The Musings of an Emerging Christian: A Memoir

I would like to tell a story; my story.  The story I have engaged over the last few months.  I don’t know exactly when it started, though I am starting with my first day of exploration in Seattle.  I breathed fear mixed with adventure and an overwhelming hint of wonder as I made my way to Olympic Sculpture Park.   I heard it was a unique park filled with interesting sculptured art pieces that would make one go hmmmm.   I was filled with anticipation as I made my way up the hill, already drawn to a few pieces that I made out in the distance.  At the top of the hill, I turned the corner and was in awe.  Before me I saw a transparent multi-colored wall overlooking the city.  Translucent reds and blues cast an intriguing glow over the Seattle skyline.  It wasn’t merely the colors of this wall that made me go hmmmm however; it was the holes that were drilled into the wall.  “Little eye holes,” I thought, “eye holes looking out at the city, the world.”  This was the first time I remember not merely understanding postmodern thought, but feeling sympathetic towards it.  I had been in Seattle for a couple of days at this point, and already my eyes and mind were beginning to widen through conversations I was having with people at Vineyard Community Church.   I was beginning to understand how all of us, individually, view life through our own preconceived ideas.  This wall standing before me helped put the previous day’s conversations into a tangible illustration.  Eyes looking at the world through their own biases and limited lenses, no one getting the larger picture of what life is truly is.

  [1]   [2]  [3]

Before I go further, I should spend some time defining such terms as postmodern and emerging church.  However, before I go too far with definitions I wish to share a quote from Heath White in his book Post-Modernism 101.  “A warning: this [paper] is short, and it deals with ideas too complex to put on the back of a postcard.  I have to paint with a broad brush, sometimes a very broad brush.”[4]  I too have taken the liberty to paint with broad strokes.  Please forgive my mistakes, though I hope they are few.  What I want to discuss in this paper is not a precise understanding of the emerging church, but my understanding.  What I mean by that is that I have a personal investment in the emerging church.  My primary purpose in visiting the Seattle area and Vineyard Community Church (VCC) was to visit Mars Hill Graduate School MHGS).  I have been looking at various graduate schools over the last few years and MHGS is one that has stood out to me for various reasons.  My purpose this past summer was to visit the city of Seattle and specifically MHGS to gain a better understanding of what the school had to offer.  For the month of July, I was offered the hospitality of the wonderful people of VCC, people that were students, as well as graduates of MHGS.  It is from these experiences that I realized I was teetering on the emerging church, something that I was partially familiar with, but still very cautious and curious of.  While I will lean heavily on my experiences in Seattle, I hope to do so both in an academic and practical way.  Academic, due not only to the assignment at hand, but also because I am dealing with issues that I feel are of extreme importance to not only the current state of the church, but also my own future as one who is going into full time ministry; practical, because I strongly feel that knowledge without application is near worthless.

While any definition is lacking, knowing what we are talking about is a necessity for mutual understanding as well as going forward in conversation.  This is none the more evident than in Brian McLaren’s comments in Andy Crouch’s chapter in The Church in Emerging Culture.  McLaren’s frustration was over conflicting definitions of postmodernism.[5]  To avoid defining terms in a way that would hinder my full understanding of a movement that I am prayerfully considering involving myself in, I am borrowing Scot McKnight’s method in which he says, “…to define a movement we must, as a courtesy, let it say what it is or describe it until the other side says ‘Yes, now you’ve got it.’”[6]  It is this second option I wish to employ, both because I have yet to find a simple, concrete definition of either postmodernism or emerging church (something I found to be quite alarming as well as frustrating), and because I want to understand these terms as they are being used by such groups and people as MHGS and Brian McLaren (a one time adjunct professor for MHGS) instead of merely repeating their definitions. 

Scot McKnight also stated, “To define a movement, we must let the movement have the first word.”[7]  It was this that I tried to do while I was in Seattle.  I spent the majority of my time walking around, taking in the city, “reading” the city as I liked to call it.  I visited coffee shops, book stores, record stores, art galleries, even a couple of yard sales, the whole while never hesitating to start up conversation and get to know the people of Seattle.  During these excursions I felt like I was interacting with a foreign culture.  There was something literally in the air that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  I greatly identified with these words from Dan Kimball, “Whether or not we want to call this change postmodernism, something is happening that can be felt, heard, and observed in art, music, fashion trends, and in the lives of people in emerging generations.”[8]  So, I was on a mission, not merely to see if this city was a place I would want to live, but also to understand postmodernism, which I was beginning to see was THE culture of Seattle.

 So, how do we define or understand this change that is happening around us?  Dan Kimball has a number of charts designed to help us understand this move from modernism to postmodernism.  I want to highlight one in particular from The Emerging Church, in which he defines modernism as,

“A worldview and culture emphasizing science, technology, the belief that all knowledge is good and certain, a single moral standard truth as absolute, the value of individualism, and that thinking, learning, and beliefs should be determined systematically and logically.”[9] 

Postmodernism on the other hand he describes as,

“An emerging and developing worldview and culture pursuing what is beyond modernity.  It holds there is no single universal worldview.  Therefore, truth is not absolute and many of the qualities embraced by modernism no longer hold the value of influence they once did.  It can still be defined as we like, since it is still forming and developing.”[10]

So, although postmodernism may not have a strict definition[11] we can start to understand it as a the culture that is in the process of developing from and in a modern worldview, taking modernity’s values and questioning, re-evaluating, and redefining those values.

