Tomorrow I'm off to Lanzarote to speak at the Canary Islands Baptist Mission Conference (it's a tough job but someone really has to do it!). I shall be delivering four sessions - one to ministers, the other three to the conference as a whole.
I'm sure that Roxburgh's thinking will feature heavily in what I share from Luke 10. It will be interesting to see how churches in a very context to mine respond to these ideas.
One of the challenges for us in what Roxburgh says about mission is how we see the people who live next door and across the street as 'neighbours'. It's a challenge because lots of them live in networks rather than neighbourhoods; they mix with the people they know and like from their leisure pursuits or workplaces, from the links that have been made via their children.
Now some of these network links look suspiciously like neighbourly relations. But others aren't because interaction will take place miles from home. The challenge of Roxburgh's thinking is whether we can model the life of faith where we live with those among whom we live. But I think there's another challenge here that has to do with how we can contribute to making the streets we live in into neighbourhoods where people interact with one another, look out for each other, laugh and cry with each other.
Sociologists talk of this in terms of social capital. Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone argued that the growing individualism and consumerism of our culture was leading to a decline in social capital. Does the Christian community have a role in reversing this decline? Is this part of being a missional people? I think the answer to this is probably 'yes'. But I am not sure how.
I'll be reflecting on this as I sip sangria watching the sun set over the sea with new friends in the coming week and as I share coffee and glasses of wine with various friends through this coming summer in gardens, cafes and pubs around here. Perhaps, I'll stumble on an insight or two. I'd be interested to know your thoughts...
Showing posts with label Luke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luke. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Joining God in the neighbourhood
Having finished Alan Roxburgh's book, I thought I'd reflect on how I feel his analysis of our situation and Luke's writings is shaping how I think about my task in Bromley.
The first thing to note is that I agree absolutely with the thrust of his argument. 'The road onto which we are being called is counter-intuitive; it calls us to leave behind our bags filled with methods and models of how to make the church work by creating programmes that will attract and catch people. The way of the Spirit involves going on the road as a stranger, needing to receive hospitality from the other. This is a strange inversion of categories and actions - it does not fit with the way of life we have developed as middle-class individualists living in a "make yourself" capitalist culture.' (p130 - that last sentence certainly describes the church I lead!)
He argues for a resolutely neighbourhood-based approach to living our Christian story. He suggests that the way we have done church over the past 100+ years in the west has alienated us from our neighbours. This combined with the rise of the network society that has led to mission theologies putting network and connections ahead of where we live, has led to a chronic level of disconnection between Christians and their neighbours and, tragically, our neighbours and the Christian life.
Roxburgh ruefully asks: 'can we grasp the implications of what we've become when we have to train people how to have conversations with neighbours or set times aside to talk with another human being? What kind of inhuman world have we created for ourselves, and how has the church managed to accept it and develop the marketing skills to manage it? Can we be that far away from the gospel of our Lord that we don't see what we have become?' (p146) Ouch!
I confess to having waxed lyrical in the past about our need to capitalise on our networks, how our neighbours really no longer understand themselves to be neighbourhood people but rather people who live in a world of connections that arise through work, shared interests, etc. I don't doubt that this is true. But I agree with Roxburgh that we have allowed ourselves to be shaped by a world that judges relationships this way rather than fashioned by a gospel that asks us to look for and act as 'a neighbour' (Luke 10:36).
Clearly we need to relate to those we work with, people who often live miles from where we do. But equally clearly, Roxburgh seems to be on to something when he says that the focus of our living should be local. In particular, it means that the focus of what the church does should be local, centred on the places where church people live, shop, find entertainment and education for their children. Instead of inviting people to join our programme in our building, is God saying to us 'see what's going in your street, among your neighbours; look at what I'm doing there and come and join me'?
This, of course, involves big changes in the way we disciple people and the way we organise church. It also raises questions about our role in generating neighbourhood-based social captial in the communities where we live, seeing the church, Christians, as a key means of bringing people together and creating a sense of neighbourhood identity. I'll reflect on that later.
The first thing to note is that I agree absolutely with the thrust of his argument. 'The road onto which we are being called is counter-intuitive; it calls us to leave behind our bags filled with methods and models of how to make the church work by creating programmes that will attract and catch people. The way of the Spirit involves going on the road as a stranger, needing to receive hospitality from the other. This is a strange inversion of categories and actions - it does not fit with the way of life we have developed as middle-class individualists living in a "make yourself" capitalist culture.' (p130 - that last sentence certainly describes the church I lead!)
