I came across this statement the other day in F.W. Boreham's "A Casket of Cameos", (Epworth Press London, 1926).
"In the development of Church history there have been scores of heresy hunts; but there have only been two heresies. Adam started the first, and Cain inaugurated the second. The first was the heresy of Thereness: the second was the heresy of Hereness. Adam believed that God was there, but not here. So he hid. Cain believed that God was here, but not there; so he went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod."
That's something to think on.
On a different chord . . . As I'm beginning to draw together the early elements of Emmaus Road, I've decided to form a "Vision Team" (for lack of a better term at the present). I've invited six people, plus Barb and me, to be a part of a conversation about what the incarnation of Emmaus Road here in Lafayette. I've felt it was important to keep the group small in order to aid us in remaining focused. I've also tried to choose a good representative of male and female, mature and young, long-time and new Christians, those with theological backgrounds and those without.
My hope is that early on this group will begin to catch a vision of the need for something like Emmaus Road and also for what God can do here in Lafayette through an incarnation like Emmaus Road. After that initial vision takes hold, then my hope is that this group will begin to imagine and cast a more well-orbed vision of what it will look like. As we begin to solidfy some concepts in our minds, then we will begin to share it with others who express an interest in or desire for something like this who would like to spend themselves on fufilling God's calling for Emmaus Road.
Well, I'm going on a pastoral staff retreat the next couple of days and will be away from a computer, so this blog won't probably be updated until next Monday. I'm looking forward to some time to be refreshed physically and spiritually, and to reflect on all that has happened since we've moved here to Lafayette.
Dona nobis pacem,
Andy
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Reflections on Nascency
Over the weekend, I did a lot of thinking about the nascency, or birthing, of Emmaus Road. In all honesty, it's a bit intimidating thinking about beginning this "new" thing. It's intimidating because I feel like it's resting on my shoulders to a certain extent. Now obviously, God is the One who grows His Church, but being one of His agents in a task whose path is unclear and whose outcome is certainly even more unclear, can fill one with a bit of trepidation.
Because, by its nature, postmodernism doesn't lean toward pragmatism, there aren't a whole lot of books out there that give step-by-step details about how to start an "emergent" church or worship service (not that I would want to create a copy of some church in southern California or something, that's been done enough by the church growth movement). In fact the more I think about it, the whole idea of being a culturally relevant "church" never really has had a proven plan book (other than the Bible). When one does a cursory look at Christian history, it's obvious that those who led new liturgical, ecclisiological, and even theological movements didn't really have a pattern to follow. Certainly their movements didn't spring up in a vacuum, but they were often the ones to provide the synthesis from the polyphony of ideas ringing in their recent histories and cultures.
I don't see myself as one of them, writ on some grand scale. Still somehow, venturing out into new territory, be it merely a heretofore unvisited spot in one's own backyard, can lead to some uncertain experiences. By that I mean that although what we're attempting is taking place here in little ol' Lafayette, Indiana at a little ol' church of 240, it's still a little scary. In fact, although Barb and I have been a part of something like this before, each instance of the Church incarnating Christ in a particular area means that it must needs be particlar to that area.
The question is always both new and old at the same time: What does it mean to faithfully be the Church, the Spirit infused body of Christ, in any given, particular area? For that matter, what did it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah in His given, particular time (aka: the Scandal of Particularity)? The wisdom of God meant that came as one who was first of all human, so He could relate to and, more importantly, redeem human kind. It also meant that He came as a 1st century, Aramaic speaking Jewish carpenter and not a 21st century mega-church pastor. It simply wouldn't work.
So, then, to be the Church faithfully, we must do so in a way that incarnates Christ in an particular location in a manner consistent with the character of that particular area. To wit, what does it mean for Emmaus Road to be the Church in the particular setting of Lafayette, Indiana?
Because, by its nature, postmodernism doesn't lean toward pragmatism, there aren't a whole lot of books out there that give step-by-step details about how to start an "emergent" church or worship service (not that I would want to create a copy of some church in southern California or something, that's been done enough by the church growth movement). In fact the more I think about it, the whole idea of being a culturally relevant "church" never really has had a proven plan book (other than the Bible). When one does a cursory look at Christian history, it's obvious that those who led new liturgical, ecclisiological, and even theological movements didn't really have a pattern to follow. Certainly their movements didn't spring up in a vacuum, but they were often the ones to provide the synthesis from the polyphony of ideas ringing in their recent histories and cultures.
