Covenant

Various people are blogging and talking about covenant, specifically soldiers’ covenants in The Salvation Army, and how they sometimes just become ‘church membership’.   (see army renewal and armybarmy blogs most recently)

Other conversations have been around Orders and the pros and cons of following a Franciscan path.

This is the bottom line for me, drawing from my conversations and experience.  You cannot have meaningful covenanted life without vocational discernment. It is intrinsic to the whole deal. The discernment, reflection, investment and development absolutely must come from the community to everyone covenanted. There are no short cuts or ‘lite’ options.  If you don’t have that, then the covenant simply becomes a piece of paper or a word you use to describe yourself that doesn’t mean anything. You can have all the personal holiness and unreserved commitment in the world, it will have nothing to engage with and therefore you may be following Jesus absolutely faithfully, but your journey will not be energised by the covenant.

It’s no good telling people en masse what their vocation is, it has to be personal because faithfulness is worked out in a personal and individual way, as well as communally.

That’s my take on it for what it’s worth. That’s what it would take for salvationists to recover covenant together and that is what the resulting unity as a global missional people will consist of.

Joyful church

There’s some discussion away out there on fb and blogs about joy in the church, here’s my take:  I see many, many people around me in the church with frustrated vocations (for many different reasons). People often work incredibly hard, many hours a week, year in and year out, in ministries they find joyless.  The sense of having little or no navigation that means anything to the group leaves you working very hard to try to compensate, but without joy or fulfillment.  People have a ministry despite the church rather than as part of it. (Am I dreaming or do we have maybe three times+ as many or more people in this situation in TSA in the UK as we have people in affirmed vocations?)

Over on TCSpeak link to right, Commissioner Knaggs reminds us that the joy in The Salvation Army is of seeing people come to Christ.

But I’d argue a sense of well-being as part of a mission team includes this, yet goes deeper into the health of our communities, and progress begins with re-examining the way we do church, being very, very careful about the kind of language we use about vocations and what kind of vocations we affirm and validate – if it’s ‘clergy only’ or ‘officer only’ it’s deeply toxic by definition.  It’s not about the twee ‘God has a plan for your life’, it’s about the values, thinking, behaviour and (always risky) investment we make in discipleship.

In difficult and often joyless mission fields, we need to pay loving attention to how we  help one another find joy in following Jesus.  The joy is Jesus, who can see the bigger picture, and who knows what really matters.  Our joy is in following him – it is in him.

 

Conversation

I am pursuaded that Jesus led and taught through inviting people to participate in conversation.  This is Judaism as I encountered it in orthodoxy – but then I usually hung out in the right places, which were not always the places the main crowd hung out.

I read on a Jewish blog yesterday someone bemoaning the fact that Jewish education for children is often basically about rote learning the Rashi, midrash and the halachas as well as the texts, rather than learning to think. This is only the case if we want it to be so.  The reality is that real education is about learning how to think, not being told what to think.

The basics – the meforshim, commentators – preferably a broad sweep of them and not just a couple – bring us to see contradictions, difficulties and dilemmas.  All good. That’s the moment we start to engage our brains and begin sorting out what is useful from what is not, what is important from the rabbit trails of distraction that human nature tends instinctively to seek.

It’s ok not to agree with every Rashi. That’s the whole point. Someone in another Jewish blog says that being Jewish is about what we choose to do positively far more than what we refrain from, I go for that, and see following Yeshua in the same terms.

In another blog, this time a Salvation Army one, a writer points out there’s some really silly stuff about science and the Bible in one of the discipleship courses out there – at least it is silly in his view, and now he’s pointed it out and I’ve noticed it, yes I agree.  But so what? Do we avoid a whole course because we disagree with some of it? No way.  The point of discipleship is that the believer is on a journey to learning to think for themselves, to hold in tension the various possibilities and to be able to intelligently probe and argue for what they believe. There is no’perfect’ selection of texts for discipleship and spiritual formation, no books that are absolutely ‘right’, just honest collections of reflections and learning which have helped the author and others move towards Jesus.  Discipleship is a journey toward a more mature integration – fully mature in the fullness of Christ.  We need not be afraid.

In the context of a Messianic fellowship, it’s not about prioritising learning Torah in order to agree with every word of everything in traditional Jewish texts or agreeing on every point of observance.  It is about being in the flow of conversation and the flow of Jewish life as we seek to be like Yeshua as Jews, and understand what that means.  It is simply balancing our discipleship in light of our Jewishness.

Different angles

Different angles 4

Originally uploaded by tanakawho

I love Armybarmy blog and the Primitive Salvationist stuff, it connects deeply with what I’d describe as the charism of the Salvation Army and it lights me up, it lights many people up. It derives from a different culture to the one we are in now in the UK. So to bring that energy and focus into a UK context, the part that works is the charism, that which needs to evolve in the UK is that which is framed for another missional context.

The sense of who we are, what we do and why, our calling in the spiritual sense, in the sense of the grace within it, is where we begin the journey.

charism

The reason we need, as salvationists, to talk in terms of the charism of TSA rather than its vision or mission statements is that charism – that grace of the heart of who we are in the body of Christ, that grace of a specific calling to be with this vision that began us – can light people up in a way mission statements and vision statements cannot.  People can connect with it in a spiritual and personal way, not just intellectually.  Does it light you up on your faith journey? Then it’s yours.

