Journeys In Between

Emerging Reality Check

Here are some great "reality check" questions from the Rubicon

1. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - who would miss you if you weren’t there anymore?
2. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - who is it you find yourselves ministering to… people like you?
3. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - what point has there been to your existence - for whose benefit?
4. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - How dirty have you got trying to be a transforming influence in your community?
5. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - Why do you do what you do - to embody the gospel by standing up for true love, justice and grace?

Now, the church I am involved with is not missional incarnational, at least not as a whole, but there are those of us who strive to be missionally engaged with our community so this is still a good self check. So here goes, just letting it flow.

1. I don't think the average person in the street would panic if we suddenly weren't there one day, but we have forged relationships with some local families who very much value our friendship and presence in their lives. Just today my wife called me (and some others) to pray for her going into a tough situation after receiving a despirate call for help (which I won't go into), so yes, some would miss very much.
2. Not at all. We minister to people from just about every religion under the sun, from different cultures and different socio-economic and educational backgrounds.
3. There have been times when God has very much been glorified, in a public way, and others where no one really seemed to benefit. Sometimes we just do what we do as an obedience thing.
4. Walking alongside people with drug addictions, mental health issues, in financial, legal and relational crises, in all sorts of dark spiritual spaces, as friends, sharing lives, yeah, its tested what we know about our own boundaries.
5. I would like to think we do more than just embody the gospel and actually communicate it more explicitly as well. There have been some missed opportunities. I am trying to be more alert to them. I do it simply because its the way, the truth and the life God has awakened me to.

Not sure how this sits with you all. Often its less than glamourous. Often my practice falls short of my aspirations. How do you find respond to the questions?

Here are some great "reality check" questions from the Rubicon

1. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - who would miss you if you weren’t there anymore?
2. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - who is it you find yourselves ministering to… people like you?
3. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - what point has there been to your existence - for whose benefit?
4. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - How dirty have you got trying to be a transforming influence in your community?
5. So you are a missional incarnational expression of church - Why do you do what you do - to embody the gospel by standing up for true love, justice and grace?

Now, the church I am involved with is not missional incarnational, at least not as a whole, but there are those of us who strive to be missionally engaged with our community so this is still a good self check. So here goes, just letting it flow.

1. I don't think the average person in the street would panic if we suddenly weren't there one day, but we have forged relationships with some local families who very much value our friendship and presence in their lives. Just today my wife called me (and some others) to pray for her going into a tough situation after receiving a despirate call for help (which I won't go into), so yes, some would miss very much.
2. Not at all. We minister to people from just about every religion under the sun, from different cultures and different socio-economic and educational backgrounds.
3. There have been times when God has very much been glorified, in a public way, and others where no one really seemed to benefit. Sometimes we just do what we do as an obedience thing.
4. Walking alongside people with drug addictions, mental health issues, in financial, legal and relational crises, in all sorts of dark spiritual spaces, as friends, sharing lives, yeah, its tested what we know about our own boundaries.
5. I would like to think we do more than just embody the gospel and actually communicate it more explicitly as well. There have been some missed opportunities. I am trying to be more alert to them. I do it simply because its the way, the truth and the life God has awakened me to.

Not sure how this sits with you all. Often its less than glamourous. Often my practice falls short of my aspirations. How do you find respond to the questions?

Can you be too incarnational?

Since Alan Hirsch has goaded me into this discussion I thought I would publish a diagram I have been working on in an effort to try and articulate my own position. In essence my answer is no, you can never be too incarnational, for properly understood that's akin to asking whether you can be too Christlike.

What do I base this on? Towards the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus prays "I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one."

In others words, Jesus calls us to move within this world without being of this world, to engage with our culture and his teachings simultaneously, without distancing ourselves from either. If  Jesus is truly our axis mundi, the centre of our world and our way, then we will live like him and challenge cultures where they needs to be challenged from within.

But often that's not what we find. Often what happens instead is we find Christians either isolating themselves from host cultures (the imperialist-fundamentalist approach) or capitulating to host cultures (the syncretist-liberal approach). Both ways lead to blunted witness. Sadly an even worse option is even more common, that of being "of the world but not in the world," whereby Christian compromise with culture and gloss it over with layers of churchianity that effectively cuts of further cultural engagement.

Now this is all very technical stuff, what does it look like in practice?

In most missional literature the examples you'll find tend to focus on incarnational Christianity for people with Muslim or Jewish backgrounds. That's all very well and good, but I don't find myself amongst monotheists so often. Not my scene. More often I find myself amongst pantheists and polytheists, that is, amongst New Age "whateverists," western Buddhists, yoga practitioners, NeoPagans, witches and goddess worshippers. What does incarnational Christianity look like in that sort of context?

Maybe its easier to start off with what incarnational Christianity does not look like! It does not look business is usual. No, its culturally imperialistic to foist megachurch Christianity on esoteric background people, and "gentile circumcision" like this ultimately compromises the gospel. Neither does it look like the various varieties of Christopaganism and Zen Christianity that many church-burnt individuals experiment with. No, Christ is not one guru or god or ascended master amongst many for the genuine Christian. And neither does it look like prosperity theology or strategic level spiritual warfare or various other varieties of baptized animism. No, incarnational Christianity is a different animal altogether.

So, how would a pagan-sensitive Christianity differ from Christopaganism? Just how different is the incarnational approach from the syncretistic approach in this sort of context? Like the Christopagan, the pagan-sensitive Christian is unafraid to use and, where necessary, reframe  esoteric langauge and symbols and customs to aid communication (and unwary visitors to this site sometimes mistake me for a Christopagan on that basis). The proviso for the incarnational / pagan-sensitive Christian is that Christ motivates everything behind this, and is the measure of all that transpires. For the incarnational Christian, Christ is God in the fullest meaning of the word.