DTK: Concluding Thoughts

So, we’ve finally finished Desiring the Kingdom.  (Actually if you really want to know, I finished it over a month ago because I was chomping at the bit to move on to something else. J)  It’s been an interesting journey, to say the least.   I had high hopes for this book since I think Smith raises some crucial questions…questions that everyone really ought to consider whether or not they are involved in the field of education.  Considering the whole person and how our habits and practices affect our whole person is important.  For parents and teachers, considering not only the content but also the method of our instruction and the message that sends to our students is important.  Unfortunately, the book fell a little flat for me.  I didn’t particularly care for Smith’s writing style, nor did I agree with him in many places, especially on some points of theology.   I can’t say that I would recommend the book especially given that there are other resources out there that are more helpful and more encouraging to help us to explore similar ideas.  Nevertheless, I can say that I’m glad that I went ahead and finished the whole thing.   Here are a few thoughts that I am taking away from this study:

 

This was the first time that I’ve participated in an online, blog-based book study like this and I appreciated the format – I think especially because this turned out to be a challenging book that was a bit of a slog at points.  I appreciated being able to bounce thoughts and ideas off of others who were wrestling with the same points and being able to hear their take on them.  It also provided the accountability that I needed to finish to the end – I may not have otherwise.  So thanks, ladies, for making this a rewarding experience even though the book itself was a bit disappointing.

 

I came away from this book with the sense that I need to go back and soak myself in Charlotte Mason for a while.  Many of the positive points made in this book echoed her ideas very strongly, only she said them better. J I have the sense that if we want to practice the kind of education that Smith is proposing, following CM principles gives us a good road map for doing so.  Time to get back to the roots. 

 

I have found myself considering more seriously the role of practices in formation – the fact that sometimes even the littlest, most benign practices can have a tremendous shaping influence.   That our method of education says as much or more as the content of our lessons.  We’ve already made some tweaks to the way we do things around here, and I’m sure there will be more to come.

 

One idea that wasn’t ever mentioned in the book, but that I came to realize as we’ve considered these ideas over the past couple months is that routines give us a framework to hang habit development and character training from.  I mentioned here how we made some adjustments to our evening routine and how that has made working on smaller habits like table manners, cleaning up quickly and cheerfully, and so on much more manageable.  Chaos is more controlled, and the opportunity to practice these habits are naturally built into the day.  I don’t do well with character/habit training treated as a special project or school subject  - the opportunity to work on habits really needs to be ingrained in our day if it’s going to have any kind of sustainability around here.   I’m playing around with our morning routine now to see how we can make similar adjustments there.

 

Another idea I’ve found myself thinking about a lot is the idea of counter-formation.   If we want our children (or our students or ourselves) to be able to resist being formed by the negative ‘liturgies’ of secular culture, it’s not enough to tell them what not to do or remove their exposure to those things.  (Besides – no matter how much we try to shelter our kids, we can’t protect them from everything, and someday they will grow up and it will no longer be our job to shelter them anyhow.)  It’s important to fill the gap made by those things with something better – something that will have a “counter-formational” effect.   Charlotte Mason talks about replacing bad habits with good ones, and I’m beginning to think that perhaps this principle can apply to ideas and influences as well.

 

And that’s all folks. J 

 

 

 

DTK Chapter 6: Towards Application

Well, we’ve finally come to the final chapter of Desiring the Kingdom.  Smith returns to the original question: “What is education, particularly Christian education, for?”  He reminds us that it is aimed at producing radical disciples focused on pursuing the Kingdom of God.  He challenges the current paradigm that pretty much adds Jesus to the current trends in secular education.  And he offers a few suggestions as to how education could be approached differently, at least in the Christian university setting.  Some of his ideas are approaching chapel services differently, using the university setting as a unique opportunity to live in community, and tying classroom theory to meaningful practical applications.   Nice ideas, but not really all that applicable to me as how to approach education differently as a home educator with young children.

