The kingdom of God

Brant referenced Sofia Cavaletti this morning in his morning show. My first thought was, "Wow, Brant knows who Sofia Cavaletti is and he is talking about her and her work on air, and about young children and how they know more about God than we give them credit for?" (Serious props Brant!!) I don't have the luxury of listening to Brant's show very regularly, so I am not sure if talks about young kids a ton but it made me think of the kingdom workshop we had this weekend and a question we where kicking around towards the end. Can we give a one or two sentence description of the kingdom of God is such a way that even a young child could understand it? I have been thinking about that very thing and I have had some thoughts about it.

Maybe we could give a one or two sentence explanation of the Kingdom of God to someone regardless of there age but in so doing, do we rob them of the benefit of pondering the mystery? The more you are allowed to think about something, and process it without someone giving you the answers, the more you own it as your own. I don't think the kingdom of God is describable in just one or two sentences. The very topic is mystical. Jesus himself when asked about it used parables to engage people into thinking about this kingdom. He would say things like the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed and then proceed to tell a little story that would just sit in the hearers mind and cause them to stop and think awhile. I completely understand that we need to be rethinking our language when we talk to people about Jesus and his way of life. Maybe it has to do with how we think about evagelisim as well. Maybe if we allow ourselves to open up to the idea that the Holy Spirit is doing the work of calling people we wouldn't necessarily need one or two sentences to describe the kingdom of God. We could just be part of that kingdom advancing on every front and all of the semantics would be worked out in time. I am in no way trying to trivialize the process, I am just starting to understand that it is so much bigger than my one or two sentences to any one person at any one time. Maybe if we can give one or two sentences, it isn't nearly as authentic as someone wrestling with it. Maybe it would sound like we know it all, and have it all sown up. Maybe if we where more confidant in the reality of the kingdom than the explanation of the kingdom, people would wonder together with us and then bit by bit we all would be being transformed in the process? I don't know..Just some thinking out loud. Thanks for listening.

Workshoppin'

Friday night kicks off the first Kingdom Workshop. T and I have been into it thick this week - I feel like I'm cramming for a midterm. I've been at his house until 11 the last two nights. For some out there, 11 PM is nothing...for me it might as well be 3 AM.

It's a challenge preparing for something where the goal is not simply information transfer. What I mean is, when I used to prepare for sermons or some kind of lecture the process was fairly simple. It just required the necessary time to gather all the information and put it in a form that people would understand. Preparing to facilitate a conversation where no one person is the "expert" is a whole other ballgame. Conversation is fundamentally something that does not want to be controlled; but left alone without discipline it becomes an unruly child. It's a dance...and I've never been a very good dancer:)

Maybe the new skills needed in the church have less to do with theological nimbleness or creativity in worship and more to do with becoming immersed in this communal dance. One of my favorite Toddisms is, "What does it mean to lead in a group of people who are supposed to be following Someone else (i.e. God the Holy Spirit)?" Preparing for this weekend, I'm acutely aware of that reality. We are coming as seekers of the kingdom, but sometimes I feel like I'm John's mom asking if her sons can sit at Jesus' right and left in his kingdom. That would be cool, right? Hangin' out with the King in his crib?

"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?"

Uhhhhh. Better stick to the "I don't have a clue" attitude.

The Feast of Pentecost

My entire family is sick. In fact, we are all on 5 different kinds of antibiotics. It has been really miserable around here, so I have not had time to really process the celebration we had 2 weeks ago. I was thrilled to have friends visit and experience our special celebration for the Feast of Pentecost. I have been thinking that people in this post modern culture are seeking they just aren't seeking in churches. Go to a yoga class, or to a botanical garden or even the 'spiritual" section in your local bookstore and you will find people looking for something. I actually think the majority of them really are looking for what they hope Jesus could be but they just don't want to call him that. I think in their deepest heart they hope that Jesus really is the son of God and that he really can make since out of all of this chaos we find ourselves in.

