My friend John finally said something in response to the evangelical caricaturization of the “emergent” Christian movement:

Thanks for the label…

Amen.

I am beginning to understand the sometimes vulgar imagery used by prophets in conveying the raw heart-speak of God, for I have just felt one such outpouring from God’s raw heart. It goes something like this:

You Christians have not pursued wisdom as a lady worth pursuing. Instead, you have treated her like a whore - you have stripped her, packaged her vulgarly with rags that leave nothing to the imagination, and you are selling her cheaply on the streets as something convenient to be had anytime anywhere for your greed.

You ought to instead pursue wisdom - clothe her, honor her, pursue her with awkward love and humility, pursue her with your very lives and lifetimes, not as something you can own or have, but as someone who chooses to be with you for a season. Therefore cherish her as an honored guest, desperately desire her to make her home in your life.

For God watches your hearts, and sees your arrogance and pride and greed.

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The recurring theme I find in Christian circles is fear.

One aspect that illustrates this is the fine orchestration of the spiritual life - from what my friend John calls the “Sunday Morning Show” down to the agenda for the weekly “Bible study”, Christians seem to be terrified of spaces where God can work in ways that will disrupt their plans.

I want to live with no fear. I want to accept, no make that embrace, no, make that INVITE God to disrupt my plans with His own. I want to trust God’s presence, not control my life so rigidly that I think I have to make room for Him.

What would that look like?
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Yesterday was the final day of the 4-month-long missions course that Alexis and I have been attending.

I have mixed feelings about the course - as a modern rebel, I could not stand the packaged mode of learning and the over-simplification of the gospel mission of Christ. I was disgusted by the constant reference to “unreached” peoples, and the constant, underlying assumption that such “unreached” peoples lived somewhere far and distant. I was sickened by the unquestioned attitude of the course that the peoples around here are “reached”.
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I just finished reading “The Barbarian Way”, by Erwin McManus, and I’m convinced of this one defining fact about who God is shaping me to be:

I am a barbarian prophet. I pursue Jesus with reckless passion, uncivilized and unchurched, and I say and do things that are strange and disturbing to some, but He commands me to “let those hear who have ears to hear.”

I am on a barbarian mission with a barbarian tribe led by a reckless God to live a mysterious and untamed faith among peoples beyond the culture of civilized church folk, too civilized to understand my journey or my destination. To my fellow barbarian adventurers, though, I say this: I weep with joy at the hope of meeting you, let us partake together of this lifetime of risk and adventure for our Holy King!