I don't see myself as one of them, writ on some grand scale. Still somehow, venturing out into new territory, be it merely a heretofore unvisited spot in one's own backyard, can lead to some uncertain experiences. By that I mean that although what we're attempting is taking place here in little ol' Lafayette, Indiana at a little ol' church of 240, it's still a little scary. In fact, although Barb and I have been a part of something like this before, each instance of the Church incarnating Christ in a particular area means that it must needs be particlar to that area.
The question is always both new and old at the same time: What does it mean to faithfully be the Church, the Spirit infused body of Christ, in any given, particular area? For that matter, what did it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah in His given, particular time (aka: the Scandal of Particularity)? The wisdom of God meant that came as one who was first of all human, so He could relate to and, more importantly, redeem human kind. It also meant that He came as a 1st century, Aramaic speaking Jewish carpenter and not a 21st century mega-church pastor. It simply wouldn't work.
So, then, to be the Church faithfully, we must do so in a way that incarnates Christ in an particular location in a manner consistent with the character of that particular area. To wit, what does it mean for Emmaus Road to be the Church in the particular setting of Lafayette, Indiana?
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
What Is Emmaus Road?
So what is Emmaus Road?
Let's start with the Biblical text from which the name is derived:
Luke 24:13-34 (New Living Translation)
The Walk to Emmaus
13That same day two of Jesus' followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles out of Jerusalem. 14As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. 15Suddenly, Jesus himself came along and joined them and began walking beside them. 16But they didn't know who he was, because God kept them from recognizing him.
17"You seem to be in a deep discussion about something," he said. "What are you so concerned about?"
They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. 18Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, "You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn't heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days."
19"What things?" Jesus asked.
"The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth," they said. "He was a prophet who did wonderful miracles. He was a mighty teacher, highly regarded by both God and all the people. 20But our leading priests and other religious leaders arrested him and handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. 21We had thought he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. That all happened three days ago. 22Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. 23They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! 24Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, Jesus' body was gone, just as the women had said."
25Then Jesus said to them, "You are such foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26Wasn't it clearly predicted by the prophets that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his time of glory?" 27Then Jesus quoted passages from the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining what all the Scriptures said about himself.
28By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus would have gone on, 29but they begged him to stay the night with them, since it was getting late. So he went home with them. 30As they sat down to eat, he took a small loaf of bread, asked God's blessing on it, broke it, then gave it to them. 31Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
32They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?" 33And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem, where the eleven disciples and the other followers of Jesus were gathered. When they arrived, they were greeted with the report, 34"The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter!"
I love this story. When Barb first suggested it as a name for this new worshiping community, I immediately liked it. There are several reason, a few of which I'll try to include here:
To begin, there is the metaphor of the "road." All of us, since the moment that God spoke creation into existence, are on a journey. We were created to walk toward God, to walk with Him, to journey through eternity with Him hand-in-hand, and heart-in-heart. That is made possible through the work of the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit. However, the fact that we were created to walk with God, that within us is a "God-shaped hole," often results in the reckless pursuit of anything and everything else to fill the void. The postmodern is desperately seeking spirituality in an attempt to connect with the numinous. There is a hunger and a thirst for the Holy that only God can satiate. How else does one explain the rise in interest in all sorts of religions and quasi-religions? People cannot deny the need within them to connect with something larger than and beyond themselves.
Not only this, but the fact that the journey metaphor is relevant is as obvious as the television programs so popular in our culture. On any given day, myriad adventures and journeys are played out for our vicarious enjoyment. Some people even go beyond vicarious adventures to actually participating in them. Things like extreme sports and adventures taking them to mountain tops, ocean depths, and even to the edge of death itself. Why? Because we're all on a journey seeking to find the pith of life, the very marrow that give us our life's blood. We're seeking to squeeze every last dropth of breath out of this short vapor of life.
The metaphor of the journey also applies to our lives as Christians, as Christ-followers. Rather than simply being a series of isolated and compartmentalized decisions, the Christian life is something that is lived out in myriad, infinite, moment-by-moment decisions. We simply don't make one decision for God this year, and one next year, and so on. Rather we are in a constant state of affirming and reaffirming our allegiance to Him in everything we do. There is no room for a static Christian faith. Instead following God is a dynamic, ever-changing, experience that results from the constant interplay between God's Spirit and ours. And so it is a journey.
