Just what exactly is, 'the local church'?

Bill Hybels popularized the saying, "The local church is the hope of the world."

For years I trumpeted it too.

But just what exactly is, 'the local church'?

In your neighbourhood who is, 'the local church'?

In my neighbourhood there are 3 identified churches that own a building. None of them I think in any seriousness would claim they are the hope of this local community.

I would imagine your neighbourhood is similar.

Who takes responsibility to look into what God is doing in your neighbourhood?

Who then joins Him there and celebrates that with others?

Might this be the local church that is the hope of the world?

Are you a part of a, 'local church'?

If we enter community because of our own choice, we will stay only if we become more aware that it was in fact God who chose us for this community. It is only then that we will find the inner strength to live through times of turmoil.

Is it not the same thing in marriage? The bond becomes truly deep when husband and wife become conscious that they were brought together by God, to be a sign of love and of forgiveness for one another. Parker Palmer writes,

'Community is finally a religious phenomenon. There is nothing capable of binding together willful, broken human selves except some transcendent power.' Jean Vanier

Will your faith have children?

If we have no specific geographic place where we 'practice' our faith, how can we hope to pass it on?

Who and where will we pass it on to?

Nurture the realities of God in your neighbourhood. Through participation there will be spiritual births to attend to.

Your place in this world.

Imagine God up above, the earth below. In between them, human beings are set at a 45 degree angle with a mirror.

Your job, your destiny, is to reflect the holy reign of God down on to the earth-to care for all of creation and particularly human beings the way God would want you to;

And then to gather up all the goodness and delight of the earth and put it into words and offer it to God in worship.

Your destiny is to be contribute more creative God-given goodness to the earth than you can currently imagine; And to offer more earthy joy and gratitude to God than you can currently contain. John Ortberg

It's not too late...

Jesus never said to his followers: “If you fast…”.
Nor did he say: “If you happen to feel like fasting…”.
Jesus didn't even say: “Maybe you should fast…”

Jesus told his followers: “When you fast…” and then went on to tell them what fasting looks like.

The big truth to learn is this:

Jesus expects all of His followers to fast.

Get creative on what you fast from.

Why not try fasting from driving 1-day a week?
Try fasting from a favorite TV show & walk around your neighbourhood during that time. Ask God to help you see what He sees. The opportunities abound if we'll engage...

Which way are you being pulled?

Quite often people experience a tension between doing life in their neighbourhood and the constant pull to drive to 'church', to be involved in 'fellowship' or 'outreach.'

A couple of years back one of my friends told me a story of his neighbours, a wonderful family, that brought this challenge into focus like I had never seen it before.

The family were attending a church which was hosting an 'outreach event' during a holiday. As they packed up and prepared to go, none of their kids were happy. They all wanted to stay in their neighbourhood with their friends to join the local community holiday party.

The family proceeded to borrow a bunch of my friends sporting goods so they could drive out of the neighbourhood they lived in to be a part of 'church outreach' while all their friends and neighbours were walking to the local community league for a great big festive time.

I think the saddest part was that this family didn't even notice the inconsistency.

All over my city Christ-followers leave their neighbourhoods to do 'ministry' while their neighbours watch them drive away and wave goodbye. It happens in your city too.

Who would want to get converted to that kind of life?

Getting Radical Together!

Before Mark came to the the church I serve, he had spent practically his entire adult life involved in church programs and serving on church committees. “You name it, and I did it,” Mark said. “I was on finance teams and personnel teams. I worked on capital building campaigns and sat in long-term planning sessions. Every week my schedule was filled with church activity.”

After becoming a part of our faith family, Mark started hearing people talk about making disciples. That’s when he realized that, despite all the good things he had done in the church, he could not name one person outside his family whom he had led to Christ and who was now walking with Christ and leading others to Christ. Mark said to me, “David, I have spent my life doing all the stuff in the church that I thought I was supposed to do. But I’m realizing that I have missed the most important thing: making disciples.”

At his workplace and in our community, Mark is now intentionally leading people to Christ and teaching them to follow him. The story of Mark’s life as a Christian should frighten us. The last thing you and I want to do is waste our lives on religious activity that is devoid of spiritual productivity—being active in the church but not advancing the kingdom of God. We don’t want to come to the end of our days on earth only to realize that we have had little impact on more people going to heaven. Yet if we are not careful, we will spend our lives doing good things in the church while we ultimately miss out on the great purpose for which we were created. (David Platt, Radical Together)

Being deeply involved in loving our neighbours shouldn't be that radical to us if we read the Bible, but in our modern society it actually is. Many people are like Mark in the story above, doing all kinds of activity in the church, and being honored for it but ultimately missing the point of following Jesus.

