Study Guide for Session 2

Study Guide for Session 2 – April 23, 2008

The Ten Signposts of Renewal

1. Hospitality

• “[H]ospitality is the ‘creation of free space’ where strangers become friends. ‘Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place’” (79).
• “True Christian hospitality is not a recruitment strategy designed to manipulate strangers into church membership. Rather, it is a central practice of the Christian faith – something Christians are called to do for the sake of that thing itself” (81).
• “God’s hospitality demands…that all are welcome” (83).
• “Hospitality is not tame practice, an option to offer only to those who are likable” (83).
• “Hospitality changes both the host and the guest” (85).
• “One of the oldest themes in Christian literature about hospitality is the deliberate confusion of the roles of host and guest” (86).

2. Discernment

• Discernment is “a genuine sensing of truth and beauty through which we know God and know God’s will….But Christian tradition points toward…discernment as a practice that can be developed through participation in reflection, questions, prayer, and community” (91).
• The danger of relativism: “if the old village and all the old answers have vanished, then how do seekers determine goodness, truthfulness, and beauty?” (93).
• The third way: Asking ‘God-questions’ instead of ‘I-questions.’ “God-questions shift our focus from what we do to what God is doing, by helping us understand where we fit in the larger economy of God’s hope for the world” (94).
• “Discernment does not simply confirm our hunches or intuitions. Instead it is a perilous practice that involves self-criticism, questions, and risk – and often it redirects our lives” (95).
• Five phases of discernment: “faith, distinguishing between good and evil, practical wisdom, sensitivity to pursue God’s will, and finally, contemplation of wisdom” (96).
• In emerging Christianity, discernment is the spiritual process through which metanoia, being “born again” in God’s truth, beauty, and love, occurs. Thus, discernment points the way, guides the way, and becomes the way – the way that begins with God-questions, that winds through wisdom, and ends in the healing of the world” (97).

3. Healing

• “[H]armony is a kind of healing or making whole, the creation of what is disordered into what is ordered. In short, harmony is a kind of healing or making whole, the creation of what is disordered into what is ordered” (104).
• “God’s salvation is a process of healing whereby they are transformed—and, in turn, they open themselves to transforming the world” (106).
• “For mainline pilgrims, salvation entails several levels of healing: emotions and psyche, physical wellness, human reconciliation, and cosmic restoration.” (108).

4. Contemplation

• Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: “‘Continual silence, and removal from the noise of the things in this world and forgetfulness of them, lifts the heart and asks us to think of the things of heave and sets our heart upon them’” (117).
• The contrast: “Some church-growth specialists think that more successful churches entertain people during worship – the more activity, the more noise, the more loud music, the better. From that perspective, silence is boring and an evangelism turnoff” (119).
• “Human desire for fulfillment cannot be satisfied by the world. True knowledge of the self, of love and meaning comes only in silence” (121).
• “Restraint is not a word that most people associate with contemporary Christianity. But Holy Communion [Church] has opened up a pathway of contemplation that entails reflection, attention, and restraint” (122).

5. Testimony

• “At most of the congregations I visited, I heard people speak of faith—offering their testimonies to the power of God in changing their lives and their communities” (133).
• “In many ways, testimony is the most democratic – and empowering of all Christian practices. The entire New Testament is a testimony, a record of experiences that early Christians had with the transformative power of God” (134).
• “Our stories no longer tell tales of spiritual acquiescence and conformity. Rather, they tell of finding meaning, finding unique selves, and finding God in a confusing and chaotic world” (138).
• “Testimony is not about God fixing people. Rather, it speaks of God making wholeness out of human woundedness, human incompleteness” (141).

6. Diversity

• “Some Protestant pastors look at…diversity as a problem, bemoaning the decline of denominational identity and the rise of theological chaos....[But] ‘the loss in homogeneity leads to a richer diversity’ [that] is a source of ‘complex wisdom’” (145).
• “Unlike evangelical churches – where doctrinal uniformity is considered nonnegotiable—theological diversity shapes the daily life of most mainline churches” (146).
• Cherishing diversity of every kind: political, theological, cultural, and racial (148).
• “A Christian practice of diversity is not secular relativism. Rather, it is the active construction of a boundary-crossing community, a family bound not by blood but by love, that witnesses to the power of God’s healing in the world. Throughout the scriptures, God is a God who delights in diversity” (148).

7. Justice

• “Doing justice is much more than supporting a particular party and its policy agenda. Doing justice goes beyond fixing unfair and oppressive structures. Doing justice means engaging the powers – transforming the ‘inner spirit’ of all systems of injustice, violence and exclusion” (161).
• “Throughout my journey with emerging mainline congregations, I encountered people doing justice that involved hands-on service, linking social concerns and spirituality in local mission and activism” (164).

8. Worship

• Alternative worship’s influence on traditional worship: Scottsdale Congregational “takes the material of everyday life – art, music, film, and reflection – and assumes that it is the entryway to the sacred. Combining elements of jazz, performance art, film clips and video, multimedia reflection, live-camera feed, testimony, readings, silence, contemplative prayer, and journaling, they christened this service The Studio” Eventually, they moved elements of that alternative service to the traditional service: “…instead of jettisoning traditional worship, [they] applied the principles of experiential worship from The Studio to the other service. Instead of jazz, however, they opened the congregation to experience through classical music, and also wove art, multimedia, and contemplative prayer into the traditional structure” (174).
• “In the congregations in my study, mainline worship had moved eighteen inches: from the head to the heart” (176).
• “Worship is much more than something Christians attend on Sunday morning – it is something pilgrims make together” (178).
• “For too long, mainline Protestants equated worship with thinking about God. Now, in at least some places, their hearts—the whole capacity of being human—are learning to experience God” (178).
• “I realized that the kind of music and art did not matter in worship. Rather, innovation and experimentation mattered” (182).

9. Reflection

• “At its core, theological reflection is a way of seeing the world, of being able to imagine life in a relationship to God’s story, of linking the intellectual content of faith to its everyday practice” (187).
• “At Redeemer [Church], teaching and Bible study are not concerned with dogma and doctrinal facts; rather, they immerse themselves in the biblical stories, attempting to connect their lives with the text’s ancient wisdom” (188).
• “Everywhere, mainline pilgrims insisted upon the importance of intellectual openness to spiritual vitality” (191)
• “These mainline pilgrims linked intellectual curiosity with humility, however. For the people I met, thinking theologically did not mean arriving at certain conclusions” (191).
• “Christian reflection is not done in an ivory tower; it is not the quiet contemplation of the monastery garden. Rather, reflection is the pathway to a life of awe-filled action” (195).

10. Beauty

• “[A]t Redeemer [Church] music, liturgy, and word were completely one, as were the choir, minister, and congregation. Indeed, the congregation appeared to be inside the music, not just watching a performance” (204).
• “In every congregation I visited, there was a growing emphasis on beauty, on knowing God through art, music, and drama, on engaging more than just the mind” (208).
• “Some people refer to this turn of intellectual events as ‘postmodern,’ a shift away from Enlightenment reason toward more experiential forms of knowing” (209).
• “Christianity is changing – from being the Truth of rational speculation to being an exploration of the exquisite truthfulness of beauty” (210).

Some questions to consider:

• What patterns do you see in the “signpost” chapters? Consider both Bass’ organizational strategies as a writer and elements of the signposts themselves.
  
  
• What signposts do you think would be the most challenging for you?
  
  
• Which would be most challenging for our congregation as a whole?
  
  
• Is it possible for a church to have all ten signposts?
  
  
• Can we add other “signposts of renewal” not included here?