the drum|rob fairbanks

Alternative Politic

If you say you are a Christian, it is not an option – you must begin with theology (who is God, who am I before Him and what does He desire), rather than nationalism or partisanship (what is best for our country or the party I belong to) in discerning how to engage culture. While the latter is important, we must be the best of citizens; it MUST be subjugated to the will and ethic of the Kingdom. The most frightening thing for me is not our new President, or Russia or Islam or Fake News, or some other external influence, though each carry with them a reason for consternation. The thing that frightens me most is the famine of “believers” who recognize the collision of Kingdoms that is taking place around them.

This is unquestionably an indictment on the church for its lack of spiritual formation (a topic for another day).

If you begin with the latter, whether you know it or not, you portray a co-opted version of Christianity that is underdeveloped at best and repelling at worse to those who are sincerely seeking the real thing. #alternativepolitic #kingdomfirst

Moving Into the Neighborhood - Guest Blogger, Holly Clark

From guest blogger, Holly Clark. Holly serves on the Leadership Team at Immanuel Church. 

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The Message version of John 1 puts it this way, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” Literally Jesus became flesh and blood and starting living with us in our neighborhoods, in our villages, in our places of worship. He was not a God somewhere in the heavens, He was on earth, living in the flesh – eating fish for breakfast and teaching his disciples what it meant to live abundant life. He healed the sick and interacted with “the undesirables” of society and gave those who had no hope a reason to live. He struggled alongside people, he lived in community and he interacted with those who were right around him.

Now what does that mean for us today? What does it look like for us to “move into the neighborhood” as the church? Well, for Immanuel, we are doing just that. We are trusting in the movement of the Holy Spirit over our community. We prayed together and we moving together.

Our community is embarking on a journey of living out intentional ministry in the West Central neighborhood. Starting this week, our Sunday morning services will be held in the West Central Youth for Christ building.

Our hope for this change include:

Partnership: We believe that God has been moving us toward West Central for a while now. Our church is made up of many YFC volunteers, employees and students giving us the opportunity to build relationships in the neighborhood even before our official building change. We believe supporting this ministry, that is effectively creating indigenous leaders in the neighborhood, is a crucial part of our work as the church.

Service focused: We believe the church is twofold: worshipping together as a community and serving those around us. Being a part of the West Central neighborhood provides us with a tangible opportunity to reach out beyond our own community.  We hope to continue to meet new students and eventually provide a place that the entire family can come to build community and worship.

Diversity: The body of Christ is made of a diverse group of people. We have felt called to be with people who can teach us a part of Christ that we wouldn’t know without them. We need to be with people who are different than us and be open to learning what God is doing through us even when we live differently, when we disagree, when we need to work through messy situations.

We are excited to see where God takes us on this new season of our community. We are fully aware that God is going to blow our expectations out of the water. Let us begin this journey together and continue to learn what it means to be Jesus in our neighborhood.

Holly Clark

A Call for the Church to Repent

I have long felt like my calling in life has been to help change the mind of the church. Jesus made it clear that he came to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God was near. The imperatives related to this declaration were for his followers to believe and repent (Mark 1). Repentance, while it means many things, at its simplest, most rendered definition it means to change one’s mind. I believe that is what the church in the West must do - change its mind regarding its identity.

Part of repentance means to turn from one direction to another. The negative side of the turning happens by deconstructing what has become of the church in what many would call Christendom. Though it is not the thrust of this post, the church must turn from its over-reliance on power and cultural control, it's political co-opting, and it's baptized mimicry of a consumer driven society (Have you visited many churches lately? IMHO, most churches are discipling people further into the consumer life, all the while Jesus actually calls us to deny ourselves and to daily take up our cross).

The positive direction of repentance is most activated by reimagining how we engage culture. I feel that as a leader, this is one of my most important functions…to get people to dream about how we live into Christ's prayer for his Kingdom to come in our local context just as it is in heaven.

