Painting pictures of God’s Kingdom

This morning I took part in the monthly meet-up of Northwest Hothouse. Hothouse is a group of pastors, para-church ministry leaders, and community organizers who come together to explore what it means to live and lead missionally in our particular contexts. A lot of inspiring ideas and experiences are shared in these meetings. Dynamics like that of Hothouse — intelligent, imaginative collaboration — get me all the more excited about life in ministry.

 

One of the big questions — it was more of a dilemma, really — that arose this morning was this: What does it mean to appreciate missionality that is “slow steeping” and relational (not an imperialistic take-over), while recognizing that people have urgent, immediate needs to experience communion with Christ?

 

This is my attempt to answer that question.

 

First, I think it is important to give Jesus the respect of focusing our attention where he asked us to place it — on the Kingdom of God. It is the Kingdom, not a cosmic transaction, that is at the heart of the Christian story. The latter relates to the former as a means to an end. To say it differently, any truthful soteriology is entirely grounded in truthful eschatology. To say it differently still, the big picture is about the resurrection and reconciliation of creation, not “soul-winning” and an escapist afterlife.

 

We live in a Kingdom of God story. The Kingdom has come, and the Kingdom is coming. In New Testament studies this is referred to as “the already-but-not-yet.” To reverse the order, what we see around us is not as good as it gets, but it is the current creation which God has covenanted to resurrect. Creation matters because it’s creation that has been, is, and will be the project of God.

 

Like I said, it’s a Kingdom of God story we are part of. And the future of this story requires both announcement and fulfillment — pictures painted and promises kept. There is rootedness to this idea. We see the interplay of announcement and fulfillment in the words of the prophets and the teachings of Jesus — an urgent announcement to transform our ways immediately so that we can join in the gradual, progressive entrance of God’s Kingdom. Whether along the rivers of Babylon or during the Sermon on the Mount, new pictures of the Kingdom have been painted, and those pictures have inspired, befuddled, and expanded imagination. Picture are painted (immediate action) about a new reality that is being created (gradual, sequential movement). But we would be off the mark to divorce the picture-painting act from the larger sequential movement.

 

When we paint pictures, we are doing more than more than simply describing something that will someday be. Our descriptions are entities in their own right. Pictures are real. We can hold them on various levels. Pictures have thingness, yes?

 

Because they have thingness, they also have an irrevocability to them. When we see important images, they stick with us. They delight us. They haunt us. They inspire us. They speak of new realities while being themselves a new realities created. When the pictures we paint are real and true, the audiences to our picture-painting cannot help but own them in an irrevocable way. Even if we paint an image of the future, that future has just happened in that it is now been seen or heard. That is the in-breaking of the future into the present. The future exists in that its picture has been called into existence.

 

Some of the most powerful moments within our Kingdom of God story have come about when the future is called into the present through picture-painting. Again, I think of the prophets of an exilic Israel sitting along the rivers of Babylon and being filled with the dream of universal exile — a sensus plenior exile. I think also of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Did the future of which King dreamed exist at the time of that speech? We might be inclined to say that it hadn’t or even still hasn’t. There were countless race riots yet to come after that speech, and some racial tension remains today. But I imagine that if we asked those who were there in person to hear King’s dream, they would tell us that something that hadn’t existed prior to that speech suddenly did as King spoke. A new reality came into existence. And many events that have helped to fulfill that dream since the day of the speech happened only because the dream was announced.

 

Pictures create futures.

 

An unimagined, unannounced Kingdom never comes. 

 

We live in a culture that believes talk is cheap. We form a dichotomy between words and actions. Falling to the temptations of our distrust toward the spoken word, we leave little room for speech-acts — for words that not only describe future realities, but also are, in and of themselves, immediate realities. We need to reclaim the speech-act as an essential, prophetic component to our Kingdom of God story.

 

Sometimes picture-painting happens in front of a large crowd (like King’s dream), but more often it happens in family rooms, coffeehouses, and bars, with a handful of people or just one person at a time. When the picture is beautiful and real and true, there is nothing those small audiences can do but grapple with the picture’s irrevocability and possibly begin to draw that picture, or a continuation of it, themselves. 

