edmonton #2

1. 1 Corinthians 13

2. I will show you the most excellent
way./
Follow the way of love./
If I speak in the tongues of men and
of angels,/
but have not love, I am a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal./

3. And if I have prophetic powers,/
and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge,/
and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains,/
but have not love, I am nothing./

4. If I give away all I have,/
And if I deliver my body to be
burned, /
but have not love, I gain nothing./
Love is patient and kind;/
Love is not jealous or boastful;/
Love is not arrogant or rude./
Love does not insist on its own way;/

5. Love is not irritable or resentful;/
Love does not rejoice at wrong, but
rejoices in the right./
Love bears all things,/
believes all things,/
hopes all things,/
endures all things./
Love never ends./

6. As for prophecies, they will pass away;/
As for tongues, they will cease;/
As for knowledge, it will pass away./
For our knowledge and our prophecy are
immature;/
But when maturity comes,/
the immature will pass away./

7. When I was a child, I spoke and
thought and reasoned like a child,/
But when I became an adult,/
I gave up childish ways./
For now we see in a mirror dimly,/
But then face to face./
Now I know in part; then I shall
understand fully,/
Even as I have been fully
understood./

8. So faith, hope, and love abide, these
three;/
But the greatest of these is
love./
I will show you the most excellent
way./
Follow the way of love./
Amen./

10. What remains?

11. What needs to be left behind?

12. What needs to be “recycled” for the benefit of
new life?

14. What needs to sprout up “on the other side?”

16. Cultivating Mission-
shaped Congregations

17. How things should be
Tension
How things are

18. How things are
Tension
How things were

19. How things can be
Tension
How things are
Tension
How things were

20. churches in
intentional tension:
ten characteristics of
churches in
transition/
transformation

21. What are the characteristics?
1. Formed by the triple narrative of creation,
liberation, and reconciliation
2. Celebrates the Bible as an inspired,
authoritative library - not a constitution.
3. Worships God as Christ-like: non-tribal and
non-violent.

22. 4. Loves Jesus as the Word of God, and
reads the Bible through Christ.
5. Preaches (and creatively translates) the
gospel of the kingdom of God.

23. 6. Rediscovers the church as a
disciple/apostle-forming community.
7. Talks honestly about sexuality,
calls to sexual sanity.
8. Embraces a participatory
eschatology and its anticipatory
ethic.

24. 9. Practices Christ-like
neighborliness toward people of
other faiths.
10. Welcomes questions, pursues
this unending quest.

25. imagine this quest
conversation
friendship
hosted and facilitated
in a neighborhood
church near you

26. The Mission-Shaped
Church:
A School/Studio of Love ...
Loving God
Loving neighbors

27. Loving God
Loving neighbors
How much - and how - do
we teach these
essentials?

28. How to love God ...
not just ...
How to love neighbors ...
not just ...

29. 1 Corinthians 13

30. I will show you the most excellent
way./
Follow the way of love./
If I speak in the tongues of men and
of angels,/
but have not love, I am a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal./

31. And if I have prophetic powers,/
and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge,/
and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains,/
but have not love, I am nothing./

32. If I give away all I have,/
And if I deliver my body to be
burned, /
but have not love, I gain nothing./
Love is patient and kind;/
Love is not jealous or boastful;/
Love is not arrogant or rude./
Love does not insist on its own way;/

33. Love is not irritable or resentful;/
Love does not rejoice at wrong, but
rejoices in the right./
Love bears all things,/
believes all things,/
hopes all things,/
endures all things./
Love never ends./

34. As for prophecies, they will pass away;/
As for tongues, they will cease;/
As for knowledge, it will pass away./
For our knowledge and our prophecy are
immature;/
But when maturity comes,/
the immature will pass away./

35. When I was a child, I spoke and
thought and reasoned like a child,/
But when I became an adult,/
I gave up childish ways./
For now we see in a mirror dimly,/
But then face to face./
Now I know in part; then I shall
understand fully,/
Even as I have been fully
understood./

36. So faith, hope, and love abide, these
three;/
But the greatest of these is
love./
I will show you the most excellent
way./
Follow the way of love./
Amen./

38. Loving God
- with all your heart
- with all your mind
- with all your soul
- with all your strength
Loving self
- Being a friend to yourself
- Self-care/ Soul-care
- Self-examination/knowledge
- Self-discipline/development/donation
Loving others
- Neighbor, brother/sister, friend
- Stranger, alien, and other
- Outcast and enemy
- Nonhuman “neighbors” - plants, animals, ecosystem

39. Loving God
- with all your heart
- with all your mind
- with all your soul
- with all your strength

40. Loving Self
- Being a friend to yourself
- Self-care/Soul-care
- Self-knowledge/examination
- Self-discipline/development/
donation

41. Loving Others
- Neighbor, brother/sister, friend
- Stranger, alien, and other
- Outcast and enemy
- Nonhuman “neighbors” - plants,
animals, ecosystem

42. What educational goals?
What overt curriculum?
What covert curriculum?
What learning methods and styles?
What learning environments?
What forms and practices?
What enrollment policy?
What teacher training? Prof. development?
What frequency and intensity?
What pace and sequence?
What rites of passage?
What degrees or honors?

