Teresa Lasky comments:
Dear Roger and Team
I want to email to say thank you.

Only yesterday I found myself questioning the orientation of such 'encouragements' that seem to leave me empty and cold and wondering if indeed I am actually a christian!
Thank God for you and your team. Thank you for the commitment and investing your life to help us all break through into something of substance, something of the future and kingdom,and something worth living for. Thank you for never letting us become lazy - you and Sue are a complete inspiration to so many of us.

I think if I really understood 'the challenge for this first month'.................. it is probably enough to challenge me for the rest of my life here on earth!

Jan Lock responds:

"Simon Peter, you are the rock and upon this rock I will build my church.."
Is it Peter that Jesus will build his church on, or is it the Father's revelation? If it is Peter then you will end up with a system like the catholic church had for 17 centuries, with one pope, Peters successor, holding the keys to let people into heaven, or not letting them in, depending on whether the rules Peter makes are obeyed. The case of the Catholic Church is extreme, but in principle, this goes on in every little church or Christian group. There are 2 ways to interpret this scripture. Either there is one person who has a revelation, and on him Jesus builds his church, which justifies doctrinal positions which have been revealed to one person being an obligation for members, and all who have different positions cannot be part of that organisation (cf Reformers persecuting and killing Anabaptists who had different opinions and experiences of God). Or alternatively the rock is actually the Father's revelation of the secrets of the kingdom of God to whomever he pleases, whenever he pleases, with all seeing in part, and every individual developing in different ways.
Within the church organisation all the people conform to the group values and behaviour, and get the same teaching from one source, the one Peter figure, or the Peter team. The members seem to have unity, their conversation is on the same theme, they all pull together for church projects, and are thinking about the same issues at the same time, because the one Peter has spoken to them about what has come into his spirit at that time.

But if the church organisation is removed or if Christians go out of it, you see a different result: the people start seeking God themselves for revelations, and he reveals different things to each of them; the people start thinking about different issues and subjects and when they meet, there is not the same kind of unity as before; their characters are no longer conformed to the behaviour of the group, so they begin to become more diverse and individual; their true identity begins to emerge more and more so that they are hardly recognisable. It becomes true that there is hardly a single Christian who knows what another is talking about without first having deep conversations about what God has revealed to him; BUT as we thrash through the issues and struggle to make ourselves understood, something happens the other person, and I also, get clarity from God, new revelation on the different things that God has put in our hearts; it actually really does begin to look like a big jigsaw puzzle that is starting to come together - at least, on one corner my piece fits yours. The false unity, the imposed unity for the sake of the organisation and not for the sake of Jesus, has gone, and we seem to have been let out of the school yard; now we need to face our brethren as maturing people, as individuals - each with a unique identity, and with characters that are no longer restrained by organisational shackles. Now I have to think "Do I really like this person?, I don't understand this person, I don't know if they are off track." So now I really need to get hold of some grace and supernatural Agape love, and wisdom from heaven, otherwise I will get upset with these people. But here is the beginning of the identity of each person becoming more distinctive, each one discovering what God has set burning in their heart. What Chairman Mao did in China, dressing all his people like clones, church leaders have also done in their organisations but "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free." You are free not to be how I want you to be, you are free not to think what I want you to think, your are free not to do what I want you to do. In the real world people diversify, one a doctor, one a fisherman. Ecclesia was never meant to clone people but to release identity.

