Helping The Church Be The Church: Reflections on New Monasticism Part II

School(s) For Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism edited by The Rutba House

This book is a compilation of essays on the “12 marks” which serve as guiding principles for many new monastic communities. The introduction, written by Jonathan R. Wilson addresses issues which I believe are essential for each of our three groups to consider.

Wilson claims that, in light of the failure of the enlightenment project to fulfill its lofty promises to bring about greater peace and prosperity through scientific, technological and logical development, New Monasticism is faced with the great temptation to focus on self-preservation. This temptation must be faced head on by NM communities, missional monastic church plantings and the established church. We must balance the temptation to be driven by the bottom line and the other extreme of understanding our existence merely for the sake of the world. But how?

Wilson urges the church to remember its eschatological identity; we live in anticipation of the reign of God, practicing the Kingdom ethos now and praying for its arrival in fullness. Regardless of the expression or form the church takes, if it forgets its mission to join with God in the ministry of reconciliation; if it functions and makes decisions solely out of internal self-interest or external activism; if it is driven by the bottom line, perhaps it has forgotten what it means to be church in the first place. This is not condemnation, it is exhortation. Church, remember your first love!

For New Monastic Communities: I spoke recently to students in a graduate church planting class. At one point someone asked me what difficult and painful lessons we’ve learned. I replied, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a Christian to reimagine the life of faith as something beyond attendance.” This realization has been costly, saddening and thoroughly exhausting. And yet, a wise friend encouraged me to remember how Jesus concluded his similar statement: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

For disciples forming a new monastic community, it is vital to pray for just such a transformation. Like Peter’s conversion when he visited the household of Cornelius in Acts 10, we must recognize that it is not only the uninitiated who need to be evangelized. We are all in need of the good news breaking in more fully.

Mark #6 discusses the value of being intentionally formed in the way of Christ and the Rule of the community along the lines of the old novitiate. Author David Janzen notes that we often read Jesus telling people that in order to follow him they will have to leave some things behind. He points out that this “renunciation itself is not holiness, but it creates a necessary space where the holiness of God can dwell and can reorder the disciples’ lives.” We’re like the wealthy city dweller preparing to hike up a mountain with 6 suitcases, 2 backpacks and a computer bag. We just can’t carry it all where we’re going. Even if we could, we soon we realize that most of it doesn’t make sense in the new landscape anyway.

Like the rich young ruler, we will be called to give up things which seem precious to us so that we can take hold of that which has value beyond our ability to imagine. There is absolutely no substitute for considering this cost. Having a mature guide(s) capable of listening with novices is extremely valuable.

Let new monastic communities be warned, skipping or cheapening the process of discernment will result in pain and frustration for novice and community alike. More than a mere conversation, there needs to be a season where an individual is dedicated to prayer and service alongside the community; a chance to practice the community’s Rule as a context for discerning call and commitment.

Janzen is clear to point out that this call to a novitiate process with the assistance of a spiritual director must not become a cultic community isolated from the larger church - to do so is idolatrous and will lead to disaster. A proper connection to the historic church, the present church and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the local community can lead to a vibrant life of discipleship.

For Missional Monastic Church Planting: Leah (not her real name) is a single mom raising her 4 year-old daughter and 10 year old nephew. She is attempting to do so on the meager earnings available in food service and it is increasingly difficult. Leah is distrustful of the church, but as she spends time with our family, extending and receiving hospitality has begun to reveal the goodness of the gospel in her life.

Showing hospitality to our friends is not good enough. When it comes to the cultivation of missional monastic churches among non-Christians, we are finding great wisdom in this mark of showing hospitality to the stranger. It is inconvenient and sometimes a bit terrifying to invite people we hardly know into our homes and our lives and to also enter willingly into theirs, but this is essential.

Maria Russell Kenney is right, this hospitality is not a gifting, it is a discipline “in which we are called - and invited - to grow.” It is more than an occasional gifting because it is rooted in the very nature of God and the experience of our own lives. God is the one who has come near, the one who has chosen to tabernacle with creation. God is the one who calls strangers out of obscurity into a life of being known and then sends us out to see and know others.

The call to show hospitality to the stranger is one that we can immediately invite our new friends to live into also. Michelle (not her real name) lives across the street from our co-laborers, the Chappotins. Recently several close Christian friends essentially abandoned the Chappotins after they confessed that they were struggling financially. However, when Michelle, their very skeptical-of-Christianity neighbor, heard about their situation she barged into their living room and began making plans for their two families to share meals and other expenses. The stranger offering hospitality in return is indescribably beautiful.

