pinakidion.*

Back to work, I am. Fun. Fun. Fun.

Seriously, though, five days on vacation with the family was a lot of fun. Took some cool video of the children, somewhat enjoyed a trip to Lincoln, slept, worked on a moonlighting project, etc. The list goes on. I had several long stretches away from a computer. I had a half day to write. All in all, I feel quite refreshed. It’s true that once back on a computer, I could have done with out reading this or this or a lot of goofy emails. The first link parses the difference between an ideal and a vision. Basically, an ideal is not readily quantifiable, therefore it is useless. The second link is just disturbing (but it’s subtle). Ugh.

I plan on finishing the Next Awakening series of posts. They are on paper at this point. Transcription is not my strong point. (Not much really is, come to think of it.) I also spent some time developing material for Sycarion and Prairiecomber, but more drafting than anything. We’ll see. Lots of links to post that I may never get around to. Not much else.

I’ve been encouraged about recent events, especially those pertaining to unity. I look forward to more fellowship and dialogue as the days move on. I had decided at the beginning of the year to speak more to unity and to what can be done. I admit, it’s been difficult.

On that topic, something to think about. Why do the one-another passages have to be implemented? A friend pointed out to me how peculiar that phrase is. It’s like trying to implement Acts 2:40. Do we implement saving ourselves from this corrupt generation? A better example might be Ephesians 4:2, how do you implement complete humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance? It is possible to put into practice a methodology to fulfill this passage? This isn’t saying that discipleship is wrong, teaching younger men as counseled in Titus should be implemented. When it comes to some one-another passages, it seems like we are trying to implement the Holy Spirit into the lives of Christians by human means. (Galatians 3:3)

More on the way.

I had to take the last days of vacation before the end of the year (Aug - Jul for employees). So, I am off today, tomorrow, and Friday. Saturday, we are going to a seminar about breastfeeding in Lincoln. Sunday is our quarterly service in Lincoln, but because it is outside and scheduled to be really hot, we are staying in town. Right now, we are going to Southwest, but that may change to a friend of my wife’s church.

So, no editing duties for me , but I do have half a day to myself at home. This, of course, means writing time for most of it.

Quick Answer to a Question by Milly

So, Milly, the short answer to the question, “Why won’t you like the next Awakening?” is this: I won’t like it because I believe that instant Bible Knowledge will be a substitute for real Biblical insight. Scott has linked to Biblemap.orgon his site. This is a great tool that I think is a precursor to some of the Bible scholarship that is to come. Getting a sense of the distances involved between location can provide some insight, plus it helps visual learner form context around the Biblical story. However, knowing where Jesus’ miracles took place is not the same as understanding the significance of those miracles. (This is almost the same idea that appears in Phillip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew)

Normally, I’m not the type of card carrying English major to correct mistakes, but I couldn’t resist this little correction.

Literary Illusions

Turns out that I didn’t buy the book at all. My wife wants to wait for a better time to read it. So, no trip to the airport. (Turns out the grocery store had copies at $20.99.) All the critical stuff has been spoiled for me already.

I’m in the process of changing my links. One category will be RM Unity. The links so far are:

http://www.restorationunity.com
http://www.poeministries.org
http://www.connect4change.net/cms/index.php
http://www.disciple-heritage.org
http://lmouser.wordpress.com
http://oneinjesus.info/

Alan will be in a category of people I know, which I understand is odd as I’ve never met him in person. Gregg, an associate editor of connect4change that I see every week, will have that website in this category. Chalk it up to one of the mysteries of life, the belief that some things are truly unknowable and unclassifiable, or the random mind of yours truly.

As a side note:
I haven’t forgotten about the next big thing. It will be written at some point. In the meantime, two ideas for thought:

• all information is becoming miscellaneous
• the next generation favors texting over email

The first sounds odd at first. Basically, the internet community continues to focus on bringing a totally customized experience bringing you just the information that you want. The community offers this to every individual, no matter how different the information may be to that individual. In this context, that’s why all information is miscellaneous. Think about it.

The second deals with how communication changes. When communication changes, so does the experience of the Christian faith.