He argues for a resolutely neighbourhood-based approach to living our Christian story. He suggests that the way we have done church over the past 100+ years in the west has alienated us from our neighbours. This combined with the rise of the network society that has led to mission theologies putting network and connections ahead of where we live, has led to a chronic level of disconnection between Christians and their neighbours and, tragically, our neighbours and the Christian life.
Roxburgh ruefully asks: 'can we grasp the implications of what we've become when we have to train people how to have conversations with neighbours or set times aside to talk with another human being? What kind of inhuman world have we created for ourselves, and how has the church managed to accept it and develop the marketing skills to manage it? Can we be that far away from the gospel of our Lord that we don't see what we have become?' (p146) Ouch!
I confess to having waxed lyrical in the past about our need to capitalise on our networks, how our neighbours really no longer understand themselves to be neighbourhood people but rather people who live in a world of connections that arise through work, shared interests, etc. I don't doubt that this is true. But I agree with Roxburgh that we have allowed ourselves to be shaped by a world that judges relationships this way rather than fashioned by a gospel that asks us to look for and act as 'a neighbour' (Luke 10:36).
Clearly we need to relate to those we work with, people who often live miles from where we do. But equally clearly, Roxburgh seems to be on to something when he says that the focus of our living should be local. In particular, it means that the focus of what the church does should be local, centred on the places where church people live, shop, find entertainment and education for their children. Instead of inviting people to join our programme in our building, is God saying to us 'see what's going in your street, among your neighbours; look at what I'm doing there and come and join me'?
This, of course, involves big changes in the way we disciple people and the way we organise church. It also raises questions about our role in generating neighbourhood-based social captial in the communities where we live, seeing the church, Christians, as a key means of bringing people together and creating a sense of neighbourhood identity. I'll reflect on that later.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Living in the story that shapes our lives
Well, what a week! interviewing for a youth worker, teaching Romans 9-11 at Spurgeon's, reflecting on a spirituality of ageing for church on Sunday and in between all that finishing Roxburgh's excellent book. In fact, I got through the major sections on Luke 10 in time to reflect on this passage as a 'great commission' for the times we live in at church last Sunday morning. I was able to condense those thoughts into my piece for next month's church magazine. I will post that shortly.
First, however, I want to comment on something Roxburgh does a lot which I have found really helpful. He suggests that we seek to dwell in the story we are reading - in this case Luke 10. It seems to me to be a great way of ensuring that we don't rush to judgement on a passage, find what our excitement has told us we will obviously find there. Dwelling is about slowing down, reading the passage carefully, reading it again in a different version, pondering the language.
Roxburgh recommends reading the passage until it starts to live inside us and we in it. It is only then that we begin to hear the Spirit speaking to us in and through the text. This way of reading saves us from using scripture as a kind of marketing manual, getting away from seeing this missional approach that Roxburgh is recommending as just another technique that is going to save the church. It isn't and it won't.
The other key thing to bear in mind as we come to Luke 10 is that this story is told in the context of Luke using the story of Jesus' relationship with his followers to teach us about discipleship. Mission flows out of discipleship. It is not a technique learned by people who want to keep themselves busy in a religious way.
I am writing this on my new laptop, by the way.It's a rather nice Acer Aspire, fast with excellent graphics.
My thoughts on Luke 10 follow shortly.
First, however, I want to comment on something Roxburgh does a lot which I have found really helpful. He suggests that we seek to dwell in the story we are reading - in this case Luke 10. It seems to me to be a great way of ensuring that we don't rush to judgement on a passage, find what our excitement has told us we will obviously find there. Dwelling is about slowing down, reading the passage carefully, reading it again in a different version, pondering the language.
Roxburgh recommends reading the passage until it starts to live inside us and we in it. It is only then that we begin to hear the Spirit speaking to us in and through the text. This way of reading saves us from using scripture as a kind of marketing manual, getting away from seeing this missional approach that Roxburgh is recommending as just another technique that is going to save the church. It isn't and it won't.
The other key thing to bear in mind as we come to Luke 10 is that this story is told in the context of Luke using the story of Jesus' relationship with his followers to teach us about discipleship. Mission flows out of discipleship. It is not a technique learned by people who want to keep themselves busy in a religious way.
I am writing this on my new laptop, by the way.It's a rather nice Acer Aspire, fast with excellent graphics.