My friend is a massage therapist and calls herself "spiritual" but not religious. She loves yoga and meditation and many eastern types of things. I love her to death. I have actually had many conversations with her about God over the years and wonder of wonders we've even talked about Jesus. Unfortunately, she has had a few bad run ins with what sounds to be some very fundamentalist Christians. For that I am sorry. I've never really tried to convince her about Jesus, just listen and love her. Many times we would talk and I would feel like..."I know I should say something here very black and white here but I just don't feel it." everything I would pray and ask God for the words to say...there would be nothing. So she and her son came to the Feast of Pentecost celebration. She cried the whole time. She loved the singing. Those words from the songs are still ringing out to her. She is processing things out and it is amazing to watch her work through encountering Jesus.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank-you to my faith community for letting me light a few candles and give a child like lesson on the feast of pentecost. It was a very special moment for me and I hope for you too.

I Am the Coolest Star Wars Character

Behold earthlings.

I am Eki Pinto of the Planet Mucinex.

Who are you?

tallskinnywords

"After a good soaking of Kingdom thinking, when you pull out your head, and wipe your eyes, you dont see churches, you see the Church. Only one. And you don't see mission as a yes or no button in front of you, but rather a river coming somewhere behind you, sweeping you along into somewhere exciting." - Link

Andrew Jones got me into blogging more than three years ago. He's been en fuego lately. I seriously dig this little "random thought" he wrote, particularly the idea of what mission is like.

More on Montessori

I've been home sick today with some kind of nasty cough / cold thing. The kids have been sick the last week so I guess I've finally caught whatever they have.

I'm very excited and hopeful for what I see happening here locally. Next month (on June 3rd) will be our fourth anniversary of moving to South Florida. I feel like in the past few months the foundational work we've been doing all this time is finally starting to show some dividends.

One of the areas I've been getting more and more comfortable with (and found some peace in) is with leadership in this context. Greg's post on Montessori that Amber referenced also resonated with me, but not just related to our kids' education or how Jesus is leading me personally. The Montessori educational method is a wonderful picture of sacrificial, respectful leadership in action. Great care is given to designing an environment where learning happens naturally and with each child's individual temperament in mind. The classroom is not filled with flashy, plastic toys you might be used to seeing at the toy store. All the manipulatives are real world objects and are geared towards helping the children become formed in their real lives. The children choose a "work" (manipulatives are never called "toys") and engage with that activity until they show mastery. The teachers are there to do things like encourage participation, answer questions, and help explain how each activity works. However, since there are many more students than teachers, much of the "training" on how to actually do the activities occurs on a peer-to-peer basis. So, in a very real sense, "leadership" happens in a Montessori environment on many levels.

Imagine a church environment where that kind of leadership is in action. Great care and patience would be given to fostering an environment where people are naturally drawn into the kingdom of God. However, the church would not see itself as simply a "spiritual" outpost providing for the spiritual needs of people's busy and all-consuming lives. It would not attempt to be flashy and spectacular in order to distract people from the reality of their lives. Rather, it would seek to minister in the midst of those lives and recognize the incarnate Christ woven through the ordinary and unspectacular. Individuals within the church would be allowed to explore their relationship with God in the context of others doing the same. But their pursuit would not be individualized and segregated or dictated by a generalized program. A few in the church would be particularly identified to facilitate this process by encouraging participation, answering (and posing) questions, and helping with specific issues related to each person's formation - call them teachers, elders, pastors, coaches, spiritual directors, abbots or abbotesses, whatever you want. I really don't think it matters that much. However, those people would be acutely aware of the limitations of their role. Leadership would happen, primarily, amongst peers as they work out their salvation as the people of God with the Holy Spirit's guidance.

Does this sound idealistic? Does it seem impossible to implement given the current situation most churches find themselves in? I don't think so. In fact, I don't think most churches are far off from realizing an environment such as this. In most churches I've known, discipleship to Jesus is largely up to the individual. Since the leadership is usually consumed with things like trying to build a bigger Sunday service, provide better programs for families, increase the building fund, and provide counseling to the "hard cases", discipleship to Jesus is mostly a side pursuit for the real "spiritual" people. One of my favorite quotes from Willard's The Divine Conspiracy is, "When do you suppose was the last time any group of believers or church of any kind or level had a meeting of its officials in which the topic for discussion and action was how they were going to teach their people actually to do the specific things Jesus said?" Wouldn't it seem natural that if people actually started doing this - giving thought and prayer to actually helping people become students of Jesus - that the environment in a church would gradually begin to change?