In the spirit of Restoration Movement Unity, here’s those with an ICoC background reaching out to other parts of the RM.

www.connect4change.net

Since they are looking for church culture articles, I figure folks I know would feel free to contribute.

More later

Wanted to see if the interface was any better.

Aargh!

Blogged with Flock

Part two. Yes, Mark, I don’t think it will necessarily be a good thing, either. Like I said, I probably won’t like it as much as it gives me hope for something new.

A Denomination Will Not Fix All Our Problems

At this point in America, a denomination means very little. There was a time when being a part of a specific group helped others know what you personally believed and practiced. A person was a Methodist, a Baptist, a Congregationalist, or any of a number of other things. It’s not that a person would believe that their group was the only one to correctly interpret the Bible as much as a reflection of how a person understood Christianity and how they practiced it. Over time, however, a recurring problem arises from a denominational name: history. The teachings and practices may change over time without any guarantee that other Christians or even others in the community are aware of those changes.

At this point in time, the easiest way to escape a problematic history is to make up a name. Max Lucado did this with the Oak Hills Church of Christ, now the Oak Hills Church. Most of the largest churches in America have no obvious ties to a denomination. Even Kip McKean has done this twice in an effort to escape an inconvenient history.

Denominations as Christian Identity also present other problems. A person can be a member of a denomination, yet have different beliefs from the ‘official’ doctrine. Official is in quotes because there are churches that claim to have no creed, but the official beliefs become obvious over time. Being an unwritten creed only means it doesn’t exist on paper, it does not mean that the creed does not exist. Its like wind, you can’t really see it, but you can see the force it exerts on its environment. (I’m sure some folks on the Gulf Coast would love to know the secret of making storms disappear by claiming that wind doesn’t exist.)

Historically, it appears that when the church’s doctrine conflicted past the point of comfort, one answer was to form a new denomination. It can be a way for Christians to represent themselves as different from one another without necessarily rehashing those disagreements. (This isn’t always true in more recent history. The Philadelphia Church of God split from the Worldwide Church of God when the WCG stopped publishing their founder’s books. The PCG sued the WCG for the rights to those books and won. Years later, the PCG still defines itself by the perceived evils of the WCG leaders.) Forming a new denomination is also a way for individual Christians to become comfortable with what the new denomination holds as doctrine. This is pretty common. In fact, there are thousands of denominations in the US and Canada. The differences between many are subtle, while others differ wildly.
Another answer for differing with your denomination was to influence the decision makers of that denomination to change the beliefs of that denomination. Like any other political office, those that manage a denomination have power over its members. To change the course of a denomination, a member must convince a decision maker with some measure of power. Some members may even choose to run for such an office in order to create change for the entire denomination.

These days, though, members usually choose to do nothing. In the American spirit of individualism, the beliefs of the denomination are not seen as important to individual faith. For example, the denomination may teach that speaking in tongues ceased in Early Christianity, but individual members may still believe this as a matter of personal faith. The denomination is seen more as a social function than a source of identity. In other words, a person tends to attend service with people they know. Depending on the church and how they enforce their doctrines, any two members may believe very similar things or in wildly different things. In addition to this, various parachurch organizations exist for more specific causes. These parachurch groups may do more to shape identity than the denomination because church affiliation is secondary to the primary purpose of these groups. A person may identify themselves as a member of Habitat for Humanity much more than a member of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.
Rick Warren will tell you that he renamed the church in order to make it more seeker-friendly. Even if history isn’t a problem, it doesn’t appear that folks are interested in a typical name. Names like Community Church, Family Church, House of Prayer, Church of New Beginnings in Christ, Servants’ Quarters Fellowship, etc. appear in an effort to put a meaningful name to a given congregation.

All of this moves away from the original point – a denomination will not usher in a new awakening. Denominations are no longer the source of a believers identity. When something new comes, it will, by definition cross denominational lines. In all likelihood, it will be more identified with as a parachurch organization than anything else. I do not believe that crossing denominational lines will make the new awakening more noble or more unified. In fact, as I’ll mention later, I think that members of the new awakening will have more experiences in common than doctrines or practices. Watching the group interact with itself may even appear to be vicious and unloving at times. Whereas parachurch organizations form around a specific cause, the new awakening will tend to form around a specific set of experiences. Denominations tend to form around common beliefs and practices. As such, they are not quick to interact with those of different denominations that share a common experience. This leads me to believe that an individual denomination (or a set of closely related ones) will not be able to implement something new.

