There is Great Hope for the Church

Wow, eh, there is so much going on, it's hard to find the time to sit down and write about it. On the weekend of May 28-30, Diane and I went to Vancouver Island and spent a couple of nights in Victoria. It all started with Diane finding out that Steve Bell was doing a concert in Victoria at Christ Church Cathedral. Well, when I went to Steve's website, I discovered that he was also providing music for a Brian McLaren seminar entitled "Evangelism and Transformation in a Secular Society." I have enjoyed some of McLaren's writings, especially The Secret Message of Jesus. So, I said to Diane, "Let's not just go for the concert, but for the weekend. You can relax at the hotel and enjoy downtown Victoria Friday evening and Saturday; I will take in the seminar during that time, and we'll both enjoy the concert Saturday evening." She liked the idea.

The concert was terrific - especially in that cavernous cathedral. I couldn't help but wonder how much it would cost to heat that place; I mean, to keep the people warm in the winter down at floor level when the heat would be rising to a ceiling that seemed half way to the sky.

Brian McLaren's seminar was also terrific. Some Christians feel that McLaren is going the wrong way. I like what David Csinos said in a recent edition of the Canadian Mennonite in an article called What to do with Postmodernism? - a response to McLaren's recent book A New Kind of Christianity. He says, "However, I think McLaren is on to something important. He realizes that the church must engage the cultures in which it finds itself." He also says, "This Christianity is not a new Christianity, but a revised version of Christianity we inherited and are refashioning in order to be faithful to the gospel and to Christ in the 21st century."

Here are a couple highlights from McLaren's seminar. He said that people are validated when they come into church to find out that our life out there has meaning. A central passage for the seminar was 1 Peter 3:15, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." His emphasis from this verse is two-fold, that we should always be ready to talk about the hope that we have, and that we should always do it with gentleness and respect. This is our witness. He said to be honest, unedited, to stop the religious stuff and just be Christ-followers - that's what will convince people today of the Jesus way.

The last thing I'll say about the seminar is that McLaren encouraged us to look for the Third Track. This affirms that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world, preparing people long before we Christians show up. Then when we do show up and start to build friendships with people, they will speak into our lives and we will speak into theirs. Jesus is the Way, and his way will include all the work that God is doing - in the trained Christian and in the person we encounter out there. Both stories will inform the understandings of what God is doing, and as we align with this, a third way will form that is the Jesus way.

Much of what McLaren says has an Anabaptist ring to it. He also is quite free to recognize a strong appreciation for and influence from Anabaptist principles. Like I've been know to say, it's not that the Mennonite Church is going the emergent way, but that a lot of these postmodern theologians have become quite Anabaptist.

I have just finished reading Greg Boyd's book The Myth of the Christian Nation. Thanks to George Ediger from Kelowna First Mennonite Church for introducing me to this book. Boyd is thoroughly Anabaptist. His main point of reference is the state of the church in the United States. But, if we can see this as merely an illustration of a church that has succumbed to the temptation to embrace the powers of the kingdom of the world in order to hold power over others, we can easily apply the understandings in the book to the Canadian scene. The central theme of the book is that the Jesus way is to rather hold power under people, or to empower people, setting our needs aside for the sake of others.

Greg Boyd also does the Forward in the latest Stuart Murray book The Naked Anabaptist: the bare essentials of a radical faith. While the title is provocative, the essence of the book is powerful - that is, to strip away all the baggage that has often accompanied Mennonites, and rediscover the basic understandings of the Anabaptist way. This is my next book to read. Currently I am in the midst of Kingdom Culture: Growing the Missional Church, by Phil Wagler - a regular contributor in the Canadian Mennonite. I highly recommend Wagler's book as a tool for practical application of missional church principles.

I really see all these resources that I have recently encountered as signs of great hope for the church today.