The Internet Monk Archives

A Wise Word about Spiritual Formation

By Chaplain Mike

I have not been able to get this sentence out of my mind since reading it in the foreword to Carlson and Lueken’s book, Renovation of the Church, discussed here last week.

It speaks to the salutary effects that seasons of disorientation can have on our spiritual formation. Can it really be that we grow most and best when conditions seem (to us, anyway) least conducive to it?

“It is spiritually formative to be dissatisfied and unable to resolve it.”

• Dallas Willard

I do not feel ready to comment on this at the moment. It is food for thought and contemplation.

What say you?

It Always Comes Back to Family

By Chaplain Mike

Last year I took a bunch of folders and manila envelopes filled with papers from my father’s efforts to do some genealogical work on our family. I’ve been wanting to pick up on it, especially with the resources available now on the internet, but I have not gotten to it yet.

There are few things in life more intriguing than family relationships.

Of course, discussions about these relationships have become more prominent in Christianity over the course of the last generation. In the past forty years the evangelical world in particular has elevated the concept of “family” to the first tier of spiritual concerns. “Family” has become a codeword for cultural warfare, and for understandable reasons.

The cultural forces unleashed during the 1960’s, 70’s, and beyond have had a dramatic impact on family life as it was publicly validated in post-war America. The sexual revolution, access to divorce through no-fault laws, legalization of abortion, the politicization of moral issues, as well as the more benign factors of modern life–increasing mobility, suburban lifestyles that broke down our sense of shared community values and accountability, and the rise of pop culture and the pervasive media that communicates it–all these have led some Christian people and organizations to determine that faithfulness requires the church’s public response. It has been vigorously asserted that Christians should counter increasing secularization by “focusing on the family” and promoting “family values,” not only in the pulpit and pew, but also through increased involvement in the political process. Thus, we have the Christian Right, and the Culture War.

I am no fan of either, as IM readers are well aware.

Nevertheless, I share many of the same concerns about the stresses today’s families face. I grieve over broken marriages. My anger kindles at unfaithfulness and broken vows, spousal and child abuse. I cringe at much of what passes for acceptable entertainment and advertising. I have lain awake more nights than I care to imagine worrying about my own children, and some of my worst fears have proven valid. When I imagine what kind of a world their kids will face, looking ahead scares me more than looking around.

There is no “answer” to all of this, as though we could go to the store (church) and purchase a kit (or a Bible) that tells us how to solve every dilemma and address every concern. However, I do think it is important that we discuss the family as one of the primary contexts in which we live out our faith.

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Come, People of the Risen King

By Chaplain Mike

A song calling the church to come as one to praise Christ, by one of our best contemporary hymn-writers, Stuart Townend, and performed in concert by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

A Hymn for Ordinary Time (8): A Prayer for the Church

By Chaplain Mike

Timothy Dudley-Smith, whose biography of the late John Stott will most certainly be read by many this year in the light of Stott’s passing, is one of the truly fine British hymn writers of the past century. He has penned over 300 texts, and his hymns have been published in over 250 hymnals around the world.

To conclude our “Ecclesia Week” here at Internet Monk, we present this hymn of prayer that God will renew, bless, and unite his Church, for his glory and for the good of the world.

The tune chosen for this hymn is a wonderful new tune from Hymnal.Net. You may listen to it using the player below.

Lord of the Church, We Pray for Our Renewing

Lord of the church, we pray for our renewing:
Christ over all, our undivided aim.
Fire of the Spirit, burn for our enduing,
wind of the Spirit, fan the living flame!
We turn to Christ amid our fear and failing,
the will that lacks the courage to be free,
the weary labours, all but unavailing,
to bring us nearer what a church should be.

Lord of the church, we seek a Father’s blessing,
a true repentance and a faith restored,
a swift obedience and a new possessing,
filled with the Holy Spirit of the Lord!
We turn to Christ from all our restless striving,
unnumbered voices with a single prayer:
the living water for our souls’ reviving,
in Christ to live, and love and serve and care.

