Facebook Flipside – What You Consider Valuable.

I can’t really leave Facebook alone just yet, because you need to consider what it does to relationships outside of the computer screen and keyboard.  Sure, you can send Muppets or throw sheep.  But what happens when this becomes the only form of contact you have with people?  In my experience, it leads to a terrible isolation.  When you publish your status for others to read, it’s writing down how you feel, or something quirky, or inviting questions.  But how does that make up for time spent with friends?  How does that make up for going out for a coffee or some lunch and really taking the time to talk?

The direction that we’re taking is a dangerous one.  I can’t help but think of the desperate need for something to unify us that Facebook pretends to fill.  I can’t help but think of what it means when we no longer know how to interact with one another outside of, for example, playing meaningless games or ‘poking’.  I could go on a very long time about the nature of translating physical realities into digital languages.  Or about shorthand emotions, which eventually lead to us cutting off any wide-ranging passions.  In fact, I probably will go on a bit about that one soon.

The question really is, then…what kind of time do you consider valuable, and is it a correct assumption?

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

The Facebook Phenomenon

I was just thinking today about the meteoric rise of Facebook.  It seems to have literally come out of nowhere, and now dominates the lives of millions of people.  Games and apps seem to come out on a daily basis, and they range from the silly to the sublime.  For example, who wouldn’t want to send Muppets to people?  I mean, c’mon folks.  They’re fuzzy, they’re cool, they’re trendy.  They’re a North American icon.  Who do you know, for example, who hasn’t heard of Kermit the Frog?  Or how about throwing a sheep?  I’m good with that!  What really makes Facebook successful, however, is that it builds a different type of community.  It replaces quality time with feeds.  Bite-sized pieces of life.  And in a world that seems to really be looking for some sort of connection, something to bring us closer together, Facebook gives at least the semblance of fellowship to a content-driven society.

The thing with Facebook, however, is that you can reach such a wide number of people in such a short time.  Your profile updates with your status, links posted, what people have written you or what you have responded to them with.  It gives you a news reader for the personal lives of your friends.  But it also gives you a witnessing tool, if used effectively.  Not necessarily overhanded, swingeing statements about your beliefs, but something a little bit more subtle.  For example, I have a lot of friends who’ve taken to using a Bible verse-a-day application.  It’s not anything wild, just a little box that publishes, generally out of context (unfortunately) a Bible passage a day.  What’s really important to remember about this, however, is that it gets something of the word of the Lord out there.  Facebook friends are of all sorts, and if you can’t always spend time in fellowship with them, you can at least be a form of witness through simple tools such as this.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

New Tribes

When you think about it, all of our vaunted civilization is really just a series of tribal definitions. Looking at the face of any major city, you’ll find neighbourhoods. The Chinatowns, the Bronxes, the Heights crowd, the Hills. In Newfoundland, the baymen. Cities are collections of men and women who have identifying characteristics and tribal costumes. Whole societies have sprung up around cultural events and codes of behaviour. You’ve got your drinking buddies, your classmates, your elders, your professionals; Each one has things which identify them. Being a Christian, however, means that you stand outside tribes in one sense, in the thick of one in another. Part of the reason I believe that there’s such a communication gap between generations, especially, but even between people, is that we don’t understand that the tribal mentality still rules. We have to be aware of traditions, of ceremonies and taboos in order to bring Jesus to those who need him without transgressing the soul of a people and in order to redeem what the Lord has placed in our path for His glory. But more importantly, we need to be aware that the intent is not to impose as a command from ‘us’ to ‘you’ that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; Rather, it is to hold on to the hope that that statement gives us, living in the assurance of that hope. I think I’ll do one more on new tribes a little bit later on.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Bearing Witness I

Looking at iGoogle’s literary quote of the day for today has give me some cause for ponderation.  It’s from William Faulkner, and says “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”  So true, that is.  I’m speaking of articulating where I stand on things and where I need clarification through journaling.  Not just any type of journaling, but prayer journaling.  It really clears some things up when you simply write about them, and then look back.  And it preserves records of insights for the family that (hopefully) will become your legacy, your gift to the world.

It’s really a big thing, starting and raising a family.  So many times, people just give up and get a divorce or, even worse, never marry at all but simply drift through life without ever having to bear responsibility for others.  I was challenged on this point just the other day by one of my good friends.  He launched into a half-joking commentary on the woman that will never get married and the children that will never be brought up in the knowledge and truth of the Lord because I’m a wuss.