For the Established Church: Several years ago I was a part of a conversation about small groups. Pastors from multiple congregations were attempting to help their congregations connect more deeply with one another through the venue of small group ministry. One of our primary questions was whether to organize small groups using the homogeneous unit principle or by geographical proximity. The conversation was incredibly frustrating because it seemed to be driven by a defeatist “just the way it is” attitude which was resigned to people ignoring their neighbors.

I was a little surprised to find this issue once again being discussed in the context of planting house churches. It seemed that our commitment to our neighborhoods would settle the dispute before it began. Yet for the Christian families who joined our movement, experience told them that they would enjoy house church best if they carefully selected those with whom they’d be sharing life.

School(s) for Conversion is most helpful in that it locates the significance of geographical proximity in a more healthy place than did our dialog several years ago. We were unable to come to any consensus in that conversation and I believe it was because we weren’t asking the right questions first.

It would have been incredibly beneficial if members of new monastic communities could have spoken to us about the need for proximity emerging as a result of commitments to communal disciplines; serving this higher more important goal. If we were first committed to “common prayer, common meals, mutual confession of sins, spiritual guidance, and celebration, then geographical proximity [could have been] a great catalyst.” Instead, we attempted to pursue proximity in hopes that common practices would result.

The author highlights that we, including the members of established churches, have already chosen to organize by proximity. Yet it is primarily our closeness to school, work and favorable living conditions that has driven us, more so than proximity to members of our community. It is difficult to imagine how we can live out the call of the “one-another” passages in scripture when we see each other once a week.

It is the people in proximity sharing a common rule that really makes this principle so powerful. Most of us live near other people. Many times we are even friendly to those people, but sharing neighborhood space and sharing life are not inherently synonymous. When we do choose to engage one another more intentionally, we hold each other up through shared meals, shared celebrations and struggles...shared life. This may happen spontaneously. Probably not.

Established churches that have chosen to commit more intentionally to spiritual formation in a small group ministry may well find that geographical proximity is incredibly helpful. It will be important for these churches to remember to maintain the proper focus. Being close to others enhances our opportunities to live out the “one another” passages of scripture, it is not itself the fulfillment of those things.

Helping the Church Be The Church: Reflections on New Monasticism part I

New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

This is part of a series of posts raising questions about the impact and benefits of New Monasticism. Please refer back the Introduction for more background. Quotes in this essay are from the book being reviewed unless otherwise noted. You can contact me for a list of references cited.

The title of this series of essays is taken from the book New Monasticism, where Wilson-Hartgrove states, “Monasticism, I learned, isn’t about achieving some sort of individual or communal piety. Its about helping the church be the church.” This brief and very accessible book is, in many ways, a foundational text for the new monastic movement.

For New Monastic Communities: Perhaps one of the central issues for new monastic communities can be summed up by the title of chapter three, “A Vision So Old It Looks New.”

Recently, while reading/writing at Starbucks, a young man saw my copy of this book and asked excitedly, “Are you living in community?” He quickly identified himself with a group preparing to form a community drawn from the example of the Catholic Worker Movement. It was readily apparent that his vision is bold and prophetic...and I got the impression that it was also more than a little romanticized. I thoroughly applaud his zeal and passion; he strikes me as a very sincere guy and I pray that he and his friends will see miracles of transformation beyond their wildest imaginations. I believe New Monasticism will be a great book for him.

Wilson-Hartgrove recognizes that it isn’t in the big displays or bold public declarations that we find the essence of this movement. He says, “the real radicals aren’t quoting Che Guevara...[they] are learning to pray.” Success isn’t defined in a highly visible, popular ministry. It is contained in the small and seemingly insignificant.

And yet within these insignificant encounters, enormous things are taking place. The seed of a new empire is planted and hope for a real actual Lord other than Caesar begins to spread. It spreads life to life and house to house until whole neighborhoods, communities and cultures are infected. But it doesn’t begin with a movement. It begins with a person. It began with God walking in the garden God created; with Jesus walking the dusty roads of Galilee and Jerusalem. It spreads to our own life and then to the lives of the very real people with whom we find ourselves experiencing community. Only then do others begin to take notice.

If this movement isn’t about doing something large and flashy, neither is it about doing something new. These fresh expressions of faith are anchored in a long history of the Spirit guiding communities in similar ways. We are not compelled to be novel nor are we to become enthralled with our own creativity. God is the author and instigator of this movement and history is filled with tremendous guides and teachers for those who would answer the call to live in such a way. Creativity is valued and freedom to experiment with fresh ideas is granted, but Peter Maurin reminds us, “we can be encouraged by signs of something new precisely because they’re signs of what God has been doing for centuries...there’s no reason to think that God is doing something in our midst that hasn’t been done before.”