My thoughts on Luke 10 follow shortly.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Exhilarating reading
So I am continuing to read Alan Roxburgh's Missional: Joining God in the Neighbourhood with a smile on my face and sense of anticipation in my spirit. It's not that I agree with everything he says but that he provides a way of thinking about the mission God calls us to that is rich and plausible and rooted in scripture in a way that so much missional thinking isn't.
He argues - as I've already noted - that we need to base our call to mission in texts other than Matthew 28. It's not that Matthew's account of the Great commission should be ditched, just that it should be heard alongside other texts that similarly call Jesus' followers to mission. Roxburgh chooses Luke 10 (the subject of my next post on the book and, coincidentally, the subject of next Sunday morning's sermon) and seeks to place Luke's writing in a plausible historical context to answer the question why he recounts this story of the mission of the 70 at all.
Following Bosch and Green, Roxburgh dates Luke to the second Christian generation, a time when the first wave of apostolic leaders have quit the scene. He also notes that Luke isn't just interested in recounting history; he is writing to help his first audience of small, scattered gentile churches see what God is up to in their world as well as the world of Jesus and the first apostles. Luke chose to tell his story in a way that would resonate with and offer help to his first hearers. He is also right to highlight the sense of disillusion some of these churches would be feeling. Many would have expected the second coming to have happened by now, instead of which, the power of Rome is growing and the claims of Caesar for quasi-religious allegiance ever stronger. With the first generation of eye witnesses now dead and gone, the small gentile communities of Jesus followers were asking questions about what God was really up to. I certainly agree with him on Rome, I'm not sure about expectations of the second coming being so strong in the late first century - but it's a minor quibble.
Roxburgh argues that Luke attempts to address these concerns by compiling a two-volume story that aims to locate his first hearers in a new narrative understanding of God's actions in the world. Luke shows that God took a Jewish renewal movement and grew it into a vehicle for bringing his reign to the whole world. Roxburgh uses this insight - commonly held among scholars - to question our western (he's writing for a North American audience) reliance on the Euro-centric Reformation reading of our faith. This is a vital insight. It comes at a time when New Testament scholars are questioning some of the Reformation's emphases in its reading of Paul and the nature of the gospel; in particular the intense, almost exclusive, focus on justification by faith being the be-all-and-end-all of it.
So Roxburgh retells the narrative of Acts as the story of how God breaks boundaries between peoples so that everyone can share in the good news of Jesus. He points out that this involved the conversion of the earliest Christians as they came face-to-face with the Spirit of God pushing them into mission among people they thought were not included in God's plans. This otherwise excellent chapter contains an uncharacteristic clanger referring to James, the Lord's brother, being killed in Acts 12 when it is James, the brother of John, who is executed by Herod (p111). But that doesn't in any way detract from the force of Roxburgh's argument.
Drawing a parallel between the situation of Luke's first hearers and we who live in a Reformation settlement, Roxbugh articulates the question many church leaders think, even if they don't ask out loud: what's gone wrong? How come when we are faithfully proclaiming the gospel that has come down to us from our European forefathers, is the church declining like there's no tomorrow? Roxburgh's answer is that nothing's gone wrong, the Spirit is breaking out the box in which we have confined him for countless generations and that is both scary and exhilarating.
He argues - as I've already noted - that we need to base our call to mission in texts other than Matthew 28. It's not that Matthew's account of the Great commission should be ditched, just that it should be heard alongside other texts that similarly call Jesus' followers to mission. Roxburgh chooses Luke 10 (the subject of my next post on the book and, coincidentally, the subject of next Sunday morning's sermon) and seeks to place Luke's writing in a plausible historical context to answer the question why he recounts this story of the mission of the 70 at all.
Following Bosch and Green, Roxburgh dates Luke to the second Christian generation, a time when the first wave of apostolic leaders have quit the scene. He also notes that Luke isn't just interested in recounting history; he is writing to help his first audience of small, scattered gentile churches see what God is up to in their world as well as the world of Jesus and the first apostles. Luke chose to tell his story in a way that would resonate with and offer help to his first hearers. He is also right to highlight the sense of disillusion some of these churches would be feeling. Many would have expected the second coming to have happened by now, instead of which, the power of Rome is growing and the claims of Caesar for quasi-religious allegiance ever stronger. With the first generation of eye witnesses now dead and gone, the small gentile communities of Jesus followers were asking questions about what God was really up to. I certainly agree with him on Rome, I'm not sure about expectations of the second coming being so strong in the late first century - but it's a minor quibble.
