Searching and Reworking

I didn’t get the chance to blog over the weekend. The nice people at IKEA put way too much responsibility on my shoulders, therefore I was putting together things like bookshelves, a coffee table, a bed, and some really fancy headboard thing that rocks. At least our new apartment now looks really modern.

Also, I had a theological reflection paper due on Friday night that I put off until the last minute, but still had a blast writing it. I wrote about the under-appreciated aspect of Creation which examines its grace-filled genesis, whereas the typical Creation Theologies focus more on defeating science (a lost cause, in my opinion). I was excited to brag to my friend, Andy, when I got an email revealing a really good grade last night. Until he checked his email and got the same grade. The text messages that followed:

Andy: we’re equals.

Me: It seems so.

*****

For work, I’ve recently been studying several, random churches and their current structures of facilitating any kind of “groups” ministry. I’ve also committed to diving into a couple of resources (books) for the purpose of orienting myself more and more towards the concepts of Biblical community and avenues of facilitating missional lifestyles outside of a once-a-week, stage-based celebration/worship service.

Up first: The Search to Belong by Joseph Myers. I read this on Thursday and Friday, and I’m probably going to be less thorough and more opinionated for the sake of writing brief thoughts on the matter. First, Myers really hits the nail on the head. How?
A. “Icebreaker” games are juvenile and not suitable for 99% of people who are post high school age. They may not even be that suitable for the average high school student. The fact that all of this small group material emphasizes such games helps the process of reverting Christians in their social maturity. I don’t need to belabor this, anyone who’s honest knows what I’m talking about.
B. Not everyone “grows” while sitting in a circle and being forced to be “vulnerable” and “honest” with people they hardly know, relatively speaking. Yet ministries big and small and of all ages have pushed this approach to groups ministry for 20 years. I personally blame it on a lack of creativity, Myers seems to blame it on our desire to grab on the coattails of the latest fad or growth pattern (which actually just reveals a lack of creativity).

Let me share what I think Myers’ most malignant issue is here. The emerging-driven movement in church is rightfully working to get the focus back on track, so to speak. The intimate, spill your guts programmatic small group ministry that Myers easily dismantles is mostly problematic because it takes the focus off of Jesus and the Kingdom of God and puts it on “building community,” much like seeker-sensitive churches took the focus and put it on growth. However, when reading Myers one can’t but help get the impression that he still holds “community,” which he terms belonging, as the ultimate goal in the Christian life. And I still think this is a major adventure in missing the point. Belonging to the church is not the goal of this life of following Christ. I think it’s both a natural bi-product and something we should highly value, but Myers never gets around to placing it in a proper framework. Without critical thought, and I fear a lot of people who read these sort of things don’t think critically about them, one would easily assume that Myers’ persuasive call is to re-orient everything in our faith communities around helping people “belong.” It’s an admirable goal for a counseling enterprise, but for the living body of Christ in the 21st century? I’ll hold off for now.

What will send you to Hell?

I had an interesting tour around the blogosphere this morning. I had it in my head that I wanted to do some typing this morning, but I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired by anything.

So I started browsing.

I ended up on my friend Jason’s blog and read this post, where he mentions DeYoung and Kluck’s book, “Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be,” and then he links to this well-written article by Jonathan Leeman which reviews the book. I highly recommend reading his review of the book, and the book may be worth giving a whirl as well. What made me want to post this morning was a short clip from the end of Leeman’s (a self-described non-Emergent) post:

Emergents, I plead with you, please read those aspects of the book carefully and with open hearts. Yes, the Phariseeism that can afflict proposition-loving personalities like mine can send people to hell. But wrong propositions will also send people to hell.

It made me think of:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single convert, and when he becomes a convert, you make him twice a child of hell as yourselves.

Is “sending people to hell” the same as making someone “a child of hell?” It seems to me that one person is concerned with life after death and the other person is at least just as concerned with life on earth, if not also life after. Mr. Leeman does a good job with his critique, and he walks the language of “not understanding” well throughout his article. I do think he’s right, and I think his comment that I’ve quoted here reveals why DeYoung and Kluck don’t actually get it. The difference, as they claim from dragging Dan Kimball out of context, is not just semantics. The difference in “sending people to hell” and making someone “a child of hell” isn’t just fancy, postmodern language. By nature it makes a preferential relegation as to the primary purpose of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

I’m not sure what else I want to say, and I honestly didn’t want to comment this much on it. I just found that minor discrepancy in ideology somewhat revealing. Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s fun though!