5 Trending Themes for 2015: Join A Movement!

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Jan 282015
 

Trending 1I’m a guy who likes to sift through all the information we get thrown at us everyday, and distill things down to a few key ideas that are like signposts pointing me in the right direction for how I should spend my time, energy, and money. These themes have been rising to the surface again and again in my conversations, the music I listen to – or my kids listen to, the social media banter, the books, magazines, and papers I read, the movies I watch, or in the reoccuring thoughts that percolate in my mind as I stop and reflect.  

These trending threads help me map out my priorities for the nextClues year and beyond. They are like clues to what God might be up to, and where His life and activity might be found! That’s where I want to be found.

The fact of the matter is that these themes are not that avant garde. They are old ideas that transcend time because they are God ideas that work whether you believe in God or not!

These trending themes are growing into grassroots movements as more and more people start to repattern their lives one by one, and live these ideas.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but I think these ideas may resonate with what you may have been feeling, thinking, and hearing like a tuning fork ringing true inside of you. By living these ideas, you and I can be part of joining organic movements changing the world one person at a time. Pretty amazing!

1. Dive into Neighbouring and Community Transformation:

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.” John 1:14

This idea of neighbouring has been popping up wherever I turn.neighbouring 2 From the front page of a Macleans magazine, the August 18, 2014 edition, entitled Stop Ingnoring Your Neighbours; to books on the art of neighbouring; to the upcoming World Vision leaders forum for church leaders going across Canada in 2015 entitled Neigbourhood Mappingwww.churches.worldvision.ca (come out to the heart and soul forum for leaders on April 8 in Calgary); to church planting experiments bubbling up such as the Parish Collective. There is something exciting going on that I want to be a part of.

The longing to belong, to simplify one’s life, to put down roots, and to work together to find solutions to the problems of crime, poverty, and loneliness right where we live is igniting a grassroots movement. 

Folks are falling in love with their neighborhoods, and digging in for the long haul to see their neighborhoods transformed into places of beauty, harmony, and abundance. “

Without great fanfare, people are serving their neighborhoods inGiving and Receing 2 ordinary ways with extra-ordinary results. There is a ground swell of normal folks joining and volunteering in community associations, coaching sports in their neighborhood, putting on block parties, and renovating the homes of those who can’t afford it. Neighbours are becoming friends and getting involved in each other’s lives.

Folks are choosing to shop in their neighborhood, work and start businessess in their neighborhood even when its not as financially lucrative. People are working together to find solutions to what ever ills plague their neighborhood with the aim of making their hood the best place to live.

Churches are calling their parishioners to move into the neighbourhood where they meet, and become part of the fabric of that hood!

This journey of transformation is happening in my neighbourhood of Bowness and I love it. There is no other place I would rather live in our city of Calgary. This last Christmas I watched volunteers from our hood, both church and folks who don’t go to church, put on a meal for about 400 neighbours including the elderly and less fortunate or lonely. What an awesome place to live.

This idea of community transformation is also impacting how we get involved in the developing world. Rather than simply throwing money at the problem, we are becoming friends with communities living in poverty, and walking with them to find local solutions that will provide clean water and sanitation, health care, food, education for the children, and jobs through micro-enterprises. Communities are overcoming poverty and having their dignity restored as they become transformed in everyway.

How could you offer up your gifts and abilities to serve and love your neighbourhood? Do you know your neighbour by name, and have you ever had them in your home for a meal or coffee? Get your church involved with World Vision and adopt a community in the developing world. www.churches.worldvision.ca/gpo

2. Start Partnering and Sharing: 

“The whole congregation of beleivers was united as one-one heart, one mind! They didn’t even claim ownership of their own possessions. No one said, ‘That’s mine; you can’t have it.” Acts 4:32

Giving and receiving 4All around us we seeing the growing trend of sharing demonstrated through enterprises such as community gardens, car sharing, couch surfing, churches sharing buildings, or businesses sharing knowledge such as in the case of finding a vaccine for Ebola. The idea that we can do it on our own, and that it is better to compete than collaborate is proving to be a bankrupt idea in all arenas of life. The silo mentality of hoarding and not sharing has been found wanting.

Investing in the slow journey of building trust in relationships between people in teams, between departments in businesses, and between churches so that we gladly share our resources of knowledge, time, money, and people with each other is the key to real partnering and sharing. 

I am starting to see large churches partnering and sharing resources with small organic missional communities with no strings attached. I’m seeing small churches in neighbourhoods banding together to reach their hoods while letting go of their proclivity to protect their turf out of the fear of losing members. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see large businesses help up-start companies with capital and coaching! Yes, helping out the competition. I believe we can win by losing.

Partnering and sharing is not taking advantage of another for personal gain, but looking for ways to further unleash each others little dreams like creeks that flow together to become a mighty River!”

Who are you partnering with where out of trust you would willingly share your time, energy, money, and knowledge to see a dream come true?