Roxburgh argues that Luke attempts to address these concerns by compiling a two-volume story that aims to locate his first hearers in a new narrative understanding of God's actions in the world. Luke shows that God took a Jewish renewal movement and grew it into a vehicle for bringing his reign to the whole world. Roxburgh uses this insight - commonly held among scholars - to question our western (he's writing for a North American audience) reliance on the Euro-centric Reformation reading of our faith. This is a vital insight. It comes at a time when New Testament scholars are questioning some of the Reformation's emphases in its reading of Paul and the nature of the gospel; in particular the intense, almost exclusive, focus on justification by faith being the be-all-and-end-all of it.
So Roxburgh retells the narrative of Acts as the story of how God breaks boundaries between peoples so that everyone can share in the good news of Jesus. He points out that this involved the conversion of the earliest Christians as they came face-to-face with the Spirit of God pushing them into mission among people they thought were not included in God's plans. This otherwise excellent chapter contains an uncharacteristic clanger referring to James, the Lord's brother, being killed in Acts 12 when it is James, the brother of John, who is executed by Herod (p111). But that doesn't in any way detract from the force of Roxburgh's argument.
Drawing a parallel between the situation of Luke's first hearers and we who live in a Reformation settlement, Roxbugh articulates the question many church leaders think, even if they don't ask out loud: what's gone wrong? How come when we are faithfully proclaiming the gospel that has come down to us from our European forefathers, is the church declining like there's no tomorrow? Roxburgh's answer is that nothing's gone wrong, the Spirit is breaking out the box in which we have confined him for countless generations and that is both scary and exhilarating.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Perilous steps on the journey home
I thought I'd post my piece from our church magazine this month (as I do from time-to-time) because it has a bearing on my continuing reflections on Alan Roxburgh's book.
I was talking to some friends recently about their summer holiday plans. Well, it’s the time of year for it, isn’t it? The days getting longer and warmer, we’ve found our summer clothes at the back of the wardrobe and begun to daydream about sun, sea and sangria.
Our conversation was actually more about travelling to and from our summer break destination because, we agreed, that that was one of the best parts of the holiday. Journeys are often times of discovery, finding new places, seeing things we’ve never seen before, even meeting people in hotels and restaurants who pass on tips about what to go and look at.
Journeys are like this because we are away from the familiar surroundings of home, exposed to new experiences, invited to take a fresh look at our lives. As a church we are on a journey from what we were to what God wants to be. This is a permanent feature of Christian living. We only stop travelling when we reach our destination in God’s completed Kingdom.
Some people like travelling and others would rather stay put. For some the open road is a place of adventure and discovery; for others it’s a place of uncertainty and discomfort. The temptation for the latter group is to book into the nearest inn and say ‘this far and no further.’ The trouble with this is that we are in neither the familiar surroundings of home nor the promised comfort of our final destination.
It was for nervous, even unwilling travellers that Luke wrote the central section of his gospel. Uniquely among the gospel writers, Luke has a long section that is known as the ‘travel narrative’ that tells the story of Jesus’ journey from Galilee in the north down to Jerusalem in the south and his final confrontation with the powers-that-be.
He seems to have had two reasons for compiling his account the way he did. The first is that it gave him a good place to put all the material that no other gospel writer used – the parable of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan, the meetings at Mary and Martha’s home and with Zacchaeus, for example. The second is that he enabled him to spell out what following Jesus is all about. The travel narrative is a handbook on discipleship written for small groups of Christians scattered across the Roman empire in the second half of the first century, wondering how to live as followers of Jesus in a somewhat hostile and fast-changing world.
Luke 9:51-19:27 is about being a disciple of Jesus. The focus of these chapters is on the folk who are on the road with Jesus: how does he expect them to live as his followers, what will their life together be like, what kind of values will they embody in their relationships with neighbours and work colleagues?
Through this spring we will be making this journey with Jesus and his friends hoping to learn what it means to be a disciple in Bromley in 2011. We will be thinking about the nature of our life together and how we can make Jesus known to our friends and neighbours. It is a crucial journey for us to make because we live in a fast-changing and at times confusing world where the old certainties of home have been swept away and not replaced by anything so solid and sure.