 

That said, I have come across a few excellent resources in recent weeks that I think DO offer some more concrete practical application of the ideas put forth in this book namely:

 

• Charlotte Mason’s educational paradigm: “Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, and a Life” and “Education is the Science of Relations”. (If you’ve never read Charlotte’s works for yourself, you can access them for free at Ambleside Online – check also my Charlotte Mason resource links on the sidebar and past blog posts I have done in reflection on her ideas.)
• Christopher Perrin’s talk “Learning to Love What Must Be Done” (Scroll down to “Selections from the 2011 Conference” and you’ll find it there.)
• Jenny Rallens’ talk “The Liturgical Classroom and Virtue Formation”
• Laurie Bestvater’s book The Living Page  

All of these things are very rich and I encourage you to check them out for yourself, but let me give you a few of the key ideas that I have gained from these resources.

 

In Perrin’s talk, he invites us to wonder and encourages us as parents/teacher to model it for our students.  Effective teachers are those that are passionate and excited about their subject and let that passion and excitement rub off on their students.  

 

In Rallens’ talk, she shares the metaphor of “making honey” (based on the practice of lectio divina, if you are familiar with that) and gives several meaningful examples of how she has used this idea to great effect as a tool for lesson planning in her classroom.  Here is a brief outline of what this might look like (although really – do go watch the talk – it was seriously the most inspiring educational thing I have seen in a long time):

• Gathering nectar: Teaching through story
• Digesting the nectar: Meditate on the ideas, discuss the ideas, produce something in response (seems like narration fits right in here too!)
• Making honey: Living out the ideas, the virtues, embodied in the story

 

(Interestingly enough, our recent conference speaker proposed a similar outline for Scripture study, even though I am fairly certain he’s never heard of Jenny Rallens or involved in any way in the Christian classical education movement!)

 

Bestvater’s ideas in The Living Page seemed to synthesize these ideas in a practical way. 

As in Perrin’s idea, notebook keeping invites us to really see, attend, and wonder. “Mason had shown me that the notebooks can be forms of vitality, literally the shape and outline, the liturgy of the attentive life.  They nurture the science of relations and the art of mindfulness.  They teach us to see the very brief beauty of now, to know the landscape of here, to be present in all our pleasures and pains.  Through them we, haltingly, dwell in a world of ideas and connections with an ever-higher opinion of God and his works and as truer students of Divinity.” (p. xv)

 

As in Rallens’ idea, the keeping of a notebook (coupled with the use of living books, great ideas, and narration) give a means to ‘digest’ – to meditate and create something in response to what we’ve read or heard.

 

Keeping a notebook is also a way that we as parents/teachers can model awe, wonder, growth for our pupils.  “The teacher in a Mason learning community is a co-learner, and it is very helpful for a teacher to model to his students…that his own learning also includes some comfortable notebook friends…Mason’s students at the House of Education and in the Mother’s Course kept notebooks and apart from being good for the students, it seems a very good way to support the paradigm shift for the teacher, not to mention a great personal satisfaction.” (The Living Page, p.72)

 

All of these educational practices are aimed at helping us not just to take ideas into our heads, but at helping them to reach our hearts so that we can live them out and reflect the glory of God to the world around us.

 

And that, I think, is the point – THAT is what Christian education is for.

 

Click here for more posts on this section!

 

 

DTK Chapter 5, Part 5: Beyond Sunday Morning

We have finally reached the conclusion to chapter 5 and its fascinating discussion of how the practices of Christian worship can change us.   I particularly liked Smith’s conclusion to this chapter: considering how to take these practices along into our day-to-day lives.  Ah, finally!  The rubber meets the road!

