Missional Voice

Missional Community: The Anti-Enclave

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-16T20:27:53Z

Scott Boren asks "Is community, whether in a small group, mid-size group or a house church, just another spiritual option for people who have that felt need?"

Jesus "came to introduce us to a new way of life that challenges the life patterns of individualism, sexism, racism, isolationism, consumersism, workaholism and others that shape our lives in ways that we don’t even recognize. We most often overlook such life patterns because we assume that public issues like these belong to the realm of the secular. When we only see the Gospel as applying to our private lives it hard to imagine how it can apply to matters like abuse of the environment, how people of color are neglected by the governmental systems or how immigrants have trouble integrating into the local culture. We fail to see how the idol of success is destroying families and the drive for power and prestige is crushing our souls."

We are all interrelated.

Faith Works

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-09T21:50:00Z

Jim Wallis, in his book Faith Works: How to Live Your Beliefs and Ignite Positive Social Change, published in 2005, says that "two of the most powerful forces in the world right now are service and spirituality...together they provide the most potent combination for changing our communities."

He offers a recipe of 15 lessons about faith and action, learned over three decades of being a preacher, activist, author, convener of Call to Renewal* (founded in 1995 and united into Sojourners in 2006) and editor in chief of Sojourners magazine:

Trust Your Questions
Get out of the House More Often
Use Your Gift
Do the Work and You'll Find the Spirit
Recognize the Three Faces of Poverty
Listen to Those Closest to the Problem
Get to the Heart of the Matter
Throw Away Old Labels - It's Values That Count
Find New Allies and Search for Common Ground
Tap the Power of Faith Communities
Be a Peacemaker
Be a Contemplative
Keep It Human
Have a Dream
Change the Wind

*On June 26, 2006, Barack Obama, before he launched his presidential campaign, spoke at Jim Wallis’s Call to Renewal conference, laying out a critique not only of the Religious Right but also of the secular left.

Interfaith Engagement

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-08T14:16:00Z

"What if people of all faiths and traditions worked together to promote the common good for all? What if once again, young people led the way? Across the country, Muslims and Hindus, Jews and Christians, Buddhists and non-religious, are coming together in a movement of interfaith cooperation. They are proving that the 21st century can be defined by cooperation between diverse communities instead of conflict."

Interfaith cooperation, which is interchangeable with “religious pluralism,” has three essential components:

Respect for individual religious or non-religious identity,

Respect for identity means that everyone can bring their full identity to the table. There’s space for people to believe that they are right and others are wrong, and that their beliefs are true and others’ are not. Interfaith cooperation is not syncretistic or relativistic; no one has to concede exclusive truth claims to be part of it.

Mutually inspiring relationships, and

Interfaith cooperation builds relationships that move towards authentic friendships, even as space emerges for real conversations about disagreements and difference, with a sense that each person gains from the relationship.

Common action for the common good.

Dialogue is important, but research shows that common action builds stronger communities. This is where interfaith cooperation has the potential to both create tolerant individuals and transform communal relations in a diverse society.

Greg Damhorst of Interfaith Youth Core suggests that the tenants of the interfaith movement are: storytelling, relationships, and service.

What inspiring story do you have to tell that shows respect for your relationship with others and

promotes service for the common good?

Communitas, Liminality, Risk & Adventure

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-07T21:03:46Z

The Breath Inside The Breath

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-07T14:05:00Z

Are you looking for me?

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.

My shoulder is against yours.

you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine

rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:

not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding

around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but

vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me

instantly --

you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?

He is the breath inside the breath.

Luci Tapahonso Diné (Navajo)

Kabir

via Emergent Village - Join the conversation

Fostering Community In Spite of Culture Wars in the Church

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-06T17:44:00Z

Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma in Q Ideas For The Common Good opines that culture wars in the church are not over and "contemporary political and religious rhetoric is tearing our communities apart, from the nation to the family, and mangling the missional commitments of Christian institutions." She further notes, "the growing animosity among Christians who all claim devotion to Jesus Christ can make the church a hard place to be these days."

Kristin's call is for pastors and teachers to "listen with gentleness and compassion, and then speak with conviction and humility, that members of our community might be changed." I agree.

