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Sunday, May 16, 2010

Helping the Church Be the Church: Conclusion

Over the last couple months I've been reading a whole mess o' books written by and about the new monasticism. (You can read the intro to the series here). I haven't really set out to give a full synopsis of the books, but rather consider certain contributions they might make to different groups. In this final post I offer a few closing comments.
The Church is so much more than a powerful organization. In being joined to the Church we have the opportunity to receive a foretaste of the fulfillment of God’s intention for creation. Community, just as God is community. Interestingly the biblical images of Body of Christ and Church are not merely different ways of understanding ecclesiology. They are theology of the first order. Because the Church is the Body of Christ we catch a glimpse of the Trinitarian God we serve. God is one God and three persons. The Church is one body with many parts.
To function as an organization, club or loosely connected gathering of individuals is to be shortchanged in our experience of the Trinity...and the great beauty that is the Body of Christ. The new monastic movement, like the prophetic influence of previous monastics, reminds the church of the centrality of community in our theology. The purpose of community is much deeper than mere fellowship. We are community because God is Community and we are created in the image of God.
While the new monastics should not claim to have a monopoly on communal expressions of life and faith, there should be little legitimate debate that, in the West at least, the Church is in dire need of good models of community.
Not everyone will be called to experience community and express their faith in the same manner as the new monastics. Monastic orders throughout history, as several of our books have attested, have functioned with the understanding that theirs is a particular calling rather than a universal one. Yet to the established church, those who heed the call to monastic living offer hope that it is possible to begin experiencing greater tastes of heaven even now. It is possible to cultivate community that extends beyond transactional relationships and convenient circumstances. It is possible to make the difficult decision to align oneself with the poor, marginalized and overlooked. It is possible because Christ is already at work in these things.
The decisions made to live simply and to step out of the line to upward mobility; to reject coercive power and embrace life lived in connection and submission to others are decisions that carry both criticism and hope. They offer a prophetic call to everyone. As I recently said to a friend, “You may not be called to take the same risks for Christ that I have, but you are called to risk nonetheless. Whatever it looks like for you to follow Christ, you should embrace it wholeheartedly.”
This is a message that the new monastics offer the Church. You may not be called to live among the homeless in Philadelphia, or battle racism in deep south. You may not be called to form a ministry to street kids in Boulder or spend a season living in one of the slum communities across the globe, but I guarantee there is an aspect of God’s mission that you are called to embrace. The new monastics not only call the Church to hear and respond to the mission of God but also to do so in community rather than isolation.
If we take seriously the prayer that Jesus taught us, we will not be satisfied until God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. If we aren’t making a conscious choice to live that way ourselves, at least among a small community of people, then our lives declare we are already satisfied.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove set the tone of this paper with his conviction that the role of new monasticism is to “help the church be the church.” If we expect the new monastics to offer something unique and novel to be considered substantive, then we are using a matrix that the new monastics themselves would reject. The value of the monastic contribution is not found in its creativity, per se, but in the simplicity of ancient wisdom which throughout human history has drawn people out for the benefit of us all. This movement is filled with monks and prophets that are putting flesh on issues of justice, reconciliation, freedom, community, whole-life discipleship, prayer, worship, evangelism and stewardship.
The value of this movement extends beyond its ability to bring about neighborhood renewal (as great as that is). The monastic rejection of passive consumer Christianity provides opportunity for each of us; for whole congregations and denominations, to examine our own complicity and respond in a way that is true to Christ’s claim on his Church.
The books that have been all too briefly addressed in this paper present a picture that transcends youthful rebellion or a postmodern reaction to the perceived ills of previous generations. They describe a commitment to whole life discipleship without ever claiming to be descriptions of THE commitment to such. There is little in this movement that strives to be truly novel or unique. Some of it feels such, given the typically individualistic experiences of faith in the West. Solidarity with the poor and oppressed is important. Connection to community is undeniably central, but there are certainly Christians of all stripes, found in all contexts who value such things.

Monastics are not the only ones reclaiming the values of prayer, scripture reading, worship, confession and spiritual disciplines outside of set religious gatherings. Unique or not, both historical monasticism and its contemporary expressions have a record of commitment to these values with a prophetic call for the Church to reclaim them as well.
Regardless of what “type” of church we find ourselves in, there are ways in which the new monasticism is poised to help that church be the Church.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Helping the Church Be the Church: Part VIII

If you are new to this series, you can read the intro here. This post contains excerpts from 3 sections of my essay on The New Friars.


