The one of the things, several years ago, that concerned me about the Emerging Church Conversation was that for all its concern for the body (exhibited in holistic medicine, organic food, and even body prayer), I saw a gaping exclusion of, dare I say, the literal ministry of healing prayer (not of just emotional healing) but of the actual body.  Sickness often seems to be the crucible that the American Dream breaks up against, and as much as the Emerging/Missional Church rails against the American Dream we are often ill prepared for ministering to people in this place of utter need.

At the same time as this I was beginning my journey into my current church ministry at Life on the Vine (about 9 years ago) which is part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.  One of the commitments of the C&MA is that Jesus is the healer of the body.  From Is. 53.5 (“By his wounds we have been healed…”), to Mark 2 (“The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…I tell you get up and go home”), to Acts 3.6-9 (“Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!”), and James 5.14-17 (“The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.”) we see the healing ministry of Christ, and its extension to the Apostles (Acts 3) and then to the Church (James 5).

I think one of the main things keeping us from this ministry is a simple failure of nerve, or faith, or both (“If I tell people that I actual believe Jesus can heal people physically, not just emotionally, they might think I’m wierd…”).  Another reason I have noticed is theological.  Certain theological systems tend toward fatalism regarding the body by either having such a high view of God’s sovereignty that faith is merely the coming to terms of what God has done (which means just believe that something good will come of the sickness if we can just embrace it).  While in some circumstances this is the right posture, often this just drains the ability to pray that God would heal someone (maybe even a miraculous healing).

But I think a main reason for the lack of healing ministry might be just a simple lack of know how.  And I want to address this right now.

These are the principles we aim at here at Life on the Vine when it comes to a situation of sickness.

1. Bring the presence of Christ into the situation.
   • We must realize that we, by ourselves, cannot change people or heal the sickness.  If people are not open then they are not open, and no amount of arguing, urging, or convincing will help.  We can not attempt to grasp control of the situation.
   • But we can bring the presence of Christ in and see what happens.  We bring ourselves, hopefully filled with the Spirit, testing and responding to what the Spirit is doing in this person and situation.
   • This is basically our trusting in the Lordship of Christ in all things, being open to and joining what He is doing, knowing that His desire is to overcome suffering and sickness.
2. Focus on Spiritual Formation, not Supernatural Manifestation.
   
   • If we focus on the supernatural for its own sake we will run into immediate problem as we minister, and tempt those we are ministering to in think that God is here to meet their needs.  While we need to fervently believe that God can do the miraculous, that supernatural events happen (the lack of which is often the reason we don’t pray for healing and just pray for acceptance of God’s will), this isn’t the goal.
   • The goal is the sanctification and healing of the whole person, body/soul/mind/spirit.  As we minister the “presence of Christ” and his Lordship we must listen and discern how the Lord in the Spirit is seeking to form/transform the sick person.  In regarding to healing ministry Scripture links the issue of healing physical sickness to the healing of sin sickness (see Is. 53, Mark 2, and James 5).  This is the link between confessing your sins and praying for healing (James 5:16, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and prayer for each other, so that you may be healed.”) [Of course I'm not saying that all sickness is cause by sin, but I'm not going to nuance that right now].  So the goal is holistic spiritual formation, not mere manifestation.

   This leads to the next point.

3. Discern the place of Sin and the state of Faith.
   
   • Have those seeking to be healed confessed/acknowledged sin? And do they believe that Jesus is at work to heal them?  These questions ask if the sick person is open to the healing work of Jesus.  Of course not every person is, and you can’t force them to be (see point 1 again!).
   • While the above texts are good places to turn in a particular situation, Matthew 9 is convenient because it contains both the story of the healing of the paralytic concerning sin (parallel to Mark 2), and the healing of the centurion’s servant concerning faith.  So you just need to remember one passage for both.
   • The goal in seeking out sin and testing faith is not to merely condemn and convict the person in need, but to remove obstacles blocking the flow of grace from Christ.

This then, in brief, is the theory and posture behind our practice.

But what, then, is our practice, roughly?  Glad you asked!

