I am a man in search of home.
A place where I can experience the presence of God.
I feel like an exile in the church settings I am currently in
I sing the songs... listen to sermons... pray the prayers
But I sense that there is more
I am troubled by this discontent that lies within my soul
Discontent at what? I do not know
This restlessness plagues me and I long to run to familiar ground
But here I am walking into unknown territory
Trusting God to lead me home
Asking God to give me ears to hear and eyes to see what the Spirit is saying
I want to know Jesus.
Let the journey begin......
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Divine Tension of Nay
My fellow Exilic Ecclesia,
Since Christ the King, Sunday is this week and we in the liturgical tradition celebrate the consumation of all things when the Kingdoms of this world become the Kingdoms of the LORD and his Christ by the Holy Spirit, I would like to address an Exilic and Kingdom theme which I entitle: The Divine Tension of Nay.
Where did I get this from? This term comes from many places. Many folks who comment on the Kingdom of God says that we must embrace the Divine Tension, I believe among others this can be attributed to MLK Jr but the theme is rooted in the fact that the Kingdom of God is here and not yet. This idea also comes from a book: Tortured for Christ, a story about Richard Wumbrand and his terms of imprisonment for the Gospel in Communist camps. He relates a story from Jewish folklore when the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, the Angels rejoiced with the Israelites and Yahweh rebuked them saying that these are my people too, let them celebrate but do not join in. Wumbrand then relates the Story of Joshua.
After Joshua and the people cross over the Jordan to Promise Land; Joshua meets a strange figure who has a sword drawn out and Joshua inquires whose side was this figure on. Was he on the side of the Israelites or the Jerichoites. And in good King James Fashion, the figure said Nay, I am the Captain of the Lord's host. Joshua asked what was the word of Yahweh. The Captain; take off your sandles for this is Holy Ground.
There are some things that we got to notice from this text. First Joshua, was in the middle of a battle where there are sides to be taken. Second Joshua thought that he was goin' to get a word from God about his situation, and yet all he gets is the the divine figure telling him to take off his shoes because what! this is Holy Ground. In the midst of the rhetoric, in the midst of side taking, God creates Sacred Space; a realm of Nay; where it is God who calls shots and transcends sides, and we bow in humble adoration and faith in the unknown or uncertainty.
In our society where social issues is about sides and rhetoric we need a Word that cuts through the rhetoric and says Nay. If I can get my neo-orthodox brothers to help me out; they say that thing are always in dialetic. What is the answer to these social issues: they are Yes and No and stand under the judgement of the Cross. Now I know that one is going to say that Brother Paul in the First Corinthians says: For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ." How can we say that we live in the Divine Tension of Nay when the Divine Word who is Jesus says that all the promises that are in him are Yes and Amen. How can we reconcile these two contridictory statements? You don't, you keep them in tension; because when a word of promise is yes to us who are joint heirs to the promise, then that means there is a No or Nay uttered against those who are not of the promise.
My sisters and brothers, let me tell you something, American Capitalistic society ain't heir to the promise of the Kingdom, neither is American Christianity that caders to the culture on both the right side or the left side of these issues. To paraphrase Abe Lincoln. He said, they ask me if God is on our side, and I tell them Nay, I want to be on God's side. We have passed political legislation and called it the Kingdom. We who are in Exile know that we live ambiguities when it comes to these issues. Does this mean that we do not have held convictions. Nay! Does it mean that we do not have different convictions. Nay! What it does mean is that we put our convictions, our sides and submit them to the Spirit who knows how to keep them in Divine Tension because he creates the atmosphere. When we tout against certain rights and for other rights and yet do not take in account the lives that live in the liminal space of these issues, the Divine Tension ,then we lose sight of the Gospel that reaches out to the gray areas. When we do not take in account the peoples lives and be willing to live in the liminal with them and interceding for them and with them even when they may not change in the way we think; then we are not truly acting as priests and mediators of Divine Reality.
We need to live in the Divine Tension of Nay! This is the realm of Exile. This is where when the Divine Word that is uttered cuts through the rhetoric of our culture, and even the rhetoric of what looks like church, talks like church but may not be church. We are called my Exilic brothers and sisters to wrestle with the Angel of the Divine Tension of Nay because is where we get our name as those who travel in the Exilic Way who is Jesus.
