over the next few days I am going to post some of the notes I took while I was there.
Here ya go!!
Main Session #1
Rob Bell
“This lovely, frustrating, intoxicating, painful, hard, compelling mystery called the Church…and why she’s worth dying for.
Note: The general tone of the conference was less of a “conference, and more of a retreat. Soon after Rob started to speak it was clear that the conference was really about 2 things…
Rob Bell
“This lovely, frustrating, intoxicating, painful, hard, compelling mystery called the Church…and why she’s worth dying for.
Note: The general tone of the conference was less of a “conference, and more of a retreat. Soon after Rob started to speak it was clear that the conference was really about 2 things…
Calling the Church back to its justice roots, and seeing salvation as more than just “personal”, but rather Jesus wants to save us all, and “all” of “us”.
Sabbath for the leader in the Church who is being beat up.
Ok on to the notes:
Rob started by basically posing this question: Are you like Paul, “thankful” for the Church?
He talked about the Eucharist, pointing out the origins of the word in Greek:
Ø Eu—well, good
Ø Charizomai—to grant, to give
Ø Charis—gift
He talked about that the heart of the Eucharist was that:
Jesus Body was broken…
Jesus Blood was poured…
And that in both of those aspects we see “Jesus as the good gift of God, and the Church as God’s good gift to the world”
As pastors, he said that we “participate as God’s good gift by breaking ourselves open and pouring ourselves out for the Church.” The point being that working in the Church takes something out of us that no other job, vocation, occupation does.
In the Spiritual sense he said it this way: “When somebody is fed meat, that means that an animal has had to had its body broken and its blood poured out, in the same way when someone in the Church is fed, it means that someone has been broken and poured out for them to be fed.”
He posed a cool question that made me think, and still does:
Q: What does it mean, what does it look like, for the Church to be “Eucharist” for the world?
He then offered up some scripture with key points to pull out in reference to the action of the Christian, the action of the Church in the world.
1. 2nd Corinthians 4:7-12---7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
2. Genesis 12:1-3--- 1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you.
2 "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. [a]
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
His point was that as the Church, we carry around with us the death and the life of Jesus…we are Eucharist to the world, we are God’s “blessing” to the world. He said this, which is a quote I have heard elsewhere before: “The Church is the only organization in the world that exists for its non-members.”
Here’s a great question he posed:
If our Church was taken away from our city, who would protest?
Here’s another rant of questions he asked:
Who is most skeptical in your town…
Who is most hostile in your town…
Who is most marginalized in your town…What would a Eucharist look like for them?
Here’s a fascinating observation he makes on 1 Corinthians 9:19-23
19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
He says he became a Jew to the Jew…under the law as those under the law…to the weak he became weak…But what does he leave out?
He doesn’t say “to the strong I became strong”!!
Rob says, “I didn’t pretend to have it all together, I didn’t use my power and strength to coerce you” then he said, what I believe is the most powerful and thought provoking statement of the day…
“The power of the Eucharist is found in its weakness”
Wow!!! To be Eucharist for us, Jesus had to be broken…for us to be Eucharist as the Church, we have to be broken…we have to be humble.
Think of it like the 12 steps of the recovery movement…
Step one is: We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable…
We have to be “bologna” free, no falsehood…No acting like we have it together, no trying to be strong for the strong…we have to be done with our ego, and be pushed to the point where we “have no energy to pretend, and have to be done with our own ego…”
Rob said this, and its just cool: “What changes the world most is people (the Church) who sit together and acknowledge their weakness…the power of the Eucharist is found in its descent…From perfection to Humility…from superman to human…the Church is the only thing that says to the world ‘all we have to give your is ourselves.”
Ephesians 2:11-16
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
Rob points to the phrase “new humanity” as a model for being the “Eucharist” to the Church…that we need to get past the things that divide us and realize the reality of the fact that “the only thing we have in common is Jesus…and that is enough!”
Which is just a great point, and one that you really can’t argue with scripturally, but I have never really seen it work in its fullness…it makes me wonder if unity is just a hope, or a dream for the future.
Can pacifists and Republicans have a civil meal together if they are both followers of Jesus?
One thing that Rob pointed out was the fact that the Church as Eucharist was something that you could not market; it cannot be commodified, and is not a product.
Take a look at Acts 8:9-20
9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, "This man is rightly called the Great Power of God." 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. 12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized into [a] the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money 19 and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."
20 Peter answered: "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!
This guy tried to “buy” the power of the Spirit…
Q: Do we try to sell the Church?
Q: Do we try to sell the healing, restorative, empowering life of Jesus as a product?
The question Rob said that we should all ask when we think of ourselves as the “good gift of God offered to the world” is this:
How do we become Eucharist for these people, in this place, at this time…not…how can we get people to accept what we are offering to them.
He talked about how the commodification of the Eucharist, of the Gospel, has become a practice of many who lead their Churches. He talked about how people come to conferences, like this one (side note: The leaders there never talked about how they do anything, they only talked about theology behind the doing) and try to copy what they learn there in an effort to replicate the results. His point was: Copying is a cop-out from asking the tough questions about being Eucharist to the people God has called you to serve.”
He talked about entering in the deep stream of “Cultural exegesis” and “contemplative reflection with God”.
In reference to learning from those kinds of conferences, he said that the act of contemplative reflection with God and cultural exegesis should force us to ask two questions:
Ø What is true…PERIOD?
Ø How can we reflect what is true…PERIOD, here where God calls us?
(yes Rob did say “PERIOD”)
He talked about how when we commodify the Church, we are denying the truth that being part of the Church is being part of something “big…deep…and mysterious”. Further more, he says, we don’t need to commdify the Church because of what he calls “the magnetic draw of the tribe”.
Ø We are wired to be part of something big, something old, something mysterious…even though we crave answers, we grave something even BIGGER than answers.
Ø We crave community.
He said that for all of us, we must wrestle with 2 absolutes when we deal with what it means to be “Eucharist” to the world.
1. Who is Christ to YOU? Your own journey with Christ is an absolute, and the Church becomes, truly becomes Eucharist when see ourselves on a journey with Christ allowing him to pour into us. Only by coming to grips with what feeds you individually can you come to this place where Eucharist becomes “Christ IN us…Christ THRU us”
2. When the body breaks for the world and pours itself out for the world, it has to allow Christ to put it back together and pour His blood back into it. Sabbath is an absolute
Without pointing out all the texts that Rob brings out, he makes this point of Sabbath by talking about how Jesus drew away to pray, he said: “The Greater the crowds became in Jesus Ministry, the more time in solitude and prayer you find him taking.”
Profound “Robism”
If you want to live from your soul then you have to embrace your limits, if you don’t want to embrace your limits then you DO NOT want to live from your soul.
Rob talked about some of the passages (I didn’t get to write them down because I was coughing) where Jesus is healing people and what not, and then sets out and the people get upset because he “must go to Jerusalem”. The point being: We need to learn from Jesus; he had a mission and would only participate in those things he was called to. He was life was on a road that only went to Jerusalem.
The question we must all ask is:
What is my Jerusalem?
The last thing Rob talked about was how to incorporate Sabbath into your daily life by creating rhythms and patterns to allow space for God to pour back into us what we pour out for others.
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