One of the exercises that I use in my teaching is to have groups imagine leaving where they are, where the church is a siloed subset of whatever else is going on in their lives, and move to Grasse, France to plant a church with me. The reason I do this is to push them to imagine what life would look and feel like if they were to relocate to a context where less than 1% of the populace go to church. Not only to relocate, but to move there as missionaries.

Because I am semi-familiar with Grasse (pictured here), I know that on any given Sunday, out of the one hundred thousand or so people that live there, only about 70 to 90 people go to church. You will find around 15-20 in the historic Catholic Church and roughly 50-60 in two other storefront congregations (This information raises serious questions about church planting in most U.S. cities for me). One other note, while finding only a sliver of worshiping Christians in this once Christianized nation, you can find up to half of the hundred thousand people worshiping in a mosques. That's right, up to 50,000 Muslims in this western city. So, the question begs to be considered;

• If we were "sent" to Grasse, France as missionaries would you live life the same way we currently do in your normal lives?
• What would it affect? Would it influence how you spend your time?
• Would it impact where you and I live? Would we choose where we live in the same way we do in the United States?
• Would it challenge the way you spend your money?

I honestly don’t think so. I think it would change everything. See, by changing locations to a place where our intended purpose is recalibrated and the trappings of Christianity no longer hold any benefit or sway, we can begin to realize that the church’s identity must be recast if we hope to impact Western culture. Through answering these questions, we begin to bump up against some of the issues and challenges that the church (the people of God) must become aware of...and repent of if we are to regain our true identity.

r

Discernment and my Broken Soul

While enjoying a wonderful break with my family in Seaside, Oregon, I was able to carve out enough time to read Henri Nouwen's perceptive book entitled, Discernment. In the book, he makes several statements regarding how he spent much of his life craving affirmation, attention and acceptance of others.

He had attempted to possess others in the hope of acquiring satisfaction for his souls neediness.

In many ways, this has been my journey. I know it is a soft spot for me because when I don't get what I think "I deserve" I enter into a horrible soul level tumult.

Along the same lines, I have encountered real struggle when I have attached my soul to a community. I, with complete certainty, believe that every person, including me, desperately needs a community to be fully healthy. Nevertheless, if the community occupies too large of a space in one's life, there is a fragility or inordinate exposure. It must not occupy the space only Christ should hold. Nouwen wrote:

"I also learned afresh that friendship requires a constant willingness to forgive each other for not being Christ, and a willingness to ask Christ himself to be the true center of the relationship. When Christ does not mediate a friendship, that relationship easily becomes demanding, manipulating, and oppressive and fails to offer the other the space to grow." (Discernment, p. 75) 

This became altogether evident in my experience with the church I formerly led, particularly upon the final stages of separation. The moment that demonstrated the nadir was the “reconciliation meetings” with the person who was my successor. Besides being poorly arranged, it also provided a clear reality of an over-reliance on the community. I needed from the community more than was possible or what should have been expected. It manifested in my need for acknowledgment and affirmation and in the apparent injuries to the next pastor and his spouse.

The meeting, from my perspective, was ill-fated from the beginning, mostly because of my injury and immaturity.

The moment of darkness came when the mediator finally realized, though I had led the community for nearly 20 years, I was alone in the room. I literally felt like something broke inside of me, that which in many ways I am still healing from years later...

I was expecting something from a group of people that for a variety of reasons was an impossibility...something that exposed in me an expectation that only Jesus could meet.

They tried, at least that is what I cling too…to navigate the complexity of hurt and separation, but at the end of the day it was not to be sorted. I still carry with me the awful sadness of the experience. I hope I can find (discern) the balance of commitment and connection, without enmeshment that is always the enemy of true community.

The thing on my end is, I held too tightly to something that never belonged to me. Though difficult, I need to employ the Ignatian discipline of “detachment!” It is the need to hold all things loosely. God can take and give, and it should be my posture to hold all things passionately, yet loosely (a tough proposition).

Two things I know: Nouwen, through his writings, continues to be one of my most trusted mentors, and I sadly held my former role too possessively.

r

Behold the Wonders God is Doing with All People?