Restoration Movement is Not the Answer

Along the same lines as mentioned above, I do not believe that branches of the Restoration Movement, or even efforts for RM Unity will create national revival. One major factor in this is our narrow scope of issues. Most of Restoration Movement differences are actually matters of practices masquerading as doctrinal matters. In many ways, we in the RM have more in common with each other than other similar denominations.

To folks outside RM history, so many of our own issues appear trivial. It is remarkable, in a bad way, to many that we had splits over things such as instruments, kitchens, number of cups in communion, and more. In our pragmatic society, even the issue of silence is strange. The common response is, “why limit yourself?”. The answer, of course, usually involves a 15 week correspondence course complete with explanations of early church history, true bibilical interpretation, the Kingdom of God, and baptism. To the post-modern mind, this is overthought, overraught, and overshot. In other words, it takes too long to explain unnecessary details, it goes to far to explain the concept well, and the method of the answer usually answers more than what was asked. I used to personally believe that this was an issue of people’s short attention span. However, as I’ve spoken to people outside the RM, the issue of silence has become more and more peculiar in light of the sheer volume of effort and paper dedicated to an issue that doesn’t really exist to the rest of Christendom.

I think we in the RM are seen as pedantic. We scrutinize the most subtle aspects of mood and tense of the ‘original greek’, but tend to forbid such scrutiny of our own practices and beliefs. Saying that baptism is not the only thing that saves you is akin to blasphemy and usually met with vitriol at the very notion of such an idea. (And Dan Endelen thinks that only Calvinists are so consumed with being right.) Quoting Ephesians 2:8-9 is met with yet another correspondence course to work through church history, true biblical interpretation, the Kingdom of God, and baptism.

I love the RM and what it has done for me, personally. I really do. I don’t say any of this casually. I would love for the RM to lead the way to a new era of Biblical study and research. I would love to see s lectureship fill Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. However, we in the RM are a group of related denominations. If no other denomination is going to lead this revival, we won’t either. I do not believe we are any better equipped to address shared experiences than any other denomination.

What our Children Are Doing Now

The common elements in many children’s lives are very different than previous generations. My generation had computers at home, I had my first one at age 8. But what this generation has that mine did not was the Internet. The effect of this change is deeper than just blogs and MySpace. How relationships are formed and maintained is very different. How groups of teens and young adults identify themselves is also very different. More importantly, seeing their reaction to the Information Age demonstrates some trends that will certainly affect future spirituality. While not an exhaustive list, here are some items of note:

Mashups are providing insight by comparing two or more seemingly different sources of data. There may be very little understanding of each source of data independently, but the combination of the two or more sources leads to new directions.

Physical location is becoming less important in many aspects of life. Folks have casual friends in other countries that share the common experience of playing Halo 2 on the same team. It’s not just games that provide common experiences, though. Some common experiences come from online communities. More than that, with MySpace and YouTube, people are sharing their lives to anyone that cares to comment. With enough positive feedback, ad hoc communities form around a single page or video or picture.

Let’s look at lack of physical location another way. When I go into a store for a list of 10 things, I have to walk around the store and find those 10 items. All the thousands of other items are physically hiding or obscuring the 10 items I want. (Otherwise, I’d walk in and all 10 items would be on a shelf together at the entryway of the store.) The Internet experience, however, allows for all the other items to be filtered out so that I am presented with just the 10 I want. I don’t have to navigate a store set up that everyone experiences, I have my own custom experience to get what I want.

Communication is possible with more than one person at a time. Despite feeling that this may be a bad thing, it doesn’t change the trend that the younger crowd is comfortable with being the hub of a mass communication network. I’ve seen one person simultaneously talk on the phone and hold 12 different IM conversations. The phone call was a four-way conversation. Some of the 12 different IM windows had other talking to each other. Drawing all the connections on a map would look like a web (or more aptly, an integrated circuit).

