Thanks for this Matt.  I love it!

Cheers to MM for pointing me at it :)

Thank you matt

RevMatt

Ain't it the truth.

Shalom

Mate

Matthew Fox is calling for the dismantling of the present form of Christianity and a reformation in which we build a new type of faith.

Shalom

Mate

Willimon has always played the iconoclast. He has never offered anything more than a critique.

By comparison, here are two quotes from Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk's  "The missional leader: equipping your church to reach a changing world"

"God is present in churches today. Talking about the death of the church is just bad theology, sociology, and biblical imagination."

"Those who want to discard and give up, throw away and start again with a clean slate, have no understanding of the biblical drama, the meaning of the resurrection or God's heart."

"Missional leadership must be about cultivating the capacity and gifts of the people who are already part of the church."

So if you want to burn down your church, go ahead. I'll keep trying to work with the people God has given me.

I am looking forward to the time when there isn't enough people to pay the bills and church will be small enough to happen in someones backyard. I am hoping that this will be the time when people would set priorities on living faith and living together. But I am not sure if this will happen in our rural area, because people who lived in one spot for over thirty years and never left the province have a hard time thinking outside of the box. I actually feel church just might die with the last 98 year old.Living in a commune as ecologically and socially responsible as possible would be my dream.

“Let’s go do it, not talk about it.”

Now that is my kind of saviour.

Hi RevMatch:

I already put a match to the four corners of the Church, and she is burning brightly. I expect that she will be burned down to hot flocculent ash in no time at all, so that a new Church may arise from the ashes.

The Phoenix renews her youth

Only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down

To hot and flocculent ash.

-from The Phoenix and the Flame by D.H. Lawrence

A timely topic for the commemoration of the death and rebirth of our Christian Phoenix, eh, RevMatt?

James, you did an interesting thing there.  The rant, as I read it, talks about structures and traditions.  You made it about the people.  I don't see this as a refusal to work with the people around us, simply a refusal to do so on a shallow level.

The structures and traditions of the church, the institution, is nothing more than a group of people working together under a collective set of assumptions. It is all about the people. You can't 'burn down' a people's understanding of themselves without doing damage to them. That is revolution imposed from above. The only way to move forward is through evolution, an organic growing out of where we are now. Emergence theory gives us the tools to do this, affirming that God is indeed present in the people, and that God is desiring to grow in them.

"God works with the world as it is, in order to lure it to all it can become."- Marjorie Suchocki

Hi RevJames:

Of course, "evolution rather than revolution," I fully agree with you. The Phoenix metaphor is a metaphor for transformation and transcendence, not revolution.

This being said, the biggest hindrance to evolution is absolutism. Those who refuse to change cannot evolve. The fiery death of the old, absolutist, imitative and self-righteous ego self, and the birth of a new, divine, godly and creative self, is the point of commencement for effective self-evolution.

We, as a society, culture, and Church, are embarking on the greatest human adventure untertaken so far: co-evolution! In the full awarenss of—and conscious co-creation with—the omnipresent Creator Power of the universe, we are actively and purposely co-evolving ourselves and IT.

Now I must ready myself for Easter service.

A transformative Easter to everyone,

Arminius

In the words of Jim Morrison (The Doors) "Come on baby light my fi-errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."

"Come and set the world on fire!" eh, stoney?

OMG I needed that today!!  Thanks for sharing!  Happy Easter!  ...oh... and here's a match!  shall we get started?

It's the church as institution that helps us shape community, provides structures for spiritual growth and service, gives us a collective voice for justice and a common space for worship.  The challenge, to me, is how we keep our structures permeable to the spirit of Christ, and flexible enough to follow him wherever he leads? 

Perhaps sometimes we need that explosive match to set us aflame, but more important is a slow, steady fire that keeps our flame burning over the long run, that can't easily be extinguished by burdensome structures.  Some of the practices the writer criticizes - the centering, the servant leadership, etc - are, to me, vital fuel for that steady fire, providing we go deeply into them.   Of course we need to go out and live the Gospel, but we also need to fuel the fire.  Like two sides of the same page - action and retreat are both needed.  I think Jesus modelled that, as well, and would probably join us in a few yoga poses and some centering, before leading us out to take on the world!