 

As Kingdom of God pictures are painted, we experience an in-breaking of tikkun olam in two ways: our description of where the story is heading is itself an invitation to join the story, and new reality is created because we have chosen to paint.

 

It is amazing how many people — whether self-proclaimed Christians or people who are unfamiliar with God’s story — well up with hope when they hear the good news about God’s commitment to, and intentions for, creation. While it is possible to dream aloud this good news and still be met with hostility or rejection, I believe that real good news is generally better received than the incomplete good news, the news that explains a cosmic transaction but does not explain where the story is heading. As I said earlier, all truthful soteriology is grounded in truthful eschatology. 

 

When the story as a whole is told, most neighbors who disagree with us are still generally glad to be our neighbors. We can be very “Abrahamically effective” like that, when we tell the whole story, the real good news.

 

So how do we face the balance of being an incarnational presence for the long-haul in our ministry context while acting on our concern for so many who have not received what God has for them? We dream out loud. We paint pictures about God’s covenant faithfulness to creation, the Kingdom that is growing, and God’s continuous tikkun olam mission. We demonstratively look forward to a bright future, and in so doing create new present realities that cause people to hope in a way they’ve never hoped before. 

 

What happens in a Paradigm gathering?

In case you were wondering what a Sunday night with Paradigm is like, I’m previewing our liturgy map for this Sunday’s gathering. If you’re in Seattle on Sunday night, we would love for you to come and join us in the pursuit of God.

Sunday nights, 7 p.m., the gym of First Free Methodist Church (3200 3rd Ave W, across the street from Seattle Pacific University)

 

When mystery and revealed truth are held in tension

Bob’s recent post on the level-headed nuance of a faith that admits to having both questions and answers still has me clapping my hands a few days later.

I so strongly want to echo his sentiment here in Seattle, where in the last year I’ve realized the spiritual landscape is dominated by people who “know” that Jonathan Edwards’ wrath-god gives us cancer and predestines those He hates for hell, and some folks who read about five pages of Derrida, wet themselves, and are now convinced that we can’t accept any of Jesus’ claims and expectations as normative.

The only difference between these groups, I suppose, is that the latter group will at least admit that they are only loosely affiliated with Christ and his Way.

Is it really a mystery why so few people in Seattle follow Christ when those who claim to be Christians spout such sub-Christian views on life and faith? Is there any room for nuance between extremes in a city that is said to be well educated and literate?

Without sounding like too much of a martryr, I should note that there are others (like these friends) who are trying to make Christ’s Way known in this city — not settling for wrath-god or feeble wallowing in uncertainty — but too often it feels like it’s the sub-gospels that dictate the spiritual climate in this city, and the rest of us are left to play by crooked rules.

All that to say I’m thankful and refreshed by Bob’s words, and hope that the dynamic that exists within Evergreen in Portland would find deep roots in several faith communities here in Seattle.

Jimmy Carter raises the bar against chauvinism

I don’t always agree with Jimmy Carter, but today I can do nothing but applaud his recent decision to take a stand against male chauvinism and leave the Southern Baptist Convention over their mishandling of Scripture in regard to the role of women within families and the Church.

Carter pretty much hits the issue in the teeth:

“The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met. . .

“The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.”

Here’s the deal: if you are an individual that is part of a congregation, or a congregation that is part of a denomination or network, and that larger entity is pushing back on the trajectory of Scripture and placing invisible ceilings over the heads of women and young girls, and doing so by means of faulty exegesis. . . the blood is on your hands for being an indifferent sap. You are just as at fault as the group to which you belong as the Bible is perverted into a polemic against women. Your silence is an endorsement to maintain injustice.

You have a responsibility to call for justice, making it known that you expect women to be treated as fully human, and for responsibilities and leadership to be distributed on the basis of calling and readiness, not genitalia. If you don’t raise your voice, who’s going to be the prophetic voice calling for the change God desires?

What happens if you call for change, exercise discerning patience (these things don’t change overnight, but weeks turn into months and months to years), and transformation doesn’t take place? Then maybe it’s time to walk away. Is that course of action divisive? Well, let me ask you, was it divisive when individuals, churches, and groups of churches in the U.S. took a stand against slavery — going as far as to break off from those who were turning a blind eye to injustice?