Since Christ the King, Sunday is this week and we in the liturgical tradition celebrate the consumation of all things when the Kingdoms of this world become the Kingdoms of the LORD and his Christ by the Holy Spirit, I would like to address an Exilic and Kingdom theme which I entitle: The Divine Tension of Nay.
Where did I get this from? This term comes from many places. Many folks who comment on the Kingdom of God says that we must embrace the Divine Tension, I believe among others this can be attributed to MLK Jr but the theme is rooted in the fact that the Kingdom of God is here and not yet. This idea also comes from a book: Tortured for Christ, a story about Richard Wumbrand and his terms of imprisonment for the Gospel in Communist camps. He relates a story from Jewish folklore when the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, the Angels rejoiced with the Israelites and Yahweh rebuked them saying that these are my people too, let them celebrate but do not join in. Wumbrand then relates the Story of Joshua.
After Joshua and the people cross over the Jordan to Promise Land; Joshua meets a strange figure who has a sword drawn out and Joshua inquires whose side was this figure on. Was he on the side of the Israelites or the Jerichoites. And in good King James Fashion, the figure said Nay, I am the Captain of the Lord's host. Joshua asked what was the word of Yahweh. The Captain; take off your sandles for this is Holy Ground.
There are some things that we got to notice from this text. First Joshua, was in the middle of a battle where there are sides to be taken. Second Joshua thought that he was goin' to get a word from God about his situation, and yet all he gets is the the divine figure telling him to take off his shoes because what! this is Holy Ground. In the midst of the rhetoric, in the midst of side taking, God creates Sacred Space; a realm of Nay; where it is God who calls shots and transcends sides, and we bow in humble adoration and faith in the unknown or uncertainty.
In our society where social issues is about sides and rhetoric we need a Word that cuts through the rhetoric and says Nay. If I can get my neo-orthodox brothers to help me out; they say that thing are always in dialetic. What is the answer to these social issues: they are Yes and No and stand under the judgement of the Cross. Now I know that one is going to say that Brother Paul in the First Corinthians says: For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ." How can we say that we live in the Divine Tension of Nay when the Divine Word who is Jesus says that all the promises that are in him are Yes and Amen. How can we reconcile these two contridictory statements? You don't, you keep them in tension; because when a word of promise is yes to us who are joint heirs to the promise, then that means there is a No or Nay uttered against those who are not of the promise.
My sisters and brothers, let me tell you something, American Capitalistic society ain't heir to the promise of the Kingdom, neither is American Christianity that caders to the culture on both the right side or the left side of these issues. To paraphrase Abe Lincoln. He said, they ask me if God is on our side, and I tell them Nay, I want to be on God's side. We have passed political legislation and called it the Kingdom. We who are in Exile know that we live ambiguities when it comes to these issues. Does this mean that we do not have held convictions. Nay! Does it mean that we do not have different convictions. Nay! What it does mean is that we put our convictions, our sides and submit them to the Spirit who knows how to keep them in Divine Tension because he creates the atmosphere. When we tout against certain rights and for other rights and yet do not take in account the lives that live in the liminal space of these issues, the Divine Tension ,then we lose sight of the Gospel that reaches out to the gray areas. When we do not take in account the peoples lives and be willing to live in the liminal with them and interceding for them and with them even when they may not change in the way we think; then we are not truly acting as priests and mediators of Divine Reality.
We need to live in the Divine Tension of Nay! This is the realm of Exile. This is where when the Divine Word that is uttered cuts through the rhetoric of our culture, and even the rhetoric of what looks like church, talks like church but may not be church. We are called my Exilic brothers and sisters to wrestle with the Angel of the Divine Tension of Nay because is where we get our name as those who travel in the Exilic Way who is Jesus.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Blessed are those who Mourn....
My fellow Exiles,
We have all lost something or someone in our lives. Maybe we have lost a loved one who died unexpectedly or after a long illness. Or maybe, we have lost a loved a relationship that went wrong. Or maybe we lost a job in the height of our careers. We have all experienced the pain of loss. What have we done with this pain, or what do we do with this pain? Do we stuff our pain deep down inside when a tear of times past trickles down our faces as a glazed stare captures us for a brief moment. Do we deny the pain and numb it with endless activities lest we have to embrace the existential emptiness? This brings me to my question: Do we know how to mourn? Do we know how to embrace mourning as a state of being.
