Religion is Good at Guilt

by The RevNo Comments
On January 1 Charlie Rose had a montage of his best interviews. Well, we usually put Charlie on in the background and fall asleep to him. I suppose it’s gentle North Carolina accent or the intonation of his voice but he knocks us out pretty quickly. In one particular clip he was interviewing Frank McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes and ’Tis. McCourt said, “Religion is good at guilt.” For some reason that idea stuck in my head and I have been thinking about it ever since. Is religion good at guilt? I suppose so. Religion is a man made attempt at controlling other people and at the same time seeking to make people feel better about themselves. But, if you are going to control other people then you can’t possibly clear their shame ridden consciences with something like grace. No, you must make them work for it. They must work hard for it and they must comprehend that whenever they...
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The Forgotten Ways, Part 5

by The RevNo Comments
Part five is upon us! The Missional Incarnational Impulse. What the heck does that mean? This is another chapter where Hirsch makes it pretty clear that he must define his term in the negative, what I mean is that, a positive declaration of “missional-incarnational impulse” is difficult in and of itself to define, therefore, you have to state what it is not to bring clarity to what it is!Missional-incarnational impulse is basically the opposite of the attractional model of the church. What is the attractional model, you ask? Well, it is the idea that we are to draw people into the church building by providing the best, most exciting, and most relevant programming that we can possibly fathom. I think the best way to illustrate the attractional model of the church is from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”The opposite of this is the concept of mission. What do you think of when you consider the...
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The Forgotten Ways, Part 4

by The RevNo Comments
The Heart of It All — Jesus is Lord. So, now what? The first main principle that Hirsch lays out is that of disciple making. The development of disciples has taken on a new cool twist recently with all the emphasis on the Jewish life and what a Rabbi really is and therefore what it means to be a disciple. Hirsch steps in a provides a clear, succinct, and challenging picture of what discipleship is all about. How important is discipleship? Hirsch argues, “if we fail at this point then we must fail in all the others.”So what is discipleship? It is the embedding of mDNA into other people. It is that process by which men and women follow Jesus are built into people who can reproduce their lives into others. This is God’s plan for sending his message all over the world. And it as Hirsch puts it, “it worked.”Discipleship has taken on many labels over the years, Robert Coleman called...
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The Forgotten Ways, Part 3

by The RevNo Comments
Hirsch gets going into the “heart of it all” in chapter 3. This chapter lays out the necessity for Jesus to be Lord. This is the center of mDNA, oh, wait, I am ahead of myself. What is mDNA? This is the organic coding for Apostolic Genius. What is Apostolic Genius?Well, it’s the results of mDNA.Enough playing around. mDNA is comprised of the five key principles along with the driving story that “Jesus is Lord.” mDNA it is argued is found within each believer and when it is unleashed the result is Apostolic Genius which is best understood to be the ability to live out what it means to be the church.The five key principles: Disciplemaking Missional-Incarnational Impulse Apostolic Environment Organic Systems Communitas NOT Community The next few chapters will be focused on these six concepts. So, let’s begin with the driving story that Jesus is Lord.The heart of Chapter 3 is this controlling story that Jesus is Lord. Hirsch provides the technical term of “Christocentric...
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