Transforming Church

1) ALWAYS REFORMING: Marty saw that the church had to connect with the ideas, needs, language and music of his culture. We should not be afraid to follow in his footsteps. He stayed in tradition while at the same time challenging the tradition.
He lived in the tension.

2) POLITICAL: Marty set off a revolution. He proclaimed God's grace and the freedom for humanity from hierarchies. We can share Marty's sadness that violence came from his ideas but we can also rejoice that the message of Grace is so freeing. Even today the message of freedom from hierarchies through GRACE is relevant. What does grace mean to the homeless couple on the street in the downtown eastside? What does grace and freedom mean for the battered wife or abused child?

3) SOLA SCRIPTORA: Marty realized that for the Christian the bible is central. In a post-modern age where we recognize how our biases cloud our readings, where new scholarship has revealed previously hidden meanings and depths that challenge our theologies or in the general societal disinterest in the bible how do we keep 'scripture alone' strong and real? It is our forming story and our central narrative! It is not a VCR instruction manual but the wild and ragged poetry that forms our community. We must always invite people into its depths, confusions and mysteries in their faith journeys.

4) SOLA CHRIST: Marcus Borg in 'The God I Never Knew' points out that communities with a strong sense of God and Jesus thrive and communities with a weak sense of Jesus and community die. How do we see God? How do we see Jesus? For us now in the post-modern age how we understand Christ? I say we lay it out on the table – some say Christ is God, other just a man, a Holy One of God. Either way we are asked to do the same things - to follow faithfully in the journey toward God and the Kingdom Come that Christ points us to.

5) GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE: We must preach grace, the unconditional love and acceptance of God for all of humanity. What is Grace for the gay man? How do we form open and affirming communities that affirm them, proclaim God's justice for them and encourage healthy and loving relationships - what is grace for them! What is grace for the poor and hungry? ETC!

6) TableTalk: Many evangelicals talk about their 'small groups' or 'cell groups'. For us Marty has set the standard. Marty used to hold dinners with drink, food and company and talk on the topics of theology, politics and culture of his day. The Reforming Lutheran church should do the same. Our TableTalk groups should eat and drink and show all manner of hospitality toward each other. They can choose topics of theological and social importance, material can be provided by the larger church. Resource packs can contain: scripture to discuss, theological quotes from a variety of viewpoints on a common subject, sections from the catechism or the Barmen declaration (etc!).

7) THE CONFESSING CHURCH: We should remember Bonhoffer and the Barmen Declaration. We should remember how these brave people stood against evil and oppression. They should always be an inspiration to us. Not to be confused with the conservative Confessing Church movement.

8) MUSIC: It started with Marty's book of 8 hymns but Marty knew that music was important to his church. In fact music has always been important to Lutherans. Hymns have a great theology - the rough and ready voices of the congregation singing God's praises! How beautiful! We should not be afraid to use the strengths of our community in all its musical diversity - let piano players play the piano and let people who make music with the turntables use the turntables, let us have bluegrass and rock and roll and taize.

9) WORSHIP: Worship is the whole life of the church together in praise, search and wonder of God. Let's not be afraid of the beauty and depth of liturgy and let’s not be afraid to come up language and forms appropriate for our context and culture. Let's not be afraid of Taize and Lecto Divinio. Let’s not be afraid of Celtic worship services. DEEP TRADITION! So far into our tradition that we can see that it was shaped by certain circumstances and must continue to be shaped. We MUST get beyond tribalism - German Lutheranism etc! We must get to North American Lutheranism. Or Christianity in the school of Luther!

10) BAPTISM: in Baptism as Gods Own! As having been chosen by God and saved by God. To be reminded that we are made in Gods image is of the utmost importance.

11) COMMUNION: Today at a homeless shelter I sat at a table and made sandwiches for the men and women who live in Canada's poorest postal code. That is the true communion! When we break bread let us remember Christ and Gods provision for us all. Let us share that with each other. All are welcome at God's table for God accepts and loves all with grace and at the table we express that to each other. Despite our political and theological differences we remember we are Gods own at the table and should be able to see each other around the table in Love.