            What implications does this shift in cultural worldview have for the church; for ministry?  That is the question that is being answered in various ways by various people, and passionately at that.  Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, is one of those that are navigating the journey from modernity to post-modernity.  Back in the mid 1990’s Driscoll spoke on this very topic in a conference hosted by Leadership Network, a network of church leaders.[12]  Driscoll recounts the story of how “Out of that conference a small team was formed to continue conversing about postmodernism…”[13]  They came to the consensus that American culture is becoming increasingly secular and thus requires a different missiology.[14]  That group morphed into what is now known as Emergent Village (EV), also referred to Emergent.[15] 

EV is not to be confused with the emerging church, which Mark Driscoll defines as, “…a broad category that encompasses a wide variety of churches and Christians who are seeking to be effective missionaries wherever they live.”[16]  Much confusion has arisen from not understanding that the emerging church stands as the general umbrella, while EV is merely one group under that umbrella.  For quite a while, I was among the confused.  I kept hearing strong accusations being thrown around towards many who identified themselves as emerging.  A couple of years ago I was part of Karis Community Church in Columbia, MO[17].  Karis tried to both maintain their membership as a Southern Baptist Church, while also being a member of the growing Acts 29 Network, a network of church planters led by Mark Driscoll.[18]  This dual membership, led to conflict with the North American Mission Board in terms of paying interns, such as my former roommate.

This confusion is due to some seemingly radical views of EV, particularly from widely read author and speaker Brain McLaren.  So alarming were the accusations of Brian McLaren in particular that I realized I had better get familiar with his line of thinking, especially since he was an adjunct at MHGS.  I spent quite a long time diving into McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christian, probably at the exclusion of other arguably more important research on the topic of the emerging church.   However, my initial research repeatedly kept coming back to this book, which was influential for many in understanding the world of the emerging church, including Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI.[20]  I wish to spend the rest of the paper reflecting my initial thoughts of A New Kind of Christian.  Due to the space restrictions, I will highlight two ideas that really made me cautious, as well as two ideas that really captured my heart and imagination. 

McLaren begins A New Kind of Christian with his own story.  He briefly tells of his own frustrations in ministry that led him to start a new journey toward being “…a Christian in a whole new way.”[21]  In this introduction to this new way of being a Christian, he asks,

“What if God is actually behind these disillusionments and disembeddings?  What if God is trying to move us out of Egypt, so to speak, and into the wilderness…What if it’s time for a new phase in the unfolding mission God intends for the people…who seek to know, love, and serve God…In other words, what if this experience of frustration that feels so bad and destructive is actually a good thing…in God’s unfolding adventure with us?”[22]

These are indeed inspiring questions, but I couldn’t help but feeling odd about them, almost like he way implying that God was indeed behind his work.  My question back to McLaren was, “Fine, but what if God isn’t behind all these disillusionments?”  I of course couldn’t directly ask him, so I read on and my discomfort increased with the next two paragraphs and he further implied that God was indeed behind his work in dreaming of a new kind of Christian by identifying himself as a type of Martin Luther trying to fight the systems of Christianity today as Luther did in his day.[23]  For McLaren to make these presumptions about himself is extremely alarming.

            Another concern I had with McLaren were his ideas on Hell, addressed specifically in three chapters.[24]  Though I didn’t disagree with everything McLaren wrote, I was puzzled and a bit shocked over the idea that there might not be a literal Hell, but that it may be merely the perception of Heaven by those that don’t know God.[25]  I feel this teaching is contrary with the teachings of Jesus, specifically in Matthew 18:6 – 9:

^“6But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. ⁷"Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! ⁸And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.” (ESV)

In this passage, it seems pretty clear that Jesus is speaking of a physical fire of torment.  Although, I guess one could argue that since it is commonly held that Jesus is figuratively speaking of maiming oneself, that the same could be said of the eternal fire.  Still this really alarmed and frightened me.

            To be fair, I should add that McLaren does ask us to not “…assume that any of these characters can be fully identified with the ‘I’ who wrote this introduction.”[26]  “Jacques Derrida has said that the ‘most difficult question’ is telling the who apart from the what – separating the author or thinker from the author’s work or thought.”[27]  That is no exception in dealing with Brain McLaren’s thoughts. It frustrated me greatly not being able to fully know how McLaren exactly thought on the issues and questions his characters brought up.  He distances himself further in the second book of this three part series, when he writes,

“Please do not assume that their [Neo and friends] answers are always mine; you may however, safely assume that I think that all their questions and answers deserve consideration.  If you are dissatisfied with some of the answers you find here (as I am), there is a good chance you’re right.  So I hope that you’ll use your dissatisfaction constructively and attempt to articulate better answers yourself.  I’ll continue to try to do the same thing.  Let’s be respectful colleagues, not critical adversaries.”[28]         

It would be much easier for me and others to be more respectful rather than critical if we knew what thought from these stories were from McLaren and which ones weren’t. 

            Despite my frustrations and concerns, there was much I liked about A New Kind of Christian.  The style or genre for one was a refreshing blend of light fiction dealing with nonfictional thoughts.  Conversation pushed the story along.  It was very uniquely done.  The story is of two friends, Neo, a former pastor turned school teacher, and Dan, a current pastor that is having severe questions and frustrations in regard to ministry.  Dan’s questions are similar to questions that Neo faced years before leading to his leaving the pastorate.  It is through the expression and exploration of these questions that these two men strike up a friendship.  One day they are having deep dialogue while on a walk in the park, when Neo disappears into a patch of woods.  He has gone looking for a spiderweb to use as an analogy for foundation of our faith.[29]  Probably like most people, foundation for me has been in terms of a building.  Thinking outside the box here really stretched me.  McLaren’s character Neo says, “What if faith isn’t best compared to a building, but rather to spiderweb?  Instead of one foundation, it has several anchor points.  Those points might be spiritual experiences, exemplary people and institutions whom one has come to trust....”[30] 

