The Heart of Village Soul

Shortly after I sent out the newsletter announcing our transition into a new area of ministry and the launch of Village Soul, I received a Facebook message from a friend encouraging us in this new step. His short note concluded with this thought, "I think every church needs such a missionary."

Though I don't want to presume upon God there is something in that statement that resonates in my heart as we step out on this path. I wouldn't be so arrogant as to think Village Soul is the answer for every church (neither do I think my friend is that presumptuous). God may meet the need for other churches in other ways. Still, part of the long term vision God has put in our hearts is that we would provide an avenue to raise up others who could come along side other small congregations in a missionary / local church relationship and be a catalyst for missional outreach in their communities.

It seems natural to me that God would place a passion in my heart for community based outreach. In many ways my own spiritual life is a product of this type of ministry. Though my father's side of the family has a history in the church, in my early years my immediate family was very removed from that history. In those years, I remember living in a small trailer park in Coleman, WI. An older lady in one of the houses on the hill above the park stopped by our trailer to invite me to a neighborhood Bible club she was having in her house. This is my earliest memory of a context where I heard about Jesus and responded to a desire to follow Him. In many ways that woman was living out a missional vision for her community, and it touched my life. She was the first of many God placed in our lives to keep us connected to the church through those early years.

In some ways it seems like much of the American Church lost sight of the need for grass roots, community based outreach over the last couple of decades. We became dependent on slick ad campaigns and programs to attract people to our comfortable buildings and large events. There is value to those things and they have been successful in some ways. Still, there is a need for a rebirth of grass roots relational outreach into our communities. There is a ground swell building for this type of outreach in many segments of the church. It may still be a trickle now, but thankfully it is growing.

I recently received a magazine from Next Level International, an organization planting churches in Europe that I took a team to the Czech Republic through a few years ago. It was printed with two different lists in opposite directions. One list was "12 Really Effective Ways to Be Missional." The other list was "12 Ways to Avoid Being Missional." The lists meet in the middle at number 7. The number 7 way to be missional is "Be Church" (emphasis on outreach). The number 7 way to avoid being missional is "Go To Church" (emphasis on hanging out with your club every day). We want Village Soul to be a part of helping churches "Be Church."

Lessons From a Mourning Dove

At our office recently, we have had an encounter with a mourning dove that can be a great lesson in persistence.

In mid-April, we noticed a mourning dove couple that was trying to build their nest on top the sign next out our door. Though we had nothing personal against this young couple trying to find a place to call home, we weren't sure that it would be the best place for her to nest in light of the foot traffic we have come in and out of our office. Since the female had not laid her eggs yet, we tried everything we could think of to persuade them to build their nest elsewhere including blocking access to the ledge they were trying to occupy. After a few days we were sure the mourning dove problem was solved.

About a week later, I arrived at the office and looked at the sign we had been trying to keep bird free. To my surprise Mrs. Mourning Dove was sitting there again with no intent of leaving as she waits for her young to be hatched. It was as if our sign was the only spot she would settle on to build her home. She was determined and she won out in the end.

When I face challenges to reaching my goals I think of this mourning dove and I move on with determination. Jesus said to keep asking, keep knocking, and keep seeking. I will do this until, like the mourning dove, I'm able to say "I've built my nest and, try as you might, you will not move me.”

A great devotional to check out.

I read a great devotional based on Tozer's writings today. http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer/tozer.jsp?id=545 The verse reference has to do with the impossibility of serving two masters. Tozers's writings focus on the need to eliminate the bad in our life in conjunction with receiving the good.
I particularly like the illustration of breathing that Tozer uses. He states "Exhalation is as necessary to life as inhalation. " Like our need to eliminate carbon dioxide from our body in conjunction with breathing in oxygen, we need to breath out all things contrary to Christ as we breath in the goodness that He brings.
May this reality be so in my life and in the message I share with others.

Thoughts on the Future

As I was at a prayer meeting at one of the churches near here tonight I spent some time reflecting on the future for our society. The prayer guide that we were using started with a time of prayer for our leaders, both political and spiritual.

I'm not typically a doom and gloom prophetic type of person, but I could not help but think that we may be on the brink of a catastrophe in our culture. I've often had this feeling that we are overdue for a collapse. It's not just the easy to identify sins of sexual immorality, drugs, abortion, and violence that lead me to this conclusion. We've also created an environment of self-centeredness, greed, and materialism. These are much more subtle traps and some day we will have to give account as a people for what we have done with our many blessings.

