Making Sense of Church : Eavesdropping on Emerging Conversations about God, Community, and Culture

by Spencer Burke with Colleen Pepper

• ISBN13: 9780310254997
• ISBN10: 031025499X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Zondervan

Summary

Samplings of online discussions about God, truth, and church-from theOoze.comOur culture is rapidly changing andpeople are searching for new models and paradigms to find meaning in their lives. As in all transitional periods, this search takes place in grass-roots conversations where the "new" is taking form. No other place so uniquely captures this struggle more than the message boards at theOoze.com, the premier melting pot of emerging spiritual conversation.Making Sense of Church is a snapshot of this "community conversation" as it tries to make sense of God in the emerging worldview. It represents a gathering of individuals with different points of view, theologies, life contexts, and feelings. Author Spencer Burke, creator of theOoze.com, provides the framework writing for each chapter and acts as a "guide" to the accompanying e-mail postings that supplement the chapters.Subjects discussed include:- Authentic Community- Experiential Worship- The Internet and God- Art as a Vehicle for Communicating Truth- Spirituality and Sexuality- What Is the Church?- What Is Postmodernism?

Table of Contents

Acknowledgmentshellip	p. 11
Foreword	p. 15
Introductionhellip	p. 19
Reality Checkndash;Metaphors for Transitionhellip	p. 25
Tour Guide to Travelerndash;A Conversation about ""Leadership""hellip	p. 35
Teacher to Facilitatorndash;A Conversation about ""Learning""hellip	p. 51
Hero to Humanndash;A Conversation about ""Spiritual Growth""hellip	p. 71
Consumer to Stewardndash;A Conversation about ""Ministry""hellip	p. 85
Retailer to Wholesalerndash;A Conversation about ""Mission
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Making Sense of Church
Copyright © 2003 Spencer Burke
Youth Specialties product, 300 South Pierce Street, El Cajon, CA 92020, are published by Zondervan,
5300 Patterson Avenue SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49530
ISBN-10: 0-310-25499-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25499-7
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: New International
Version (North American Edition). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan.
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Edited by David Sanford
Interior and Cover design by Ricardo Lopez De Azua (Prototype Syndicate).
Printed in the United States of America.
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Reality Check—Metaphors for Transition_25
The word "postmodern" first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in
1949. Postmodern is what’s come about after—and often in reaction to—modernism,
which dominated Western thought for a majority of the twentieth century.
In recent decades, every major sphere of life has evolved to become postmodern—
movies, literature, art, architecture, business, politics. Everything, that is, except
"The Church."
In many ways, the church is the last bastion of modernism in our culture. It’s not that
the church hasn’t changed over the years, but the changes have been cosmetic.
We’ve unplugged organs, padded pews, removed shag carpet, and added video
projectors. Meanwhile, everything else in our culture has undergone a complete
metamorphosis. The changes are so radical that some parts of our culture are barely
recognizable to modern eyes.
The world has changed
Been to a movie lately? Forget linear, moralistic plots. Instead, films like Memento
and Being John Malkovich and newer releases continue to push the limits of visual
storytelling. Bizarre, brain-twisting movies, these films demand their viewers to create
meaning for themselves. Locations and time frames are deliberately ambiguous.
Characters are complex contradictions—a fascinating mix of good, evil, and things
in between.
The same can be said of postmodern literature. In the past fifty years, a new character
has emerged: the antihero. No longer can we assume that the good guy will
win in the end. Such expectations seem nostalgic, if not painfully naïve. In our
experience, the world just doesn’t work like that.
What about business? We’ve come to accept that profits, not people, are the ultimate
priority. Corporate downsizing has become an everyday occurrence.
Chances of working for the same company for forty years and someday picking
up a gold watch for your trouble are slim. Can you imagine 1950s TV dad Ward
Cleaver ever losing his job? I didn’t think so. In today’s world, though, nothing is
certain. Dot coms are here today and gone tomorrow. Hostile takeovers are a way
of life, and strategic mergers an apparent necessity. The landscape continuously
shifts, and only those who adapt quickly seem to survive.
Our politics have shifted, too. Criticize big government in the 1950s and a sweaty
senator from Wisconsin might interrogate you on national television and brand you
a traitor. In the 1960s, however, the rules began to change. Sit-ins and protests
paved the way for a greater degree of free speech. Today, we’re able to protest
to our hearts’ content. Why? Because we’ve come to see just how fallible our leaders
are. History has shown us that U.S. presidents, in spite of their power and prestige,
still manage to lie and lust like everyone else. We no longer have illusions
about these things. As a country, we’ve come to distrust authority, recognizing
instead that our nation is indeed capable of getting involved in unjust wars, and
that we, too, have the potential to oppress people in other countries for our own
economic gain. The divine right of kings—or authority figures, in general—is dead.
We’ve seen too much.
The reality is, postmodernism is not a fad. It’s not a hot new trend we can ride out
and ignore. Whether or not you realize it, you live in a postmodern world—and
you have been living in it for quite some time! It’s like Madge, the Palmolive lady,
used to say: "You’re soaking in it." There’s no point in pretending that you’re not—
or wishing that things would go back to the way they were thirty years ago. They
can’t; you can’t. No fountain of youth exists.
The challenge, of course, is determining what all of this means for the church and
knowing how to move forward. What does it mean to be postmodern and
Christian? If such a combination is possible, then what does a "postmodern church"
look like? And just how far are we willing to go in unwrapping the evangelical
package?
Rising to the challenge
Oddly enough, Jesus found himself at the center of a similar cultural debate.
Remember the discussion about whether God’s people should pay taxes to
Caesar? Forever trying to trip up Jesus, the religious leaders of the day sent out men
to challenge him on his obedience to the law.
"Teacher," they said, "we know that you speak and teach what is right and are not
influenced by what others think. You sincerely teach the ways of God. Now tell
Reality Check—Metaphors for Transition_27
us—is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?" (Luke 20:21–22 NLT).
What does Jesus do? He asks them to show him a coin. "Whose picture and title
are stamped on it?" Upon hearing their answer, "Caesar’s," he simply replies, "Well
then, give to Caesar what belongs to him. But everything that belongs to God must
be given to God."
It’s crazy, really. Considering that Jesus could make coins appear anywhere he
wanted, including inside a fish’s mouth (Matthew 17:24–27), did he really need
to give an answer to this question? Since it’s all God’s, why not tell these people
off, or just ignore them and move on?
Perhaps Jesus was making a point about respecting the culture in which we live. In
a wonderful, sarcastic and playful way, Jesus affirmed his deity while acknowledging
the reality of life on planet Earth. True, this world is not our home, so we
don’t necessarily have to play by its rules, but we may choose to do so for the
cause of Jesus Christ. Yet in doing so, we may sometimes find ourselves at odds
with other Christians.
I find it interesting that Jesus instructed the people to figure out what was Caesar’s.
In most of life, that’s not as easy as it sounds. The more I think about Jesus’ statement,

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Excerpted from Making Sense of Church: Eavesdropping on Emerging Conversations about God, Community, and Culture by Spencer Burke
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