 One of the Psalms I used this morning for prayers was Psalm 66:4

“Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people.”

It is obviously an invitational Psalm. Come and see! Behold! As I prayed it over and over, I found myself deeply struggling with the phrase, “…all people.”

• Struggling with myself, with my overcharged emotions and reactivity. Yesterday was a mixed up day for me with a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows, one in which I found out someone was spreading malicious and hurtful rumors about me.  This is someone who has never even met me.
• Struggling with how stuff like this makes me want to return the treatment I am getting with like treatment. An eye for an eye…quid pro quo. Frustrated that after years of attempting to make my first reaction, non-reaction that I still want to lash back when hurt.
• Struggling with the anger and violence in the world. Watching what is unfolding in Baltimore, the latest of upheaval like incidences where standing at a distance confuses and makes me literally weep.    
• Struggling with people who are ok with violence, as long as it is not perpetrated toward them.  Then they speak up. I posted on FB last night… If you are only calling for non-violence now that there are riots, you are sadly late to the game.
• Struggling with the thousands of people who lost their lives in Nepal this last week in a horrific earthquake.  Over 3000 were lost and the number continues to rise.

Honestly, I felt like I could barely will the phrase past my lips, “Behold how wonderful God is in his doing toward all people,” let alone pray it.

As I continued to pray though, my mind found its way to a young 5th grader who wandered into our service on Sunday. He is a kid from the neighborhood. When he realized that we were a church, he innocently asked one of the folks from Immanuel if he could go home and get his sister, which he did.

• I “beheld” as he watchfully joined in our worshiping community with interest and curiosity.
• I “beheld” as he sat with John, one of the leaders from YFC during communion…as John patiently explained the Gospel in the sacrament as he watched each person go forward to participate… “This is Christ broken body, this is His spilled out blood for you.” 
• I “beheld” God’s wonderful doing as he came forward and joined in himself.
• I “beheld” God’s wonderful doing as both of us played Foosball after the service and our communal meal in which predictably I playfully talked trash and he beat me and we crossed the boundaries of age and race and became friends.

As I allowed my soul to exhale from all the troubles of the world and allowed it to reside in the beauty of the one, I actually felt the muscles in my body relax and my heart rise. I felt myself release the surplus of frustration and finally join the Psalmist in his invitation, “Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people.”

After all, it is the Fourth Week of Easter!

r

Book Review: Kingdom Conspiracy by Scot McKnight

Do you wear skinny jeans or pleated pants?

Kind of a funny question, but those are the metaphors theologian Scot McKnight uses to describe two prevailing and popular views of the Kingdom of God in his book, Kingdom Conspiracy. The first view, skinny jeans, predictably represents a more current approach that frontloads public sector social justice activism, while often times bypassing the church. He writes, “Kingdom means good deeds done by good people (Christian or not) in the public sector for the common good.” (p.4) The second picture is, again predictably, a perspective that is more represented in “traditional” Christianity. He describes this group’s view by saying, “…the Kingdom is both present and future, and the kingdom is both a rule and reign.” (p. 9)

McKnight is not content with either of these views. The thrust of the book juxtaposes these two with, from McKnight’s viewpoint, a more robust theological and holistically biblical approach.

A key element for the book is re-setting a view about the Kingdom from a redemption/salvation aspect to its natural Old Testament view of a “nation” and “Israel.” He writes, “Thus, kingdom is front and center about a people and cannot be limited either to social ethic or a redemptive moment.” (p.205) He contends that a proper view has five elements: a king, a rule of a king, a people the king rules, a law by which the king reveals how to live as one of his people, and a land in which the king rules. McKnight doesn’t give up the “already/not yet” aspect of the Kingdom which captures the best of both perspectives.