I was also reminded that a church-going friend said he is frustrated with the people in church, because they seem to want to sit there and be fed, not taking any personal responsibility or initiative. Of course he is looking at this from the other side of the coin, so to speak. The secular / sacred divide robs the 'congregation' of their confidence to do anything until they are told to do something by the 'teacher', like in Junior School; but also it is a comfortable position because, as a church 'consumer', I get to judge what people at the front present to me (as if entertained by it, which actually I am) and I don't take any risks myself. If the 'leader' tells me to do street evangelism and it fails, it's his fault for not hearing from God properly. So I end up lazy, critical, immature in respect of my faith, reducing ecclesia to a social network. I am Lord of my own comfortable life, unchallenged as to my horrible, glaring character faults because usually 'pastors' don't pastor these days, they are too busy administrating in-house organisational disputes and Sunday performances - poor souls - I know some who are so frustrated themselves about this they want to leave their own church in protest! Yes, time is well overdue to grow up - but immaturity cannot be blamed on leaders of churches alone because, if only we had asked long ago, Jesus would have shown each one of us our personal part in this fiasco. So we have all been duped by powers and principalities, and I pray that at last God's people will all discern this. This kind of mind set allows for people to attend church week after week and never encounter Jesus or be born again, and yet to think they have done all they can do to get into heaven and who can ever know anyone else's state of heart? I guess reaching these kinds of people must be done through the Sunday service or they would argue with the person who delivers the gospel to them. The Lutheran Bishop of a big German city, for example, gave his life to Jesus in 2007 at a pastors breakfast when the discussion topic was 'How can we be sure we are really saved?' There is a lot of work to be done, in every quarter, because this deception is so universal. I am writing this because my church-going friend is also right, and this is his piece of the jigsaw - different from mine, but valid and absolutely necessary in order for the whole picture to emerge.

Another part of the puzzle is the fact that when people get drunk they become uninhibited. When people go to church they suddenly become inhibited. Surely this is the wrong way round. Surely the 120 who poured out of the building on Pentecost filled with the Holy Spirit were so uninhibited people thought they were drunk. Religion inhibits people, but the Holy Spirit makes us free and bold, doesn't he?

Cheryl Bradbee responds:

Okay, Roger, some imagining on the shift and what the Kingdom looks like. . .
I note that you put forth two characterisitics: a fresh awakening that likely does not include the institutional church and alliance/ care for the poor. I would like to expand that a bit.

When I hear of a great harvest, I first think of land and food production. We have great harvests now due to the use of chemicals and agribusiness models but they are destroying the land, water and air, and most likely people too. So that cannot be a model of the Kingdom.

I also think of land in terms of other species. God created those other species too and they belong to Him. The current extinction rate, much of it human induced, is about 1000 species per week. As humans encroach on more and more habitat other species suffer. That too cannot be a model for the Kingdom.

The loss of habitat is connected to social justice and right use of resources. On the whole habitat destruction is driven by the poor as they seek to use more and more marginal land to produce food (or simply hunt in conservation areas). So right care of creation is connected to the care of the poor and social justice. In fact, many environmentalists and social justice activists have long made the connection between a degraded environment and the welfare of the poor.

So it was somewhat interesting to me that when I went to the Daywatch page I read this month’s text and then, without noticing the break, read right into last months’s. All of a sudden there was Copenhagen and global warming. And I thought – okay, Roger gets it. But then I realized you had actually written about a global harvest and social justice and not mentioned the environment.

Kingdom imagining: a renewed and righ relationship with the Creator is worked out in right relationships with other people and other species and the planet itself. Some of us will be led to focus on the land and others on the needs of people, but in the end it all comes together. Both sides are needed. God has never abandoned the earth, this planet. He loves it, delights in it and people are a part of it, not apart from it. So love for others must include a renewed, rethought, reimagined relationship between humans and other species and the planet. I suspect that means an end to large agribusiness that enslaves both land and people. I suspect that means more ways to create energy from sun and wind and geothermal as no one can own the sun, it is the most democratic, equalizing form of energy. I suspect that means, for many in North America, new type of food culture, local, healthy, and a bit less so there is not so much tossed into the garbage, though tossed into a composter is better.

So I cannot see this great harvest or social justice without dealing with our relationship to the planet. And I find, for many Christians, that is a great big blind spot. Will the harvest be outside the church – absolutely. God has been planting people many places in the world to prayerfully make change. I also think there will be a great change in relationship with Islam. Clearly by positioning me here and moving Linda to Clermont France God is seeking to address the roots of the violent relationship in terms of the first crusade (see Martin Scotts blog and my most recent entry). I see a fresh release of energy regarding this issue. Many, if not most of the world’s poor, are Muslim so our relationship with Muslims is a huge issue if we mean what we say about social justice.

