I walked into the sun-mist

Friday ringing joy

to see my friends

hard at work

 

Hey – let’s walk

 

Busy, busy, busy

 

Tear it all down

Tear it all down

Tear it all down

 

every brick

                by

                    every brick

                                    by

                                        every brick

 

But why?

 

Nothing that is should be

Nothing that was would be

Nothing that will be can be

 

But why?

 

I knew once, no more

Tore it all down

 

In doing some research about a book I’d like to read called Reveal I stumbled across a blog post on said book:

 

 

In response to this post I wrote a somewhat rambling rant-like monologue, the substance of which is below –

 

 

One of the reasons churches continue to move in the direction of "culture-pleasing" or whatever you want to call it is a collective failure on the part of many Christians to take their faith into the world (and to be challenged to do so).

 

When the people of God gather together they do so in worship in order to be equipped…equipped for what? Equipped to continue the commission that Christ has given – we gather as believers in order to be equipped to take the Gospel into the world in the various ways we do as we are gifted. Rather than doing this we have reversed the model of church and call the world inside and expect them to be confronted by Christ through great hermeneutic.

 

What becomes of a church that expects non-believers to come to faith through experiencing the gathering of the faithful? It’s message changes and it’s language changes to accomodate the needs of the one to whom "the gospel is foolishness". As long as Christians expect salvation to happen within the walls of our structures rather than bringing the salvation message into the world then the temptation (and necessity?) to become "seeker-driven"  will continue.

 

Interestingly some of the faithful have been wonderfully critical of the Willow Creek model and continue to gather in a self-satisfyingly Christ-centric orthodox fashion but still forget to do one thing – go into all the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing…they simply leave the church, fat on the word of God and go to sleep until next Sunday…well Christ has a message for all of us – "sleeper awaken".

 

Poltergeists – Well – I arrieved to work this morning only to discover that mischievous poltergeists had been at work messing up my books. The greatest joy my brand of poltergeist can achieve results from the random pushing in and pulling out of books on my book shelves. No doubt they were enjoying the sight of me feverishly lining them all up again into just the right way to give me a false sense of order in my world.

 

As a servant of the most high God I refuse to bow to their childish level and leave them any sort of food offering (most likely gummy worms are required). So this is part of the cross I must bear <s i g h> but bear it I will – perhaps in their efforts to create chaos they will come across a book they want to read and I would happily loan it to them in exchange for row upon row of neat, organized spines.  😉

 

Superheroes – In other news I was walking to work this morning listening to my iPod on shuffle when Superman starts playing by FiveforFighting. Great song. I started thinking about the phonomenon of the ‘superhero’ and how it embodies the American psyche. For all intents and purposes superheroes as we have seen them in comic books (and more recently film) really were birthed out of and came of age through the fire and adversity of World War II and to a lesser extant the great depression.

 

The archetype is Superman but one could argue that Batman and Spider-Man create an archetypal trinity. The story of the superhero is the story of American culture to a great degree. The superhero bears the cultural angst and burden of being America in a modern world. Just watch any of the recent movies Superman, Batman Begins or any of the Spider-Man trilogy and you can almost hear the collective American voice crying out – "am I the only one who has a sense of justice in this world?", "must I be the one to bear the burden of executing judgement?"and "are the consequences of my salvific activity to be isolation and bitter misunderstanding on the part of the ones I love?".

 

The response to all these questions in the American psyche is a collectively groaned "Yes" followed by a weary yet sacrificial trudging into the future. This ideas, these myths are what help push America along the path it has chosen. Before superheroes were the great heros of the wild west who acted in the same way to justify the actions of a rogue nation.

 

More on this later…