3. Live Peace and Justice: 

“Work for Justice, Help the down-and- out. Stand up for the homeless, Go to bat for the defenseless.” Is. 1:17

The song of justice is being sung all around us if we listen. From thePeace and Justice bands U2 to Rise Against, the call to action is being sung loud and clear. The exploitation of children and women for sex or work slaves is wrong and must be stopped. The gross injustice of not paying workers enough to support their families in the developing world, so that we can have cheaper clothes is wrong. Not being able to go to school or have clean drinking water and 3 healthy meals a day is simply incomprehensible . The genocide of minority groups happening today is unfathomable and an evil that needs to be confronted and overcome with a revolution of forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation!

The solution to these injustices is not to fight them with violence which begets more violence, but by going to the root of the problems and finding positive and creative solutions to overcome poverty and injustice.

We need a movement of peace makers who will not be afraid to expose and confront evil, yet give their lives to go in the opposite spirit of loving their enemies to overwhelm evil and darkness with goodness and light.”

children in povertyStart by sponsoring a child living in poverty! Sponsor Now  Get involved in advocacy to stop the exploitation of children and women. Check out www.worldvision.ca for practical ways to get involved in advocacy, and giving to children, families and communities in need because of natural disasters or because of war in fragile states. Be a peace maker where there is a conflict happening in your family, work place or neighbourhood!

 4. Be or Find a Hidden Catalyst: 

“This is the assigned moment for him to move to the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.” John 3:30 

Cow catcherOther words that might describe thise folks are pioneers, poets, entrepreneurs, apostolic, artists, or innovators who are change agents who don’t give a rip about popular opinion, and will swim upstream against the current. 

Most of these folk have spent time in obscurity, the wilderness, and been tested so that their message carries weight and has been birthed in the cauldron of testing and suffering.

They know what its like to be the cow catcher on the front of the train and be hit by the proverbial poop!

This ilk of people are committed to start things, connect people, and then get out of the way not caring who gets the credit. They are willing to pay the cost for some ‘big ideas’ that are worth giving their lives for.

In this day and age of fame and glory seeking, inflated egos and narcissim, protecting of one’s turf, and taking credit for what’s not ours, we need a movement of initiators who willing fade into the shadows.

Hidden catalysts have caught a vision of the ‘Big Story’ and are more concerned about God’s Kingdom being advanced than building their own brand, company, or little personal kingdom.”

They think out of the box and present new ways of doing thingsout of the box that may challenge the status quo.

This movement of initiators and innovators love diversity and are not threatened by people who are different from them. In fact they befriend and gather around them those who are of a different worldview, ethnic background, personality, and gift mix to compliment who they are.

Do you have an idea or dream for something you’d like to start? Would you be willing to call a few friends together and initiate an idea or dream? What testing or winter season are you going through to prepare you to steward the message or dream you carry? Do you have some friends or co-creators around you who think and do life in a different way than you?

5. Link Arms with and Follow the Next Generation:

“Don’t let anyone put you down because you are young.” I Timothy 4:12

Next GenerationMost movements are started by young people in their teens and early 20’s. Young people have hope and are crazy enough to experiment with and try some outlandish things. Most of them have not become so jaded that their hope of making a difference has been snuffed out of them or buried deep within them.

For my own salvation, and as an antidote for my own cynicism, I need to hang around the next generation. They keep me young, and perhaps I will have the privlege of holding onto their shirt tails, and hitching a ride as they initiate movements that will make our world a better place.”

They will be the ones to start spiritual revivals and renewals. They will spear head the quest for ways to care for and steward our environment while also managing the economy in such a way that the wealth of this planet is shared by all in sustainable ways. Their bright minds will find cures to diseases such as cancer or Ebola.

Now that I’ve turned 50, I realize that its not about me anymore. Its about my way of doing things, and promoting my personal tastes or agendas. In the next season of my life, I am called to serve the next generation, and be a cheer leader and champion for them. If and when asked, maybe I will have a few words of wisdom to impart, but mostly I will learn from them.

What will church look like for my kids? I know they seek spirituality that is real, raw, and relevant; community where every voice is heard, decisions and learning happen through community discernment and discussion, and where there is a sharing of life together that goes beyond a meeting. They want to be part of a mission which involves doing the works of Jesus which may earn us the right to say a few words.

We are living in exciting days, and I’m convinced that this nextYouth Movement generation will lead us into new frontiers where we taste and experience more of Heaven coming to earth!

Who is a teenager or 20 something that is right in front of you that would love to spend time with you? Cheer on, champion, and join the experiments, artitstic endeavours, and causes of the young adults around you. Let them lead by walking with them!

To embrace and live the above themes will take ‘much grace’ – all of God’s resources to be and to do what He has called us to be and do. The #5 is the number for grace and as this is the year 2015, I believe that God is offering us much grace if we show up where He’s at work. So go have fun tripping into the Kingdom in 2015!

By,

Tim Schultz

 

What is Church? Part 3: Best Practices for Weaving a Visible Tapestry of Church

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Jun 292014
 

The Visible Tapestry of Church: Practicing Sacraments with Life!

