NT Wright, from his talk, “Resurrection and the Task of the Church” (link opens audio file):

The work of the church is to implement the resurrection of Jesus and thereby to anticipate the final new creation… We are called to be people of new creation now, in the power of the Spirit.

This story and picture about physicist Stephen Hawking taking a zero-G flight made me smile.

The nice folks at Allelon have asked for a post on the Alan Roxburgh/Ryan Bolger video over on their site. It’s part of their series asking the question, what is the missional church? The video is worth the time. I read some of Roxburgh’s work for classes while in seminary and I find him to be challenging and articulate. I took a class from Bolger, but I met him prior to going to seminary. Bolger tracks emerging churches and their developments. I think in the video, he gives a great and detailed thumbnail sketch (can you have a detailed thumbnail sketch?) of what the missional church is all about. Primarily, missional churches differ from attractional churches in that they go and dwell in the community rather than seek to only bring people to the community, the emphasis is not on the worship services, and there is a large critique of Christendom and Constantinianism.

Roxburgh also asks how the ideas of the missional church and the emerging church agree or differ. Bolger’s answer was that there is significant overlap and significant differences, especially in their starting places. The missional church movement seeks to transform existing congregations and denominations to move beyond the attractional system and Christendom mentality that assumes the Church still has a central seat in cultures. The missional church questions a lot of our assumptions about the kingdom of God and what it means to be a church, but it can exist well within the structures we inherited. The movement seeks to empower existing churches. Emerging churches on the other hand are characterized much more by church-planting. They start out in the broader communities, witnessing to the culture and their structures are usually rather different than what is found in most mainline or otherwise traditional church models. Many emerging churches actually focus more from missiology and look to missionaries as their examples, whereas missional churches do draw from some missiology, but there old-school ecclesiology remains very important.

Anyway, check out the video. It’s well-done and a good conversation between a couple great thinkers. Wess Daniels has a good synopsis and review of the video that you can find here.

If you have a moment, could you please thank God for keeping my friend Erika Haub and her unborn child safe as they and another woman were brushed by a taxi while crossing the street in Chicago? Pray that God protects her as this hasn’t been an easy pregnancy for her and her family. You can read the whole story on her blog. Their pregnancy is bordering on Job-like, which leads to Erika’s apt title for her post.

Last year Carey and I had the blessing to spend a few weeks in New Zealand. I really enjoyed my time there and saw some things about Kiwi culture I would like to import to the United States. I’m no expert on New Zealand and these are pretty superficial suggestions. I hope you enjoy them.

1. Toilets. The US has done a great job moving toward low-flow toilets that save water, but toilets in New Zealand take it a step further. They have two buttons for flushing: half-flush and full flush. Depending on the size and type of the, um, deposit left in the toilet, one can determine what level of flush they need. A great way to conserve. The attitude toward conservation and ecology was refreshing.
2. Currency. I mentioned this issue a while back in another post on currency, but I really enjoyed the fact that New Zealand had one dollar and two dollar coins. The paper money varied in size and color. And perhaps most important, they had eliminated the one cent coin. All transactions were rounded up or down. Imagine a world with no pennies. (Longing sigh.)
3. Roundabouts. Once the anxiety produced by driving on the other side of the road subsided, I came to really enjoy using roundabouts at most intersections. The flow of traffic slowed but rarely stopped, except at the busiest times. They also made me fondly remember the bike circles at UC Davis. This suggestion, however seems least likely to gain any traction here in the States, especially in Los Angeles. We have way too many cars on the road and I think the learning curve of the roundabouts would result in a lot of accidents initially. When you’re the one learning and you share the road with other drivers who know how to use roundabouts, that’s one thing. When everyone is learning to use them together, that would be chaos.
4. Paninis. We have them here in the US, but they were everywhere in New Zealand. Nearly any coffee shop or restaurant carried the pre-made sandwiches in a refrigerated glass case and would heat them up for you on demand. A great alternative to lots of the fast food here. Because there were so many paninis, the variety was nearly endless. My favorite was a really simple recipe that Carey and I have copied here. Two slices of sourdough, a grilled chicken breast, Camembert cheese, and cranberry sauce. Slap it all together, put the sandwich under some heat and pressure, and you have a great dish. We substitute Brie for the Camembert since it’s easier to find in grocery stores here. Also, we use boneless, skinless chicken thighs from time to time.
5. Rugby. We had the opportunity to attend a Super XIV match in which the Chiefs beat the visiting Stormers. Both Carey and I enjoyed the match greatly and any match we saw on television during our trip. Rugby has the hard-hitting edge of American Football, but, like soccer, play generally doesn’t stop, so there is less time to preen and people only celebrate goals. The clock system is similar to soccer and games don’t last three hours. It takes some getting used to, with all the rules, but a spectator can grasp the gist of the sport rather quickly.

