California City, California

Does anyone know much about California City? My father-in-law found this VERY interesting post on the BLDG blog about a planned city near Mojave. The blog contains fascinating aerial pictures. It's 100 miles northeast of LA, and the people who planned this desert community believed it would grow to 100s of thousands of people.

The population is only about 15,000 today. Guess those dreams didn't quite come true. Many of the planned streets and neighborhoods are visible from the air -- but they lie empty.

Quite an interesting story. I'd enjoy hearing more about it you know much about it.

Components of a Western Missiology, Part 2

Continuing David Bosch's suggested components of a Western missiology:

4. Contextualization. We know that the gospel must be contextually relevant in the 3rd world. But contextualization for the Western world? Aren't most Western societies already based on Christian principles? Bosch states (and I agree) that too many people "still believe that the gospel has already been indigenized and contextualized in the West." Yet the West has mostly turned its back on the way of Jesus. Was Christianity never deeply embedded into our culture? Or did the gospel contextualize so much that it lost its distinctive character? Bosch doesn't know what Western contextualization will look like, and no one else honestly seems to know yet either. But we need to begin to re-contextualize in earnest.

5. Laity-driven. Bosch believes that the restoration of our priesthood of all believers is absolutely essential if we hope to re-evangelize the West. He makes two points in this regard. First, witness will be more credible when it comes from those who do not belong to the "guild of pastors." Second, a mobilization of the membership is the only way to destroy the false dichotomy present in the lives of too many believers -- namely, the divide between public and private, between religious and secular. Too many Christians think that only pastors have to be held to higher standard, not themselves.

6. Local, worshipping communities. Bosch beautifully makes a case for a renewed focus on independent congregations as the source of mission, not denominational bodies or individual believers. He is arguing not just for autonomy but also for commitment. People have to stop seeing themselves as solo Christians and start making real commitments to worshipping communities of faith. Bosch quotes Hauerwas and Willimon from their now famous book, Resident Aliens. They said, "Christians are sitting on a gold mine called the church, but unfortunately the very categories we have been taught as Western Christians make it difficult for us to notice that it is gold."

Components of a Western Missiology, Part 1

If we were to think of ourselves as missionaries here in the Western world, what would that look like?

Just the question probably seems strange to some people. Missionaries are supposed to travel far away, learn another language, pick up foreign customs and attempt to tell the good news of Jesus in a way that makes sense to the locals. We picture people of European descent squatting in mud huts, talking to "primitive" villagers about Christianity. The stereotypes are set.

But if the Western world is increasingly non-Christian, shouldn't we become missionaries to our own culture?

I believe the answer is YES. The next question to answer is HOW? What would a missiology of Western culture look like?

David Bosch suggests 6 components that we would do well to consider. (David Bosch, "Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture," Trinity Press, 1995)

1. Ecology. The time is past, he argues, for Christians to ignore the environment. Part of being good stewards of God's creation is taking care of our planet. Some evangelical Christians are starting to refer to this as "creation care." If nature is to shout out the glory of God, we had better be sure that we haven't done anything to detract from that glory. Bosch believes that care for our world is a key component of being a missionary in the West.

2. Counterculturalism. If you look at the descriptions of early Christians, they pursued the following virtues: sacrifice, asceticism, modesty, self-discipline, etc. These are not popular virtues today. Too many churches, Bosch argues, look so much like the values of our contemporary culture that there is nothing unique, nothing innately Christian that attracts people. We have little effect on the world around us when our lives do not demonstrate commitment to our cause.

3. Ecumenism. The denominational divisions of the Christian world stem from a belief that individual reasoning is more important than unity. If my powers of deduction lead me in a different direction from you, the modern trend has been to separate myself from you because I conclude that you are either flawed or dishonest. Instead of learning to tolerate discussion and dissension within the family, we have resorted to division, debate and ridicule across family lines. Bosch believes that a commitment to unity will be crucial in the West if we are going to reach our culture for Jesus.

I'll pick up the next 3 tomorrow. Blessings on you this day as you seek the face of God.

A Mea Culpa to Fresno State Basketball Fans

I messed up. It wasn't intentional. I assumed this as a given. But my language did not reveal that, and now I must pay. When a second person points out my guilt, then I figure it's time to publicly repent.

A couple weeks ago I blogged about my love for college basketball. I expressed my hope that some equally crazy souls might enjoy a trip to some of the many, surrounding D-I basketball venues. I mentioned St Marys, Stanford, CS-Northridge, etc.

In my mind it was already assumed that I would try to see several Fresno State games at the nearby Save Mart Center. I've already got their schedule and have circled a few games that should be great to see.

But I can't prove that intention. I didn't say this in my post. I didn't preface my comments with words about wanting to see Fresno State in action. Nothing. Just my silent assumptions.

And I got called on it. Doug Baker and now Dan Allen called my post suspiciously silent about the Bulldogs. So I repent. I'm sorry. I apologize. And now I say what should have been said before:

I can't wait to see Fresno State in action. Go Bulldogs!

I had heard rumors that someone might give me tickets to a couple games. I hope that is still true. I would hate to think that they read my post and decided that I wasn't a worthy recipient. Shame on me. But now you know. At least I hope.