Who are you getting radical together with in your own neighbourhood?

Life in your neighbourhood...

The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of antimonastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again " they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. "I know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. "It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years, "the abbot said, "but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?"

"No, I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, "Well what did the rabbi say?"

"He couldn't help," the abbot answered. "We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving --it was something cryptic-- was that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant."

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm. (M. Scott Peck)

Treat each other like we might be spending eternity together. Bob Goff

Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.

Hockey anyone?

Listen to a short 6-minute CBC clip about some great neighbourhood building using the local skating rink.

Hockey Community.

What gifts and passions can you awake to build community in your neighbourhood?

Community is to neighbourhood what home is to house.

We may live in a house, but a home is the web of caring relationships of those we share intimate life with.

Many of us can point to a house where we know the inhabitants wouldn't refer to it as a 'home' because of the estrangement present.

In the same way it is possible to have a neighbourhood without community.

A neighbourhood is a place we identify with, whereas a community is the extent to which we identify with and support one another in the neighbourhood.

Wouldn't our Lord Jesus want us to seek out our brothers and sisters in our neighbourhood and help create a caring community that would invite others into that loving reality?

Romans 12:1-2
With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

Neighbourhood life

A place for life integration.

Unfettered busyness

Busyness is the ultimate trump card. It will get you out of virtually every social situation, or at least buy you amnesty a few times when you let a friend down. "I'm so sorry I forgot your birthday. I've just been so busy."

It's also the excuse we use when we've really screwed up. Sprinkle a little religious babble into the verbiage and the guilt just washes away. "Sorry I didn't call you when you were in the hospital. I have just so much going on right now. I know you thought you were going to die and had reached the depths of helplessness when you were unable to wipe your own bum. But I'm sure God will work all this out for the best. I'll be praying for you."

If I'm busy, I don't have to be responsible for what I fail to do. Yet my actions send a message whether I intend them to or not. Of course, it's probably no coincidence that most people set up a life of near panic. Like any other addiction busyness works so well. It gives us the edge to avoid emptiness, loneliness, unpleasant memories, hurt, intimacy - and, subsequently, the clarity that silence and an unhurried life can bring. Still, almost everyone I know is trying to get caught up, trying to commit to fewer things, and aching to get away from the frantic race that consumes modern America. Self included. Truth is, sometimes I don't want a slow-paced, intentional life. I have systematically engineered a life of chaos. The consequences at least appear better than facing the reality of my own life. And so each generation is more disconnected than the last. When I look around a the world, I see a bunch of people desperate to know they are loved living in the shadows of a community too busy to pay attention to anyone but themselves. (Nathan Foster)

What does it mean to you to live local?

Do you live where you live?

What is stopping you from living where you live?

So goes a prophetic challenge from the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues.

I believe churches and their people should be asking these very questions, perhaps a little more than, 'What do you think of Rob Bell?' or 'How far are you willing to drive to join my church?'

Imagine if the Christ-followers in your neighbourhood embraced the idea of living local and began to work together to help create community.

More time could be spent on the things that matter in life, and less time on travel. Who knows what God could do through us all?

Together is amazing!

What you do in the neighbourhood matters!

It’s nearly impossible to transform complex systems, such as modern day church life. The overwhelming focus on programs, on growing a corporation, battles over singing styles, or attracting people to 'church' and paying only lip service to actually loving our neighbours makes a person wonder if that system can (or will) ever be fixed.

At the same time God seems to be raising all sorts of pioneers, guides and servants who want to join with Him in creating new communities of faith where the gospel is lived out in place.

To participate in neighbourhood life is to join a new 'kingdom of God' system (it's really just the Jesus Way rediscovered).

Many organizations like Forge (Roxburgh Missional Network and others) are working at fixing the old system (a very worthwhile endeavor!); Neighbourhood Life is a part of the group of new pioneers who are stepping forward in faith to create real communities where God's shalom reigns.

Be blessed as you follow Jesus into your neighbourhood and live out the Greatest Commandment.

Mark 12
“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

What if…

What if being a ‘member’ of a church wasn’t about accessing communion, or submitting to the church’s authority, but was about committing to one another’s lives no matter what. A covenant even, that we will pursue God’s best for one another.

That we will do life together – through good times and bad.

That we will take down our masks, revealing what’s really going on in our lives and hearts.

That we ask each other difficult questions.

That when you sin against me, and when I sin against you, we are committed to forgive and work through the issues.

That there’s no bailing out when things get tough.