Where he arrives and what I think is the strength of the book is connecting this view of the Kingdom to church. There truly has been a shift of perspective related to the church. For many there is the feeling of, Kingdom yes! The church, boo!!! So, the upshot of this is many simply by-passing the church with the idea that if what really matters is the Kingdom, then God really won’t mind if I just do Kingdom stuff and stay away from the church. I mean, come on! They are an embarrassing lot. McKnight will have none of this. And this is where he “lays the lumber” and probably shocks not just a few by saying unapologetically (ready?), “With one sentence, now, I pull the rope taut: there is no kingdom now outside of the church.” (p. 87) WHAT? I could feel my muscles tighten and my theological sensibilities contract as I slowly read. Even though I am a churchman….even though I have given my entire life to leading the church, the statement caught me off guard. I thought to myself, “Really? Did he really mean to write that?” I must admit I made the sound “hmmm!” (or maybe it was “hmmm?”) numerous times while thinking about it. He clarifies that the idea of kingdom in Jesus’ world always meant “…a people governed by a king.” (p. 66) Now, this is at the very heart of the book's effort to reunite Kingdom and Church. He writes, “…If kingdom is a people and the church is a people, then it follows that the church are the kingdom people. The church, then, is what is present and peopled in the realization of the kingdom now.” (p. 87) In other words, if you assert that there is a King there must be a Kingdom, and if there is a Kingdom there must be a people. If that is agreed upon, the question has to be asked regarding the New Testament: who are the people of the King? I suppose there might be some astute interpretive device to wiggle out of that syllogism, but even with a natural reading of the New Testament, the people of the King is the church. Citing Bonhoeffer, it is written: “The church according to Paul’s understanding presents no essential difference from Jesus’ ideas [about the kingdom].” (p. 94) If that is agreed upon, which I do for the most part, McKnight’s assertion that there is an undeniable link formed between Kingdom and the Church cannot be dodged or avoided.

Thinking that would be enough to swallow for one book, McKnight takes it one step further wrapping in the sub-title of the book (Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church), by saying, “At the very heart of kingdom mission are kingdom people, the church of King Jesus. In one short expression, then, kingdom mission is first and foremost church mission.” (p.95) He spends an entire chapter laying out what the mission would look like which draws in both redemptive activity and social engagement. It includes evangelism, worship, catechesis, fellowship, edification, discipleship, and through the utilization of spiritual gifts. Sounding very Wrightian, McKnight recaps his viewpoint: “I want now to sum up what kingdom mission is: kingdom mission flows from the kingdom story, and that story focuses on God at work in history as God brings that history to its focal point in Jesus as King. That kingdom story, then, focuses on God as King through King Jesus…kingdom mission forms a kingdom people and that kingdom people in the present world is the church. This means kingdom mission is all about forming and enhancing local churches as expressions of the kingdom of God in the world.” (p.123) A person might potentially disagree with how McKnight arrives at his conclusion, but there is no denying the strength and resolution of his conviction.

Take Aways:

• First, know that I did not read this book alone. I read it with two different groups of “skinny jeans” folk (none of them, by the way, appreciated the caricature). One was a group of undergrad theology majors from the university I teach at and the other was a group of mid-twenties theology studies graduates who attend the church I pastor. 
• Secondly, let me say that I really like Scot McKnight. As a matter of fact, I believe he is one of the truly helpful theologians that I have read.  His books on the Gospel (King Jesus Gospel) and the Atonement (A Community Called Atonement) I felt were spot on and timely works. That said, to a person, everyone I read with felt that McKnight could’ve stayed true to his objective and shortened the book. Each felt like it could’ve been just as powerful as a shorter read.
• Lastly, I felt like Scot did an admirable job pushing people to “deal with” the church. As already stated, as a pastor, I have seen a steady flow of people with an atrophied ecclesiology simply go it outside of the church thinking they are standing on solid theological footing. McKnight boldly dispels this idea. He may have overreached with some of his language of kingdom and church correspondence, but the need to recapture the linkage is both commendable and very much needed.

