Emergence

I'm blogging through Frost and Hirsch's book "ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church". I'll share my thoughts on each Chapter. As some of you have already realized, I welcome your thoughts in comments below or in my inbox: .

Alright, here we go.

Reading this book is a thump to the head. There's a lot to process. Keep in mind that every author has a bias, and these guys are very much proponents of the "house church movement" going on today all around the world. I believe it is a reactionary move, especially in the U.S., against the megachurch movement of the 90s. While I have huge reservations about the house church movement as established today, there is too much good stuff in here to not comment--and the authors do a great job of refusing to dismiss the established church. In fact, the very reason they write this book is to hopefully infuse a picture of the radical, bloody, messy, sacrificial Jesus into the established church.

The Chapter starts with a quote from C.S. Lewis:
"In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose."

It's a great retelling of Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus gives the Church the marching orders to "go and make disciples...". The authors make it a point to share that the Church has redefined making disciples (which means you imitate and walk in the steps of the discipler) to mean making worshipers.

"By making Christ seem otherworldly, even ethereal, the Church has inadvertently put Him out of reach to us as an example or guide." (p. 19)

Even as a guy involved in worship ministry in the church, I can somwhat agree that as contemporary churches we, many times, do a better job explaining how to worship Jesus than to follow Him. It's the difference between the crowds on the hillside and the disciples in His shadow. It's the difference between someone who gives to "missions" and someone who is a missionary. Both are active--but require two different mindsets. One says "I watch the one who does" and the other says "I do what the master does." I believe the Christian life should be both/and. It is designed to show "I watch the One who does so that I can do what He has set for me to do."

The authors then go on to spend most of the Chapter talking about how a rediscovery of Jesus "...will radically reshape our view of God, the Church, and the world." (p. 23)

God - God cannot not be about the business of mission. God is both the sending God and the sent God. He is both mission sponsor and supreme missionary.

"The classical doctrine of the missio Dei (mission of God) as God the Father sending the Son, and God the Father and the Son sending the Spirit, [is] expanded to include yet another "movement": Father, Son and Holy Spirit sending the church into the world." (p.27)

If the church would only understand that every single person in the Corpus Christi (or Body of Christ) is sent as a missionary sponsored by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (in finances, empowerment, and fully equipped) I believe things would look very different today. What missionary would return to their sending church and say "yeah, we did that work sometimes"... or "we thought about it from time to time"? They would be fired. Useless at best. I know our prayer at the Chapel and Emergence is to see people fully aware of their status as a missionary of the Father--learning the culture around them and sharing the light of Jesus with their life.

The Church - The sent people of God. Not a building or an organization. (Think a place full of ambulances, not a hospital)

"The glory of God, not the church, is the ultimate goal of mission. Our role as the church, however, is humble participation in His grand scheme--the kingdom of God." (p.29)

Agreed. If a church seeks to glorify itself and ceases to be a place where God is raised high above all, it becomes an idol in itself. Should a community be pumped about their corporate gathering of believers? Absolutely--but the real work of the church goes on outside of the walls. The church is necessary as a component of the Church--without it, there is an all consuming world that is full of distractions. It is not the end, however.

The World - "Each person is created in the image of God (imago Dei) and thus possesses the inherent dignity and value that accompanies it." (p.33)

The unique nature of humans is that we are created to reflect God. I can't say I always do a good job of that, but that's what I was created for. I believe that the place of most contrast--and therefore the place of most opportunity to reveal Jesus--is in the way we treat (and more importantly, view) those outside the church. Is the church a social club existing to help people feel accepted by others? Is it a moral group of people doing good to make people smile? Or is it a sent people, on mission to share hope with a hopeless world, because they need to get to know the Father that they bear some resemblance to?

People always ask me "What does it mean when you say you are a missional church?"

Simply, I think it means we desire to be a community that actively understands missio Dei, corpus Christi, and imago Dei--and acts accordingly. One sends, the next acts, and the last motivates.

...and you didn't think Latin could be cool?