I really liked that picture and sat with that a few days mulling it around in my head.  I even bounced it around with my roommate who is a carpenter, wanting to perspective of someone in the construction business.  What he said not only surprised me, but left me with a sense of the mystery of God.  He questioned whether faith had to be limited to foundation in any analogous definition.  Keeping with the building analogy thought, he wondered if faith could start in the bathroom of all places.  After all God does meet us where we are at, we don’t know the whole story before the salvation process starts.[31]

I also greatly appreciated the last chapter, where characters Neo and Casey B. dreamt of new kinds of church and seminaries.[32] Reading this chapter brought me back to Seattle and my reasons for visiting.  I was specifically reminded of an experience I had visiting Church of the Apostles (COTA) pastured by Karen Ward, another leading voice in the emerging conversation.[33]  In my wanderings around Seattle, Freemont quickly became one of my favorite neighborhoods.  Lively, art filled, energetic, and eclectic, Freemont was an intriguing neighborhood to get lost in.  One day I stumbled upon the Freemont Abby, the building and ministry of the emerging bunch COTA.  They were about to close for the day, but invited me back to their gathering that Saturday.  I took them up on their invite and was in for a night that I will never forget.  From the wonderful, heartfelt welcome I received, to the worship team joining us in worshiping God by leading us in song from behind us, to a personal time of reflection by the entire congregation through quiet, reflective, meditation stations that seemed more the focus of the gathering than the message, the evening had a deep mystery and wonder to it.  I left feeling like I connected with God for the first time in a long while. 

The night wasn’t over though as we made our way downstairs for my first church potluck with beer.  The occasion was a business meeting whether they were discussing moving their gathering from Saturday to Sunday.  They made a point to invite everyone to the meeting/potluck, though they did stress that visitors might feel a little uncomfortable due to the nature of the meeting.  Being the inquisitive one that I am, I jumped at the opportunity to observe fellow believers working together to make their particular group function better.  I was however a bit surprised that I wasn’t merely a silent observer, but was asked to participate in the guided small group discussions that we had around our respective tables.  When my research brought me to Karen Ward’s chapter in Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, I smiled.  Not only to the fond memories of her church, but also because her church practices what they preach.  Her chapter is a “potluck” of theology from members of her church.  She says she opened up the chapter to other voices and that they wrote it “in community as that is how we operate at COTA.”[34]  I can attest that two years after this was written, this lovely group of believers is still practicing communal theology.

In regard to new kinds of seminaries, McLaren’s character Neo writes in an email:

“We’d spend a lot of time studying contemporary culture…I’d send the students out to exegete movies and art galleries, concerts and sports events, shopping malls and bars, video game parlors and campgrounds, synagogues and mosques.  We’d come back from these adventures and talk about what we’ve seen, what’s going on, what it means to be a Christian in our world.” [35]

It was this studying, or exegesis that I was doing while in Seattle.  I spent a month “reading” Seattle.  If I were to share only one thing from my adventure it would be another piece of art that I stumbled upon my first day in the city.  It was a panting of Calvary, but instead of Jesus on the cross, there were multiple crosses with multiple Jesus’.  It caught be off guard and I found myself more than a little offended.  I was grieved at how myopic our culture was that someone could paint a picture that seemed to be equating Jesus with Burger King; “my god, my way”.  Appalled, I turned away and walked around the gallery, but couldn’t get the painting out of my head.  Before I left, I made my way toward this painting again and sensed God asking me if I was guilty of the same error that I was accusing the culture of.  Was I worshiping a Jesus I created, or that my culture created?  Was I worshiping a Jesus that made me feel good, and was convenient for me?  Or was I worshiping the God that truly IS?  I wept and continue to weep at the thought of resurrecting a Jesus that I am comfortable with.  I pray for the future of the church.  I pray for my future.  I pray that however the church, and specifically myself, navigate the treacherous waters of postmodernism, we would continue to worship the One, True, and Living God. 

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[1] Seanet Corp., “Unique Seattle Photo Galleries,” Seattle.net, http://www.seattle.net/seattlemedia/photography/ (accessed November 23, 2009).

[2] From pictures I took July, 31^st 2009

[3] Ibid.

[4] Heath White, Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006), 11

[5]Andy Crouch, “Life After Postmodernity,” in The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, ed. Leonard Sweet (El Cajon, CA: emergentYS Books, 2003), 70.

[6] Scot McKnight, “What is the Emerging Church?” Transcript of the presentation given at Westminster Theological Seminary, October 26-27, 2006.  Transcript may be found at http://www.vanguardchurch.com/mck_ec.pdf.  Accessed December 1, 2009.

[7] Ibid

[8] Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 48

[9] Ibid, 58

[10] Ibid

[11] Ibid, 49

[12] Mark Driscoll, “A Pastoral Perspective on the Emergent Church,” Criswell Theological Review 3, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 87.

[13] Ibid, 88

[14] Ibid

[15] Ibid, 89. Also the Emergent Village website tells of their birth, Emergent Village, “About Emergent Village,” Emergent Village, http://www.emergentvillage.com/about/ (accessed December 1, 2009).  Ed Stetzer also summarized Tony Jones’ (former national coordinator of EV) telling of the birth of EV in, Ed Stetzer, “The Emergent/Emerging Church a Missiological Perspective,” in Evangelicals Engaging Emergent: A Discussion of the Emergent Church Movement, ed. William D. Henard and Adam W. Greenway (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2009).

[16] Mark Driscoll, “A Pastoral Perspective on the Emergent Church,” Criswell Theological Review 3, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 89.

[17] Karis home page,” Karis Community Church, http://karischurch.org/index.aspx (accessed December 1, 2009).

[18] Scott Thomas, “Welcome to the Acts 29 Website!” Acts 29 Network, http://www.acts29network.org/about/welcome/ (accessed December 1, 2009).