 

Can you see God's tapestry of relationships connecting all around you?

Can you see God’s tapestry and beautiful mosaic of relationships being connected all around you?

Within the hidden tapestry of the Kingdom and the invisible Church, God’s idea is for there to be visible, local, and unique shapes of church where at least 2 to 3 followers of Jesus gather together, and live life together. These organized and visible expressions of church will be made up of diverse ethnic groups, age groups, socioeconomic groups, styles, and models. Each of these unique shapes of church when seen as a connected whole form a colorful and beautiful mosaic. Each church is one of the threads that when woven together create a tapestry that reflects a picture of what Jesus and His Kingdom look like.

Our practices are the borders that define who we are!

Our practices are the borders that define who we are!

The unchangeable DNA or nucleus is Jesus and His Kingdom way of living. Then there are distinctive practices that form the semi-permeable borders or boundaries of the visible church, defining who we are and what we are about. Irrespective of culture, context, model of church, or period in history, these practices have given the visible church a clear collective identity.

How we express these practices, or the packaging through which these practices are expressed will be varied and diverse as we try to be culturally relevant.

These essential practices are what I will refer to as sacraments. To a Jesus follower, all of life is to be an act of worship or a sacrament. There is to be no separation or compartmentalization between our lives of worship in the normal routines of work, play, eating, marrying, raising of kids, and the practices or sacraments we walk out in our church gatherings. What we do in a church gathering is to bleed into or spill over into our everyday normal life, and gives reality to our worship rituals when we meet together.

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around-life—and place it before God as an offering.” Romans 12:1

What are sacraments? Simply put sacraments are holy practices where heaven and earth kiss. Invisible God in some mysterious way meets with us and reveals Himself to us in the participating together of these visible practices.  What makes a practice or sacrament holy?

In God every act of life is holy!

In God every act of life is holy!

Sacraments are visible rituals, rites, and practices we participate in as a community that remind us of our identity in Jesus, and demonstrate a Kingdom culture, ethic, and way of living life. These practices become holy when God infuses His life into our normal, sometimes mundane, human activities in some mysterious way. If we come to these sacraments with an open heart, we invite the Spirit of God to change us from the inside out.”

For us to get a full picture of God’s idea of the Church, the open, invisible tapestry of church needs to be become visible. This happens when a group of Jesus followers commit to come together and form a local community around their raison d’etre found in Jesus. As a community, they call and encourage each other to walk out the Kingdom Rule of Life summed up in Matthew 5-7. When they gather as a community, they participate in a rhythm of practices infused with the life of God. Their identity in Jesus and these practices differentiate them from any other club or community.

Another way to put it is that the visible church is not just an open system with no borders where we simply conform to our culture and context with no clear identity. Where there are no values and practices to define who we are, we are no longer able to be salt and light. We become a tasteless blob. In some of the current ways of walking out church, some have watered things down to the lowest common denominator because of a desire not to offend anyone, or to try and fit in with the culture.

There are some essential practices that need to be part of the rhythm and routines of any gathered church in any country or culture, irrespective of model of church, and which transcend the changes going on around us. Though the packaging or form can be adapted to any culture or context, the core practices remain the same.  What are those ageless, best practices of the church gathered?

1. The Sacrament of the Table: Centering, Celebrating, and Communion!

What is the Eucharist sacrament?

What is the Eucharist sacrament?

One of those sacraments is what we in the church have called the Lord’s supper, communion or the Eucharist. For most of us who have grown up in the church this ceremony involves a priest, pastor, or elder of the church dispensing some wine or juice and a tiny piece of bread or wafer to be partaken of in a rather somber and serious way.

For those looking in or who have a distant religious memory, there are some questions that pop up. During this ceremony of eating a wafer and some wine do the elements actually turn into the blood and body of Jesus? Sounds kinda gruesome to be eating someone’s body and blood! Do you have to be a card carrying member of that church to be able to participate?

I remember as a kid thinking that if this ceremony is meant to celebrate Jesus why are we so skimpy with the portions, and why do people act like they have just been to a funeral. Why don’t we grab a hunk of bread and with a full goblet of juice or wine toast King Jesus with a hearty clinking of our cups and a cheer? Why don’t we practice this ritual around a sumptuous meal with friends?

This ageless practice is first and foremost to center us as a community around Jesus. He is the reason we exist as a community. It is the simplest, and the central act of worship. We celebrate that in some mysterious, yet tangible way, Jesus is present with us in eating of the bread and wine. We are acknowledging His presence, expressing our love for Him, and inviting Him to infuse us with His life to go out into the world.

It is also to a time to celebrate and say thank you, Jesus for reconciling us to God. We are celebrating the coming of His Kingdom through His life, death and resurrection bringing freedom to us from sin, death, and Satan.

We welcome all to come to the table and receive the ‘life to the full’ that Jesus promises us. In Luke 14: 1-23 Jesus tells us to go out and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, the foreigner, and the lonely to come to the table. We are really practicing or having a dress rehearsal for the big Feast that is coming when there will be people from every tribe and tongue sitting at the table together.

