Thinking about Modalities and Sodalities

(PDF link)

The harmony between the modality and the sodality achieved by the Roman Church is perhaps the most significant characteristic of this phase of the world Christian movement …

The first structure in the New Testament scene is thus what is often called the New Testament Church. It was essentially built along Jewish synagogue lines, embracing the community of the faithful in any given place. The defining characteristic of this structure is that it included old and young, male and female. Note, too, that Paul was willing to build such fellowships out of former Jews as well as non-Jewish Greeks. …

Thus, on the one hand, the structure we call the New Testament church is a prototype of all subsequent Christian fellowships where old and young, male and female are gathered together as normal biological families in aggregate. On the other hand, Paul’s missionary band can be considered a prototype of all subsequent missionary endeavors organized out of committed, experienced workers who affiliated themselves as a second decision beyond membership in the first structure.

Note well the additional commitment. Note also that the structure that resulted was something definitely more than the extended outreach of the Antioch church. No matter what we think the structure was, we know that it was not simply the Antioch church operating at a distance from its home base. It
was something else, something different. We will consider the missionary band the second of the two redemptive structures in New Testament times.

From The Two Structures by Ralph D. Winter

Christmas reflections

I suppose with a title like that you’d assume this was some profound spiritual or theological pondering on the meaning of the incarnation and God’s missional call to incarnate in our contexts and locale.

Nope.

I can’t sleep.  It is 3:46 AM.  I think it is a combination of acid reflux and Christmas excitement.  And before you feel sorry for me, I have slept – from 8:00 – Midnight.  Lately, when I put the kids to bed I fall asleep too then get up at midnight (which is nice because I get to welcome Sarah home from work).  Usually I am up for an hour or 2 and then go back to sleep.  Not tonight.

This is all exacerbated by a general feeling of malaise.  Not sure I can pinpoint it… and I haven’t even been able to articulate it this much for months.  I think it is a combination of starting a new job/ministry venture (www.nkuwf.org), lack of exercise, and lack of personal spiritual discipline.  Let me be clear, the new gig is great.  It feels like a great fit for my call and gifting.  It really is nice being back in the United Methodist Church orbit again – something of a homecoming.

And at the same time, I’m basically starting from scratch at NKU.  It is a lot like church planting.  A lot.  This is good and exactly was I was hoping for and expecting…. but it is still hard and tiring.  It feels a lot like driving in a new city without a map.  If I’m honest, I’ve been in a funk about it the last couple months.  It is hard to know where to start, what works, what doesn’t work but we should do anyway, what patterns are we initiating that will form the DNA of this ministry, what bad habits are we starting (and how do we recognize them before they turn cancerous!), who do I spend most of my time with, etc….?  We’re truly starting with a blank slate – no structures, buildings, programs, and very few people.  Every student I’ve met with this past semester (and there were many) is interested in what we are doing, they would like to be involved, but it seems like life gets in the way more often than not.  I don’t think I’ve ever met a busier group of students!

I need to reflect more on all this…. I think I’ve even been afraid of reflecting or lamenting.  I think I’ve lived under the weight of (and myth of) if I’m starting something I need to be enthusiastic and positive at all times!  That is categorically dumb.  I need to fess up. Maybe, just maybe, that’s what the incarnation is about…

Timothy’s awake.  Gotta go.

Wesley, Asbury, and Apostolicity

From Wesley to Asbury: Studies in Early American Methodism
by Frank Baker
Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 1976
ISBN 0822303590, 978-0822303596

“Asbury’s apologia pro vita sua was contained in ‘A Valedictory Address’ to Bishop William McKendree, dated August 5, 1813.  In this he used two important adjectives to describe Methodism as he envisioned it:  ‘apostolical’ and ‘missionary.’  He claimed that contrary to popular opinion it was still possible for Methodism to retain ’such doctrines, such discipline, such convictions, such conversions, such witnesses of sanctification, and such holy men, ‘ as ‘in former apostolical days.’  But only if they remained a missionary church, if their preachers, bishops and elders alike, itinerated, as did Paul, Timothy, and titus, thus maintaining ‘the traveling apostolic order and ministry that is found in our very constitution.’”  (these later quotes are from Asbury’s Journal, III, 475-92, especially pp. 475-6, 491-2) p. 139

The Radical Wesley: Pattern for Church Renewal
By Howard Snyder
Published by Zondervan, 1987
ISBN 0310444713, 9780310444718

“Wesley, the master organizer, never built a great evangelistic organization.  He simply went everywhere preaching, and he sent out other preachers in similar pattern.  Wesley’s gift for organization was bent toward the one objective of forming a genuine people of God within the institutional church.  He concentrated not on the efforts leading up to decision but on the time after decision.  His system had little to do with publicity or public image but everything to do with building the community of God’s people.  From the beginning of Wesley’s great ministry in 1738, the secret of his radicality lay in his forming little bands of God-seekers who joined together in earnest quest to be Jesus’ disciples.  He ‘organized to beat the devil’ — not to make converts but to turn converts into saints.  Wesley would have nothing of ’solitary religion,’ secret Christians or faith without works.” p. 2