The Blind Beggar

I’ve posted on the concept of missional being the “slow movement” of Christianity. Give it a quick read and then see where Dan White takes another slant on this topic in “Missional-Marinating.”

I really like this quote:

I’ll tell you up front, my old-high-capacity-leader-self resists this marinating process. My old self can’t rest, it can’t sleep. It needs quick returns, escalating numbers, regional buzz and high excitement. All of those pieces previously helped me not feel like a failure. But here in the laboratory of a Missional-Community, slow is our friend. Seeking slowness is essential in the stew of discipleship. Cultivating a culture saturated in the embodied life of Jesus requires purposeful patience. A new character needs to be developed while leading in this type of atmosphere. Slow is not something to bear with, it’s something to embrace. No longer am I trying to launch an organization that sparkles before its consumers. The call is to shape a way of life; to create a conducive setting for transformation. In this stew we need unhurried time and grace-filled space for:long conversations, unearthing conflicts, detox from consumerism, facing missional fears, relearning how to listen, frustrated prayers and moving beyond suspicion to trust.

You can follow Dan on Twitter @danwhitejr .

For many years, our faith community has worked with our neighborhood high school to help them maintain the school grounds and landscape. One year we took a Sunday, and instead of the usual worship service, we had everyone show up at the school. It was amazing what a few hundred people can get done in a few hours.

Today we joined with Waterfront Foursquare, Portland Christian and local community neighbors for a clean-up, fix-up and spruce-up before school starts next week.

A great way to “moved into the neighborhood” and become involved with our neighbors.

Helped organize a neighborhood event this morning along with the Stephens Creek Stewards and Portland Bureau of Environmental Services. We got a neighborhood work party together to help protect the wetland on our street from Purple Loosestrife and other invasive weeds.

We filled two garden waste recycling containers, saved the City the expense of sending in a crew, create some ownership of our local environment and got to know some of our newer neighbors.

It was another step in bringing a greater sense of community to the neighborhood. At the social hour in our backyard afterwards, I got a good response about doing a block party next year.

Small positive steps in community and relationship building.

Good things happening at Sacred Roots Community in Portland. Explore this community in this well done eight minute video.

In this 11 minute video, Palau Association President Kevin Palau interviews Imago Dei Community Pastor Rick McKinley.

Good discussion on how the holistic gospel doesn’t separate or try to remove or even compartmentalizes, but understands that both proclamation and social justice need each other. They are both part of the embodiment of the gospel.

Rick also talks about the partnership between the churches in Portland and the City of Portland that attempts to embody this shift change.

“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40)

We are the presence of Jesus in this world. Only through us, individually and corporately, does the world see Jesus. A reason why “way of life,” behavior, and practice, not just words, are important.

Our faith community is actively moving back into our neighborhood by joining with our neighbors to accomplish community improvement tasks.

On Saturday, January 15, a bunch of men from our faith community joined a neighborhood volunteer work party to improve the native habitat in the Stephens Creek Natural Area (just a block from our campus) by planting native shrubs and trees. It was a wet day, but the work party got 410 native shrubs and trees planted and mulch.

Here are some pictures. Sorry for a couple of fuzzy ones. I’m still learning to take pictures one handed.

Good op-ed piece in the New York Times, “A Tough Season for Believers.” Here is the closing thought.

[B]elieving Christians are no longer what they once were — an overwhelming majority in a self-consciously Christian nation. The question is whether they can become a creative and attractive minority in a different sort of culture, where they’re competing not only with rival faiths but with a host of pseudo-Christian spiritualities, and where the idea of a single religious truth seems increasingly passé.

Or to put it another way, Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that looks less and less like any sort of Christendom — and more and more like the diverse and complicated Roman Empire where their religion had its beginning, 2,000 years ago this week.

And Christianity did thrive under an intolerant Roman Empire. God doesn’t need a “Christian nation” or tolerant environment for his people to flourish. But we do need to be the people he calls and empowers us to be in the context we find ourselves.

Friends, this world is not your home, so don’t make yourselves cozy in it. Don’t indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they’ll be won over to God’s side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives. (1 Peter 1:11-12, The Message)

As a people we seem obsessed with dividing people, questions or problems into clearly defined groups. We like to draw lines. Among the lines we draw between people include male and female, conservative and liberal, young and old, Democrat and Republican, black and white, rich and poor, King James and The Message, and so on. We make distinctions about people because we find it a useful (if erroneous) way to comprehend who a person is — what they think, what they believe, or what their role in life should be.

As Jesus followers we need to remember that, “In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female.” And by extension of the principle, no division into conservative and liberal, young and old, Democrat and Republican, black and white, or rich and poor. Our common relationship with Jesus Christ involves the laying down of such cultural, political and biological identities and presumption.

What are the implications of making such distinctions?
What are the consequences of not making such distinctions?
What kind of questions does this raise for you?

What happens when roughly a dozen young Christian men and women move into a low-income housing complex (Barberry Village here in the Portland area) with the primary goal of creating a sense of community in a chaotic neighborhood overrun with drugs, prostitution and gangs?

People are suspicious. A few people shut the door in their faces. One guy answered with a Taser gun. Safety is a concern. And some of these young Christians burn out. But there has also been so much good done that other low-income housing complex owners have asked them to replicate their efforts.

You can read the full story here.

And they appear to have an appropriate attitude when attempting such work:

So while they were open about their Christianity, they didn’t plunge into conversations about their faith. Nor did they move in acting as if they could solve the social ills at Barberry Village

“We were very conscious of that,” said Knepprath, who has since moved out but remains active in the ministry. “Our perspective from the start was that we’re not here with all the solutions or even thinking we know all the problems.”

The article calls these Christians part of the “new monasticism” movement. They certainly express much of what the missional paradigm is about.