Eddie Gibbs (Emerging Churches) provides the insight that the "emerging church" seeks to end the dualism between sacred and secular so that all of life becomes sacred. Some of what I read in Gibbs’ book seems to hang on to the concept of church-as-a-service in which the worship service becomes more connected to the arts, creation, and natural beauty–thus bringing the sacred and secular together within the "church service" context. However, I also see that Gibbs describes a focus on living authentic Christian lives "out there" within our culture.
Again, as with the last post, I don’t want to get into a discussion about the whole "emerging church" thing, I’m simply looking for the themes that I see God stirring in all of His people and moving us toward. In this case, the theme is that many of us are seeking to live our lives, our whole lives, connected to the Source. We desire to see Christ’s presence incarnated through us in every situation we are in. We want to see our communities infiltrated with Christ’s presence by the way He is living through us.
Everywhere we go, we are His church, His Body, His life with skin on. We are on holy ground everywhere that we are because He is with us, in us, and working through us. In this way, there is no sacred verses secular because our whole lives, even as we are out in the cultures we live within, are organically connected to His kingdom life.
Therefore my focus is on how to bring the reality of the sacred into my everyday life and culture and world. I believe that this is at the heart of what it is to emerge from churchianity into a living, lifestyle of Christianity.
The Lord spoke to Jim Montgomery, from DAWN Ministries, these words: "See to it that I, the Lord, truly become incarnate… in every small group of people on earth." Jim suggests that what God wants to do is communicate His wonderful message of the Kingdom in a totally contextualized way in every small group of people. This happens as born again believers exercise the gifts of the Spirit and function as the body of Christ out in the context of their world and culture. In this way "Jesus Christ becomes incarnate in all his beauty, compassion, power and message in the midst…"
This, for me, is the heart of eliminating sacred/secular split. Wherever we go as believers, God is present because we are incarnating His presence. The form of church gathering that we use is simply a support system, an important community-family context, OUT OF WHICH we live incarnationally in the world.
Now, having said all that, I want to confess my shortcomings. I am still very much wrestling with what this looks like. Most of us were trained that, in order to "serve Christ" in the world meant that we had to give our testimony or share a gospel tract once a day. This is NOT contextualized incarnational living.
Then, as we wrestle with what this means, we become servants to those around us. We do not say much about our faith because we don’t want to "do it the old way" so we quietly "share our faith" with our deeds. Somehow, this also seems to come short of living incarnationally when compared to the powerful impact that Christ had on those around Him.
So… this post is open-ended. It’s meant to be a discussion-starter. I believe my heart is the same as every person who is reading this. We long to see an entire region saturated with the presence of Christ so that, as Montgomery said, His "beauty, compassion, power, and message" touches every person. We do not want to "do" church we want to be HIS people.
Do we have ANY idea what this looks like or where we begin?
Comments
13 responses to “Living Incarnationally”
Very good points. I had a book come across my desk on Friday called “A Theology of Work” (see here for details: http://anebooks.blogspot.com/2005/12/new-book.html) It grew out of his frustration with the secular/sacred split. I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds very interesting and seems to address the issues you are talking about.
Blessings,
James
Thank you for this inspiring article, and thank you for not having all the answers. 🙂 I have been thinking and praying about this secular/sacred split thing for some years (not all the time, of course, but again and again).
To me it seems like Jesus did not share his faith or lived out a good life to set an example – but demonstrated the gospel in power! I believe we get over the sec./sac. gap when we live in a way that makes God real to the people around us.
And I believe this can not be done alone. In fact I see this individual fighter thing as one of the greatest problems especially in western Christianity. We all meet once or twice a week to get fired up, then we leave and fight alone. I believe, this is why sin has such a strong grip on us! We warm up together and then go and battle the enemy alone…
As a group, as church we are called to live out the Kingdom of God in our culture. For me this means to be real, to be transparent, to be meek. It means to share our life with the people that God has opened up – the persons of peace (Luke 10).
Let’s bring our daily life together before God in prayer and thanksgiving. Let’s ask God how He wants to reveal His Kingdom to the people around us and let’s do what we see Him do.
I don’t think there is a right way for everybody to do this. It’s finding out what God is doing in our region and being obedient to Him in all He asks us to do. And these are just my two cents. Blessings.
Yes, I’d agree. You’d think it was a NASA space shot to actually live a Christian life as some folks see it. But I’m reminded of Paul’s words about the purity and simplicity of devotion to Christ, or even Christ Himself being thankful to the Father that these things had been hidden from the learned and wise, and yet revealed unto babes. If babes can get it, and there’s something simple and pure about it, then I’m pretty sure we can get it, if we’re sincerely in relationship with Him, and surrendered enough to follow His leading. From that I’d offer some simple biblical principles as guidelines to our practical living, and I’m sure you’d have your own, and many of them would touch the same themes. From the greatest commandment, we know we’re to love Him with all that is within us, and others as well. Everything else is suspended from those two principles. He gave us all the “one anothers”, love, forgive, pray, encourage, teach, admonish, serve, confess, build up, submit, accept, care for, comfort, bear burdens, etc. I like Pauls phrase, what really matters is “faith working through love”, and that our motive should always be to please Him in everything. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, being thankful in all things. Anyway, as the song goes, those are a few of my favorite things, from the word. Thank God for the glorious freedom of the Children of God, and pray that we’d all discover it more and more in wonder and awe.