In America, we do not know how to mourn, we do not know how to truly grief a loss. We pay lip service to loss through memorial rituals where we shed some tears and then it is business as usual. Walter Bruggeman addresses this point in Prophetic Imagination where talks about the destruction of the temple. The prophets embodied the mourning of Exile. Yahweh tells Ezekiel not mourn his wife's death, Jeremiah could not get married, and Hosea marries the town prostitute. Why? They embody the grief of situation but also embody the grieving of Yahweh and how his heart breaks. The Church should mourn in Exile like Zion mourning the death of a new born child. Yet we embrace false prophets who pontificate that all is well and gives us seven steps to live this life now. And yet my brothers and sisters we need to live the life of Exile and that means to mourn.
We need to embody the pain and grief of our society and lament its tragic state. We need to embody the grief of God over the state of his Kingdom as his Church who is its first fruits bears fruit of thistles and thorns in the name of a Saviour who was crucified with a crown of thorns. We have to be a sign of contradiction that the world and the established church sees that there is a remnant an Exilic Ecclesia that understands the true nature of our times and the narrative that expresses it. This is not a pity party, though grieving involves anger, frustration, and despair. We must push through these to the resolution, if there is such a thing and this resolution is called lament. We lament and grieve the possibilities and the past mistakes in this present moment. We embrace the pain that we are so afraid to feel or to embrace.
The last part of Jesus's saying is that if we mourn we shall be comforted. We love that latter part of the verse and quote it as numbing antidote to our pain. We want joy in the morning light without the mourning of the dark night. Weeping, brother and sisters may endure through a long dark night of the soul of the Church and the Culture. We are only comforted through community. We comfort each other with the Scriptures, the traditions, the liturgies, the poetry and the lives of others who gone before us and yet our co-labourers in growing a community in Exile. We need to reach out to each other, who who have been used to the wilderness metaphor feel like we mourn alone with no hope of being heard. We need not sorrow alone my beloved sisters and brothers, but we need to sorrow with each other.
The Spirit knows how to pray and intercede for us when we do not know how to pray. In his inarticulate utterances that groans in the community and grieves in us the loss we cannot put our finger on but we know its pain. Let us grieve together, and comfort one another with the Blessing of mourning in Exile. Let us pray...
Come Holy Spirit who proceeds from Abba
Help us to embrace mourning in this Exilic State
Help us to enter fully into the grief which you groan within us,
as we intercede for the Church and for our Culture.
Come Priestly Spirit, grant us strenght to embody the pain and bear
existential angst that plagues our society that Christ, the Great High
Priest's sufferings may be completed in us.
Come Prophetic Spirit, grant us courage to face the fear of emptiness and
uncertainty as we challenge those structures that falsely serve fullness
and certainty in the name of prosperity.
Come Poetic Spirit, help us to express the loss of the Church and the Culture,
through the songs of Zion, the narratives of the ancestors, the liturgies
of worship, and symbols and art. Grant us eyes to see and ears to hear
those who are in Exile so that with our words and deeds we may comfort
each other.
In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit world without end. Amen
We have all lost something or someone in our lives. Maybe we have lost a loved one who died unexpectedly or after a long illness. Or maybe, we have lost a loved a relationship that went wrong. Or maybe we lost a job in the height of our careers. We have all experienced the pain of loss. What have we done with this pain, or what do we do with this pain? Do we stuff our pain deep down inside when a tear of times past trickles down our faces as a glazed stare captures us for a brief moment. Do we deny the pain and numb it with endless activities lest we have to embrace the existential emptiness? This brings me to my question: Do we know how to mourn? Do we know how to embrace mourning as a state of being.
In America, we do not know how to mourn, we do not know how to truly grief a loss. We pay lip service to loss through memorial rituals where we shed some tears and then it is business as usual. Walter Bruggeman addresses this point in Prophetic Imagination where talks about the destruction of the temple. The prophets embodied the mourning of Exile. Yahweh tells Ezekiel not mourn his wife's death, Jeremiah could not get married, and Hosea marries the town prostitute. Why? They embody the grief of situation but also embody the grieving of Yahweh and how his heart breaks. The Church should mourn in Exile like Zion mourning the death of a new born child. Yet we embrace false prophets who pontificate that all is well and gives us seven steps to live this life now. And yet my brothers and sisters we need to live the life of Exile and that means to mourn.
