Saturday, October 20, 2007
Off To New Orleans
Tomorrow morning (Sunday, October 21) 23 of us from Episcopal Churches in southern Alameda County (Bay Area, for those of you not here) will leave for New Orleans for six days. We'll be working with the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, contributing what we can to the rebuilding work that's still going on after Katrina. Please keep all of us in your prayers for safe travel and lots of energy!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Jesus-Centered and Progressive an Oxymoron?
I've been thinking a lot lately about my personal mission of "building Jesus-centered, progressive and powerful congregations." I know all of these words are loaded with baggage, so I'll give a couple of quick definitions of what I mean.
"Jesus-centered" is the easy one, in a way. It means a community where Jesus Christ is understood to be the center of the community, drawing us together and sustaining us through easy and difficult times. We understand ourselves to be his followers or disciples, broadly and dynamically defining those terms for ourselves, in community, over time.
In short, a "Jesus-centered community," as I understand it, is a place where people can hear Jesus gracious, gentle call and decide for themselves how they want to respond. If they want to become his disciple, we help them in any way we can to do so. Our concern for them does not rely at all on what they choose. We serve others in his name, as well.
By "progressive," I mean that our faith in Jesus Christ generates a profound desire to meet real human needs and learn how to hold up the injustices in our day to the Gospel message. It gives us courage and creativity in dealing with today's problems -- particularly in addressing the systems that create so much suffering in our neighborhoods and around the world.
I also mean something else by the word "progressive" -- something even more radical than normally meant by it. For me, a deepening faith in Jesus Christ generates an interest in how other people understand God -- and even a celebration of it.
It means focusing on my own walk with Jesus and learning from how others walk with the God of their understanding. I don't have to change them, or make them bad and wrong. In fact, their practices and disciplines (Zen meditation, for example) can actually add to the richness, depth and power of my Christian experience!
I'll say much more about this in the months to come, but it's important to get the conversation going. So many "Jesus-centered congregations" are anything but progressive, and so many "progressive" congregations seem to be mushy and vague about Jesus.
I believe we can, and should, put them together. After all, Jesus' core message was progressive to the extent that it focused on the poor at the expense of the rich (he was the original class warrior) and was powerfully transformative and disruptive to the status quo (and incredibly threatening to the power structures of his day). That's why they had to kill him.
So I'll say this. I am proud to call myself a "Christian progressive." And I am such to the exact extent that my faith in Jesus -- my relationship with him, really -- generates an interest in and concern for others, opens me up to the new, to the different, and to the creative, and gives me courage and strength to contribute to what God is doing in the world: transforming it all.
"Jesus-centered" is the easy one, in a way. It means a community where Jesus Christ is understood to be the center of the community, drawing us together and sustaining us through easy and difficult times. We understand ourselves to be his followers or disciples, broadly and dynamically defining those terms for ourselves, in community, over time.
In short, a "Jesus-centered community," as I understand it, is a place where people can hear Jesus gracious, gentle call and decide for themselves how they want to respond. If they want to become his disciple, we help them in any way we can to do so. Our concern for them does not rely at all on what they choose. We serve others in his name, as well.
By "progressive," I mean that our faith in Jesus Christ generates a profound desire to meet real human needs and learn how to hold up the injustices in our day to the Gospel message. It gives us courage and creativity in dealing with today's problems -- particularly in addressing the systems that create so much suffering in our neighborhoods and around the world.
I also mean something else by the word "progressive" -- something even more radical than normally meant by it. For me, a deepening faith in Jesus Christ generates an interest in how other people understand God -- and even a celebration of it.
It means focusing on my own walk with Jesus and learning from how others walk with the God of their understanding. I don't have to change them, or make them bad and wrong. In fact, their practices and disciplines (Zen meditation, for example) can actually add to the richness, depth and power of my Christian experience!
I'll say much more about this in the months to come, but it's important to get the conversation going. So many "Jesus-centered congregations" are anything but progressive, and so many "progressive" congregations seem to be mushy and vague about Jesus.
I believe we can, and should, put them together. After all, Jesus' core message was progressive to the extent that it focused on the poor at the expense of the rich (he was the original class warrior) and was powerfully transformative and disruptive to the status quo (and incredibly threatening to the power structures of his day). That's why they had to kill him.
So I'll say this. I am proud to call myself a "Christian progressive." And I am such to the exact extent that my faith in Jesus -- my relationship with him, really -- generates an interest in and concern for others, opens me up to the new, to the different, and to the creative, and gives me courage and strength to contribute to what God is doing in the world: transforming it all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