McKnight closes his book by saying, still absolutely unflinching, “The only place kingdom work is and can be done is in and through the local church when disciples (kingdom citizens, church people) are doing kingdom mission,” and I might add, whether you wear skinny jeans or pleated pants! (p. 208)

Learn more. http://www.kingdomconspiracy.com/

r 

I Like Women - Part 2

In a post from last December (CLICK HERE), I apologized to the women in my world. It was more a philosophical apology, because even before my shift in positions (complementarianism v. egalitarianism) I worked hard to insure respect for everyone I have been privileged to journey with, difference in gender included. I may have failed at some points, but my intention was to honor all. If there is a continuum where a complementarian view was on one side and an egalitarian view were on the other, internally, I attempted to live as close to the center-line as possible.

As a result of the previous post, I was asked by an atheist friend this question: “Not trying to be a douche, I honestly want to know what you and other more "progressive" pastors do with all the verses talking about a woman’s role in the church.” The following is, at least for me, a short summary of how I approach said passages.

While I could work directly with the key texts, the guiding issue for me is more hermeneutical. As stated in the prior post, “A position of non-equality simply did not make continuing sense for me as I attempted to flesh out a full-orbed theology of the Kingdom of God and it’s hopeful consummation…” 

There is a thing I will call Kingdom imagination. Most can imagine what things would look like if all were “righted,” even if there is some difference in what “righted” might look like. 

Additionally, almost everyone can admit that things are not right now – poverty, injustice, crime, massive physical disasters, abuse, illness (both mental and physical), etc. 

If all of that were “righted” then you begin to land on what the Bible calls the “new creation.” Scripture history is a story or narrative going somewhere, sometimes inching along, sometime forcefully, but if you buy the Bible at all you must admit that it is going somewhere (read Rev 20-21) (BTW – do you think I used enough commas in that sentence? Sheesh!).

A robust theology of the Kingdom must hold in tension both a present reality (God’s reign erupting into our life in the here and now) and future consummation or hope (a full “righting” of all that is bent and broken from the once perfect creation).  

For me at this time, it all comes down to which direction should a person view Scripture. Are we to view it from the present back or from the past forward? If backward, one is caught on the horns of a more or less literal interpretation of key texts. In this particular case, texts in which it appears the Bible is desiring women to be subjugated to men. If one is looking forward, as I believe the whole arch of Scripture does (eschatologically), then one must read the texts regarding women through the lens of Christ and what he has and will accomplish in the future. I call this “the directional life.”  The question that really must be grappled with is are we to view this issue primarily through the lens of the historical context of the day or through the lens of Christ and his astounding work from then into the future.

In writing this, I am not judging others who have not arrived where I have. I believe in the idea of giving space to grow and learn. Honest people are not static, but learning. We are not to stop learning until we stop breathing. The people that are most frustrating to me are those who are unwilling to allow for that grace…grace that I have received from many who have disagreed with me. Many come off arrogantly enlightened and unwilling to have respectful dialogue around key issues, thus creating an antagonistic environment that makes everyone go defensive instead of open. I am grateful for the space I have received from people who have disagreed with me and it is my intention to extend that same hope and space to others.

r

Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier

Over the last couple of months I’ve had the privilege of reading the book “Prodigal Christianity” with a group of my friends here in Spokane. All of them are good thinkers and we had a wonderful time processing the ideas by Dave Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw. 

The book is really an attempt to locate a way forward that is truly prodigal in today's Christianity, a third way if you will. A writing device the authors employed is a cyclical juxtaposition between a Neo-Reform perspective of Christianity (Piper, Keller, et al) and a more “Emergent” version (McLaren and Jones). Honestly, a device I am not entirely thrilled with and I would suspect the authors represented in the book probably were not wild about either. Nonetheless, while looking at both of these poled perspectives they seek to mine out an alternative way for the church to move forward in the undulating social challenges of Western society.

The authors capably lay out a progression of ideas tethered to the idea of Barth’s “Far Country.” They move from a theological orientation or baseline to the more practical issues such as homosexuality and social justice (both chapters are probably worth the price of the book), both I deeply appreciated. They refer to “Signposts” that assist us to navigate both the church and “powder keg” issues we currently face as Christians in the U.S.