I also like Steve's response: "the worst of heresies is breaking fellowship", suggesting that we pledge ourselves, first and foremost, to our friendship in Christ"

Quoting the medieval words of Aelred of Rievaulx: "In friendship are joined honor and charm, truth and joy, sweetness and good-will, affection and action. And all these take their beginning from Christ, advance through Christ, and are perfected in Christ"

photo by RegisLearning via Flickr

Is Church Shopping a Symptom?

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-05T13:59:00Z

John H. Armstrong contends that our competitive and consumer culture in America are great obstacles to ecumenism and unity in the larger Christian church (the body of believers).

We live in a competitive culture of winners and losers, where individual free choice is so highly valued that church shopping has become the norm. This has forced congregational pastors/leaders to resort to recruiting behavior to build up their numbers and thereby maintain financial viability.

Freedom of choice has also resulted in American protestant churches in particular, being rigidly divided along lines of race, class and ethnicity, in addition to more obvious denominational and doctrinal differences.

I believe the answer is making a conscious shift to promote an increase in shared cultural values of community, cooperation and interconnectedness. A more pervasive global world view can also promote ecumenism and cooperation among peoples, although in times of stress isolationist tendencies will still tend to emerge.

What are your thoughts about how we can bring about more unity in the church?

photo by indigo_girl via Flickr

Praying Alone?

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-05T13:38:00Z

Robert D. Putnam's book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, published in 2000, chronicles the rise of civic participation during the fifties and sixties, followed by what he describes as a decline in social capital over the next three decades.

"Social capital" refers to connections among individuals - social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.

Social capital is simultaneously a "private good" and a public good". As Claude S. Fischer puts it: "Social networks are important in all our lives, often for finding jobs, more often for finding a helping hand, companionship, or a shoulder to cry on." Some small groups and clubs exist primarily for the private enjoyment of its members, although they may also serve public ends. Likewise, "when economic and political dealings are embedded in dense networks of social interaction, incentives for opportunism and malfeasance are reduced."

As L. J. Hanifan puts it: "Social networks and norms of reciprocity can facilitate cooperation for mutual benefit." Civic engagement and social capital entail mutual obligation and responsibility for action. Frequent interaction among a diverse set of people tends to produce a norm of generalized reciprocity.

Probably the most important dimensions when discussing social capital is the distinction between bridging (or inclusive) and bonding (or exclusive). Quoting Putnam, "Some forms of social capital are, by choice or necessity, inward looking and tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups. Examples of bonding social capital include ethnic fraternal organizations, church-based women's reading groups, and fashionable country clubs.

Other networks are outward looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages. Examples of bridging social capital include the civil rights movements, many youth service groups and ecumenical religious organization."

As noted by Xavier de Souza Briggs. "while networks and the associated norms of reciprocity are generally good for those inside the network, the external effects of social capital are by no means always positive for those outside."

Churches and some other institutions have a tendency to emphasize bonding needs of its members and miss the the gospel's missional calling for bridging. Some emphasize pietistic, individualistic experience and personal salvation and underplay or entirely miss the church's social responsibilities, except perhaps to their own. Some are overtly inclusive while others are rigidly exclusive, as if to protect themselves from the taint of the world.

Are we praying alone? Where is the balance in your church? How can we be both bonding and bridging?

Restoring Unity in the Church

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-03T23:05:40Z

John H. Armstrong's 2010 book, Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ's Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church argues that the mission of the church is to participate in the reconciling love of God and that we need to enlarge our hearts in non-sectarian, relational unity and cooperational love, plus have an ecumenical understanding of church.

Since `God is love,' our expressions of love within the Christian community must line up with His. It is His love that enlarges our hearts and forms our character so that we are freed to love others, whether they are a fellow Christian or an enemy.

"Unity" is not synonymous with "unanimity," or "uniformity, but is based in the universally shared reality of all believers: the life of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, living in us all. The more we are filled with His life, the more we love Him, the more relational unity we will experience with all those who share that same love.

If we have relational unity and cooperational love, we base our conversations and relationships upon our mutual love of God and agreement only on core beliefs, there is immediately space for us to work together for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ.

One of the chief roadblocks to restoring relational unity in the church today is sectarianism - a path, a way, a method, a party, or a faction. Synonyms would be narrow-minded, parochial, and limited.

Sectarianism implies mutual exclusivity - an exclusivity that thrives where people and groups believe they have a superior claim to truth. Sectarians believe their church/community/tradition can best represent the body of Christ, to the exclusion or minimization of other genuinely Christian groups.