[19] I feel the need to apologize.  I used info on my old roommate for this paper without his permission, so I am retracting my comments.  I am sorry.
[20] Andy Crouch, “The Emergent Mystique,” Christianity Today (November 2004): 38.

[21] Brian D. McLaren, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey (San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass, 2001), xiii-xxii.

[22] Ibid, xvi.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid, 60 – 67, 81 – 93, 124 - 134

[25] Ibid, 90-91

[26] Ibid, xxii

[27] Leonard Sweet, “Introduction to the Contributors,” in The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, ed. Leonard Sweet (El Cajon, CA: emergentYS Books, 2003), 51.

[28] Brian D. McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves in: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian (San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass, 2003), xviii.

[29] Brian D. McLaren, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey (San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass, 2001), 53 - 55

[30] Ibid, 54

[31] Conversation with Mark Richey, Sunday, November 8, 2009

[32] Brian D. McLaren, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spritual Journey (San Fransisco, CA: Josey-Bass, 2001), 143 - 164

[33] “Apostleschurch.org,” Apostleschurch.org, http://www.apostleschurch.org/home.php (accessed December 2, 2009.

[34] Karen Ward, “The Emerging Church and Communal Theology,” in Listening to the Voices of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives, ed. Robert Webber (Grand Rapids: MI: Zondervan, 2007), 161

[35] Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001),162.

Posting old school papers

So I have been sorting through some old files recently. I thought that it would be good to post some of my old papers on here. I posted two papers tonight. The first one is my senior seminar paper. I spent all semester researching intentional communities and how counseling can be used in that setting. The second paper is a story of how God provided for me to go out to Seattle.

Pennies for Pearls

Is it me, or are Jesus’ words the most convoluted, radical, and challenging words ever to be spoken?  Take the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl in Matthew for example, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”[1]  Does Jesus seriously expect us to sell all our possessions and follow him and this kingdom he keeps talking about?  The Christianity that I have grown to love and cherish might give that teaching lip service, but I rarely see this lived out.  If someone were to sell all they had, I think people might look at them a little strange.  Yet, isn’t that what Jesus is saying here?  I can’t help but read this and picture Jesus telling me, “Yes, I want you to sell everything, including your car, your DVD collection, even that ugly hat that no one else would even think about wearing.”  I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen that kind of Christianity lived out, let alone talked about.  So you can imagine my surprise when last summer I was asked to live out these little parables in their fullness. 

As graduation looms ever near, so does the “real world,” with all of its worries, and responsibilities, and bills, and…  I dreamed, no longed, for one last adventure, one last journey of the soul.  Where would this adventure take me?  Seattle.  Why Seattle, you ask?  Why not?  The Mecca of postmodern thought as well as grunge, Seattle offered the perfect destination for my personal jihad.  Seattle is also home to Mars Hill Graduate School (MHGS), where I have been praying about continuing my education.  So Seattle it was. 

I only had one little problem, I was penniless in Michigan.  I thought about throwing my thumb in the air, and somehow meandering out to the west coast, but my friends advised against it.  After much prayer and advice, I started contacting churches in the greater Seattle area, inquiring if they were in need for a summer intern.  Within a few days, I had heard back from Rich, one of the pastors at Vineyard Community Church (VCC), just north of Seattle.  He informed me that many students from MHGS, both past and current, attend VCC, and that the church would be honored to have me spend time with them.  I spent the next few weeks walking on air, as I watched this dream become reality before my eyes.  It actually looked like I was going to get the opportunity to spend a month in Seattle. 

Then I opened my wallet…and nothing.  Reality can be crushing, suffocating really.  I felt the air escape from my dream faster than the Hanson brothers’ stint on the top 40 pop charts.  Not having any way to get out to Seattle, I gave up and started looking for work here in Lansing.  After a couple of weeks with no prospects on work, I felt a stir in my heart again for Seattle.  With questions looming over me, I fell to my knees and waited on God for direction.  I felt God ask me whether I truly believed he called me to Seattle, and, if I believed, why I wasn’t getting myself ready to leave.  I started to see the foolishness of flooding Lansing with job applications, when I was going to spend at least a month of the summer in the Emerald City.  Yet, I still had no idea how I was going to get the funds needed for this haunting fantasia. 

Rearticulating my desire to my friends spawned the idea of a yard sale.  With my proposed arrival date only two weeks away, I began the tedious task of collecting and pricing items for this supposed yard sale.  By collecting items, I mean dragging boxes of my own valuables from storage.  Without giving it a second thought, I willingly displayed all of my possessions, along with a few generous donations, on my friends’ front lawn.  Day after day for two weeks, I excitedly baked in the early summer heat, waiting for people to come and buy my belongings.  Watching all I once held so precious get eaten up by a pack of wolves, I sat amazed as my funds grew from $0 to $400 almost overnight. 

It was during one of those afternoon baking jamborees that the words of Jesus in Matthew 13 took on a whole new light.  No longer were they foreign; no, they were active and extremely applicable as literally everything I owned either had price stickers on it or were already sold the previous days.  It was then that I realized that yes, Jesus was being literal.  Jesus calls us to willingly part with all that this world has, in exchange for The Emerald City. 

