Reimagining Church

A while back, I wrote a few comments about Ed Chinn's book, Footprints in the Sea. I began with this thought:

If print can clamor, then we are surrounded, immersed, nearly overwhelmed by a thunder of pages rightly proclaiming the flaws of today's church structures. Book after book appears on the shelves pointing out the failings of Western Christianity.

Frank Viola has added a significant voice to that crowd in his book, Reimagining Church. The differences between his approach and Ed Chinn's are dramatic. Ed calls us on our ideas about Jesus. Viola deals with our failed doctrine and practice of church structure from biblical, historical, and practical perspectives. One book confronts our muddled image of the Christ, the other dismantles our muddled image of His body and bride.

Unlike Footprints, Viola's book is filled with very pointed instruction about the who, what, where, and how of the church, from God's perspective as set forth in Scripture. Because his proposed solution includes rather the opposite of top-down, hierarchical governments and building-based ministries and passive throngs of believers, his book is predictably controversial. And his less-than-gentle language does nothing to smooth any ruffled feathers.

Ed Chinn's writing makes you think of comfortable chairs filled with old and new friends, scattered around well-used tables holding favorite beverages, all in a room smelling of history, and filled with unrushed conversation. He would hand you a fine cigar. Frank Viola might offer to light it for you - with a flamethrower.

Don't get me wrong - I love Viola's book. I picked it up thinking that in my case he would be preaching to the choir. I soon found that the choir in his church is very, very small, indeed. More than once I found myself in the congregation desperately searching Scripture and logic for a way out of his conclusions. I was not particularly successful.

If I have any criticisms of Reimagining Church, they are pretty small and in no way detract from his message. Let me just mention one - I don't like the title. While it's a great phrase on its own, it does not compliment the thrust of the book.

"Reimagining" is really how we got into this mess in the first place. We (Western Christianity) have repeatedly and insistently reinvented God's plan for organic simplicity, substituting instead a government-and-business-based organization. I have to doubt whether we can find our way out of this wilderness by using the same tools that led us astray. "De-imagining" might be a better fit.

Even more unfortunate, I think, is his use of the word, "church." I say it's time to throw out this misnomer altogether. The early forms of this word all denote a building in which worship takes place. It is thought to have entered the English language from the Greek kuriakon, "the Lord's house." It is part and parcel, maybe even a cornerstone, of the rotten foundation of building-based ecclesiology wherein we view church as a place to go to.

I think you should read the book. Just don't get mad at me when your toes find their way under Viola's heavy feet.

The Gang - or is it a pack?

He wears head-to-toe shiny black. Like a fearsome gunman he struts boldly down the rocky embankment. He stops at the water's edge, his piercing eyes scanning the broken terrain, watchful for any possible threat. Satisfied that he is alone, or at least in the company of lessers, he dips his head and catches a few sips. In a few moments, his companions rustle their way down to the water, spreading themselves in a defensive pattern that allows them to monitor all approaches. These newcomers are smaller than their leader, and their garb more muted, in dull shades of brown.

Something in their coordinated movements is uncomfortably predatory, almost saurian. The cold, golden gaze of the watchers protects the more vulnerable drinkers and bathers. But they take turns, each taking full advantage of the water, as well as spelling the sentries. A sharp, brief cry from one sentinel jerks every head at once to stare suspiciously in the direction of possible danger. Mouths opened threateningly, and bodies tensed menacingly, they wait for any further sound or movement. Satisfied there is no threat, the group resumes their activity.

With their cowboy swagger they could be a gang of outlaws fleeing from the tight end of a rope, and stopping at a wilderness watering hole to recharge.

With their unblinking yellow eyes and synchronized, hunter-like movements, they could be a pack of velociraptors visiting a Jurassic Park lake.

Or they could just be a little flock of grackles taking advantage of my backyard pond for their morning refreshment.

Memories of Lake Havasu City

It was one of those days. One of those days when it seemed like the sun woke up early. I don’t think he meant to, though. I think it was the infernal racket of a townful of folks trying to get something done before it got too danged hot to even think about working. But, whatever the cause, Sol was definitely awake. And he was not happy. He spent a little while sulking redly behind a scruffy haze that probably owed more to desert dust than to future raindrops. But it didn’t take long for something (who knows what?) to set him off, and then he broke out of his bad mood and roared into a worse one. If you were lucky enough to find some shade, his rage topped-out at around 126 degrees. No one bothered (or maybe they didn’t dare) to measure or guess how hot he thundered out in the open.

It was one of those days when blacktop got soft enough to flow ever-so-slowly down the steep hills, leaving small ripples in the surface of the streets. A solo trail of lonely footprints crossed one gooey boulevard, as though some minor messiah had walked miraculously on its wavy, black surface. Perhaps he braved the sunstorm to rejoin and reassure some heat-prostrate disciples. If so, he still did nothing to calm the solar tempest.

It was one of those days that made you glad you’d turned off the water heater a few weeks ago. On a day like this, water pouring from the “cold” spigot could scald you. It was good to have a tankful of water cooling down so you could turn on the “hot” faucet to temper the boiling output of the “cold” one.

It was one of those days when you no longer cared that no matter how much sunlight fell on your driveway, you never had to shovel it.

It was one of those days in summertime Arizona…

Footprints in the Sea

If print can clamor, then we are surrounded, immersed, nearly overwhelmed by a thunder of pages rightly proclaiming the flaws of today's church structures. Book after book appears on the shelves pointing out the failings of Western Christianity.

With his contribution to this conversation, Footprints in the Sea, Ed Chinn proves that he is as interesting and easy-to-listen-to in print as he is in person. He opens the door on yet another of America's church secrets - all the "re-something-ing" we have done to our view of Jesus, nominally the head of this whole thing. He sheds truth's light on today's rethought, reconsidered, reimaged, redesigned, rebuilt, and often "reeee-diculous" image of God's Son.

And, as he would over a cup of coffee or a glass of something stronger, he bluntly refuses to offer a solution. He avoids presenting yet another vision of a path to a new resurrection of Jesus' body by "re-something-ing" church. Instead, he leaves scattered but clearly-defined clues that should allow us to find our own way out of whatever failing - or failed - church structure we wish could be different.

His arguments unfold almost like a novel, only the plot is real, not imagined. We join his walk from simple and inspiring stories of his own beginnings, to truths that, in the words of another friend, Glen Roachelle, deliver "a left hook" to many people's definition and theology of church.

Buy the book. Read it. Talk about it.

http://www.coolriverpub.net/ Click on the tab "NEW RELEASE - FOOTPRINTS IN THE SEA"