“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis
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Tag Archives: Faith Development
More Silence
“Underneath the worship of God lies silence, a wordless praise, an eyeless vision. When a mind gets faith, it does not get it as it gets a knowledge of England’s history, or as it gets a knowledge of sparking plugs. For ‘gets’ is the wrong word. The word which rings true is not ‘gets’ but ‘receives.’ If you get faith at all, you feel as though you receive it. You hardly asked for it. You may not have wanted it. It came. ‘Nulla fides divina nisi infusionem’ – no true faith without a descent upon you; as it were, poured out, from on high.”
[Owen Chadwick, “The Spirit of the Oxford Movement”, p. 307]
Deep Trends & Christian Institutions
For those who have ears to hear… What do you think? It is my experience, and from what I witness and read concerning leadership in many denominational and even “emergent” structures, that we honestly only want to gather around us those who scratch our itching ears… we don’t want to step back and carefully consider what is going on around us and what then is necessary to do. If it fits our preconception and personal want, fine, but it if doesn’t, we ignore or reject it – to our own peril. Click on the link, below, for the article.
Deep trends affecting Christian institutions
What do you think?
The “Faith” and the “Religion” of Jesus
The recent interview in Rolling Stone of Marcus Mumford of the Grammy awarding winning music group “Mumford and Sons” gets at a developing distinction being made between the “faith” and the “religion” revolving around Jesus Christ. Marcus was raised by parents who were instrumental in the development of the Vineyard Church in his native land, the U.K.
Increasingly, I’ve been making this distinction over the last couple of years. This is not the same thing as “spiritual but not religious.” The “faith” contra “religion” of the endeavor of following Jesus Christ tends to come from those who truly are engaged in their “faith” even if they don’t purport to engage in the “religion.”
Among the attitudes of younger people, generally, this isn’t necessary a negativity toward organized religion per se, though they will certainly point out the hypocrisy of and the negative things about those who call themselves Christians. Can you blame them?
I found this comment made by a person reading the article interesting:
BRAVO for Marcus Mumford! Jesus’ person and life is the great equalizer and exemplar of FAITH. Not of Church-codified “Christianity” which, while theologically and liturgically may be the “body” of Christ, is NOT the essence of FAITH. An inability to distinguish between these two, and the ignorant over-indulgance in dogmatic, punitive and politicized theology has veritably severed the (Church) body of Christianity from Jesus, its head. Leaving it an amputated appendage bleeding out–useless and fruitless, for those whom Jesus most intended its spiritual, and Religious embrace.
This can be said of both the present-day liberal or conservative churches and para-church organizations.
I think this sums up the attitudes developing within emerging culture. This doesn’t mean the institutional Church with its “cultic ritual practices” (technical term in theology) and doctrinal stuff involved are rejected out of hand. This does mean, however, that the hypocritical attitudes, words, and behaviors of people within those institutions who call themselves “Christian” are rejected – that which any outside observer knows does not particularly match up with how Jesus calls us to act and be. That’s the “religion” that is rejected – that which comes from the people calling themselves Christians but doesn’t mirror Jesus. The “faith” is the authentic engagement with Jesus Christ whether found inside or outside the institution.
Young-adults and ministry
One aspect of campus ministry that every campus pastor/chaplain understands is that we work with young people not for the long term benefit of our own ministry, because in a couple years those people, those students, will be gone. What campus pastors/chaplains understand clearly is that our work is for the benefit of others – other churches, other towns, other pastors/priests. We work to form students not for ourselves but for others. That ministry, that church, that pastor/priest reaps what we sow in the formation and development of students.
Students are transitory and are only with us for a few years, so we have to be very targeted and efficient with and in our evangelism, Christian formation, and leadership development efforts. Every student will leave the campus and continue onward in their life – this is just a fact of life.
What the Church must understand is that in our day and particularly among urban emerging-adults, our work as pastors/priests is and will be much more like campus ministry. We invest in the lives of young-adults not for what they will contribute to our parish over time, because young-adults will more than likely only be with us for a short time. Our presence, work, and efforts with 20-somethings will by necessity need to mirror the approach and attitude of campus pastors.
If we don’t change our expectations of 20-somethings in our churches, we will become incredibly frustrated and perhaps resentful because they are not “stepping-up” in responsibility and commitment the way 20-somethings generally did over decades past. This is just a fact of life and a fact of ministry in our day.
We invest our time and efforts in the lives of 20-somethings, but we will not reap the benefits over time in the majority of cases. We work in the formation and development of emerging-adults and young-adults for the benefit of others. Campus pastors revel in this, so to must we.