did and real loaves of bread are selling the whole act short.

Thus, I think that we practice communion in a non-biblical way-- notice I didn't say unbiblical or anti-biblical. Communion is obviously some sort of meal or bread break during the day (this is possibly where we get our phrase "take a break" from-- it was actually a time to break bread). Jesus took an everyday ritual of Jewish society-- the breaking of bread at every occasion-- and infused it with new significance. In this way, the breaking of bread was a common experience for any outsider to the Christian faith and yet had a very distinct and peculiar ritual attached to it regarding Jesus Christ. It would be common during the 1st century to take the bread and say a blessing of some sort... such as "We thank Caesar for providing this bread to us on this day." To remember Jesus Christ instead was a very radical act. Also, the act of Christian communion was always one where your neighbors were invited to partake with you... in this way the Christian breaking of bread was about extending friendship and hospitality beyond the Christian community, while also serving an important function of feeding the poor.

If you travel to the world, you will find many cultures that have such hospitality and breaking of bread practices. Back in college, I traveled to Costa Rica. Everyday around 3:30pm, everything would stop (and I mean everything) so that people could take a break. At that break would be bread. If we were walking down the road when this occurred, random strangers would invite us into their homes and share their bread with us.

This is somewhat congruent with what is going on in Luke 10 when Jesus sends out the 70 to various towns. They would come to a door and give the standard Hebrew greeting "Shalom." If the greeting was returned (i.e. an invite was given to them to come in-- this was the command to be hospitable given in the OT), they went in. If it was not received, then judgment was supposed to be declared.

All of this taken together, I would say that communion must be at least be a true breaking of bread, if not a meal. However, we need to find a complimentary ritual in our own day for it to take on the significance that it did in the first century. Is there a common thing most people do in our culture regarding food?

Bringing It All Together

Here is something I posted on Scot McKnight's blog:
Someone earlier said the following: "baptism is not constitutive of our salvation or of our relationship with God." This is part of what I see as the problem of the individualistic influence of the reformation. Baptism and salvation parallel very closely in many scripture texts. What I think happens is that all of us define salvation very differently. The Kingdom of God is the reign and realm of God at work in the world... it is the salvation of those who have experienced injustice and unrighteousness at the hands of the oppressive and it is the judgment of those who have acted unjust with their power and authority-- those in the latter crowd must repent, turn from their wicked ways, give up their place, and become servants; those in the former crowd must learn to forgive, reconcile, and accept those who have caused them pain. Baptism introduces both groups of people-- the forgiving oppressed and the repentant oppressors-- into a community that practices and lives out such a way of life. As such it is salvation coming into their lives. At least that is the way that it was supposed to be

Note: It seems to be clear that baptism was a cultural ritual of the Middle East before and during the time of Jesus that was carried into the future through Christianity. Baptism as such has lost its cultural meaning; thus, it is possible that it has lost its spiritual meaning as well. My next post will address this idea as it pertains to Communion/Eucharist.)

What is Church? Post 2.0

Many moons ago, I began exploring this topic of "what is the church." I want to continue this series. Before I discussed the idea of the church as found around the "Eucharist table." Today, I want to explore Jesus' first use of the term "ekklesia" found in Matthew 16 and 18 using a comment I wrote to Scot McKnight on his blog because he is exploring the differences between church and kingdom.

"I have some questions that I’ve always wanted answered regarding this topic. Each pertain to my understanding of Matthew 16 and the correspondence of ekklesia (the word we mis-translate "church") to kingdom. Is it possible that Jesus uses ekklesia as the political organization that rules over the kingdom?

"In Matthew 16:18, Jesus asks his small band "who the Son of Man is?"– a phrase with a lot of political meaning if taken from Daniel 7 (where the Son of Man comes with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days where he is given authority over all peoples). Then Jesus takes it a step further asking them who they think he might be–- obviously implying that he may be such a figure. Peter then really crosses the line–- "You are the Christ/Messiah" (the one who will free us from the empire), "the Son of God" (a title given to Caesar).