Just before Easter, I was sitting outside a café in Victoria, warmed by the sun, watching office workers scurry in and out getting lunch to take back to their desks. He was with one of them, a young man, successful at work, happily married with a growing family. They had recently left their church and we were talking through the steps that had led up to that decision.
Neither he nor his wife loved Jesus any less; both wanted to continue serving him in the way they lived their life; both were keen to explore what being a disciple of Jesus meant with other followers. But neither of them could do church any more. He spoke of the decaying formality of it all, the superficial relationships, the tedious round of singing and sermons. He had been going to a lively, charismatic fellowship, and yet…
They had launched out on a somewhat perilous journey to discover Jesus on the road. They are looking for connection with a like-minded group of travellers who take Jesus seriously and want to live by the values of his Kingdom as they travel to their final destination. They also want to share what they’ve discovered about Jesus with people along the way.
In many ways they are living in Luke’s travel narrative, hearing the call of Jesus to follow and being prepared to leave the security of home to meet him and know him better. Are we prepared to make the same journey together?
I was talking to some friends recently about their summer holiday plans. Well, it’s the time of year for it, isn’t it? The days getting longer and warmer, we’ve found our summer clothes at the back of the wardrobe and begun to daydream about sun, sea and sangria.
Our conversation was actually more about travelling to and from our summer break destination because, we agreed, that that was one of the best parts of the holiday. Journeys are often times of discovery, finding new places, seeing things we’ve never seen before, even meeting people in hotels and restaurants who pass on tips about what to go and look at.
Journeys are like this because we are away from the familiar surroundings of home, exposed to new experiences, invited to take a fresh look at our lives. As a church we are on a journey from what we were to what God wants to be. This is a permanent feature of Christian living. We only stop travelling when we reach our destination in God’s completed Kingdom.
Some people like travelling and others would rather stay put. For some the open road is a place of adventure and discovery; for others it’s a place of uncertainty and discomfort. The temptation for the latter group is to book into the nearest inn and say ‘this far and no further.’ The trouble with this is that we are in neither the familiar surroundings of home nor the promised comfort of our final destination.
It was for nervous, even unwilling travellers that Luke wrote the central section of his gospel. Uniquely among the gospel writers, Luke has a long section that is known as the ‘travel narrative’ that tells the story of Jesus’ journey from Galilee in the north down to Jerusalem in the south and his final confrontation with the powers-that-be.
He seems to have had two reasons for compiling his account the way he did. The first is that it gave him a good place to put all the material that no other gospel writer used – the parable of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan, the meetings at Mary and Martha’s home and with Zacchaeus, for example. The second is that he enabled him to spell out what following Jesus is all about. The travel narrative is a handbook on discipleship written for small groups of Christians scattered across the Roman empire in the second half of the first century, wondering how to live as followers of Jesus in a somewhat hostile and fast-changing world.
Luke 9:51-19:27 is about being a disciple of Jesus. The focus of these chapters is on the folk who are on the road with Jesus: how does he expect them to live as his followers, what will their life together be like, what kind of values will they embody in their relationships with neighbours and work colleagues?
Through this spring we will be making this journey with Jesus and his friends hoping to learn what it means to be a disciple in Bromley in 2011. We will be thinking about the nature of our life together and how we can make Jesus known to our friends and neighbours. It is a crucial journey for us to make because we live in a fast-changing and at times confusing world where the old certainties of home have been swept away and not replaced by anything so solid and sure.
Just before Easter, I was sitting outside a café in Victoria, warmed by the sun, watching office workers scurry in and out getting lunch to take back to their desks. He was with one of them, a young man, successful at work, happily married with a growing family. They had recently left their church and we were talking through the steps that had led up to that decision.
Neither he nor his wife loved Jesus any less; both wanted to continue serving him in the way they lived their life; both were keen to explore what being a disciple of Jesus meant with other followers. But neither of them could do church any more. He spoke of the decaying formality of it all, the superficial relationships, the tedious round of singing and sermons. He had been going to a lively, charismatic fellowship, and yet…
They had launched out on a somewhat perilous journey to discover Jesus on the road. They are looking for connection with a like-minded group of travellers who take Jesus seriously and want to live by the values of his Kingdom as they travel to their final destination. They also want to share what they’ve discovered about Jesus with people along the way.
In many ways they are living in Luke’s travel narrative, hearing the call of Jesus to follow and being prepared to leave the security of home to meet him and know him better. Are we prepared to make the same journey together?
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