Even more powerful and more poignant than the metaphor of "road" itself is the metaphor of "epiphany"--the realization that on this journey we are not alone. As the two disciples walked along the road to Emmaus, another man came along side them and joined them on their journey. It reminds me of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo in the Old Testament. As they were in the fiery furnace, a fourth man appeared with them who looked like a "divine being" (Daniel 3:25). We know in this story that the man with the disciples on the road was Jesus. This metaphor of "epiphany," this revelatory manifestation of a divine being, is a perfect metaphor to communicate the hope of the gospel to our postmodern world--Emmauel, God is with us.
What we so often fail to realize is that all along this journey of life God is right there with us--seeking, calling, guiding us toward Him. But sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. Our focus is on religion itself, or on certain practices or methods, so much so that we don't recognize the real, living, breathing person of Christ walking right beside us. Or perhaps we're simply not seeking Him. Or perhaps He's keeping the blinders on our eyes until just the right moment in time to reveal himself. Whatever the case, the powerful image of epiphany speaks to postmoderns the message that wherever they are on the journey, Christ is there walking right beside them. He's been there all along. They are not alone.
Another element I like about this story is the confession of the disciples, "Didn't our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road?" (Luke 24:32). (This of course brings to mind John Wesley's famous "Aldersgate Experience.") I like the force of the KJV here, "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way?" and The Message, "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road?" When people encounter the living, resurrected Christ, a flame is kindled within them for God. A passion, a fire, grows up inside as they discover the hope that on Christ can offer them.
Finally, having witnessed an epiphany of Christ, and having had their hearts strangely warmed, they turned around on the road and rushed back to Jerusalem where, "just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. He said, 'Peace be with you.'" (24:36). When people encounter the living God and their hearts burn within for Him, they will tell others. And when they do, Jesus will appear among them.
If ever the world needed a hope like that, it is now.
That is my hope for Emmaus Road.
Let's start with the Biblical text from which the name is derived:
Luke 24:13-34 (New Living Translation)
The Walk to Emmaus
13That same day two of Jesus' followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles out of Jerusalem. 14As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. 15Suddenly, Jesus himself came along and joined them and began walking beside them. 16But they didn't know who he was, because God kept them from recognizing him.
17"You seem to be in a deep discussion about something," he said. "What are you so concerned about?"
They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. 18Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, "You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn't heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days."
19"What things?" Jesus asked.
"The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth," they said. "He was a prophet who did wonderful miracles. He was a mighty teacher, highly regarded by both God and all the people. 20But our leading priests and other religious leaders arrested him and handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. 21We had thought he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. That all happened three days ago. 22Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. 23They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! 24Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, Jesus' body was gone, just as the women had said."
25Then Jesus said to them, "You are such foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26Wasn't it clearly predicted by the prophets that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his time of glory?" 27Then Jesus quoted passages from the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining what all the Scriptures said about himself.
28By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus would have gone on, 29but they begged him to stay the night with them, since it was getting late. So he went home with them. 30As they sat down to eat, he took a small loaf of bread, asked God's blessing on it, broke it, then gave it to them. 31Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
32They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?" 33And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem, where the eleven disciples and the other followers of Jesus were gathered. When they arrived, they were greeted with the report, 34"The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter!"
I love this story. When Barb first suggested it as a name for this new worshiping community, I immediately liked it. There are several reason, a few of which I'll try to include here:
To begin, there is the metaphor of the "road." All of us, since the moment that God spoke creation into existence, are on a journey. We were created to walk toward God, to walk with Him, to journey through eternity with Him hand-in-hand, and heart-in-heart. That is made possible through the work of the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit. However, the fact that we were created to walk with God, that within us is a "God-shaped hole," often results in the reckless pursuit of anything and everything else to fill the void. The postmodern is desperately seeking spirituality in an attempt to connect with the numinous. There is a hunger and a thirst for the Holy that only God can satiate. How else does one explain the rise in interest in all sorts of religions and quasi-religions? People cannot deny the need within them to connect with something larger than and beyond themselves.
Not only this, but the fact that the journey metaphor is relevant is as obvious as the television programs so popular in our culture. On any given day, myriad adventures and journeys are played out for our vicarious enjoyment. Some people even go beyond vicarious adventures to actually participating in them. Things like extreme sports and adventures taking them to mountain tops, ocean depths, and even to the edge of death itself. Why? Because we're all on a journey seeking to find the pith of life, the very marrow that give us our life's blood. We're seeking to squeeze every last dropth of breath out of this short vapor of life.
The metaphor of the journey also applies to our lives as Christians, as Christ-followers. Rather than simply being a series of isolated and compartmentalized decisions, the Christian life is something that is lived out in myriad, infinite, moment-by-moment decisions. We simply don't make one decision for God this year, and one next year, and so on. Rather we are in a constant state of affirming and reaffirming our allegiance to Him in everything we do. There is no room for a static Christian faith. Instead following God is a dynamic, ever-changing, experience that results from the constant interplay between God's Spirit and ours. And so it is a journey.