For Missional Monastic Church Planting: I’ve been living this way of faith intentionally for the last several years, first as preacher attempting to connect with skeptical neighbors in the unique cultural matrix in the post-Katrina New Orleans area. Most recently I’ve been experimenting with cultivating community as a church planter among equally skeptical neighbors in the south Fort Worth area. One of the most important lessons I can point to has only become evident to me in the past couple months. Even if we model this way of life, if we don’t invite people directly into their own expression they’ll quickly find a comfortable seat in the bleachers.

“We’re living together as God’s people to see how the Bible works as a manual for how to live together as God’s people.” This statement carries incredible implications for each of the three groups we’re addressing in this essay. Yet for those who are seeking to cultivate new communities among non-Christians and new Christians it issues a special heads-up. Grassroots movements of this nature are true to the ethos of the monastics and it is exciting to serve as missionaries bearing messages of hope and revolution to the margins of society just as so many have in the past. But it is easy to inadvertently bogart the best parts of the revolution!

One of the most common questions we receive from established churches is, “where is the accountability? How do you ensure solid theology and doctrine?” As we move into abandoned places of empire, as we engage in life with marginalized people in the midst of their marginalization, as we give and receive hospitality we are faced with the very real experience of being out of control. This is precisely what the desert vision teaches us to embrace. Yet as we form new communities, new house churches and the like, our residual fears urge us to control teaching and leadership, and our new friends quickly find their niche as passive learners in a living room.

Certainly there will always be a need for educated leaders and teachers and hopefully other books will address this issue. However, New Monasticism provided great insight by reminding us that as we are sent to the margins we find that God is already there. Much to our surprise, the people we encounter have much to teach us. Our task is to come alongside, not call them to get in line behind us.

For the Established Church: One of my good friends, a priest in the Episcopal tribe, is constantly reminding me that the established church needs movements like ours and our movement needs the established church and that this is how it has always been. I believe that Wilson-Hartgrove would concur. In the final chapter he states clearly, “We’re not trying to leave the church behind and do something new on our own...We are finding our way with Jesus, and what we’re finding is that we need the church.”

The new community’s need for connection to the church - both local and historical - was briefly addressed in a previous section. My own tribe, the Churches of Christ, developed out of the Second Great Awakening on the American frontier with a strong commitment to congregational autonomy and a fiercely independent streak (true to the American ethos). Over time this devolved into generally ahistorical and isolationist tendencies which have threatened the long-term survival of the movement. A commitment to the small, organic and neighborhood life of faith cannot mean a dismissal of the larger community that has passed the faith on to us.

We will not help the church be the church by leaving the church or attacking the church. And yet, neither can we be faithful in our love for the church by remaining silent in the face of great need. The point the book makes is not that churches must sell their buildings and purchase homes for members to share, but “if the gospel is good news for everyone, we’ve got to find ways to make that real for the whole church...My point is not that churches ought to imitate new monastic communities but that another way is possible.” One of the great contributions of this book to the established church is simply to raise the question, “what would it look like for your church, conference or denomination to engage one another and society in this way?” This book serves to spark imagination and conversation among established churches, not paint the full picture.

Helping The Church Be The Church: Reflections on New Monasticism

Introduction

Monasticism is about embracing the life of God. For some monastics this has meant a life of solitude; for many it is about true community (as opposed to surface level, transactional relationships). One contemporary leader of a monastic movement said, “Monasticism, I learned, isn’t about achieving some sort of individual or communal piety. Its about helping the church be the church.”

I describe our approach to church planting - which is focused on living the Way of Jesus and cultivating relationships in our neighborhoods, work places and coffee shops rather than on mass invitations to an event - as missional monasticism. (maybe that's a post I should write as well...)

For a brief introduction to new monasticism check out www.newmonasticism.org and be sure to check out the post on the "12 Marks."

A respected teacher and theologian, deeply invested in issues of justice for the oppressed recently asked me, “What does the ‘new monastic’ movement really have to offer the Church that is substantially different?”

So, that has become a guiding question in my studies at Perkins this semester. During the course of seven brief interactions with different texts, I’ll begin to anticipate how the authors of these books would respond to that very issue. Specifically, I plan to consider three primary questions. The first couple pages will review the book’s central offering to: 1) the development of new monastic communities and participants and 2) the planting and cultivation of missional-monastic communities among primarily non-Christians and new Christians.

The final section of each paper will then be dedicated to the contribution of these communities and the book influencing them to 3) the established church which wants to effectively function as the body of Christ beyond the Sunday morning worship event.

