Toward a Missional Economy, Part 3

In his excellent book, Walking With the Poor, Bryant Myers proclaims,

“The incarnation smashes any argument that God is only concerned for the spiritual realm and that the material is somehow evil or unworthy of the church’s attention.”

As we saw yesterday, Postmodern cultures seem to have already demolished this dualism and are experimenting deeply with economic practices that are compassionate, generous, and inclusive – thereby joining the material realm of economics with the spiritual realm of communitarian well-being. I’m convinced what we’re seeing are the fingerprints of the Missio Dei on these subcultures, especially with their embrace of an economics that bears a strong resemblance to the “rules of the house” found in passages like Exodus Chapter 16 and 2 Corinthians Chapter 8.

If this what God is doing, the missional Church will have to embrace at least three major paradigm shifts in order to join Him on that mission. Today I’ll touch on the first. Continue reading…

The Arrogant Bastard Church

Ever since I wrote The Mega-Freeloader Church I’ve been thinking about a blog series that examines different cultural phenomena in the West as a way of re-imagining certain aspects of church ecclesiology. When I saw David Fitch’s post today – A Warning List For Those Who Would Join the Missional Church – I knew I needed to start my series with this:

Introducing “The Arrogant Bastard Church.”

No, I’m not talking about Mars Hill (either of them). For those of you who love beer you may know that I’m talking about some of the best beer known to man – and, happily, it’s practically made in my own backyard at fabulous place called Stone Brewery. Have a gander at the prose on the back label of a bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale: Continue reading…

Todd Hunter and the Rebranding of Christianity

There’s a very interesting interview with Todd Hunter posted today at ChristianityToday.com. For those of you who don’t know, Todd was formerly the director of the Vineyard Churches in the U.S., through which I am ordained. Back in the late nineties Todd caught the post-modern bug and that’s when things got interesting. Todd stood up at a Vineyard national pastor’s conference ten years ago in Anaheim and gave his vision for what he thought the Vineyard should become (The Church That I Would Build by Todd Hunter). In his words, he wanted to build a movement of “Godward, missional, communities.” That conference was a watershed event for me, the beginning of a major transition in my theology, and Todd’s original vision remains a significant source of inspiration for my own journey as a church planter.

If you go back and read between the lines of that vision you’ll discover that Todd essentially predicted the emerging and missional movements (of course, he doesn’t predict Emergent or its demise, that’s something entirely different). Well, the Vineyard didn’t bite, and Todd moved on to get more involved in what would later become the emerging church movement.

Continue reading…

Introducing Ikon Community

For those who want only the facts, here’s the link: ikoncommunity.com

For those who like a story, here’s the tale…

As many of you know Jenell and I moved to San Diego one year ago for the purpose of eventually starting a church. We were committed to spending the first year immersing ourselves in the local culture, making new friends and finding new career paths so we could pursue the vision of a grassroots network of Jesus-followers.

That vision started taking shape in March when we began to gather regularly with a few family and friends – all of whom were hungry for a deeper expression of Christian community, more focused on justice and mercy. Since then we’ve come together every Sunday night to enjoy each other’s company, watch our kids tear around the house, eat good food, drink cheap wine, celebrate communion, gather around scripture, and pray for one another.

Continue reading…

A Life of Gifts

I remember exactly when I realized our fun little experiment at Twoshirts.org had swerved completely out of my control: it was the day I learned someone had given away a grandmother.

People had been giving each other lamps and toasters and other such items for months. That alone was amazing to me, because for years I’d been fascinated with Acts 2:44-45:

“The believers had everything in common and gave to each other as they had need.”

Really? Everything in common?

Continue reading…

Unbecoming Buzz Agents For Christ

Back in the day, businesses could count on word-of-mouth as the most powerful form of organic marketing. By doing a genuinely good job, or offering the best quality products, people enthusiastically recommended them to each other. Relationships of trust are natural networks of growth. Roland Allen understood that well.

But the Web 2.0 world (World 2.0?) has spawned new forms of friendship, and new opportunities for word-of-mouth marketing that big businesses are capitalizing on. The infectious power of facebook and Twitter is their instant ability to connect people across traditional barriers, but that very power and success is being capitalized on (annoyingly) in order to increase the sales noise in the midst of those very connections. Connections of grace and reciprocity are corrupted into connections of self-interest and quid-pro-quo. Even more unusually, some people are being enlisted as volunteers – in the thousands – to serve corporate clients by literally creating a “buzz” about products, one person at a time. In return for their willingness to talk to friends and strangers about the products, these “buzz agents” receive products for free.

NPR did a great story on this a while back, and in it there’s a key moment where one particular “buzz agent” talks about wearing a new brand of perfume and then “cozying up” to people throughout her day with the hopes that someone would remark on the scent, thereby creating a “natural” opening for a conversation about the product.

Continue reading…

Announcing the Micah Film Festival

As I mentioned last week, my resurrected posts about the Sundance Film Festival have been in anticipation of an exciting announcement. Because I believe art in general, and film in particular, are an unheeded prophetic voice in our culture I wanted to find some way to missionally engage with that vital expression.

Hence, for the past several weeks our little community of faith has been working diligently on a project we’re very excited about: The Micah Film Festival.

Continue reading…

The Re-emergence of Suffering as a Virtue, Part 3