What if we made that covenant to each other?

What if the ‘church community’ wasn’t about weekly meetings, but about being in and out of other people’s homes and lives, day in day out?

What if it involved breaking down the different compartments of our lives – our homes, our families, our work, our friends, our neighbours, our communities – but instead tried to integrate them?

What if it didn’t pursue ‘ministry’ – but simply ‘life’?

What if it was committed to a specific geographical community, dedicated to bringing God’s values to that area?

What if it committed to pursuing love and justice, no matter the cost? How far is it willing to go for the sake of the lost?

What if it really believed that each time we walk past someone in need, we walk past Jesus?

What if it didn’t accept hard-heartedness to sin, selfishness, and poverty as an option?

What if it rejected the notion that Christian values = middle class values – that Christianity shouldn’t be ‘respectable’?

What if it committed to building friendships with the types of people Jesus himself preferred to spend time with – the broken, the forsaken, the poor?

What if it opened its homes, not just to one another, but to those in need as well?

What if we’re holding out for some sort of revival that we actually need to initiate?

What if our ideas about love have to take a step up?

What if Isaiah got it right when he said that only when we spend ourselves on behalf of others, then our light will break forth in the darkness?

(This was produced by a member of the Community Church Dundee, copyright Charis)

It's spring and a young man's fancy turns to...

Baseball!!

Baseball taught me what I need to survive in the world. The game has given the patience to learn and succeed. As much as I was known for my homers, I was also known for my strikeouts. The strikeout is the ultimate failure. I struck out 1,936 times. But I'm proud of my strikeouts, for a feel that to succeed one must first fail; the more you fail the more you learn about succeeding. The person who has never tried and failed will never succeed. Each time I walked away from the plate after a strikeout, I learned something, whether it was about my swing, not seeing the ball, the pitcher, or the weather conditions, I learned something. My success is the product of the knowledge extracted from my failures. Willie Stargell (Hall of Famer)

Don't fear making mistakes on the journey into loving your neighbours. Every now and then you get to hit one out of the park, and it feels so good!

We were recently asked by a local principal to help provide some care and nutrition to some students challenged by tough family dynamics. Last Friday as I brought some fruits and other goodies into the classroom one of the kids (who I know personally) said, 'You look like Santa!'

(Because of my beard!)

To which the teacher responded, 'He is like Santa bringing us these treats!'

Yes dear, it is important...

Get planted in a neighbourhood. Churches can make a conscious effort to help their people discover the importance of growing a neighbourhood.

Cultivate life in the local community. Connect with others. Use any means available - local sports, schools, clubs, coffee shops, businesses, immediate neighbours, community leagues, you name it.

Grow roots. Change some habits to begin, 'inhabiting' your neighbourhood. Alter your shopping schedule. Go for walks. Pray while you're walking. Wave & smile at others. Think long-term.

Connect to others doing similar things in other places in your city, province, state, or country.

How stable are you?

The trouble for most of us isn’t so much that we cannot afford stability as it is that we don’t value it. We idealize and aspire to a life on the move, spending what resources we have on acquiring skills that make us more marketable (that is, more mobile). We want to “move up in the world,” which almost always means closer to a highway, an airport, or a shopping mall. I cannot deny that this is why I left the rural farming community where I grew up. But neither can I ignore the fact that this is what has been unraveling the neighborhood where I now live since the late 1960s. Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove

Don't you want to...

Create healthy neighbourhoods where families flourish and God’s shalom is present?

Cultivate a diverse people of faith, pursuing justice, mercy and humility, loving God and neighbour?

Join the ministry of Christian presence, modeling compassionate service and helping to call together spiritually gifted and committed neighbours toward the purpose of community renewal?

Followers of Christ are not afraid to share life with others in their neighbourhood.

Looking for the good life?

I know for myself it's easy to love my neighbor when it's a person who's got a flat tire on the side of the road. I can take a little time, help fix the tire, get back in my car, and never see the person again. It's my actual neighbors I have trouble with. I have to deal with them every day. But love requires steadfastness and fidelity.

I remember when we were buying our recent home. I wanted a yard, I wanted a driveway, and I wanted a great neighborhood where there were no troubles and I never had to deal with the neighbors if I didn't want to. Maybe I'd invite them over for a cookout or something.

But we didn't have the money to get that kind of house. So we got this house where we live next to a set of apartments that are pretty transient. We're not in the neighborhood we desired, but I found it interesting that we want large, glorious homes with nice yards that separate us from people. I think it should be the opposite in our churches.

There are two kinds of itinerancy, one is following Jesus, and the other is the restlessness of the market place.