We need not ignore or compromise our beliefs--this would only create a pseudo-unity, but we all need to remember that our beliefs are just our best attempts at understanding Scripture, God, and His message for mankind.

A human knowledge is ultimately provisional - we humans "see through a glass, darkly." The beliefs we assert are, at best, a close approximation to the truth of God. This means that we should always be open to added meaning or nuance ...or even to discovering that we are wrong.

Our understanding of "church" is another roadblock to ecumenism. In truth, any one local congregation is as much the church as any other congregation. Properly understood, the church is the whole of all such congregations throughout the whole earth and it requires that we obey the laws of love (I Corinthians 13).

It is the relational unity of the Church that points people and nations to Christ. The more divided the church, the more impotent it becomes in fulfilling its mission.

The mission of the church is `to participate in the reconciling love of the triune-God who reaches out to a fallen world in Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit brings strangers and enemies into God's new and abiding community.

Armstrong believes that "the mission of the church is not to solve society's problems or to gain political influence in order to change culture. And as important as adding members to a church is, recruiting new members for the church is not the church's mission either."

This mission requires that we exemplify God's reconciling love. This doesn't mean that Christians paper over their differences. It means that we have truthful and loving conversations regarding these differences, rather than mouth-to-mouth combat.

Book reviewer Monte E. Wilson (from whom I have borrowed many words in this post) hopefully encourages us that "We can begin a healthy new conversation, a conversation that can lead to reconciliation in a context where the truth is profoundly important. This conversation could well become one of the Holy Spirit's primary ways of pushing forward the `new ecumenism' - an ecumenism rooted in core orthodoxy and deeply shared love for Christ and his mission."

Bridging the God Gulf

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-02T23:07:32Z

The recent death of John Stott precipitated a sensitive article in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof about Evangelicals without Blowhards.

While Kristof says that even though he is "not particularly religious himself, he stands in awe of those I’ve seen risking their lives in this way. it sickens me to see that faith mocked at New York cocktail parties. It matters because religious people and secular people alike do fantastic work on humanitarian issues — but they often don’t work together because of mutual suspicions.

Kristof appeals: "If we could bridge this “God gulf,” we would make far more progress on the world’s ills."

Interestingly, mainline Christians are often more noted for practicing the social gospel, but perhaps they don't get the same bad rap imputed to evangelicals because of a few blowhards.

How can you help bridge the God gulf?

Unleashed Emerging Missional Network

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2011-08-02T21:55:46Z

On July 28, 2010, I attended Unleashed at Westgate Church in San Jose where Alan and Deb Hirsch, Dan Kimball and Jim Belcher were featured speakers. Attendance (primarily by younger, local pastors of various denominations) was sparse, perhaps because it's summer.

John Talbert, Pastor at Westgate Church on Saratoga Ave. in San Jose (which hosted the event) opened the Unleashed Network Conference by noting that under 5% of the population in the Bay Area go to church regularly! He generously is trying to bring together pastors and other church leaders to dialogue and work together to minister to Silicon Valley, which is judged to probably be the most difficult area to reach in the Western world with the good news that Jesus is Lord.

Dan Kimbal, pastor of Vintage Faith church in Santa Cruz and author of several books including "They Like Jesus, But not The Church" said it is both scary and exciting times for the church in the Bay Area. Scary, because the church is continuing to lose numbers rather than growing; exciting because God is still at work in ways we might not see.

Dan said "we must proclaim the gospel both with deeds and acts of love, justice and compassion and with words." If we don't speak we become "unintentional universalists". We need to live a life of intentionality and to invest in relationships with those outside the church so that people trust us enough to invite us into their lives. Churches need to become loving communities supporting and training whole congregations to be missionaries in our world where we live daily.

Dan advised "Pay attention to doctrine and you can do anything - never let tradition get in the way of mission".

Alan Hirsch, author of The Shaping of Things To Come; ReJesus; The Forgotten ways; and together with his wife Deb, Untamed:Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship, are Australians living in the USA for three years. They are now living in Echo Park in southern California writing, speaking and ministering to a "tribe of vagabonds".

Alan said "just as growth in the megachurches was fast many years ago, decline of churhes is also exponential." Christians need to take a missionary stance in relation to our context. San Francisco, for example is clearly a missionary environment. As Christians, we are an "advancing body", not a defensive one, but the pastor/teacher model does not advance the church."