Healing Liturgy (for a hospital/home vistit)

1. Enter Situation listening to person (seeking their heart in the situation).
2. At appropriate time, open with Scripture (typically Ps. 103 [at least vs.1-5, if not entire Psalm]).
3. If through continuing conversation the person is not overly open to the healing ministry of Christ, then close with a prayer over them (use wise discernment).
4. If through continuing conversation the sick person is open to healing ministry, turn to Matt. 9 and James 5 to discuss the link between Christ’s ministry of forgiveness of sins and healing of the body (also Is. 53 is good for this).
5. After confession of sin (if needed) and affirmation of faith (always needed), anoint with oil and pray.
   • Bless/Consecrate/Set Apart (make holy) the oil.  Something as simple as, “Lord Jesus, set apart this oil to be a sign of your healing presence and power among us now.” Or consult your prayer book.
     • Regarding oil: you can buys vials for this purpose.  But you can use veggie/olive oil in any useful container in a pinch.
   • Anoint the sick person by placing oil on your thumb or index finger, and then apply the oil to the forehead in the sign of the cross, and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
   • Pray over/against the sickness for as long/short as needed as led.
6. Close with a blessing/benediction.
7. Leave (no need to linger or overstay your welcome.  Better to leave early than late, as appropriate).

I would love to hear how you all have journeyed into the spaces of Jesus’ healing ministry and how you go about it.

Anything you would add?

So I’ve been reading Scott Boren’s new Missional Small Groups, not a book I would normally pick up because, well, let’s face it, anything with “Small Groups” in the title is suspect.  But after I got over that bout of snobbery I dove in, and it’s been quite compelling.  I found chapter three very helpful, not just for understanding my own small group, which we call ‘Missional Orders’ here at Life on the Vine, but for understanding the different stages or places of groups all over our community, and for understanding what different people are looking for when they want “deeper” community.

Scott says that when you listen to people, they typical are telling one of four stories regarding their own community life.

1. The Story of Personal Improvement
2. The Story of Lifestyle Adjustment
3. The Story of Relational Revision
4. The Story of Missional Re-Creation

Let me explain what he means by these.

The Story of Personal Improvement: This is the story where we are all coming from tough and busy lives, we are all short on time and energy, but we know that it is good to gather every once in a while (doesn’t it say that somewhere in Hebrews? [Heb. 10:25]).  Really, nothing essential changes about the rhythms of our lives except that we go to the group, but only when it is convenient and beneficial to ME, only when I see it contributing to the improvement of my life. I’ll attend when I like the leader, when the material is good, when it’s interesting.  If not, then I’ll probably fade away.

Now we may sneer at a such a conception of communal life, but this is where many are coming from, and really, this is what our culture trains in us.

The Story of Lifestyle Adjustment: Community has become a priority for me.  I actually change the rhythms of my life and commit to a group, to a place.  Room has been made in my life for community, for a weekly meeting.  Rather than thinking of my own improvement or health, I’m adjusting to a life in community and organize around it more, at least I’ve organized to a weekly gathering, even if the rest of my life is unchanged.

This communal story is more prevalent for those actually committed to community.  But is this really community?  No, not really.  I feel it is either a bridge to deeper relationships, or the slippery slope back to mere personal improvement.

The Story of Relational Revision: In this phase, or story, my meeting with a group is really just the culmination of the rest of the week that I have spent in community.  I’m already regularly in the lives of those in the group.  Here I’m actively learning to life a different rhythm of life together with others.  I’m beginning to wonder how I ever thought of community before this, and now there is no going back.  Nothing less will do. It is not just that I’ve added something to my life.  Now I’ve totally changed what is central to life.

This communal story is rare and precious.  And if we haven’t experienced it, we probably seek after it without being able to put this longing into words.  I think this is actually the kind of community people usually long for, they either just don’t bother to pursuit it enough, or they just haven’t found a group who also shares that deep of a vision.

The Story of Missional Re-Creation: Moving pass just revising my daily relationships, I have not intentionally re-created my life around a community, a place, a people for mission.  I and another family decide to move into the same apartment complex, next to a neighborhood when another group member lives.  We start having block parties, or just begin to minister to the people around us.  We don’t need to organize around ministry, we just live together and out of that flows God’s mission through us.

This type of missional community is indeed rare.  Many don’t even have the imagination for it…isn’t that Jesus People kind of stuff? some might think.  But really, when you read about what Jesus did with his disciples, isn’t this story of missional creation what we find?

