RePlacing Church: Local Spirituality, Innovative Community & Social Change with Ben Katt

My friend Rachel Womelsduff Gough, who “ditched the city for a patch of earth” in the Snoqualmie Valley with her family two and half years ago, joins me to talk about joining God’s renewal and building community in a rural context by recalling her own journey and the inspiration of the “Roseto Effect,” discussing the influences of Wendell Berry’s work and C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, and sharing about the critical community-building practice of “frequent spontaneous contact.”

 

Rachel is co-founder, contributor, and editor at Kindred (https://kindredmag.com), an online magazine. Check out her latest piece, "Radical Locatedness" (https://kindredmag.com/2016/05/04/radical-locatedness/). She is a lover of learning, whether it's gardening, chicken farming, canning, or neighboring.

 

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Alan Roxburgh joins me to talk about his own vow of stability, the influence of Lesslie Newbigin, what he calls “The Great Unraveling” happening in the western church, the future of theological education and church leadership, and learning to ask the question, ‘How do we join in what God is up to in our neighborhoods and communities?”

Alan Roxburgh leads The Missional Network, an organization that consults denominations, congregations and seminaries around the world in the areas of leadership, systems, and change. Alan has over 30 years experience in church leadership as a pastor, teacher, and author of numerous books, most recently recently Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood and Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World.

 

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Shane Claiborne joins me to talk about influences like Mother Teresa and Rich Mullins; the inception and evolution of his neighborhood faith community, The Simple Way; and how Jesus and his neighbors have helped him stay connected to God and fueled his passion to eliminate gun violence and the violence of the death penalty.

Shane Claiborne is a founder of The Simple Way, a faith community in the inner city Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington. He is a leader of the Red Letter Christians. He writes and travels extensively speaking about peacemaking, justice, and Jesus. He is author of many books, including The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical and the forthcoming Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It's Killing Us (June 2016).

 

Additional Links:

Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove, and Enuma Okoro.

"Death By Blackness," the story of Duane Buck.

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Dan White, Jr. joins me to talk about his journey from the megachurch world to the minimal church world of being a community of Jesus followers rooted in a neighborhood, practices of presence in the neighborhood, the healing power of hospitality, what “discipleship” means and why it matters so much, and the biggest reasons pastors and leaders hesitate to take the plunge into the parish.

 

Dan White, Jr. co-leads Axiom, a faith-community in the urban neighborhoods of Syracuse; works as a consultant and coach with the V3 Movement, which starts and sustains missional-incarnational communities throughout the country; and cofounded the Praxis Gathering. He is the author of Subterranean: Why the Future of the Church is Rootedness and co-author with JR Woodward of the forthcoming book The Church as Movement (August 2016).

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In this episode, I pick up on the theme of Episode 15 - being one who sees - and look at it from the other side - being one who is seen. Pastors, leaders, and others in the healing professions are often committed to seeing others, but end up feeling unseen themselves. How might our wounds and the story of Hagar helps us remember we are seen?

Ancient biblical poems speak of humans being "crowned with glory and honor" and "fearfully and wonderfully made," but do we actually SEE these realities in one another? In this episode, I recount the greatest wedding ever, share stories of Jesus the Seer, and explore some guiding principles to help us truly SEE people in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and third places.

Tom Sine joins me to talk about his come-to-Jesus moments and turning 80, share stories of how churches are innovating in and impacting their neighborhoods, and discuss ageism, Babette's feast, contextual forecasting, and how following Jesus is a design opportunity. Tom is the founder of Mustard Seed Associates and has consulted countless churches and organizations around themes of future, change, and holistic mission. He is author of the forthcoming book, Live Like You Give A Damn: Join the Changemaking Celebration as well as The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed At A Time, and Mustard Seed vs. McWorld: Reinventing Life and Faith For the Future.

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In this episode, I discuss the first of the Five Signs of the Parish Movement, “Centering on Christ,” by talking about road rage, Ephesians 4, and Christian accents.

Parish church expressions are emerging in neighborhoods everywhere. Whatever they are called - neighborhood church plants, missional communities, neomonastic communities, faith-based social enterprises - these diverse expressions seem to exhibit five common signs as they join God’s renewal in their particular places. In this five part series, I explore the Five Signs of the Parish Movement: Centering on Christ, Inhabiting the Parish, Gathering to Remember, Collaborating for God’s Renewal, and Linking Across Parishes.

Centering on Christ: Formed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we seek to share life together as a tangible expression of Christ’s body in our parish. Saying that Christ is at the center is not just a way of life together. As communities we commit to love one another and grow together with Christ within the grime and beauty of our everyday stories.

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Tim Soerens joins me to share the story of how he became captivated by this whole neighborhood church thing, and to talk about churches joining God in the neighborhood, the relationship between movements and institutions, neighborhood economics, and golfing with duct tape golf balls. Tim is co-author of The New Parish, co-founding director of the Parish Collective, and curates the Inhabit Conference, the New Parish Conference (UK), the Conspire Gathering, SOCAP, and Neighborhood Economics.

Check out: 

The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Are Transforming Mission, Discipleship, & Community by Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens, and Dwight J. Friesen

Inhabit Conference. Seattle, WA. April 15-16.

Conspire Gathering. Cincinnati, OH. May 3-5.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

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The church is integrating... People everywhere are waking up to the presence and activity of God in all aspects of their lives: in the places they live, work, and play. In this episode, the third of a four part series on the idea of RePlacing church, I talk about adjectival modifiers, Bowe Bergdahl, and Jacob’s ladder as I explore how this integration is impacting conventional and institutional church, inspired by Jesus the Integrator, and expressing itself in neighborhoods, workplaces, and third places.

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Resources:

“The Innovating Church” (RePlacing Church, 2 of 4)

“The Scattering Church” (RePlacing Church, 1 of 4)

The New Parish by Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens, and Dwight Friesen

"How We Gather" by Angie Thurston and Casper ter Kuile

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World by Alan Roxburgh