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[1] Matt 13:44 – 46 NIV

Counseling Within Community

My third child was thus deposited in a foundling home just like the first two, and I did the same with the two following: I had five in all.  This arrangement seemed to me so good, so sensible, so appropriate, that if I did not boast of it publically is was solely out of regard for their mother.....In a word, I made no secret of my action....because in fact I saw no wrong in it.  All things considered, I chose what was best for my children, or what I thought was best...[1]

 That is a recounting of the practice of child abandonment which was common in pre-modern and early modern Europe.  So common was the practice in the mid eighteenth century, that even in advanced regions of the time such as France, abandon rates in nearly every city were 10%.  Paris itself had a 20 – 30% child abandonment rate.[2]  In the same way that parents left their newborns to survive at the mercy of others, the church today is guilty of abandoning its new converts.  How often do we simply provide a Bible, offer a handshake and smile while saying the empty words "See you next Sunday."  The church today is guilty of extreme negligence when it comes to parenting its newborn.  Lack of real discipleship within community is the leading causes of this negligence in the church.  There is hope.  Christians today are building intentional communities in which life changing discipleship and healing can take place.  These communities have taken the name New Monastic Communities, or simply intentional communities, and they are the future of both the church and Christian counseling in the 21st century.  Since there may be some confusion over what a monastic community is, space will be given to explore the place of monastic communities throughout the history of the church.  After a brief overview of monastic communities in general, a look at the new resurgence of monastic life will be explored, especially as it relates to redefining community and discipleship or counseling. 

When most people hear the term monasticism they either have no idea what it is, or have images of bald-headed men in robes singing chants.  One rarely imagines radical social reformers or counter-cultural rebels trying to change the world.  However, that is exactly what many in the monastic movement were and are trying to do.  J.K. Jones, professor at Lincoln Christian College, writes, “Monasticism was and is a living protest against the secularization of Christianity.”[3] 

What was this secularization which originally produced monasticism?  Thomas Rausch in his book Radical Christian Communities contributes the birth of monasticism to the merging of Christianity with the Roman Empire through Constantine.[4]  Prior to Emperor Constantine’s lawful acceptance of Christianity, “occasional persecutions and the lack of public recognition meant that Christianity was still a counter-cultural movement…”[5]  In 313, when Constantine recognized Christianity as a legitimate religion he brought stability and stratification to the Christians.  Not wanting to disturb this newfound freedom, Rausch describes the discipleship of this time simply as being a good Roman.[6]                                                                                                        

Christian life was less and less understood as a Gospel call to discipleship.  For many it was understood in terms of the practice and observances of a religion which was fast becoming the official cult of the empire.  And as the church began to appropriate for its officials the empire's symbols of authority and power, it became itself more worldly.  Christianity was becoming increasingly conformed to the world in which it found itself.[7]

While many were embracing this freedom, there were some Christians that were cautious of where the church was heading.  Mark Noll, in his book Turning Points, says that “Monasticism was a response…that reflected spiritual concern about the church’s success.”[8] “Recovering the ideals of martyrdom,” a few took it upon themselves to protest this worldliness of the church, and participate in a bloodless or “white” martyrdom as they called it.[9]  They “felt something had gone wrong, that the Gospel call to renunciation, sacrifice, and holiness had fallen on deaf ears.”[10]  Among these few was Anthony, “the man universally recognized as the father of Christian monasticism.”[11]  Anthony and others fled to the desert seeking “to respond fully to the call of Christ to a radical discipleship by disposing of their possessions and leaving behind not just their worldly concerns but their relatives and friends as well.”[12] 

These new monks were not claiming they had it figured out; they had not stumbled on THE TRUTH.  As they flocked to the desert to escape what they saw as a church that was heading in a worldly direction, they were guilty of promoting extreme forms of individualism.  Pachomious, a contemporary of Anthony saw a need to bring community to the growing number of desert monks.  Rausch describes the beginnings of monastic order:

In this community the monks followed a common life...they lived together in common houses or buildings, each under the direction of an appointed leader.  Obedience to this leader or superior was added to the poverty and chastity already observed by the monks.  They ate together, held their goods in common, and followed a common order of communal prayer, manual labor, and later study.  Before long candidates were required to undergo a probationary period, later known as the novitiate, before being fully accepted into the community.  This way of life was called cenobitic, from the Greek koinos bios, common life. [13]

Roman society came to an impasse with the fall of Rome.  “The sack of Rome by the Visigoths was more traumatic for Romans than September 11, 2001, was for us in the United States.  Afterward there were no illusions that life could go on as before.  Europe was in the midst of a social crisis.”[14]  In a world completely shattered, Christians were wondering where to turn.  Rome, the center of their universe was no more; the Dark Ages of history were upon the masses.  In the midst of this social crisis St. Benedict, the Father of Western Monasticism was born.[15]  “Benedict…gave the most decisive, and most beneficial, shape to monasticism.”[16] Benedict’s monastic Rule offered great hope to a European societal landscape that had no social mobility.  In a world where people were confined to the caste system they were born under, Benedictine monasteries offered an “alternative society.”[17]  “They provided hospitality for travelers and food, clothing, and shelter for the indigent… [They] became centers of learning and art.”[18]  As parents sent their children to live in the monasteries, they became educational centers as well.[19]

            Again, these monastic communities were not without fault.  Along with fame, came wealth, and abuse of power.  Since the monasteries were social reform centers, many came with multiple intentions, some not religious.  As the need for more priests grew, lay monks were given more responsibility, which they quickly took advantage of. [20]

Francis Bernardone was born into a similar class struggle, and it was such a mentality that he would eventually throw off.  A materialistic revolution was underway in which the merchant class, due to their possession of money were overtaking the upper class.  Francis’s family greatly benefited from this revolution, “com[ing] into wealth and into possession of many houses in the city as well as several properties in…Assisi.”[21]  When Francis received his call, he gave up all the wealth of his family.  He took Jesus’ words about materialism literally, and called his disciples to the same.  A radical trusting in Jesus and not money is what defined his ministry.[22] 