With God's grace, we have the capacity to make and cultivate things and places that are truly good. In making and tending to things in this world, we cultivate human life. David Matzko McCarthy

Neighbourhood life in a highrise.

This documentary, Highrise: Out My Window is entirely web-based, featuring stories from families from all over the world.

I love the idea of looking out our windows and noticing what we see. Since Lent has started we as a family are cultivating a greater sense of spiritual attentiveness, wanting to notice more of God all around us.

We began our Lenten season with 15 of our neighbours as we celebrated Shrove (pancake) Tuesday last night. Afterward Anola & I had to quickly run to a local high school for the open house for our son who will be Grade 10 in the fall. Two of our neighbours offered to do all our dishes & put the food away so we could get to the school on time. Wonderful.

Jesus affirmed the traditional Jewish sense of neighbour and to look out our window and truly see the neighbours that Jesus sees is a special blessing.

Grab life by the handlebars. Ditch the car. Rediscover walking.

Below are some of my favorite quotes from Dan Burden's insightful talk.

America is out of sync with its values. John Steinbeck

(Canada too! I would add the 'local' church is out of sync with Jesus' value to love your neighbour, not too mention the idea that Jesus liked walking;)

If it weren't for the damn pedestrian there would be no traffic problem in Los Angeles.

The simple needs of automobiles are more easily understood and satisfied than the complex needs of cities. Jane Jacobs

(AND neighbourhoods for that matter!)

What is the first thing an infant wants to do and the last thing an older person wants to give up?

Society in general has jettisoned the idea of walkability and I think it's of vital importance that it be rediscovered. Sad to say but Christians are often the ones leading the way to get in the car and leave their local community!

Just this morning I was reading some thoughts from a 'small group guru' concerning the collapse of church based small groups.

Our society possesses a deep longing for a sense of community and connectedness. As we become more transient, this heart cry will grow, and the need for safe, connecting, and encouraging meetings will grow as well.

I quickly discovered that Americans like options. Many people, when given the option, chose to drive across town to a group with others of similar age, marital status, and background. Today I’m in a group whose members drive up to 15 miles to attend when they could easily join a group right in their own backyard. Thom Corrigan

A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity. Karl Barth

While at times I think it is necessary to get in your car and drive to find meaning and connection with others, it ought to be an exception and not the norm. I regularly hear of churches who are 'loving their neighbour', but other than simply saying it (during a sermon, or in a church publication, or on a T-shirt!) they don't put very much tangible effort into helping people actually do it.

Even more rare is a church that encourages its people to find other Christ-followers in their local neighbourhood and work together with them for God's shalom.

Thankfully this is slowly changing.

And I'm glad to keep walking down that path...

Why not become a neighbourhood, community or apartment change agent?

Simply love your neighbour the way Christ commanded be done by all who believe in Him.

Give a great big bear hug to anyone who needs it.

Remember the sabbath day and keep it boring...

That is the memory of many who grew up in church concerning Sundays.

Is that really what God intended for the sabbath?

Didn't God want us to stop striving to get ahead for at least ONE day, to take stock of His goodness, and ultimately to enjoy being in community?

Why not try putting your car keys aside for a day, to let the day unfold in your neighbourhood, to seek out others who want to be with you in creating a community that helps us remember who we were created to be?

Of bonding & bridging in your neighbourhood...

Among the many different forms of social capital one distinction will be especially important for our purposes in this book. Some networks link people who are similar in crucial respects and tend to be inward-looking—bonding social capital. Others encompass different types of people and tend to be outward-looking—bridging social capital.

Bonding social capital is a kind of sociological Super Glue, whereas bridging social capital provides a sociological WD-40. If you get sick, the people who bring you chicken soup are likely to represent your bonding social capital.

On the other hand, a society that has only bonding social capital will look like Belfast or Bosnia—segregated into mutually hostile camps. So a pluralist democracy requires lots of bridging social capital, not just the bond variety.

Community building sometimes has a warm and fuzzy feeling, a kind of “kumbaya” cuddliness about it. Some of our stories fit that image, but others allow us to see that building social capital is not free of conflict and controversy. Robert Putnam

"Who is the greatest?"

Abstraction is crippling to spirituality...

In the Christian imagination, where you live gets equal billing with what you believe. Geography and theology are the biblical bedfellows. Everything that the creator does, and therefore everything that we do, since we are his creatures and can hardly do anything in any other way, is in place. All living is local, this land, this neighborhood, these trees and streets and houses, this work, these shops and markets.

