Miror « W. Davd Phillips

Archive for the ‘Miror’ Category

The Great Commission as Incarnational

Friday, January 16th, 2009

GloboChrist

I have spent years quoting the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19-20:

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (NIV)

Yet I never noticed the emphasis on the very end of the text, “I am with you always…”

Carl Raschke, in GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn (The Church and Postmodern Culture), notes “The Great Commission, as many close readers of the Gospel text itself might have emphasized, is not really about getting the message out…It is about manifesting and making real the meaning of the paradox of the incarnation and the miracle of Christ’s reception.” (48)

In addition: “The Great Commission, when all is said and done, rests upon the great postmodern preposition – the ‘with’ of divine relation as contrasted with the ‘is’ of doctrinal propositions. God is never what he is ‘in himself.’ God is always mit uns (with us) or für uns (for us), as Luther insisted. He is what he is in relation to us…It is not divine revelation so much as it is divine relation, a relationship that is ‘with us always.’ It is a relation that must be propagated until the ‘end of time’” (48)

I really like this thought. What are your thoughts?

Tags: Incarnational, Miror, Missional
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The MIROR: Organic Indigenization

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Rhizome: Organic Indigenization

I want to return to the MIROR concept, specifically the Organic aspect of the framework. I have been reading Carl Raschke’s GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn (The Church and Postmodern Culture) and he makes several very interesting statements which I want to simply touch on for now:

Westerners cling to the outmoded modernist assumption that Christianity is basically the same, or should be the same, everywhere in the world; it is easy for us to miss what exactly is the latest third-millennium installment of worldwide efforts to fulfill the Great Commission. Because the Western Christianity we know has for years been slowly dying, or at least sputtering, we are wont to suppose that the faith as a whole is in its terminal stages. (42)

Christianity, however, is growing. In fact, there is a rapid expansion of Christianity in areas outside of the West.

Global, postmodern Christianity has three characteristics: decentralization, de-institutionalization, and indigenization. Indigenization is the process where “universal concepts are intelligible only if they are understood in light of specific circumstances. “(39) In fact, one philosopher insists that “the basic notion of universally valid ‘scientific’ concepts, as ensconced in Greek philosophy and so ingrained in the thought habits of the modern West, distorts underlying laws of language and meaning by which people actually communicate and agree with one another.” Meaning is only located in the singularity of the event. In other words, meaning is only locally determined.

Lamin Sanneh, in his book, Whose Religion Is Christianity?: The Gospel beyond the West, discusses the explosion in Africa. He notes that in Africa, “Christian expansion was virtually limited to those societies whose people had preserved the indigenous name for God. That was a surprising discovery, because of the general feeling that Christianity was incompatible with indigenous ideas of religion.” (18)

Rascke notes that “indigenization in Africa has followed the pattern of Catholicism in the ancient Mediterranean and in the northern Europe of the Middle Ages. Local ‘pagan’ forms of worship and religious discourse are also transformed into expressions consonant with the gospel itself.” (43)

From the beginning of my studies with Len Sweet, he noted to us that Christianity would take various forms in various cultures. There would be the transformation of religious practices and language. In fact the practice might continue, but would be transformed by the Gospel. Christianity should look different in different cultures. It should not look like Western Christianity. And Allah, for the Christian God, is a valid use of the term.

I’ll return to this later and talk about the dynamic core that Raschke discusses. Also, Todd Littleton and I are preparing to do a vodcast about the book soon, so be looking for that.

Tags: Miror, Miror Theology, Missional
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The Value of the Kingdom of God

Monday, November 17th, 2008

Sharing a parable from Matthew a couple of weeks ago, I noted to our small group that the Kingdom of God must have value for today. If it is only future tense, then there is no reason to live under the rule and reign of Christ.

The way we frame salvation only places the true value of Gospel, and the Kingdom of God, in the future. We also limit the Kingdom’s effectiveness by how we frame salvation. We frame salvation as getting out of hell and getting into heaven. Doing so means that salvation has little impact for our lives today; it is not something to place a lot of value, time and effort into.

So what value does the Kingdom of God have for you? And why should that even matter?

1. We sacrifice everything for that which we place high value.

Our family. Our job. Our stuff. We place high values on them, do we not? We have insurance in case our stuff gets destroyed, we spend most our time at work, and what little time is left we spend it with our family. We sacrifice so our kids can get braces, go to the best school and have all they need (or better yet, all they want).

But answer this question…What have you sacrificed for the Kingdom of God? Have you left family, friends, and your possessions for the Kingdom of God?

2. It is obvious what we value, because of the sacrifice we make for it.

Isn’t that what I just said? Probably, but I want to frame it a different way. It is not what you say that demonstrates what you value; it is what you do. Most pastor types sacrifice all for the church. Most pastor types want their lay people types to sacrifice for the church, and one church particular.

But the church is not the kingdom. It is not our responsibility to build the church. Let me say that again: It is not your responsibility or my responsibility to build the church. That is Christ’s responsibility (Matthew 16:18). It is not even your church. It is Christ’s church (Matthew 16:18).

If we de-emphasize the church and emphasize what we should be prioritizing (Matthew 6:33) then our focus is bigger than the organized church. And the church is able to move out of the institution and into the MIROR-ing.

3. It we emphasize what Christ told us to prioritize, then all that we need will be added to the intimate relationship we have with Jesus.

The food, the shelter, the clothes, they will all be added to the relational rule of Christ in our lives.

How do we return value to the Kingdom?

1. Determine how you spend your time, energy and money. What do you emphasize in your life? Examine your finances. Examine your weekly schedule. Examine what you read. Pastors, examine what you teach and preach and what you model in your life. Examine how you work with other churches and pastors. Examine how your church participates in the kingdom glocally. What does the church spend it’s money on? Where do the majority of its resources get used?

2. Work through the scriptures to determine the value of the Kingdom of God. This is something I am in the process of doing. Find the scriptures that talk about the Kingdom of God and see what value it has for us today. What value does the Gospel have for us today? (Beware, this will change your view of the Gospel. Most of us do not have a proper theology of the Gospel.) If we do not know the intrinsic, personal, and present value of the kingdom, we will not sacrifice for it nor will we emphasize it. Not valuing the kingdom means we will de-emphasize it, and place the emphasis on something else.

I realize the value of the church as it is used by God to build for the Kingdom. But the church is just one tool God will use. If we over-emphasize it, we miss the Kingdom, which is where our priority should be placed, both individually and corporately. And what we value, we will give our all for!

Tags: Gospel, Kingdom of God, Miror
Posted in Feature Articles, Miror, Misc, Missional | No Comments »