Lupton Discussion: Ch. 13 Going Deeper with Development

“Dignity, not pity, will work every time.”

I know many of you are reading the blog more than the book. If you are doing that, please read chapter 13. First metaphorically, then in live-bodied detail, Lupton tells the story of moving from individual betterment to community-wide development.

And here’s where my earlier comments about imagination and dreaming come in again. We can do this. Food co-op’s are possible; so are community restaurants. It’s really doable. We need some dreamers and some social entrepreneurs. The money will follow the vision and the community’s commitment.

Now I’m not sure the dignity will work every time…but I do think we should how leave pity for something more beautiful, more enduring.

May God give us the sanctified imaginations and emboldened courage to work for better ways.

G

Lupton Discussion: Ch. 11: Servants or Friends

Well, there is a first-time for everything. I’m going to disagree with Lupton here.

Lupton makes a distinction between the biblical metaphors of servant and friend. But that’s not the problem. Those distinctions are clear enough. The problem comes when he’s advocating the abandonment of one for the other. After a short history of the abuses in using the language “servants” of God, he makes the case that Jesus preferred this language because “he knew that servants would always become lords but friends would not.” Now he quotes a heart-warming passage in which Jesus calls his disciples friends and “no longer servants” to make this point more clearly. Now the problem is that the rest of Scripture uses both metaphors—in a celebratory manner. Jesus calls himself servant. Paul, the same. In fact, slave. Then he calls all who call upon Christ, servants/slaves. It is the nature of any Lord. The problem is not that we should stop thinking of ourselves as servants of the King, but that we she think more rightly about the nature of servant hood in the kingdom. For that matter, the nature of friendship, slavery, and lordship.

Lupton’s instincts for the manner of servant hood remain spot on—he gets the upside down nature of the kingdom. And it’s moving. But the problem with us not getting is not semantic. Nomenclature is not our error, but embodiment. The solution to our need for clearer biblical servant hood will never be abandonment in name or metaphor. It will be in our living out the principles of the Kingdom that has a King. A professor of mine would often say about arguments like these: Abusus usum non tollit. Not sure how tight the translation is, but I understand it to mean “abuse does not take away use.” Or better, “abuse is not corrected by disuse but by right use.”

OK so why all the semantics. Well, it’s born out of a real and right and biblical desire for a new and more beautiful way. Lupton longs for us to treat each other with dignity and respect. Lupton longs for and hopes for and works for followers of Christ to embody the beauty of the kingdom in action AND manner of action. These instincts are right, true, good, and beautiful. I applaud him for these.

But its never good to abandon biblical metaphors. Servant-hood and its language needs to be redeemed. And we need Lupton’s voice and others to draw the distinctions—not between servants and friends—but between faux-servants (mis-servants) and real servants. He has the prophetic instinct and power to do so—and we’d all listen if he did.

Lupton Book Discussion: Ch. 10: The Problem of Parking

The church and the community are in conflict about the use of land.   Parking lots or houses?  Lupton talks about this in S. Atlanta.  But it’s happening everywhere.  Something is deeply wrong.  He gives no solutions, but he gives guiding principles.

 “A community devoid of the influence of the Church will surely suffer from a lack of spiritual vitality.  And a church alienated form the people who live around it can hardly bear faithful witness to its creed.” 

Then he ends with the question of who will make the first move.  I’m a churchman, a pastor.  From my perspective, the question is whether or not I believe we are called to minister in the time and space of our own community.  Are we so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good?  Practically, do we know and use the businesses in our community?  Do we know names and issues and the drama of our neighbors—good and bad?  Ironically, isolation is the hallmark of the digitally-connected age.  Back porches are elaborate and front porches are gone.  We don’t even have to face our neighbors because we don’t have to get out of cars to park in the garage.  Isolation—is not just the absence of community…it precedes that absence with an attitude that we don’t need each other. 

Lupton Book Discussion: Ch. 5 Community Friendly Church

Lupton had me at “community.”  His view of the local church’s mission is as close to our own articulation of mission as I’ve seen.  A church “of” the community—not a church “in” in the community.  Rev. Howard Brown, senior pastor of Christ Central Church and my beloved colleague, says it this way to his congregation.  “We need to be a gospel virus on our communities—infecting every area of our communities with love, hope, and grace.”  I love this.  And it makes complete sense especially in the strip-mall-ization of the Church in America today. 

I cannot imagine how things would change if our churches became neighborhood churches.  In Charlotte alone there are 700 churches.  The possibilities are endless. 

I do want you to imagine though, how they’d be different.  I’ll give you a few ways our feeble attempts at Christ Central have helped us build love and respect and redemption in our neighborhood.   There is tons more to do but let these examples fuel your imaginations for your own churches.

• When a local art gallery did a tsunami relief, we offered to pay for a tent and let our band play music.
• We volunteered as the set up team for the neighborhood Oktoberfest party.
   
• We open our children’s space as a free gallery for burgeoning artists
  
• We use our relationships with the local theatre to throw a free film festival for community.
  
• We donate monies and resources to efforts in our community to bring compassion to local neighbors.
  
•  We were on the scene and helped find housing for folks who were all kicked out of condemned apartment complex.
  
•  We use local business for everything we can—from coffee to printing to making the Lord’s Supper Table to the bowls we use for baptisms. 
  
• We had Sunday School in the restaurant next door and paid them for use of the space.
  
• Our people use the local YMCA, go to local performances, and eat at local restaurants.
  
• We helped launch the NoDa School of Arts www.nodaschoolofarts.org and give them free office space.
  
• Probably ½ of our people live within 4-5 miles of the church.

Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life

First Things Introductions:

Hello All. My name is Giorgio Hiatt and I am a pastor in Charlotte, NC and a board member of Hope for Charlotte. Our Executive Director, Jeremy Sorzano has asked me to take us all through a book by Bob Lupton entitled Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life. It’s my privilege to do so.

This first blog entry will be about setting our course giving us a chance to get out our expectations and hopes for the month. I hope you will enjoy and be challenged by the interaction.

Schedule:

In figuring out how to best pursue this I thought short snippets would be best. This way, if anyone misses a few days she can jump right back in. The great thing about this book is that it can be read in bite-size pieces. Each chapter is less than 5 pages…often not more than 3. You will see it is divided in a way that each weekday in January will have at least one blog entry. So puts this in your “favorites” or “feedreader.” Then let’s join in anywhere, catch up later, read ahead, or just linger around the blog and see if we can learn something about the Kingdom of God that Christ has inaugurated.

Date Chapter        Date Chapter
1/3 Intro                  1/21   Ch. 12
1/4 Ch. 1                 1/22   Ch. 13
1/7 Ch. 2                 1/23   Ch. 14
1/8 Ch. 3                 1/24   Ch. 15
1/9 Ch. 4                 1/25   Ch. 16
1/10 Ch. 5               1/26   Ch. 17
1/11 Ch. 6               1/27   Ch. 18
1/14 Ch. 7               1/28   Ch. 19
1/15 Ch. 8               1/29   Appendix
1/16 Ch. 9
1/17 Ch. 10
1/18 Ch. 11

Expectations:

OK, I will do my best to give a short summary of each chapter and then give either anecdotes, comments, and questions that will fuel discussion. I don’t claim expertise in all these areas but will try my best to facilitate ideas and practice that will be helpful to the development of our communities. Please feel free to respond to this entry anytime with suggestions or your own expectations and desires for this month’s reading. Remember that this is our first attempt at anything like this for Hope for Charlotte, so there will probably be plenty of room for improvement.

So here’s to blogging our way toward the beauty of His Kingdom. See you tomorrow.

Giorgio