In Christian circles, optimism typically is built on the idea that God's central purpose is to bless us with the kind of life we want or to transform culture into a friendlier environment for Christians . . . Christian leaders tell us that our prayers, activism, and united influence will turn our nation around and usher in a godly society. [They] may be guilty of distracting us from the real call of God. It is our individual lives and our Christian communities that must turn around. We must learn to continue serving Christ when problems come and to draw closer to Christ in the middle of unrelieved suffering. Whatever influence we have on culture must be the product of a deep passion for God, a passion that makes us into attractively different people and keeps us struggling together in community that is imperfectly but genuinely loving.

Social crusading is so much easier than finding God. Fighting for Christian standards sometimes seems to involve a belligerence that compromises humility, or an aggression that masquerades as courage ... Neither social crusading nor solving our problems stirs the kind of self-awareness that lets us know that the real problem is within ourselves ... The' great need of our day will not be met by training more counsellors. It will not be met by leaders calling us to join the fight against moral pollution, in our society ... [We need] communities of people who care about outsiders and draw those outside into something they've never known but have always wanted. Communities of people whose passion for Christ is stronger than their grudges, their competition for recognition, and their jealous feelings... [Who] are so consumed with knowing Christ better that they hang in there through the messiness of community and never give up on themselves or others, because they know that Christ hasn't given up -- and never will.

To become this kind of people we most certainly need transformation. The question I have for myself is one that asks in a deep way, “Am I willing to be transformed?” We need communities that are both inviting and prophetic. “ a quote from Cecil Murray, “"The church must be prophetic or it will be pathetic.” So how will these churches come into being. Or what do I see needs to happen in order to see more churches that are community instead of institution. Well first it needs to be said that very few people will want these kinds of communities. First, deconstruction. Those who know there is something wrong need to leave….. and not bring with them the old paradigm of “church” They must build on a new foundation. Secondly the agenda has to be bearing one another’s burdens. The program way of thinking about church must go. Being relational or organic will become more and more the reality. Third, we must be willing to listen to the Spirit and change direction at a moments notice. In the beginning (which may be the next 10 years) we must be willing to count the cost. The groups that are formed will unlikely be our group for the long term. We will have to be willing to change groups, be part of two groups and generally go where the Lord leads. Until the Lords begins to give us more people in our area this will be the norm. Fourth, the poor, the widow, the downtrodden, the orphan, the homeless and so on must once again become an essential part of who we are. Fifth, when we understand that we are to be in the world but not of it then we will begin once again to have influence in the world. But this will not come about by trying to get Christians elected into government positions and trying to get N. Americans living by Christian-Judeo values. Like Crabb says, It is our Christian communities that need to turn around.
But be warned this will not be the easier way. Transformation and transition rarely are. We need to hang in there through the messiness of community. We most certainly need people who are strong in the Lord and not strong in themselves. Am I ready. NOOOO! But I am willing to begin the journey.

I’d like to introduce our little home fellowship of 5. There are Paul and Eleanor, Wayne and Lynn and me. Our ages range from 47 to 53. Paul is a school teacher and a lot of his students have terrible home situations. There is much day to day challenge in his work with these students. Eleanor teaches music and is quite busy with that. Along side of that she is taking a university course. They are a wonderful couple. They are very committed to our group and very committed to reaching out to others whom the Lord has brought their way. They are not people who come to the meetings to receive but to give. Wayne travels from Regina to the Toronto area. He supplies books to evangelical bookstores all across this area. He is often away. Because he has the salesman blood, he is very good at making contacts with others who may be interested in home fellowships. Wayne also makes a lot of contacts around here with people that need a friend. He inspires me quite a lot in this area. He is also a giver. Linda, my wife works at Bethesda hospital in Steinbach as an RN. Linda is the most content person I have ever known. She is a listener, a friend and a compassionate person. She is also a giver. Then there is me. A royal sh…. disturber. I am laid off at this very moment. I worked for a couple of months in the fall at construction. Not sure I want to do that full time. By April I hope to be working 25 to 30 hours a week somewhere. Hopefully people see me as a giver also.
I love being part of this group. Recently we made a decision to meet only every two weeks. The alternate weeks we would get together with couples who don’t go to church or are struggling with church. This would be over coffee at a restaurant or in the home or whatever. Wayne gets together with two men (separately) and loves them. He invited me to have coffee with one of them and himself. We went to the restaurant and went to Wayne’s to pray, read from the word and encouraged each other. Wayne’s friend is also meeting with another fellow who has just recently divorced and is hurting. So we prayed for that fellow. I explained to him that we weren’t trying to get him to join our group. That we were willing to fellowship with him regardless. I also said he was free to come to our meetings. I encouraged him to at least network with us. I believe we are trying to give people the sense that church is not about what group you join but how we will care for one another. Now I do believe that being part of a group is crucial for a number of reasons, one of them is that people tend to get forgotten if they are not. We are excited that many such groups will begin popping up everywhere. Two or three gathered in his name as well as 10 to 20 who meet in homes.
This is it for now. I will share what happens to our children in all of this some other time.

Jesus said “the kingdom of God is like a little child.”

