Haiti Earthquake Relief

For the life, beauty, and hope of the Haitian people. Their's to is the Resurrection and the Life...

Generation WE : The Movement Begins...

Generations are an interesting thing. Each one has its own characteristics...formed out of the crucible of the pressures of the day...each responds and forms a distinct personality. I'm personally on the front end of this generation...part of what's called GenX. Not a Boomer, and not a Millenial.

But church, we need to pay attention to the heart of this generation. If we don't understand what this generation is passionate about, we will never be able to connect with it.

So pay close attention...both to their hope and frustration with this "Present Future."

Peace and all that is good from my Longwood Lanai.

Nathan Swenson-Reinhold

Just Because: Coldplay - Viva La Vida

I haven't posted much recently. Truth is I've been focusing most of my energies on a blog for my congregation called, "The Spirit Porch." You can check it out through the link in this blog, or simply type thespiritporch.blogspot.com into your URL.

In the meantime, this my favorite song in the media right now...and I thought I'd share it with you for kicks.

Peace to you all as you sort out the "postures of leadership" in your ministries and lives.

Nathan

Making Our Marks...

I've been on a trip with my congregation's "Solid Rock" youth group. I've been working with youth groups for over eight years now. I've never enjoyed working with a group of kids as much as these. They are solid...in faith, service, hope...though their lives are varied, and their homes are a kaleidoscope of the suburban realities that assail all who live in such a realities.

But this week, we've been making a unique mark: one of service and sacrifice, of joy and laughter. And it has been showing in the tears, the excited sharing, the warm embraces, the great meals shared. It has been showing in homes rebuilt and rubbish hauled away down here in Bayou la Batre, Alabama...where the flood waters washed in at high tide along with Katrina.

But as Katrina moved, so did the God of the universe...the one who does His best work in crosses and tombs. And he's showing forth life. In our kids. In the homes of the people here who persist.

Jesus is alive. He's alive in us. It is a PRIVILEGE to be his BODY.

From the heat and beauty of the Bayou...

Nathan

OPENsource JESUS: The Priesthood of All Believers in a User-Generated Culture

Something like the above will be the title for my now in the works dissertation. In our open-content/open-source world (or as Len Sweet would relate it: USER-GENERATED), faith expressions where denominations authorities expect the baptized (and unbaptized for that matter) to outsource their faith and mission to professionals is dead. Mission and moneys that get outsourced through denominational centers, synod offices, district offices, dioceses, etc., are seeing their pockets squeezed by a shift in understanding about who is supposed to be generating mission and authentic faith. Let's just say that the movement isn't towards centralization.

For a hands on, reality creating, input generating culture, clerical/denominational structures that insist that ministry (of any sort) be the province of a select few will increasingly find that they can no longer relate to our postmodern world. And I predict that for those of us called to bridge the clerically bound church cultures of the present with the user-generated culture that is morphing around us, the ugliness is just beginning.

Because denominational authorities will not relinquish their power and authority. However, whether they like it or not, the church IS an economy...and the economy of the church says increasingly that it will no longer stand for denominational authorities that cry partnership (i.e. "send the undesignated funds to us and WE'LL disperse them) while refusing to lead in terms of vision, management of the cultural anxieties that are ratcheting up levels of conflict in all congregations, and an articulation of the gospel and ecclesiologies that place it (and authentic contextual mission) first. No...they are all trying to shore up their power. But today, more than even, whether you find yourself in the UMC, ELCA, LCMS, ECUSA, PCUSA, or others, you come to this realization:

It's just a matter of time.

And the switch will be the way that we are knit together as churches, not whether or not there will be the church. It will exist. It will persist. It will even find ways to thrive...just as it has done over two millenia.

But I wonder, (and this is the angle of my thesis) if we might not get ahead of what's happening in the culture...and check our inventory and find that we can relate, equip, and unleash a church that can lead and in fact impact the culture. We have the tools for the whitewater around us. But we're going to have to give up our addiction to control, and give in to the Spirit, to find that we have the power to surf these waters. But these changes won't come from the centers of any of our tribes.

The key doctrine, mostly unpracticed, and certainly never theologically fleshed out (too threatening to our Protestant denominatioanl hierarchies) is the stuff of the unfinished business of the Reformation: e.g. "the priesthood of all believers." And to that I will begin to speak. So stay tuned...

Cardboard Testimonies

Moving and powerful. I know in my own Lutheran Christian tribe we need to reclaim the reality of transformation...not just in the kingdom to come, but in this life...that the Spirit of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah is moving HERE and NOW...transforming, recreating, renewing, restoring, redeeming, rebuilding, and rescinding our sin.

I think my cardboard testimony reads:

My Life: God's Life

I hope that today, as you see and absorb this, you connect to the power of God at work in you...and that the transformation of the living God isn't far away.

Blessings from the heart of Christ, and the land of Sun and palms!

Nathan

A New Pentecost is Coming

I'm new in this call. In my third month here at St. Stephen, Longwood, I can feel the stirrings of the immensity of the immanent movement of the Spirit. Things are stirring in the church...and they are stirring in me.

Recently I've been moved by the Spirit to walk daily. Oddly not for my health (though a look at my waistline will tell you it's time to engage a new exercise program)...but to walk and pray...for this neighborhood that I live in and for the Church I'm called to lead into a powerful new day...a fresh channel of the Spirit of the living God that blows from the doorway of the empty tomb.

I've been moved to pray big. The prayers that I am praying are these:

1. That God would double our worshipping community over the next 12 months.

2. That God would give us twice as many adult baptisms (expressions of conversion) as their are infant baptisms in our church.

3. That our presence in our community would matter...not for the sake of St. Stephen...but that because of our presence here and commitment to deploying the kingdom in our neighborhoods and the places we work...that the radical transformation of Jesus' Lordship would be overwhelming felt and lives changed -- all over the place!

It's a powerful thing to pray these sorts of prayer. I feel transformation in me as I pray them and also the conviction that to allow for these things to happen, the church and I will have to both undergo a radical new sense of mission. We will have to preach the unmitigated "go to the cross Love of Jesus"...and that the work of salvation has already been done for this broken world. And as this is communicated, give people a new opportunity to respond to the working of the Spirit...to step into discipleship consciously and with as much commitment as our sinful human containers will allow...trusting that the Spirit of the empty tomb will work through these steps and will take care of the rest.

I have to tell you this stuff scares me...I feel the power coursing. And at the same time...I know that God's living Spirit is ahead of me in all this. The miracle of Pentecost is already underway.

May the Spirit of the Living God fall afresh...on all of us...and may there be a baptism of the Holy Spirit like none ever experienced in my community ever before.

Amen