the drum|rob fairbanks

Your Strange Super Power – October 30, 2012

                    A prayer written while flying yesterday... 

You are so gracious…though holy, you give and accept.

While you are regularly ignored, you stand with arms open, heart open

toward the ones who amble past without a nod of acknowledgement.

 

I, however, am always needy, damn needy.

Wanting credit when it is not even mine to allege.

Though my call and claim is that of a servant,

to give because I have been given to,

I still regularly and unabashedly enshrine myself toward the ending point of praise.

 

But you have that strange and inextinguishable super power to…

Live loving, even while slighted

To embrace, even when pushed away

To wholeness, in the midst of soul bedlam.

 

While I crave…you love

While I try to attempt to distance…you hold, like a Father.

While I stand in shards of brokenness…you…I stand with you.

Amen

Loving the Church - Nouwen

I find the thinking and spirit (attitude) of Henri Nouwen some of the most refreshing of all writers.  Here are some of his thoughts about the church.

 Loving the Church does not require romantic emotions.  It requires the will to see the living Christ among his people and to love them as we want to love Christ himself.   This is true not only for the "little" people - the poor, the oppressed, the forgotten - but also for the "big" people who exercise authority in the Church.

To love the Church means to be willing to meet Jesus wherever we go in the Church.  This love doesn't mean agreeing with or approving of everyone's ideas or behavior.  On the contrary, it can call us to confront those who hide Christ from us.  But whether we confront or affirm, criticize or praise, we can only become fruitful when our words and actions come from hearts that love the Church.

What are you current feelings toward the church?  Do they reflect his words or have you come to a place where this simply doesn't make sense?

fcb4 - Go & Be the Church today…

This morning, I came across this thoughtful blog by a close friend of mine here in Spokane, Eric Blauer. Eric describes some of the reasons we should be commiting ourselves to a larger body of worshippers. I endorse this message.  

It reminds me of this quote by Henri Nouwen:

"Community thus is obedience practiced together." from Making All Things New

Here is a link to the original blog: fcb4

“We should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing. Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming.” -Hebrews 10:25

Christ has a gift for you and it’s within the heart, mind and soul of your brothers and sisters in Christ. You may hold someone’s miracle today.

Gathering together as the body of Christ means we surrender our private lives to the act of corporate worship, we engage the word of God through other people’s eyes and mouths, we are united in prayer by others and for others, we are formed into a shared life of love and witness and we are all made available to whoever God chooses to serve through us in the body.

Go and be the church today…not like a drive though window but like a family’s dinning room table.

Choose to commit, to be bigger and braver than the past, love others as you want to be loved, be the church you wish the church should be.

 

 

Thinking and Writing in Forward

It seems to me that until we move beyond the current theological and ecclesiological reactivity so present in today’s church (particuarly in the blogsphere), we will not be able to rise up into the cataclysmic need that is before us as the people of God.  It is incredibly easy to do deconstruction and to cast aspersions on what is currently going on in the church – it’s current structures and models.  This currently occupies, in my opinion, way too much of the center of what is being communicated.  There are some who communicate in forward like, “This is what the grand Kingdom is,” or “We can grow in our ability to follow Jesus by…”  But, there are also those that constantly communicate stuff like, “The church is disappearing from the landscape of western culture,” or “The church has failed in its______________ (fill in the blank).”  Duh!  Come on, how many time do we have to describe how bad things are in the west.  Really!  How many times do we have to do this?  If I hear someone trying to sell something by telling me how "shitty" the church's situation is again I’m gonna…I’m gonna pull out my hair (which is no easy task in my case). 

Why not put your “writing car” in forward for a day or so and attempt to describe what God is doing that’s “God like!”  Here’s where it might get tough though…do it without promoting your stuff or your tribe (I know, contrary to all the platform building advice out there).

Here’s even a scripture verse for those that need one.  It comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi.  He writes;

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

See, it’s ok to speak the other direction.  It's in the Bible.  Try it.  It might even feel good.

Out.

r

Leadership, the Self-Life and the Kingdom

The Franciscan, Richard Rohr in his book on Simplicity wrote:

“Three things that in my opinion we have to let go of are the following: First there is the compulsion to be successful.  Second is the compulsion to be right – even, and especially, to be theologically right…Finally there is the compulsion to be powerful, to have everything under control.” (Simplicity – the art of living  - p. 44)

I am aware that these three tenets might not be that important or convicting to some of you.  They might even seem insipid, but for me they strike at the very core of my “self-life.”  It seems as if I have been on a perpetual undulating cycle of victory over these aspects and re-enshrining them my whole adult life.  Success, being right, and attempting to control everything! 

The thing that makes it even more difficult for those of us in ministry as vocation is there is a baptized version that we need to learn and embrace from business and leadership types that look like they are related to a way that is right, but exacerbates the twitching nerve in us to win, to be aggrandized, to be powerful, to succeed. To be evenhanded, there are those, like Greenleaf, who espouse something more akin to Kingdom approaches, but at least from my vantage point, wisdom from the world jumbled with my own inner-weirdness often creates a striving that must be “put down” if I am to represent Jesus in anyway close to the real Kingdom rendering that is unmistakably found in the Gospels.

Peace,

r

What is the Missional Church?

I am always poking around the web looking for resources that could be used to help understand the theology of mission.  Here is one that could be a great assest.  John Franke has be a bit of a harbinger of the emerging/missional movment.  He is bright and rooted.  Check it out.

 

Peace,

r

Marks of a Missional Community of Faith (Church)

What does it mean to be a missional community of faith?  There is much talk about what that is, what it looks like and how it works.  Newbigin (one of the true forerunners of the current movement) identifies six characteristics of a missional community:

1. It practices corporate praise, thanksgiving, gratitude, and grace;
2. It declares truth that challenges the reigning plausibility structure
3. It establishes relationships within a local neighborhood
4. It encourages mutual service in the priesthood of all believers
5. It expects mutual responsibility rather than individualism
6. It nurtures hope and a re-imagined vision of the future

I love these. 

What about you?  If you were to make your own list, what would you include?

r