Where and What is God speaking in my community today? Am I attentive to God’s voice around me? What prevents me from being attentive?

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Contextualization is a big deal at seminary, in discussions about missions, and in the talk about emerging church. Contextualization is given theological foundation in the Incarnation of Christ (i.e. if Christ was incarnated in human form, we need to be incarnated in the culture to which we are ministering). But is that all there is? Sometimes it seems like we stop at contextualized or incarnated and are happy with that. But Jesus wasn’t. Yes, he was incarnated, he was contextual, but he took that as a platform and twisted it. “You have heard it said, but I say to you…” He entered our world and told us of, and invited us to, an alternative life.

Could church be that way? Could we be contextual to our culture, but in the midst of this offer an alternative culture? Could we live in (I mean really live in) our communities, but at the same time provide an alternative community?