“For Francis one thing stands out as the embodiment of sin: money.  He sees it as a symbol for rapacious human greed.”[23]  Poverty for St. Francis was not thought of in a negative light, but for him “to be poor is to be rich.”  “Poverty is the very dignity of the human being and the foundation of an immediate relationship with God.” [24]  Francis saw in the gospels, a God “that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”[25] Rotzetter sums up Francis’s view of poverty in these words:

Francis looks at poverty as an incessant process of expropriation in which all is to be returned to the true proprietor, God: the words which one speaks, the deeds which one performs, the talents which one receives, the offices to which one is assigned, the dwellings in which the community lives, the churches in which it prays—all is to be given back and thanks returned to the magnanimous God.[26]

The Reformation is another clear example of how communities were counter-cultural.  While much attention is given to Martin Luther, he was not the only one wrestling with reform.  Ulrich Zwingli was also leading a Swiss reform.  One of Zwingli’s students, Conrad Grebel, took a more radical stance causing dispute between him and Zwingli.  Grebel along with about a dozen others, performed “the most revolutionary act of the Reformation,” that of believers baptism. This baptismal service is looked at as the birth of the Anabaptist movement.[27]  “The Anabaptists’ rejection of infant baptism and their insistence upon adult baptism after an individual profession of faith grew out of a desire to distinguish Christianity from state citizenship…”[28]

While Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin all dated the fall of the church to a post-Constantine era, the Anabaptists “rejected almost all of the links between the sacred and the secular that had been built up in Europe since the age of Constantine, including infant baptism.[29] For many Reformers, “the Reformation was a revolt against papal authority but not against the Roman concept of the church as an institution. “[30]  To the Anabaptist, however, merely reforming the church was impossible, they understood their task that of rebuilding the true church on the foundation of Christ.[31]  Therefore,

They saw their communities as alternate societies.  Many of them were pacifists, refusing to bear arms.  Their movement was marked by an egalitarian spirit and a strong concern for the poor, many of whom found refuge among them.  Some of them, like the Hutterites, taught and practiced a holding of goods in common, like the primitive Christians of Jerusalem.[32] 

Though they didn’t identify themselves as a monastic order, the Anabaptists continued this pattern of calling into question practices of the church that didn’t line up with the gospel that was handed down to us.

I hope that this brief survey of placing a few of the more prominent monastic leaders into their cultural context is a helpful way to see how they were a reaction to a lack of discipleship amidst a church gone awry.  Today the church is in need of another counter-cultural alternative.  Churches are seeing less and less people every week, and even the people coming into the church are presented with a gospel that lacks the life changing power it promises.   Thankfully there are believers recognizing and stepping up to this need.  Listen to these words Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote to his brother back in 1935:

...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of comprimise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ.  I think it is time to gather people together to do this.[33]

This call for a new monastic reform is taking shape as new forms of radical community in the tradition of Anthony, Pachomious, Benedict, Francis, the Anabaptists, and countless others are sprouting up on the fringes of the Christian landscape.

            All across Western society church attendance is waning.  One study, using France as a microcosm of Western Europe, found a severe decline in Christianity. 

In 1986 eighty-one percent of the French who were 15 years of age or older considered themselves to be ‘catholic.’ That number had dropped to 69 percent in 2001.  In 2002 only seven percent of French adults (18 years of age and older) regularly practiced their faith and 44 percent of French adults who identified themselves as Catholics stated that they never attend church services.[34]

Unfortunately these trends are not unique to France or Western Europe, but are also being seen in the United States.  In 2005, Christianity Today reported that a stunning 23 million people claiming to have a relationship with Christ are not going to church.[35]  That’s 23 million so-called Christians trying living without the community of other Christians; 23 million so-called Christians abandoned by the rest us.  What’s more, those of us in church don’t even notice they are gone, or if we do, we do nothing about it.  Scott McConnell of Lifeway Christian Resources, reported after a study on why people leave church that, “a lot of the formerly churched said no one contacted them after they left.” [36]

            The fact that so many professing Christians are living without the church goes to prove what author and Professor James Howard states in his introduction to his book, Paul, the Community, and Progressive Sanctification, that though many Christians would say community is important, few would go so far as to say that it is a necessity.  Howard goes on to build a case that community is as essential to sanctification as the Holy Spirit and the Bible.[37]  Many new Monastic’s are recognizing this call towards radical community.  When loneliness is given as the reason that people are leaving church, something needs to change; we need to do a better job at creating real community.[38]

Thus far in my paper, I have talked a lot about community, especially monastic community.  I have yet, however, to tie this to counseling. There is crisis facing us in America.  Mental illness, especially depression is out of control.  An article published in 2005, reported that those seeking treatment for mood disorders nearly doubled since the early 1980’s.  In 2005, 10% of the population each year and 25% of the entire population will sometime in their lives suffer depression.[39]  Churches have not offered the hope to this epidemic that Christ offers.  They have pushed people away, and even lonelier than when they came in.  We need to take responsibility of this and begin to share the hope that Christ indeed offers.

Counseling in a Christian context is to help the believer reach their full potential in Christ.  I don’t believe that this is the sole responsibility of the pastor or the counselor, but the entire congregation working together in community.  Neil Anderson in his text, Christ Centered Therapy, describes how discipleship and counseling are virtually indistinguishable.[40]  Doctor Larry Martin emphasized this point in his Counseling Methods class at Great Lakes Christian College[41].  The Christian counselor needs to be a discipler, and vice versa, yet how seldom this is practiced.

Defining Christian counseling as discipleship begs the question of what exactly is discipleship.  Peter Holmes, in his book Becoming More Human, points out that scripture doesn’t offer a neat and clear definition of disciple for us, though the Greek word for disciple mathetes conveys a pupil sitting under a master.[42]  In many ways the definition of discipleship in America is the same as that in Rome under Constantine, merely being a good citizen.[43]  We have forgotten that Jesus calls us forsake all and follow after Him.  We have once again forgotten that the gospel is a call to radical discipleship.  We have lost our distinctiveness as a people, set apart for God.