This is a scary thought as the father of three small children. I identify with the sentiments of Mark Heard in Satellite Sky:

I want to dance with my children.
I want the spark to ignite,
Before they find out what it's like
To be born into this time.

Pondering "Gravity"

Lately I’ve been pondering John Mayer’s song, "Gravity." There’s a prayer in this simple soulful tune. It’s a prayer that each of us can identify with.

Mayer is bewildered by an invisible force in his life that keeps him from achieving his full potential. He calls this force gravity. It draws him to do the very thing that will destroy the beauty he desires in his life. He’s seen it pull down others whom he considers better than himself and this scares him.

The Bible refers to this power as sin. It’s not the list of dos and don’ts we associate with a Fundamentalist convention or a Sunday school lesson. It’s a force of our nature that is hard to resist. It keeps us from achieving all the good we hope we are capable of and can ruin whatever good we have accomplished.

In his letter to Christians in Rome, the Apostle Paul also identifies the struggle with sin we all face. He laments, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.” (Rom 7:15 NLT) He sees the power of sin at work in such a way that it wars against our desires to do what is good and he cries out for a way to find freedom from this dilemma. He then rejoices that in Jesus Christ he has found a way to overcome the power of sin (7:25).

John Mayer does not identify Jesus as the cure for his dilemma, but the last refrain of his song is a plea that each of us can own as our own: "Keep me where the light is." Keep me in place where I can recognize my need for help. Keep me in a place where I can find the cure. Keep me in a place where I’m relying on Jesus every day to set me free from the power of sin and death. Keep me praying each day, “don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.” (Matt 6:13)

Wisdom

My morning reading today was James 3:13 - 18.

13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness

It was such a good verse and very affirming I wanted to post it as is, without much comment. This is the type of life I'm hoping to live on a regular basis.

Random Thoughts on a Bridge That Is No More

This blog's been pretty silent for the past six months. We've been busily getting ready for a return to working in campus ministry and a move to another state. Still, the event of the collapse of the 35W bridge here in Minneapolis requires at least some recording of thoughts for future review.

I don't want to overstate any proximity to the event since through much of the construction I had been avoiding the bridge during rush hour. There are many other's who can claim a much closer call than I, but still when such a disaster strikes a location that is so familiar to you it is hard not to consider the possibility of what could have happened.

It's also strange the random nature of the memories and thoughts that come back to you when a place that has been such a regular part of your life is no longer there. These three stand out in particular.

A weekday evening in Mid-June, 2007: It was about 5:00 PM. I missed my normal detour around the construction and ended up in the middle of the slow rush hour flow of the two remaining northbound lanes. It was just after the failed bombing attempts in London and Glasgow and in that moment I had a strange realization of the vulnerability of that situation and how something we take for granted could easily be turned into a place of danger. I said a prayer for safety and quickly put the thought out of my mind until about a month and a half later. Though my thought that day primarily revolved around the possibility of terrorism, it now seems to have been a premonition of what was to come.

About 2:00 PM, August 1, 2007: Ironically I left work early to have my back checked out by my doctor due to a car accident the day before. Again I missed my detour, but the traffic was not as heavy at that time of the day. As I drove across the bridge I looked at the newly laid concrete. Having become weary of all the detours I remember thinking to myself, "Good, it looks like we're making progress toward getting back to normal."

Just over four hours later sitting at home, working through all the paperwork from my own situation, we received a phone call from my mother-in-law to check on us. It was at that moment we would find out that nothing would ever be normal about 35W again.

Evening, August 8, 2007: A week after the collapse my wife and I made our pilgrimage to the river to look at what has happened and somehow connect with this tragedy. As we're stand on the Stone Arch Bridge looking down on the destruction, I catch a glimpse of an ambulance crossing the 10th Ave bridge on it's new route from downtown to the east side and it brings my mind back to a much happier memory and the role 35W has played in our lives.

I remembered back to the very first hours of May 19, 2004 as I sat in the back of another ambulance looking at my wife laying there with our newly born daughter who couldn't wait for mom and dad to get her to the hospital to make her appearance. The freeway was very empty at that early hour and the concrete glistened in the glow of the street lights as we rolled across the bridge and up the Washington Ave ramp on our way to HCMC. It was like the whole world had stopped for this special moment and this was Elaina's time in the spotlight. This definitely was a much happier memory and it is the happier memories of this place that I want to hold on to.

Deconstruction

I was going through my files on my hard drive this weekend and found a text file of a thread I initiated on a message board I once was a part of. I thought some of the comments would be worth posting on this blog. It was from 2004.

