p a s s i o n + r e a s o n

Although the whirlwind touring and meeting and greeting with friends and relatives in Indonesia has left little time for reflection and meditation, I find some of the themes I've been thinking through giving me more strength to "unplug" from institutional church.

This process has been underway for a good seven or so years now, and now I'm starting to become more intentional about it - and also more constructive in how I go about it.

Being in Indonesia where most (if not all) of my nuclear family are "Christian", and seeing how the communities and churches are arranged and the role they play in the lives of my family, the people, the community, and the nation - or the absence of that influence, or the type of influence has been giving me good reflection material. Conversations with Ruth and Ben have also been re-inforcing my move away from institutional and programmatic forms of church. The church - to my non-expert eyes - has largely become a cultural phenomenon contained largely within the context of the Chinese-Indonesian community. The church is largely concerned about about a gospel of personal salvation, enforcing behaviour with legalistic terms, and seemingly little else (the members are very rich in a country that is mired in poverty - and are quite disconnected with the societal and structural issues). Of course no church is perfect, but I see here a group of people ripe for another reformation of the heart.

A good sermon by Dr. Siang Yang Tan (this past Sunday at JICF) on "The Ministry of Encouragement" encouraged me to continue pursuing Christ down this path. I find that my conscience leads me to put my energy in organic forms of church. Somethings he mentioned are somethings I, too, have been meditating on and expressing with others:

• Being simply pre-occupied with our great God
• Love people into the Kingdom
• Love as the highest apologetic (John 13:34-35)
• Organic vs. institutional
• Spirituality vs. religiousity
• People vs. programs
• Being church to non-Christians/unchurched/non-yet-disciples/heathens/etc. vs. bringing them to church

I'll leave this post hanging a little - but here's a great quote by Alan Roxburgh (by way of Jordon Cooper)

We need a movement of God's people into neighborhoods, to live out and be the new future of Christ. It must be a movement that demonstrates how the people of God have a vision and the power to transform our world. This is not the same as current attempts to grow bigger and bigger churches that act like vacuum cleaners, sucking people out of their neighborhoods into a sort of Christian supermarket. Our culture does not need any more churches run like corporations; it needs local communities empowered by the gospel vision of a transforming Christ who addresses the needs of the context and changes the polis into a place of hope and wholeness. The corporation churches we are cloning across the land cannot birth this transformational vision, because they have no investment in context or place; they are centers of expressive individualism with a truncated gospel of personal salvation and little else.

Our penchant for bigness and numerical success as the sign of God's blessing only discourages and deflects attempts to root communities of God's people deeply into neighborhoods. And until we build transformed communities there is no hope for a broken earth.

Now your thoughts...