In our community we have chosen some simple structures that enable us to continually place the focus of our activity on Jesus and his action in our real lives. Often, however, it is necessary to hold those structures up to the light to see where the holes are. For example, yesterday we discussed the use of Scripture within our community and what would be helpful individually and corporately. It was a lively conversation and one that had the danger of quickly turning into a platform for everyone to voice their preferred way of dealing with the Bible. T did a great job of facilitating the conversation and said something at the beginning that I later reiterated as we were ending. The idea that our one weekly gathering could provide all the necessary content for a life of discipleship is a dangerous one. It is a temptation to try and cram in as much content as possible because, after all, this is our one chance to be together as "the church" every week. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. There are countless opportunities to be the church together that do not require a set time or place or even agenda. Beyond those instances, there is the great reality that Jesus desires to be intimately involved with us in solitude and silence or in activity among co-workers or family.

As Amber mentioned below, Montessori is becoming for her a way of life. I believe that we as the people of God can learn a lot from Montessori and other movements like Alcoholics Anonymous. Is it necessary to perform some kind of one-to-one transference of principles from these sources or assume we have nothing to learn from other expressions of the church? Of course not. But if we're looking for metaphors of good leadership, servant structures, and avenues of the Spirit that allow him to be the Leader we want him to be, I suggest AA and Montessori as good places to look.

My Thoughts Exactly!

Greg's latest blog post is great. I've loved the Quirings ever since we met a few years ago in Boise. Heidi was someone that I clicked with and immediately felt like we had been close friends forever. It is rare that you run into someone that has been thinking about things the way you have and especially thinking about young children and their holistic development which of course includes their spiritual formation. Hiedi first clued me into the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd which itched the scratch I had for kids formation in a way that Godly play or any other approach had been doing. If you know me at all locally, you are probably bored to death of hearing me talk about montessori or the catechesis but I just can't help it. For me, this is a way of life. This is as much a part of my formation as my times of silence and study in the word. Jesus is speaking to me loud in clear through the work of Maria Montessori and Sofia Covaletti and I am deeply blessed.

Engineering in the Kingdom

Often I feel as though my life is filled with little, unresolved paradoxes that somehow God is able to work around. Most of you know I work for Amber's father as a mechanical engineer. It's a great job and our company, which was just Bob and I a few months ago, has doubled in size. We primarily design mechanical and plumbing systems for commercial buildings and large homes. Now, when I mean large, I really mean large. We typically don't do anything under 10,000 square feet and usually it's closer to 15 or 20. The sick thing is that most of these homes are people's "winter residences" in Palm Beach or Jupiter Island. They may be lived in only a few months out of the year. The opulence and excess that is associated with these homes often gives me pause. It feels as though I'm helping to perpetuate a disease - a sickness of greed and wastefulness. But the wealthy have built palaces for a long, long time, and often at the expense of and causing oppression to the underprivileged around them. At least in this case, many, many people are getting paid when these houses are built. In one case, just the professional fees alone for the job (architectural and engineering) totaled close to a million dollars. The construction guys aren't doing too bad either. So, there are ways to resolve the conflict sometimes.

But another area of the business cuts closer to home. One of the architects we work for does many projects for churches in the area. Most of them are fairly average church buildings. Others are not. This week we just finished a design for this architect for a remodel of a local megachurch's secondary building. This building used to be their main gathering place, but now they have a much larger auditorium across the street. Anyway, this "smaller" building seats 600 people and has two floors of offices and meeting rooms. There are now plans in the works for this same church to build another auditorium and rec center for their youth that will seat 1000 people. Also, the church has started a satellite campus about 20 miles away and has bought a vacated Target building to become another auditorium. Secondly, last week we got another job for a megachurch north of here that is building a 42,000 square foot preschool with a huge indoor playground complete with a merry-go-round. Dude!