There is a reaction forming to the overstimulation in our society. As strange as this may sound compared to the 16 way communication described earlier, I’ve seen more and more young people look for ways to disconnect.

The next generation doesn’t see the world getting smaller, they already understand that the world is vastly interconnected. They are more surprised that remote areas exist, not that it is possible to get an internet connection on Mount Everest. (Of course you can connect to the Internet on Mt. Everest, why wouldn’t you? What I can’t believe is that there’s no hi-speed connection in the western part of the state.) One of the effects of this perspective is that upon meeting a stranger, there are many connections that are automatically assumed to exist.

As always, more later.

Maybe it’s me, but something about people dressed up as characters as a book sitting in line at a bookstore for hours is unnerving. (I know, I know. Been to Rocky Horror when I was a college student. Went to Interactive Holy Grail showings. Dressed up as a blue crayon for Halloween. It’s a paradox.) I never remember to reserve a copy, either. (My wife reads them, I watch the movies.)

If you’re willing to pay full price, you can do what I did for book six. I bought it at the airport. Airport bookstores don’t usually allow reservations and they most certainly will not have hundreds of people dressed up as wizards hanging around for hours. After all, who wants to pay for parking, right?

Here in the city I live, the Quick Park is 75 cents for the first 15 minutes, the first 5 are free. I can park, get to the bookstore and leave before having to pay. If I do hesitate, then I’m only out 75 cents. Even better, I can usually get the audio book with little to no trouble.

If I get Slashdotted, well, it’s my fault.

There’s going to be a few of these posts. This one provides background and some of the things a new awakening is not. I wanted to end the first one differently - I wanted to start exploring what this new awakening is. That must wait for another post.

Background

My brother from another mother, Scott, is a part of a class in his church looking at the state of morality in American Christianity. They are asking such questions as “Is it declining? Is it just different? If it is in decline, when did the decline start?” This class was mentioned on the Rocky Mountain Religious Ride a couple weeks ago and I spent some time answering these questions and more.

As an aside, I should mention that I am prone to spoonerisms and other issues when speaking spontaneously. For that reason, I usually avoid it. Many times I hear myself and wonder,“DID I REALLY SAY THAT?” because I am unable to hear how it sounds to the audience until I hear it later. When I do communions or lessons, I spend a lot of time rehearsing the actual lesson and what I’ll say to prevent all manner of strange utterances.

I really am a terrible spontaneous speaker and not much better as a spontaneous writer. Editing helps make this site easier to read, but there are still issues of missing words, odd grammar, and a host of other things. I really should’ve been a math teacher - reading and writing is such a big pain for me.

I framed my answer in the historical perspective of the Great Awakenings. These awakenings are marked times of revival and spirituality. I contend that the SecondThird Great Awakening was the last one of any great national effect. This was the one the brought about reforms in our society like caring for the mentally ill, reforming the prison system, establishing women’s rights, creating public elementary schools for children, etc. Political and social activism was on the rise and the effects are still felt today.

Warning! History Follows
On the Ride, I said the Second Awakening and in my earlier post, I repeated the error. I was confusing the Second and Third Awakenings. The Third is associated with the Social Gospel, not the Second, although the Third was built on the principles of the Second. To oversimplify it, the Third was different from the Second in that the Third Awakening dealt with issues of poverty as more of a focus. The Second Awakening was instrumental in founding the Restoration Movement family of churches (Look up Barton Stone, et. al.) The third was more about social reform through denominational groups and some parachurch organizations. Consider that the Salvation Army gained prominence during this time, as well as the YMCA. On the theoligcal front, Dwight Moody started up his activities in Chicago after the Civil War.

I didn’t consider the Third for some time because this time period marked two tragic events: the Civil War and the removal of many rights established during reconstruction. It’s hard to imagine the Civil War occuring in the middle of a national revival. It’s also hard to imagine that the Holy Spirit would inspire politicians to repeal the rights of former slaves established during Reconstruction. Still it’s hard to ignore the lasting impact of Dwight Moody, settlement houses, and others. So, I’ll stick with the Third for now.

