Friday, February 01, 2008
Living Outside the Box
The other night I sat at a pub with a couple of friends discussing, among other things, our journeys through life, theology, and our stance toward the traditional church. One of the guys was named Brian and I had only just met him that night. Somewhere in his mid-50s, Brian has led an interesting life since coming to know Christ some 40 years ago at L’Abri in Switzerland (yes, that’s the Francis Schaeffer).
As I was sharing with Brian details of my own journey, he finally looked at me and said: “Well, coming from someone who’s been on this journey for nearly 40 years, here’s the good news—you’ve only just begun the journey. Keep moving forward!” I was somewhat startled by that statement, because up until that point I had—mistakenly, as it turns out—thought I was doing pretty good with myself. But he was not being condescending, he was being encouraging. From his point of view, I’m just a little baby taking those first tentative steps, while he’s been walking along for decades now.
Certainly it doesn’t mean he has everything figured out—not by a long stretch. But it is kind of humbling to think about it. Not that I have arrived at all, but I thought I had made some major strides from where I was just a few years ago. I suppose I have, but then the next question came up: Where do I go from here? What do the next steps look like?
Brian sat back after I posed that question and said, “Well, if you could answer that question, there’d really be no point, would there.” Thinking I was being clever, I shot back: “Well, it seems to me that the main thing is to think outside the box.” Just as quickly he returned with, “Actually, the problem is not merely thinking outside the box. It’s learning to live outside the box that is the real challenge.”
What I got out of our conversation the other night was that in all honesty, it is all too easy to sit back and criticize the traditional, Western church for all of its shortcomings.—to name a few: a rationalistic theological bias, its propositional idea-centered preaching, its lack of engagement with the emerging culture, and its increasingly outmoded styles of leadership. And the thing is, those criticisms are all too close to the mark. They’re probably all true. The church does need to get its head out of the sand; the church does need to realize that in about 20 or 30 years, the baby-boomers who are filling its seats will be dying off, and then what?
But in my conversation with Brian, I walked away challenged by it all. It’s fairly easy to sit back and sling arrows at the bloated, inefficient, increasingly irrelevant entity that the traditional, Western church is becoming. But it is quite another thing to do something about it—in a positive sense. For me, it comes down to the two values of ownership and expression—something I stole from our church in Portland, Imagine Church Community.
It is not enough merely to own something; the step beyond it is to begin to express it too. Take spiritual gifts, for example: Learning what your gifts are is but the ownership end of the equation. Beginning to express them through various aspects of ministry is the other side of the coin: expression.
This relates to our discussion of criticizing the traditional church as well. My ownership of the conception that things are horribly wrong is not nearly enough; for me, I have to begin to work out ways of expressing those convictions in a positive way other than sitting back and criticizing. The beauty of those two values is that they are just abstract enough that individuals can go away and work out what it means for him or her, in their particular and unique context of life and ministry.
For example, it’s like what Barth said about Jesus—that he came not only to reveal the Father, but also to show us as humans what we could be like as well. As one who was completely undistracted by sin, and free from the self-deceptions and self-interests that plague us, he could have done anything he liked. So what did he do? He really only did a couple of things: One, he lived always to serve the Father, and two, he lived always to serve others. He was truly a relational, communal person.
Barth says that in this way, Christ is our example of what it means to become truly human: Live to serve God and others, and exist in true community. But for me the key is this: Those elements are just abstract enough so as not to become a formula. What does it mean to serve God, serve others, and live in authentic community? For each of us it means something different, as we work out the implications for ourselves.
Getting back to the point about the church, for me it is a major challenge to begin to work out those abstractions of ownership and expression as it relates to my own sense of mission. I have no idea what it means, other than to serve God and to serve others, and to pursue authentic, intentional community. If somehow those can take place within some conception of “church,” then, as I see it, so much the better.
Is this what it means to try and live outside the box?
As I was sharing with Brian details of my own journey, he finally looked at me and said: “Well, coming from someone who’s been on this journey for nearly 40 years, here’s the good news—you’ve only just begun the journey. Keep moving forward!” I was somewhat startled by that statement, because up until that point I had—mistakenly, as it turns out—thought I was doing pretty good with myself. But he was not being condescending, he was being encouraging. From his point of view, I’m just a little baby taking those first tentative steps, while he’s been walking along for decades now.
Certainly it doesn’t mean he has everything figured out—not by a long stretch. But it is kind of humbling to think about it. Not that I have arrived at all, but I thought I had made some major strides from where I was just a few years ago. I suppose I have, but then the next question came up: Where do I go from here? What do the next steps look like?
Brian sat back after I posed that question and said, “Well, if you could answer that question, there’d really be no point, would there.” Thinking I was being clever, I shot back: “Well, it seems to me that the main thing is to think outside the box.” Just as quickly he returned with, “Actually, the problem is not merely thinking outside the box. It’s learning to live outside the box that is the real challenge.”
What I got out of our conversation the other night was that in all honesty, it is all too easy to sit back and criticize the traditional, Western church for all of its shortcomings.—to name a few: a rationalistic theological bias, its propositional idea-centered preaching, its lack of engagement with the emerging culture, and its increasingly outmoded styles of leadership. And the thing is, those criticisms are all too close to the mark. They’re probably all true. The church does need to get its head out of the sand; the church does need to realize that in about 20 or 30 years, the baby-boomers who are filling its seats will be dying off, and then what?
But in my conversation with Brian, I walked away challenged by it all. It’s fairly easy to sit back and sling arrows at the bloated, inefficient, increasingly irrelevant entity that the traditional, Western church is becoming. But it is quite another thing to do something about it—in a positive sense. For me, it comes down to the two values of ownership and expression—something I stole from our church in Portland, Imagine Church Community.
It is not enough merely to own something; the step beyond it is to begin to express it too. Take spiritual gifts, for example: Learning what your gifts are is but the ownership end of the equation. Beginning to express them through various aspects of ministry is the other side of the coin: expression.
This relates to our discussion of criticizing the traditional church as well. My ownership of the conception that things are horribly wrong is not nearly enough; for me, I have to begin to work out ways of expressing those convictions in a positive way other than sitting back and criticizing. The beauty of those two values is that they are just abstract enough that individuals can go away and work out what it means for him or her, in their particular and unique context of life and ministry.
For example, it’s like what Barth said about Jesus—that he came not only to reveal the Father, but also to show us as humans what we could be like as well. As one who was completely undistracted by sin, and free from the self-deceptions and self-interests that plague us, he could have done anything he liked. So what did he do? He really only did a couple of things: One, he lived always to serve the Father, and two, he lived always to serve others. He was truly a relational, communal person.
Barth says that in this way, Christ is our example of what it means to become truly human: Live to serve God and others, and exist in true community. But for me the key is this: Those elements are just abstract enough so as not to become a formula. What does it mean to serve God, serve others, and live in authentic community? For each of us it means something different, as we work out the implications for ourselves.
Getting back to the point about the church, for me it is a major challenge to begin to work out those abstractions of ownership and expression as it relates to my own sense of mission. I have no idea what it means, other than to serve God and to serve others, and to pursue authentic, intentional community. If somehow those can take place within some conception of “church,” then, as I see it, so much the better.
Is this what it means to try and live outside the box?
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