We need to embody the pain and grief of our society and lament its tragic state. We need to embody the grief of God over the state of his Kingdom as his Church who is its first fruits bears fruit of thistles and thorns in the name of a Saviour who was crucified with a crown of thorns. We have to be a sign of contradiction that the world and the established church sees that there is a remnant an Exilic Ecclesia that understands the true nature of our times and the narrative that expresses it. This is not a pity party, though grieving involves anger, frustration, and despair. We must push through these to the resolution, if there is such a thing and this resolution is called lament. We lament and grieve the possibilities and the past mistakes in this present moment. We embrace the pain that we are so afraid to feel or to embrace.
The last part of Jesus's saying is that if we mourn we shall be comforted. We love that latter part of the verse and quote it as numbing antidote to our pain. We want joy in the morning light without the mourning of the dark night. Weeping, brother and sisters may endure through a long dark night of the soul of the Church and the Culture. We are only comforted through community. We comfort each other with the Scriptures, the traditions, the liturgies, the poetry and the lives of others who gone before us and yet our co-labourers in growing a community in Exile. We need to reach out to each other, who who have been used to the wilderness metaphor feel like we mourn alone with no hope of being heard. We need not sorrow alone my beloved sisters and brothers, but we need to sorrow with each other.
The Spirit knows how to pray and intercede for us when we do not know how to pray. In his inarticulate utterances that groans in the community and grieves in us the loss we cannot put our finger on but we know its pain. Let us grieve together, and comfort one another with the Blessing of mourning in Exile. Let us pray...
Come Holy Spirit who proceeds from Abba
Help us to embrace mourning in this Exilic State
Help us to enter fully into the grief which you groan within us,
as we intercede for the Church and for our Culture.
Come Priestly Spirit, grant us strenght to embody the pain and bear
existential angst that plagues our society that Christ, the Great High
Priest's sufferings may be completed in us.
Come Prophetic Spirit, grant us courage to face the fear of emptiness and
uncertainty as we challenge those structures that falsely serve fullness
and certainty in the name of prosperity.
Come Poetic Spirit, help us to express the loss of the Church and the Culture,
through the songs of Zion, the narratives of the ancestors, the liturgies
of worship, and symbols and art. Grant us eyes to see and ears to hear
those who are in Exile so that with our words and deeds we may comfort
each other.
In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit world without end. Amen
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Exile--something new?
I think exile is all around us--we just have to open our eyes to it. There are places where we are accepted, too. And there are places within exile where we feel included and places where we are dominant but feel outcast. People tend to meet God in those spaces of exile. Sometimes when we get caught up in being dominant, power distracts us. Oh well.
Most of the time, I feel more comfortable when I'm in an exiled situation. I like a challenge, and if I feel too conformed to the establishment set before (in my context and background), I feel like I'm not doing anything of importance. I feel lazy.
But here, in exile (which is where I feel I mostly am right now), I'm tired and ill and having to work too hard, and all I want to do is complain about it. But as I complain, I smile a little bit, and when I sleep I sleep well. And it's not as easy for me to get fat. Love that.
Happy b-day to the "arch."
Most of the time, I feel more comfortable when I'm in an exiled situation. I like a challenge, and if I feel too conformed to the establishment set before (in my context and background), I feel like I'm not doing anything of importance. I feel lazy.
But here, in exile (which is where I feel I mostly am right now), I'm tired and ill and having to work too hard, and all I want to do is complain about it. But as I complain, I smile a little bit, and when I sleep I sleep well. And it's not as easy for me to get fat. Love that.
Happy b-day to the "arch."
Monday, November 12, 2007
Reflections of Exile
Exile can often be misunderstood as a dwelling for evil and ill-will. However, Exile is most often a place for the non-conformist, the restless soul rebel, the misunderstood thinker. I wish to present, not an executionary form of exile, a place of judgement, punishment, and condemnation, instead I would like to offer an experiential form of exile, a place of growth, development, and maturation. So, with exigency, I exhort you, the reader, to follow in an exploration beyond the exiguous exoskeleton of Exile and exhume the explicitly expounded explanation of the exonerated and extricated Exillic Community.