If you were honest, those of us leading church, ministries, or groups, were does our group fall?  And how do you feel about it?  Are those involved frustrated because they don’t see the improvement the group offers their lives (Story 1), or do frustrations point to a deeply long for community (something more like Story 3 or 4)?

I know for myself, I get frustrated with people lacking commitment, thinking they are just stuck is the first story.  But is it possible they too are sick of thin community and don’t bother with anything less that story three or four?

What do you think?

(Part Two will discussion how you move a group/community forward toward Relational Revision and Missional Re-Creation.)

Too often the efforts of church planting and evangelism in unreached places, goes by the term ‘missions.’  But when a group of believers is sufficiently gathered, we then say that a ‘church’ has been established.  The linking of terms in a before-after type of relationship has often been propagated by mission agencies themselves.

But is this a good way of talking about things? When mission grows up, does it become a church?

The problem with this is well considered by Hoedemaker’s summary of a missiologist from the last generation,

“Can a development of mission into church really be considered a maturing? Is it not, rather, a betrayal of the fundamental missionary meaning of “church” (the church happens as the Gospel of the kingdom is brought to the world)? “The Legacy of J.C. Hoekendijk (International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 19 no 4 O 1995, p 166-170)

Don’t many of us feel that way now, after the explosion of the missional church, after the critique of the inward focused church?  It’s the church really always already mission?

But it seems Hoekendijk, and others who follow him, overreact.  Not in their criticism, but in its result.

The criticism is right.  We ought not separate the church from mission, and mission doesn’t create a church entity, but rather the church is such as engaged in mission.

But the result of this theological emphasis tends to absolutize, or abstract, from the real, historical processes of, dare I say, actually planting a church.  While mission isn’t some great big arrow that points toward a church building (like the picture above), there is a necessary process of maturation and development.  It is this process, that while unfortunate, mission agencies hope to convey in describing a shift from a ‘mission’ to a ‘church’.

We must understand that while everything is mission, or that the church is missional, there still is the initial planting, the reaping, and the sending out to plant some more.  In the past the first part was considered missions and the latter parts a maturing church.  Does this mean a selling out to institutionalism?  Maybe.  Does it always mean this?  No.

It just means that some plant (a missionary, an evangelists, one gifted with apostolic fervor), and others reap (a shepherd, a prophet, a teacher).  All the gifts are used toward the maturing of the church for mission.  And at some point, a new church will begin to send out mature missionaries to plant somewhere else.  But to affirm this process is not to deny the missionary nature of the church.

Indeed, as Hoedemaker states concerning Hoekendijk,

there may be traces of an original evangelical spirituality in this suspicion, akin to the revivalistic mistrust of all ecclesial establishment.

I’m all for revival and pray for them myself, but I too worry of this too oft knee-jerk reaction against the establishment as a pietistic impulse.  And certainly, while John Wesley was saved by pietists, he also organized his movement and changed English-speaking ecclesial landscape.

I think not. But that is the buzz that I’ve been hearing?  And it get’s me all rankled up.  Really?  Are people beginning to think this.  I’m probably hot and bothered because I’m part of a team planning the next Missional Learning Commons here in Chicago in a couple of weeks.  I just don’t get it.  But if I were to guess, here are some of the reasons why some a concerned that the unconference is becoming the next Big Conference.

An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered on a theme or purpose. The term “unconference” has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations.~wikipedia

1) The unconference is becoming more common and more common: Anti-Cool Reflex. I think for many on the edges of the church, who for good reason engaged in the emerging church conversation or are interested in missional theology, we have created an anti-cool reflex, or dare I say, hipster reflex, that says once something starts catching on we must immediately distance ourselves from it.  Now that unconferences are catching on, many people just hit the cynical button and start poo poo-ing. So I’m calling this the Anti-Cool Reflex.

2) The unconference is connected to some ‘sponsor’: Anti-Sellout Reflex. Yes, note the scare quotes.  This I believe is a very selective knee-jerk reaction.  Just because an unconference is sponsored by something doesn’t mean it is selling out.  Sure the sponsor is hoping to gain something by sponsoring, but often they are also interested in helping, and maybe are themselves acting out of certain values or convictions.  I believe this is a very selective (self-righteous?) criticism because the money/marketing potential for a missional/emergent sponsor of an unconference is so minimal compared to the money/marketing info racing in/around/through all the technology that these critics are probably using (FB, Android/Google, Twitter, Apple, MS, etc…).  If we are so worried about being ripped off or controlled then logically we would need to unplug from most social networking and the internet. “But those things are essential carriers of my anti-sellout message!”  Yeah, exactly.  Case closed.  Can we please put the Anti-Sellout Reflex to bed.