But there is no change without death.  And insofar as I am part of the church and the people, then it is hardly an impostion from "outside".

You also forget one of the prime components of the history of our covenental relationship with God - "God is indeed present in the people, and that God is desiring to grow in them" - but the people are often not willing, and require some serious motivation.

It has been my experience that, left to their own devices, the majority of Congregations would choose to simply die.  New life, revolution, is just too scary, and too hard.  Someone has to light the proverbial fire under the proverbial asses before anything happens.  To use your evolution metaphor, there is always one organism that changes first and fastest, and the others are forced to change to keep up.  Evolution is hardly a gentle process, and most modern science describes it as progressing in leaps, not in a gentle line.

There are exceptions, of course.

And, for the record, I am actually happiest when I'm not the one lighting the fire.  I may come across otherwise, but it's true.

Finally, to the Marjorie quote - if God works with the world as it is (and you know I share that view), then surely She wants to work with me and others like me, too.  We who feel the call to "break their hearts of stone", we who are tempted to toss a few tables.  We are a part of the whole, and as such, I can't believe that what we have to offer is without value.

Is it the right solution for all questions?  Of course not.  But that doesn't make it a universally wrong answer.

the logic in that is that otherwise we are banging our heads endlessly on the wall.  When someone else arrives with a match it means a place to start.  "Where 2 or 3 are gathered".

That has been the best experience I've had, when we had a group of people sparking ideas off each other, their enthusiasm and varied gifts creating something worth doing, and being able to soothe & coax others to join in step.

"Sacred Cows Make Good Barbecues"

My good friends matt and james actually are about the same thing - now my sociological turn is that the institution is a human shaped creation and yet we have made it into some an idol....

Sometimes trying to reform the institution is a waste of time - this is why for me the UCC on the national stage is no longer worth my energy, and there are times conference is and more often it is presbytery.

And yes there are congregations who are tone deaf to the lure of God and they will die - the match has been lighted - and it has caught fire -

It may be an age thing in the time spent in the many movements of the church - I remember saying this about revolution in the early 70's and some change came, but but the tired old church keeps resisting -  in part the emergent reality has to be nurtured and in some places there is no life to nurture - so, in part, it is contextual, to not ask where we are going but what are those things around us that locate us, and keep us lost.  I have had enough of mission statements.

It is a nice easter sermon - from a bishop - now where?

It may be context but it seems that it is too late - easter is gone and consumed by bunnies - it use to be that even the sideline people showed up, now not all of the faithful turned up - no big turn out on sunday - as many were busy with families and other things -  Now this can be a good thing because there is a sorting out process  - no longer is easter the one ritual event that is a must- for it is more crucial than christmas yet not as well celebrated -even with comodification there is still some feeling about getting to a christmas eve service - but not easter.

I'm feeling lost in thought...   there are good things happening in the boring little corners of mainline church and I am glad some folks have their community - that is what keeps nurturing the ones who are facing illness, loneliness, ... (Insert appropriate suffering here)... - comfortable safe community in God's spirit.

And yet it drives others crazy, the ones chomping at the bit, scramblign for a match, shouting where no one is listening...and it feels like change doesn't come.

It does - look at women in the church, diversity, the music we sing, etc.... there is change but it comes only when people are uncomfortable & pushing, so would we ever be all comfortable and on the same path all at once?  Of course not.

Imagine, us fire-starters all sitting on our butts in 10 years protecting what we built, keeping out the crazies who want to change it.  How long before we're old & stagnant?

Matt writes: You also forget one of the prime components of the history of our covenental relationship with God - "God is indeed present in the people, and that God is desiring to grow in them" - but the people are often not willing, and require some serious motivation.

