Monday Reflection for Week 5 January 31, 2007

One aspect of Fuller I really appreciate is the diversity of faith traditions represented and valued. Before coming here, I read Brian McLaren’s Generous Orthodoxy, in which he highlights Kingdom elements across the Christian horizon, from varying denominations to politics to environmentalism. Because it is hard for me to see things in simply black and white terms, I loved the shades of gray in his book. I have often been frustrated by the narrowness in which Christians can choose to become enslaved, as they are unwilling to entertain the thought that perhaps another perspective or methodology or interpretation exists which may be just as valid, albeit different.

In class, we were able to see some of these kingdom elements within different traditions as well as honestly look at ways in which they do not embody the kingdom. I find this honesty refreshing, taking a step back from personal preferences or experiences alone in order to see the big picture: an imperfect tapestry that reflects our need for an omnipotent, transcendant God.

Wednesday Reflection for Week Four January 29, 2007

I really enjoyed class! I loved the balance of lecture, focused questions based on the lecture, indiviual time of application to our case study, and small group time to share and discuss.

 Applying justice to the public school classroom and public education as a whole really got me thinking and made me really excited about all the possibilites. If we really believe in justice for all, what extents are we willing to go to? I instantly thought of the unique challenges of teaching in an urban, inner city context. Children and famlies that do not speak English, are impoverished and lack emotional and physical resources are just a few examples. How willing are we really to ensure that everything, down to the details of school supplies is just?

Book Review: Sider et al, Churches That Make a Difference. 2002. Baker Books January 29, 2007

Ronald Sider is the founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action and professor of theology and culture at Eastern Baptist Seminary. Philip Olson is the director of the resource and network ministry Network 9:35, as well as the vice president for church relations at Evangelicals for Social Action. Heidi Unruh, a researcher and writer on the topic of FBO’s, is the associate director of the Congregations, Communities, and Leadership Development Project at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

 

The authors of Churches That Make a Difference present a holistic approach to the church’s mission that encompasses evangelism, discipleship, and social action equally and work together to transform communities both spiritually and socially. They respond to Christians who emphasize either a social gospel or evangelism at the expense of the other with biblical and practical balance, using Jesus as a model. An important contribution to the ongoing debate, I think this book is a good bridge between the two sides of the fence, asserting that the exclusion of either leaves a church incomplete.

 

After laying a foundation supporting the centrality of holistic ministry in the church, the authors describe practical strategies of embodiment. The church must be healthy, relational, and worshiping, and must be united in vision and leadership. Its ministry should be organized and intentional. Case studies woven throughout provide examples of the diversity among congregations as they live this holistic approach out in varying contexts.

 

Finding a balance between evangelism and social action is especially relevant in my case study of the public school classroom. What is my role as a teacher in this “secular” sphere? Because of the nature of the context and its limitations, I find myself focusing heavily on ministering to students and families socially, and easily forget about ministering to them spiritually. Also, what is the role of the church in public education? The concepts in this book shed light on these questions. 

 

First, I need a strong foundation on which to build my ministry to children, families, and staff. Prayer, worship, study, authentic community, and discipleship must be at the core of my personal life. While these may seem like obvious needs of any Christian, in my experience they have been some of the first things to go when the demands of working to transform the lives of students and families becomes all consuming. I am tempted to take on a “savior” complex, as these authors warn against, acting like I can work hard enough to meet their physical, emotional, social, and educational needs on my own. If the spiritual life of those I come in contact with is not on the forefront of my mind, I will miss out on both implicit and explicit ways to share Jesus with them.

 

In addition, I feel I have unique role as a bridge between the public education system and the church. According to these authors, one of the challenges for a church is to accurately assess the needs and culture of a community, build relationships, and figure out exactly how the church can best serve. I am beginning to imagine what it would look like for me to live, work, and attend church in the same neighborhood and intentionally connect those spheres. I would have my finger on the pulse of the school community and individuals within it. Depending on the specific needs within the context, our church could start a tutoring program, before- and after- school programs, partner with the PTA, and volunteer in a myriad of ways to serve the school and families.  Because the public school is such an open door to touching the lives of so many families in a community, the opportunities would be many and the potential impact immense.  

 

Monday Reflection for Week 4 January 24, 2007

As we approach the middle of week four, I have to say I have mixed feelings about this class. I started the quarter off with a lot of anticipation, having just finished Transforming Contemporary Culture with Bolger in the Fall. That class was rich with depth, different perspectives, and interpretations of Jesus’ ministry and its application to our lives today. We had a lot of lecture full of “meat”. In fact, I found myself frantically typing on my computer almost every class so I wouldn’t miss anything. Ironically, my biggest suggestion at the end of the quarter was to allow more small group time so we could discuss some of these ideas that were presented in class.