Irish Lose to French When Refs Miss Obvious Handball

If you follow college football, you no doubt realize that there have been a ton of controversial calls BY REFS this fall. Well, here's proof that all sports struggle with officiating.

France was playing Ireland yesterday for a spot in next summer's World Cup. The match was played before a huge crowd in Paris. The game had gone to overtime. The winner goes to South Africa for the World Cup. The loser goes home. Watch this goal and see how the Swedish officials blew this one in a BIG way.

If you speak French, you can understand the guilty party Thierry Henry. It's translated into Czech on the video. Here's the English translation of his words:

"Yes, it was a hand. I told my Irish colleagues. It's hard to come to terms with it when I look at it on video. My teammate Toto was fighting for the the ball with two Irish players. The ball came to me. It jumped up on my hand. I played it in front of the net. I already told the Irish, 'I'm not the referee.'"

The Football Association of Ireland is demanding that the match be replayed. Not likely. You gotta feel though for the Irish on this one. Even the French seem to think that this was a Pyrrhic victory.

I'll bet they wish soccer allowed official review on instant replay. Of course if they were using replay officials from the SEC or Big East, the ruling might have come back with the shocking news, "The ruling on the field stands. Goal for the French."

Believing in the Future of Church

It's easy to be depressed about church. One study claims that 9 out of 10 Americans claim to be Christian, but only a third of those attend church. Why is it so easy to hate church? Why do so many people claim to like Jesus but can't stand church?

I recall a project we did on the campus of West Virginia University. It's a major, secular campus. Students can get a good education there, but they are often distracted by the "good life" of partying, gaming and goofing off. Church attendance is not high on their priority list. Like at most major universities, less than 5% of the student body attend a traditional worship service on a given weekend.

We constructed a giant stand covered with butcher paper and asked students to write their impressions of church on one side and of Jesus on the other. People overwhelmingly wrote good things about Jesus. Random students filled up several large sheets of paper with glowing comments written in Sharpie.

Their comments about church were equally prosaic. A few spoke of the need for church. Most were not complimentary.

This generation of young people is full of those who do not like church. Granted, some of this is their fault. They have so bought into the materialism, self-gratification and (ultimately) nihilism of our age that they can't see the benefit of belonging to a church. They don't know the blessing of commitment to the family of faith.

But a big part of the blame lies with us in the church. We have sold out to our surrounding culture. On the surface it can appear that we offer nothing different from what Hollywood, the sports arena or Facebook can offer. We are good at producing spirituality light, a blend of Christianity that aims for people's feelings yet demands nothing of them. We have watered down the faith, and they can sense it.

The great irony is this: We have compromised in order to reach them, but we ended up with a church that seems to stand for nothing other than a fuzzy, personal faith in a Jesus who is no more demanding than a bobble-head figure.

Strangely, this is not the faith I grew up with. We all know that church used to stand for something. Commitment to Jesus meant commitment to being His people. Although we had missed the boat on some key things and needed to change, we had some key things right. Yes, we were sectarian and we needed to change our mentality and attitude. BUT we were right on a big part of the commitment involved in being the people of God.

David Bosch, the late theologian and missiologist, believed in the future. He proposed five ingredients of church that can help us reconnect with our world and make our witness credible once again. I'll discuss these in a future post.

Nov 17 (17. listopadu), Prague & the Velvet Revolution

Twenty years ago, I was clipping articles from newspapers and stashing them in a giant scrapbook. I was dumbfounded by the events occurring in Central and Eastern Europe. All my life I had heard about the evil Soviet empire and the Communist bloc countries. They were America's sworn enemies.

In the fall of 1989, however, I was shocked by the rapid geopolitical changes. First Poland and Hungary. Then East Germany. Then it was Czechoslovakia's turn. Little did I know that in just 9 months I would be moving to Czechoslovakia to begin a major period of my life that shapes me to this day.

On November 17, 1989, a giant group of students held a rally near one of Prague's university campuses. (I would later study there.) You can see this rally in the photograph above. This rally by brave students led to the wave of events that would topple the communist regime in Czechoslovakia within one week. (An article in today's New York Times discusses the mystery surrounding one curious event on Nov 17, 1989.) By my birthday, Nov 24, Czechoslovakia became the next communist country to open its borders and join the democratic world.

I recall Nov 17, 1990. It was the one-year anniversary of the end of communist rule in Czechoslovakia. People had adopted the name "Velvet Revolution" to refer to the transition because of the peaceful handover of power that occurred without loss of life.

On the anniversary, George H. W. Bush and Václav Havel spoke at the festival gathering on Wenceslas Square that drew 500,000 people. As one of the few Americans living in Prague at the time, I received a pass to get relatively close to the stage. My heart was drawn, however, by the crowds who sang and chanted en masse below me.

Freedom was still so fresh and exciting. The liberty and privileges I took for granted were still completely new to them. I have never been more grateful or more amazed about the things I have been accustomed to all my life. We as people are all interconnected. Our hopes and dreams are not so different. People simply want a chance in life, and I clearly saw how much those Czechs there on Wenceslas Square valued what they never before had.

Life is not just about having what we want. It's also about wanting what we have...