Surf’s up… mmmmmmmm aboard a tidal wave.
Come about hard and join the young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children’s song

A child, a child, a child oh is the father of the man
A child, a child, a child oh is the father of the man
A children’s song
Have you listened as they play
Their song is love
And the children know the way
(Brian Wilson-Van Dyke Parks, sung by the Beach Boys)

Last night I was thinking about this song and what Jesus said about children. I wonder if Jesus wasn’t thinking about the mammon spirit when he spoke these words. Give a child (one, two or three year old) a thousand dollar bill and watch what he/she does with it. He might throw it up in the air. Or he might try to eat it. He’ll take it out and as you’re cleaning up you find it in the sandbox covered in doggie dooo. The next day you find it in three pieces in different parts of the house. Money and it’s value means diddly squat to a child. The child is dancing, making his way through endless fantasies. Doing what he was meant to do.
Then it happens……….
He learns the value of money. He desires it, craves it, hoards it, works long, long hours for it. Give adults a thousand dollar bill, and right away they are planning and scheming what to buy with it. Few of us are unscathed. My wife’s parents used to put a check for a certain amount under all their children’s plates at our Christmas family gathering in their home. After looking at the check, our eyes would get big and we would all humbly say, “Mom and dad you didn’t have to. This is too much.” A few years later they doubled the amount and our same old humble response, Mom and dad you didn’t…….” Then one year they had to revert back to their original amount. As we looked at the check something happened in our hearts. We didn’t mean for our hearts to sink. Nor did we mean to think those selfish words, “That’s all?” We just said in a half hearted tone, “Mom and dad you didn’t have to.” What makes perfectly good people bare their teeth at each other when it comes time to split up the inheritance money.
But let’s look at the children. They are not even worried about where they will get their next meal. They are busy doing what they are meant to do.

Jesus said, “Take no thought for tomorrow…….for your heavenly Father cares for you.

Some favorite quotes;
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE:

Why is it so important that solitude come before community? If we do not know we are the beloved sons and daughters of God, we're going to expect someone in the community to make us feel that way. They cannot. We'll expect someone to give us that perfect, unconditional love. But community is not loneliness grabbing onto loneliness: "I'm so lonely, and you're so lonely" It's solitude grabbing onto solitude: "I am the beloved; you are the beloved; together we can build a home." Sometimes you are close, and that's wonderful. Sometimes you don't feel much love, and that's hard. But we can be faithful. We can build a home together and create space for God and for the children of God.

Within the discipline of community are the disciplines of forgiveness and celebration. Forgiveness and celebration are what make community, whether a marriage, a friendship, or any other form of community.

What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is to allow the other person not to be God. Forgiveness says, "I know you love me, but you don't have to love me unconditionally, because no human being can do that." (Henri Nouwen..... From Solitude to Community)

The first community of disciples was known as those who turned the world upside down. They were constantly challenging the dominant values of their culture and paying the price. The contemporary church is one of the strongest apologists for protecting the dominant values of modern culture and is uncomfortable with those who challenge these values.

The reason this happens, I believe, is that we not only have settled for a model of discipleship that ignores cultural transformation but also have accepted a model of church that has too often chosen to silently sanction all the values of the dominant culture, unless they are blatantly immoral. And in the process we have become domesticated. Somehow it has escaped out attention that McWorld isn’t really our home, that we are called to be sojourners, resident aliens in this world.

In other words, my ecclesiology leads me to believe that the church isn’t just a place where we worship and consume activities and programs that “meet our needs.” But it is rather called to be a countercultural community that is called to unmask the values of the dominant culture, rather than sanctioning them, and to helping those both inside and outside the church to find a new way home. (Tom Sine ....... Mustard Seed Versus Mcworld

SIGNS AND WONDERS:

The story is told of Dominic who was given the royal tour by the Pope when he visited Rome. After witnessing the lavish wealth of the Vatican, the Pope turned to Dominic and said "Saint Peter can no longer say 'silver and gold have I none.'" Dominic replied, "Neither can he say ‘rise and walk.’"

FREEDOM:

God's freedom is freedom to love, rejoice, to sing and dance, but it is also a freedom to sacrifice, to mourn and feel the pain of others. This freedom releases us to serve and lift mankind from every form of bondage! How often do we pursue freedom from such obvious prisons such as poverty and sickness, but fail to realize how bound we are to the subtle powers of complacency, indifference and to the illusions of vanity and materialism? These also rob us of our ability to be truly and fully free! (Dan Beaty)

COMMUNITIES OF SUBVERSION:

To fully activate ourselves individually, many are finding that a return to various expressions of Christian community is necessary. While some practice their concepts in actual separate communities on farms out in the country, others are being directed by the Lord to begin thinking in these terms where they already are now. By acts of obedience to God we are breaking away from the trends of our time. We know that God wants us to be more closely integrated in our lives together. Therefore we must make the effort to build relationships that allow for what He wants to accomplish in us individually and corporately. (Dan Beaty)

We never have expected to hit upon that final stable structure. This is important for a church to understand, for when it starts to be the church it will be constantly be adventuring out into places where there are no tried and tested ways. If the church in our day has few prophetic voices above the noise of the street, perhaps in large part it is because the pioneering spirit has become foreign to it. It shows little willingness to explore new ways. Where it does it has often been called an experiment. We would say the church of Christ is never an experiment, but where that church is true to it's mission it will be experimenting, pioneering, blazing new paths, seeking how to speak the reconciling words of God to it's own age." It cannot do this if it is held captive by the structures of another day. (Elizabeth O’Connor….Call to Commitment)
The cost of deconstructing what church is all about and then re-constructing it will be great. But what we must ask is what will we give our lives to and what do we hope to accomplish by this reconstructing? I have been reading about Alleon and the conferences that they had a few weeks ago. Allelon means bearing one another’s burdens. This is the reconstructing that we need. Along with that is to see ourselves as missionary people. This is why O’Connors words are so crucial. We need to be blazing new paths. Incarnational and missional are the central issues. (not what we do as a church service). To focus in on trying to be relevant may be in fact an enemy to incarnational living
An extremely thoughtful blog by Jeremiah Smith on the subject. http://miah.blogspot.com/

If anybody ever reads this and can help me with the comments section HEEEEEELP