Now, in Church and Mission, I feel that the tables have completely turned. My laptop lays silent as we spent the vast majority of the time in discussion in our small groups.

Personally, as a teacher, I definitely see the value in interactive learning and in the application and synthesis of ideas. Actually, the highest level of thinking critically is synthesizing different information, as we are doing in our small groups when we take information from Lohfink, Fuellenbach,              and infuse it into our case study and our personal spheres.

I also believe, however, that we need more than just the information from the readings as a shared knowledge base on which to build effective small group discussions. If I wanted to read books and discuss them in small groups, I feel like I could do that as an independant study. I am at Fuller, in great part, because of the amazing professors and the depth of knowledge and experience they bring to the classroom. My expectations were far surpassed last quarter and I would love to hear more insight and “meat” this quarter as well!

Book Review: Veli-Matti Karkkainen, An Introduction to Ecclesiology, 2002 Intervarsity January 22, 2007

Veli-Matti Karkkainen is an author and associate professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. He has written such books as Pneumatology: An Introduction. In this book, An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical and Global Perspectives, Karkkainen gives a thorough and clearly articulated overview of the theology of the church: it’s historical traditions, its leading ecclesiologists, and it’s application in contexts around the world. In a couple hundred pages, he was able to summarize the high points of ecclesiology in a manner I found both helpful and succinct.

 

Ecclesiological Overview

This book sought to weave the ecclesiology of different traditions, theologians, and contexts together, fairly comparing their similarities and differences. It was very interesting for me to see how my own Pentecostal roots fit into the bigger historical and contemporary pictures. Karkkainen’s overview was extremely diverse, even including ecclesiology through the lens of the global church, feminism, and post-modernism. 

An Ecumenical View

I appreciated Karkkainen’s emphasis on ecumenicalism. He was able to honestly highlight differences among traditions while weaving each together with threads of commonalities. The Greek word koinonia, “fellowship of the spirit” (231) or “communion ecclesiology” (160) seemed to be a recurring theme throughout many of the perspectives he presented. Varying theologians and traditions seem also to agree that the “church first is the church before it does the work of the church” (161). I think the church today would do well to heed this. We are often so busy “doing” ministries and programs and filling up our schedules, that we completely miss out on “being” koinonia together. Only out of this true, relational, authentic community can we embody the true missio dei.

Coming Together is Essential

An Introduction to Ecclesiology reminded me of Brian McLaren’s Generous Orthodoxy, in which McLaren walks through the many traditions of faith as well and uses the intricacies of each to paint a beautiful Christ-centered orthodoxy of faith. If the Christian church is to truly embody the Kingdom, as authors such as Gerhard Lohfink and John Fuellenbach describe, I believe we must learn to come together. This is especially critical globally, as the center of gravity of Christianity moves to the South. Philip Jenkins, in The Next Christendom, addresses the marked differences between Christianity in the North and the South and predicts a great clash over these differences.

 

The Western church has enjoyed a history of privilege including Christendom. After so many years of domination, the Western church needs a good dose of humility. If we approached our differences in true koinonia, “being” the church before we attempt to “do” the church, I think the Church itself would look very different. In the face of post-modernity and global shifting, this is even more important today.

Wednesday Reflection for Week Three January 21, 2007

After class, I wanted to call up all my friends at Fuller and invite them over for dinner! I always get so inspired when I hear examples of how communities are embodying true Kingdom relationships, as did Bolger’s examples of the churches in Seattle and Washington.

This theme seems to keep popping up in my life. Last quarter after I read Shane Claiborne’s Irresistable Revolution, I was ready to start an intentional community and drag  my new Fuller friends along with me. Then, I had the opportunity to hear him speak at a seminar at Urbana, a conference I recently attended, and as I listened to his re-imagining of the church as authentically relational and heard his description of this in his own life, I felt those desires resurge. Why don’t we truly live life together? What walls are erected that keep us from  reaching out to one another in the big and small details and what role does our individualistic culture play?  

At the end of the day, though, I came back home to my amazing community (named Koinonia, coincidentally) and my amazing friends and it turns out I’m the one that got invited over for dinner.  I feel so blessed and held and humbled. May God give me the courage to overcome my own obstacles and reach out to those in my life.

