I crashed at Josh and Kristen’s loft

Josh and Kristen blog at rearviewWindow. The wallpaper image on their blog is actually the colors of their living room rug. They are new parents of Judah and are starting a very organic church movement in Dallas – one that . . . . wait . . . let me ask Kristen . . .

Andrew: How would you describe the movement?
Kristen: I dont know that I would

A: Do you think God likes it?
K: I sure hope so.

A: Would you call it church?
K: I would definitely call it church.

Dan Hughes of They Blinked is also here in Dallas and is doing something similar. I wont have time to visit him, however. i have a plane to catch. My plane drops me off at Gatwick in London and I have about 8 boring hours to get over to Heathrow for my connecting flight.

Andrew

Andrew Jones launched his first internet space in 1997 and has been teaching on related issues for the past 20 years. He travels all the time but lives between Wellington, San Francisco and a hobbit home in Prague.

4 Comments

  • brad says:

    i really like kristen’s response to your (legitimate) question about ‘describing’ the local movement. while it’s good to hear real-world stories of what God is doing here and there, too many of us jump from local conditions and descriptions straight to global definitions and prescriptions. as if what the Spirit is doing in fill-in-the-blank town is now the paradigm for the we-want-to-fill-in-our-blank church. maybe it’s really better in the LONG run sometimes to frustrate others by not describing the local Holy Ghost Phenomenon so it doesn’t become just another ‘movement’ that becomes a box that becomes a coffin somewhere else because disciples are so seldom taught how to contextualize for themselves in their own cultures …
    sorry for tonight’s negativity on this. guess i’m just overtired of all the well meant responses to your types of questions, responses that we turn into ‘answers’ that lead to another new but invalid set of questions that lead to more of the same. i think there’s a significant difference between uncritical duplication of surface forms/structures to ‘create’ or ‘perpetuate’ a ‘movement,’ and critically assessed replication of underlying principles as applied to the uniquenesses of a local context.
    so, to repeat the famous phrase from MBFGW, “and there you go.”

  • scotty says:

    Yep. Yep.
    I think this is the muk I find myself in. I’ve asked you all sooooo many questions and read so many blogs and books, but in the end was only leading myself to assume that what I found in these answers or these books or even these blogs were the ‘answers’….
    So, a ‘valid’ question, how can Heather and I be taught to contextualize for ourselves in our own culture?

  • Andrew Jones says:

    Thanks Brad,
    Appreciate the critique of “your types of questions”.
    The following day we were discussing why we had that and other conversations. We were thinking that our spirituality is often focused on what we DONT do rather than what we DO (events/programs) and maybe what distinuishes what we do on certain nights is the events that we gave up just to be together.
    The result is that the church meets/assembles together in the presence of god rather than filling their lives with busy events/making money/getting ahead.
    This is why is it hard to identify what certain groups do – because they are identified by inactivity as their worship, by abstinence of the idolatry of action, by the offering of their presence, by poverty rather than a tight schedule.
    A little “GLOBAL” in perspective for you, perhaps Brad, but it is something we were thinking about while we were there.

  • brad says:

    hi andrew. more good questions, more good quotes. i’m all for people thinking – alone, aloud, alltogether, ablogged. sorry if my critique came across as a box/coffin. and who knows, but that i have some global stretching to do still – actually, lots more! see yuh in march …

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