Leon Longard
Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:42 pm Post subject: Are we in a
rush to deconstruct?


It may be just me, but often when I discuss postmodern
ministry with others it seems many are in a hurry to
deconstruct everything from the past and assume we're the only
one's who have it figured out. We create "straw man" images of
"the church" and use it to describe everyone whose not in our
camp. We read the latest leadership trends (which is not bad
in and of itself) and fill our literature with the latest
trendy lingo. If we're not careful, we create a whole new set
of code language by which we judge whether or not someone else
is "cutting edge" enough to talk with.
If we take time to listen to others beyond the code speech and
catch phrases, we might find there are other people out there
in some unlikely places whose hearts actually beat with the
same passion we have. They just may say it a little
differently.


matthewD
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:36 pm Post subject: i love
deconstruction



i have to say that i love to deconstruct, as anyone can see
from my posts around this idea exchange, however, leon has a
very good point here.

i think we need to be careful with our deconstruction. we are
not any more objective than those we criticize as being
foundationalists...

we are products of our history and our culture. we do best
when we seek to learn from the past, not just to tear it down.
Psalm 1 has very harsh words for cynics, and that's what many
of us deconstructers have become. we need to call wrong wrong,
and to question why the modern church has fallen away from
many important marks of true discipleship, but i sometimes
find myself looking to tear everything apart. if something is
big and successful, my first thought is that they're just
doing clever marketing and playing to the consumer church
mentality. this is not good.

when we deconstruct, we need to be sure to reconstruct. this
is how Jesus works. he deconstructs us through conviction of
sin and repentance, but reconstructs us through reconciliation
and redemption. when we reconstruct, we go back to the pile of
deconstructed parts and find the truth that may have become
hidden or distorted in the past and try to shine it back up
and put it back in the central place it belongs.

we are not better than those modernist foundationalists, but
we can become better than our contemporary culture if we learn
from the mistakes of the past and build on the victories of
the past.

i feel like i've just typed a long string of cliches. i always
come to play here when i'm too tired to think creatively and
communicate intelligibly. hopefully, i said something worth
the time you just invested in reading this.

much love.
_________________
.m.


Leon Longard
Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 10:26 am Post subject: a first
century deconstructer



At least you admit it when you're rambling, Matt. Joking
aside, what you said was worth while.

Another passage to look at here is Romans 11. Paul was
definitely a deconstructer in the first century. He was often
accused of tearing down Judaism. I like the warning he gives
to the Gentiles, especially in his illustration of grafting
branches in vs. 17 - 21. It seems like the Gentiles were
starting to get a little proud in their attitude toward the
Jews. He warned them that God could as easily remove them from
the tree and graft the Jews back in.

Pride is always a danger. We need to be careful not to get too
impressed with ourselves. We're not the root, we're merely
branches of a tree that's been around for 2000 years (more if
you include those who have been following God since creation).


matthewD
Post subject: too much consumin going on



here's a noodle to chew on:

why is the north american church going the way of the buffalo?
because we're too interested in playing up to the ever
changing demands of bored christians.

i believe there is some real thinking and rethinking about
what the Church should look like for the future as worldviews
change around us, but the more reading and rethinking i do,
the more dissatisfied i get with the proposed answers. so much
of the emerging church movement has very little to do with
actually answering the questions pre, non, and post christians
are asking. in our media saturated and over-educated society
(yes, over-educated. everyone's a pseudo-intellectual, but
still very much ignorant. over-educated, under-learned.)... in
our pseudo-sophisticated culture, christians get just as
quickly bored with church as the whole nation gets bored with
fashions and music genres.

i'm seriously guilty of this. thanking God for the revelation
as i type.

emerging church culture is trying to beat the boredom, but it
never will. we are fighting a losing battle on those grounds.
we need to shift our focus elsewhere. yes, there are valid
questions on that battlefield, but the main thrust of our
attention needs to be on kicking the boredom out of consumer
christians through real knowledge and real action to fight the
cultural, social, economic demons of our day.

let's get up in arms about AIDS in Africa, and de-facto
segregation in our schools, rather than music styles and
church decor!

i think it may be time to do more and think less. that sounds
dangerous to an analytical mind like me, but i think it may
be true.

am i a nut?


xaelias
Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 1:16 am Post subject:



Nope Matt, rest assured. In good new-fashioned postmodern
relative terms, the nutness is minimal when compared to this
big-boned ball of neurosis.
It's good to see that even though Matt and I don't get to
dialogue as much as I (perhaps we) would like, we're on a
quite similar wavelength. I would, as a matter of mere
linguistics, like to disagree with the "over-educated,
under-learned" in that education is the expansion of the mind
while learning is rote and more like Henry Ford's anti-Semitic
assembly line. Perhaps it should be the other way around:
education, not learning. (And moreover, perhaps I'm splitting
hairs.)

