Over the last eight years I’ve been exploring how we gather together in intentional community.  We ended up calling it the Jesus Model, which is the idea of twelve people gathering together for three years to intentionally practice the Way of Jesus together.  The journey has been utterly amazing, thrilling, hard, and painful but in the end worth every ounce of investment. I would do it all again if I could.

In this process many people started asking us how we do what we do.  So we started taking notes, writing down ideas, developing teachings, and creating exercises on spiritual formation.  The end result was the Thrive Leadership Manual and a series of workbooks designed to help intentional communities work through the process.  The new Leadership Manual describes the process, the ethos, and dives deeply into the Jesus Model.  It provides a framework for not on how we gather but why.

If you are looking to create an intentional space of grace and find your tribe, I want to invite you to explore the Thrive process.

Imagine a world, Jesus once told his followers, where lost people get found. Jesus told three such parables, we call them the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. I want to dabble with the first two today. (You can read the texts after the jump.)

We need to begin at the beginning:

Jesus is eating with the wrong people: tax collectors and sinners. They are as much a stereotype as the Pharisees and legal experts who are inspecting Jesus’ evening behaviors at meals.

We’ve got the Good-but-Inspected-Guy doing the merciful and forgiving thing with the wrong people and the right people fundamentally upset about what’s being done.

Welcoming sinners to table — evidently before they had committed themselves to Torah observance — was the wrong thing to do.

In that context, Jesus says a new imagination is in order. And that imagined world begins with Jesus’ behavior and is justified by his stories of a different world.

The kingdom world of Jesus is a world in which tax collectors are sinners are pursued by God — a shepherd seeking for a lost sheep, a woman scouring a home to find one lost coin — in spite of the risk and are pursued by God through great effort. In addition, when God finds such a lost person, God is overjoyed — here you can think of the amount of wine Jesus produced at the wedding at Cana — to the point that he throws a big party. When he finds the sheep he puts atop his shoulders and carries it home to safety and celebration; the woman cherishes the coin and calls her neighbors.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.  We need to begin at the beginning and address the fundamental assumptions that keep us from seeing what God sees.

“Why call God’s perspective of unchanging love towards us and His objective judgment of our value apart from our works or other qualities the God IMAGINATION when imagination usually is understood as something unreal or only potential reality which only exists in the mind but is seen as lacking fleshed out reality? If truth and objectivity apart from our own perception (or misconception) is the point, this choice of words seems rather counterintuitive.“

What I hear Josh ask is, “If God’s perspective is real then why use a word that suggests something that is rather illusory to describe something concrete.”  I hope I’m getting you right Josh.

I wrestled deeply with how to describe this way of seeing God’s perspective.  I deeply believe it is concrete and something that produces life when taken in.  Yet our experience of it is often illusory.  We take it on in faith and develop our experience of it over time.  This process of experience happens inside the brain as we wrestle with the judgments we make about the self, God, our neighbor and the world.  The word that best described this process to me was imagination.  It’s illusory yet becomes real over time. It’s expanding as much as we allow it.

Contrary to public opinion, I think the Bachelor and the Bachelorette are important shows. Seriously? You ask.

This post started because my friend Kate Murray shared her thoughts on the show. She said:

Last night I watched the Bachelorette.  I never watch the Bachelorette.  I don’t know what got into me, but I sat on the couch, for two hours, listening to the guys “tell all” and recount their stories from the season.  Mostly I watched as they and this season’s Bachelorette, Ali, spoke of finding love and her quest to find the man of her dreams.

But as I watched, I thought about how different their experiences have been from my own – and if any relationship that begins in such a setting (not only in exotic locations, but on national TV) can survive the reality of life (most don’t – I think only two or three couples have actually made it down the aisle and are still together).

Her observations made me thing of another show I watch with my kids.  It’s called Wipeout. Contestants navigate an obstacle course and get pummeled a long the way. What I’ve noticed is that the course is designed to produce moments of hilarious pummeling. In other words, its designed for the laugh, not the contestants.  There are points in the course that the contestants simply can’t get by without experiencing a dramatic wipeout, hence the name.