Alan spoke of the recent spontaneous expansion in the Chinese church is in spite of or perhaps because of suppression by Mao.

There are three obstacles (things that trip us up) in discipleship:

1) Theology - Justification by faith is the only scripting of many evangelical churches and it fails to encompass the breadth of the gospel.

2) Cultural - culture offers purpose and meaning to people - we need to engage with it. The hierarchical structure of the church is a cultural problem. We need to refocus the family (so we do not just create an idolatry of the nuclear family. We need to open our hearts and homes instead of retreating to them as protection against the world. Jesus gave a major critique of idolatry - The claim of loyalty is to whom or to what you offer all aspects of our lives. Disciples are the foundation of the church and Americans are being discipled by consumerism.

3). Personal - Identity; Sexuality; missional incarnation. We need an integrated worldview about the unification of the Kingdom of God.

Here are some other quote and thoughts from Alan:

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail."
"Freedom from idolatry is the way you engage our culture."
"Shema spirituality is lived in the context of life."
"Worship = giving my world back to God."
"Pre and post discipleship lines are not clearcut."
"From the reformation we look at everyone as a sinner; rather than as people first and foremost as created in the image of God. We need to look past behavior to their heart and call forth the image of God in them."
"The human image of God is Jesus, but the disciples did not have a clue who he really was when he was discipling them."
"Make it more difficult (2 years) to be embraced into the church. Hear the gospel after inducted.
"We have got to get away from the numbers focus."
"Many church goers are christians in their head , but not disciples."
"Homes can be attractional too."
"Our identity how (we see ourselves) should be as 'sent disciples'."
"Families are not meant to be our place of ultimate identity. It is only in the past 50 years nuclear family has been the focus; it became a defensive unit as a result of the industrial revolution."
"If every Christian family brought a needy or homeless person into their home once a week our churches would be filled."
"We are empowered to be the unique people in Christ. Our vocation and calling (general and particular) is to transform culture."
Erwin McManus has said pastors should "manage meaning", not people so they act on their vision, not the leaders.
Often pastors identify people's gifts to fill a slot in the church structure rather than to fulfill their unique calling. Calling is different than the system that church leaders have created.
In China Mao took out the institution and the church, which has flourished to 120 million now. Every believer was given the identity as a church planter.\Neil Cole suggests raising the bar for discipleship, but lowering the bar for church participation.
People are looking for community first.
Belief leads to behavior.
Encourage people to hang out.
"Some of us make it into heaven as a greedy person."
Acceptance must precede repentance. i.e. the story of the woman caught in adultery who was going to be stoned.
"Continue to fall in love with the church."
"Live the mission. Hang out with non- Christians."
"the church is the most powerful force in the world" Alan Hirsch

Jim Belcher - author of Deep Church and pastor at Newport Beach Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Institutional church = if you have an email list you are institutional!

Organic church - training "secret agents" who understanding their callings.

There is a third way between the traditional and emerging church.

1) End the rhetorical shouting match

2) Exercise in civility and listening

3) Unity in the church

We are called to redeem our culture:

Read books to learn about our culture and stop thinking you are going to be assimilated.
Read Steve Taylor's Engaging Culture
Bring shalom to your work.
Have discussion groups: Law and real estate really big in newport beach.
Church members usually have only two time slots a week - don't overburden the congregation with church stuff.
Jer 29:7 "seek the peace of the city".
"In their welfare is our welfare."
Anaheim mayor Curt - trained to seek the shalom of the city.
People are looking for transcendence in a church experience.
Non- believers want to go to sacred spaces.

God's Wi-Fi and Unlimited Bandwidth

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-07-24T17:07:00Z

The electrical power went out on our block for several hours one evening this past week. No Internet (except through my smartphone); no television; no lights by which to read. It was still dusk outside so we enjoyed conversation on the back deck before retiring to bed early - much like everyone did about 130years ago before Edison invented the electric light bulb. Life was simpler then- fewer distractions affected our relationships and they were more localized.

Electricity was in existence 2000 years ago, but we didn't know how to connect to it. Human relationships were even more localized; it was common that people never left the village in which they were born.

Today, with the Internet, we are becoming a global village with easy connections to millions of people, albeit with thinner relationships and often less trust because of not knowing others as deeply. Our eyes are opened afresh to poverty and oppression throughout the world, but we may not yet deeply know the other in the sense of experiencing their reality.

The apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:16-19 expresses a prayer that those earlier followers of Christ, The Messiah would be able to tap into the power and strength of the holy Spirit of God, to know in their inner being, to know in their hearts, to grasp the breadth and length and height and depth of the King's love, grace and power. His prayer is caught up in true worship as he fervently desires that others be caught up in deep, authentic, life-changing relationship and engagement with our loving creator and sustainer.

If Paul were writing today he probably have used metaphors such as the unlimited bandwidth of God's wi-fi of grace or the connecting electricity of the Holy Spirit.

Comcast was out to our house earlier this week because I was regularly dropping the Internet connection to my computer. They confirmed a strong signal to the modem and that the wireless router was working properly, but settings and signal interference were causing the connection to be dropped.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just call up a technician to diagnose and repair out broken connections and relationships. Turns out,fervent prayer is the answer! The remedy is so simple it often eludes us. We are often so distracted or unaware that we fail to tap into the unlimited power and strength of being found in Christ.

It is my prayer that we all will make this connection so we too will echo Paul's words: "To the one who is capable of doing far, far more than we can ask or imagine, granted his power which is working in us - to him be glory, in the church, and in King Jesus, to all generations, and to the ages of ages! Amen!" Ephesians 3:20-21 (translation by NT Wright).

Apostles & Prophets or Pastors & Teachers

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-07-10T23:43:00Z

My friend Ross Rohde, in his TheJesusVirus blog noted that in Ephesians 2:20 "the church" (as fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household) is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets...". Not the foundation of our truly wonderful pastors and teachers, gifted to nurture and train the flock, but God's sent ones who herald the good news - the ones who with wisdom, love and boldness proclaim that Jesus is Lord and confront the powers and principalities.

Again in Ephesians 3:5, Paul writes about the mystery "revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets." Do we overlook this clear missional reference?

As we grasp and understand this mystery we are changed by it's power.

In N T Wright's book After You Believe (the sequel to Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope), he makes the case that Christians are called to a new way of being human - a Christianized virtue ethic - a mature completeness.

By acquiring "habits and practices of heart and life" the church (the diverse body of believers) moves toward it's kingdom goal; the resurrection life (the merging of a new heaven and new earth) is realized.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul's prayer is that God will give the believers "the gift of being wise, of seeing things people can't normally see... coming to know him and to have the eyes of our inmost self opened to God's light."

Further Paul prays that "God will strengthen us with power through his Spirit in our inner being." We thereby will come to know the outstanding greatness of his strength and power towards us - the animating force and source of our transformation.

New habits must be acquired and old habits and practices must now be shunned. These habits are acquired not just by following rules, but by the transformation and renewal of the mind by the Spirit. They are acquired, not just individually, but also in the community of believers who strive for unity, work hard at loving one another and to develop humility, gentleness and patience.

We are God's workmanship (His artwork or poem, as it were) created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Eph 2:10 What work does God call us to do in our family, our church, our community, our nation and our world?

The God of gentle, generous, overwhelming love, through the transforming power and example of Jesus, is calling us to the radical kingdom way of suffering and self-giving love, thereby confronting and defeating the forces of chaos and destruction,of hatred and suspicion, of violence and pride and of greed and ambition.

Ultimately, Wright asserts that the dual vocation of the church as "rulers and priests" shapes the church's two primary tasks: worship and mission. "Worship and mission are conjoined twins. They share a heart; the heart that loves God the triune creator and that loves, for his sake the world he made and particularly the creatures that bear his image. This is the heart that can be trained in the practice of virtue."

Missionality has an earthly goal which is a little different (more comprehensive) than the typical evangelical goal of missionaries to convert non-believers to accept a doctrine. As the royal priesthood of all believers, don't we all have the vocation of being missional?

Change The World, Change Your Mind

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-06-24T15:22:00Z

My Jewish friend Jon and I have had a recent ongoing conversation centered around a plan to build a mosque about 2 blocks away from ground zero in New York City.

I maintain that average citizens in any country fundamentally want peace, security and a good life for their family, but their emotions are often manipulated and exploited by politicians in a desperate effort to gain support their otherwise unpopular agendas under the name of patriotism. Talk show radio and TV hosts usually fan the embers of prejudices, fear and differences at the very time we need more understanding.

