What is our agenda?

I wrote this for the people in our church who are starting to read Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution, but thought I'd put it out here for anyone to take a look at. Blessings.

Jeff

To: 180° Weekend Book Study Participants
From: Jeff Lincicome
RE: What is our agenda?

Dear 180° Weekend Book Study Participants,

If you are reading this letter, that means you have picked up the book The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and have begun to read it. No doubt you are finding that you are in for a wild ride, filled with much laughter, and much to challenge our faith.

As you begin the adventure of reading this book, I wanted to take a minute to try and explain a little bit about why I think we are doing this 180° Weekend and having Shane come. I have heard one or two people wonder out loud, “Why are we reading this book? What are we hoping to get out of it? Are we trying to change people’s view on the war? As we being chastised? Is that it? What is our agenda?” This “agenda” question is a fair one I think and I would like to attempt an answer.

Beyond the questions raised in Shane’s book concerning poverty, injustice, inequality, and war, I believe this book is not about specific issues, but it is a book about community. Underneath it all, I believe it is a book challenging our Christian understanding of community.

Let me try to unpack that a little.

For us as disciples of Jesus, community is at the heart of the Christian faith and ethic. Jesus says that loving God and loving my neighbor are the entire sum of the law of God (Mark 12:30,31). In other words, being in communion with God (‘loving God’) and being in communion with my neighbor (‘loving neighbor’) is the beginning and the end of the Christian life. Therefore, my understanding of community, and my commitment to its supremacy, is going to dictate how I live my life and what I choose to do.

To experience community with God, I must give my life to Jesus Christ who died to restore my communion with Holy God. If I want to nurture that community with God, I must spend time with Him, loving Him and letting Him love me. We might call these the internal spiritual disciplines of Bible Study, Worship, Prayer, and other spiritual disciplines.

In the same vein, to experience community with my neighbor I have to put myself in positions where I can love him/her and be loved by them in return. I need to reach out to them in need, encourage them, educate them (and be educated by them), forgive them when they wrong me (and ask for forgiveness when I have wronged them), share with them, and in general be brothers and sisters in Christ on this journey.

Community – Love God, love neighbor. I believe that all of us as Christians would agree with these commands of Jesus. And to tell you the truth, I think churches like ours do an incredible job of living this out, loving God and loving each other. I am amazed, and I think God is proud in many ways of what is happening here.

The challenge of this book for me and for us I think comes in my definition of that community. You see, if my definition of “my community” is limited to just me and my family, or me and my church family, then I don’t have to ask questions that affect the others outside, issues of poverty, race, economic injustice, and war, except insofar as they affect me. If my definition of community stops at the doors of my house, my church, or even my country, I have put up a wall around who I will advocate for, who I will suffer for, who I will die for.

On the other hand, if my definition of community includes the poor in the inner city of Milwaukee (for example), and I know I’m in community with them because I am in a relationship with them and love them because they are my brothers and sisters, then I must (and will) do everything in my power to support them as I would my own family. If they don’t have a coat, and I have two, I will give them mine (like I would with my own family). Why? Because we are brothers and sisters. We are in community together. This goes beyond charity into relationships that God has designed for life. If my definition of community is expanded, my life will change to reflect that.

The same goes even with other countries, even ones we consider our enemies. And this (I think) is where Shane’s message gets controversial. If my community includes others even in war zones, will I not view them in a different way and advocate for them accordingly? Again, at its core, this is not about peace vs. war, it is about my definition of who is “in” my community and who I am supposed to love. If even my enemies are part of my community, how can I show them love? Some would say, “You show them love by not letting them hurt others.” That is absolutely true according to the Scriptures. Others would say, “You receive their blows and you refuse to hurt them in return to redeem the relationship.” That is also absolutely true according to the Scriptures. Both of these arguments (one “pro-war” if you will, one “anti-war”) are both true. But both force me to make a decision according my understanding of my responsibility for my community.

For Shane, this has meant standing up and protesting the poverty and inequality in Philadelphia and beyond. It meant moving into the inner city to live among the poor that he was becoming one with. It meant going to Iraq as a peacekeeper to identify with brothers and sisters there. My guess is that some at Crossroads will identify and applaud his actions. Others will probably cry out in anger, disagreeing completely about what it means to love our neighbors in Iraq.

