Monthly Archives: February 2008

This past weekend, the elders of the Northwest Church spent 12 hours over Friday and Saturday working through thoughts of mission, values, and vision for this church.   It was stimulating, exciting, difficult, challenging, and in the end, we walked away with a renewed sense of mission, and committed to the soul-searching  process of  yielding ourselves fully to what God wants to do with His people in this place.

There are many ways to do things, as we know.  Culture is inescapable, and each generation must wrestle with new and dynamic expressions of life in God’s Kingdom.  We live in an age of change almost beyond apprehension.  I am convinced, with the Ecclesiastes writer, that nothing is new.  Yet, I am equally convinced that the only constant is change.  (Maybe not the only constant.)  But the move from modernity to postmodernity to whatever’s next, the advance of personal technology, the rise of mass media and the image, globalization, renewed energy concerning social justice, the viral nature of cyberspace information and connectivity, and the sheer speed of the world facing young people today–all of this means we are in a moment of cultural shift equivalent to the days of Gutenberg.

The word “missional” keeps popping up.  The missional conversation reflected in some of the links on the blogroll is very compelling, yet speaks a language and orientation foreign to traditional church culture.  In missional thinking, the core idea seems to be a missionary stance to local culture, a stance owned by each member of the congregation.  Missional thinking acknowledges that we now walk in a foreign culture, though geographically we may have never moved from the street we were born on.  Patterns of ideas, the dominant images in thought-life, notions of family, relationship, responsibility and rights–and yes, the idea of church–for the regular Jane and Joe on the street, these things have changed since the days of our elders.

But one thing we know: the mission of God has not changed.  He is still seeking the people He loves.  He comes after them with compassion and grace, even as they destroy themselves.  To be saved is something far more profound than punching a ticket for heaven, and the kingdom is something far greater than a cloudy realm with gold bricks to walk on.  The thing that was exciting about the Elders’ retreat was simply this: we know in our guts that we want to join God’s mission.  What greater way to spend life than to spread the good news of the Kingdom, that love and hope are possible, that darkness will not trump the light, and that the call of God contained in every encounter with beauty is a call that’s true, coming from a home that waits for us both in the now and the not-yet.

We know there’s an agent in the world that seeks to destroy us, and we talked about that,  too.  But scripture is unequivocal–that war’s been won.

Here’s the mission as it currently reads:

To join God’s Spirit in spreading His Kingdom, calling all people to follow Jesus, transforming life and community in His love.  

Come and see… 

I told the church yesterday I feel like my head is under water. My right ear has been clogging up lately, then reopening, but for the past two days its been completely closed so that I’m not hearing very well. It’s annoying, and it’s giving me an appreciation for the feelings of those who begin to experience hearing loss. I’m headed to the doctor this morning to see what the deal is.

But yesterday, the head-under-water image was appropriate. We talked about baptism. And when three people were baptized into Christ, a palpable sense of joy ran through the church, and I understood more about what men and women called into ministry are really doing. As I stood watching the people react in joy to the ones giving their lives to Christ, something moved inside me that helped me understand more about what Bill Hybels means when he talks about the stakes being high every week, every day.

A friend sent me an email from a minister working elsewhere in Washington State that lamented how churches don’t really change. Especially older established churches. What they traditionally do (and statistics bear it out) is maintain, keep the older members happy, and leave the dynamism of new life up to the young people, who go elsewhere and start new churches that will go through pretty much the same cycle–early growth, maturing, resistance to change, then long, slow death.

Maybe. I suppose it’s true…maybe.

The NW Church is over 100 years old.

We live in a time of what seems like colossal change. All that’s good, all that’s true, and all that’s beautiful seems to be up for grabs. Barbara Brown Taylor’s words “what a Christian looks like is always an open question” ring loud and clear in my heart. There is a discovery that must be launched over and over again. New songs must be sung, new journeys must be taken, and new prayers must be lifted. On Saturday, the small group leaders of our church met for six hours, looking at where we are and where we’d like to go, re-visiting the idea that whenever people get together–again–stakes are high. This coming Friday and Saturday, the elders will go on retreat together, fasting and praying for vision and renewal.

We have so far to go in our journey to God. And yet, He is here in this moment, moving among His people over on 15th Ave. NE. I’m not sure we’re running whitewater wide and strong yet, but the streams of living water are emerging with more and more clarity. I think Kingdom change, Spirit growth, even transformation–they are possible, and they are coming. How the Spirit of God drives these matters is beyond me, like many things, but this is where trust comes in. Belief is one thing, trust is another.

Heart propelled living water…

This time I’m in Chicago trying to keep up with my son.  Daniel is auditioning for BFA Musical Theatre programs here an event simple called “Unifieds.”  At the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago, over two dozen universities gather to audition hundreds of young theatre students for both undergraduate and graduate programs.  Daniel is auditioning for five different schools (he auditioned at the University of Michigan last week.)  The halls are filled with hopefuls, all starry-eyed, all courageous.   It’s pretty inspiring to watch.

Michigan Avenue in snow and fog.

Detail from a “Wall of Ice” installation in Millennium Park.

It’s been snowing, so I got some pictures.  Then I found out this is “Free February” at the Arts Institute so I spent a couple of hours there today, again, taking pictures.  I can’t help but be captured by these artists, these men and women who portray their worlds in painting, sculptures, masks, paperweights, miniature portraits, textiles, and pottery.  Wandering the galleries, it is so obvious that everything changed with Modernism, as if suddenly we discovered we were something completely different than what we were before.  I try to tell myself that I “get it”, but honestly, once we move beyond Impressionism, my bearings go flying out the window.   I find a few pieces here and there I like for no other reason than a particular composition jumps out at me, or maybe the materials are cool, but much of it just doesn’t interest me, intellectually or otherwise.

Constantin Brancusi, Suffering ,1907

Detail from Circular Glass Plate 1880/87  (Theodore Deck – Maker / Paul-Cesar Helleu – Painter)

Detail from a Van Gogh Self-Portrait.

I could spend days just soaking it in…