The New Friars differs slightly from the previous works discussed in this series of vignettes. Each of the books have described, to one degree or another, the call to the simplified, stable, communal life of the new monastics. One of the 12 Marks of new monasticism is relocation to the abandoned places of the empire. That commitment, perhaps one of the more easy to spot marks, has been displayed by groups sharing space with the homeless in Philadelphia, families living and working together on a farm; a small community of folks sharing life in a large house or even moving into a neighborhood together. We’ve seen a few who were willing to spend a season in India with Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Mercy.
Bessenecker sets out to describe the prophetic call to relocate, not only to abandoned places of the Western Empire, but also to the abandoned corners of the globe. For the new friars, solidarity with the world’s poor extends beyond drinking fair trade coffee and boycotting globalization megastores that perpetrate the dehumanization of the two-third’s world. Instead the new friars are those who have left behind any number of comforts, friends and security to instead bind themselves to the poor and experience their fate. Friars, new and old, often take a vow to live in non-destitute poverty among the poorest of the poor.
It should be noted, before the reader’s blood pressure spikes, that Bessenecker acknowledges, “The call of the friars to bind themselves to the poor in a vocational way is a particular call, not a universal one. The universal call to any who profess to follow Jesus is to believe that he is the Son of God and to act like, no matter what we do for a living.”
Last week someone made an unnerving comment regarding my life as a church planter. “Not everyone is called to take their faith so seriously and do something as crazy as what your family has done. Most people are just called to be normal Christians.”
Not every preacher is called to leave their steady paycheck and begin starting new congregations...praying that eventually God would bring along a workable financial situation. Though, perhaps rather than people being called to leave the “secular” workforce to receive training and be ordained as full-time clergy, more clergy will be called to learn the holiness of a secular vocation; called to embrace life in their community, to relieve the financial burden of struggling congregations that don’t have anything left to give away after paying the bills.
Not every family is called to relocate in order to live, work and play among the marginalized. Though, I am convinced that every family should be aware of the marginalized, overlooked, forgotten and oppressed people that are already in their midst (they’re there, I can almost guarantee it).
I find little evidence to suggest there is now or ever was such a creature as a “normal Christian.” We are a peculiar people, called to follow the Way of the Risen King. We are those who both experience and anticipate a new existence. Living into this seemingly abnormal calling will not look identical from person to person and community to community. However, whatever it is we are called into, we should, with both confidence and humility, enter into that calling with the same prayer, commitment and dedication that any other person enters into theirs. Those who carry the name of Christ are those who display the new normal...even if it still appears abnormal to most people.

For New Monastic Communities: The New Friars does represent a slightly different calling than that which we have dealt with most commonly in this series. Hearing and responding to a call to voluntary poverty, particularly abject poverty among communities with little or no hope of recovery, is a weighty but worthwhile endeavor. It is not necessarily the same as the choice to live simply or to chose the path of downward mobility in community. It is a choice to, like Christ, live as hope among the hopeless; not swooping in as an aloof savior from on high, but settling in to share in the plight of those you love. The new friars are those who align themselves with the truly forgotten and oppressed because they are convicted God has done so as well.
New monastic communities will benefit from the expectation of these new friars, as described by Bessenecker. There is little hope for neighborhood renewal on a grand scale (at least immediately) for those living in the slums among the world’s poor. Their goal is to love. Their goal is to share in the ministry of presence. To be there and to remind others that God was already there.
There is a temptation among Western (or perhaps all) monastic communities to locate success in the neighborhood and societal reforms that our presence has influenced. We describe neighborhood watch programs, community picnics, reduction in crime, rezoning legislation, return of police presence, crackdowns on slumlords and drug-dealers.
These are certainly exciting, and precisely the kinds of effects we might expect to find in the wake of Jesus. Still, there is a danger of becoming a social agency whose existence is defined, not by the presence of Christ, but by the success of our projects. Will we remain faithful even if the police never respond to our 911 calls? Will we maintain solidarity with these people if the slumlord and the drug dealer continue to hold sway? Will we chose to stay if the schools continue to deteriorate and the medical care is still just out of reach?
The new friars encourage us to say, “Yes!” followed by a deeply felt, “come Lord Jesus.”