Randy
Do we have ANY idea what this looks like or where we begin?
It think that question is where the problem starts!
Because what it looks like and where it starts is not something other than waking and taking a breath, putting on foot in front of the other and walk. So what does it look like? Well what does your day today or anyday look like? That is what it looks like. As long as we look for “it” we will never find “it” Rest and know “it has been right where you are now nad every moment of your life.
Selah
Geo
I wrote a blogpost today that could be somewhat of an answer to your question at the end of this post. In short, it’s about meeting the needs of people the same way that Jesus met the needs of people. I write it more clearly in my post, so go read it if you are interested.
Good thoughts, everyone.
I agree with Geo in his view that in many cases, where the question (“Do we have ANY idea what this looks like or where we begin?”) is asked, the problem starts (although the question in itself is not the problem, but the answers that are often too unfliexible). But I still think there’s a need for the question, and that the problems raised by the normative answers for the question is solved by the understanding of Christ’s true life in each and every one that believes in him and by the unique revelation from God in every situation.
Well, quite a messy an answer this, but hope my thoughts can be understood 🙂
I’ll add this quote from Mathias’ blog (previous comment) since he was too shy(?) to quote himself:
“One of my biggest passions lately has been to respond to actual and relevant needs. To see what people are going through, and to be godlike enough to burn of desire to fill that need. If someone is lonely, go for a coffee. If someone is depressed, give a hug and say that you’ll stick with that person anyway. If someone is in doubt, encourage the pursuit for thuth and support by showing friendship and love whichever way the deicision goes…”
http://lighthouses.blogspirit.com/
Good thought.
Roger
thanks for the quote 🙂
No, I’m not to shy to quote myself, but the reason I didn’t this time was that I wrote the blogpost before I read this one, so it didn’t really have any connection to it, even though it on some level correlated to it.
Well anyway, another thought on the subject of this blogpost: I think the cleft between the sacred and the secular is largely upheld by the state church, at least here in the Nordic countries. Even though that of course is not the entire truth…
I think what we need to do is move from house church discussions and blog opinions to actual channels of discipleship….where we are equipped. Where people are ready to risk as is mentioned in Alan Roxburgh’s recent article at Allelon….
“We are in a moment when the deconstruction and critique of existing maps needs to be wedded to a company of people willing to risk forth upon the seas to discover the holy gusts of the Spirit pulling us to new lands and worlds that can’t be imagined yet.”
If part of the answer is serving one another and reaching out it is time we demonstrate that and come back and share with the rest of us lessons that you have learned. An ounce of demonstration is infinitely better than a ton of speculation and may I add opinions.
So by way of starting I will share what my wife and I plan on doing in the new year. It was inspired by Zander Dieter’s thoughts. Does anyone know where I might contact him.
My wife and I are asking personal questions…. What do we (personally) need to do to serve others. (are we ready to count the cost? How do we re order our priorities etc) If we wait for others (as in our house group) to come along we will never get started.
Getting on our knees and asking for partners in this work. (Those who are really interested in mission).
Developing channels of discipleship and not merely discussion and opinion.
Communities of Jesus centered in the worship of the living God.
Communities of Jesus whose reason for being is mission and whose essence is community.
We want to connect with a wide variety of different folks who although may be using different forms but have mission and community on their hearts.
We have no interest in planting church services.
If no one else is interested then so be it. If all this fails so be it. But it is time for demonstration. If anyone is interested in sharing ideas of how they would like to start or how we can connect and encourage one another email me. I cannot promise you success. We need to get away for awhile from the naysayers. We need a channel where we are encouraged and edified in the things God has called us to. We need to be built up. I think there is a place for discussion and opinion but I know those of us who believe in mission long for a group that is ready to risk. A group where discussion leads us forward and not freezes us. A group where we don’t have to convince most of them of the need to reach out. …..
I believe you put it very well: “Wherever we go as believers, God is present because we are incarnating His presence. The form of church gathering that we use is simply a support system, an important community-family context, OUT OF WHICH we live incarnationally in the world.”
That’s the whole context of our lives. Our daily walk is with Him, letting Him guide us and lead us, not some man or some program or pre-planned system. The local gathering is, as Paul puts it, for our edification, not for building up membership, etc. The Lord is breaking out all over and those who have a heart for the Lord are crying out for the truth of God, not of man.
To Frank who commented above, where do you live???
I like you am not sure what it quite looks like…I have been trying to figure that out for a while. I do know it will not be found in a pew or a committe meeting. Being “salt & light” in our culture though I beleive puts us in the ball park. We really need the Holy Spirit’s help to do that. I will stay tuned on your blog site and see what I can learn from other seekers.
One thing that can be added to the number of answers, or tries to supply answers, to Roger’s question is the relationship between the objective truth of God Jehovah and the reflection of that truth in our own lives. If my life reflects objective truth through subjective experiences and perceptions, and if it in power reflects the truth of God so that it enables people to believe in Him, it will be an answer to Roger’s inquiry.
Pretty messy comment, this… Read more here:
http://lighthouses.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/12/28/objectivity-and-subjectivity.html
I want to ask for prayer about this issue. It has dogged me since became His follower. I am sometimes ashamed because I speak and act so boldly in “church” and not-so-boldly in my “other” life. I don’t want to be merely a supporter of an organization, I want to be a world-changer.