Lord of the church, we long for our uniting,
true to one calling, by one vision stirred;
one cross proclaiming and one creed reciting,
one in the truth of Jesus and his word.
So lead us on; till toil and trouble ended,
one church triumphant one new song shall sing,
to praise his glory, risen and ascended,
Christ over all, the everlasting King!

Timothy Dudley-Smith
Words © 1984 Hope Publishing Company

Another Look: A Suggested Program for the Church

By Chaplain Mike

Note from CM: One of the questions I received for the “Ask Chaplain Mike” series was this: “If you were in the process of becoming a new pastor in an established church, what would your first priority be? How would you arrive at it?” The answer to that question is bigger than this post, but what I wrote here back in January shows the emphases that I would try to inculcate in a congregation from the start if I were called as minister among them. As we get toward the end of “Ecclesia Week,” I thought it might be worth a review and further discussion. As with all “Another Look” posts, I’ve done some editing.

• • •

Let me be honest.

Sometimes the designation “Post-Evangelical” can be unhelpful.

If we only focus on what has been left behind rather than looking forward to new possibilities, we will never find a way out of the wilderness.

I don’t want to be known as someone who just levels criticism. I won’t shy away from it when appropriate, but that can’t be the whole package. So, when I rant about:

churches that have turned into Christian activity centers, offering everything from applique to Zumba dance classes,
when preaching focuses on life principles or prosperity nonsense and it appears to be more about style than substance,
when worship has been transformed into a religious stage production,
when youth meetings resemble “Survivor” more than Sunday School,
when discipleship comes packaged in programs and adult education is utterly devoid of serious Bible study, theological depth, and historical awareness,
when pastors abandon pastoral care and the cure and formation of souls as their calling,
when evangelicalism offers an alternative culture that is “of” the world but not “in” the world, and separated from real world of life, work, neighbors, and community,

then I also want to be able to offer an alternative program for the local church.

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Saturday Ramblings 8.13.11

It’s Saturday the 13th, iMonks. I have no idea if that is good luck, bad luck, or just a day. I tend to think it is just a day, but not just any day. It’s Saturday, the day we do some light housecleaning at the iMonastery. I suppose that is bad luck for those who have to do the sweeping. But you, my fellow iMonks, can relax. We’ll do the cleaning, while you do the rambling.

The mark of the beast is upon us. An epidermal electronic system––a hair-thin device that is applied like a temporary tattoo—can be used for medical purposes, spy operations, and—most importantly—online gaming. No word on how many will be made at first, but rumor has it that it will be somewhere between 665 and 667.

Breaking news from riot-torn England: Christianity in America is a self-help, feel-good religion on the verge of collapse. Next they will tell us that water is wet and Oklahoma is slightly warm in the summer time.

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Two Churches that Closed Down the “Show”

By Chaplain Mike

This week, as we’ve been discussing the church, I have read two intriguing stories of megachurches that began and grew explosively using an attractional, seeker-oriented philosophy of ministry, but then decided that approach was contrary to Jesus’ call to discipleship. So they closed down the “show,” re-ordered their priorities, revamped their programs, and began stressing spiritual formation and missional living.

Give them credit for trying to move away from the evangelical megachurch circus.

The first is a 2008 article in Leadership called, “Showtime” No More!” by Pastor Walt Kallestad of Community Church of Joy in Phoenix.

The second is the book, Renovation of the Church: What Happens When a Seeker Church Discovers Spiritual Formation, by Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken, co-pastors of Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California.

I found hope in reading these stories. Both are worth your time. Both contain many points and emphases that evangelical churches (in the U.S. in particular) need to hear. Both show what happens when church leaders actually take seriously the prophetic voices of people like Dallas Willard, Robert Webber, and Eugene Peterson, writers we have commended here on IM.