What is difficult for me is not that I think building these buildings is inherently evil or is being wasteful for the churches who are building them. As far as I know, these churches are not struggling financially. They have big donors and big bank accounts. Mostly I just think about it as "more work". Just another engineering challenge. What I struggle with more is the philosophy that develops quickly around church building projects such as these. I lived this in Gainesville when the church was in the process of buying a large, older Methodist church building. The philosophy becomes, "Imagine all that we can do when this building is finished." It's a subtle shift, but a shift nonetheless. I was once a church leader who got stars in his eyes thinking of the prospects for ministry this "building" would provide. But the harsh reality is, ministry happens with people and requires people who are engaged in a process with God. You can recruit the hell out of a group to fill a building and make it active, but activity and ministry are two different things.

So as I'm designing these systems I keep going back to the small, the organic, the insignificant. Don't take this as just another indictment of the megachurch - that's been overdone. God bless these people. I really pray that the Spirit continue to lead these groups of people and that Jesus would become real in their midst. In my neck of the woods, however, there is a longing to follow my education as an industrial engineer: Work smarter, not harder. Stay lean and mean. Reduce your overhead. Put a premium on efficiency and quality. Your system is perfectly designed to get the results you are now getting. Innovate. Create. Explore. Let production come from good process, good systems, good leadership, flat structures, teamwork, and happy, healthy people.

If church follows the pattern it has for the past 30-40 years, look at what the best businesses and leadership gurus are saying right now and then look for churches to start following those patterns in another 5-10 years. What I think you'll see is churches will begin to shrink in size, become much less top-heavy, function will dominate form, structures will be created around small groups of people with similar passions that will self-rule, and these groups will interrelate with other groups outside their organization freely and without restriction. Buildings will become much smaller and much less focused on assembly of large groups. Budgets will shift from financing the dreams of the few to financing the dreams and action of the many. Technology will play a role as information and ideas freely flow from one network to another. Learning will become much more of a fluid process and will happen just-in-time, i.e., the right resources will be delivered to the right person at the right time. All of this will shape a people primarily motivated by a much more holistic understanding of God and the gospel who see the kingdom at work in the past, present, and future.

You might say, "I just don't see it Mike. There's too much at stake. People love power and success too much." That's true, but it's not hard to look around and see small, insignificant examples of this beginning to happen. The number of people I know who have this dream in their heart is growing rapidly. And many of them are the kind of people who are capable and motivated to take this dream into its next steps. Also, I would argue that the problem is not always people loving success too much, it's that they are just doing the best they know how with what they have. You can't blame people for doing that, but you can begin to shape imaginations towards a new reality. In this case, that is probably going to happen one person at a time.

So this dream will continue to be juxtaposed with blueprints of auditoriums and giant preschools. I'm okay with the paradox (as long as it keeps being profitable - ha ha). But I'm also aware of all the individuals around me and across the web who are finding the kingdom in unusual (and mostly unnoticed) places.

Well, the kids are running around making it difficult to wrap this up. Peace to you all.

Odds and Ends

I've been kind of busy lately. My free time is spent with my family and starting to work out again. Not much time for writing..but there are some things I'd like to record for no other reason than to remind myself years from now of what God is doing in this time and space. My kids are doing so well. There are so much fun to be with. My goal this month is to actually get up before the kids. Pray with me that I would have the courage to do it. The bottom line is this. The 30 min's extra sleep I get by getting up with them does not give me the emotional grounding I get when I forfeit that sleep and get up and get collected before the day starts running. However that would mean I would start the day at 5:45..ouch. I know lots of people get up at that time, so it is possible..I just need to get my brain around it. Things are on the horizon for me starting a little Montessori school (one of my long time dreams) and that scares me and excites me all at once. Beyond that, three of the families in my studio, that have become dear friends over the last few years, are coming to church this Sunday to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. Whether the know it or not, they are going to learn about how the Holy Spirit was given to the church. Pray with me that God would meet them in a special way, and that they may have some questions answered for them in some way on Sunday. I guess I am falling in love with evangelism again. Or maybe what I mean is that I am falling in love with real people...there lives and their stories. I am thankful that I can be a small part of their story. I'll keep you posted.