New Awakening

Talking about the moral state of American Christianity sparked a connection to a great hope that I have. I call it an Awakening because it fits with the description that others use. I understand that many use it as a warning that their pet cause will one day become the norm in the rest of the Christian world. One example I’ve found says the next great awakening will redefine biblical giving because the Bible doesn’t speak about weekly contributions. Other examples seem to believe that we’re in a new awakening already. Saddleback has an article on their website asking if it’s already begun because the spiritual depth of conversations has increased. I’m sure that if I kept looking, the notions of the Next Awakening would range from the truly bizarre to the mundane. It is possible that I am a big kook for my vision of the future.

So be it.

Basic Ideas

• Major religious efforts now are not the foundation of some great revival.
• What our children are doing now will shape Christianity in the future.
• The Next Great Thing will be very different from what is happening now.
• (as an aside) I will probably not like it much when it happens.

It’s Not Happening Now

I’ve mentioned a few things that the New Awakening will not be. As I said, sometimes an idea comes by shading out what the idea isn’t. It’s a negative space way of thinking that is more inductive that deductive. Unlike some others, I start by believing that it is not happening now. Here’s some of the major trends happening now and why they’re not ‘it’.

The Megachurch Phenomenon

Saddleback has certainly gotten the attention of many. Joel Osteen has the largest congregation in the US. The Potter’s House of TD Jakes continues to grow. Even my city has a large church of thousands and a Willow Creek type church of a couple thousand. In urban areas, there’s bound to be one or more of these large churches. Most of them have grown by thousands in recent years and promote programs for every kind of activitity.

They are not working well. A megachurch tends to grow only as large as the lead minister can effectively handle. Beyond that point, the church seems to plateau, and in some cases decline. The primary failure of these and likeminded churches is that they are only focused on growing one congregation. There can be all kinds of outreach programs, they can have wonderful small groups, profound teaching and instruction. Yet, it is all designed to grow just the one congregation.

Rather than plant another Lakewood, Osteen and company go on the road and broadcast on TV (Over 92% of American households can see Lakewood’s Sunday morning service). Potter’s House in Dallas (not the same of Potter’s House ministries) is only one congregation. Saddleback has a P.E.A.C.E. plan to engage communities all over the world and, of course, the Purpose Driven series of products to help a congregation, regardless of doctrine. Willow Creek has an association (not a denomination). Still, is there a Saddleback in Illinois? Is there a Potter’s House in Georiga? How about Lakewood North in New York? At least Saddleback and Willow Creek are involved in other congregations, but there’s no planting. This doesn’t seem sustainable over time.

The Church Emerging Will Continue to Do So

I must confess that I love listening to Brian McLaren speak. I enjoy his articles, too. Reading any of the websites from the canon of Emergent Church Leaders will provide thought-provoking content. I even understand a reluctance to say what you are by talking about what you are not. More than anything, I enjoy the non-answers to questions reminding me of so many English papers I wrote and graded over the years. It all sounds and tastes so very good. It’s like mental doughnuts. Mmmm. doughnuts.

At the end of the argument, though, there is only new ideas of how to do church. I know, it’s also about engaging the culture and demonstrating a new hermenuetic. (I can use larger words, too.)The books and articles sound so profound and compare interesting ideas together. However, my experience thus far with the Church Emergent, is that there is no large personal change. A Christian of any tribe becomes like the culture around them in order to speak to them. It appears to be preoccupied by how much a Christian can be a member of his or her culture and still be a Christian. I still contend that as ‘aliens and strangers’ on this world, Christians are more members of their own culture trying to reach out to the fallen cultures around us. If the Churh Emergent had been around for any of the previous Awakenings, I do not believe they would have been agents for social change. The next awakening will involve social change. As such, that pretty much leaves this movement out of it.

A Denomination Will Not Fix All Our Problems

At this point in America, a denomination means very little. There was a time when being a part of a specfic group helped others know what you personally believed. A person was a Methodist, a Baptist, a Congregationalist, or any of a number of other things. It’s not that a person would believe that their group was the only one to correctly interpret the Bible as much as a reflection of how a person understood God, Jesus, church, salvation, and other spiritual matters. Over time, however, a recurring problem arises from a denominational name: history. In this point in time, the easiest way to escape a problematic history is to make up a name. Most of the largest churches in America have no obvious ties to a denomination. Even Kip McKean has done this twice in an effort to make something new.