If you keep your mouth shut and stay put, don’t pretend that you’re doing so for the sake of “unity.” There’s nothing unifying about passively allowing discrimination. Is that the type of “unity” God is wanting to see from you?

Here’s to Jimmy Carter for stepping beyond empty threats and promises, and deciding that he wasn’t going to endorse prejudice within the Church or use Scripture as the wrong kind of sword.

What’s a sustainable faith project, anyway?

From the Paradigm site:

What does it mean when we say that Paradigm is a “sustainable faith project”?

 

In order to understand what Paradigm is all about, we need to know a few things about systems and connectedness.

 

A lot of things in this world operate as systems — they’re systemic in nature. Economics. Environmental degradation. Disease. The impact that broken families have on multiple generations. Physical abusiveness. Marital infidelity and sexual corruption. Substance abuse. The list goes on.

 

To focus on one as an example, think of economics. Individuals are free to make their own financial choices with their money. And we’d agree that an individual’s own decisions have a tremendous impact on his or her financial well-being. We’d also agree, however, that, regardless of how much or how little we have in our piggy banks, we’re affected by wide-scale peaks and recessions. And peaks and recessions don’t happen out of nowhere — they’re the result of a series of individual decisions.

 

Individuals create systems, and systems impact individuals. Just ask the children of abusive parents or divorcees. Or the family of a pornography-addict or drug user. Or a kid who’s growing up in the midst of AIDS and genocide. They’ll all tell you that individuals contribute to systems, and systems shape individuals.

 

The great myth within humanity is that any of us are ever alone, that we can do whatever we want because “It’s not going to hurt anyone else.” It is the central deception of sin, isolation. But the truth is that we cannot get away with doing, thinking, or saying a single thing that isn’t going to impact someone, somewhere down the road.

 

We are connected.

 

It’s clear in the stories of Scripture: sinfulness led to deadliness, which brought about more sinfulness yet. The cycle continued — a momentum of corruption and decay. But as people who believe in Jesus as Messiah for the world, we believe that his death and resurrection inaugurated a new Way. The Apostle Paul candidly writes about this in the fifth and sixth chapters of his letter to the Romans: the cycle of sin and death have been replaced with a cycle of faithfulness and life, and Christ’s followers are to further the new cycle of living. 

 

When asked by a student if Christ-followers are at liberty to contribute to the old cycle (beginning of Romans 6), Paul goes on a tangent that can pretty much be summed up as, “Absolutely not! If they do, there was no point in anything Jesus did.”

 

We know all about how cycles of sin corrupt friendships, families, cities, and people over generations. But what does it look like when the cycle that Christ began is continued today? What does it look like for people to care for the environment in a way that makes their neighbors do the same? Or for a man to respect and empower women in a way that causes his sons to do an even better job of it than he does? What if a group of people stepped back from materialism and pooled their finances to create an orphanage in an area of need, and that orphanage went on to care for generations and generations of children who need love and care? And what if children who were seemingly destined to be aborted were instead allowed to live through adoption, and became the very leaders of this movement?

 

And what if the people who were engaged in such a movement weren’t acting out of empty human-centrism or political agenda, but were letting it be known that the gospel of Jesus is the driving force behind the change? What if it was announced that this movement was about God’s plan coming about on Earth as it does in heaven? What if the participants of this new life were constantly being nourished by the words of Scripture, dwelling in prayer, and taking part in life-giving spiritual practices? What if these people had the opportunity to be discipled by spiritual directors whose interest was for them to fully realize their identity as Christ-followers, and all of the acceptance and forgiveness that comes with that?

 

What if all of that came to be?

 

Well, we might call that a sustainable movement. We would recognize that what we were seeing was the sort of faithfulness that spreads life and hope in the lives of friends and neighbors and families. Remember how systems work, how individual lives are always influenced by systems around them? This cycle of faithfulness and life would inevitably improve the world of these friends, neighbors, and families. Those people, in turn, would have the chance to join God’s people, take up Jesus’ Way, and join the mission. (Maybe if people saw how beautiful Jesus’ Way can be — what a difference it can make in the world — more of them would take seriously who Jesus claimed to be and the movement he claimed to start, don’t you think?)