John G. Stackhouse writes in Martin Marty’s online journal Sightings a very thought-provoking and likely provocative essay, “Evangelicals on the Left? How Shocking! How Awful!” I found it to be an interesting read and descriptive of movement I see among many who remain theologically in line with Evangelicalism while backing political ideas and positions that may surprise many. I don’t appreciate Stackhouse dividing the political options between the right and left, but those binary categories are how we talk about politics and theology in this country, so perhaps they are an easy if not exact shorthand. I offer a short piece of the essay, which you can read by clicking “READ More” below. You can read the whole thing at the link above.

Like many, I find the whole Don Imus foot-in-mouth-firing situation fascinating. I never listened to Imus, so I’ve been hesitant to enter the discussion and won’t add much to what has been already said elsewhere. The fact that we as a nation are actually talking about free speech, public discourse, ethics, and race is a beneficial outcome in my opinion, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable these discussions may be. Imus’ comments are certainly deplorable, but I don’t want people to walk away not knowing why they shouldn’t use such language about African-Americans or women. And that is where the uncomfortable aspect of the discussion comes in. We have to be willing to sit together and listen to each other about our thoughts. Otherwise we run the risk of turning into David Brent—the manager from the original version of The Office—who has the cheapest form of political correctness in that he knows that certain phrases are racist or sexist, but he has no understanding why they are offensive and ultimately his views are never challenged; his language just has to be suppressed.

People have rightly brought up the sexist and racist language found elsewhere in the media—particularly in hip-hop. I don’t want that discussion to draw attention from Imus. Any demeaning language is wrong and we need to understand why. I’m not for banning words, I’m for developing character.

Most importantly, I don’t want this discussion of Imus and his maligning the women of Rutgers basketball to draw attention away from what will happen this Sunday: the 6oth anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball when he played his first game on April 15, 1947 for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rather, the current conversation should shed light on what Robinson’s actions meant then, what they mean now, and how far we still have to go in our understanding of race. Robinson’s bravery and character helped change our nation, and I argue that we need to remember his character to continue to change our nation into one that not merely tolerates people who are different than ourselves, but into a nation that makes room and welcomes the other. One of my favorite stories of Robinson changing peoples’ attitudes is that The Sporting News decried the Dodgers’ president Branch Rickey signing Robinson before the 1947 season because the magazine took a strong stand against integrating professional baseball. At the end of the season, Robinson’s play and character impressed The Sporting News so much that they named him the rookie of the year.

(Consequently, signing and playing Robinson was the last good thing the Dodgers ever did. I had to get in that dig.)

Reading the following two items reminds me of the tension in which we exist between Easter and when Jesus returns and establishes his reign in fullness. First there is the beauty of David Lemley’s wonderful Easter reflection, “Sing ye heavens, thou earth reply.” Then there is the evil of the bombings in Algiers today, which you can read about in this story. We have in these two pieces of writing both a vision of God’s greatness and a picture of the terror that still haunts our world. By reading both, I find myself praying, “Come Lord Jesus, come.” David’s post makes me pray that prayer because I ache to see such beauty, wholeness, and peace reign. The story of the bombings in Algeria makes me utter the same prayer because I so desperately want an end to the evil and violence.

I am currently working on the fifth installment of the Theological Reflections on Home Ownership series. In the meantime, I offer some links to other thinkers dealing with some of the issues we’ve encountered.

Todd Hiestand has posted a paper, “The Gospel and the God Forsaken: The Challenge of the Missional Church in Suburbia.”

Scot McKnight has a post encapsulating a talk he gave in Seattle regarding “mistakes missional gospel folks need to avoid.” Two of his points I think is worth considering in this discussion of home:

4. Avoid defining sin as merely guilt for offending law; sin is rebellion against God manifested in four directions — against God, self, others, and the external world.

7. Avoid resolving the problem in one direction — with God — instead of resolving the problem in all four directions.