Rick Warren will tell you that he renamed the church in order to make it more seeker-friendly. Even if history isn’t a problem, it doesn’t appear that folks are interested in a typical name. Names like Community Church, Family Church, House of Prayer, Church of New Beginnings in Christ, etc.

Hate to do it, but more later….

Depending on who you talk to, there have been anywhere between two and four Great Awakenings in the United States. I am one of those that say two, Wikipedia and others say four. I don’t tend to believe that the third and fourth count. That’s why the title says 5/3, I’m not really interested in determining the numbers of Great Awakenings in the US.

Still, as I had mentioned on the Rocky Mountain Religious Ride, I believe that a new awakening of Christians will come soon. What does that mean? I think it means a time when many in the US will be looking to God and freely talking about Him in our day to day lives. I do not believe it will be some golden age of prosperity for the US, but a great time for Christianity. I believe many will come to know Him in a meaningful way and act on the faith they receive.

More tomorrow when I have time. Before I go, though, here are a few things that I believe that this great awakening is NOT:

It is not the megachurches movement.
It will not come as a result of the Church of the English Majors (aka Emergent Church)
It will not come from the Restoration Movement or the churches of Christ as they exist now.
It will not be the rise of a denomination or a group of denominations.
It will not be the resurgence of the house church movement.

It will involve technology somehow. It will be honest and straightforward. It will not rely on the historical framework for hermeneutics as mentioned in Reading the Bible for All Its Worth. It will be a different hermeneutic altogether. It will show up as quickly as YouTube did. Our children are going to love it.

More later.

Okay, I was tagged by Salguod for a meme about eight things you may not know about me.

Problem is, I generally withhold information for the sake of continued employment and to protect certain folks. Lots of stuff from childhood and really obscure stuff. Here goes:

1. I flunked out of college twice. I took classes at three different places, but only flunked out of NCSU. (I did not finish at NCCU or College of the Albemarle.)
2. I wrote science fiction stories when I was a kid. My favorite was one where it turns out that Mars is the location of Heaven. (I wrote it at age 11.)
3. I did computer projects for the science fair my last two years of high school. Both of the programs failed on science fair day because they would not load from the cassette tape.
4. In college, a friend of mine and I managed to get fired from both school newspapers. My favorite articles were Budget Cuts (due to budget cuts, we could only use 35 vowels.) and Running for President (We combined our ages and ran for president as a symbiotic being. Our VP was a symbiont including a man that had a perfect score on the logic section of the LSAT.) In response, we started our own. I wrote an article on how to win a five dollar bet by cooking hamburgers on a coffee pot.
5. I registered as a Republican in North Carolina in order to vote against George Bush, Sr twice. (Once in the primary where I voted for Alan Keyes, and once in the general election where I voted for Clinton.)
6. I have had a street preacher stop their message and use me as a centerpiece of his message that the church I attended at the time was evil and godless. (Years later when I served on jury duty, he was preaching outside the county courthouse. He recognized me, stopped handing out tracts and left.)
7. My friends and I once had a marathon D&D session lasting 36 hours. Near the end, the phrase “Grey furry giant” was inserted in front of every creature encountered. (Grey furry giant snake, grey furry giant kobold, grey furry giant banjo…)
8. My wife and I’s wedding bands were purchased at a Renaissance Festival. She designed her own engagement ring, which she calls her ‘promise ring’ because I had to actually propose with an eBay fake diamond ring from British Columbia.

Okay, I tag Scott and Aaron.

The church I attend recently held a Vacation Bible School with an a Church of Christ in town. The key here is that they organized it and we showed up to help. It is important for two reasons; we are actively reaching out to other Christians in town and we let them run the show. We were volunteers, not organizers.

We mentioned each other in positive ways in our sermons. The youth minister blogged about it. And we wrote about it on our website.

This effort has yielded more immediate effects than our previous ones, but is just as significant. I hope that we do more things like this with Southwest.