For the Established Church: In the book, Bessenecker mentions his work, and that of several organizations, in recruiting students and young adults to live, for a season, among the world’s poor. It strikes me that churches should be leading the way in sending missionaries out to proclaim life, light and hope. Bessenecker notes that throughout history the periodic times of renewal and reform have typically been led (from a human viewpoint) by youth17 and this new movement appears to be no different.
With that said, why is it that most of our churches experience disturbingly high percentage of teenagers graduating from high school and leaving the church altogether? Perhaps our kids no longer recognize the Church as a valid place to be a part of something revolutionary and worthwhile.
I recently attended a conference where Alan Hirsch made the comment that Western Christians have attempted to eliminate risk from our lives and in so doing we’ve lost our sense of adventure and we’ve lost out on the full and passionate life available to us. Jim Rayburn, founder of the Christian parachurch ministry, Young Life, was known to say, “Its a sin to bore a kids with the gospel.” Perhaps in our attempts to keep our kids entertained we’ve bored them all the more.
What if in addition to using the latest technology, relevant speakers, music and free food to call kids to pledge sexual purity, avoid drugs and recycle, we also invite young people to join Christ in changing the world? What if, instead of ski trips in Colorado, we dedicated resources to introducing our young people opportunities for solidarity with the poorest of the poor? What if our churches once again became the primary sending ground for radical missionaries of hope?
Throughout this series of papers, we’ve acknowledged that though there are often ways in which the principles can be applied and the prophetic call can be invigorating, many established congregations will either not be willing, not be able or not be called to transition wholly into more monastic expressions of faith. In this case, it may be that the Spirit, through Bessenecker’s work, may be calling us to, once again, “Set apart... Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Helping the Church Be the Church: Part VII - Inhabiting the Church

If you are new to this series, you can read the intro here. This is an excerpt from my essay which takes a look at what Inhabiting the Church has to offer Christian communities of different kinds. I've included a passage from the intro and church planting sections.



I haven’t been asked to take many vows in my life as a (non Roman Catholic) Christian in the US. I exchanged vows with a beautiful young lady in 2000. A decade before that I heard a call to enter into a most incredible covenant through baptism. I understood that certain things were expected of me...but mostly I was just asked if I believed. I have signed conduct agreements with universities and accountability contracts with small groups, but outside of my baptism and marriage I can’t recall any relationships that have adequately carried the weight of the word “vow.”
Inhabiting the Church addresses this somewhat common (lack of) experience by examining the value and implications of the Benedictine vows, particularly as they have been implemented within new monastic communities comprised primarily of free church Protestants.
Even setting aside momentarily our issues with the taking of vows, the three Benedictine promises of conversion, obedience and stability are perhaps themselves somewhat foreign among many Christian groups. The values of individualism and autonomy which cause us to cringe at the thought of being held down by vows also react to any claims of authority which expect obedience or the subjection of our personal freedoms. Yet, the authors claim, this is precisely what Jesus and indeed the whole corpus of Scripture demand.
At first glance conversion doesn’t appear too radical...until we consider that both internal AND external changes are expected. Many Protestants, especially those from more biblicist traditions, are used to the idea of obedience...until it is revealed that for the Benedictines this includes declaring our intent to be obedient to a community and even a human leader. Stability is fine as long as we’re referring to financial stability and our friends accepting the tough decisions we’ll have to make to do what’s best for our family...we’re not? Oh, then we all agree that’s ridiculous.

For Church Planting: One aspect of the Benedictine vows that struck me while reading this book was their positive and constructive nature. Those who feel called to a life that is dissimilar to the prevalent culture are often tempted to understand their identity in negative terms; they’re tempted to define themselves by what they are rejecting. It is easy for those setting out to cultivate community and plant new faith communities to think in terms of what they’ve left behind and how they are different from traditional churches.
While there is certainly a place for thinking through and critiquing the status quo, this is not a sufficient expression of identity, nor does it provide a compelling vision for the community. The vows of obedience, conversion and stability provide positive landmarks for the path forward. These vows cultivate an expectation that to be the people of God in a certain place is not merely about abstaining, it is about embracing; embracing community, rhythm, a new economy, the presence of Christ. It is about embodying hope and announcing the new kingdom.
The authors state that, “Conversion is a way of life that must be practiced.” This vision for our community is one that inspires excitement. We are learning to expect God to break into our lives and transform each of us regularly. We expect to see miracles in the lives of our friends and we anticipate ways in which God will allow us to witness glimpses of the kingdom even in the lives of our non-Christian neighbors.
Within my own community, we are becoming increasingly convinced that long periods without such experiences should be considered aberrations that can often occur when, 1) we’re not regularly seeking the kingdom and the presence of the King for our own continued transformation and 2) we aren’t praying specifically for the Lord of the harvest to send out workers.
We are not creating a counter-culture merely for the sake of being counter-cultural, we are inviting people to join us on a journey into new life. Yet the reality is that the essence of this journey does run counter to the systems of this world. Those who would invite others to follow the Way of Christ are wise to consider the role of vows taken in community. The life of church planting is incredibly hectic and unpredictable. Our network is convinced that no one should plant alone, but this conviction alone is insufficient. The Benedictine vows represent some very specific areas of struggle and temptation for church planters and provide equally specific tools for combatting these trials.
The book opens with an essay on the legitimacy of vows in general and confesses that, “if vows are applicable for new monasticism, they can only be such in a setting where face-to-face encounter is a daily reality. I suspect that vows, ultimately, are only as true as the life together that they represent.” Upholding a commitment to whole life discipleship in community is imbedded in the very nature of these vows.