emerging mosaic

Warning this may sound like a rant to some, read on if you care.

I am beginning to sound like a broken record but I am amazed at how many Christians in the blogosphere are playing down the Michael Richards tirade. Here is just a sampling

he apologized get over it, and I’m tired of being outraged besides he’s not a Christian it is no wonder the church has no credibility and is still so segregated.

I’m not trying to single out these bloggers as bad guys I don’t know them and don’t believe either of them condone Richards behavior.  They among many others are symbolic of the incredible insensitivity of the church to the damage done by racism and ignorance in the church of the depth of racial separation in this country.

Why do people who follow Christ try to explain away this sinful behavior that is so prevalent in America? Are we afraid to admit our own prejudices and confront our own complicity with racism? Why do we not see that there is no room in the kingdom of God for this kind of quiet acquiescence? Can we not find a prophetic voice to speak into our faith communities and the world that this is not God’s way? Where is the mutuality of the body (If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing 1 Corinthians 12:261 Corinthians 12:26
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
26 If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.

As person of African descent I was hurt deeply hurt by what came out Richards mouth. It was a cultural and emotional h-bomb. What deepens the hurt is the response of some of my brothers (I haven’t noticed this from sisters) in Christ who I can only assume just don’t get it. I don’t why I am surprised because it is not the first time I’ve seen this from Anglo-Christians. It is no wonder we have such declining credibility. We talk a good game. But when it comes to time to put our money where our mouth is, walk the talk and be the people of God & call for repentance where it is needed, we wilt away.

We say “Its no big deal”, “he is just a comedian”, “he just lost it that’s all”, “they called him cracker”, “there were people laughing”

I was outraged and disturbed when I heard Michael Richards I am deeply saddened by what i haven’t heard from so many of my brothers.

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Technorati Tags: conversations, diversity, kingdom_of_god, michael_richards, racial_separation, racism

My esteem of moby, artist, musician, entrepreneur and Jesus follower is going up all the time. I find his candor and perspective on the Christian faith refreshing. Check out this recent post on the insanity of how some are practicing faith in America and the contrast in actual teaching of Jesus.

It was sparked by this news article Neighborhood fights over peace wreath, here is a photograph of the wreath

Read the post truly insane | moby.com

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Technorati Tags: christian_faith, faith & culture, moby, peace-wreath, spiritual-practice

The protest was called off after a meeting with Driscoll. Read about it or here

Driscoll’s comments about Ted haggard’ recent problems has generated protests from a group called people against fundamentalism. This is why I was so disturbed frustrated by Driscoll’s remarks. When he says things the way he does it just perpetuates already high levels of cynicism about Christians in our culture, creates divisions in the body and undermines the Christian witness. Now while I support their right “take action” on what they call his “misogynist religion”, I am saddened that it has come to this. Haggard situation was painful and unfortunate enough but this just adds to the brokenness. How can we learn to be healers, wounded healers instead of fix it experts?

Here is some of what they say about Driscoll and the protest on their blog. 

‘He has been relishing in his misogyny, rolling around in it like a feline in catnip. His latest women-bashing came in a blog post about former pastor (and former head of the Christian umbrella organization National Association of Evangelicals) Ted Haggard’s marital infidelity. As is typical with misogynists and other abusers, Mark blamed women for the terribly hard time pastors have controlling their sexual urges: “It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go…” The post makes for an interesting read; Helen, over at Conversation at the Edge dissected it well, so I won’t rehash it here.

Mark also regularly rants against men who don’t meet his minimum testosterone bar, which seems to be a Father Knows Best, 1950s, I-Am-Man-Cook-Me-Dinner, Bear-My-Children sort of fantasy ideal. His poison, though, is woven insidiously through much of his writing and thought. (See for example how he just has to bring the hammer down in an unrelated post here.)

After standing by while Misogynist Mark beats up on women regularly, it is time for us to stand up for the oppressed. People Against Fundamentalism is sickened by the injustice preached from the Mars Hill pulpit. We are done standing by while Mark the Misogynist takes his misguided religion and hollows out the humanity, dignity, and equality of the women in our midst.