Celebrating Jesus and life together with a circle of friends around a fine meal!

Celebrating Jesus and life together with a circle of friends around a fine meal!

Since food is the language of relationship, it is hard to eat with our enemies or those who have hurt us. In coming around the table, we have a chance to reconcile through the giving and receiving of forgiveness.

In our more  formal ways of practicing the Eucharist, the ritual is done at the front with each individual receiving a wafer or piece of bread and some wine or juice from a elder, priest, or pastor. We eat and drink the bread and wine returning to our pew or seat. Though this approach is most practical when you have a larger group gathered, I would like to suggest that we miss out on some of the communal and celebratory parts of this communion. It becomes somewhat of an individualistic ritual.

The practice of this sacrament with a smaller group of friends and guests we invite to the table, like new immigrants, around a shared meal allows for a deeper exchange of intimacy. Instead of one person dispensing the bread and wine, we share the bread and wine with each other.

Weave this sacrament into your planned gatherings big or small on a regular basis, but also into your suppers with your family, or when you are practicing hospitality with some friends who may not be church goers. Share a meal together with food from the different countries represented, and then cap off the meal with a time of toasting King Jesus with a chunk of bread or handful of rice, and some juice or wine. Though the packaging or form can be adapted to any culture or context, the core practice remains the same. Include prayer for special needs such as healing as part of the sacrament.

2. The Sacrament of Baptism: Initiation Rites Into the Community

Outward sign of an inner decision to walk out faithfulness!

Outward sign of an inner decision to walk out faithfulness!

Baptism is a visible act of saying, “Yes, I’m in.”  The act of baptism in and of itself doesn’t save anyone. It is like a gang member getting a tattoo. The physical symbol brands that person, and shows the rest of the world that this person is serious about their allegiance to this particular gang. As well, the gang welcomes that person in with all their backing and protection.

Piercing is not just a modern day phenomenon to communicate the inward choices or convictions of the heart. In the O.T., when a servant was given their freedom by their master, the servant could voluntarily out of love choose to get their ear pierced. This outward sign was to show that they had become a bond servant for life out of love. (Ex. 21:5-6) What a great picture!

In a similar way, a person in our community who is wanting to outwardly demonstrate their love and commitment to Jesus and the community would be baptized. Whether you sprinkle, or fully dunk to me makes no difference. The rite should be public with some vocal declaration of the person’s choice to pledge their allegiance to King Jesus, His Kingdom, and His community.

Be creative with this. I remember baptizing a friend, and now member of our family, in a tub in our kitchen! Another friend of mine baptized some folks under a shower when on a trip to a country where becoming a follower of Jesus can be a dangerous decision. It’s fun to do this at a park by the river or lake so outsiders can observe.

Baptism like marriage is a ceremony where in front of friends, family, and even strangers we are committing to walk out being faithful to Jesus and His community called church.

3. The Sacrament of Reading and Practicing the Scriptures: Learning, Living and Passing On the Jesus Way of Life

What is the Big Story?

What is the Big Story?

The reading of the Scriptures, interpreting, and applying of the Scriptures together with the help of the Holy Spirit is a key sacrament. We need to be constantly reminded of the Big Story of God’s redemptive plan for this world, and how we can play a part in this Meta-narrative.

There are some who are gifted to teach and explain the Scriptures to us. Public or platform teaching does not exclude the need to be reading and applying the Scriptures in the context of a smaller group where there is room for dialogue, discussion, even disagreement, and formation through application.

Information and knowledge alone do not change people. We need an encounter with Jesus that motivates and empowers us to change. We need some friends to show us the way! We learn a way of life by watching others and then going for it. We pass on a way of life by inviting others to live life with us so we can learn from each other!Learning by copying

Learning includes motivation, information, and application. In most of our gathered settings, we have been fairly effective in motivating, and informing people on the Big Story and the Kingdom way of living.

Where we’ve been remiss is in not creating space in our meetings for folks to get with a couple of friends in a break out group to share how the Holy Spirit has been speaking to them about applying what they have heard in the teaching.  The sharing would also include an opportunity to be accountable for acting on what they hear, and prayer for empowering.

Learning from each other

Learning from each other

We all need some trusted friends to show us the way and to be accountable for follow through on what we say we will do. This kind of application and accountability best happens in a small group.

The key is to blend the motivation and informational types of teaching and preaching of the Scriptures in larger gatherings with the application and accountability happening in smaller clusters of friends.

Another practice should be the regular telling of stories from our everyday lives of how we have had the chance to be part of God’s unfolding Big Story at work, school, in our neighborhoods, and in our families. How have we encountered Jesus and His Kingdom last week or today? The ageless story becomes fresh when we live it daily and weekly.

4. The Sacrament of Sacred Space and Symbols: 

Iona 1In a worldview that does not separate the secular and the sacred, we realize that everywhere we go is a holy place, and that God is not contained in a temple or church building. (Acts 7:48; 17:24) Often God is showing up in the dark places as well as in the normal venues of our home, neighborhood, work place, and such.