I'm Convinced

The russian mafia has something to do with Anthony Fedorov not getting voted off Idol.

Article Repost

Sunday, while our community was celebrating communion on the beach, Amber and I were in Gainesville at the Vineyard listening to a local Episcopal priest teaching about and modelling communion from his tradition. Pretty cool. Anyway, I thought I'd repost an article I wrote last year on rethinking the Lord's Supper. Maybe at some point I'll write more on the topic like I promised...maybe. Here it is:


Communion Reloaded

If you’re anything like me, and I think most of you are, your experience with the Lord’s Supper in church has been unremarkable at best. For most people who have grown up in the evangelical tradition, you probably recall the silver trays being passed around with little plastic cups of grape juice and stale matzo. An admonition to spend time in reflection and repentance was given, the passage from the last supper narrative was read, and then you took the elements with your family. Occasionally this pattern was repeated during a special occasion – Good Friday, Christmas Eve, at a special time of corporate prayer, or after a baptism – that possibly held greater significance than the monthly observance. But regardless of the occasion, the theological and experiential weight the Lord’s Supper bore was primarily about asking forgiveness for your own sin and remembering Jesus’ death and sacrifice on the cross.

Certainly there can be nothing wrong with remembering Jesus’ death on the cross and taking occasion to reflect on the areas where we fall short and are in need of restoration. However, as has been our pattern as a faith community in the past, I think we need to ask some hard questions of this aspect of Christian praxis and see where we are led.

There are two questions that stand out as commensurate to our task. First, has the practice of the Lord’s Supper we have traditionally practiced been in any way reductionistic? In other words, are we missing something? Second, is there anything we can learn from other Christian faith traditions that would enlighten us to a richer experience of worship? I think the obvious answer to both questions is “yes”, but equally obvious is the need for help discovering “how” and “what” we need to learn.

Before we can address these questions, however, a more fundamental question needs to be asked: Why even bother with celebrating the Lord’s Supper? That might be a little shocking to some, but for others it might be refreshing to hear someone actually ask it honestly. For those of us who have spent the past 1, 2, 5, or 10 years unpacking and repacking our formation as Christians (or human beings for that matter) it is a natural and fitting question. Why do we spend the time putting on this little show with bread and wine once a week or month? Is it really that important in the scheme of things as followers of Jesus and a community of faith?

Of course, it’s tempting to just say, “Well, we do it because Jesus said so.” That’s not a bad answer, but excuse me for mimicking my two-year-old son, why did Jesus say so? Did he just arbitrarily choose bread and wine? Why not meat and potatoes? Water and wood? Figs and mustard seeds? Did he really expect generations of his followers to do the same thing and read the same words to commemorate his death? Isn’t it just more important to love God and your neighbor and try to follow Jesus’ commands? After all, Jesus certainly didn’t anticipate his church inventing the single-use, vacuum-sealed disposable communion container, did he? With all the theological reduction, practical weirdness, and just plain silliness the church gets itself into, why bother?

Good question. But it brings up an even deeper question that has to be posed. Maybe we should forget all about this church stuff and just focus on being better people. Certainly Jesus spent a lot of time demonstrating his distaste for the religious posturing of his day. He didn’t seem to care about pomp and ceremony, services and structure. But did he envision a social club for Christian spirituality that dabbles in following Jesus like you would dabble in organic gardening? Or a harrowing and gut level journey to discover a place in the renewed people of God? I have to believe it was the latter. The Church, for all its bumps and bruises, somehow always finds its compass pointing back to Jesus and his kingdom project.

Concerning the Lord’s Supper, I want to introduce a few ideas that may help answer the “why should we bother” question. First of all, in case you haven’t noticed, eating is a pretty important activity in the Bible. From the apple in the Garden to Jesus chowing with prostitutes and tax collectors, food carries biblical weight. When Jesus feasted with sinners, it wasn’t just to tick off the Pharisees. His feasts revealed something of kingdom reality.

“You'll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God's kingdom. And all the time you'll be outside looking in--and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.” Luke 13:29,30 (1)

Throughout history, eating together has been a sign of acceptance and friendship. Jesus demonstrated his friendship with the worst of the sinners of his day, but he looked forward to a time when anyone who called him Lord would sit down for the Feast of Feasts.