 Motivation, yes, Breaking their hearts, smashing them upside the head, going all Jeremiah on them, no. Motivation lifts us up to our better selves.

Matt writes: It has been my experience that, left to their own devices, the majority of Congregations would choose to simply die.  New life, revolution, is just too scary, and too hard.  Someone has to light the proverbial fire under the proverbial asses before anything happens.  To use your evolution metaphor, there is always one organism that changes first and fastest, and the others are forced to change to keep up.  Evolution is hardly a gentle process, and most modern science describes it as progressing in leaps, not in a gentle line.

The problem is the discontinuous change we are experiencing makes all their past patterns of adaptation to gradual changes now useless. They need to learn a new language which helps them to navigate through the uncharted territory, a language which uses their traditions and values and foundational stories, but which uses these elements for transformative purposes. 

And is not love the highest value, and the greatest motivator? If we approach the congregation as being 'the problem', which needs 'to be fixed', will we not be about as lovable as a dentist? (my apologies to members of this much unloved yet noble profession.) Are we not called to be shepherds who lead their sheep with humble compassion? Without love, can the people ever trust their leader?

I'm all for change. I'm leading my congregation down that road as fast as they will go. As their shepherd, I just know I shouldn't get so far ahead that the sheep lose sight of me.

Plus, having once ran INTO a church when it was on fire, anyone talking about striking matches around churches makes me very nervous.

Hi RevJames:

We are talking about the Phoenix Fire here:  metaphorical fires and metaphorical matches. I am sure you are doing your best to encourage the members of your congregation to set themselves on fire so that their new and divine selves may emerge from the ashes.

Alas, we Christians have that unfortunate tendency take our metaphors literally. So we have to be careful with the metaphors we choose, eh, RevJames?

The dove descending breaks the air

With flame of incandescent terror

Of which the tongues declare

The one discharge from sin and error.

The only hope, or else despair

Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—

To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.

Love is the unfamiliar name

Behind the hands that wove

The intolerable shirt of flame

Which human power cannot remove.

We only live, only suspire

Consumed by either fire of fire.

-T.S. Eliot

There is a difference between burning down the house, and a transforming refiner's fire.

Only in terms of the quantity of ore one is able to refine :)

It takes less effort to burn down than to build up; it is easier to criticize than to construct. My experience is that those who seek first to burn down are terrible at building something new, and what they come up with is generally worse - more painful, more disorienting, less graceful and less meaningful than what they sought to replace. I'm more in favour of retrofitting and renovating. Building on what you have doesn't mean ending up with a replica of what you started with or doing nothing more than applying a new coat of paint. The result can be genuinely different, more useful, and better able to shelter us against the elements.

I suspect that we could get rid of our churches and meet in backyards, but few people would do so, mainly because it would be so difficult to find each other. As dysfunctional as they are, bricks and mortar churches serve as a meeting place and a place where you can connect with others.  The fact that churches are not used well does not constitute an argument that they should not be used at all. 

Or whether one succeeds in transmutating lead into gold :-)

The grape that will, with logic absolute,

Life's leaden metal into gold transmute.

-Omar Khayyam

and so there it is, we need to be burners & builders, or work in wonderful teams

Yesterday, in meeting a new 'friend' who I expect to be tied closely too in the next few years, I conjured up the image of needing a "MixMaster" - you know - a big stand mixer that brutally churns and swirls all together the mundane ingredients of things like cakes & brownies & so on.  Tasting baking soda on its own is gross.  Trying salt ain't much better.  A mouthful of flour, and even cocoa powder does nothing for anyone.  But toss it in the mix master and voila!  Something better (and in the case of my brownies, spectacular!) comes out of all those familiar, respectable, important things. 

I'll never say we don't have to have concern & love for the people in the pews, but we have to stop apologizing for driving change.  Love people while you light the match. 

PS - James - did you really really run INTO a burning church???  Wow!

Yup. once was enough for me. My parents have done it several times. The last time my mother broke her arm helping to put out the fire.