Having said that, I do believe that there is a tension here. I remember visiting Durham Cathedral and the island of Iona some years ago while on a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts.  On the outside of the Durham Cathedral was a plaque that read, “For more than a thousand years prayer has been offered in this place…” When you enter the Cathedral you can sense the presence of God in a very tangible and powerful way. The place has been saturated with God.Iona 2

Iona, a remote and beautiful island where a Celtic Christian community was founded, is known as a thin place in Celtic Christianity and by spiritual seekers of all sorts. A thin place is said to be a location where the separation between heaven and earth is as thin as a tissue. In these places, it seems easier to connect with God. In creation these places are often high places, or remote and rugged places of raw beauty. Often these become places of worship whether to God or the dark side.

I believe that as the church gathered we need sacred spaces where the separation between heaven and earth is tissue thin. We can do this by reclaiming buildings where a church used to meet, but has died. We can do this by soaking new venues or dark places such as a former strip club with prayer and worship.

People are looking for places of serenity and beauty as reprieves from the consumerism and chaos of city life. Many new churches build or choose utilitarian buildings for meeting spaces out of a value for maximizing the use of their building beyond Sunday morning.

Creating places of beauty as icons.

Creating places of beauty as icons.

In the Protestant world, we have tended to be iconoclastic and diminished the value of beauty as an end unto itself.  In our value for good stewardship, let us not neglect the value for creating spaces of beauty investing time and money. This may seem wasteful, but the God we worship loves to lavishly invest in beauty even when it doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose.

If we are meeting in facilities that are plain and functional such as a community center, commission the artists to create a place of beauty through paintings, murals, sculptures, icons, and mosaics that help us connect to an invisible God.

5. The Sacrament of Shared Life Together: Diving in Close to Home with Some Friends

In our fragmented world, most of our lives are lived separated from one another. We are suffering from a pandemic of loneliness, busyness, and consumerism. There is a longing for belonging, integration, simplicity, deeper friendships, family, and the sharing rather than hoarding of resources.

Living life together!

Living life together!

Many of us have stories of experiments, mostly in our youth, where we pursued the ideals of  ‘deeper’community. We wholeheartedly gave of ourselves to live life in close proximity with some friends. The pursuit of a shared life together may have included sharing some common meals together, pooling of finances to be distributed to those in need, and some sort of rule of life. Some of these turned out, but many of them ended up in disaster due to immaturity, and host of other factors.

Often in our zeal we leapfrogged to the ideal without the grace needed to live out the ideal. There was nothing wrong with the ideal. We simply didn’t have the character of Jesus yet to live it out. We may have become disillusioned and vowed to never risk like that again.

We’ve settled for church lite. We go to meetings, but avoid the risk of going deeper in our relationships.

There is no better way to surface our growth issues and selfishness than to live in close proximity with some other people who are different from us. It is a chance for real formation into the nature of Jesus to occur.

no admittance signIn most of church expressions, our gatherings allow us to rub shoulders, but we can leave the meeting being polite with one another while hiding the rooms in our interior castle that have a ‘No Admittance’ sign. We can show the nice side of who we want people to see without the pressures of living close to one another surfacing our ‘dark side’.

Often what seem like small things such as differences in parenting styles, differences in personality or how we practice sharing fester and blow up a good thing.

In most monasteries or monastical orders, a newbie, called a novitiate, who wants to join the community spends at least a year in a trial period so that both sides can evaluate whether it will work or not. After a year, the novitiate takes their vows to commit to the order. When one signs up for the order the rule of life is clear and not up for negotiation. Either you buy in or not.

The question is how do we pursue ‘deeper community’ without killing each other or starting a monastical or missionary order with clear lines of ‘in and out’? Most real lifers cannot live to that degree of intensity or commitment.

I suggest we start by calling a few folks to move into the same neighborhood together. Buy separate homes on the same block or within walking or biking distance of one another, so that we can drop in on one another spontaneously.

Another option is to get to know our immediate neighbors, and listen for those who are longing for deeper community. You can start with a block party to simply deepen connection. Look for those who are longing for more, are open to spiritual conversation, and serving one another. Form a small group with these folks where you share a meal, celebrate communion, and pray for one another.

life together 4

Talk through and negotiate an agreed upon rule of life with 2-5 folks.  This rule of life might start with a common meal together once a month, and over time increasing it to once a week. Share resources with one another like baby sitting, car pooling, lawn mowers, a shared community garden in one person’s yard, and chip in to a pool of finances to be given away to whoever has a need.

Try serving together in a common mission in your neighborhood. If you can learn to resolve conflicts in a healthy way, and stay together for 1-5 years, anything is possible.

My hope is to see many small circles of friends ask the following questions:

Beauty out of brokennessWhy don’t we go on a God adventure by moving into the same neighborhood and living life together? What would it look like to love our hood to Jesus by serving the felt needs of our hood, and making it a better place to live? Where is God already at work in our hood restoring relationships, rebuilding the ruined places, bringing beauty out of devastation, bringing joy where there has been sorrow, and bringing freedom where there has been bondage? How can we be part of that?