"Interestingly, this whole scene takes place right outside of Caesarea, the political capital of Rome in that region. Isn’t ekklesia used in the Roman empire at this time to describe the local group of powerful citizens of the Roman empire that meet together to discuss town business? Isn’t Jesus stating that he will build his own ekklesias, as opposed to Caesar’s ekklesias? Then Jesus says that he will give the keys/authority of the kingdom to this little band of followers. Then two chapters later, Jesus addresses the process of how to handle disputes in this new ekklesia– a new non-Roman ekklesia.

"It seems to me that the ekklesia is a local government of the new kingdom that serves the new Caesar-- Jesus Christ. Basically, they make decisions and settle disputes in their region of the kingdom. Just as in the Roman empire, most people were not citizens, but this local group of citizens made decisions affecting the non-citizens around the city/town."

Those were the thoughts that I put on Scot McKnight's blog. Here are some other thoughts about Matthew 16 that I have. It is possible that Jesus wasn't giving much thought to Rome and Caesar. Jesus was probably speaking Aramaic rather than Greek and Son of Man could be more in reference to its use in Ezekiel-- basically he is the prophet-- this is in keeping with the disciples response to the question-- "Jeremiah, Elijah, or one of the other prophets"-- Jesus being near Caesarea is probably near the "gates of Hell" where idolatry to the god Pan took place at the mouth of a cave near Caesarea. Instead of ekklesia, he would be making reference to qahal, the cultic/worship assembly of OT Israel. In this way, Jesus will build in his own worship assembly that will challenge the idolatry of the contemporary situation. However, this would still be a very political statement, especially with the after comments about kingdom, keys, binding and loosing, etc.

Worship Made To Order OR An Ordered Worship

"I don't like the worship at that church."
"My husband and I are shopping for a church. What style of worship does your church have? "We are looking for a place with a great band and worship leader."
"When my friends and I were in college, we would often leave [the service] after the worship was over."
"I'm looking for a place where I can feel connected with God and worship in my own way."
"I'm just not getting anything from the worship here anymore."

These are all fairly typical statements made in Christian circles today regarding the church and its "worship." I often hear my friends saying similar things, and even I-- who am grounded in a deep theological understanding of worship-- find myself wondering about such things. However, all of these statements reflect the fact that something has gone terribly wrong in our churches. Worship has become the production of a few performers on stage providing a concert for a crowd of people who are seeking to transcend their mundance lives, a cathartic experience that makes the self feel better because the emotional stress (and perhaps guilt) of the prior week has been purged. Such an experience allows us to re-enter the fray and frenzy of our madly paced lives where we serve the empire and its gods. Let me put it even more bluntly-- what often passes for worship today is nothing more than an idolatrous celebration/ceremony that continues to hold up the general attitudes, values, and actions of a way of life that is anti-Christian. We have become a generation of spiritual consumers, shopping for the best product that makes us feel good and different. When the ancients danced, sang, and sacrificed bulls to Baal, they felt exactly the same way.

We live in an age where worship is made to order-- like my burger at Red Robin. It is very tasty. Of course, some people prefer a different burger place or they don't even like Red Robin or burgers. These people seek a different product elsewhere. This makes a lot of sense when it comes to food (although I have a hunch that even our eating/food experiences have somehow changed from the idea of the land, meal, community, hospitilatiy and conversation that are suppose to be eating); however, worship is not something that should be custom-made for the individual. First and foremost, Christian worship is not suppose to be an individualistic experience-- it is primarily corporate and the worship I do in solitary is to flow out of and connect to the worship of the whole body of Christ.