There is a great mispercetption of the Exillic Community. The Exillic Community is filled with the social outcasts, those who think differently, who act out of the social norm. However, one thing that I would like to stress about Exile is that through excommunication the exiled have been told that they've been sent away as a form of punishment, but as the Bible shows what was meant for my evil has been turned around for my good. The Exile becomes my place of growth, my safe haven. I've been exiled in order to experience. And in exile we find others whom have experienced similar situations. As we share our experiences we form a bond, stronger due to the fact that we've been through similar situations. This bond that we share becomes a community. Therefore, our place of exile becomes our new home. In exile we have formed a family tree that is deeply rooted within the nutrient-filled soil of experience. So, when you are faced with discrimination, pain, and hatred, remember that you're only continuing upon your path toward your new home, a place of growth, a place of rest, and a place of love. Exile is not a place for the death of the soul, it's a place for the depth of the soul.
Peace & Love,
Shalom
There is a great mispercetption of the Exillic Community. The Exillic Community is filled with the social outcasts, those who think differently, who act out of the social norm. However, one thing that I would like to stress about Exile is that through excommunication the exiled have been told that they've been sent away as a form of punishment, but as the Bible shows what was meant for my evil has been turned around for my good. The Exile becomes my place of growth, my safe haven. I've been exiled in order to experience. And in exile we find others whom have experienced similar situations. As we share our experiences we form a bond, stronger due to the fact that we've been through similar situations. This bond that we share becomes a community. Therefore, our place of exile becomes our new home. In exile we have formed a family tree that is deeply rooted within the nutrient-filled soil of experience. So, when you are faced with discrimination, pain, and hatred, remember that you're only continuing upon your path toward your new home, a place of growth, a place of rest, and a place of love. Exile is not a place for the death of the soul, it's a place for the depth of the soul.
Peace & Love,
Shalom
Friday, November 9, 2007
Letters From the Exile
Hello to those who find themselves in Exile,
This Blog is about how to be in Exile. What do I mean by this? When I left Chicago, IL to come out here to Pasadena to go to Fuller for a PhD, the Spirit told me that I would be in Exile. Of course, I thought I would be in Exile, I was going to be by myself in a strange new land. Being a boy from the South, I had just adapted to life in Chicago and made some friends and now I am in a place of somewhat of a culture shock. Yet this Exile was far more than being in a new place by myself; this seems to be a reocurring theme that transcends but includes my existential state of being. This Exile not just about my personal lonliness and estrangement but what does it mean to be in a community in Exile, when you have lost everything; and your world has crashed in on you and you are trying to make sense of the chaos.
For me personally, I have always embraced the Exodus Event, where I may be in the wilderness, but one day I will be liberated into the Promise Land. Therefore I understood the lonliness of the wilderness, and like Elijah thought I was the only one there. Everytime I thought things were looking up, there seemed to be a let down. The Promised Land was in reality just an Oasis that lasted for a season and dried up. Then I was back in the wilderness alone with a few folks that I knew. Then I started embracing this idea of Exile.
The Exile in the Biblical Text is the Event when the Babylonians ransacked Jerusalem and took the people of the land into Exile into Babylon. The prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel as well as Habbakkuk warned the people if they did not turn from their idolatry, they would be sent into Exile. Sure enough, they were sent to Babylon. Prophet, priests, kings, etc alike were captured and sent to live in Babylon. As commentors point out, Babylon sent the intellgentisa, the leaders, elders, and priests into Exile as a way of preventing revolts. Only the lowly peasants who were of no threat were allowed to stay. How does one be a priest, prophet, or elder in the Exile; How does one form Community in the Exile. I started reading Daniel, Ezekiel and soon Jeremiah to explore these themes. In the same manner that I found those folks who resonated with the Wilderness theme, I found those folks around me who resonated with the Exilic Theme.
The confirmation that this theme transcended my own inspiration and a few around me was when I read the The Sky is Falling by Alan Roxburgh who says that the Church needs to be an Exilic Community as we enter the Post Modern World. He talks about Emergent and Missional leaders coming together to envision the Church as we are not only in transition Ecclesiastically but Culturally. Hence I am creating this Blog.
