Where do we go?

by The RevNo Comments
My good friend Damon Reiss and I will be spending some time reading and writing together on the issues raised in N.T. Wright’s New Testament and the People of God. This text is the first in a five part series that Wright is doing on “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. Wright is understood to be the leading spokesman for the “New Perspective on Paul” and is embraced by many in the “emerging church” as their key theologian (oddly enough he does not really fit there). He has recently stepped out of pastoral ministry to engage full-time in the academy.I think my hope for these series of posts is to: Stimulate our own thinking about root theological issues. To encourage one another. To challenge you, the reader, to grab a text, follow along, and engage in the conversation. The majority of the opening sections are filled with methodology. For some this is dense and feels somewhat pointless. However, let me suggest a couple...
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We love Detroit. An Open Letter to Dan Shaugnessy

by The RevNo Comments
Dear Dan,In a recent edition of the Boston Globe you had this to say about Detroit: Think about it: For the next five weeks, you could live in downtown Boston and your wife could shop on Newbury Street. Or you could live in downtown Detroit, amid the boarded-up buildings and the proverbial skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets. Is this really a tough call? I would like to commend you on your lack of research. You seem to be looking at pictures from 1968 in the immediate after math of the riots. Do you still think there is a gunman on the campus of Kent State University? Or maybe you believe that the “British are Coming”?Of course maybe you are upset that President John F. Kennedy had this to say about Detroit:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Di6YmCLZgc&w=425&h=350]I don’t know what your issue is. I don’t really know why you feel like you have to chastise a proud city. I would invite you to come and see what Detroit...
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I am Proud to Be an American…

by The RevNo Comments
…where atleast I know I can buy, whatever I want, when I want it, and nobody can stop me.There are few lasting images in my mind like that of September 11, 2001 and the days that followed. I remember where I was when I found out the World Trade Center had been attacked. I remember sitting and praying with a team of missionaries in my home for the families, the world, and our country. I remember looking at my son who was a few months old thinking what was his life going to be like?Then it happened, the President of the United States finally spoke. He told us that the terrorists would not win. He told us that we can stand up to these people and fight! He told us to do that we must…we must…GO SHOPPING! Fill the malls and buy stuff, show them that they can’t take away your lives!In that moment, I thought, “Yes! That’s right we...
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I believe in the Spirit! Well sort of.

by The RevNo Comments
In my experience the evangelical church has a bit of an integrity problem. No, I am not talking about the issues that just popped in your head. I am talking about the Holy Spirit. The last time I checked he was still part of the Godhead, you know the Triune God we Christians believe in? Yeah that guy. Our creeds give him second billing. In seminary our professors tack him on at the end of a course and seemingly never get to him. Yet, it is because of him that Jesus said it was better for us that he return to heaven and be with the Father.It is to the person of the Holy Spirit that we now turn in our quest for missional discipleship as outlined for us in “Untamed” by Alan and Debra Hirsch.The Hirsch’s spend much time discussing the abuses and problems surrounding our understanding of the Spirit and for that discussion I encourage you to read...
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Your image or mine?

by The RevNo Comments
“If God is not the defining center of our faith, life, and identity, then who or what is? (58)” Now there is a question. The Hirsch’s continue to challenge our thinking in relation to the center of our faith in chapter 2 of “Untamed”. There is nothing more central to who we are than what we worship.Missional Discipleship, at its core, is about worship.Worship at its core is about the person or object worshiped.If we get this wrong then we get it all wrong. The Crusader, the jihadist, the cult leader all do evil because their worship is wrongly placed.So, how do we know if we are worshiping rightly? The answer, Israel’s Shema:““Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”(Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV)This is the compass by which we set our heading in discipleship because it points us...
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Is your Jebus ‘Untamed’?

by The RevNo Comments
Last week I spent some time reading Alan and Debra Hirsch’s newest offering, Untamed. It was so worthwhile that I thought I would take a few days to post a summary of each chapter. While there is nothing necessarily “new” in the book it is a really well done text that brings classic missional discipleship into an updated and fresh rendering.We begin with our view of Jesus. The argument that is posited is simple, “Show us your Jesus and we will show you who you are (38).” This is key to our understanding who God is. This is why the Hirsches argue that the foundation of discipleship is Jesus. To know God is to know Jesus. In any way that our picture of Jesus fails so too does our image of God.I think that Alan and Deb illustrate this well by asking this simple and yet profound question, “If we had a properly Jewish picture of Jesus would the holocaust...
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Unity, Liberty, and Charity

by The RevNo Comments
I am really enjoying the ideas that are being put forth as part of the Big Tent synchroblog. I think that one of the things I am noticing is that there continues to be one thing lacking in all of our posts, a center. It seems that each of us would say “Jesus” is the center. But, which Jesus? Alan and Deb Hirsch in their text Untamed do a great job of pointing out that our understanding of who Jesus is determines what we believe about God. It is here that I think we find either our center or the point at which the Big Tent falls.For us to truly be a Big Tent we must find the good and the redemptive in each of the positions that are being voiced. There are too many voices that make it feel as though to enter the tent you must set aside your tradition and set aside your understanding of the faith....
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Scattered, Gathered, and Beautiful

by The RevNo Comments
This my third post for the Big Tent Synchroblog dealing with these questions: What are your hopes and dreams for the Church? More specifically, what does “big tent Christianity” mean to you? And what does it look like in your context?I want to deal with the first question: What are your hopes and dreams for the Church? In my first post I dealt with a definition of the church ( group of people who communing together in the midst of being on mission with Jesus). So, here’s how I see that playing out in my hopes and dreams.I dream about a church that is scattered all over a city, town, or suburb in small, intimate groups that are keenly aware of the needs, heart cry, and passion of their surroundings. These small gatherings would each have an embedded DNA of mission, compassion, and kingdom. These gatherings would be outward looking always seeking to broaden their definition of family by inviting...
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Big Tent or Single Issue?

by The RevNo Comments
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am on a study leave this week and a big part of that is preparing for the year that is to come. I am enjoying the time to think and plan. The Big Tent Synchroblog has been stimulating some of my thinking and has been a welcome distraction to punctuate my work chunks.My initial response to the blogs is that there seems to be a couple of main issues surfacing in the conversation. What are these issues you ask? It’s the issue of human sexuality. Chad Holtz, and Rachel Held Evans are good examples.The other issue is that of what do we do with those who disagree with us. David Adams, Greg Bolt, Julie Clawson are good representatives of this side of the coin.As I think about these two sides of the same coin I begin to wonder if we are missing the key issues that are potentially at stake in this...
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Big Tent Christianity 1

by The RevNo Comments
So, I am a day late to the Big Tent Christiaity Synchroblog. Here is the theme that we will be discussing this week: What are your hopes and dreams for the Church? More specifically, what does “big tent Christianity” mean to you? And what does it look like in your context? Oddly enough I am in the midst of a study leave this week and one of the questions my counter part in ministry asked me to wrestle with was, “What are your hopes and dreams for the Church?” Brilliant!What are your hopes and dreams for the church?I think that before I can answer that question I need to ask a more fundamental question. What is the church? There are so many definitions running around that it’s hard to keep up. It used to be (back in the 50s in America) that the “church” was simply those folks who showed up and sat in their pew on a Sunday morning....
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