Books, Ecclesial Conversation and the Mission of God
By Christopher Smith |
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At a conference earlier this week, I had the opportunity to sit in on a workshop where several noted theologians and Christian activists carried on a frank discussion about the embodiment of our faith in urban places. To summarize a long conversation, the theologians were worried that the activists were acting without serious theological reflection and the activists were worried that theologians were disconnected from the urban settings in which they were carrying on the mission of God.
This dilemma, of course, rears its head in various forms throughout contemporary (and historical) Christianity, including the emerging church conversation. It seems to me that, with some intentionality, we can begin to mediate this dilemma in our local congregations. Specifically, there are two related practices that I believe can launch us in this direction: individual reading and reflection, and a corporate conversation that combines reflection and discernment.
Of all the varieties of Christians with whom I have interacted, there are few that read as much as those in emerging churches. Additionally, emerging churches usually have a fairly strong sense of their participation in the mission of God, and individuals invested in this emerging conversation typically connect the reading they are doing with the Mission on which they have been called. So, there is no need for me to elaborate here on the value of individual reading and reflection, other than to note that this practice is not just for pastors/leaders but should be encouraged as broadly as possible among the members of our churches. If only a few members of the church are reading and reflecting, then we seriously diminish the potential of the second practice: corporate conversation.
Over ten years ago, our church abolished our Sunday evening service, and fumbled our way into a conversation that has continued through on Sunday nights to the present. Sometimes there have been books that we have read together – at times chunks of Scripture and at other times books of theology – but more often the books that we have read as individuals (or smaller groups) have been formational to our conversation. While it has been valuable for us to learn to talk together as a community, the conversation is not the end, but rather a means to discern our direction in response to the call of God’s mission. In other words, the end is action, a corporate embodiment of Christ in response to the injustices that we encounter on a daily basis. While we certainly have a long way to go, both in our devotion to individual reading and reflection and in our congregational practices of conversation and discernment, we believe that these are habits that are vital to our faithfulness as a missional community.
As an outgrowth of these practices, we recently launched a book review – THE ENGLEWOOD REVIEW OF BOOKS – that we hope will be an asset not only to our own exploration of these practices, but also to that of other church communities. We started the review as an email list with some of our friends, but have recently broadened our audience by launching a website: http://www.englewoodreview.org/ . The review is a free, weekly publication in which we feature recent books that might be valuable for the reflection of missional church communities.
Working under the assumption that God is redeeming all creation, we strive to review books on a wide variety of topics: (fiction, families, food, politics, the environment, art, etc., etc.) As a result, many of the books we review come from outside the “Christian market,” but we believe that even these books are valuable tools for helping us to discern the mission of God together (and perhaps more valuable than much of the waste that most “Christian” publishers are releasing). Now, we invite you to join us on this adventure: check out the website for THE REVIEW and if you like what you see, by all means please subscribe via email or RSS.
In an age when the printed word is becoming increasingly ignored (see this… and this…), I am hopeful that God will use the historic Christian practices of study and discernment to guide us toward a fuller embodiment of the Kingdom of God.
Chris Smith is a member of the Englewood Christian Church community in urban Indianapolis. He and his wife Jeni Newswanger-Smith are the parents of four children. |
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