Lisa Colón DeLay

Chris Morton got my attention with his summary insights from the recent Missio Alliance conference.

He made 8 key observations, but this one really struck me.

6. Anabaptists
Many of those at Missio fall into what I once heard referred to as “the Hauerwas mafia.” That is, those inspired by the writing of Hauerwas, Yoder and others, to think of themselves as neo-Anabaptist. Historically, anabaptists have either been persecuted by other churches, or have disengaged from the world (Amish).

However, Anabaptism has one key tennent which is suddenly very valuable: it has never excepted the claims of Christendom, Christendom (culturally and governmentally enforced Christianity) and thinks of the church as a local, incarnational, counter society. As Christendom crumbles around North America and Western Europe, the Anabaptist tradition offers a posture for understanding the church’s place in the world.

(emphasis mine)

Loyalties

If Anabaptists have sort of weathered the storm that is Christian enmeshment in the over-influencial cultural siren of political involvement–and I think they have–we have a lot to learn from them moving forward. The Anabaptist tradition challenges us, in a most important way, to question some of our misplaced loyalties.

Issues of social justice come to the fore as well in this outlook because we begin to identify with and reach out to the people that Jesus did: the underdogs, the powerless, and those without a voice in the power games.

Is the shift obvious yet?
The U.S. cultural climate has changed drastically in the last 10 years. Is this reality evading us? It is.

Especially in Bible Belt areas that primary operate in a Christian biosphere. “Christian Land” happens in the places of profitable enterprises, power, influence, and a whole world dedicated to a kind of Christian sub-culture that, sadly, makes too little impact on the non-churched population.

Nashville comes to mind, for one. But there are plenty of less obvious locations that don’t have the sheen of Nash-Vagas. It’s the insular world (sometimes accompanied with chic hairdos and great pedicures) were folks really think their sorts of movies like Courageous deserve an Academy Award….and maybe woulda gotten one if it weren’t for them Hollywood liberals!

Yet, in most places in the U.S. the post-Christian era is here. Fully. To the unchurched, in many areas of the country, Christians and their silly churchy ways are impotent charicatures suitable for mocking. To those outside the bubble, they aren’t making a difference too much in the world, and not making progress in the spiritual depth of their own cliché either.

This means a reevaluation of what it means to be Christian and living a Kingdom life is crucial.

We need to once again ask, as we must in every generation:

• “What are our core values and mission as Kingdom people?”

• “Are our ways the upside down Kingdom ways?”

• If not, what should we learn? What is most meaningful moving forward?

The sifting begins!

Want my best guess? Millenials are the key to traction for the Kingdom now.

You can read Chris’ 7 other insights here.

Frédéric Renaud via Compfight

{Here is a picture of your soul, the garden where you and God meet.}

This is the final post in a two month series on Discernment. I’d love to know what you’ve learned on the way. What insights did you gain? To go back and refresh your mind start by clicking the discernment tag above to read the other articles in the series.

Here are some of the things we’ve learned:

• Understanding God’s will has everything to do with listening well and getting familiar with the voice and ways of God.

• God is always at work.

• Desolation in our spirit cannot come from God.

• Silence creates a sacred space that makes room for God and improves our hearing.

(You probably blasted through those bullet points, all speedy like, because you have things to do…so, please just take 8 more seconds and read the point points again just a smidgeon more slowly.)

Our Interior World
As we go into our interior world prayerfully and with the Holy Spirit, moving past and through the hurts and baggage, the clatter and the striving, we eventually find ourselves found in the One who loves us and created us. He is in and through us, not separated from us. He is everywhere present and in every time present. He is down deep waiting. So we awaken.

We see that God has given us Eden within, and just as before–as the ancient narrative tells us–we are charged to care for and cultivate it. We are found in the garden.

This understanding and solace in God is keenly found in the Contemplative Tradition of Christianity which will be covered in greater depth in the next few weeks. (So if you don’t want miss it just sign up for new content special-delivery-style in the sidebar.)

Do you have questions about contemplative prayer? Let me know.

This is the 2nd week of the Discernment Series.