Now with God’s backing go for it!

Tim Schultz

Betwixt and Between: Sojourning Through the Borderlands

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Jul 062012
 

The In Between of the Borderlands

Caught between two worlds; belonging to this earth, yet feeling like strangers, misfits, or aliens from another planet .

This is the nature of life in the borderlands. Pilgrims passing through, yearning for a city and country to call their own.

Satisfied settlers living in the neighborhood; ever-seeking sojourners looking for home, so close, yet so out of reach.

One foot in heaven and one foot here on earth; a tug of war rages for the affections of our souls.

The ever present allure of sex, stuff, and status tries to draw us into its seductive web; temporary fixes that are fleeting.

Loving the pulsating life of the city, yet longing for the peace of the country.

Stuck between the city and country

Content but ever restless, happy on the outside yet gripped by the haunting on the inside.

No experience or relationship can satiate this gnawing sense of despondency, discontent, emptiness, longing, and hunger.

The promise of satisfaction found in penultimate vacations, dream houses, gold plated pension funds, and the perfect relationship only leaves us wanting more.

What will fill the hole, and what will satisfy the unending haunting? What is the purpose of this holy discontent?

Beneath it all is an unquenchable thirst for lasting peace, deeper intimacy, exquisite beauty, real justice for all found in relationship with our Creator!

Heed that homesickness for a world with no pollution, poverty or pain; groan for a little slice of heaven here on earth.

Slow down and listen to that inward still small voice calling you homeward.

Seeing Another World Dimly

Gaze more deeply, and though faint, you will see a vision of a better city and country that is just over the horizon.

Travel lightly as you move from the borderlands into that promised land you have been waiting for.

Dive into the Grand Adventure of partnering with God to usher in, here and now, a little bit of heaven on earth!

How Are Movements Sustained? Part 2: Through The Slow Way of Substance, Sacrifice, and Simple Structures

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Mar 272012
 

Grassroots Movements with Substance Bring Change!

I want to start part 2 of my blogs on movements by sharing the story of a global movement against the injustice of slave labor in the Congo that occurred in the latter part of the 1800’s. This is a story that very few people have heard of, and is still part of the story of what is going on in Central Africa today.  To go forward we must look back. That is why studying history is so important.

Though this movement was ignited by a catalyst named Edmund Morel, he was only one of many brave souls, including a black journalist and historian named George Washington Williams and another black American named William Sheppard, who spoke out against the evil of slave labor in the Congo. Movements always start with a few catalysts and champions who are willing to sacrifice for the cause.

King Leopold II, the King of Belgium, desperately wanted to have a colony just like the British and the French. Because Belgium was not a big or powerful country, Leopold used guile and deception to colonize the Congo. Ostensibly, his motives appeared to be philanthropic. He claimed to be putting a stop to the slave trade and to be helping the people by welcoming in missionaries and investing in the infrastructure. Yet in reality, King Leopold was driven by greed and ego. He wanted to be seen as an important player in the eyes of the colonizing countries. He wanted a piece of the action in Africa, including the pillaging of Africa’s natural resources and people. It is estimated that between 5 to 8 million lives were lost through slavery in the Congo itself.

After observing the plunder of rubber and ivory coming off the ships in Antwerp, Edmund made the bold move of blowing the whistle on the egregious atrocities that King Leopold II and his minions were committing in the Congo. Below is a quote from the book King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild, that tells the story of how this one man gave his life to start and sustain a global movement against the injustice of slave labor in Africa.

The Power of Global Movements to Mobilize

Brought face to face with evil, Morel does not turn away. Instead, what he sees determines the course of his life and the course of an extraordinary movement, the first great international human rights movement of the twentieth century. Seldom has one human being – impassioned, eloquent, blessed with brilliant organizational skills and nearly superhuman energy – managed almost single-handedly to put one subject on the world’s front pages for more than a decade. Only a few years after standing on the docks of Antwerp, Edmund Morel would be at the White House, insisting to President Theodore Roosevelt that the United States has a special responsibility to do something about the Congo. He would organize delegations to the British Foreign Office. He would mobilize everyone from Booker T. Washington to Anatole France to the Archbishop of Canterbury to join his cause. More than two hundred mass meetings to protest slave labor in the Congo would be held across the United States. A larger number of gatherings in England – nearly three hundred a year at the crusade’s peak – would draw as many as five thousand people at a time. In London, one letter of protest to the the Times on the Congo would be signed by eleven peers, nineteen bishops, seventy six members of Parliament, the presidents of  seven Chambers of Commerce, thirteen  editors of major newspapers, and every lord mayor in the country. Speeches about the horrors of King Leopold’s Congo would be given as far away as Australia. In Italy, two men would fight a duel over the issue. British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, a man not given to overstatement, would declare that ‘no external question for at least thirty years has moved the country so strongly and vehemently’. (p. 2)

How are Movements Sustained?