Although worship should not be customized to the individual, it should be an ordered experience. The word that describes this best is "ordo." It is a latin word used to describe the how-to of worship-- the experience of the church gathered together and the daily life of the Body of Christ in the world. What does ordered worship look like? First, it is scripted by the Christian year. The Christian year represents an alternative shaping of time. The new year begins approximately 35 days prior to the secular calendar that is used in the western world. It celebrates a period of time known as Advent (which culminates in Epiphany not Christmas), then proceeds to a time called Lent, then Easter, then Pentecost. The time in between these periods is called Ordinary Time-- and even in this ordinary time there are special celebrations and rhythms. Second, this alternative time has specific rituals and liturgical practices that are supposed to accompany it. Third, the whole of Christian time is scripted by the daily office of prayer (prayers, meditations, and scriptures) and the lectionary. Fourth, simple everday tasks such as eating together is scripted by this "ordo." Finally, our weekly gatherings are to have a certain structure and process. Our life together is supposed to be ordered-- it orders me, it orders us. Rather than me customizing it, it seeks to customize me. Rather than me demanding something from it, it demands something from me. Rather than me trying to create this experience, this experience seeks to create me.

Finally, I do want to add that this "ordo" is not just some old, rigid thing. It is constantly being improvised on. It is very much like playing a piano. You can't play it anyway that you want. There is a simple order to it. Each key has its own notes and in order to play it rightly you must learn the scales. Once these have been mastered, you can play the grandest music that you wish within the confines of the piano itself. The same is true with the ordo. It must first be learned, made to be a part of your fingers. Once your fingers have been ordered by it, you will be able to improvise and make a wonderful sound with your life. However, most of what passes for "worship" today is like the child who doesn't know how to play bangin on the piano-- it's cute but it's not music. The kid enjoys doing it, but its doesn't qualify as playing the piano.

Castrated Gospel

Throughout my life, I have often looked around at the congregations of Christians around me. Most often I stare for a while, sometimes in shock or awe, sometimes in compassion. I listen to the beliefs of Christians and try to square these up with the person of Jesus Christ. Often these beliefs can find some support somewhere in the scriptures, but overwhelmingly find little support in the character of Jesus while on Earth. So many Christians have embraced an individualist form of Christianity-- what I and others often refer to as consumerist Christianity. When you hear it and see it, it doesn't seem that harmful, although it seems to lack depth and long-term transformative power. It even sounds good and makes people feel much better for short bursts. Here is this "Christianity" in a nut-shell (Disclaimer: this requires some over-simplification):

I am a sinner in need of God-- I have moral failings such as not being truthful to by friends or spouse, being full of hate towards a fellow collegue, and not spending enough time with my kids. Thankfully, God sent his son Jesus to cleanse me from my guilt and save me from these moral failures. He has given me grace to be able to learn to be honest and love my boss at work and spend time with my kids. I feel so grateful that God cares about little-ol'-me and wants to help me succeed in being a good citizen and model soccer mom/dad. Jesus started the church and told us that we should join ourselves to a group of individual followers.

So, I take my family to a really nice church with fantastic programs. The worship program is such a great performance and they sing songs that take my burdens and stress from the previous week away. My kids are able to go to really fun programs that teach them that they are special in God's eyes and that they can grow up and do anything they put their minds to.

Two weekends each year, we go to the local homeless shelter and serve meals and give Christmas presents to the homeless-- may God save them! And the pastor does such a great job teaching us about real life... last week he taught us principles from the bible about getting out of debt and this week he is teaching us how we can feel more accepted by God in the midst of our stressful, frenzied lives. As well, last month I took a class at the church on dieting and this month I am doing a yoga class. However, I do wish the church offered better parking service.

Brian McLaren is right... everything must change! The robustness of the gospel is being lost, deflated, it is shrinking.... evangelicals have traded in the gospel of Jesus Christ for a gnostic gospel-- one about knowledge and self rather than God's dream of reconciling all creation to himself.

