Comments on: Introduction- Part 2 http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/ Beyond Race and Class Issues In a Consumer Church Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:02:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Bryan Dormaier http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-70 Bryan Dormaier Sun, 16 Mar 2008 05:51:20 +0000 http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/#comment-70 Ross, I find your last two paragraphs really good, and in a lot of ways the direction that I've been thinking lately. If we are emphasizing reconciliation but are not seeking ways that we can maintain connection and relationship with the traditional church, we aren't really doing a very good job of living reconciliation. And by this, I don't mean necessarily trying to reconcile with every wingnut that attacks us for being heretics because we think that social action is needed alongside salvation, or because we aren't modernists. But I do think we need to maintain connection with the traditional church (I think it needs to be broader than just traditional protestant churches too). I just wonder sometimes if the reformer gets run out of the thing that needs reformed because people don't want to be challenged by sacrifice. So if we are branching out, it must always be a branching out for the sake of the health of the church. For instance, it is always easier for church plants to lead the way on things that need to be changed. And many times it won't be until the younger(by this I mean age of church, not congregants) churches show that things can and should be done differently that the older churches will come around. This requires though that those branching out are also seeking the good of the already existing churches rather than just their own good. What I think is profound about you asking about us trying to take on the world's burdens is that it makes me think we want to play savior without being saved. One of the things that I really appreciate about Metzger is that he gets this and points that it's only by our being saved and having God's love poured out on us that we can pour out love for others. Ross, I find your last two paragraphs really good, and in a lot of ways the direction that I’ve been thinking lately. If we are emphasizing reconciliation but are not seeking ways that we can maintain connection and relationship with the traditional church, we aren’t really doing a very good job of living reconciliation.

And by this, I don’t mean necessarily trying to reconcile with every wingnut that attacks us for being heretics because we think that social action is needed alongside salvation, or because we aren’t modernists. But I do think we need to maintain connection with the traditional church (I think it needs to be broader than just traditional protestant churches too). I just wonder sometimes if the reformer gets run out of the thing that needs reformed because people don’t want to be challenged by sacrifice.

So if we are branching out, it must always be a branching out for the sake of the health of the church. For instance, it is always easier for church plants to lead the way on things that need to be changed. And many times it won’t be until the younger(by this I mean age of church, not congregants) churches show that things can and should be done differently that the older churches will come around. This requires though that those branching out are also seeking the good of the already existing churches rather than just their own good.

What I think is profound about you asking about us trying to take on the world’s burdens is that it makes me think we want to play savior without being saved. One of the things that I really appreciate about Metzger is that he gets this and points that it’s only by our being saved and having God’s love poured out on us that we can pour out love for others.

]]> By: Ross Halbach http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-68 Ross Halbach Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:10:06 +0000 http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/#comment-68 This well-constructed short novel . . . I mean blog post . . . provokes many questions. One being: Can we really escape or insulate ourselves from ‘the burden of reality’? Or, is anyone void of suffering? I would argue, no. An escape to bliss from suffering is a myth. Let us look at Seminaries for example; they seem to be sterile incubators designed for growth, right? However, anyone who has been there knows they are filled with hurting, broken people facing divorce, depression, debt, etc. No, they may not be suffering like those living in the city dump in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, but in many ways the same ‘burden of reality’ faces seminarians—connecting them to those in Honduras and beyond. Maybe it is insulting to try to compare seminary burdens with those who are suffering of starvation, I tend to think so. But, my point is not a comparison of suffering, but a common thread that knits us together. Are we not all trying to escape suffering with no avail (although with different means)? Has the new generation finally unlocked the truth on this universal burden? This leads to my next question. Second question: Is the emerging church avoiding their own burdens by taking on the worlds? This is a question for me. I have a superman complex. I think I can save the world at times. It’s ‘cool’ to help the materially poor in slums, but what about the spiritually poor in wealthy churches? It is interesting, I think, that while the emerging churches hearken for reconciliation, often they have created further segregation by breaking away from the traditional churches they grew up in. The church is certainly a whore, but as Augustine said, ‘it is still my mother!’ Yet, haven’t we in the emerging church, in ways, run away from home? Haven't we, to some extent, denied our parents? Does this break our hearts? This is our (us emergents) ‘burden of reality’. Can we fix the world and not our own family? Or is the world going to be healed outside the church—Christ’s one body, the universal church? This well-constructed short novel . . . I mean blog post . . . provokes many questions. One being: Can we really escape or insulate ourselves from ‘the burden of reality’? Or, is anyone void of suffering? I would argue, no. An escape to bliss from suffering is a myth. Let us look at Seminaries for example; they seem to be sterile incubators designed for growth, right? However, anyone who has been there knows they are filled with hurting, broken people facing divorce, depression, debt, etc. No, they may not be suffering like those living in the city dump in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, but in many ways the same ‘burden of reality’ faces seminarians—connecting them to those in Honduras and beyond.