The producers of Wipeout are smart because they pick really interesting, and rather kooky people who are willing to look silly on tv.  Those willing to make fun of themselves have the chance to win 50 thousand dollars. They highlight those willing to make fun of themselves. Its no unusual for contestants to dance in costumes, shout native calls, talk about their desire for breast reduction surgery (a male), and show their ninja skills.

I’ve watched the Bachelor and the Bachelorette in the past and I can help but wonder the same thing. The show is not really designed to produce relationship. It’s designed to produce a moment where we cringe, guffaw, and laugh AT the contestants. Both shows are like a pressure cookers designed to produce cringe worthy moments where someone melts down on television.  Those are the moments everyone talks about on Twitter and Facebook.  “Did you see that guy last night get the tattoo for the girl.  LOSER.”  We’re in on the gag because we now know from the history of the show that no matter how much they think its real, it is not.  No matter how much they try, there is a high degree of probability that they will not make it.  In other words, the show is for our experience, not the contestants.

I think we watch because the show gives us our dream scenario.  Contestants are given dream situations for their dates, romantic possibilities that only a few could experience, and are then expected to make a choice that is largely undignifying no matter how much they rationalize it.  But if the dream does anything it shows that it more likely a nightmare.

I think neuroscience is going to play a huge part in reshaping our understanding of what it means to be human.

One of the central arguments I make in Discovering the God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity is where we locate the problem.  Historically we’ve cast the problem outward onto Satan or God.  I make the argument that the problem is located in the mind. I use the story of Scripture to show that the problem arises when humanity “realizes” a perspective of reality that is different from God’s.  This dissonance creates the distinction of “sin” which is a disorientation of reality, a lie if you will.

But recently I was reading a very important book that seems to provide further evidence supporting this idea.  Its called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Human Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  I’ve mentioned it before in regards to how we see community.  Mihaly (his first name, because you can even say his last name) explores the idea that the brain operates in a state of chaos.

“Contrary to what we tend to assume, the normal state of the mind is chaos. Without training, and without an object in the external world that demands our attention, people are unable to focus their thoughts for more than a few minutes.

The social roles culture prescribes then take care of shaping our minds for us, and we generally place ourselves on automatic pilot till the end of the day, when it is time again to lose consciousness in sleep. But when we are left alone the basic disorder of the mind reveals itself.”

The mind begins in a state of chaos.  I argue that this disorder of the mind does two things.  One it locates the problem for us.  It gives us a constant physical experience of where the problem actually is.  Its not in God.  It is in us.  Two, it invites us into the God imagination, a way of seeing reality, and to mimic God by bringing order to the chaos.  This act of bringing order to the chaos is only possible through love, which is the judgment of good.  It begins when we align our logic system to how God sees us.

Mihaly then suggests something startling, which I also touch on in my book.  The problem is designed to hide by our own distraction.  We in essence participate in our own oppression by avoiding the problem because it is located in the self.

“To avoid this condition, people are naturally eager to fill their minds with whatever information is readily available, as long as it distracts attention from turning inward and dwelling on negative feelings.”

Unless we listen to the problem we can’t solve it.

But as I was reading some critical pushback from some well meaning people, a thought occurred to me.  If the problem was located where our traditional theories suggest (Satan or God) why does the problem persist?  If Jesus is satisfying Satan’s demands, or satisfying God’s own demands for justice, why then doesn’t the problem go away?  Because we don’t have to look very far to see oppression, suffering, injustice, and cruelty in our world.  The problem is still there.

But if the problem is in humanity, is speaks deeply to why the problem continues to persist.  The problem is not resolved in each human being until they wrestle with the problem inside. It doesn’t go away until each of us resolves the problem of judgment we make about the self.  Are we good or evil.

When you look into a mirror do you see a child of God called very good?

One of the critical distinctions I make in my book, Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity, is that the problem God is solving in the mission of God is our capacity to lose site of how God sees us.  The problem is in essence our capacity to construct a judgment that is different from God’s.  The problem God is solving is actually inside of us.  Can we do something to lose the love of God?  Can we change what is true?

I make a strong contention in my book that we can’t really participate with God in mission unless we know what problem God is actually solving.  And if we spend all of our time thinking the problem is God’s lack of capacity to deal with our negative actions, or what we would historically call sin, we’ll spend all of our time trying to appease God.  Yet if the story seems to show anything, it is God’s infinite capacity to overcome our sin and show mercy.

