A Kingdom Lens

The day after the Dry Bones conference, I served as a chaperon for my son's middle school band trip to Silver Dollar City (a theme park near Branson, MO). While on the trip, I was given a glimpse of God's preferred future by an unlikely pair of boys who were in my group. When lunchtime arrived, we scanned the array of options provided at SDC: hot dogs, pork rinds, and pretty much anything that can be fried in grease. One of the boys said, "I can't have pork." His friend, who had also been his seatmate on the bus, asked him, "Are you Jewish, too?" "No," he said. "I'm Muslim." So, with the help of this Christian pastor, we searched for something the boys could eat. There was no further mention of religious affiliation that day. There was just laughter, roller coasters, a band performance, and a shared six-pack of soda-pop. There was no hint of animosity, discord, or prejudice as a result of this revelation that the boys shared a historically contentious religious relationship. After all, they were buddies.

As our world continues to struggle with issues of peace and conflict, these boys gave me a glimpse of greater possibilities. They confirmed for me once again that bigotry and hatred are learned. I love the imagery from the prophet Isaiah in which he offers this picture of God's intentions for this world in which we live:" they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" Isaiah 2:4

I, however, couldn't help but see things differently throughout the rest of the day. Not only did I witness the power of friendship, I also felt the pain of perverted evangelism. For those who don't know, there is a not-so-subtle Christian sub-culture that gravitates to this particular theme park. For the remainder of the afternoon, I winced when I saw the multitude of evangelical Christian t-shirts that called for an acceptance of Jesus in order to spare one from the eternal fires of damnation. "What must these boys think of the Christian message when they see this bastardization of Jesus commission?"

The missional church seeks to participate in God's mission to restore all of creation. Evangelism is not a t-shirt, bumper sticker, or in-your-face message to "turn or burn." Jesus said:
"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:35 The missional church, in many respects, will look like these young men. God certainly is full of surprises!

Mike

A New Mission Frontier

It's no doubt that the information age has impacted every facet of our lives. Everything from social networking, to vlogging, to text messaging is influencing and changing our understanding of community. A team of cultural anthropology undergraduates at Kansas State University has been studying the impact that digital technology and human interaction have on one another. Anyone that has a passion and a desire to respond to the changing missional context in which we live ought to seriously pay attention.

Mike

Spiritual Marketplace

I recently read James Twitchell’s book: Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From in Your Heart to in Your Face. It’s a light, engaging, and insightful book that not only describes the church’s use of marketing techniques, but offers some important insight into the uniquely American religious scene that can aptly be described as a spiritual marketplace. Twitchell is not a theologian or religious scholar. (He doesn’t even go to church). He’s a professor of English and Advertising at the University of Florida. I think that gives him a unique position from which he can offer a healthy critique for those of us with a vested interest in God’s mission.

Many of the things that Twitchell observes are a direct result of the religious free market economy that began to emerge in the colonial era. Competition among churches is a reality that became even more intense as disestablishment became the law of the land. Recently, the church growth movement has offered the church insights into packaging and dispensing religious goods and services for the spiritual marketplace. I’m not going to dismiss any of this outright. Just this past week, in the days leading up to the celebration of Easter, our own congregation made sure that we had clever, colorful advertising in the paper, that greeters and parking lot attendants all wore smiles and name tags to greet the hordes of visitors who would join us for Easter, and that worship was “easily accessible.” Marketing techniques offer us an important tool in reading our context and our culture, but these techniques should not be confused with mission. As ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), we're called to offer the world an experience of the kingdom of God. From what I've read in Scripture, that's going to take the form of a cup of water in Jesus' name rather than a latte in the church narthex.

Michael Peck,
Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Dance Party

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he.
- Lord of the Dance, lyrics attributed to Sydney Carter

Though I can honestly claim to have never seen the show, I am rather fascinated by the fact that television viewers can’t get enough of the show Dancing with the Stars. The show apparently features celebrities (both current and washed-up) participating in ballroom dancing competitions. People eagerly tune in week after week to watch the choreography.

The image of people sitting on their couches glued to the television set is, for me, analogous to the state of affairs with the church today. There are far too many people parking their seats in church pews while one or two people chancel prance in front of them.

In the 7th century, John of Damascus, a Greek theologian, described the relationship of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) using the word perichoresis. The word literally means “circle dance.” Perichoresis implies an interdependent relationship among the persons of the Trinity. The mission of God (missio Dei) cannot be understood apart from the dance of the Triune God. As such, we must be mindful of the fact that through baptism, all of God’s people have been called to be dance partners. In his seminal work, Transforming Mission, David Bosch emphasizes the point that mission is not an activity of the church. Mission is God’s activity in which the church is privileged to participate.

When Ezekiel prophesied to the valley of the dry bones, “breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude” (Ezekiel 37:10). God is passionately calling for dance partners in God’s mission to heal, redeem and reconcile the world. Do you hear the music?