Obviously, essays of this length cannot hope to fully explore these questions; they will rather serve as springboards for further consideration, conversation and experimentation “in the field.” I'm posting rough drafts here on the blog and would love feedback. Again, this is meant to start conversations not provide a definitive response. If what you read raises questions - ask them! I'd love to have some dialog here that will benefit the refining process for this project.

Why is This Night Different?

Over the past few weeks I've been participating with a community of fellow travelers in a 40 Day commitment to prayer and reading scripture. This past week we read the book of Luke...before that we read Isaiah, Micah, Haggai, Hosea, Mark and part of Matthew. It has been pretty intense - Rachel and I have been deeply affected by this experience.

I put this post together based on some comments I made in our worship gathering yesterday (January 31). Hopefully you will find it beneficial...

Jesus and his disciples are gathered in the upper room for the Passover. This is a religious celebration that they've participated in every year for their entire lives. Everything about this event had meaning. Even as children they had a role to play in the ritual. There were questions that they would ask their father - they'd ask about the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread, even the way in which they sat around the table. The answers given were the same each year and they'd likely have been able to give it word for word. The herbs reminded them of the bitter enslavement they experienced in Egypt, the unleavened bread recalled the haste of their departure. It wasn't just stories about their ancestors in Egypt - THEY were slaves in Egypt and this was the hour of their deliverance.
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The “4 Questions” of the Passover Meal (Seder)
Asked by the youngest person (usually youngest son) at the table:

1) "Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzoh, but on this night we eat only matzoh?"
ANSWER We eat only matzah because our ancestors could not wait for their breads to rise when they were fleeing slavery in Egypt, and so they took the breads out of their ovens while they were still flat, which was matzah.

2) "Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only bitter herbs?"
ANSWER We eat only Maror, a bitter herb, to remind us of the bitterness of slavery that our ancestors endured while in Egypt.

3) "Why is it that on all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once, but on this night we dip them twice?"
ANSWER We dip twice - (1) green vegetables in salt water, and (2) Maror in Charoses, a sweet mixture of nuts and wine. The first dip, green vegetables in salt water, symbolizes the replacing of tears with gratefulness, and the second dip, Maror in Charoses, symbolizes sweetening the burden of bitterness and suffering to lessen its pain.

4) (original) "On all other nights we eat meat which has been roasted, stewed, or boiled, but on this night we eat only roasted meat."
ANSWER I don’t have the exact wording of this answer - it hasn’t been used since the destruction of the 2nd Temple in AD 70. Sacrifices offered to God would have been roasted - thus the Passover lamb was to be roasted to remind the people of the sacrifice made on their behalf.

4) (contemporary - changed after the destruction of the temple and thus the sacrificial system in AD 70) "Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we eat in a reclining position?"
ANSWER We recline at the Seder table because in ancient times, a person who reclined at a meal symbolized a free person, free from slavery, and so we recline in our chairs at the Passover Seder table to remind ourselves of the glory of freedom.

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It is this meal that Jesus reinterprets and reframes for the disciples - Jesus was to be the Passover lamb and this night really and truly was their night of exodus to be experienced anew each time they ate the meal together. Jesus was the bread, Jesus was the cup and whenever they ate and drank they were again to live this night of deliverance. The time was upon them, the events that Jesus had alluded to for 3 years were about to take place...everything was coming to a head.

When the disciples were sent out before they were sent to the children of Israel and they were to expect to receive hospitality. The Israelites they went to were to provide resources and protection, food and shelter, warmth and companionship. But now things were about to change. They'd been sent out before and lacked nothing. But now they were being sent to the wolves...so to speak. They would be carrying this gospel beyond the house of Israel - to the whole world. This is an especially important theme for Luke, one that we'll see stressed again and again throughout Acts. 

And it is within this context of the new phase of live for both Jesus and his disciples that they are reminded of their experience being sent out with nothing and yet lacked nothing. Now as they are sent out - or scattered - they were to go prepared for whatever would come their way - they were to take purse (money) and bag and even a sword - meaning that they could expect to encounter troubles (interestingly, I believe it is only Luke that includes this story). They should be wise and they should not expect to receive the same welcome that they did before. In fact, they should expect that just as Jesus would soon be arrested and murdered, they too would receive harsh treatment.

It is certainly true that the Jewish people had themselves not been entirely hospitable - they were after all about to kill Jesus. But remember, that was driven by the religious leaders. The people: the poor and the lame as well as many who were wealthy, were incredibly interested in what Jesus had to say - even if they eventually decided his words were too hard to put into practice.

