So it seems completely strange to me that my introductory blog post for this mentoring blog has drifted seemingly off course to talk about carbon footprinting! Has the long hot summer living in Reedley (the backside of a desert and not far from purgatory) done something to what I thought was a pretty decent brain?
Whatever has happened you are reading this interested in joining this blog for missional church leaders and the title demands that some how an introduction to this blog and carbon footprinting over lap. [It's a bit like my preaching sometimes - found a great illustration and now I need to find a text about God or Jesus to make it work ...ouch...and that's even after two degrees from two seminaries!]
I could start by saying - carbon footprinting is todays hot topic and all missional church leaders live amongst the hot topics because we value relevance and cultural architecture as propellants of our missional leadership. There's mileage in that one.
Or I could say - carbon footprinting is a pragmatic lifestyle for "live in the present leaders" to display their engagement and participation in the new cool 'green' theology (supported by eminent theologians from all branches of orthodoxy expect the Southern Baptist boys who love to live frequently in denial!). Its new and cool but somebody should tell people - if it hasn't been around since the time of Genesis then it most certainly has been around since the days of St Benedict, St. Francis and of course, for you more reformed followers - your very own St. Calvin.
But now let me try and make my point as we launch this mentor blog.
Leaders, especially missional leaders, define reality. This is what stands us out as leaders. Our leadership is fully present. Carbon footprinting is part of today's reality. We may know little about it. We may have only briefly heard the term. We may view it with apprehension, maybe even cynicism - but it is part of the language and thought around us and thereby part of our reality - and therefore it matters. Leaders define the reality that others just experience.
So, to all my Issachar's - get the title yet? The men of Issachar knew the times (1 Chronicles 12:32). David was a wise leader. He had with him folks who could define reality.
This blog hopes to become a community of missional leaders who are better defining reality helping each of us and all of us know what we should do.
Welcome my fellow clansmen and clanswomen - join me.
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3 comments:
Hello Gilbert,
My name is Graeme Adams, from New Beginnings church in Moodiesburn, Scotland. Thanks for setting up this blog! It is important to encourage leaders and pastors in global missions. Thanks too for all the great work you are doing in Reedley. God bless you!
Graeme
Greetings, Green Gilbert.
It seems to me that being a missional leader requires us first to own the fact that we are truly "sent ones," or missional--or perhaps even apostolic?--because there is One who has chosen to send us. Further, it seems to me that our missions must be subjected to the Sending One. Is the chosen mission a mission conceived in the human mind, or is it a God-given directive continued and lived out in our human living?
Your question of the need for carbon footprinting as an issue of import to Christian missional leaders must be submitted to the biblical witness and to the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Certainly within the scope of scripture we see the Lord God giving Adam (the archetype of humankind) the charge to "subdue the earth," or in language more ammenable to our day, to "steward the earth and all therein."
One of the shortfalls of contemporary evangelical Christianity is its egocentricism. We tend to see the work of Jesus Christ as being "all about us humans." It is, and it isn't.
In Christ Jesus, God was reconciling all things to Himself. All things. The fall of creation came about because of the fall of humanity. Just as death came in through one man (Adam), so life comes through one man (Jesus). Humanity is pivotal in taking life from creation and in giving life. As we live in Christ and as Christ lives in us through the power of the Holy Spirit, we will begin to live in increasingly redemptive ways--redemptive with one another AND redemptive with creation. God's Kingdom on earth the way it exists in Heaven will necessarily include "air," "Spirit," "wind." GOD IS SPIRIT. We need Spirit to worship God fully.
Is this too ethereal? Am I crossing the line from the physical into the spiritual in ways that are not "real?" Or was Jesus more pragmatic than we suppose?
When our bodies die, the air escapes the lungs for a final time. THE AIR IS GONE. Or we say, "The spirit has left the body." Is this where the physical and the spiritual interface--in the wind? in the S/spirit? in the AIR?
If so, how important, then, would it be to safely guard the air we breathe? Are we possibly even stewarding in some way the Spirit of God--even as we are guarding and stewarding the air of our own lives? If we do not steward this "air," will there come a day when we cannot breathe?
Personally, I believe that Jesus spoke with words that were polyvalent. He spoke on numerous levels at one time. Probably, his lips smiled as he spoke, knowing that the woman at the well understood only a fraction of what he meant when he said that the day was coming when all true worshipers would "worship in spirit and in truth."
God's Spirit is our life-breath.
When you ask the question of carbon footprinting and missional leadership, has it occurred to you that you might be asking a polyvalent question?
How are we "re-seeding" the Spirit in a society that is polluting the spiritual air? Can we use up the S/spirit that we have been given until we can no longer breathe? What are ways that we can contribute to the health of our spiritual air?
What IS the connection of the spiritual and the physical? Separate the two. Then tell me how you did it. They are linked, are they not?
If they are not, explain death. Better yet, explain how a baby lives without taking a first gulp of air! The life is IN THE AIR (the spirit)!
Carbon footprinting is an ESSENTIAL issue, is it not? We sing, "You are the air I breathe." How paradoxical. We sing that--yet pour our pollutants into the air as we drive to and from our places of worship to sing those words, caring little that the more we do this, the less air there is to breathe!
What is our physical world saying to us?
Perhaps I've wandered too far. This really is not typical thought for me. However, it's worth pondering. It's worth seeking out. It's worth honoring the Spirit/air. Isn't it?
Thank you for your question. You've quickened the Spirit-air in me. I stand convicted. I will never sing, "You are the air I breathe..." in quite the same way again.
I don't know. I feel like planting a tree...like sharing the good news of Jesus' life and the Spirit of God with someone...like walking to church next time. I've been inspired! (Funny how a person who dies is said to have "expired!"--just the opposite!)
Somehow, I feel as if I've been given a new charge: to steward the air we breathe--even as I steward the Word of God spoken by the outflow of air--the Spirit!
In your Virtual Cluster (GHC)invitation, there is a link to this blog. There is no reference to the invitation here - only your Scottish ancestry (greetings, clansman Issachar, from Clanswoman Walker).
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Sincerely,
Feather Forestwalker, Sec. FBC Ft Bragg
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