3) The unconference takes so much organization: Anti-Institutional Reflex. Now, if you couldn’t tell, I have no time for the previous two reasons to be against the rise of unconferences.  But this one does have some merit.  There is certainly a link between business/organizational models and how one plans a conference.  And I’m all for have a different organizational model when it comes to being the church, and therefore you would think this would roll over to how one plans an unconference.  But having a different organizational model doesn’t mean not being organized.  Sometimes it is good to be anti-institutional, but that can’t be a general rule, and it certainly shouldn’t be a reflex that one throws around without first investigating.

The real question for me is, What are we for?

Well, moving from the abstract to the concrete, I would say the unconference I’m helping to plan (Missional Learning Commons) is attempting to be

1) for families.  Most church conferences are not geared toward having entire families participate.  Well, this is taking quite a bit of organization, but we felt the need to offer some form of childcare because we believe the missional church should engage families, not just men who typically leave their family to attend a conference. For this reason we have actually attached a fee (kryptonite for unconferences) to this year’s MLC. But the fee doesn’t go to speakers of rental fees, but toward offering childcare so that entire families can participate.  So if we are selling-out by charging a fee because we want families to come then we are guilt.  Of course I’d like to think it is us being innovative in sharing the cost of participants.

2) for places. We believe that place and embodiment are important, so when Northern Seminary offered use of their conference center we accepted.  Certainly Northern is hoping to associate their brand to the missional movement and maybe attract students, but they are accessibly located by several Chicago freeways, have local hotels, and other conveniences.

3) for hearing from ordinary people. I think the biggest benefit of the unconference is the typical use of local, engaged people rather than big names.  The unconferences I’ve been part of seeks just to hear what God is doing on the ground in and through ordinary communities.  The age of disconnect big names who ride in to inspire the masses are over.  Let’s learn from each other.

4) for relationship and networks. The MLC is also connected to Ecclesia Network because we believe in the formation of organized movements, of creating a web of local/regional/national relationships for the furthering Christ’s kingdom and the reformation of the church in North America.

Basically, if you are not for these thing, the please feel free not to come to the MLC or any other unconference.

But if you are for these things, and many others, we would love to see you on Oct. 29-30, and I would love to hear of your unconference too.

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This post sponsored buy some caffeine (homemade double-shot), air, a desk, a comfy chair, electricity, Ben Sternke (donated the poster and MLC site), fb, twitter, google, wordpress, wikipedia, apple, Wadle and Silvy Show (radio) and other people and stuff.

You need to bake the bread before you give it away.  Likewise, we need to nurture the church to bless the world.  These are the basic movements of the church gathered and scattered.

So often we forget one of these steps.  For some, the moment of blessing the world is so emphasized, of going to the poor and oppressed, of transforming, of advocating, that they neglect the preparation of the bread.  In the haste to bless the world, some feel the church is expendable, secondary, and often times positively a hinderance to God’s mission in the world.  “Why are you so focused on the church when God loves the world?” they often complain.  But this overemphasis often leads to burnout, self-righteousness, and the lack of a developed maturity in Christ.

For others, the moment of nurturing the church is emphasized, the moment of discipleship, of depth of wisdom and understanding, of community and spiritual formation.  In the excitement of nurturing the church it is mission that becomes secondary, an advance step of discipleship, or something that only those with the gift of evangelism do.  Or it takes the mentality that if we build it ‘they’ will come.  But this perspective often leads to stagnation and also keeps the full maturity of Christ from being manifested in us.

But the life of gathering, of baking, of contemplation leads to the life of scattering, of blessing, of action.  To neglect one is to ruin the other.  To bake bread and not share leads to its wasting and rotting.  But to bless the world with something other than the bread of life within us is not blessing at all.

“May the Holy Spirit fire take the individual kernels of our lives and bake us together into one loaf, that we might be the sweet fragrance of the gospel and a blessing to the world.”