People of good will can replace fear of the other by taking the time to get to know each other and find our commonality of values and interests.

It seems to me the Fetzer Institute's Campaign for Love and Forgiveness is akin to Speaking of Faith's No More Taking Side.

I just down downloaded a Vook by Karen Armstrong entitled A Compassionate Life that expands on this idea. Here are the twelve steps:

Find out more about compassion
Look at your own world
Be compassionate to yourself
Empathy
Mindfulness
Action
How little we know
How should we talk to one another
Concern for everybody
Recognition
Knowledge
Love your enemies

My understanding of the gospel is that it is about reconciliation: mankind to God and mankind to each other.

Jesus Thought and Acted Different

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-06-22T15:17:00Z

We Have Not Lost Hope

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-06-19T00:19:00Z

Jesus, Paul and The People of God

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-04-23T15:52:00Z

My wife and I attended the 19th annual Wheaton College theology conference April 16-17, 2010. My first impression was that Wheaton as an institution would not have found a home in California where we are from. Started in 1860 during the civil war era, the current campus is exceedingly beautiful and historic while being thoroughly modern and sparkling clean. It felt like Camelot - everything was tidy and bright young people would bow their heads in prayer before a meal in the award-winning cafeteria. A riot of tulips were in bloom and the weather was balmy.

Attendees were predominately young, white, male theology students - well versed in the topics discussed and eagerly engaged. 1100 people came to hear N T Wright, whom I consider to be the foremost theologian of our time. The Bishop of Durham, England has written over 40 books and 100's of articles. The joke was told of someone who called the Bishop on the phone and when told he was busy writing a book replied "that's okay, I'll hold."

Many of the presenters were previous students at McGill or Oxford or friendly biblical scholars who gingerly tried to find differences in conclusions from their studies while at the same time paying respectful homage to a brilliant mind and dear heart, who always seemed to take their guarded critique with the disarming appreciation of having worth sparring partners. So it was a rich show of brilliant minds and talent. Click here for a link to the mp3 or mp4 presentations.

More photos of Wheaton and our recent Chicago trip are on Flickr.

Ignominius Failure

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-03-19T20:57:00Z

I love the writing of Nicholas D. Kristof in the New York Times. He used my very descriptive blog title above in his March 17, 2010 editorial about health care legislation. He decrys "our politicians’ failure over the last half-century to provide universal health care, despite the efforts of Democratic and Republican presidents alike to pass it." He notes "It’s astonishing that Republicans today are lined up overwhelmingly against a health care package that is more modest and moderate than one that Richard Nixon proposed in the early ’70s."

I agree, but I also think that there is an ignominius failure of the Christian church to currently adress the evils in our world - poverty, greed, injustice, war, exploitation and lack of care for all of God's good creation.

Growing by Expanding Community

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-03-16T14:12:00Z

"Expanding community" is finding the optimal balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces. Many mainline Christian churches, in a concern about loosing members, focus on creating a stronger sense of their own community, while failing to see that growth occurs at the margins where members of the congregation interface with non-members. There is fear in releasing the congregation, but this is the missional core of the gospel to meet people and love them where they are.

Here's a video about Leading from the Third Row Leading from the Third Row.

Thank You Glenn Beck

rickbonetti@gmail.com (Rick) — 2010-03-13T15:30:00Z

N T Wright, in his wonderful book Following Jesus has two great quotes:

"A distinguished academic once remarked gloomily to me that the best way to win an argument in his Governing Body was to argue on the opposite side, thus provoking one's colleagues to interested disagreement and luring them into the trap of supporting the position you really wanted them to take all along." p.83

Click here for the March 12, 2010 ABC News video of Glenn Beck and Jim Wallis.

Thank you Glenn Beck! I didn't realize you were so clever to use your recent outrageous statements conflating "social justice" with Nazism and communism with the intent to jolt mainline and evangelical churches to wake up and again realize that social justice is actually core to the gospel? I hope your "trap" works! Oh, by the way, I am going to boycott your show anyway.

The second quote: "Fundamentalism... is the attempt to do with religion what many do with sex, using it as a way to recapture lost youth." (the context here is that in so many things we prefer clear-cut dualism - "the 'quick certainty of youth' vs. the humility of age").

The gospel is about being connected with God and all of creation, not just individually but also in community.