What makes new monastic communities different than the churches people are fleeing? They have a different understanding of community than a lot of traditional churches.  In his book New Monasticism, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove describes how being in community has taught him how to reread the gospel story in terms of a people that God is working through. 

“…If the Bible is a story about God’s plan to save the world through a people, then my salvation and sanctification depend on finding my true home with God’s people.  Apart from the story of this people, I can’t have a relationship with God.  Without the church, there’s no chance of becoming holy.”[44]

These new monastics are understanding community in a holistic approach.  Just as with the Anabaptists who understood baptism as entering into a community of faith, today’s new monastics see conversion as being baptized into a body of believers with specific obligations to disciple one another and help each other grow in maturity in Christ.[45] 

It is within this community of fellow believers that true discipleship happens.  Lee Camp elaborates on two implications regarding Paul’s imagery of the community of disciples being the “body of Christ”.  “First,” he writes,

The ‘body of Christ’ language emphasizes the ongoing nature of the incarnation…The church is called to be no less than a community that continues to incarnate (to embody) the will of God.  In the incarnation, God becomes flesh, taking the form of a servant, working and living among social outcast and reprobates, touching lepers, running into conflict with the authorities and powers, executed as a common criminal…as he was in the world, so are we to be.[46]

Camp identifies the second aspect of the “body” illustration as being a “corporate endeavor, not an individualistic pursuit.”  According to Paul, “salvation and redemption and participating in the work of God always occur within a community, as koinonia, as shared participation.”[47] 

Professional counseling tends to place distance between the counselor and the counselee, even using titles as ‘doctor’ and ‘patient’.  I would challenge these titles and this distance for the Christian counselor.  In the words of Henri Nouwen,

Somehow we have come to believe that good leadership requires a safe distance from those we are called to lead.  Medicine, psychiatry, and social work all offer us models in which “service” takes place in a one-way direction.  Someone serves, someone else is being served, and how can we lay down our life for those with whom we are not even allowed to enter into a deep personal relationship.[48]

The holistic community fostered by intentional communities, I believe to be an ideal place for the lines between counselor and counselee to fade and allow true bonds of community develop.  Michael Frost laments the need for us in the West to have a church community without a building or formally trained staff.  Quoting an Indian church planter, Frost writes, “You have a Bible?  You can read?  Then you can start a church?”  I would conclude that if counseling and discipleship are one, then all that is required for counseling to take place is the Word of God being lived out among believers.  David Augsburger discusses community and counseling saying,

Community is the natural setting for healing, and in positive community, people are sustained and guided, sometimes confronted and corrected, always accepted and prized.  In negative community, injured people may be bypassed, unhappy people are avoided, less functional people are sidelined, and oppressed people are frequently ignored.[49]

            Specifically how does this work?  It is difficult, if not impossible to adequately give an umbrella description of life in these communities.  Though there has been some recent effort to give a loose structure and description of how these communities live and function, there is great variety and independence among each.  All of them embody a family attitude as the community lives together whether in one house or a group of houses.  Everyone is part of the community and contributes in the responsibilities of the house.  In this way, I see a deeper level of commitment being offered than a traditional church.  In turn, deeper levels of discipleship can take place as life is shared together.  Everyday tasks such as washing dishes can turn into moments of spiritual growth and healing. 

Christ Church Deal (CCD) located in Deal, Kent in the UK, is one community that is embodying this idea of communal discipleship as counseling.  Started by Peter Holmes and Susan Williams in 1998, this “therapeutic community” has grown from 25 members to over 150 members.[50]  Peter Holmes’ model of the therapeutic journey has three stages.  These stages are not something that is rushed through, but the whole process may take years.  This is similar to the novitiate of the desert monks.[51] 

Stage one is dealing with all the baggage from past sins.  It is a time when people start to take full responsibility for their sins.  Holmes describes this stage to be one of brokenness. 

By brokenness, I am describing that profoundly deep moment in our lives, sometimes several moments, in the presence of Christ and others, when we allow ourselves to acknowledge our dark side, our self-harm and the utter despair of our fragmented lives.[52]  

This stage will last, depending on the individual, between one and two years.  The second stage is where one begins to gain an understanding of who they were uniquely created to be.  Moving away from the self-focus of the first stage this second stage is where they begin to understand what it means to obey Christ.  They gain an understanding of what God has called them to and they start to walk in that, and as they obey, God redeems the broken areas of their lives.  This stage naturally matures into the third stage that of practicing what it is that God is calling them to do and be.  In this stage people naturally love and serve others.[53]

            Throughout these three stages a type of counseling does take place, which Holmes calls “diagnostic counseling”.  However, this isn’t traditional counseling, for no one is acting the role of the counselor.  The whole community is involved as all are in need of healing from God.    They see the Holy Spirit as the Counselor that heals each of them as they have need.  They do provide mentorship for each other as needed.  Though these mentors are more like “skilled friends” that have worked through areas others are in need of help in.  It is very common therefore, for people to change mentors as they move on and deal with other issues.  This cross mentoring “breaks the dependency of the exclusive one-to-one counselor approach, as well as the isolation and power issues of the counselor-therapist relationship.[54]

I wish to conclude with two stories highlighting how communities can bring healing to those in need.  Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove tells the story of a friend who dealt with homosexual feelings.  This man had grown up in the church, being the son of missionaries.  He was driven out of the church because of his lifestyle, and had all but given up hope, when he stumbled upon an intentional community.  The community welcomed him and upon learning of his lifestyle affirmed that he was a gift to the community and they invited him to stay.  Twenty years later he not only is still at the same community, but is a leader.  The community saved his life.[55] 

