A community of people who begin to wake up to the covert curriculum in which they swim each day would want to band together to share their insights about it. They would help one another not to be sucked in, not be massaged into passivity, not to be malformed by this powerful education process occurring in a multimedia classroom without walls or vacations. They would remind one another of the alternative framing story they had come to believe was good, beautiful, and true, and they would seek, together, to live by this alternative framing story, the radical good news.
They would develop practices of spiritual formation so they and their children for generations to come would be able to learn, live, and grow as a part of the solution, not part of the problem; as agents of healing, not as carriers of the disease; as revolutionaries seeking to dismantle and subvert the suicidal system, not as functionaries and drones seeking to serve and preserve it.
They would understand that at every moment, their identity as revolutionaries remains under assault; the gravity of compromise pulls and drags to hunch their backs, slacken their step, and lower their gaze. They would be on guard for ways they themselves could sabotage themselves--by becoming preoccupied with trivia, or by working from the system's logic and values when trying to fight the system, or by slipping into dual narratives as the Pharisees and religious scholars of Jesus' day did, or by substituting talk for action or activity for fruitfulness.
So through word and deed, song and ritual, holiday and daily practice, they would seek to be the revolution they wished to see in the world, and they would work to spread their vision and extend the invitation to others to join their revolution in every way they could.
A group of people like this, functioning in a difficult environment dominated by a hostile system with a covert curriculum, would make lots of mistakes and need continual renewal. But it would be worth the effort and sacrifice--as long as it understood its sacred and unique role as bearers if the revolutionary good news, the message of hope:
another world is possible, available now for all who believe.This kind of group would be the current expression of Jesus' original band of disciples. It would be the church as Jesus intended. It would be an exciting thing to be a part of: a community that forms disciples who work for the liberation and healing of the world, based on Jesus' good news of the kingdom of God.
Groups like this wouldn't need buildings, pipe organs, rock bands, layers of institutional structure, video projectors, parking lots and so on...although having these things wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, and could possibly be useful. What they would need would be simple: a passion to understand Jesus and his message and a commitment to live out that understanding in a world in which everything must change.
- an excerpt from Brian D. Mclaren's
Everything Must Changei long to be this kind of christian...this kind of church.
peace to you,
scott
one of the speakers for the congress this fall is christine pohl. i have decided to try and read each of the main speakers books before they come to winnipeg in november. christine's book "making room: recovering hospitality as a christian tradition" has been really challenging.
