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Ecclesia Press under the leadership of J.R. Woodward has published its first book, ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs (and everything in between).

ViralHope is a collection of essays by key missional leaders from around the Western World. Each contributor has written an announcement of the good news to his or her city of residence.

Here is my contribution: “The Good News for Orlando”
One of Walt Disney’s core maxims reads: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Over the last forty years, Orlando has morphed from a sleepy Central Florida town centered on the citrus industry and World War Two era military bases into a gateway city that welcomes the world with top-notch resorts and attractions. Orlando is in the business of fun and offering its visitors a respite from the suffocating status quo of the daily grind of life. The dream of carving out an international city in the midst of former wetlands and citrus groves has largely been achieved. Orlando is known as the City Beautiful. At least, this is what the marketing campaigns proclaim. But as an almost decade long resident of the area, I wonder if perhaps we haven’t dreamed big enough?

It is undeniable that millions of persons enjoy their vacations in Central Florida. But is an existence rooted in manufacturing memories for others of mouse ears, sun tan lotion, roller coasters, chain restaurants, and convention centers truly a dream worthy of our lives? What if instead we were in the business of life transformation? What if people came to Central Florida for a vacation and instead found life? What if vacationers did not encounter only employees of Orlando’s extensive service industry but women and men joyously serving as part of a radically different Kingdom? What if Orlando embraced a bold and daring vision for what it might become—a gateway city that welcomed and ushered the world into a radical new reality?

For this to be possible, we will need a new story to ignite a fresh vision for our community. Let me suggest an encounter with a largely forgotten storyline.

The Bible offers an audacious narrative of a God who is looking for a people with whom to partner to extend blessing and good, life and wholeness, and hope and reconciliation to all peoples, nations, and tongues. This God is the creator of a world in which the final words are Rest, Love, Justice, Mercy, and Peace. In the life of Jesus, this God came to live among us. Jesus modeled true humanity while at the same time subverting strongly held misconceptions about divinity and religion. Jesus came to invite us back to life the way that God had intended. To this end, Jesus announced a liberating message that can be summarized this way: “(Re)align yourselves because the long awaited good future has now arrived in me.” Jesus immediately called into being a new community to embody his life and teaching and freely sacrificed his life for this new vision.

But this isn’t the whole story. Jesus was no mere martyr who inspires us and serves an example to emulate. The full story is this: Jesus is alive. The Creator God of all that exists delivered Jesus from the grave so that he stands today fully alive as the triumphant Lord of a new Kingdom. If we have ears to hear, we can still hear him calling to us today to dream new dreams and envision new possibilities. But most all of all he promises to stand as the vanguard who will lead us to become the women and men whom we were created us to be—a people that exist to reflect and embody the character and nature of the God in and for the world.

What if following Jesus was the way to taste and experience true life—the life that God alone dreams for you and has acted in Jesus to make possible? That would be good news indeed. What would our lives and city look like if we (re)aligned our lives in response to this good news?

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Leadership, Mission, church, compassion, conversion, creativity, culture, ecclesiology, emerging church, humanity, kingdom of heaven, missional church, missional leadership, pop culture, world mission, world religion, worldview by brian
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TED talks offer cutting edge and innovative thinking free to the world. Each presenter is a recognized expert in his/her field, but TED talks are not dull lectures. TED talks are excellent examples of clear and compelling presentations. Communicators of all stripes can learn much about the art of presentation from watching/listening to the presentations from TED conferences.

Exchanged Living has provided the list of communication guidelines that TED passes out to its presenters. They are immediately applicable to those of us seeking to present the Gospel in our 21st century context:

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.

2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.

3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.

4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story.

5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.

6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.

7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.

8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.

9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.

10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

What would you add?

Tags: Preaching, blogosphere, communication, creativity, culture, education, learning by brian
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Mynhardt of The Bread and the Wine community in South Africa recently engaged Leonard Sweet in conversation. He describes his learnings in a log.

He writes in part:

“Listening to Sweet articulate the state our culture is in, and the ways in which it is shifting, finally gave me some valuable vocabulary with which to express my own observations about our world. It’s great when you have been subconsciously aware of something, to have someone come and explain your own suspicions to you in easily understandable, logical terms.

That’s what our conversation with Len did for me.