Maybe it is insulting to try to compare seminary burdens with those who are suffering of starvation, I tend to think so. But, my point is not a comparison of suffering, but a common thread that knits us together. Are we not all trying to escape suffering with no avail (although with different means)? Has the new generation finally unlocked the truth on this universal burden? This leads to my next question.

Second question: Is the emerging church avoiding their own burdens by taking on the worlds? This is a question for me. I have a superman complex. I think I can save the world at times. It’s ‘cool’ to help the materially poor in slums, but what about the spiritually poor in wealthy churches?

It is interesting, I think, that while the emerging churches hearken for reconciliation, often they have created further segregation by breaking away from the traditional churches they grew up in. The church is certainly a whore, but as Augustine said, ‘it is still my mother!’ Yet, haven’t we in the emerging church, in ways, run away from home? Haven’t we, to some extent, denied our parents? Does this break our hearts? This is our (us emergents) ‘burden of reality’. Can we fix the world and not our own family? Or is the world going to be healed outside the church—Christ’s one body, the universal church?

]]> By: Rachel O'Brien http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-67 Rachel O'Brien Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:44:32 +0000 http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/#comment-67 What if we did open our eyes? What if we let Him in? We talked today about the contracts we try to eke out of Christ. I know that as a child Christ was the fix it, one part of a pie with me at the center. And as a "born again" I used him to attain the plans I had set up for myself. Those plans are quickly fading away, replaced by new ones. The new plans are ones I am still not certain I want to go through with, they scare me; His love scares me. It called me so far from what I had wanted. He wouldn't leave me my contracts. I am getting a bunch of stuff I never wanted to want and desperate for more. The Church offers contracts, we call for contracts. Just like me the Church wanted contracts and instead is given covenantal love. We’re getting things we never wanted to want. He will press us into covenants, He'll take no less. This press is loving; always out of a desire to commune with Us. We use the Church and its people to attain our individual aspirations but He won't leave us there. Try as we might, He will not be contractual. His covenantal love breaks us and makes us desire the strangest things. Intimacy, mercy, reconciliation. I often wonder if I would ever have become a Christian if I had thought it would cost me so much, if I had known I would become this desperate for Him. I thought I was just going to be made right. And now I can’t help it, He’s captured me. Will the Church forego their contracts not knowing where His covenantal love will take it? I hope I do; I hope I let it go. I hope that I can deal with never getting what I thought I was entitled to, what I had worked for, what I thought was life itself. If we as the Church let go of our contracts, of our desire to consume our members it will cost a lot; it will make us desperate for Him. But in its place is His covenantal love and brotherly union. Can we afford it? Can we afford not to? What if we did open our eyes? What if we let Him in? We talked today about the contracts we try to eke out of Christ. I know that as a child Christ was the fix it, one part of a pie with me at the center. And as a “born again” I used him to attain the plans I had set up for myself. Those plans are quickly fading away, replaced by new ones. The new plans are ones I am still not certain I want to go through with, they scare me; His love scares me. It called me so far from what I had wanted. He wouldn’t leave me my contracts. I am getting a bunch of stuff I never wanted to want and desperate for more.
The Church offers contracts, we call for contracts. Just like me the Church wanted contracts and instead is given covenantal love. We’re getting things we never wanted to want. He will press us into covenants, He’ll take no less. This press is loving; always out of a desire to commune with Us. We use the Church and its people to attain our individual aspirations but He won’t leave us there. Try as we might, He will not be contractual. His covenantal love breaks us and makes us desire the strangest things. Intimacy, mercy, reconciliation. I often wonder if I would ever have become a Christian if I had thought it would cost me so much, if I had known I would become this desperate for Him. I thought I was just going to be made right. And now I can’t help it, He’s captured me. Will the Church forego their contracts not knowing where His covenantal love will take it? I hope I do; I hope I let it go. I hope that I can deal with never getting what I thought I was entitled to, what I had worked for, what I thought was life itself. If we as the Church let go of our contracts, of our desire to consume our members it will cost a lot; it will make us desperate for Him. But in its place is His covenantal love and brotherly union. Can we afford it? Can we afford not to?

]]> By: Kelsi Johns http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-52 Kelsi Johns Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:20:58 +0000 http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/#comment-52 mmm amen. We need our eyelids ripped off in order to take in the awe inspiring, earth shattering love of Christ that begs to be seen. I love that but I hate how little I open up to absorb that love and compassion of Christ. It's mind blowing to think how much love there is to go around, and how little we let it. But Christ is the only only way to access that love, and that is beautifully reassuring to me. mmm amen. We need our eyelids ripped off in order to take in the awe inspiring, earth shattering love of Christ that begs to be seen. I love that but I hate how little I open up to absorb that love and compassion of Christ. It’s mind blowing to think how much love there is to go around, and how little we let it. But Christ is the only only way to access that love, and that is beautifully reassuring to me.