 

In the end, what we’d have is this: Christ’s faithfulness creating an invitation to his Way for each of us; our faithfulness modeling that new life in Christ’s Way and tangibly spreading the invitation as we better the lives of those around us; and others accepting that invitation to the Way, faithfully participating in it, and bringing about yet another stage in this ever-growing movement. And so on and so forth.

 

It’s a sustainable faith project.

 

It’s ridiculously simple, yet it’s radical and difficult in that it calls people to actually obey the instructions of Christ. It takes leaving a life of selfishness. It requires shaking off the myth that we’re a bunch of little automatons whose actions don’t contribute to one of two systems — the cycle of sin and death, and that of faithfulness and life.

 

That’s the Paradigm vision: to faithfully live out true life in the Way of Jesus, inviting those we impact to freely choose to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah and join the mission. It’s a gift that keeps on giving, this sustainable faith project of ours.

 

The plan for bringing this about in our area of North Seattle is to tell and learn the message of Scripture in our gatherings, deepen our understanding of God and our relationships with others in communities, and to act out the redemptive message of Christ through local involvement. 

 

Is Paradigm a “church”? Yes and no, depending on what you associate with that word. If someone is looking to be part of a church, Paradigm could be a viable conclusion. But a person who is already involved in a church is welcome to take part in any or all of the three things we do (gatherings, communities, and local involvement). And a person who dislikes church might enjoy Paradigm (though we acknowledge that some people dislike pretty much everything, and it’s only a matter of time before they dislike us too). 

 

We are asking people who join Paradigm’s core team to make Paradigm their primary spiritual community and to participate in each of the three events involved in our mission, but we have no form of “membership” beyond that. We accept donations in our gatherings and through mail, and people who tithe are welcome to direct that giving toward our mission.

 

In all, we hope the project is a success, that faithfulness leads to life, and life to faithfulness.

Julie highlights the elements of Paradigm

Earlier today I wrote about how we approach truth-seeking at Paradigm. Julie joined in the Paradigm focus and highlighted the “elements” (shared values and commitments) of Paradigm.

Check out what she has to say and please do consider if and how you would be interested in contributing to what we’re up to in Rain City.

Learning at Paradigm

The text below is taken from Paradigm’s website. Paradigm — in case you didn’t know — is a ministry that Julie and I are involved with in Seattle. Our vision: to create sustainable faith in Seattle. We’re inviting people to hear God’s story through interactive liturgy (Sunday night gatherings), deepen their understanding of the story (Paradigm communities during the week) and bring a bit of heaven to earth for our local and global neighbors (missional involvement opportunities).

We started a few months ago, and we’re very much still in the process of putting together a core team to serve as the nucleus for the ministry. Even during the process of inviting people to the team, we are gathering on Sunday nights to pursue God through a lot of worship forms and spiritual practices that we see becoming part of Paradigm’s long-term identity.

If you’re in Seattle and want to come by, we meet at 1059 NE 96th St in Seattle (fairly equidistant to Northgate Mall and Green Lake), in a building we share with Maple Leaf Church, at 6:00PM Sundays. (I feel like there should some sort of pithy gimmick here — “Mention that you heard about us through this blog and you’ll receive a free [something].”)

Or maybe you’re reading this and you’re not in Seattle, but you suddenly realize one of two things: 1) your newfound calling to pack up your things and move to Seattle to join us in our endeavor, or 2) the inclination to gently nudge your Seattle-area friends to check out Paradigm (maybe try something really subtle — “Paradigm is the greatest thing ever and the future of the universe depends on whether you go and take part in what they’re doing”). 

Um, yeah, we’re going to want you to act on either/both of those impulses.

In all seriousness though, we have been, are, and will be ridiculously grateful for anyone who wants to take a risk and give some time to a ministry that has the potential to make a significant impact in Seattle. Let me know if that’s you.

————-

(From the Paradigm site)

We want to relentlessly pursue truth. It’s our belief that God is pleased when people are willing to dig deeper than status quo assumptions, ask big questions, and engage the mystery and grandeur of God and His story.