I am calling those who feel that they are in Exile to share their thoughts and sorrows. Being in Exile means mourning and embracing loss, as well as having eschatological hope. This loss may be personally, culturally or ecclesiastically. This Blog is for people who understand that the bonds of community is birthed out of brokeness. This Blog is not for those who want to rant and rave about the Church or whine and complain about how certain aspects of certain movements have been misunderstood. This Blog is not for those who want to jump on the lastest craze of the Church because its cool and may be a way to reach the culture in a whilly-nilly, surface way. This Blog is for those who may lament about the Church or Culture but whose critique is grounded in one's experience of Exile, brokeness, and pain as well as the Narrative of the Exile and God's Mission in Scripture and today.
Therefore, I invite Missional, Emergent, Convergence, Mainline, Liminals and those whose story resonates with Exile to write and share their stories or comment on the Blogs which will deal with Exilic Themes. May Abba send down His Spirit and manifest His Incarnate Word in our lives as we share our lives in words
C T
Fellow Exile in the Kingdom.
This Blog is about how to be in Exile. What do I mean by this? When I left Chicago, IL to come out here to Pasadena to go to Fuller for a PhD, the Spirit told me that I would be in Exile. Of course, I thought I would be in Exile, I was going to be by myself in a strange new land. Being a boy from the South, I had just adapted to life in Chicago and made some friends and now I am in a place of somewhat of a culture shock. Yet this Exile was far more than being in a new place by myself; this seems to be a reocurring theme that transcends but includes my existential state of being. This Exile not just about my personal lonliness and estrangement but what does it mean to be in a community in Exile, when you have lost everything; and your world has crashed in on you and you are trying to make sense of the chaos.
For me personally, I have always embraced the Exodus Event, where I may be in the wilderness, but one day I will be liberated into the Promise Land. Therefore I understood the lonliness of the wilderness, and like Elijah thought I was the only one there. Everytime I thought things were looking up, there seemed to be a let down. The Promised Land was in reality just an Oasis that lasted for a season and dried up. Then I was back in the wilderness alone with a few folks that I knew. Then I started embracing this idea of Exile.
The Exile in the Biblical Text is the Event when the Babylonians ransacked Jerusalem and took the people of the land into Exile into Babylon. The prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel as well as Habbakkuk warned the people if they did not turn from their idolatry, they would be sent into Exile. Sure enough, they were sent to Babylon. Prophet, priests, kings, etc alike were captured and sent to live in Babylon. As commentors point out, Babylon sent the intellgentisa, the leaders, elders, and priests into Exile as a way of preventing revolts. Only the lowly peasants who were of no threat were allowed to stay. How does one be a priest, prophet, or elder in the Exile; How does one form Community in the Exile. I started reading Daniel, Ezekiel and soon Jeremiah to explore these themes. In the same manner that I found those folks who resonated with the Wilderness theme, I found those folks around me who resonated with the Exilic Theme.
The confirmation that this theme transcended my own inspiration and a few around me was when I read the The Sky is Falling by Alan Roxburgh who says that the Church needs to be an Exilic Community as we enter the Post Modern World. He talks about Emergent and Missional leaders coming together to envision the Church as we are not only in transition Ecclesiastically but Culturally. Hence I am creating this Blog.
I am calling those who feel that they are in Exile to share their thoughts and sorrows. Being in Exile means mourning and embracing loss, as well as having eschatological hope. This loss may be personally, culturally or ecclesiastically. This Blog is for people who understand that the bonds of community is birthed out of brokeness. This Blog is not for those who want to rant and rave about the Church or whine and complain about how certain aspects of certain movements have been misunderstood. This Blog is not for those who want to jump on the lastest craze of the Church because its cool and may be a way to reach the culture in a whilly-nilly, surface way. This Blog is for those who may lament about the Church or Culture but whose critique is grounded in one's experience of Exile, brokeness, and pain as well as the Narrative of the Exile and God's Mission in Scripture and today.
Therefore, I invite Missional, Emergent, Convergence, Mainline, Liminals and those whose story resonates with Exile to write and share their stories or comment on the Blogs which will deal with Exilic Themes. May Abba send down His Spirit and manifest His Incarnate Word in our lives as we share our lives in words
C T
Fellow Exile in the Kingdom.
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