Both also raise some questions in my mind.

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iMonk Classic: On the “One True Church”

VGChurch-Pew-with-Worshippers — Church Pew with Worshippers, Van Gogh

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
From January 24, 2009

Note from CM: Back in Jan. 2009, Michael wrote a piece called, “Theology, Depression and the Unsolvable Problem of the Right Church.” Today, we present an excerpt from that post for Ecclesia Week. In this essay, the iMonk tries to temper our desire to find the perfect church, reminding us that no matter how pure our ideology, we will always still end up in a local congregation that is imperfect at best.

• • •

Now, I want to get down to this matter of the One True Church. If you judge that you are a person who believes there is only one true denomination, then I believe you should check out the candidates from the RCC to the EC to the LCMS to the local Church of Christ (if you are in west Kentucky) and reduce your choices to the actual candidates. You simply don’t need to mess around with denominations that don’t believe there’s only one true franchise or that believe we are all part of the broken, fragmented body of Christ. If you are in a typical Baptist church and you really believe that Jesus made the successor of Peter the living authority, then go to the RCC, please. Whatever the issues are that are keeping you from doing that aren’t very important.

Now, if you say “I just don’t know,” you should keep reading.

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Purgatory

Time for a look at yet another mysterious Roman Catholic doctrine: Purgatory.

Nobody understands Purgatory (except theologians and possibly those saints who have had private revelations), so (a) don’t worry if you don’t find it makes any sense and (b) as ever, the opinions expressed below – except where expressly stated otherwise – are those of the contributor only and are not to be taken except with a grain of salt and as directed on the bottle. Please read all instructions and consult your spiritual director before taking. May cause drowsiness and impair ability to operate heavy machinery. Not to be relied upon for the salvation of souls, either your own or anyone else’s, and should not be used as a substitute for Sanctifying Grace and the Evangelical Counsels.

Okay, here is where you get to blame the Irish! In the early Church, penance (as we touched upon in the matter of the Seal of the Confessional) was generally performed in public and generally consisted of being excluded from the common life of the Church and the sacraments for a period ranging from months to years (depending on the severity of the sin). When the Irish saints, considering that our own little island was about as perfect as it could be, moved on to evangelise Europe during the 6^th-12^th centuries (approximately), they brought with them the practice of private confession and austere penitential practices (fasting, pilgrimage, alms-giving, mortifications of various kinds, prayers and so forth) for fixed periods – they developed penitential canons, with a focus on reparation and the temporal punishment of the guilt of the sin.

This last is going to be important, for that was what laid the groundwork for the length of time indulgences could remit. Yes, we’re going to talk about indulgences in a minute, and we’re going to get very, very confused. First, some basic definitions, so we all know what we’re talking about.

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Some Things I Believe about the Church (at this point)

By Chaplain Mike

As I did with the Bible, I now present five basic points in my thinking about the church. This is by no means an exhaustive list; just a summary of a few of the thoughts that shape my perspectives at this time in my own understanding. I hope they will provide fertile soil for discussion.

• • •

(1) Faith in Christ is ecclesial in its very nature.
God is saving a people, not just individuals. As babies are born into families, so believers are born into God’s family. The church is not an optional part of a Christian’s discipleship, but is of the very essence of what it means to be alive and living in Christ.

(2) Churches should be rooted in both local communities and catholic traditions.
The uniqueness of each local congregation grows out of its local setting, just as Corinth was different from Ephesus, and Philippi from Antioch. Acts and the church epistles show us that Paul adjusted his methods and language when dealing with churches in different cultural settings while remaining faithful to the Gospel. However, there are common traditions, such as “the marks of the church” noted by the reformers and others (commitment to the Word, sacraments, penance, ordained ministry, praise and prayer, and participation in the Missio Dei, for example) that should provide a Gospel structure in which each church lives out its ecclesial life in its unique setting.

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