12) ART: Art-faith-worship-justice must always go with each other. They cannot be separated. The church must encourage creativity. Not as a ministry gimmick but as an essential part of its life!

13) WORSHIP IS A PARTY: Good friends gather to have a feast, to welcome new friends on their faith journeys, to sing robustly of our love of God and to hear a lecture. When reforming worship - remember in tradition and cultural context in tension – we must always keep our sense of party!

14) SAINTS: We are all saints and we are all the priesthood of believers. To create a strong Lutheran identity that is not also tibalistic I suggest championing 'modern saints' as it where. We would speak of these people as 'Christian saints and heroes in the Lutheran Tradition' - this connects us to the larger church world beyond our tribe but also reminds us of the great things that have come from us. We should champion Marty, Bonhoffer and...well, that’s what has to be found out!

15) THE LOVE FEAST: In to many of our congregations we are missing a full time minister. Many people are missing out on a central part of worship: communion! I suggest we bring back the Love Feast from the early days of Christianity, a meal for the whole community. We start by reminding our selves of the last suppers and then we feed and fellowship together. How can this feast be ministry? It reminds the community of communion, it reminds us of the meaning and message of the last supper, and it stands in the early church tradition. Can we open this meal to the curious? The hungry? The homeless? We aren't just inviting our neighbors to church but to a party - TO A FEAST! The meal stands in the biblical tradition of the feast of all nations, the wedding feast of the lamb and the last supper.

17) CAMPUS MINISTRY: Empty pulpits. Half of all people in seminary go because of their experience in campus ministry. We are cutting funding why? We need more leaders, ordained and lay leaders. We need to raise up leadership in our congregations, especially in congregations where no pastor is involved. Campus Ministry helps us do this. We can also connect the young to ministry through campus ministry, mission work (social justice and humanitarian work) and getting people involved and responsible for the church. Much of this happens already. But it’s good to remember.

18) THE OUTSIDER: The church should always be a home for the outsider, the marginalized, the lost, and the seeking. All that the world has thrown away with the declaration of 'weird, dirty, other etc' the church must raise a voice and say: NO! They are, by Gods grace, the beloved members of Gods own family. Our churches should not be afraid of those with nose rings, body piercing, tattoos and funky hair colors. In fact the Lutheran church is the place that they should feel the most welcome - for we are here to tell them and share with them the reality of God's love. In that we invite them the engage with life: why do they feel different? or lost? or hurt? or outside? Is the get-up a reflection of deeper wounds? It is less important that these people 'become like us' than it is that they begin a journey toward healing. And in that they are no different from me!

19). VESTMENTS: Marty wore his monk’s robes to the pulpit to say who and what he was - a humble man of God, an ordinary man preaching of God's extraordinary Grace. We must ask questions. Do we still need the traditional robes that seem so disconnected from younger generations but are still important to older generations? Do we need them every week? How can we reconnect with what they mean in a contemporary fashion that is still connected to the larger tradition?

18) DEEP TRADITION: In deep tradition we just don't do things because we always have. We are always examining the 'why' of it. We seek to understand the conditions and culture that it came out of. We must ask what it means for us today! It's about being in 'the spirit' of something and not stuck in the 'letter of the law'.

20) LAY LEADERSHIP: The sort of Reforming Lutheranism(in the tradition of Marty)/Confessing Christianity (in the tradition of Bonhoffer and the Bramen declaration) recognizes the benefits of the priesthood of all believers. Instead of sending people to seminary and then bringing them back to be ministers we must generate leadership from the ground up. We must raise leaders and develop them and encourage them. This model of Lutheranism can be self-replicating - new movements, partnered with and under the oversight of an established church in partnership with the synod growing wherever Lutheran/Christians/Seekers deem it necessary to start something new. We develop our leaders and then send them off to seminary after they have already participated in humanitarian trips, bible studies, worship and preaching! Where they are limited by not being ordained innovation must be used; The Love Feast instead of communion (with the bishop or partner pastor providing monthly Eucharist). I know that in many places some of this is already done.