We’ve made a few central commitments in how we seek truth at Paradigm. First, we want to embrace both left- and right-brain thought processes as we study, reflecting on God’s story in both creative and linear ways.

Seeking truth is no solo job. We pursue truth in the context of community, where we can not only learn from one another, but also apply truth in and through the community (because truth is lived and not merely thought).

Learning at Paradigm is holistic and relational. Sometimes it is also difficult and limited. Paradigm is a community where people are free to engage mystery, raise questions, and run their fingers along the wounds in Jesus’ hands. And sometimes we raise questions to which our only honest answer is, “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know” can be a great theological claim.

We’re not pursuing truth for the sake of self-assurance, textbook answers, and power games. We aren’t creating circular smokescreen doctrines. We’re engaging a complex world with a powerful, mysterious Gospel. We have found life-changing hope in God’s Story and life in the Way of Jesus, and we want that truth to be lived, told, explored, and known.

There are four main resources we use to seek and verify truth: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. The technical term for these four “truth-decectors” is the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

In Scripture we have the most tangible, uniquely authoritative expression of God’s revelation. For this reason, Scripture is the starting point of our Quad. Scripture provides us with the narrative of Israel and some of the earliest communities that followed Jesus and built his Kingdom. The Bible explains to us God’s character and articulates what it looks like to become part of the people of God. As God’s Spirit illumines it, we’re able to use Scripture wisely in our context today.

God gives us intelligence and welcomes us to use it. We naturally bring our cognitive ability and framework (our reason) into our handling and application of Scripture, understanding of God, and observation of ourselves and our world. We want to worship God with our thoughtfulness, as we love Him enough to observe His work in this world.

God’s Holy Spirit is available to Christ-followers as a Helper — consulting, convicting, encouraging, ministering, and illumining truth through all different kinds of mediums and situations. As individuals and as a community, we are called to remain sensitive to the Spirit’s personal and particular guidance. Through a deep experience of God’s Spirit we gain the wisdom and discernment needed to serve God in our culture and context today.

We’re connected to the tradition of God’s people throughout the centuries and around the globe. As we pursue truth, it’s important that we look beyond our own context and learn from the wisdom of other faithful believers. By seeing how other Christians have understood truth, we’re able to affirm and adopt many of their conclusions. We’re also free to recognize and correct misguiding thoughts of past Christians — moving forward into a healthier understanding of, and relationship with, our God.

By holding the four components of the Quad together in dynamic community, we continuously learn and grow in our understanding of who we are, who God is, and what is going on in the world.

Good things happening at Seattle Pacific

OK, so I’m a little biased in favor of Seattle Pacific University considering Julie is both a full-time employee and full-time student there (then again, it isn’t vested interested creating opinion so much as SPU’s characteristics giving us a reason to associate with the University and develop bias – we moved to Seattle last year because these things were already true of SPU and we believe in what God is doing there – and since then our positive view of SPU has only been reinforced), but nonetheless I wanted to link over to the blog of SPU’s president, Philip Eaton.

In a time when many Christian colleges and seminaries are more interested in politically appeasing their denomination, directors, and trustees than worshiping God intellectually by following through on advances in biblical studies, Eaton seems to be bucking the trend. In the past few years his office has been responsible for bringing in biblical scholars such as Richard Hays, Jurgen Moltmann, and Nicholas Woltersdorf. You can jump over to Eaton’s blog and read some his positive thoughts regarding N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope. In other words, Eaton and other decision-makers at SPU are locating the University in the radical center – not pandering to the sometimes anti-intellectual hyperbole of Evangelicalism’s most conservative fringe or dissolving into the cowardice of Seattle Christianity’s more liberal wing.

All of this is being done in Seattle’s tumultuous climate for Christianity. The city’s most influential church gains its notoriety by espousing a mix of Augustinian determinism and neo-Fundamentalist suppression of all-things-gender-related concerning the boundary-breaking work of Christ. One of the city’s other major theological schools seems to be (in my opinion) lagging – training pastors in the language and conversations of Evangelicalism’s yesteryear – while another (very unintentionally, I’d say) seems to be turning out too many students who operate out of a deterministic controlling meta-narrative of soft science within which “the fall” is essentially what your parents did to you, soteriology rests in the redemptive work of your therapist, and following Christ (and any of the normative expectations connected with following Christ) is a tangential hobby.