Even more powerful and more poignant than the metaphor of "road" itself is the metaphor of "epiphany"--the realization that on this journey we are not alone. As the two disciples walked along the road to Emmaus, another man came along side them and joined them on their journey. It reminds me of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo in the Old Testament. As they were in the fiery furnace, a fourth man appeared with them who looked like a "divine being" (Daniel 3:25). We know in this story that the man with the disciples on the road was Jesus. This metaphor of "epiphany," this revelatory manifestation of a divine being, is a perfect metaphor to communicate the hope of the gospel to our postmodern world--Emmauel, God is with us.
What we so often fail to realize is that all along this journey of life God is right there with us--seeking, calling, guiding us toward Him. But sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. Our focus is on religion itself, or on certain practices or methods, so much so that we don't recognize the real, living, breathing person of Christ walking right beside us. Or perhaps we're simply not seeking Him. Or perhaps He's keeping the blinders on our eyes until just the right moment in time to reveal himself. Whatever the case, the powerful image of epiphany speaks to postmoderns the message that wherever they are on the journey, Christ is there walking right beside them. He's been there all along. They are not alone.
Another element I like about this story is the confession of the disciples, "Didn't our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road?" (Luke 24:32). (This of course brings to mind John Wesley's famous "Aldersgate Experience.") I like the force of the KJV here, "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way?" and The Message, "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road?" When people encounter the living, resurrected Christ, a flame is kindled within them for God. A passion, a fire, grows up inside as they discover the hope that on Christ can offer them.
Finally, having witnessed an epiphany of Christ, and having had their hearts strangely warmed, they turned around on the road and rushed back to Jerusalem where, "just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. He said, 'Peace be with you.'" (24:36). When people encounter the living God and their hearts burn within for Him, they will tell others. And when they do, Jesus will appear among them.
If ever the world needed a hope like that, it is now.
That is my hope for Emmaus Road.
Monday, October 24, 2005
The Vision . . .
My desire for this blog is that it will chronicle my pastoral journey as well as be a place to both share with and receive from others in that journey.
It begins with a vision that I believe God placed in my life as far back as my college days. I remember distinctly feeling that God was going to do something special with my generation, that things which had been status quo would be challenged and transformed.
Myself along with many of my friends from largley evangelical, more specifically Wesleyan-Holiness backgrounds, had long desired something deeper in our spirituality than what we discovered on a weekly basis in the seeker-sensitive style churches we attended. Thus we experimented with house churches in our dorms, we attended churches characterized as having high liturgy, we explored philosophy and theology to fill the void, and sadly, some of us stopped attending church altogether.
My journey took me to a Nazarene seminary in Kansas City. There I grew more convinced of the importance of the symbols and liturgical elements of the Christian tradition and their ability to give us handles, guideposts, in our relationship with God. However, looking back I believe I threw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. I couldn't see that perhaps there might be some elements and forms of contemporary worship that held significant value. In spite of my increasing knowledge of and love for God and the Church, my life was a desert. (That's not to say there weren't oases, and large ones at that--just that my life was characterized by a general spiritual drynness.) That is, until my wife and I moved to Manchester, England.
In England, Barb and I came in contact with some of the leaders of the Alpha Course created by Nicky Gumble et al, from Holy Trinity Brompton in London. Through them, and through a professor at the university I was attending at the time, we began to realize that there was a distinct lack of appreciation or appropriate emphasis on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. My evaluation, rightly or wrongly, of my denominational tradition was that it had become so focused on the conversion experience, that it had failed to recognized the importance of the Third Person of the Trinity--the Spirit of Christ. This had led to a church that was largely devoid of openness to the breath of the life-giving Spirit. Myself and many of my peers were suffering from an anemic life of the Spirit. What my professor and Anglican friends taught Barb and I was that the Spirit of God must be present in our lives and our churches in order for them to be vibrant and whole.
Looking back, I can see now that part of what my friends and I were experiencing in college was what is now called "postmodernism"--a disillusionment with the prepackaged and santized version of the Church and reality given to us by those who worshipped too long at the idols of rationalism, reason, and pragmatism. Gutted of any sense of the reality of the "otherness" of God, of the spiritual coexisting with the physical, of the magnum mysterium, we had reached a point of spiritual dehydration. What we needed was God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Of course the Spirit bloweth where He listeth. We moved back to Kansas City after a year in England and rejoined the church we had left. Only this time, we attempted to be more open to the movements and voice of the Holy Spirit. What I discovered was that when we give up our preconceptions of how God works, He can do great things. That's not to say that the journey and search at Kansas City Trinity Church of the Nazarene were all without bumps in the road, but that it was, in my estimation, an honest and genuine search for the life of the Trinity to take root in our lives.