We can’t use mission and vision statements as ‘anchors’ around which to navigate the chaos of change. A charism is a grace, it is that grace of God which makes us who we are in our identity, our spiritual heartbeat, it is apart from organised religion, apart from institutions, apart from the ruts we get into.

Who are we?

I read this blog entry and came to ask what God is saying to us about the story of Messianic Judaism and Messianic Jews.  What is the story that could come here, and how do we move forward, why?

What would be a life-giving story for us as disciples of Yeshua here?

http://www.beyondbt.com/2008/02/21/right-wing-orthodoxy-not-so-inclusive-just-yet/

iSalvos

iSalvos is a great site and a healthy new venture.

http://isalvos.ning.com/

By creating a cyber corps, one immediate help to me here is that we can now invite people of all ages to make contact with The Salvation Army, either  local presence, and/or the net presence.   – That’s not intended as an attack on the older congregations, simply stating realities.  While almost all of the energy in mission is now incarnational, ie we go to where people are rather than inviting them to church, inviting people to gatherings can still be helpful. It’s not always appropriate to invite younger adults or young couples to a congregation if you know the culture of that congregation is way outside what they are used to, and if the congregation is so diminished it no longer has the resources to provide good discipleship, a regular Bible study or prayer group etc.  iSalvos has the potential to help a lot of soldiers to live missionally and faithfully, lit up by and conveying this life-giving charism.

Gorf_BR_repair_kit

 

Gorf_BR_repair_kit

Originally uploaded by Joey the Clown

If Christendom-shaped church is designed to make sheep rather than disciples focussed on mission, why bother with trying to bring renewal in traditional congregations? Why not let them die – the new forms will surely develop? I’m certainly learning to budget my time, but I’d bring a few points:

1. Fading and aging traditional congregations can adapt and learn new ways, they can go through renewal. Most don’t, but some do. When they do experience renewal and turn around from decline into new growth, it implies some adjustment at least has probably been made to the changing cultures of their neighbourhood.

2. The denominations may be the focus of alienation of those outside the church from Christianity, but renewal implies at least potential willingness to try to put right some of the failures of the past, if they are ‘dead’ they can’t take part in the process of rebuilding trust. There’s still a journey to be made.

3. The newer movements and streams may be growing like weeds, but they need to learn about church health and safety nets from those who have been on the journey of organised church for much longer than them.

4. We are in a transitional time, there are still people around who can connect more easily with a traditional denominated church than with a new movement or alternative. It’s appropriate at this time that the diversity of churches exists, and this gives us a golden opportunity to learn lessons of church unity, of warm ecumenical relationships and of making progress in regaining trust in the neighbourhood by how we model good relationships with one another.

Provided the main focus of our time is on being faithful to our main calling and vocation, it is not a waste of time to encourage those traditional congregations that are dying to experience renewal.  If God seems to be moving in a situation, our first responsibility is to go where the Holy Spirit leads so we can take part in it. What isn’t healthy is being trapped in a situation you cannot influence and cannot help, and where there is no prospect in sight of renewal. In that situation you have to put following Jesus first in the sense of making sure you are somewhere it’s possible to serve him.

In a situation where so very many of us are on the margins of the inherited churches, even when we are regularly attending, we need to help one another by listening and discerning together what God is saying.

Gateway

Gateway

Originally uploaded by perkriz

The last 2-3 weeks I’ve been thinking on this:

In previous posts I’ve identified some things that congregations undergoing renewal have in common, (quoting Dr J Pugh) and they are really pretty obvious when you think about it.

The leader needs to ‘lead from an ethical heart’, and be emotionally mature and well differentiated, the culture of the church needs to shift from being a control culture toward collaboration and consensus cultures. (Control freaks block renewal like nothing else.) The congregation of believers needs to use/keep a few familiar things or people (transitional objects) around which to navigate the chaos of change – it’s a bit like a child going into the care system taking their blanket and favourite toy with them. It provides a sense of continuity, security and identity through the stress of profound change. The leader needs to create an adequate holding environment, in other words communicate warmly with everyone, friend and foe, and make sure everyone knows they are held in their warm and positive regard. (The full thesis is available from Amazon, Fantasy Land Faith)

Nothing will happen without the grace of God and the movement of the Holy Spirit. So this is all so many words if the foundations of prayer and Biblical reflection are not in place.

The nuts and bolts are becoming more apparent to me here, looking around at different congregations. In the case of aging congregations here in the UK, they are:
- it takes the believers having faith that the tide can turn.
- it takes them to be willing to learn how to be missionaries in another culture, because younger adults live in a different culture here.
- it takes them to learn how to tolerate and lead in other styles of worship than the one they are used to, (possibly as well as continuing what they are used to for a time, as the older generation need nourishment too.)
- it takes them to be very, very persistent in how they are going to communicate the gospel. (For example, if they are going to run Alpha they need to do it well and relentlessly, year after year).

By the grace of God, renewal in aging congregations is possible.

Missional Order

Why am I convinced missional order is the only direction for Salvationists to take together in the UK?

I learned from my experience with the Franciscan Order that this kind of covenanted community life has the potential to offer absolutely cracking discipleship, spiritual formation, mission team opportunities, vocational discernment and development, mentoring while you work out your vocation in whatever field you are called to, spiritual accompaniment with a Spiritual Director, training that’s broad and deep, participation in learning communities, reciprocal as well as some minimal hierarchical accountability, and above all else the framework of a covenanted life.

These things don’t happen to sheep. They don’t happen in clergy obsesssed, Christendom-shaped churches that warehouse believers.  Let’s have a future.