  • Slow and Small precedes Speed and Size: Most movements that last start very slow and small with a very simple, yet big idea. Before the movement gains traction amongst the masses, there has been an incubation period when the cause or idea is percolating.  It takes time before there is a tipping point, or before the idea snowballs, picking up speed and momentum as it spreads. If you look at the issue of the invisible children and Kony in Uganda, there have been people on the ground addressing this issue for many  years. Suddenly the issue has caught the attention of the mainstream. My dad spent over 20 years in Africa modeling the practice of crop rotation and summer fallowing as a way of farming. It took years before a few Africans decided to adopt this practice, instead of the short term subsistence-living worldview which had resulted in poor crops by draining the soil of nutrients year after year. Every year, they would query my dad about why his crops were so much better than theirs, and every year he would tell them to practice crop rotation. Finally, after some years, he was able to convince a few to switch their long held patterns of planting the same crop in the same field over and over, to crop rotation and summer fallowing.
  • Substance and Sacrifice trumps Sizzle and Sexiness: What is clear in our day and time is that the subject of social justice is on the radar of most people. Thus, motivating and mobilizing, especially young people, to get involved in justice issues is an easy sell. The potential downfall of this is that people get moved and involved for awhile till some other thing comes along to grab their attention, or money and fame issues hijack the integrity of the movement. Case and point would be the movement started by the book Three Cups of Tea written by Greg Mortenson, about building schools for poor children in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There were allegations presented by 60 Minutes last year of financial indiscretion and embellishment of the truth. Whether the allegations are true or not, we need to learn some lessons.
  • The sudden spotlight with Kony 2012 and the ensuing pressure seem to have triggered a breakdown in Jason Russell, the leader of the movement. The pressure was too much to handle. Our human nature is to prematurely promote and publicize a movement so that it takes off quickly, rather than giving it the test of time.  Instant or fast success can be the greatest enemy of a fledgling movement. Often these movements are not ready to handle the sudden infusion of money and the deluge of attention that comes with quick notoriety. What started out as a good thing crumbles or fades.

What Africa needs are people who will give their lives to see things change over a lifetime. I just watched a documentary about a couple who have moved to the city of Goma, the nexus for much of the strife in the Congo. This women and her Congolese husband have started a center to see healing and justice come to the many women who have been sexually abused in the fighting in Central Africa. They are bringing healing to the emotional wounds these women have been scarred by, through the trauma they have experienced . They are training the women in marketable skills to support themselves. They are working to reform the corrupt justice system one step at a time, by bringing perpetrators of these crimes to account one by one. Their lives are a beacon of light pushing back the darkness, one life at a time. They know it takes a generation to change deeply entrenched worldviews and practices.

  • Structures must remain Simple and Serve the Original Life:

    Movements are like Spiderwebs

    Most movements start off with very little organization. Then as the movement grows, the natural propensity is to build systems and structures around the movement to support it and protect it. What usually happens is that the organization takes on a life of its own and begins to outgrow the organic life of the movement. In fact, any new shoots of life are seen as a threat to the existing structures and are resisted. Movements that last keep empowering the grassroots, and keep fighting to prevent the power from moving to a few in the center.

  • Some Movements do have a Shelf-Life: A disclaimer to the above would be that some movements are meant to start something and then die. This doesn’t mean that they were not successful in accomplishing their purpose for a period of time. Whether the Kony 2012 movement lasts for a few months or a year, if it heightens the awareness of the next generation to the justice issues in Central Africa and motivates a few to serve the locals in finding some lasting solutions, it will have been worth it. This same principle holds true for spiritual movements, movements of churches, or political movements. Either they need to morph, champion new movements to sprout from within the movement, or die after the raison d’etre has been fulfilled.  May we be wise students of history that do not repeat the mistake of holding onto the halcyon days of former movements that inspired us or movements that we helped start.
  • Questions For Reflection:
  1. Where are there shoots of organic life popping up or percolating around me in vision for a big idea or in relationships?
  2. What simple structures are needed to serve that life?
  3. Where am I still living in the past glory days, missing the new movements happening right before my eyes?
  4. Who are the people and where are the places that I will commit to for a lifetime?
  5. What slow, small movement with a big idea do I believe in, and am willing to serve and sacrifice for?

By Tim Schultz

How are Movements Started? Part 1: The Strength and Weaknesses of Viral Movements

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Mar 192012
 

Fast Spreading Viral Movement of Justice

Like many of you, I have been both moved and fascinated by the sudden and rapid growth of the Kony 2012 movement. This movement was initiated by the YouTube film produced by the group Invisible Children and Jason Russell, to draw attention to the plight of children in northern Uganda who have been abducted into the Lord’s Resistance Army. The tactics of the LRA has been to raid villages, kill the children’s parents, and forcibly conscript children into their army. These children are then forced to commit heinous acts. The LRA is led by a despot named Joseph Kony who used to be active in northern Uganda, but is now operating either out of the Central African Republic or the Congo. The hope of Invisible Children is that by making Joseph Kony famous, they can stir up a grassroots movement to put pressure on the powers-that-be to capture Joseph Kony and put a stop to this injustice. As of today, close to a 100 million people, many of them young people, have watched the half hour film, and a grassroots movement towards justice has been born.