 

Attending Sunday worship is a crucial counter-formational practice.  Earlier in chapter 5 in the section entitled “Call to Worship”, Smith had noted that it is rather telling that we bother to go to church at all.  He drew a rather vivid picture of someone, perhaps a college student, getting up early to go to church on a Sunday morning when everyone else is sleeping in.  This image resonated with me since it reminded me of going to church on Sunday mornings the year we lived in France.    Even though France is a very secular country (I know there were only 3 very small Protestant churches in the city of 100,000 where we lived, and perhaps that many Catholic ones), everyone there likes to take a rest on Sunday.  Most businesses are closed, and those that open do so with reduced hours.  The busses run on a very reduced schedule.  We had to walk about 30 minutes to the church we attended and there were very, very few people out and about.  Getting up and going to church on Sunday really did mark us as ‘peculiar people’ in that society.   And once we get to church, the act of participating in corporate worship is very concentrated, charged with meaning and formational power.  Nevertheless attending church on Sunday morning is not enough.  We must carry our counter-formational practices into the rest of the week as well.  So how do we do that?   Smith offers us some practical suggestions:

 

1. Recognize secular “liturgies” for what they are – this lessens their formative power:  “If we can start to see cultural practices for what they are, it’s as if we can then say to them, ‘I see what you’re up to…’  So this recognition, coupled with intentional participation in Christian worship, can decrease (but not eliminate) the formative power of secular liturgies.”

 

2. Choose to abstain from certain ‘normal’ cultural practices.  Smith didn’t say this, but I would also add that when one chooses to abstain from a certain practice, it is important to replace it with something that will have a better formative influence.  Charlotte Mason talks about breaking bad habits by replacing them with good ones, and I think the same principle can apply here too.  A couple of examples of ways we have done this is our home:

- Christ-centered family holiday traditions to replace commercialized ones.

- Intentionally choosing not to be involved in tons of outside activities so we can place a priority on our family relationships, be available for hospitality, and other such things.  (Admittedly, this is much easier to do in Africa where there is far fewer activities to choose from, but even if we lived on the States I think we would still be very careful about how many and what kinds of activities we would spend our time on.)

- Limited TV.  We don’t own one, actually (and still wouldn’t if we lived in the States), so what we do watch is on DVD on our computer.   This limits the amount of advertising we are exposed to (especially our children) and eliminates mindless channel surfing.  We make intentional choices about what we choose to watch or not to watch, and it is not constantly on in the background.

 

3. Cultivate habits of daily worship.  Prayer and Devotional reading – both privately and in community – are important daily practices not to be limited to Sunday morning.  This is something that is important for everyone, but we’ve found extremely important to our family since we live overseas and have to deal with language and cultural differences in our church environment.  (It’s still important to be there, but it doesn’t have quite the same ‘power’ as worshipping in your mother tongue!) 

 

Ways that I try to do this in my private devotional time:

- Opening and closing my day with Bible and devotional reading (check the sidebar for my current choices) and journaling.

- Prayer – often using Psalms or the topically arranged Scripture passages in Daily Light as a template – sometimes just praying, sometimes doodling or writing as I pray.

- Listening to sermons, podcasts, and uplifting music as I go throughout my day.

 

Ways that we do this as a whole family:

- Our Breakfast Devotional Time: Scripture and Catechism memory (new and review), reading from Psalms and Proverbs, Hymn Singing, and Prayer focused on Adoration, Confessing our Need for Him and asking for His help, Thanks, and Requests for others.