Michael Peck

Holy Cross Lutheran Church

heatherlyn

Singer and Song-Artist, Heatherlyn, also known as "HL," is in her fifth year on the Worship Arts Team at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, MN. She also serves to lead worship through song for a missional community called River of Joy, a recent church plant of Prior Lake, MN, existing to serve the people where they live. Heatherlyn believes music and art can inspire deeper conversation about being in partnership with God’s movement, bringing heaven here on earth. Heatherlyn shares her gifts of music and a message of hope all throughout her community, in coffee shops and common gathering places. She will lead us to consider and celebrate the character of our God, whose very nature is love. As we worship our creator, we will be transformed and we will become the love the world needs to experience Jesus’ grace, healing, and abundant life.

New Life for Old Bones

Kansas City’s Union Station has just opened a brand-new exhibit entitled: Bodies Revealed. This exhibit follows last year’s highly successful Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. (It would appear that Union Station has a growing penchant for all things dead). The Bodies Revealed exhibit gives us a unique view of the human body. Through a process called polymer preservation, we can observe and examine actual human skeletons, organs, muscles, nervous systems, etc. The exhibit is both fascinating and macabre.

This Sunday’s first reading from the RCL is Ezekiel 37:1-14. Ezekiel tells of being led by the Spirit of the Lord into a valley of dry bones. As Ezekiel surveys the exhibit before him, God asks him, "Mortal, can these bones live?" Ezekiel answers, "Lord, that sounds like a loaded question. I’ll let you tell me the answer." God responds by telling Ezekiel: "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.”

I’m struck by the power of that statement: “Hear the word of the Lord.” Since the beginning of time, the word of the Lord has been brooding, creating, and bringing forth life. In the story of creation as presented in the first chapter of Genesis, God speaks into darkened chaos, and suddenly there is light. In the Gospel of John, we are told that the Word became flesh and lived in our midst. Without the Word of God, Luther tells us in his Small Catechism, “the water is plain water and not a baptism….”

I’m willing to bet that there are many a Sunday in which pastors and church leaders stand in front of their congregations, and like Haley Joel Osment’s character in the movie The Sixth Sense, say to themselves: “I see dead people.” Over the years, church leaders have searched for ways to bring forth new life, new vibrancy, and new hope in the midst of their own proverbial bone yards. They’ve purchased programs, attended seminars, used church growth principles, and followed a variety of keys and steps to achieved desired results. As far as I’m concerned, each of those is skeletal in nature. Without the Word of God, these bodies will remain lifeless.

The missional church conversation takes a position more akin to Ezekiel’s: "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." Ezekiel 37:3 Congregations must begin to place the Word of God at the center of our conversations and deliberations about ministry. Discernment, prayer, and the study of scripture must be held in dialogue with the needs, trends, crises and opportunities presented by our contexts. The Dry Bones conference has been designed to equip you and your congregation to begin living again and engaging in God’s mission to heal and bless the world.

Michael Peck
Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Our Religious Landscape

This week, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released their findings from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. The extensive survey gives us a valuable snapshot of the current religious climate in the U.S. Here are some of their key findings:

• 28% of American adults have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another faith, or no faith at all.
• 16.1% of Americans claim no religious affiliation. (More people are moving from a religious affiliation to no affiliation, rather than vice-versa)
• One-in-four Americans ages 18-29 say they are not currently affiliated with any religion.
• Protestantism is on the verge of becoming a religious minority.

To learn more about the survey results, you can take a look the report for yourself at www.pewforum.org

There’s nothing in the survey results that surprises me. In fact, the results confirm things that we have been observing for some time now. We live in a time when people are highly spiritual; they simply have a growing disregard for institutionalized religion. People have a spiritual itch, but they’re not afraid to ask deep and probing questions about the truth of the message that those in the religious community proclaim. Rather than subscribe to a particular religious doctrine, people are much more apt to take a salad bar approach to spiritual life. The inwardly focused, consumeristic, attractional posture the church has assumed since Constantine blessed it with his imprimatur has ill-prepared us for what’s ahead.

My response to these trends is to ask the first missional question: “What is God doing?” I’m coming to discern that God is up to something big here and it just might be that God is pointing an accusatory finger at the institutionalized Church. Over the centuries, we (I write as a card carrying, officially ordained party member) haven’t been the best P.R. firm for God. Just a brief overview of the history of the Christian church reveals hypocrisy, conflict, warfare, etc. There have certainly been high points, but those aren’t the things that get noticed. It’s the apparent disconnect with the message that is supposedly proclaimed. I think Mohandas Gandhi summed it up best when he said: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

The missional church conversation is one that can assist the Christian church in engaging this rapidly changing culture with a renewed missional posture that not only has a strong theological foundation, but is supported by solid theoretical information.

Michal Peck,
Holy Cross Lutheran Church