I love the conversation starter that this film Invisible Children has become, tapping into the growing movement amongst millenials, those born after 1980, to get involved in social justice issues. So let me start by saying, anything that raises awareness of justice issues and gets the ball rolling is a good thing. Because living out justice is a central tenet of the Kingdom, we should be thrilled at any movement that mobilizes folks to get involved.

Having lived in Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, and having grown up in Africa, that continent has a special place in my heart.

I love Africa

Africa is rich in both natural resources and in a beautiful tapestry of people that have much to offer the world. I long to see the corrupt and oppressive systems that abuse the people stopped and changed. Though I am no expert on Africa, I understand that lasting change there will not happen simply by throwing money at the problems of poverty and injustice through large NGOs or through being emotionally stirred by a film, as good as that is. It will happen through faulty worldviews being changed one person at a time. It will come as Africans and their friends devote their lives to finding solutions on the ground level to bring healing between longstanding tribal divisions, to develop easily reproducible ways for Africans to support themselves with dignity, to bring access to clean water, education, and health care to all, and slowly develop good governance and a less corrupt justice system.

The beauty of this latest viral justice movement is that very quickly, masses of people are being made aware of justice issues, and being mobilized to some sort of action to stop this injustice. My question is, how can this “viral justice movement” be sustained and address the long term systemic issues, whether that be in the Arab countries such as Egypt or in Eastern Central Africa?

 

Protesting Against Injustice

The breeding grounds for these nefarious individuals like Kony are power structures that are deeply entrenched. For every Kony there are at least 100 others like him. There are power brokers behind these men who gain both politically and economically from keeping age old tribal and political conflicts going. Mixed into that are multi-national companies who want to get a piece of the rich resources of gold, diamonds, timber and such, in Eastern Central Congo. These geo-political and economic issues must be understood and confronted as part of the problem.

 

As a student of movements, and one who wants to learn to catch the wave of movements that further what the Kingdom of God is all about, I will be doing a three part series on some of my reflections and observations on how movements are started and sustained. I will be referring to the Kony 2012 viral movement and other movements as examples.

How Do Movements Start?

  • By a Captivating Message with little Money: Movements start when a big idea or message resonates with people who grab hold of it and make it their own. An example of this is the book The Shack, which presents a different angle on who God is. The ideas explored in the book struck a chord in many people and the book sold like hotcakes. I believe that the Shack was first published in a garage, for only a few hundred dollars.
  • By a Messenger with the It factor: What is interesting to me is that many movements are started by young people who dare to dream of a better future and have the audacity to pursue that future in the present.  Jason Russell, the fellow portrayed with his young son in the Kony 2012 movie and the one telling the story, is in his early 30’s. The Welsh Revival in 1904 was led by Evan Roberts, who was 26 years old when the revival started. Evan’s sister Mary, who was also a key leader, was only 16 years old. Evan’s brother Dan, and Mary’s future husband, Sydney Evans, were 20 years of age. As one with a greying beard, I just want to cheer on the next generation to “Go for it!”, and tag along for the ride.
  • By a Medium that Moves the Message quickly: Movements have a medium through which the message spreads like wildfire, such as social networking systems today.
    The Mediums of Viral Movements

    The Koney 2012 message took off like a brush fire because of the mediums of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. In reflecting back on the Arab spring, we see the footprint of social media as the tool for mobilizing people quickly to gather and protest, such as in Tahrir Square in Cairo.

  • By Mobilizing the Masses from the Margins: Movements empower the grassroots and begin to challenge the existing power structures by shifting power from the center to the margins.

Reflection Questions and recommended Reading:

  1. For understanding some of the historical context for what is going on in Central Africa and the Congo in particular, I suggest the book King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
  2. For understanding the nature and characteristics of movements, I recommend The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell.
  3. If you want a short but good read on Christian movements, Steve Addison’s book Movements That Change the World is a helpful resource.
  4. Questions for Reflection:
  • What “Big Idea” has so gripped me that I would give up everything to pursue it? Read the parable of the Pearl of Great Value in Matthew 13:44-46.
  • Who is a young person I know that I can encourage to make a difference in the world?
  • Where am I actively involved in turning the tide of injustice in my neighborhood and in the nations? “A ripple of change starts small with the power of one.” Read and reflect on Micah 6:8.
  • Examples: Helping to find affordable housing for the poor, especially single parents, becoming a friend with a Sudanese refugee family who have come from a war torn country and helping them assimilate here, going as a doctor or nurse to Africa to serve one month a year, or if you are a teacher, giving part of a sabbatical year to go teach in Africa, or you and some friends starting a simple movement to address a need in Africa such as orphaned children, the need for clean water,  or the need for micro-businesses that train and invest in Africans.
  • Go to Africa and let Africa get in your blood! Who knows you may end up moving there.

By Tim Schultz