This is, of course, obvious, but all the same it needs saying- sometimes requiring a raised voice. I have spent an adult lifetime with the assigned task of guiding men and women into living out the Christian faith in the place in which they raise the children and work for a living, go fishing and play golf, buy the groceries and park their cars. In the course of this work, I find that cultivating a sense of place as the exclusive and irreplaceable setting for following Jesus is even more difficult than persuading men and women of the truth of the message of Jesus. Why is it easier for me to believe in the holy (because God inspired it) truth of John 3:16 than the holy (because God made it) ground at 579 Apricot Lane where I live?

One of the seductions that continues to bedevil Christian obedience is the construction of utopias, whether in fact or fantasy, ideal places where we can live the good and blessed and righteous life without inhibition or interference. The imagining and attempted construction of Utopias appears is an old habit of our kind. Sometimes we attempt it politically through communities, sometimes socially in communes, sometimes religiously in churches. It never comes to anything but grief. Meanwhile, that place we actually are is dismissed or demeaned as inadequate for serious living to the glory of God. But Utopia is literally “no-place.” We can only live our lives in actual place, not imagined or fantasized or artificially fashioned places.

Our scriptures that bring us the story of our salvation, ground us in place. Everywhere they insist on this ground. Everything that is critically important to us takes place on the ground. The mountains and valleys, towns and cities, regions and countries: Haran, Ur, Caanan, Hebron, Tekoa, Bethlehem, Gibeon, the Kidron Valley, Ashkelon. Big cities and small towns. Famous landmarks and unvisited obscurities. People who want God or religion as an escape from their place because it is difficult, (or maybe just mundane), don’t find this much to their liking. But there it is- there’s no getting around it. But to the man or woman wanting more reality, not less, this is insistence that all genuine life, life that is embraced in God’s work of salvation, is grounded, is good news indeed.

We must ourselves, attend to a consideration of the place where we live and explore the ways in which the place itself with its many dimensions is integral to the Gospel way we live. We are used to having natural places, our mountains and rivers, appreciated his sacred places. And we are used to having secularized and problem ridden cities targeted as places for critical and sometimes dramatic missions. But we aren’t used to this, seeing the ordinary places where we live as gift places, as holy sites. Eugene Peterson

Get grounded in your neighbourhood...

Our Scriptures that bring us the story of salvation ground us unrelentingly in place. Everywhere and always they insist on this grounding. Everything that is critically important to us takes place on the ground. Mountains and valleys, towns and cities, regions and countries: Haran, Ur, Canaan, Hebron, Sodom, Machpelah, Bethel, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Samaria, Tekoa, Nazareth, Capernaum, Mt. Sinai, Mt. of Olives, Mt. Gilboa, Mt. Hermon, Caesarea, Gath, Ashkelon, Michmash, Gibeon, Azekah, Jericho, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Emmaus, the valley of Jezreel, the Kidron Valley, the Brook Besor, Anathoth. And heading the list, Eden.

What we often consider to be the concerns of the spiritual life – ideas, truths, prayers, promises, beliefs – are never in the Christian gospel permitted to have a life of their own apart from particular persons and actual places. Biblical spirituality/religion has a low tolerance for “great ideas” or “sublime truths” or “inspirational thoughts” apart from the people and places in which they occur. God’s great love and purposes for us are all worked out in messes in our kitchens and backyards, in storms and sins, blue skies, the daily work and dreams of our common lives. God works with us as we are and not as we should be or think we should be. God deals with us where we are and not where we would like to be.

People who want God as an escape from reality and the often hard conditions of this life don’t find much to their liking in this aspect of our Scriptures, our text for living. But there it is. There is no getting around it.

“Eden, in the east” is the first place name in the Bible. It comes with the unqualified affirmation that place is good, essential, and foundational for providing the only possible creation conditions for living out our human existence truly. Eugene Peterson

Neither our experience of God nor our experience of church seems to have adequately prepared us for creative engagement with the world. Not only has the comfortability of the church mediated our experience of God, it has also blunted our participation in the world. The church tends to make God predictable and the world enjoyable.

This has much to do with the church’s social location. In the First World, the church is the product of the suburbs where men and women live anesthetized lives. God can therefore be seen as Comforter rather than Liberator, and the good things of the world can be enjoyed while we avoid its problems and pain. Consequently, our experience of God is mediocre and our involvement in the world is for personal benefit not social transformation.

As a result, we are not at the forefront of anything. Because we don’t have an adequate vision for God, we can hardly have a great concern for the world. Because God is deeply concerned about our world, our worship of Him should always lead us back into the ideas of our time. Jacques Ellul