I see too many Christians (and have been doing a fair share of
unwiring during this past year of experimentation and
discipleship with XA here at UWSP) who are so learned in what
to do, when to do it, how to do it and where to do it without
even having a clue as to why. Why is it that we need to serve
and love recklessly (as another similar type, ninshitsu, said
once)? Why is it that people need to come into an encounter
with the spirit/power of God? Who What Where When How, but no
Why. Any self-respecting journalist or student of such
profession will tell you that all six principles of reporting
are necessary to providing a sound news story. If there is no
reason to doing, then there is no rationality and our message
is compromised in its delivery by incomplete and prideful
people who practice an incomplete and prideful religion.

American Christians (perhaps 'churchians' is a better word for
them) know how to do the two fast songs (deemed praise), three
or four slow songs (deemed worship), stand up, sit down, fight
fight fight. There's so much manipulation via conditioning and
social psychology that Christians in this culture are no
different than anyone else. In the immortal words of Zach de
la Rocha through the prophetic voice of Rage Against the
Machine: "Now you're under control, now you do what they told
ya..." (And yes, the real prophets are found where you
wouldn't expect them.)

Consumption (definitively) was considered a bad thing until
20th Century Americans tweaked it to what it is today.
Consumers destroy and have no consideration for the welfare of
the whole. A great resource on this in depth is the video
"Affluenza," probably available in a library near you. A book
sharing the name also exists, but I have yet to read it. Point
being this: Agent Smith was right.

Matt, you're absolutely correct. Christians should seize the
helm of local and global issues: poverty, education, disease,
reconciliation, et cetera. We did for hundreds of years (lest
we forget that we also did many stupid things for hundreds of
years....blood-letting, anyone?) and when we ceased to serve
and started to consume, we also suspiciously lost our
credibility. If a pastor/CEO has a hard time being treated
seriously by Christians after a failure of any kind, how much
more so a Church that has failed continuously for years by
society? (Free Marv Smith.)

It's not about us, but about unrequited service to the people
around us in the name/authority of Christ: in which case, I
say that we shouldn't be in a hurry to deconstruct, but that
it can't happen soon enough. A deinstitutionalized church free
from its cultural idolatry will be infinitely more influential
no matter what post-whatever emerging beavis we live in,
because we've given up on getting ours.

Finally, apologies to Huey Lewis: we don't need a new drug. We
need a good, long time in the subculture drunk tank until
American Christians come to their senses. Then we'll start
making wholesale changes. Until then, the freedom fighters
fight on, Che Guevara-style.
_________________
The Assemblies of God will be stronger when it finds the
courage to raise theological questions for which it may not
have ready answers. - Blumhofer


Leon Longard

Tue May 18, 2004 6:27 am Post subject: Maybe we're
all nuts



Hey Matt and Brent. Glad to see someone chimes in on this
topic every once in a while.

Matt, what you're describing is basically modernism in
post-modern clothing. It's a trend to focus on style (the what
and how) over substance (the why). In Fearless Faith John
Fischer (St John to Brent) said something to the effect of all
we end up with is "our stuff" vs "their stuff" and in the end
we will loose.

Tina and I are now part of a church plant in Northeast
Minneapolis where they are wrestling with how to re-engage the
neighborhood. Still when you're used to an events mentality
it's hard to break old patterns. At a family meeting last
Sunday night we scrapped most of the events on our calendar for
the year and are going to get more involved in neighborhood
level events, such as one leader spends two nights a week
teaching classes at the rec center in her neighborhood. Tina
and I are block club leaders. The pastor has bought a
paintball rental business and is having regular interaction
with a club that is his regular customers.

In Chi Alpha this may mean encouraging our students spend a
certain amount of time involved in another non religious
student group. Everyone has other areas of interest. A couple
of students can team together to help with a floor event (no
strings attached).

Bryan Z
Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 3:37 pm Post subject:



Hey folks, if I may chime into the conversation . . .

