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.