In other words, while there are some good things happening in the city (sometimes even within those places I’ve criticized, I should add) Seattle is in need of leaders who can approach theology with wisdom (not wobbly liberalism or nut-job conservatism) and help navigate the Church through the uncertainty that is post-Christendom and the Electronic Age (both with the potential to be very, very good things). While it’s difficult to make monolithic endorsements of institutions that are as diverse as their many contributing voices, I feel good about saying that SPU is suited to be that voice in Seattle.

I feel good about Seattle being pastored by, among others, the wise voices emerging from within SPU.

And I feel good about recommending SPU to any college-age person who would enjoy learning from truly-orthodox voices (people whose teachings are consistent with Christ and the Early Church, and not simply Augustinian modifications) in a city where it is anything but simple or convenient to be a Christian.

Re-branding Maple Leaf

Paradigm is hosted by Maple Leaf Church, where Shawn (our Lead Pastor) is on staff. Maple Leaf is an extremely elderly (as in wrinkles, not leadership models) church that has lost a bunch of people in the past 10-20 years (they’ve gone from 300 people to around 15 regulars attendees and a bunch of shut-ins). Some of the congregation really enjoys being such a small church and wants it to stay that way (they like that everyone is either playing an instrument or on the church council… it’s amazing how many committees and how much bureaucracy you can cram into a church of 15 people…), while others are intent on re-growing the church (which I applaud so long as the goal is quality – a healthy community – first and quantity second).

Everyone on the Paradigm staff helps out with Maple Leaf – contributing to the Sunday service and doing some admin work for them during the week. It seems like a good way of thanking them for hosting Paradigm. And as we’re getting to know the congregation, one of the things we’re really trying to communicate with them is the importance of connecting their facility with the needs of the community. 

The building is really great from the outside – a large classic red brick structure in a residential area, but within a couple blocks of two main streets. While the outside of the building could use a good pressure-wash, it is in mostly good shape. Inside the building, however, is a monument to untapped potential. Circa-1988 carpets, with their array of coffee stains, cover the gorgeous hardwood floors. Soiled and/or broken couches (again, circa-1988) sit in nearly every room in the building. We won’t even bother explaining some of the “art” on the walls. 

Just know that this is as good an example of the Broken Windows Theory (as articulated in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point) as a church could ever be. The vibe of mediocrity is thick in that place. It’s suffocating, really. Most of the people in this tiny congregation have been in the church for 30 years (for some of them it’s more like 60 years), and I’m beginning to think that seeing their community take such a hit in momentum and attendance has drained their imagination, and now they can’t see past the present mediocrity (yet they can’t understand why the young families in the surrounding neighborhood don’t want to spend their Sunday mornings gawking at the funeral decor and muttering along as a dozen strangers drone through a bunch of hymns that seem really irrelevant and out of touch).

Those of us from Paradigm who help out with Maple Leaf are trying everything we can to help them connect the potential of their building to the needs of the neighborhood. The houses in the neighborhood are being rented or bought by young families, professionals, and people who walk their dogs religiously. One particular coffeeshop a few blocks from the church has a make-shift play area where toddler-hand-holding and stroller-pushing parents (not just moms… I guess Seattle’s notorious pastor hasn’t condemned all of those “evil” stay-at-home dads yet…) can deposit their children so that kids and adults alike can do some mingling through the morning and afternoon. The only thing is that this play area is around five square-feet and usually contains at least eight kids (better pull out that hand sanitizer…).

Let’s just say it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what could be done with Maple Leaf’s giant finished basement and the three or four adjacent children’s rooms (which, ironically, are the most decked-out part of this building – one room has a nature theme with a giant fake tree; another room has a space-age theme with a mini-theatre; if I was a kid I would love it down there).

But who wants to remodel a basement when we can just pass out tracts or write something pithy on our church sign? What does having people over to our place during the week have to do with ministry?