Link to New Urbana blog January 21, 2007

Hello Urbana folks! I didn’t want to get all my blogging confused this quarter, so I created a separate blog just for Urbana. Here is the link:

miriamurbana.wordpress.com

Wednesday Reflection for Week Two January 15, 2007

In class we spent a lot of time discussing the book, Jesus and Community and specifically applying the ideas of domination to our personal spheres.

I think economic domination is at the heart of a lot of manifestations of domination both in the church and in the larger society. Those who have money have power and those who don’t have money have a hard time getting power without money, thus caught in a vicious cycle of being dominated.

I have seen this first hand in the sphere of education. The achievement gap (the difference between those children that meet grade-level standards and those that don’t) follows economic gaps.  Children that are impoverished are overwhelmingly behind academically which leads to the vicious cycle of poverty repeating itself generationally. Yet public schools serving predominantly low income families have far less resources and money than those serving middle and high income students. I think this is domination of a particularly cruel kind- withholding the chance of a better future to millions of children.

Book Review: John Fuellenbach, Church: Community for the Kingdom, 2006 Orbis January 15, 2007

John Fuellenbach is a Catholic theologian and professor at the Gregorian in Rome and an international lecturer. In his book Church: Community for the Kingdom, he explores the church from the standpoint of the Kingdom of God. He asserts that the church finds its identity in being a community “in which the kingdom is now experienced and celebrated” and finds its mission in drawing the world into this Kingdom (xi). Using Jesus’ words and actions as recorded in the New Testament, the Catholic teaching of Vatican II, various models of the church, and the ideas of a variety of notable theologians, Fuellenbach offers some thorough, helpful guidance for the global church in mission today.

 

Contrast Society

I especially found his explanation of Gerhard Lohfink’s concept of the church as “contrast society” (from the book Church and Community) to be very helpful. According to Fuellenbach’s clarification, living in contrast means living within the heart of the world in protest against “a society that does not live up to what it is supposed to be in the eyes of God,” while providing an alternative way of life. It doesn’t mean living in separation from or superiority over culture. It is instead following Jesus’ example of being “wholly immersed in this world yet according to otherworldly values that challenge it to let itself be transformed” (200)

 

This definition of a “contrast society” reminds me of Robert Linthicum’s Transforming Power or Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution, both describing the nuts and bolts of actually living out this contrast ideal relationally with those in poverty. Even outside of the church, there are those who stand prophetically in protest against culture, such as Kelle Lasn. His book, Culture Jam encapsulates the protest against the negative messages being sent through contemporary media.

 

Contrast within Public Education

As I look to work within the urban public education system with at-risk children, I wonder what the church as a contrast society looks like in the context of public education. Living in true contrast means speaking up for injustice and unfair legislation that suppresses children’s ability to be empowered. A true contrast church would be involved in the local public school, advocating for the rights of all children, supporting the needs of the school and its teachers and administrators and serving its families. If the church takes our mandate to be a Kingdom community seriously, we must care deeply for the future of those in our community. Education is one of the greatest vehicles of empowerment.

 

An Example: Lake Avenue Community Foundation

Here in Pasadena, Lake Avenue Community Foundation (tied to Lake Avenue Church) has taken this Kingdom mandate seriously. They connect adults in the community with at-risk youth through mentoring, tutoring, and partnership with the local schools through their STARS (Students and Tutors Achieving Real Success) program. They stand as one example of a church seeking to transform the lives of the students in its community

 

“To be a contrast society does not entail living behind closed doors,” writes Fuellenbach. I agree. It is time for the church to swing wide the doors that separate us from the world and step fully into the mission to which God has called us. 

Monday Reflection for Week 2 January 10, 2007

Some highlights of this class:

• What a concept- we should actually be able to speak the language of the culture around us! I wholeheartedly agree with Bolger when he said that one of the major problems with leaving a seminary is the inability to communicate the same language as contemporary culture. What good is learning “another language” if no one can understand you, especially the people you theoretically want to talk to the most?
• I also agree with the need to ground these ideas and theories in real applications. I appreciate starting the quarter off by contectualizing our learning in a specific ministry setting. This high level of thinking only strengthens our experience in the class and our actual long-term retention of what we’re learning.
• I appreciate the desire to make this class responsive to the needs of the students- a good sign of quality teaching. I appreciate the flexibility with the syllabus and the intentionality of getting to know us (and revealing some interesting facts- who are all the opera lovers anyway?).
• Now that we have gotten all the logistics out of the way, I’m ready to dive into the meat of the class!