Three years later and here I am in Lafayette, Indiana. Before we even came here, Barb and I felt like God had given us a vision and wanted to use us to reach this post-modern world. We considered planting an emergent-style church in an urban area, but nothing seemed to open up. Then we came to the First Church of the Nazarene here and really sensed that God wanted us here. Not because we're anything great, but perhaps because we're open to Him and what He might want to do here.
Just last week, a vision began to resurface in our minds in relation to this local body of Christ. A vision for a new kind of community. Not one that guts another church and takes all of it's members away (like the consumer-driven Church Growth movement has tended to do, knowingly or not), but one which sprouts up within an existing congregation and becomes yet another form of expression of the life of the Spirit of Christ among us.
That vision is Emmaus Road.
It begins with a vision that I believe God placed in my life as far back as my college days. I remember distinctly feeling that God was going to do something special with my generation, that things which had been status quo would be challenged and transformed.
Myself along with many of my friends from largley evangelical, more specifically Wesleyan-Holiness backgrounds, had long desired something deeper in our spirituality than what we discovered on a weekly basis in the seeker-sensitive style churches we attended. Thus we experimented with house churches in our dorms, we attended churches characterized as having high liturgy, we explored philosophy and theology to fill the void, and sadly, some of us stopped attending church altogether.
My journey took me to a Nazarene seminary in Kansas City. There I grew more convinced of the importance of the symbols and liturgical elements of the Christian tradition and their ability to give us handles, guideposts, in our relationship with God. However, looking back I believe I threw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. I couldn't see that perhaps there might be some elements and forms of contemporary worship that held significant value. In spite of my increasing knowledge of and love for God and the Church, my life was a desert. (That's not to say there weren't oases, and large ones at that--just that my life was characterized by a general spiritual drynness.) That is, until my wife and I moved to Manchester, England.
In England, Barb and I came in contact with some of the leaders of the Alpha Course created by Nicky Gumble et al, from Holy Trinity Brompton in London. Through them, and through a professor at the university I was attending at the time, we began to realize that there was a distinct lack of appreciation or appropriate emphasis on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. My evaluation, rightly or wrongly, of my denominational tradition was that it had become so focused on the conversion experience, that it had failed to recognized the importance of the Third Person of the Trinity--the Spirit of Christ. This had led to a church that was largely devoid of openness to the breath of the life-giving Spirit. Myself and many of my peers were suffering from an anemic life of the Spirit. What my professor and Anglican friends taught Barb and I was that the Spirit of God must be present in our lives and our churches in order for them to be vibrant and whole.
Looking back, I can see now that part of what my friends and I were experiencing in college was what is now called "postmodernism"--a disillusionment with the prepackaged and santized version of the Church and reality given to us by those who worshipped too long at the idols of rationalism, reason, and pragmatism. Gutted of any sense of the reality of the "otherness" of God, of the spiritual coexisting with the physical, of the magnum mysterium, we had reached a point of spiritual dehydration. What we needed was God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Of course the Spirit bloweth where He listeth. We moved back to Kansas City after a year in England and rejoined the church we had left. Only this time, we attempted to be more open to the movements and voice of the Holy Spirit. What I discovered was that when we give up our preconceptions of how God works, He can do great things. That's not to say that the journey and search at Kansas City Trinity Church of the Nazarene were all without bumps in the road, but that it was, in my estimation, an honest and genuine search for the life of the Trinity to take root in our lives.
Three years later and here I am in Lafayette, Indiana. Before we even came here, Barb and I felt like God had given us a vision and wanted to use us to reach this post-modern world. We considered planting an emergent-style church in an urban area, but nothing seemed to open up. Then we came to the First Church of the Nazarene here and really sensed that God wanted us here. Not because we're anything great, but perhaps because we're open to Him and what He might want to do here.
Just last week, a vision began to resurface in our minds in relation to this local body of Christ. A vision for a new kind of community. Not one that guts another church and takes all of it's members away (like the consumer-driven Church Growth movement has tended to do, knowingly or not), but one which sprouts up within an existing congregation and becomes yet another form of expression of the life of the Spirit of Christ among us.
That vision is Emmaus Road.
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