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Jack...

This is my son Jack and I love him... and I love his Pirate Mickey Ears Hat!  

What do you all think?

Christology-Missiology-Ecclesiology??

When I first heard the Frost/Hirsch formulation of Christology-Missiology-Ecclesiology it was a lightbulb moment for me. Their critique was simple- most churches got the Christology piece right, but inverted the last two, built their Ecclesiology (their church structure) and then formed a sense of Missiology- how they would live out mission in the world. But since they did it in that order, what they did in mission was necessarily shaped by the church strutures they had already formed. Thus, there were pieces and places of mission that were left untouched because "we have never done it that way" or "we don't have the facilities for that." Frost and Hirsch flipped the script and challenged the church to be shaped by our mission- to let mission flow out of our understanding of Jesus and who He is (the sent and sending God), and so be the sent community that structures itself along the lines of cooperation with God, what He's doing and sending/calling us to do. 

Dave Fitch has long made no secret of his dislike of this formulation. I've never really understood it, since I think at heart he agrees with the idea that the church should be mission-shaped, not the other way around (our mission should be church-shaped).

But today I finally got his dislike when he asked the question: so where does the Christology come from? His critique is that the Frost/Hirsch formula seems to imply that the individual can come to an understanding of who Jesus is apart from community. And as far as that goes, it's a fair question. But it doesn't negate the overall flow that we base what we do on who Jesus is and we base who we are as a people on what we are called to do. 

So maybe... instead of this:

it looks more like this: 

The idea is that our ideas of Jesus are formed in the community- we discover Jesus in the intersection of Scripture/Church/His working in the world- that is, when we participate in His Body. 

I recognize this is probably inside baseball for most, but of the 2% of you who get a charge in thinking about issues theological/ecclesiological/missiological... what do you think? Is the general flow right? 

 

Why we show up...

I'm at the Richmond Hill Abbey for the annual Ecclesia Church Planters Bootcamp I've been privileged to help out with these last few years. It's always a good time for my soul- being able to teach and be taught, hanging out with some increasingly good friends like J.R. Briggs and Dave Fitch...

One of the best parts of the week is joining the morning, noon and evening prayers that the resident community has in their rhythm of life. Very liturgical, sometimes very somber, very different from where most of us church planters are coming from. 

The thing about it is- I've noticed that everyone comes at the beginning of the week, but by the end... not so much. So this morning, I got a moment to challenge the planters here with something I try to keep in front of our community: the real reason we show up to corporate worship and prayer times. 

I think for many, it's exciting because it's different, at least at first. But after a day or two, it feels a bit more like a routine, a little dry... and people start thinking about other things they could do with that time. 

And that's where it's important to know why we show up. 

As pastors, we call people to be present in corporate times primarily for God and for the sake of others. The question of whether it was "good" for us is really secondary or tertiary. The real issue is whether it was good for God. 

We show up to be present to God: to stand with the community of people standing in front of Him in worship, bending our ears and hearts to hear His word. And yes, that's a discipline or at least if it doesn't feel that way now, just wait. It will.

But it's not as though the question of "is it good for us" is completely irrelevant. It's simply that we need to take a longer view. What I've found is that showing up in front of God, being present to Him and the community this way is forming in the aggregate. Like showing up to gym, no particular time I go is going to get me "in shape." But... if I keep showing up? 

I encouraged the pastors today to do what we ask our people to do- show up faithfully to corporate times of prayer, be present to God, be more concerned about the question "Was it good for God" than "Was it good for me" and most of all- trust that as I'm present to God, He'll be present to me, forming me for mission and life not just in the entertaining, engaging moments when it's easy to be present but in and through the times when it's not so easy. In fact, I think I can safely say, He probably forms us more in the discipline and routine and the slightly uphill than the easy-going and enjoyable times.