But why did he ordain this particular meal, the bread and wine, to be repeated by his followers? A starting place might be to look at what this simple meal would mean to a first-century Jew. The Jews in Jesus’ day were inhabiting the land promised by God to Abraham, but in a real sense were still in exile. Dominated by Rome, factions of Jewish hierarchy fought over competing visions of how Israel might in fact become, once again, ruled by Yahweh and Yahweh alone. Was it by defeating Rome militarily and reclaiming political power? Was it by escaping into the wilderness and waiting until God destroyed their enemies? Or was it by becoming slick compromisers and grasping for every ounce of power that could be sucked from Rome’s grasp? To put it succinctly, Israel was undergoing an identity crisis of national proportions.

This was a world where symbols were much more integral to life than flags or monuments. For the Jews, the Temple carried the ultimate symbolic and existential weight. It was, after all, where God chose to set up shop with his people. Never mind that some Jews were less than thrilled that it was built by the murderous Herod and certainly was a shadow of Solomon’s glorious structure. The Temple was the center of Jewish religion, politics, economy, military, and culture.

So consider the story of Jesus “cleansing the Temple”. Was this act just to demonstrate Jesus’ zeal for God and righteousness? If so, why couldn’t he have done the same thing at the downtown market? No, it was a direct challenge, an arrow in the heart if you will, to the prevailing idea of what it meant to be the people of God, to be Israel. N.T. Wright in The Challenge of Jesus reveals,

“His attitude to the Temple was not “this institution needs reforming,” nor “the wrong people are running the place,” nor yet “piety can function elsewhere too.” His deepest belief regarding the Temple was eschatological - the time had come for God to judge the entire institution. It had come to symbolize the injustice that characterized the society on the inside and on the outside, the rejection of the vocation to be the light of the world, the city set on a hill that would draw to itself all the peoples of the world.” (2)

Later that week, Jesus would gather with his disciples to celebrate the Passover meal, another intensely symbolic activity for the Jews. However, it would have been an innocuous event for a group of Jews in Jerusalem that night, if it weren’t for the fact they celebrated it on the wrong night. Curious for lifelong Jews to be sure, but only the beginning of the subversive, symbolic images recorded in the gospels relating to that evening.

The Passover meal held double meaning for first century Jews. It certainly recalled their deliverance out of Egypt by the hand of God, but it also looked forward to their own final redemption, the coming of the kingdom and defeat of their enemies. Jesus, in celebrating this meal with his band of followers and using the elemental bread and wine, revealed his intentions to take Israel’s fate on his own shoulders. Instead of blood on the doorposts and dead first-born-sons, there would be a body broken and blood spilled on a cross.

“In this context the words that he spoke [during the last supper] suggest that Jesus was deliberately evoking the whole exodus-tradition and indicating that the hope of Israel would now come true in and through his own death. His death, he seems to be saying, must be seen within the context of the larger story of YHWH’s redemption of Israel; more specifically, it would be the central and climactic moment toward which that story had been moving. Those who shared the meal with him were the people of the renewed covenant, the people who received “the forgiveness of sins,” that is, the end of exile. Grouped around him, they constituted the true eschatological Israel.” (3)

When we take the Lord’s Supper, we aren’t just agreeing to a theological principle or performing a dutiful act of remembrance like laying flowers on a grave. The Lord’s Supper is a many-layered subversive and prophetic act that declares once and for all - the exile of God’s people is over. The kingdom of God has come and will culminate in a final feast where all the friends of Jesus, regardless of class, race, gender, or nationality will sit at his table. Israel is - not a proud, pure, triumphant nation - but a rag-tag band of sinners living in the grace of God. That’s who we are and that’s why we bother with the Lord’s Supper.

In the next article I will begin to flesh out how the Lord’s Supper integrates with our hopes for being a community of faith that actually loves one another and the world. This article, as with anything I write, is certainly up for debate and question. Please feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email.


1) Eugene Peterson, The Message, Luke 13:29,30
2) N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, pg. 64
3) N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, pg. 85