I'm brain dead this morning after a long day of office work yesterday. Getting everything ready for the Sunday after Thanksgiving has been grueling. So, with the plethora of meat out there, I will not bore you today with my brain dead drivel. The following is from the blogsite of Larry Chouinard whose blog I found off a link from my good friend, Jeff Garrett.

George Barna's recent book (Revolution), identifies what can only be described as a religious movement(in his estimation, well over 20 million strong) sweeping throughout Christendom in North America. The movement cuts across generational gaps (a fact seemingly lost on some cultural observers), and institutional boundaries, and reflects a restless spirit challenging traditional forms that stifle spiritual growth and all artificial barriers hindering real cultural engagement. The shape and ethos of this movement is not driven by a market-place pragmatism, but by a serious attempt to recover and practice a way of life defined and fleshed out in Jesus. When Jesus is the primary model and incentive for mission, the programs and agendas of a consumer based church suddenly seem so artificial and culturally irrelevant. After all, few potlucks and church functions led to a heightening of God's concern for the nobodies and lepers of our age. Like the priorities of the dominant culture, church has become a place where it's all about my needs being met.

In the recent Generous Orthodox Conference in Seattle selfless stories were heard about life in the frontlines of cultural engagement. Rather than the church being driven by buildings, budgets, and butts, more emphasis was given to conversations, connections, and collaborations. How does the faith community really want to be perceived by a watching world? Suppose our mission was, as one speaker put it "to make goodness fashionable"? Suppose that evangelism became a visible lifestyle proposal fleshed out in meaningful relationships and conversations, and not a pushy monologue or frontal assault, resulting in what Jim Henderson has called "terrorist evangelism"? As an educator I appreciated Brian McLaren's observation that "one could get an A in orthodoxy and an F in orthopraxy and still pass because orthopraxy is an elective"! We desperately need to rethink how we define the core or what we consider to be the fundamentals of the faith. How did love, peacekeeping, gentleness, compassion, and care for the poor get pushed to the fringe of faithfulness, while doctrinal correctness is given center stage? There is a spirit of revolution in the air because God is already at work in preparing hearts and minds to generate ideas and creative energy to mediate his liberating message. We need more tribal meetings like Generous Orthodox Conferences to generate the friendships and organic networks necessary to reinforce our shared values and goals.