            Michael Frost shares another story in his book Exiles.  Shaun, a young man in his mid-twenties abruptly decided to stop attending church after attending every week since he was born. Shaun, living with dyslexia and ADD, had trouble sitting through the sermons.  He wasn’t getting anything out of church.  Instead of attending church, he called up friends, both believers and non-believers and headed to the local river where they went water skiing.  Before heading into the water, Shawn did feel the need to read a short Psalm and pray for his friends.  Surprised by this gesture, his friends shared requests and then they headed into the water.  Shaun and his friends have been doing this ever since.  His friends eventually gave their lives to Christ and now this community has blossomed into a ministry for the general river community.  Every week they head to the river to share a meal, gather money for those in need, and help fix boats that are in need of repair.[56]  While this story isn’t essentially addressing counseling, I see in it an example of one man in need finding his fulfillment in a community of believers.  While Shaun wasn’t able to grow in the context of sitting still listening to a sermon, he was able to provide a dynamic ministry in a different context.       

“In the twenty-first century, it’s not God who is dead.  It’s the church.”[57]  Let these shocking, sobering words from Tony Jones, former national coordinator of Emergent Village and renowned author and speaker, sink in.  Glance around and try to take in the large picture of what is happening in churches across Western society.  People no longer are seeing the church as the healing agent that it should be.  Author Phillip Yancey tells the story of a young mother trapped in prostitution and drug addiction.  As she is dealing with the guilt of having sold her two year old daughter into sex for drug money, someone urges her to go to the church.  She replies with, “Why would I ever go there?  I was already feeling terrible about myself.  They’d just make me feel worse.”[58]  If we as the church do not exist for those that are lost, broken, and hurting, then why do we exist?   

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[1] John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance, University of Chicago Press ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 5.

[2] Ibid., 15 – 16.

[3] J K. Jones, What the Monks Can Teach Us: An Ancient Practice For a Postmodern Time (Joplin, Mo.: HeartSpring Pub., 2004), 5.

[4] Thomas P. Rausch, Radical Christian Communities (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1990), 39.

[5] Ibid, 39

[6] Ibid, 39

[7] Ibid, 39

[8] Mark A. Noll, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2009), 88.

[9] Ibid, 40.

[10] Rausch,  40.

[11] Ibid., 36.

[12] Ibid., 40.

[13] Ibid., 42.

[14] Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2008), 46.

[15] Ibid., 47

[16] Mark A. Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2000), 86.

[17] Wilson-Hartgrove, New Monasticism, 47.

[18] Rausch, 51.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21]Anton Rotzetter, Willibrord Chr van Dijk and Thaddée Matura, Gospel Living: Francis of Assisi, Yesterday and Today (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1994), 9.

[22] Kenneth Baxter Wolf, The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered (Oxford ;: Oxford University Press, 2003), 41-43.

[23] Rotzetter, 76.

[24] Ibid, 72

[25] Wolf, 42.

[26] Rotzetter, 78.

[27] William Roscoe Estep, The Anabaptist Story (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 8 – 11.

[28] Noll, Turning Points, 190 – 191.

[29] Ibid, 190 and Estep, 182, 183.

[30] Estep, 182.

[31] Ibid, 183 - 185

[32] Rausch, 88.

[33]Paul R. Dekar, Community of the Transfiguration: The Journey of a New Monastic Community (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2008), ix.  Phyllis Tickle quoting Dietrich Bonheoffer in the introduction. 

[34] David, E. Björk, “The future of Christianity in Western Europe: the end of a world,” Missiology 34, no. 3 (July 2004): 309-24.

[35] Tim Stafford, “The Church - Why Bother?: There is no healthy relationship with Jesus without a relationship to the church.,” Christianity Today 49, no. 1 (January 2005): page nr., http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/january/26.42.html (accessed April 10, 2010).

[36] Julia Duin, Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2008), 58.

[37] James M. Howard, Paul, the Community, and Progressive Sanctification: An Exploration Into Community-Based Transformation Within Pauline Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 2-3.

[38] Duin, 50.

[39] Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield, “The age of depression,” Public Interest no. 158 (Winter 2005): 39-58.

[40] Neil T. Anderson, Terry Zuehlke and Julianne Zuehlke, Christ-Centered Therapy: The Practical Integration of Theology and Psychology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Pub. House, 2000), 18.

[41] Ibid, and Martin, Larry.  2009.  Counseling Methods and Procedures class notes.  Great Lakes Christian College, Lansing, MI. Fall Semester 2009.

[42] Peter R. Holmes, Becoming More Human: Exploring the Interface of Spirituality, Discipleship and Therapeutic Faith Community (Bletchley, Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster Press, 2005), 83 – 84.

[43] Michael L. Budde and Robert W. Brimlow, The Church As Counterculture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 3 – 4.

[44] Wilson-Hartgrove, New Monasticism, 58.

[45] Lee C. Camp, Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2008), 150.

[46] Ibid, 114.

[47] Ibid, 188.

[48] Henri J M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections On Christian Leadership (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 61.

[49] Daniel S. Schipani, ed., Mennonite Perspectives On Pastoral Counseling (Elkhart, Ind.: Institute of Mennonite Studies ;, 2007), 49.

[50] Holmes, 5 – 6.

[51] Ibid, 94.

[52] Ibid, 138.

[53] Ibid, 138 – 140.

[54] Ibid, 140 – 144.

[55] Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, “Together on the ark: the witness of intentional community,” Christian Century (August 11, 2009):., http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_16_126/ai_n35533669/?tag=content;col1 (accessed April 11, 2010).

[56] Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006), page 132.

[57]  Tony Jones, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, A living way (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 4.

[58] Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? Visual ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan ;, 2003), 11.