Sad thing is, he’s right.  And it doesn’t just apply to me.  The Bible offers perspectives on both the married and the single life, and hundreds of points of wisdom on family, but so many are simply casting aside this great gift because of selfish desires.  And it is a great gift, to have a family on both sides of you:  Parents to raise you, to teach and direct you and to shape who you are to the world; and children, to look up to and learn from you.

Every minute of every day, we teach someone something.  We do this through our actions and through our character.  Most of the time we don’t even acknowledge this truth, but it is essential that we recognize the fact that we bear witness to things in every aspect of our lives.  I think I might riff from this a bit tomorrow, but that’senough for tonight, I would say.

A World Apart – Monasticism

I’m a big fan of the monastic lifestyle for a number of reasons. It’s always been something of my nature to seclude myself, withdrawing from the world for a time and just doing my own thing, and I’m also a big fan of the discipline of retreat. Spiritual disciplines are an entire realm of entries themselves, which might spin off from this next week, but for now I’m just going to look a bit at what it means to be a literal world apart, sequestered unto the Lord.

Thinking about St. Patrick’s Day has got me thinking about the missions of the Celtic saints, and what it was that drew new members to them. What, in fact, all mission should be like, if you think about it at all. Short-term missions work is usually deeds-oriented, offering solutions to practical problems and doing the theology tourist thing. I’m not decrying that form of missions, not at all, but I do want to suggest that it’s not the only kind. Much of a missionary lifestyle is demonstrating the fact that the character is different. That there’s something better than sin, better than Satan. And the monastic communities that won Pictish converts were built as self sustaining, committed communities. Not to impose a belief on pagans, but rather to witness through one’s life and work. To show that there was something honourable, good and holy in the Lord. That’s where we keep slipping up, we frail and foolish creatures. We don’t do any better than the culture we find ourselves in unless we have within us the true knowledge that we have been set apart. That, itself, is something that may take a very long time for any of us to come to terms with.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Call for Responses

To my faithful few readers, whoever and wherever you are;

I’ve decided to begin grouping these posts into essays, and maybe looking into publication. My call here is for you to indicate via comment to this post what, if any, I should put together, polish up and perhaps formalize. Go back through my archives, drop me a line here, and suggest away. I’ll also be searching for topics that I might make into series on here, because I find it’s getting a bit too numbing, and very much a narrowly-focused forum, lamenting the church’s decline rather than edifying by its truths.

Secondly, tell me which entries are the most accessible and the most relevant to you, and I’ll try to make the newer entries more like them, as I write. This is, as I believe, a ministry opportunity if not a ministry, and I need to know if it’s actually a valuable one.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Restoration

This is the second and concluding post on community and exile. They’ve taken a different form than I’d intended, as writing usually does, but I think a better one than I’d planned. Regardless, I want to use this post to talk about restoration, the return to a blasted ruin with the hope of rebuilding.

Honesty in my own heart leads me to the conclusion that as much as I may examine the lack of community within the churches I’ve had experience with, I can’t maintain the argument in all experience, nor can I make a judgment call on all churches from my own limited view. What I can say, however, is that there is a lack of Acts-like fellowship in the age I find myself in, and that the needs and directives to – as in Colossians 3, allow the Word of Christ to dwell in me richly, speak and admonish in hymns and spiritual songs, and as in James 5, confess my sins to others and pray for others – live in community and interact in community are kept less than adequately. In less awkward phrasing, I find that I can’t live these imperatives in the regular community of the church, but rather in fellowship with a rather heterogeneous crew of Christians assembled outside of the Sunday service and even outside of the church I call home. And I doubt that I would be wrong in suggesting that many others are in the same position.

Zipping back and forth between the Testaments, I find myself thinking of the return of the exiles in Babylon to the burned and wrecked Jerusalem…mostly due to the Nehemiah sermons that began coming out of Mars Hill in Seattle last spring. The applications, however, are different. In my view, the very point of the rebuilding of Jerusalem is the restoration of a people’s identity and self-respect. And I do see an upswing in the establishment of a solid foundation in the church that parallels this rebuilding effort, although, sad to say, it is not taking root where the wounds of religion run deep. At least not in the mainstream denominations. So, as I move into Ezra in my personal reading, I keep this hope in mind: That much like the scars in a burned forest slowly heal and flourish again, so to do the scars of religion and the needs of the brethren to find strong community.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Exile

Any community that exists has, as an integral part, those who live on its fringes, excluded from assembly. The pariah (outcast) is as much a part of a community as is the chief, the elder, the head. The Other – a literary term – exists within the same realm as the group, the ones who are ‘the same’. It is recognition of this fact that has been misplaced somewhere along the way, as the institution of the church has evolved. I want to bring it out of the shadows here, as I can.