This time it’ll be good to know about the terms Consolation and Desolation as described by Ignatius of Loyola in his work Spiritual Exercises.

BUT FIRST…some of you who know me know I’m not a Catholic. I’ve been trained at a decidedly Evangelical Seminary, called…not-so-creatively “Evangelical Seminary“. So why am I going on about a 500 year old book from a counter-reformation Catholic?

In short, because your soul will be blessed.

Because the tensions from that time (1491-1556 CE) aren’t here in force now so we can learn some very useful things that align with basic Christian theology. The major hostilities at the time made listening to what God was saying “on the opposing side” quite difficult. (Things were hostile to the point of murder on both sides, no less….how Jesus of them?!ugh.) So, from the point of my tradition, Protestants rejected both grimy bath water and baby.

In general, Catholics rejected what they considered a heretical and a rebellious front to the unquestionable authority of the Church, and didn’t see what was coming from Reformers as helpful or biblical ideas for doing church differently. (It took about 500 years at Vatican II to incorporate many of those needed Reformation era ideas, but a surprising number of them went through and were accepted. Masses conducted in a language understood by the people listening being just one of them. Then, it takes 50 years or so, so I’m told by Catholics, to see them flesh out at the parish (local church) level.)

SO Now-
We’re at a point (I’m generalizing here) where we don’t have to fear reading other streams of Christianity from that time. No one will be tied to a stake and torched, not literally anyway. I think we’re okay accepting that God has much truth to impart from devoted believers with various backgrounds, and this willingness to hear can aid our spiritual growth.

Ignatius was convicted and motivated to “find God in all things”.
I like that about him. This is the way we live incarnational lives. This is how our worldview and our true selves get put right by the love and dominion of our Savior and Creator, and his Son, the enfleshed God, Jesus Christ. While I find some of the ideas, concepts, doctrine, and long-ago language of Ignatius foreign to me, I don’t let it unsettle me. Instead, I let the Holy Spirit speak to my heart and guide me while I read. I pray with the ideas and ask for guidance. I admit I have a lot to learn. I leave some things behind and take in what is transformative and what will make me more like Jesus, the Christ.

Not every but of it will help me or you, but enough will that I bother to write about it and include those outside of my tradition and experience in my blog to open our eyes to some great advice and sage wisdom for understanding how to discern God’s will in transformative ways.

So now for “consolation” and “desolation”

Ignatian teaching has it that these are two terms that help us decipher what is from God, and what is not. At first blush, we may assume that consolation is “happy…yeah God…feelings” and so forth. Desolated might be unhappy ones. But, hang on while we dig a little deeper.

For Ignatius, Consolation is a word to describe interior stirrings that are aroused in the soul that has been inflamed with love for God as Creator and Lord, and too every creature made by the Creator. It’s marked in every increase in faith, hope, love, and interior joy that bring a filling of peace and quiet. A drawing closer to God. A soul in consolation may weep too at the recognition and repentance of sins, and also the relief of the abiding grace of God. A godly grief may be a Consolation, though a difficult patch to get through. Most importantly Consolation is a gift. We don’t arrive there by techniques or things we do. God graces us with consolation.

Desolation is indeed the opposite of consolation, but note how Ignatius writes about it,

“I call desolation what is entirely the opposite (of  consolation), as darkness of soul, torment of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love.  [In desolation] the soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord.”

Desolation then is all the stuff that stirs our souls and draw us away from God, regardless of the subjective feelings. Some in desolation will not recognize it as that. They will be oblivious. And plenty more will not associate what feelings they have with interior stirrings of the soul. Maybe they’ll blame the government, the economy, circumstances, or other things instead.

So, now that you know which is which, listen and tune in to your interior stirrings. Consolation and Desolation are not mere feelings. They have to do with a conflation of responses and influences that are the movings at the soul level (our core).

Note when you are in consolation. Note when you sense desolation. Get a feel for the movements and workings of God. Begin to distinguish them from the ungodly ones that come from the Enemy or the ungodly parts of yourself.

