The Divine Commodity

The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani. Brilliant and a must-read…

• Is this what Jesus envisioned? Is they why he came and died? So that we might congregate for multimedia worship extravaganza in his name?
• One building in Starry night that has no yellow light – the church
• The contemporary church is losing its ability to inspire. The church is a corporation, its outreach is marketing, its worship is entertainment, and its god is a commodity.
• We must learn to exist in a consumer empire but not forfeit our souls at is altar.
• Consumerism is the dominant worldview of North Americans.
• During the same half century that evangelicals were climbing to the pinnacle of cultural influences, the church has largely lost its ability to transform lives and teach people to practice the values championed by Christ.
• 2004, 17% attend church. By 2050, 11%
• Our deficieny is not motivation or money, but imagination. “Imagination must come before implementation. We have lost the ability to imagine.
• Learning to see the world as it truly is – saturated with the presence and love of God – should be ht essence of Christian discipleship. Most ministries have focused on knowledge and skills and neglected role of imagination.
• In our quest for survival driven by our fear of irrelevance, have evangelicals become Crypto-Christians?
• Silence is the beginning of all worship. In our wordy world, we’ve have a tough time embracing inner silence.
• Our words about God are too often definitive, absolute, and proclaimed with an authority greater than their source. Such absolute pronouncements should rarely be spoken by fallible humans and then only with much trepidation.
• In our consumerist culture, God has no intrinsic value apart from his usefulness to us. He is a tool we employ, a force we control, and a resource we plunder rather than an all-powerful Creator to be revered.
• Connected yet alienated.
• Value is only found in something’s immediate usefulness, it is ability to satisfy our immediate desire.
• God is a controllable and convenient diety devoid of any relevant context.
• Maybe God is waiting for us to be silent long enough so he may begin painting a new picture in our imaginations.
• Divine Agnosticism – Affirms existence of God but then acknowledges our human inability to fully grasp his infinite nature.
• The church has learned that success in a consumer culture has more to do with the packaging than the product. It’s more about the sizzle than the steak.
• Willard: Just forgiven? Is that really all there is to being a Christian? External transformation is nothing without internal change.
• Jesus is making the point that eternal brands don’t matter to God, only love.
• The organized church should never try to stage a God experience. The word getting is the problem. God is the audience of our worship. What you get is, quiet frankly, irrelevant as a starting point. This Experience Economy will be a longing for authenticity.
• We’ve come to believe that transformation is attained through external experiences. The problem is this type of transformation doesn’t last. The glory begins to fade. We are worship junkies. We are producing spectators, religious onlookers lacking any memory of a true encounter with God.
• Prayer is the answer
• “Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to reminde them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into a consciousness of God’s presence.” Brother Lawrence, “But it might be so simple.”
• “Information alone NEVER leads to transformation.” Need imaginative prayer.
• Willow Creek: Chruch went from the vehicle to the destination. Church growth went from a by-product of the mission to its core.
• We believe with the right corporate vision, structures, and policies the institution will be divinely empowered to do Christ’s work.
• Pharisees: Their insistence on religious precision left no room for mystery.
• Sacrifice A, recite prayer B, abstain from C, and God will bless you with D – but God isn’t like a gumball machine.
• We must humbly submit to the Spirit’s unpredictability and happily be carried along on his breath. God is not plug and play.
• “A soul ablaze cannot be manufactured or mass produced. Unlike idols which can be confined and controlled, God describes himself as a consuming fire. – unquenchable, uncontrollable, and untamable.
• Reveal: Impact of Spiritual Growth? Bible reading, prayer, meditation, and a meaningful relationship with a friend or mentor, and serving others.
• The goal should not be abandoning one structure in favor of another, but rather fostering the meaningful human relationships through which real ministry happens no matter what church structure we find ourselves within.
• The consumer is schooled in insatiability – but Scripture champions contentment and self-control, not the endless pursuit of personal desires.
• Delayed Gratification is defined as maturity.
• Surrendering control and embracing self-denial ensured that believers received what they needed to mature in Christ, not simply what they wanted.
• We do not desire too much, but too little.
• Sorrow mingled with joy – to sacrifice one’s immediate desires was how to fulfill one’s ultimate desire. His truest and deepest desire was to fulfill the will of his father.
• We must embrace and choose suffering (discipline of fasting).
• The shore is comfortable and safe, but it is lonely. We make calculated decisions about which community will offer most comfortable environments.
• Core characterisitic of consumerism is freedom – we only stay as long as it is comfortable.
• Corinth: Uncritically allowed the values of their culture into the church. Forsaken the values of Christ for values of their culture.
• Our imaginations have been captured by the popular methodology of our culture. We measure satisfaction.
• Real people are difficult and real arguments erupt. This is the dilemma of community – we desire it, we need it, but we seem ill equipped to creae it.
• We have no control over who is invited to the table. Instead, we are asked to surrender control and simply take our seat with the other wounded souls redeemed by the broken body and shed blood of Jesus.
• Unlike our suburban homes, the door to God’s Kingdom has no peep-hole. Unlike our facebook profiles, God’s kingdom has no filer. And unlike our consumer churches, God’s kingdom has no target audience.
• Jesus never pandered to people or sought their approval. It was by living from the truth of his own identity that he was able to accept the true identity of others.
• The Christian life isn’t about IMPACT; it’s about OBEDIENCE. In God’s economy, the smallest things have the biggest impact.
• The sower has a smaller, secondary part to play in a far larger mystery. The primary agent is GOD!
• We are to just faithfully scatter the seed.
• Instead of consumerism, let’s sow seeds – silence, prayer, love, friendship, fasting, hospitality. Before we change others, we must change ourselves
• Desconstruct our commodified view of God, and reconstruct a sense of wonder through silence.
• Deconstruct our branded identities and reconstruct identities rooted in faith through love.
• Transformation through prayer
• Deconstruct devotion to institution as God’s vessels, and reconstruct relationships with our brothers and sisters
• Deconstruct unceasing pursuit of pleasure and reconstrut redemptive power of suffering through fasting
• Deconstruct contentment with segregation, and reconstruct unity of all people through the cross
• Deconstruct individualism and reconstruct love for strangers through hospitality

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