There are a lot of changes this congregation is going to need to make over the next several weeks and months. But there’s something potentially constructive about hitting rock-bottom – sometimes it takes reaching the floor to receive a wake-up call – and I don’t know how much longer this congregation can afford to heat their building if they’re not growing. It would be so disheartening if they had to give up their worship space just because, when things got rough, they fell back on outdated methodology rather than locating the pulse of their changing neighborhood. 

With no tangible or rational evidence to support this claim, something in me believes they’re going to figure it out and begin to live missionally and incarnationally in their neighborhood, and the Castle to Untapped Potential will begin to reflect that vibrant locality. 

As an exercise in hopeful anticipation, and for the sake of addressing at least one element of Maple Leaf’s “Broken Windows,” Shawn and I are trying to re-brand Maple Leaf, in terms of imagery (and pretty much every respect). Shawn worked with a design company a few months ago on some loose ideas and I recently did some editing to refine those concepts. What we really want to communicate visually is that Maple Leaf is a neighborhood church and a multi-generational church. (These are prescriptions more than descriptions, but if Maple Leaf is going to survive, they’ll need some of these young families in the neighborhood to join their community. And even up until that happens, it is this neighborhood full of young families whom Maple Leaf should be serving.)

Tangible change has to start somewhere, so why not start with the central image for all of Maple Leaf’s materials? Over the next few weeks we’ll try to get this new image circulating throughout the church community. Our hope is that it connect them with the church’s history while helping them to see forward into a new chapter of community life, and will inspire them to navigate through this next bend in the road with imagination and optimism.

How people respond to this new image – whether it becomes a catalyst for further changes and widening imagination – will determine whether it was powerful and purposeful. At the very least, to whatever extent this image will be seen from the building’s exterior, we’re making the neighborhood just a bit more charming.

Framing stories, new exodus, and excitement

Paradigm gatherings begin this Sunday, and I’m excited (as well as appropriately nervous) about them. In contributing to this new work, I’d like to think that we’re going to be able to meet the needs of anyone and everyone who visits with us and/or commits to our community in the long-haul. But I realize that I can’t guarantee that or make any lofty promises – people might check us out and be sorely disappointed, and, to a certain extent, I need to be alright with that.

From a teaching standpoint, I really like what we’re doing in the next few months. While in general I think we’ll do a lot of exegetical preaching – straight through an entire book, chapter by chapter (not necessarily divided by the chapter break, but you get the idea) – but we’re starting with a couple ideas that we think will make a good primer for our future encounters with Scripture.

Call them our primers. Our motifs. Our framing stories.

We’re beginning to teach on the new exodus and the Kingdom of God. The exodus series will take us on a quick tour of Exodus (of course), Isaiah, the Synoptics, Romans, and 1 Corinthians. The Kingdom of God stuff is a bit more stationary, as we’ll spend almost all of our time hanging out in Luke before transitioning (seamlessly, I hope) to more exegetical exploration of Acts at Pentecost.

I don’t think that this motif approach will be easy – way more page-turning than sequential-exegetical and topical approaches. We’re going to be careful to use big enough chunks of text that it’s clear we’re keeping with authorial intent and the larger narrative of Scripture, not slipping into itsy-bitsy proof-texting.

But the flow over the next months will generally progress as follows: contrary to what you’ve heard, Jesus didn’t come to offer you the “status” of salvation so that your “immortal soul” is ready for an “other-worldly afterlife”. Rather, Jesus offers you liberation from sin and death – enabling you to walk in the Way. You’re saved for something. And that something is participation in the Kingdom of God, which isn’t the institutional church you often see in your cities, nor is it the “Jesus-is-my-homeboy” individualism that pervades our culture; the Kingdom is a third other, which is good news. It turns out the Kingdom of God is the primary thing Jesus taught about, so might want to approach it as our primary concern and not some passing fancy. How do we best participate in the Kingdom of God? By receiving, discerning, and obeying the work of the Holy Spirit. When we’re not about the Kingdom or when we aren’t actually led by the Spirit – that’s when things go awry, when a group of people merely tighten their fists around the title “Christian” while not actually functioning as the people of God.

So anyway, that’s what we’re up to at Paradigm. We’ll see what comes of it. But I’m excited to get into the gospel with everyone. Hopefully Seattle will be better off for it.