Bring Back the Buffalo (I)

This last weekend I had the great privilege to participate in a special encounter trip to a Pelican Lake First Nations Reserve, an Indigenous community in northern Saskatchewan. We were there to witness and celebrate the establishment of a new herd of buffalo, as part of an act of reconciliation with Canada's First Peoples. "Bring Back the Buffalo" is an initiative led a asocial development organization called Loko Koa, in partnership with Tearfund Canada, a Christian relief ministry. The goal is to build relationships and help Indigenous peoples rebuild their cultural identity by working to re-establish self-sustaining herds of buffalo among Canada's First Nations. To date, Loko Koa has planted 9 herds of buffalo on 9 different reserves, and, like I say, we were there this weekend to celebrate the 9th herd-- 20 females, 2 males, and 18 calves-- planted on the land of the Pelican Lake First Nation. Our church was one of the donor organizations for this particular herd, and we were graciously invited to send a delegation to celebrate their release.

I am planning to share more about this experience in the coming days, as it was a formative experience on many levels: we received rich learning about Indigenous culture, the role that the buffalo traditionally have played in it, and the importance of Indigenous cultural traditions as an essential piece of cultural identity; we were challenged to think through the implications of our own identity as settlers and treaty people, and we were challenged to think through aspects of our own faith and relationship with the Lord, to understand how the Christian Gospel relates to traditional Indigenous spirituality, and vice versa. 

Over the next few weeks, I hope to share more about all of these aspects of the experience, from the way it stretched me theologically to the rich learning and faith-shaping encounters I had, from the deeper insight I had into to the mission of Jesus, to the clear the call to reconciliation and right relationship that it left ringing in my spiritual ears. It will take me a day or two to collect my thoughts and process my feelings about all that, however, so in the meantime, here are just a few photos from the trip, as a hint of what's to come.

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Faith that Saves, a devotional thought

In Mark 2:1-22 we find a well-known story about some guys who lowered their paralytic friend through the roof of the house where Jesus was at, because they couldn't get through the crowds.

What stands out in this story, of course, is how ready these guys were to do whatever it takes to get their friend to Jesus. It talks about them digging through the roof (so, roofing in 1 Century Israel was, admittedly, a bit easier to dig through than the shingles on my house, but still, it weren't no easy job), and then lowering the guy down on his mat (they must have had to haul him, mat and all, up to the roof in the first place, another labor of love).

The simple question that this story seems to be asking us is: "What stops us from 'getting the guy to Jesus?' Because it didn't seem like the friends of this paralytic were about to let anything stop them."

But as I'm mulling that question over a beautiful, but also a kind of difficult thing stands out to me. It says: "When he saw their faith, Jesus told the man: 'Your sins are forgiven.'"

This is remarkable, in particular, because of what it doesn't say. A salvation-by-faith-alone Evangelical like me, if I were writing it down, I'd have said, "When Jesus saw his faith" (i.e. the faith of the man needing healing). But it doesn't say that. It says their faith. This may include the faith of the paralytic, of course, but it also includes the faith of the guys helping him get to Jesus.

Is Mark really saying that Jesus saved this man from his desperate condition, because the community around him (as represented by the four friends) was so convinced that he would, that they'd do anything to get him to Jesus? If that is what Mark's saying, it sort of raises a challenging, but thrilling thought: What might Jesus start doing in our communities, if we were filled with similar faith: a faith that says, "Nothing matters more than 'getting the guy to Jesus,' and anything might happen, if we do."?

Saturday Morning Sermon (II)

Another excerpt from our work in Acts this summer (August 5).  The text was Acts 9:32-43, the post resurrection miracles of Peter.

You may not have heard of John Wimber before, but if you’ve attended a contemporary worship service sometime in the last 20 years, you’ve encountered his influence.

He was actually the keyboardist for a band called the Paramours, back in the day. The Paramours would go on to form a group called The Righteous Brothers, but not with John Wimber; John met Jesus back in 1962 and his path had a major course correction.

After becoming a Christian, he read his Bible voraciously. The story goes that he would read about the life-transforming miracles in the Bible, and then attend church services where the only miracle, it seemed, was that everyone was still awake at the end. So one Sunday he approached one of the pastors.

He said: “Pastor, when do we the stuff?” “What stuff,” asked the pastor.

“You know: the stuff. In the Bible. Like healing the sick and raising the dead—the stuff Jesus did.”

“Well,” said the pastor, “We don’t do that anymore.” John looked confused: “So what do you do?” “What we did this morning.” And John said: “Pastor: you gotta understand, I gave up drugs for this.”

Wimber would go on to become an influential leader in the charismatic movement of the 80s and 90s, a revival that challenged the church to start taking the Holy Spirit more seriously—and—as Wimber would maybe put it—to start “doin’ the stuff.”

He wrote books with titles like “Power Healing.” He taught courses called “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth.” He was also the leader of the Association of Vineyard Churches, from 1977-1994.

But I’m telling you about him today, because Acts 9 here is kind of asking us the same sort of question John Wimber asked his pastor back in 1963. When are we going to do the stuff?

And just to be clear, the stuff I’m talking about are the signs and wonders that the Holy Spirit does through us and among us, to show the world that Jesus really is alive, and to give the world a glimpse of what his kingdom actually looks like when it draws near. Just to be clear. We’re talking about the ministry of the Resurrection.

And I think I’d side with Wimber on this one, in principle anyways: a church that isn’t doing the “stuff of the Resurrection,” probably has some explaining to do. So I guess we should listen closely to what this passage has to say here about “the ministry of the Resurrection”; and let me start by pointing out that—according to Acts 9, at least—every good resurrection ministry needs an Aeneas, a Tabitha and a tanner.

You can hear the whole sermon here:  Acts 9:32-43 "Doin' the Stuff"

With definitions like these, who needs obfuscation?

Is it just me, or is the following "working definition" of "missional church" frustratingly tautological?

So a working definition of missional church is a community of God's people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God's mission to the world. In other words, the church's true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus.

Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, p. 82

Don't get me wrong, the rest of the book is edifying and thought provoking; and even in the above quote, I take his point that the church needs to define itself in terms of the Missio Dei. But to say, in essence, that a "missional church" is nothing more or less than a "church that is missional" just brings us full circle, with no clearer understanding than when we started of who we are and what we're called to do and be as Jesus' people. It leaves me wondering if, twenty years from now, books on emergent ecclessiology won't seem like the lava lamps of the ministry book shelf, dated novelties casting their dim but colourful light through shifting blobs of ideas like "missional" and "incarnational community" that swirl around like so much luminous goop.