Next time I’ll talk about the uses and aims of both consolation and desolation in God’s work on us.

To read the (English) PDF of Ignatian’s “Spiritual Exercises” click here.

(Don’t miss the next installation of the series. Use the sidebar to get the next update.)

Enjoy Part I of my interview with Shawn Smucker.

Alphonse Mucha's work here reminds me of Redeemed Humanity, the Bride of God's Only Son

Sometimes going to church doesn’t seem worth it. For heaven’s sake, wouldn’t it be better to just have breakfast with some family or friends, and forego irritating people, scheduling problems, overblown or petty dramas de jour, personality conflicts, politics, dodgy doctrinal positioning, and the rest of machine the local church can be? Is the Cracker Barrel growing a bit more more alluring each Sunday morning?

Seems like a no brainer, right?
If this is kind of thing is happening for you, in your local church, maybe church shopping is around the bend? Well, wait just a minute. Here are 5 Mistakes you can make (or have made) regarding your local church.

1. Making theological judgements for what are personal preferences.
2. Mistaking the “local church” for The Bride of Christ.
3. Misunderstanding the idea of “community.”
4. Implementing a consumer approach with the spiritual and transcendent.
5. Overlooking what is happening in the sacraments.

Being from a more independent faith tradition, I grew up with the sense that church, in the local setting, was mainly about worship and fellowship. Well, it is, but not in the small sense I understood it to be. Now a bigger view of Church guides my life, and my relationship with my God and Savior.

Simply put: Church is hardly about “the local church” or about any human individual.

Jesus saved humankind through his Bride the Church. That means our preferences have very little to do with what God is doing, and the workings of Church.

The Church is something universal, invisible AND visible, international, and local. It is bound by culture and history, and yet handily transcends them both. It may exist in a location temporarily, but exists eternally in every location. Yes, it’s bigger, in every way than you think, or have the ability to imagine.

We apprend it in such tiny ways at times…
Perhaps, we get caught up or annoyed by such things a personalities, worship styles, programs, or issues related to our doctrinal formulations, opinion, or personal preference.

We may go “church shopping” and miss the point completely.

How correct to say, “Church is not about me.”
It’s about WE.

In the sacraments, the community of God (Trinity) intertwines with the community of man (humanity). We receive divine grace. God is with us. God is with his Bride, the Church. Locally the church celebrates what the collection of Christians, past, present, and future is enacting, together.

Each Sunday, worldwide, Christ’s Bride gathers, and meets together. The church is with “him”, as it has done from the beginning.

Even as the earth spins, the variances in time zones cause prayer without ceasing, and the fellowship and communion of the saints occur, globally.

And with Christ, Father, and Spirit, we celebrate the reality of koinwnia (koinonia) with the Divine.  Thomas Aquinas wrote, “the Eucharist is the sacrament of the unity of the Church, which results from the fact that many are one in Christ.”^[7] (Eucharist means thanksgiving.) Koinwnia is what Christ exercised divinely with humanity, by grace, through his work in his ministry, on the cross, and in his resurrection. It is how we commune with each other, and worship God in Spirit and Truth.

Through a local church body, we live out, and enact the Gospel and participate the actual in-breaking of the Kingdom of God here on earth. The local church is people, and people are flawed. What God has done, is doing, and will continue to do, is not.

This whole concept is all summed up nicely in the Apostles Creed, in which followers of Christ unite in spirit and truth. Many of us may not know the creeds, or declare them together with other Christians. But, this particular creed, well-established in the 300s A.D. (C.E.), and is the/a manifesto (see ref. link) of the Bride. It is a speak-act and agreement of followers of the divine Father, Son, and Spirit, for a way of living and being; and understanding the world.

To take this creed fully to heart will expand your idea of church, unify you with Christians of the last 2,000+ years, and may even help you forebear with the frailties of  local church you attend, here and now.

From the Book of Common Prayer -

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth:
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
The holy Catholick Church;
The Communion of Saints;
The Forgiveness of sins;
The Resurrection of the body,
And the Life everlasting.
Amen.

Your comments are welcome.