43. What Scope and Sequence?
Birth - Age 5
Age 5 - 11
Age 12 - 18
Age 18 - 29
Thirties
Forties
etc.

44. A New Catechism
A. How do you grow your love for
God?
B. How do you grow in self-
knowledge?
C. How do you develop deep
friendships?
D. How do you love people of other
religions?

45. A New Catechism
E. How do you love the alien or
stranger?
F. How do you love the outcast?
G. How do you love the antagonist,
critic, wounder, or enemy?
H. How do you love the earth?

46. A wild idea …
You can do this.
In your home.
Without permission.
See what happens.
Maybe enlist a few co-conspirators.
But keep it a secret as long as
possible.

47. Spirituality

48. Spirituality
Community

49. Spirituality
Community Mission

50. Loving God
Loving
outcast,
stranger,
Loving One enemy,
Another other

51. Seminar
Disciple-making
Community building
Community Organizing
Monastery Mission Agency

52. Seminar
Disciple-making
Community building
Studio of Love
Community Organizing
Monastery Mission Agency

61. There are many reasons to
compare our churches to an
old male tortoise …

62. There are many reasons to
compare our churches to an old
male tortoise …
Slow-moving … isolated …
Ancient-looking
withdrawn in its shell … won’t stick its
neck out

63. There are
many reasons
to compare
the changes
in our world
to a tsunami
…

64. There are many reasons to
compare the emerging global
culture to an orphaned hippo …
Orphaned by religion …
science … government …
the economy … technology …
consumerism… “progress”…

66. -formation?
What could happen in our world
if we turned back outward
toward our neighbors - with good
news, hope, gentleness, and
respect?

68. Cultivating Mission-
shaped Congregations

70. a poem by sam
shoemaker

71. I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor
stay too far out,
The door is the most
important door in the world -
It is the door through which
people walk when they find
God.

72. They creep along as if blind,
With outstretched, groping
hands.
Feeling for a door, knowing
there must be a door,
Yet they never find it…
So I stand by the door.

73. The most tremendous thing in the
world
Is for men and women, boys and
girls, to find that door - the door to
God.
The most important thing any of
us can do
Is to take hold of one of those
blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch -

74. The latch that only clicks
And opens to the person’s own
touch.
People die outside that door
As starving beggars die,
On cold nights in cruel cities in
the dead of winter -
Die for want of what is within
their grasp.

75. They live, on the other side of
it - live because they have
not found it.
Nothing else matters
compared to helping them
find it,
And open it, and walk in, and
find God…
So I stand by the door.

76. There’s no use my going way
inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside
and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door
is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door
ought to be.

77. Go in, great saints, go all the
way in -
Go way down into the
cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious
attics -
It is a vast, roomy house, this
house where God is.

78. Go into the deepest of hidden
casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of
sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner
rooms,
And know the depths and heights
of God.
And call outside to the rest of us
how wonderful it is.

79. Sometimes I take a deeper
look in,
Sometimes venture in a little
farther;
But my place seems closer to
the opening…
So I stand by the door.

80. There is another reason why I stand
there.
Some people get part way in and
become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house
devour them.
For God is so very great, and asks all of
us.
And these people feel a cosmic
claustrophobia

81. And want to get out. “Let me out!” they
cry.
And the people way inside terrify them
more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell
them that they are spoiled
For the old life, they have seen too
much:
Once taste God, and nothing but God
will do any more.

82. Somebody must be watching for the
frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they
came in,
To tell them how much better it is
inside.
The people too far in do not see how
near these are
To leaving - preoccupied with the
wonder of it all.

83. Somebody must watch for those who have
entered the door, but would like to run
away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door.
I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it
was
Before they got in. Then they would be
able to help

84. The people who have not yet even
found the door,
Or the people who want to run away
again from God.
You can go in too deeply, and stay in
too long,
And forget the people outside the
door.

85. As for me, I shall take my old
accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear God, and
know God is there,
But not so far from people as not to hear
them,
And remember they are there, too.
Where? Outside the door --
Thousands of them, millions of them.

86. But - more important for me
- One of them, two of them,
ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended
to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door
and wait
For those who seek it.
“I had rather be a door-
keeper…”

87. So I stand by the door.
(Samuel Moor Shoemaker, 1893 -
1963)

88. So I stand by the door.
(Samuel Moor Shoemaker, 1893 -
1963)

89. The Church Question