I think that Matt has hit on something that is dead on--we are
playing to the whims and wishes of bored Christians, and
trying to be "seeker sensitive" to the pre-Christian, without
ever really offering anything for them to seek (or sense for
that matter). Does anyone really care if the music is like
what we hear on the radio, the preacher wears a tropical shirt
and we use power point?

This is the point that I have reached in my own ministry--I am
tired of catering to church kids, while at the same time my
campus is going to hell around me. I am tired of majoring in
minors and not fulfilling the mandate that God has given us to
reach the lost. The really scary thing is that I don't yet
fully know what Chi Alpha is going to look like in the fall on
my campus. But everything that I (or anyone else in the group)
propose doing will be subjected to one question: WHY?

I kinda like what Earl Creps has to say on this point when he
talks about being missional. Too many churches and ministries
operate with a huge maintenence zone of programs and projects
to make Christians feel better about themselves and only a
small mission zone (where we're actually interacting with
non-believers and helping them move toward believing). What we
need to do is turn that inside out and have a huge mission
zone where we are fulfilling our mandate and a small
maintenance zone where training is offered to help people
fulfill the mission.

The Purchase of the Pure

This morning I was meditating on the first 5 verses of Revelation 14. These verses speak of 144,000 who are spiritually undefiled. They are like pure virgins. They are also described as redeemed from the earth and purchased from among the people of the earth.
The sense I get is that this is not a purity that is achieved. Instead, it is something given to us as unmerited favor.
There is hope for us in this. Even though we may at times feel defiled by the world, God is still making us pure. He is redeeming us from a place that is so contrary to Him and making us blameless.

It's quite obvious from the last couple of posts that I am reading through the book of Revelation right now. This is always a challenging book for me, because in many places it speaks of a part of God's character that I would like to forget some times. God is holy (no concern here) and His holiness does produce wrath at times. Wrath is a reality when we walk against God's holiness and justice.
I'd rather speak about grace than wrath. Still, it is the reality of God's wrath that gives grace it's meaning. When any of us compare ourselves to God's holiness we will always fall greatly short and find ourselves worthy of His wrath. This is the wonder of grace. God offers shelter from His own wrath to anyone who is willing to accept it and trust Him for the power to live a new kind of life.
The broader testimony of Scripture tells me that God's preference is to lavish His grace on people. His wrath is a necessary reality in light of His character and ultimately limits the scope and consequences of our own evil. So, I can trust in God's grace even as I am made aware of the reality of His wrath.

Changing Perspectives

Two days ago I was reading Revelation chapter 6. It's a chapter that speaks of God's wrath being poured out on a rebellious world.
There was a time when I would read a chapter like this with a very ethnocentric and nationalistic interpretation. I don't know that it was racism as much as growing up in a time when we still lived under the delusion that the U.S.A. was God's promise land.
I look at these things differently now. I see that we all must be careful not to be the ones who will end up under God's wrath. Arrogance could make us drunk and oblivious to this possibility. We are like Belshazzar. We are consumed with our own pleasures while the warning of our fall is being written in plane view.

Laodicea

A couple of days ago I was reading Revelation 3. Verse 17 stood out to me.

You say "I am rich. I have everything I want. I don't need anything!" And you don't realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

Sounds like American culture in many ways. We need The Lord's remedy:
1. Pure gold from Him
2. Garments to cover our shame
3. Ointment to heal our eyes.

Liberation

This weekend we were singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" at a church we attend. The last two lines of the first verse stood out to me:

To save us all from Satan's power
When we have gone astray.

Here is the essence of the Gospel and something that can speak to a post-modern world. There is a great oppressor, Satan, who keeps us all bound in our own self-destructive and other-destructive ways. The most tragic thing is that humanity as a species turned over the power for him to do this.

Still Christ came as the great liberator. He came to set us free from the power of the oppressor. If all humanity would submit to the One who is liberating us, all injustice and oppression would end.

Sadly, the reality is not everyone will do this. Part of the power of the oppressor is that he has us deceived into believing that oppression is freedom and self-actualization.

So, the story goes on.

Being Lead

On a personal prayer retreat this past weekend the following verse by Rich Mullins stood out to me.

You who live in eternity
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time
We can't see what's ahead
And we can not get free of what we've left behind
I'm reeling from these voices that keep screaming in my ears
All the words of shame and doubt, blame and regret

I can't see how You're leading me unless You've led me here
Where I'm lost enough to let myself be led
And so You've been here all along I guess
It's just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get
("Hard to Get" by Rich Mullins © 1998 Liturgy Legacy Music)

Am I at a place that I'm ready to be lead again?