So, we’re organizing our first direct action. On Sunday, November 19 December 3, we’re going to take a physical stand against injustice outside the Mars Hill Ballard Campus in Seattle at the 11am service.

Read the whole post » Take Action on December 3

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Technorati Tags: conversations, faith & culture, mark_driscoll, mars_hill, national_association_of_evangelicals, ted_haggard

emergent, new monastic, emerging, organic, ancient future, missional church. I haven’t been completely comfortable with any of these current labels for evolving ways of being the church. As I have been re-imagining what it means to be a follower of Jesus in my current cultural context  (urban,racially and socio-economically diverse) I’ve moved beyond emergent but had not named what that beyond was.

I was recently been asked to teach a class at a local seminary on the missional church. As I’ve been preparing for that I find myself growing increasingly more comfortable with identifying what I’m doing as missional. To be sure the missional label is not perfect and I can’t say I agree with every expression of missional but here are some things that appeal to my post emergent sensibility.

My developing view of the missional church is

• Cross cultural in its efforts
• intentional indigenous - culturally engaged but not culturally absorbed
• connecting with God who is already at work in our world
• incarnational proclamation of the gospel
• realigning or re-imagining all aspects of church life around God’s purposes
• culturally engaged but scripturally orthodox
• transforming community
• church planting reproduction
• creative and culturally relevant but connected to the historically church

Some language derived from  Friends of missional

So as I move toward the missional future I’ve taken the huge leap of posting a friend of missional button in my side bar. A  first of any kind of identifying button for emerging mosaic.

Share your ideas or thoughts on the missional church

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New Line Cinema releases the movie Nativity Story this week. I had the opportunity to see a preview screening last week. I took the whole family. The youngest 5 loved it though he was scared when Herod’s soldiers killed the Hebrew babies. My oldest 12 could take it or leave it. My wife said it was alright.

The PR guy said the movie was 13 months in the making from idea to release. To me it felt more like a made for TV movie than theatrical release. It wasn’t tacky or cheap or cheesy it just didn’t have a big screen feel. Maybe that was by intent because the publicity notes say they are trying to tell the story on a more personal level. Looking at the story from the perspective of the people involved. On that level I think they succeeded.

They also did a very good job with casting particularly Kiesha Castle Hughes (Whale Rider) as Mary. The folks look middle eastern unlike passion of the Christ where even though they spoke in Aramaic they looked European. The magi provide some light humour.

Overall it rates B. I’ll use aspects of it in my advent messages series at Mosaic Life

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I have watched, read and listened to all the talk about Michael Richards racial meltdown last week. Now I’m ready to wade into the hype. I have to say of the bat, I was never a fan of Seinfield; (it always amazed me that as with Friends all these people could be so active in NYC and not come into contact any black folks.) So I don’t have any love lost for Kramer.

So even as my state of MI passed a proposition to end affirmative action, this kind of stuff illustrates why we need to talk about race. There is so much latent racism in our culture and people think that if it doesn’t come in the form of a man in a pointed hood and robe or a cross on a lawn it is not racism.

It is absolutely amazing to me that Richards could go on Letterman and say “I’m busted up about this.. because I am not a racist” after what came out of his mouth. I can’t even say that. This betrays the hidden racism and ignorance that continues to permeate our dealings with each other. Like the folks in MI that voted to end affirmative action saying things have changed so we don’t need it any more or an emerging church leader thinking that because a couple of black folks have bee given positions in government that means that they have more privilege than he. Then there are all the folks who expect Richards to be able to call Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton and have every be alright because he apologized to them. Props to Al Sharpton for not going there.

Let me say this as clearly as I can. We cannot be the church of Jesus Christ until or unless we confront the sin of racism that exists in our churches and our culture. All the good theology in the world won’t mean anything if we don’t wade into this issue.

in a side note Bob Hyatt says that Brian Mclaren will stop doing outside speaking engagements 

but will begin to put on his own events with speakers drawn from a more racially, geographically and…uh.. genderally diverse group

I am anxious to see how this goes.

