When people ask me if I am part of the emergent movement, I prefer to refer to myself as "missional" rather than "emergent." As I mentioned in my last blog, emergent is about the church in transition in a post-Christian age, invitation to conversation, and diversity in theological perspectives. You cannot lump emergent leaders into one category. Missional, on the other hand, seems to be focused on visible, physical demonstrations of Christ’s redemptive mission in the world. (I highly recommend Alan Hirsch's book, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating The Missional Church. It is one of the best books that I have read in a decade.) The missional church embraces Jesus’ Kingdom of God theology. The emphasis is on getting the redemptive work of heaven into people and into the world and not primarily getting souls into heaven.

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The church is the literal body of Christ in the world (indwelt by the Holy Spirit) being his physical hands and feet, carrying out his redemptive work, demonstrating his Kingdom’s presence. The missional church spends its energies on getting the church into the world rather than trying to get the world into the church. Trevor Hudson, in his work Listening To The Groans, says, "We are not called to rise above the groans of our world into some abstract spiritual sphere of joy and peace and serenity. Instead, we are called to become for the world what Christ was for the world. We are called to become the place and means where the world’s pain can be focused and concentrated and shared and even healed." The missional church goes to the places of greatest challenge and need. Ginghamsburg Church continues to be involved sacrificially in Darfur. We begin a new chapter in the life of our mission as we commission a community of urban missionaries to open our Dayton campus on July 1.

Please don't misunderstand me. Emergent and missional for many are two sides of the same coin. But please, sisters and brothers, let’s not get lost or become divisive in the conversation at the expense of Jesus’ mission! 

God bless...

 

In my last blog entry, I asked the question when, if ever, it was right to leave the local church. I must have inspired a few people, because I was informed on Friday that a group of people are leaving Ginghamsburg because we have invited Brian McLaren to be a guest speaker at the “Change The World” conference in October. Brian happens to be one of the current focuses of email gossip chains reminiscent of the witch-hunts during the Dark Ages. Since when do we make decisions based on emails that include partial statements and personal judgments instead of reading the author’s original works? Read Brian's books, and then draw your conclusions.

Agents of change within the church (for example, Jesus, Paul, Justin Martyr, Luther, Calvin, Wesley to name a few) were in their lifetimes labeled and persecuted by the religious establishments of their day as guilty of heresy. Each of these leaders brought new biblical insights and diverse understandings of doctrinal positions (eternal security, freewill, sacramental theology, sanctification, baptism, predestination, atonement doctrines, etc.). Brian is best known for his many articles and books on what has come to be known as the emergent movement within the church. I was a guest lecturer at Princeton Theological Seminary with Brian and a group of "emergent" leaders two years ago. You cannot define the emergent movement by a stated doctrinal position. It is best understood as an invitation to dialog and discernment. My experience with these people who come together in humility and faith to discern the movement of God's Spirit has been one of mutual respect for God’s word and each other. Those who might be labeled as emergent don’t by any means agree on all of the same theological positions, but they are drawn together by a common frustration with the dissonance between the state of the institutional church and the original mission of Jesus. Tony Jones in his latest book says it well: "It’s the institution of the church that’s in its death throes, not the Christian faith itself. A series of institutions that were built for a different context are dying or else they died fifty years ago and they’ve been coasting ever since on palliative care."

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Senator Obama announced this past weekend that he and his wife Michelle have discontinued their membership from the controversial church that has created troublesome tension for his campaign. I must admit that they hung with their vows of membership longer than the many church members who jump ship when they disagree with a statement in a pastor’s sermon (right or wrong) or a church’s commitment to risk in challenging directions, succumb to the innuendos on the gossip chain or simply slither away in apathy. Sen. Obama has rightly struggled to separate his commitment to the Church as Christ’s Body from the frailty and imperfection of human leaders within it. The incident last week that added to the growing environment of antagonism was the comments made by a visiting priest who openly mocked Sen. Clinton from the pulpit. Pastor Wright did not do himself nor Trinity United Church of Christ any favors when he spoke at the National Press Club on April 28.

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Earlier this spring I had the opportunity to speak at a missional leadership-training event for the Illinois Great Rivers Conference. I arrived the evening before and went directly to the hotel. The desk manager handed me a sealed envelope that was marked simply "Reverend Slaughter." I went immediately to my room and opened the envelope.

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I knew immediately that it was going to be a powerful meeting filled with the Spirit’s presence--it truly was! I was also reminded of the importance of prayer and how easy it is for me to forget the priority of prayer and fasting in challenging times. Mark tells of the man who brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus’ disciples for healing, but they were unable to meet the challenge. “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” “This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting,” Jesus reminded his followers.

Many of you are experiencing challenging financial times. I never dreamed that it would cost over $70 to fill my gas tank. The price of oil has created incredible hardships for many Americans who were already just barely making ends meet. Food pantries can no longer meet the demand, and at least four in our area have closed their doors for lack of resources. The same economic crunch that is affecting households is impacting churches ministry and mission in significant ways all across the country. For the first time in my 29 years at Ginghamsburg, we are going into the summer with a significant deficit. Many of you who follow Ginghamsburg ministries are experiencing similar challenges.

We are inviting all of you to join us in a week of prayer and fasting for the faithfulness of Jesus followers to live faithfully and fruitfully in these challenging times. We are focusing particularly on this Friday’s lunch hour for the purpose of concentrated prayer for:

• Courage for God’s children to continue to live and give proactively by faith and not succumb to fear
• The resources to carry out the mission of Jesus
• The poor and working poor who are the most impacted by the current economic situation
• The thousands in need of immediate relief in Myanmar and China
• Peace in Darfur and the continued protection of all the people, including our Sudan staff and those impacted by our project
• Summer programs, camps, Vacation Bible Schools, missions and the lives that they will eternally impact in all churches

If you have a prayer need that you want us to pray for this week, please post it on this blog. I will spend time all throughout this week praying for your need!

God bless...

 

Life is a gift, and it is passing like wild flowers that wither with the morning. Carolyn and I have just spent the weekend with my parents, sister Gayle and brother-in-law Lew in the North Carolina mountains. This is an incredibly busy season in my life and I find it to be a real challenge to make the time to create memories for those who have helped make me who I am. My parents move slower than they use to, and my Dad can no longer play a round of golf or toss a baseball with me. I find that it is way too easy to stay in touch through Sunday evening phone calls and rushed contacts from airports and hotel rooms (they have never made it into the email age).

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Parents Nip & Bettye with the mountains as a backdrop

It has been a really good weekend. We have done everything from walking a mountain ridge to having lunch in the beautiful sunshine by Lake Chatuge. I look at my parents and ask myself how they got to be my grandparents’ age? How did I get to be closer to sixty than fifty? What do I always remind you of? We are going to die—and it will be sooner than most of us expect. So call home. Tell your mother and father that you love them. Plan a special excuse to do something together. If you no longer have your parents, then stop and take a moment to laugh about a special memory or to forgive them for a cutting pain. Life is a gift. Celebrate the gift everyday!

God bless...