As far as full disclosure, I must say that I've appreciated Dave Fitch’s ideas before I read this book (The Great Giveaway) and am a causal acquaintance of both authors. I have great appreciation and admiration for both of them. You can locate both men’s personal blogs at…Fitch - Reclaiming Mission & Holsclaw - Into the Far Country

One of the key elements of the book for me was the nuanced challenge to be present in every situation trusting God is there before us, an idea often called prevenience. I honestly think if each Christian person I know could embrace the idea that they are expounding it would change Christianity. I know that sounds like a stretch, but I truly beleive it. In Signpost #2, the missio Dei, Fitch vulnerably writes about learning how to pray for his neighbors;

"I had in mind that this meant to pray for my friends to somehow see their need for God's forgiveness and that I would have an opportunity to give them the answer: the gospel of being forgiven from sin. The friend challenging me said, 'No, God is already working there, in each person's life. Just pray that you will have eyes to see what God is doing so you can participate with a word, or a prayer, with laughter, or a tear.'  If the Triune God is already in mission, then I need to see the world in which I regularly walk as the arenas of the Spirit – places imbued with the presence of God. This was a fundamental shift. It changed the way I walked into every space of my life. Missio Dei means that God is already at work in our lives and the lives of all around us."

The other bit that I found quite significant about the book is the author's insistence that these issues that all of us face must be worked out in a local context, the local church. All of the jockeying for influence on the net or in celebrity Christianity is doing nothing more than exacerbating the problems that we have. These issues must be worked out with real people, in real time, in a real location. I could not concur more.

In summary, I would recommend this book with great enthusiasm to anyone trying to navigate the nuances of what it means to live life on mission in a postmodern context. Both Fitch and Holsclaw have grasped the idea that being a Christian today isn't about reactivity or in finding yourself in some sort of theological entrenchment, but in moving  into the “far country,” being prodigal in a nonreactive, loving, open…local way.

r

39% of American go to church?

Gallop just published it most recent poll of religion and American life. They discovered that almost 40% of Americans go to church. WHAT? Where? 

 

What do you make of this pool?

I Like Women!

Perhaps the title of this blog is a bit too provocative, but I want to write a public apology.

There has been quite a bit of blogging done recently about women in leadership of the church. I don’t want to comment much on that except to say that I am sad to have been one late to the party of affirming full equality for women in the church.

A position of non-equality simply did not make continuing sense for me as I attempted to flesh out a full-orbed theology of the Kingdom of God and it’s hopeful consummation and as I have been forced to contend with the apt and powerful (I say that in the most flattering Biblical way possible) of amazing women in my life. 

Coming face to face with the supernatural strength and grace (gifting) of:

My wife Robi, and daughter Karli Ingersoll, two of the most wonderfully formidable people (male or female) I’ve ever been blessed to be around. Not just them though. There has been a long line of wonderfully gifted women like Nancy Janzen, Christine Osgood, Deb Hirsch, Danielle Riggs, Janeen Steer, Liv Larsen Andrews, Rita Warren, just to name a few, all who by their grace, servanthood and patience challenged my “Complementarian” view without saying a word (ok, there have been some words :))

Do I regret the deliberateness of my journey? No. My commitment has always been to grapple with issues as honestly as possible. I have done that. To move beyond understanding, conscience and faith is, at least for me, dishonest. Something I am unwilling to do. 

However, in accordance with my shift, I will not only nod in assent on the issue of women in leadership of the church, but will intentionally seek the voice of females at Immanuel Church. The church desperately needs women to lead for it to be whole and beautiful...to represent Jesus fully in the world.

 r

Edited Note: In re-reading my blog post, I realized that it may sound like I just arrived at this position. That is not the case. My conclusion was drawn some time ago now and the process extended over many years. I just wanted to make a clarifying statement in light of the many voices who are not demure about making statements to the contrary.