Forgiveness and Bearing Burdens

I think it is a very difficult task for us to talk about "bearing one another's burdens" in the 21st century church for two reasons: 1) churches do not generally function in a way that allows for individuals to share their burdens; 2) in our individualist/private paradigm that most of us have in the USA, we do not want someone to come in and take our burdens unless invited to do so-- we have so many boundaries set up to prevent such close contact and vulnerability. Our churches do not seek to transform us from this; instead, they often cater to this individualist/private paradigm and structure programs and groups to allow for such an individualistic experience. How am I to bear the burdens of the anonymous person coming to worship on Sunday morning (even if I take the steps to introduce myself, etc.) when they and most people in the pews do not share their burdens nor take burdens from others? As well, how am I to bear the burdens of the highly involved, super-Christian when they have just as much of a private life as the anonymous pew sitter? Finally, I have noticed that my last two points revolve around people in a worship service, perhaps this is the problem in our thinking... I'm not sure, but there is much to explore here. [I posted a comment on a friend's blog that is very similar to this post-- http://www.languagepool.net/)

The Mutual Ministry of Forgiveness

The mutual ministry of believers is that of spreading forgiveness. The true repentence that needs to occur is that of our reaction to sin and perfection. The goal is not to stop sinning but to forgive in the face of the greatest offense. This requires a complete transformation of thinking. The accountability that we need to look for and set in place in the church is when one in our midst is forgiven s/he must go and find another to forgive, rather than trying to police sin, we allow sin to become public. In this way, we take the sins of others, the sins of the world, on ourselves as if they are our own. In this way, they are crucified and we are resurrected aknew.

What Is Church? 1.1-- Eucharist & Gospel

Much controversy has surrounded the Eucharist throughout the history of Christianity. Often basic theology classes divide the beliefs into 4 basic categories: transubstantiation, consubstantiation, Reformed (Calvin), and Memorial (Baptist/Mennonite). The first two categories take the phrase, "This is my body," very literally; whereas the last two take it non-literally. The first two see it as a means of grace from Jesus Christ. The last two see it as commenmorative only.

I believe the basic premise behind each of the categories is wrong which leads to a total misunderstanding of Eucharist. Jesus stated, "This is my body." I take this to be completely true and literal-- but not in the way of the first two categories. When a group of people eat the bread in the practices of the first century church as described in the previous post (It was a whole meal with a blessing of bread and cup in the middle of the dinner. It was a table of confession of belief and sin, a table of forgiveness and peace, a table of mutual participation in pain and hurt, and a table of survival), then indeed it is his very body and blood because it is a community that actually places its body and blood on the line for the sins of the whole world. We imitate our saviour by giving our lives for the forgiveness of sins in daily life. The meal does not just commemorate this idea-- its not meant to be a ceremony-- instead the meal should embody all of this. It should be a true table of grace and forgiveness where grace is bestowed by the people of God towards all who come in repentance. In doing so it is the very embodyment of "the New Covenant in my blood." Not a represenatation but the very literal Body and Blood of Christ.
When we eat the bread and drink the cup

What Is Church? 1.0

With this post, I begin exploring the nature of the church (also this same post is is being discussed on another blog I contribute to called A New Kind of Church, which is being rebirthed so give it time). As we know, the church has looked very different in every age and, if we were willing to admit it, had a very different theology in each of these ages. The goal is not to find our ideal model in some other era but to recapitulate the radicalness and revolutionary ways in which gospel changed the world during these various times. Thus, I start off my journey with the first century and will begin working my way forward through history.

One of the first things that I see as we start in the first century is the Eucharist/communion/breaking bread/common table fellowship. This was at the heart of the community. It was a whole meal with a blessing of bread and cup in the middle of the dinner. It was a table of confession of belief and sin, a table of forgiveness and peace, a table of mutual participation in pain and hurt, and a table of survival (possibly the only meal anyone would have especially in the impoverished and highly persecuted areas).Such a scenario does not work very well in most areas of western society, although it is still very much alive and viable in other areas of the world. So, what can we in the west draw from this way of doing church in our day to understand how we can act in order to change lives and world?