]]> By: Rachel O'Brien http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-51 Rachel O'Brien Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:26:40 +0000 http://consumingjesus.org/2008/03/01/introduction-part-2/#comment-51 Shattering...I know I fear the looks of those hateful eyes. More and more I fear the look of my own eyes and the hate they hold,veven worse the indifference I believe you when you say that you love the Church. I think we all do in various ways. I love it, it helped bring me home, it broke my heart and offered me a place to recover, to heal, to repent and to meet my Maker. It is true however that in our consumeristic culture we have turned the Church into an "incubator" that mass produces little weak babies, same size, height, weight, color, capacity. How does our Church fit me, I left that incubator never to return and developed a fairly ridiculous immune system, to press the metaphor. I feared, and rightly, that that same incubator couldn't hold me and when it did, when Christ reconciled me, diseased and all I was set free. Does the Church make this business as usual, the reconiliation and redemption of people whose disease has marred them? I have experienced it, thank God, and I would hope to offer it to others in and outside the Church. I am not convinced though that churches strive to send their children out of the incubator but gleefully satisfy them into passivity so they'll never desire to leave it. I know you want to have your eyes opened but this isn't the way most people are, they want to close their eyes, their ears, their hands and be tucked in. When I returned to Christianity after having been away for over seven years I not only had my eyes opened, ( I once was blind but now I see) I straight up had my eyelids torn off. I saw firstly my own sin, my own love of sin, and even now my still strong desire to run from God. I was then shown the greatness of God and his power and the greatness of the principalities and powers that he battles incessantly on our behalf. He knows that we are "screaming and fighting for that voice of truth within that tells me something isn’t right; things feel too light, too sunny" and he frees us to both see the reality of His love that only becomes more magnificent and beautiful in light of "the very real and very grave injustices and oppression which comprise this world". I wish the Church would no longer use its walls to look away from those powers but teach us to look through them to truth because it is the truth and "love that blazed through hate". Did Christ atone, is He victorious, or do we have much to hide from in this world, is that what the coffee bars in our churches do, hide us? Give us success to veil our failures. To cloak the childs shattered hands in white kidd gloves. I can't hide. I know that for some of us, we would if we could. I'll admit to it. If it were up to me I would choose the sunny reality, I still catch myself hoping for it. Christ won't let me, I have no eyelids. Neither should the Church, if it doesn't open its eyes it will have them taken off. Shattering…I know I fear the looks of those hateful eyes. More and more I fear the look of my own eyes and the hate they hold,veven worse the indifference I believe you when you say that you love the Church. I think we all do in various ways. I love it, it helped bring me home, it broke my heart and offered me a place to recover, to heal, to repent and to meet my Maker. It is true however that in our consumeristic culture we have turned the Church into an “incubator” that mass produces little weak babies, same size, height, weight, color, capacity. How does our Church fit me, I left that incubator never to return and developed a fairly ridiculous immune system, to press the metaphor. I feared, and rightly, that that same incubator couldn’t hold me and when it did, when Christ reconciled me, diseased and all I was set free. Does the Church make this business as usual, the reconiliation and redemption of people whose disease has marred them? I have experienced it, thank God, and I would hope to offer it to others in and outside the Church. I am not convinced though that churches strive to send their children out of the incubator but gleefully satisfy them into passivity so they’ll never desire to leave it. I know you want to have your eyes opened but this isn’t the way most people are, they want to close their eyes, their ears, their hands and be tucked in. When I returned to Christianity after having been away for over seven years I not only had my eyes opened, ( I once was blind but now I see) I straight up had my eyelids torn off. I saw firstly my own sin, my own love of sin, and even now my still strong desire to run from God. I was then shown the greatness of God and his power and the greatness of the principalities and powers that he battles incessantly on our behalf. He knows that we are “screaming and fighting for that voice of truth within that tells me something isn’t right; things feel too light, too sunny” and he frees us to both see the reality of His love that only becomes more magnificent and beautiful in light of “the very real and very grave injustices and oppression which comprise this world”. I wish the Church would no longer use its walls to look away from those powers but teach us to look through them to truth because it is the truth and “love that blazed through hate”. Did Christ atone, is He victorious, or do we have much to hide from in this world, is that what the coffee bars in our churches do, hide us? Give us success to veil our failures. To cloak the childs shattered hands in white kidd gloves. I can’t hide. I know that for some of us, we would if we could. I’ll admit to it. If it were up to me I would choose the sunny reality, I still catch myself hoping for it. Christ won’t let me, I have no eyelids. Neither should the Church, if it doesn’t open its eyes it will have them taken off.

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