As usual the disciples miss the point - they ask if two swords is enough, apparently still waiting for Jesus to give them the signal to begin fighting and usher in an earthly kingdom. Jesus' terse response seems to carry a sigh. The point isn't that they are to go get swords (which were still a common item for travelers - not just warriors), the point was that just as the Israelites in Egypt and the participants in the Passover, they needed to realize that the hour of action, the hour of deliverance was upon them and they were to be ready for it.

Following the night of sorrow and prayer in the garden, when Jesus is arrested, he is still obviously against violence in the name of this overthrow of the empire. The seed of a new empire has been planted and hope for a Lord other than Caesar will spread. It spreads life to life and house to house until whole neighborhoods, communities and cultures are infected. But it doesn’t begin with violence or force. It begins with a person. It began with God walking in the garden God created, walking with Israel across the dry ground where the Red Sea was supposed to be; with Jesus walking the dusty roads of Galilee and Jerusalem. It spreads to our own life and then to the lives of the very real people with whom we find ourselves experiencing community. Only then do others begin to take notice.

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear...

So, Which is It?

Yesterday I read the story of Jesus going to the home of Mary and Martha in Luke 10. This is a very familiar story, and that always carries with it a risk of giving in to the temptation to simply autopilot through the text.

But a couple things struck me today. One in particular is something that may seem very elementary - and it is really - but it grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

Jesus has just finished telling the story of the “good Samaritan.” As he moved on in his journey he comes to a small village where we find the home of Mary and Martha. We know that hospitality is important to Jesus - both giving and receiving. In fact, when Jesus sent out the twelve in chapter 9, the disciples were taught how to receive hospitality and were to depend on the willingness of others to offer it. In chapter 7, when Jesus was anointed by the “sinful woman,” the pharisee’s unwillingness to offer simple courtesies of hospitality is counted against him.

We also know from the story of the Samaritan (the story IMMEDIATELY before this one), that Jesus has little patience for people who engage in religion and ignore the needs of their neighbor.

So why is it that while Martha is busy offering hospitality and Mary is ignoring those duties in order to hear some religious teaching, Jesus says it is Mary that has chosen the better thing? Doesn’t that directly contradict the point of the previous parable...and several other teachings in Luke?

Let me encourage you to slow down and allow this to roll around before immediately jumping to one of the canned answers about this passage. It was a temptation that I had to resist as well. We need to take a page from our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters and soak in the mystery and paradox for a moment, rather than instantly clamoring for logical defenses.

Perhaps this would make a good passage - and maybe right now is a good time - to slow down and pray through these words.

God, what is there here for us? Why are these two stories next to each other in this way? Teach us, Holy Spirit.

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What do you hear? How do you read it? I have 2 responses that struck me, but I’d like to see if anyone else might want to weigh in first...

Where I've Been...

A couple people have asked when I was going to post again...many many other people have not asked.

Recently I've been loaded down with extra work to pay the bills, reading books, writing papers that aren't very bloggy (translation: too long) and trying to learn how to live missionally in my community with the new overly full schedule.

But I have plans to post some stuff soon - several things that have had plenty of time to incubate, a few papers that can be whittled down to manageable lengths and some new stuff that is just starting to simmer. For those who are interested, I'd like to provide a list of books I've read over the past few months and a few that I'll be reading over the next couple. Some of these have already had an enormous impact on my thinking. I plan to write a short blurb about each of them (some very short, some more lengthy) The titles on this page will become links to those posts as they become available.

Longing For Spring: A New Vision for Wesleyan Community by Elaine Heath

The Mystic Way of Evangelism by Elaine Heath

Organic Church by Neil Cole (I was supposed to read this one a long time ago...)

Introducing the Missional Church by Alan Roxburgh

New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Becoming an Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism edited by Rutba House

The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder

The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay

The Shaping of Things to Come by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost

ReJesus by Hirsch and Frost

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch (another one I've had for a while but hadn't gotten around to)

How (Not) To Speak of God by Peter Rollins

TO BE READ VERY SOON:

With Justice for All: A Strategy for Community Development by John Perkins

God's Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics and the Future by Joerg Rieger

The New Friars by Scott Bessenecker

Inhabiting the Church: Biblical Wisdom for a New Monasticism by Jon Stock, Tim Otto and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Evangelism After Christendom by Bryan Stone

Organic Leadership by Neil Cole

Free Book Giveaway

If you're interested, the blog "Post-Restorationist Perspectives" is giving away 3 copies of Rob Bell's book, "Drops Like Stars"

Just follow this link for more information.