We, as a community of believers, seem to have lost the knowledge of the truth of our sinfulness and damnation outside of Christ. We seem to have lost the understanding that we are ALL outside of righteousness by our very nature, and that we as Christians can make only one claim that sets us apart from our worldly friends and families…that we can call Jesus’ righteousness our own in Him. It is this central point, however, that opens the doors of grace amidst the ‘outsiders’ we know.

I’ve titled this post ‘Exile’ because I want to make it perfectly clear that this setting apart of our lives, this re-direction of our beings, leaves no room for compromise – especially the compromise of false righteousness. As the Israelites were forced into a land not their own, and as we have been removed from the culture that we are born into, exile is what we face. And we forget, though we must remember, that those who live in the world are, like us, shut away from their true home, whether or not they recognize it.

So what am I trying to say?

First, that the church is often guilty of not recognizing the sinfulness of its own, depending instead on the qualities of a nature defined as ‘good’ because the rules are being kept. Second, that the very people who are disillusioned with the church are, more often than we might like to admit, those who have a more acute grasp of their own evil hearts and sinful natures than we who can claim saving faith do. Third, and perhaps most importantly, that despite our categorizing and rules-laying, despite our ‘righteousness’, we are more like those we’re trying to reach than we want to see. We’re all exiles together, you see, so we have at least one thing in common: displacement. And we all have only one recourse – return. That’s what Christ accomplishes…He opens all the borders, unlocks the gates and tolls, and calls to each and every wanderer “Come home, ye who wander in the dark places. Come home, and be ye welcome in My name.”

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Sufficiency IV – Community

Acts 4:32 – 34
Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold…

Acts 2:42 – 47
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

So why aren’t we able to do this any more? What’s killed the gathering of the believers in such a form as this?

I’ve been building towards this entry for the last little while, because I know it’s the most tragic loss to the church, and the most important of what needs to be seen again in the age of isolation. This entry is both the last of an old and the first of a new subset of examinations. My aim here is to look at the insufficiency of the church community now, and the ways it needs to and can improve to be culturally missional, reaching out to the lonely and the alone, the isolated and ignored…those that we no longer choose to see or hear because we lock ourselves into worlds of smoke and mirrors.

I believe that everyone should go through the experience of leaving one place to move to another. I believe that it is of the utmost importance to learn to build community amongst one another in Christian fellowship. And most importantly, I believe that we need to get alone with our faith or lack thereof in order to get together with the sick and dying who need to share it.

Hell is real. The absence of community is one manifestation of Hell on earth, when the tender soul is isolated and attacked, dealt blows of guilt and accusation, and tormented with the maddening inability to feel a part of anything or anywhere. And it is just as rampant in the church as anywhere else – probably moreso in the church than anywhere else, actually. We are all alone in the pews on more occasions than we care to admit, feeling cut off from the people around us and outcast with our own terrifying sinfulness. So many feel as if nothing can establish a place of common ground. And what the average church offers to combat this is, frankly, worse than nothing. It is the illusion of togetherness in vast and empty buildings, in sanctuaries where the teaching minister or pastor appears in the pulpit on Sunday morning and not again until the next week, shakes your hand and wishes you well. This is the nightmare that so many face unless they live their lives intentionally outside of the church, seeking out fellowship worthy of the example of Christ, making efforts to seek out believers with whom we can share our inner selves, and living (most importantly, this), as exiles together.

I say exiles and mean a number of different things in it: exiles in a land of foreigners, sojourners in a country not our own; people who live lives with a sense of the difference Christ makes and the necessary exile from the ways of the world and the friendships or relationships formed within those confines.

So what am I trying to say?

That community is grown organically, and grown for a purpose…that being to glorify God in the tasks He has appointed for His servants. That we are exiles in this land, cast out from our true home and dispersed to do God’s work in a culture we cannot fall subject to and begin to live within the confines of. That we are not alone in being outcast. And these are the things to which I’ll be devoting some significant attention to over the next two or three posts (no more, as I need to begin looking at the truth of sufficient grace, sufficient love, sufficient power, and sufficient accomplishment). Keep a weather eye out!

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.