How would you answer the question above?

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The God Imagination provides us intriguing clues as to the nature of God’s rule, which the story calls Kingdom.  Heaven, which is God’s perspective, and earth, which is the created order, are in harmony with each other.  God establishes what feels like an irresponsible level of freedom.

And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; (Gen 2:17a)

God designs the freedom to “eat” or consume anything in creation as a fundamental characteristic of the Kingdom.  The assumption is that we’re going to explore and imagine, try and seek out.  God establishes a freedom that provides an intense level of permission.   This idea would later be revisited in Paul’s famous words, “Everything is permissible.”  Humanity begins with a framework that is empowering and permission-oriented.

But the story reveals not just by what is there, but also by what is NOT there. The story completely lacks an identifiable basis for human interaction, or what we would describe as moral law.  In other words, there is no moral code of any kind. God spends no time defining or revealing complex systems, rules, list of laws, or even a handbook on what it means to live in the world. God originally omits certain things which we would naturally expect to be there because we know the story.  It would seem prudent in hindsight for God to provide some basis for human interaction at this point.  But God doesn’t.  The story contains no tangible or even illusory code of human conduct.

This glaring omission is easy to miss as part of the story.  We’re so used to seeing life through the basis of the law we skip right over that part and just assume it exists.  But it doesn’t.  The Ten Commandments don’t show up for another 2,500 years.  The one command God eventually gives to the children of Adam is, “don’t kill each other,” which can almost seem a little irresponsible, given what follows.

It’s easy to ask, “What do you mean God didn’t provide the law?”  The natural inclination is to immediately run to the First Command given to Adam and Eve.

And the LORD God commanded the man…“but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Gen 2:17b)

The first commandment provides the context for understanding our freedom. Freedom is informed and governed by the judgment of good.  God’s command follows the original declaration of good for all humanity.  Our actions are then first defined by an understanding of how each affects all of creation.  The only way to corrupt the system is to lose site of the judgment.

If we’re honest, it’s either reckless on God’s part or revealing of something deeper within the context of what is going on. What if God understands that the basis of all human interaction begins with harmony to this single judgment of value?  The assumption we can draw from this is that the judgment of value provides the underlying basis for all human relationship and interactivity.  If we see life from the God Imagination, as good, our actions are governed by this judgment.  If we see God, the self, our neighbors, and even the world as good, we begin to hold it as valuable.

Jesus intimated this in the Great Commandment.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mk 12:30-31)

As long as we remained in harmony with God’s judgment of value, effective social interaction was assumed.  As long as we held onto the truth of our dignity, life would remain in harmony.  Love was the only defining ethic needed.

The opposite was also true. If we were not in harmony with God’s judgment, if we lost sight of value, then our social interactions would suffer as a result. Technically, we didn’t need a legal construct to tell us when something was wrong, because the fruit of our relationships would reveal it for us.

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Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity explores a profound possibility. What if we’ve misunderstood the Gospel? What if our historical approaches to Christianity have been distorted by the very same problem they are attempting to solve?  Available today from CreateSpace and Amazon. Order from CreateSpace and use code 5GFARGT9 to receive a 15% discount.

We like to jump to conclusions, don’t we?

As I begin to share the contents of my book, Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity, I’ve had several people comment on the Facebook page and a blog post I wrote for Emergent Village.  The first was from a gentleman who said:

“Here is another way to look at all this. What if we have gotten it all right? If you are teaching anything other than that Man is a sinner and God sent his Son to die a sinners death and that we have to Repent and believe in the shed blood of Jesus, anything else is WRONG!!. Usually when someone says we have been wrong distort the truth.”

Another gentleman said:

Another gentleman said:

“Professing them selves wise they became fools. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. You are accountable to God for this convoluted effort to shape the “sparing not of His Son” into something that you “feel comfortable with” . You are preaching another Gospel! The offense of the cross is not in your message. Wow.”

I actually get these types of comments.  The immediate assumption is that what is new cannot possibly shed new light on the old, or even reframe it in a way that adds to conversation.  It’s just easier to stick with what has come in the past.  The problem is that none of these people have actually read the book.  Instead of jumping to conclusions, the harder thing to do is actually wrestling with the possibilities presented in the book. I just hope they do to see that their concerns are misplaced.