To me, the answers are not as important as the questions that Shane raises. His actions are not meant to be (necessarily) blueprints for our Christian life of discipleship.

But his testimony of Christian community, and the fact that it calls us to action with our lives is a question we need to wrestle with.

And that is the reason I believe Shane is coming to Crossroads. He is coming here to help us continue questioning our understanding of community and what that means for us as followers of Christ. Because Christ said that it is the Church that will withstand the gates of Hell itself, and is the transformative community of grace in the world. May we be a church who continues to seek after that sort of alternative community of light in a world ruled by darkness.

Blessings in Christ as you dive in,



Jeff Lincicome

Avoidance Techniques

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship [I read here "my spiritual avoidance techniques"]. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”
Soren Kierkegaard quoted in Shane Claiborne's, The Irresistible Revolution, p.71.

One of the things I am most excited about this year is happening March 10 and 11, what we are calling here at Crossroads (the church I serve) "180 degree weekend". At this in-house weekend retreat, we are setting aside time to try and take a very different look at our Christian faith than we are used too. It is GOOD to step back once in a while and examine ourselves and our faith in new and different ways with different voices in the Church. That is how we grow.

Our speaker that weekend will be Shane Claiborne, an internationally know speaker, author and Christian activist, from Philadelphia. Shane's book The Irresistible Revolution has done more to change and challenge my life of faith this year than any other non-Biblical work. And I can't tell you how excited I am to have him here, to challenge and encourage us in our faith.

Now, don't confuse my excitement with comfort. I'm not excited that Shane is coming because I feel that he is a kindred spirit, performing the same kind of ministry I do here. I am not excited that he is coming because his message fits with how I am trying to live my life or that our church will come out of his talks saying "hallelujah." I am not even excited to have him here because I think we will have that much in common as person, or that we will be "buddy buddy" at the end.

In fact, if I am honest with you, my feelings and thoughts are just the opposite. I am flat out nervous about hearing Shane's message from the Scriptures.

I'm not nervous because I doubt it to be true. In fact, I think he is a prophetic voice for us, especially we who reside in evangelical affluence. We need him to be here.

I'm not nervous because I am scared of how people will react (okay, because I'm an ardent people pleaser, maybe just a little).

No -- The real reason I'm nervous is because I know that the message of Jesus Shane shares is one that invites me to change and to give up to take on something greater. And I don't know about you, but there are certain things in my life that I am not very willing to change or give up.

my comfort for one.

my personal happiness for another.

And then there are some other things that are less esoteric and more tangible...

my latte's.

my choice of different coats that I have available in my closet (while some people have none).

my expendable income.

my heat at 67 degrees in my house.

my 2 cars.

my vacation this summer.

my books on my shelf.

my ipod. (what would I do without it?!?!)

and on and on and on...

My first reaction is, "None of these things are bad in and of themselves. God doesn't make moral judgments on ipods." And I suppose that is true to some extent.

But how easy is it for me to justify myself -- to allow the things I own and "need" in this world to own me. How easy is it for me to say that I don't have the resources to help someone in need, when I have the resources to download another song from itunes or send my child to science camp?

No, the fact is there are certain things that I won't give up because I think they would cost too much. And I'm not willing.

Yet, I wonder if God isn't calling us to do what we are not willing to do for the sake of his kingdom.

In fact, Shane's message from Scripture calls into question my comfortable middle class life -- not that I have it, but what I am doing with it.

And I am the king of avoiding that question (and maybe you are too). I love the Kierkegaard quote at the beginning -- we are adept as Christians of not bringing the Bible close enough to have it alter my existance too drastically. If I keep it at arms length, I don't have to get too uncomfortable.

And so I go into this weekend with Shane both excited and scared as to what God will do in me and in us.

My prayer for each of us is that we don't avoid it -- that we let Jesus speak to us, even let it make us uncomfortable, in order to change us more fully into God's people and allow us to experience more completely his love. Before we say, "I can't do what Shane does," we need to ask, "What is God speaking to me, and where is he causing me to grow and change?" If we do that, we will experience Christ in a whole new way -- I'm convinced of it.

So let's see what happens!

Blessings,

jeff

p.s. Everything in the 180 degree weekend is open to the public. Check out Crossroads Website in the next few weeks for more information.

jl

We are small and God is big

Check this out if you want your faith to expand...

Hubble Deep Field