Those are my initial musings: the big thing is we must include the earth when we have this discussion otherwise we are not being real or Christian.

I am posting for the first time with fear and trembling, but this was a very timely question to raise Roger.

Just today I had a long online conversation with a friend who is struggling, because the things she feels passionate about right now, and really wants to engage in have very little to do with the organised activities of her local church. We discussed the future of the church post Christendom at some length (frustrating in online chat!) and found real agreement in the need for Christians to boldly live out and express faith, in the real world, to break down the sacred/secular divide. To engage as agents of transformation, wherever Christ directs them. The struggle for her, as it will be for many believers, is the feeling that somehow this is not spiritual enough, it isn't what being a Christian is really about, it seems to be less than she has been asked for in the past. Actually of course, it is way more! In her case it will involve things as diverse as further education, adult literacy, health and puppy breeding!

What might an unprecedented harvest and a great awakening look like? Here I know I risk stating the obvious, but first of all, (or, to start with) for me, it will involve some major re-education of Christians and Christian leaders - not resulting in an emptying of churches necessarily, for the sake of engagement in the world, but at least a re-imagining of what church should look like if it is to be the training ground and spiritual incubator of a generation of agents of Kingdom transformation. I agree with the comments already made about the pastors (poor souls indeed) whose task is largely to feed lazy members, keep everyone happy and resolve squabbles etc. Meetings, services, gatherings, that don't result in envisioning, impassioning, (is that a word? It is now) equipping and releasing agents of transformation, as salt and light into their communities and the world, will be a waste of time. Some of that re-education is happening, but there is a stronghold of traditional expectation and values that will take some powerful prayer and prophetic action to break down.

I believe your first point rather leads on to the second Roger; and leadership of churches that truly want to see this great awakening and unprecedented harvest, and equip believers for such a future; whether locally and denominationally will need to learn to see mission, evangelism and Kingdom action in far freer terms than we have done in the past, and far less in terms of 'programmes' necessarily run by and controlled by the church. The empire mindset giving way to (or collapsing before) a clearer Kingdom understanding and expression. I sense that one result of such a shift will be away from big, institutional churches, to smaller more dynamic and responsive groups of believers, connected more organically and, essentially connected not for the purpose of order, control or structural maintenance, but for Kingdom impact!

We are up against it though! 'Any effort to create heaven on earth will fail. God calls us to get people into the real heaven, not to build our own.' Not my words, but the Twitter comment of an internationally known Christian leader. (Don't ask). I think I know what he is getting at, but like most twitter comments, it could do with some unpacking. The problem is, it seems to me to shore up the old mindset, that would see 'getting people saved' and then looking after them in churches on the way to heaven, as the only real purpose of the Church. It probably also betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Jesus' end time purpose. There is a real need for urgent re-education of the Body of Christ!

Thanks for this Daniel,
Major re-education of Christians and Christian leaders is I guess what the Holy Spirit is up to in this season! It's humbling but exciting to be both the focus and agent for this. Thanks for being the example of both in this contribution!
Cheers!
Rog and team

Roger,
Liked your “Justice, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit” reference. Living in a latin-language country, it has struck me that English "righteousness" and "justice" are both translated "justice" in French. I know it's the same in Spanish and I imagine in Italian as well. While I don't know if all the underlying Greek/Hebrew root words are the same (i.e. we English speakers might be making an artificial distinction), I do find it an enlightening exercise to swap the words around when reading passages in English.

For me, it is clear that current usage of "righteousness" and "justice" has become a dualistic battle ground of "right" and "left" respectively. I think we might well discover much if we were to take what we think "righteousness" means and apply it to "justice" and what we think "justice" means and apply it to "righteousness". Would that we lived both out in their "fullness" as the Church.