Here’s my notes:

• The worst thing you can do for your mobile phone is to think about it as merely just a phone. The same goes for church.
• Substitute the words “spiritual formation” with the words “human formation”.”

Read the rest of his notes.

Tags: Community, Mission, blogosphere, calling, church, creativity, emerging church, humanity, missional church by brian
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The Florida campus of Asbury Theological Seminary has gained official approval through its accrediting bodies to begin offering the Doctor of Ministry degree. It’s track will be a distinctive one: Transformational Innovation.

I will be offering the first course: Biblical Interpretation in Life and Ministry this July.

Read the official press release.

More information will be forthcoming. As a member of the faculty, I am excited about this development and am looking forward to working with missional leaders who are seeking new and innovative ways to advance the Christ following movement in our day.

Tags: Biblical Studies, Leadership, Mission, The Wesleyan Church, Wesleyan theology, asbury theological seminary, calling, campus ministry, church, creativity, culture, humanity, missional church, missional leadership, pop culture, theological education, world mission, worldview by brian
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Failure is part of life. It throttles some; it unleashes others. Want to succeed. Learn to use failure as a stepping stone to success. Check out the video:

What lessons are here for missional leadership? Is the Christ following movement afraid to fail?

Tags: blogosphere, church, commentary, creativity, culture, ethos, failure, fear, learning, risk, strengths, success, talents by brian
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Key Issues for Reading the Shack

1) The Shack is a work of fiction. It is rooted in life, Christian thought, and Scripture, but it is fiction and its author claims nothing more for it. Through story, The Shack offers a narrative that attempts to interpret key themes of Scripture in fresh and meaningful ways to a 21st century audience. In particular, it attempts to communicate an understanding of the God of the Scriptures that is capable of touching deeply a person who has grown weary of or hardened against a simplistic or naïve faith. In particular, the main character has been hurt deeply by various tragedies in his life. He has been overcome by The Great Sadness. Is it possible for the Gospel to penetrate such a person? The Shack is the fictional account of the extent to which God will go reach out to one of His lost ones.

The Shack should not be read as a systematic theology. Young is creative and imaginative in his writing. He deploys well the elements of fiction to craft a compelling and transformative story. This does not mean that every aspect or line will hold up to a rigorous theological critique. I think that Young succeeds in writing a powerful story about God’s missional love for the pinnacle of His Creation—humanity. None of the liberties that Young takes or imaginative illustrations that he deploys is detrimental to message underlying The Shack. Ideally, through reading The Shack, men and women will be inspired to (re)engage God in relationship. This will lead inevitably to a return to the Bible itself.

2) The Shack joins a long line of fictional works that engage the riches of Christian theology and tradition. Here are some examples: C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia; Dante, Inferno; John Steinbeck, East of Eden; John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress; Flannery O’Connor’s short stories.

The Shack pushes the envelope through a personification of each person of the Trinity along with the figure Holy Wisdom (Sophia) from the Bible’s Wisdom traditions. Young takes a risk here. This move is made to emphasize the relational side of God. But its unconventional use of feminine and non-European imagery has raised issues for some readers who forget (in my opinion) that The Shack is fiction. Young’s portrayal of the Trinity is bold and works to put a human and gracious face on the biblical God who too many in our world think of as oppressive, distant, male, and neither loving nor faithful. I think that Young’s move works, but some (traditional) readers will not be able to get past the imagery to hear the good message within The Shack.

3) Reading The Shack is not a substitute for reading and reflecting on Scripture regularly. The Scriptures are God’s gift to humanity and serve as the authoritative guide for faith and life. The Old and New Testaments tell the story of God’s missional interactions with Creation in general and with the creation, fall, and redemption of humanity in particular. In fact, Young would not have been able to write The Shack without his own careful reflection on the Bible. The Biblical portrait of God is the inspiration for The Shack and Young alludes to the Scriptures subtly throughout the novel. The more that one understands and knows the Bible the more one can appreciate Young’s work. My hope is that The Shack will motivate its readers to read through the Scriptural story that inspired and informed the core of Young’s work.

© 2009 Brian D. Russell

Also check out Andy Rowell’s collection of substantive book reviews on The Shack, including one by my Asbury Seminary colleague Ben Witherington.

Tags: Mission, New Testament, Old Testament, The Shack, biblical theology, book reviews, church, communication, creativity, humanity, pop culture by brian
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