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Technorati Tags: affirmative_action, diversity, faith & culture, letterman, michael-richards, race, racism, seinfield

Mark Driscoll, who got some flak for his offhand comments about pastors wives letting themselves go being one the root causes of male pastors indiscretions says Thank You, Critics on his blog. Read it for yourself and decide what you think.

I think I see an unhealthy pattern. make an insensitive or over the top remark about people and then backpedal and blame it on being misinterpreted. Based on the post on the Huffington post that I linked previously I think when he does this kind of thing Driscoll send a very destructive message to others in our world about followers of Jesus.

As a pastor who says he holds to drawing on all of God’s teaching in scripture I would like to encourage Pastor Driscoll to study the book of James. Especially James 3 which talks about the power of our words.

Here are some other reactions to his first post

Open letter from Rose Madrid-Swetman 

Fat lazy wives 

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Technorati Tags: faith & culture, haggard, mark_driscoll, pastors_wives

It may be self serving but I am encouraged when I see others speaking out for a post emergent future for the emerging church. Here is a snippet of a review from a talk given by Jason Clark titled The Emerging Church: Another Dead-End or the Hope of the Church?

First, it must become a deeper church by valuing old, new and even Christian faith.

Second, following the example and work of such theologians as Stan Grenz, Jon Franke, Scott McKnight, and Ray Anderson, it must become a theological church by developing a theology robust enough not to be either threatened or co-opted by postmodernism.

Third, it must become a Biblically-informed church by reading and re-reading the Bible as the church- and culture- critiquing set of authoritative texts that it is.

Fourth, following the ancient church on the road to depth, it must become a creedal church, checking the individualistic impulse towards fashioning the church in the image of ourselves.

Fifth, it must become a confessional church, not to celebrate sectarianism, but to show the richness and vitality of a deeper church. “Maybe then,” says Jason, the emerging church’s legacy will be that it was “the response of the church catholic to our emerging culture … known for it’s vibrant ecumenical depth, with a life giving theology, rooted in a new Biblicism, growing counter to our individualized culture, as it affirms the creeds, with a plurality of local confessions from communities growing in faith, with new Christians handing their lives over to the way of Christ.” We can only hope the emerging church will have such an impact.

I couldn’t agree more with Jason’s assessment of an emerging future for the church. His observations address the tendency of many in the emergent conversation to act as it they are inventing the church all over again. Furthermore that re-invention tends toward the image of those who are doing the re-inventing that is to say white, liberal, male and academic. While there is nothing inherently wrong with any of that it has not created space for the richness of the church which comes from its history and the diversity of its members.

That has unfortunately caused some to step out of or beyond “the conversation” having become frustrated with perceived the intransigence of the emergent hierarchy, (yes there is a hierarchy) around these issues. Thanks to Jason for being a bold and prophetic. Maybe his voice will be heard and stimulate where others have not. 

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Technorati Tags: ancient_church, church_catholic, emergent, emerging church, emerging_church, faith, jason_clark, postmodernism, post_emergence, theology

For truly biting satire about the church modern and otherwise check out this site

TheChurchYouKnow.com Homepage

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I came across this recent in the The Christian Century. The description of Jacob’s web does not seem to fit the usual prescription of an emergent church. Which is supposed to be small and democratically led. (flat leadership model)

This neighborhood is also home to a thriving church called Jacobs Well, which attracts about 1,000 people each week to its various services. The church is led by Tim Keel, who, along with author Brian McLaren, is a founder of the Emergent movement. I went to JW hoping that it could help me understand a phenomenon that remains elusive—the Emergent church.

The innovative JW is housed, ironically, in a classic church building that Presbyterians erected in 1930. The building is the envy of the numerous congregations in the neighborhood, including two that have exchanged their denominational labels for more jazzy names and logos—one Southern Baptist now River City Church and one Evangelical Covenant now City Church.

So can a church be emergent and large, and led by a charismatic leader?

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