- Our Evening Devotional Time: Prayer time based on a Psalm, Bible story with narration and discussion (working towards a ‘habit’ of imagination and wonder here)

- Special Devotions and activities during the seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter

- Sunday Reading

 

4. Live ‘communally’, recognizing that friendships and family relationships are important.   I struggle with this one a bit because we are rather transient (it’s difficult to build deep-rooted relationships when either your family or your friends’ families move internationally every year or two…), and I am also an introvert.  A shy introvert.  A shy introvert who has said good-bye too many times.  (Ahem.)  But at the same time, I see the importance of recognizing that we aren’t meant to go through life alone.  I do desire to have these kinds of deep relationships.  And in my own way, I do have them.  We place a lot of emphasis in our home on developing our immediate family relationships (at least when we move, we move all together!)  I am still best friends with my best friend from high school, despite the fact that our lives have moved in vastly different directions and we really only see each other once every few years now.  We’re still the ones that we turn to first in joys and trials.  We really know each other – sometimes better than we know ourselves I think – 20 years is a lot of water under the bridge!  I treasure that.  When I was a single missionary in Papua New Guinea, I had a family that took me in to theirs – right down to having Christmas morning and vacations with them.  They were the ones that talked, prayed, and encouraged me through my long-distance courtship with my husband.   And now we have a young, single missionary lady who is part of our family.   She lived with us for almost a month last fall when she was recovering from illness, and recently stayed with our children while we went away for our tenth anniversary weekend.   She loves and is loved by our children, is always up for a cup of tea and a chat, and has been a source of joy and encouragement to me as well.

 

In all of these things, the goal is to be living out the Kingdom NOW as a testimony to the world around us.  It is easy to get caught up in the notion of ‘changing’ or ‘transforming’ the world – doing something Big for the Kingdom, especially in missionary circles.   But more and more I am coming to realize that perhaps in order to do this we must first live out the truth.   This idea was confirmed by our conference speaker (sorry – you’ll be hearing a lot about him in the next couple of weeks I’m afraid) in the message he brought to us about Ezra.  He made the point that Ezra was qualified to be used by God in ministry because he had first been shaped by God’s Word.  The phrase “you haven’t learned it until you’ve lived it” keeps popping to my mind here too.

 

So, let’s live out His Truth.  Let’s choose practices that will form us into people who reflect His glory and image to the world – on Sunday and Every Day.

 

Click Here to read more posts on this section!

DTK Chapter 5, Part 4, Post 2: The Story of Scripture

(I shouldn't have said anything about the power and internet being functional when I said I'd post this back on Thursday.  I think I jinxed myself or something.  This is apparently the week for things not to work as we've been without water, internet, AND power at various times.  I think all three are functional at the moment...so I'm posting this now before I am prevented again...HA!)

 

In my last post on this section, I explored a little bit the role of the mind in our formation.  Today, I want to talk a little bit about engaging with the Scripture not only as a manual for doctrine and practice (which it is, of course), but also engaging with it as a Story.  

 

Smith makes the point that Scripture has greater shaping power when we are able to grasp the story of it – to engage our imagination and sense of wonder in the way that we interact with it, rather than interacting with it as a series of dos-and-don’ts:  “Over time, when worship confronts us with the canonical range of Scripture, coupled with its proclamation and elucidation in the sermon, we begin to absorb the story as a moral or ethical compass – not because it discloses to us abstract, ahistorical axioms, but because it narrates the telos of creation, the shape of the kingdom we’re looking for, thus filling in the telos of our own action.  We begin to absorb the plots of the story, begin to see ourselves as characters within it; the habits and practices of its heroes function as exemplars, providing guidance as we are trained in virtue, becoming a people with a disposition ‘to the good’ as it’s envisioned in the story.  Because we are story-telling animals, imbibing the story of Scripture is the primary way that our desire gets aimed at the kingdom.”

 

I had also suggested this way of approaching Scripture in my post on Chapter 4 (in that post there are also several other links discussing this idea – it seems to keep popping up!).  Interestingly enough, this point was brought to my mind yet again through the messages we heard from the devotional speaker (a visiting pastor from the UK) at our conference last week.  Now that I think about it some more, I would say that he made a point to preach in this manner.  After reading the Scripture passage, he narrated the story in such a way that helped us to imagine that we were there.  He described the response of the people to the reading of the Word of God in Nehemiah chapter 8 – their submission to its authority, their enthusiasm and commitment, their understanding, their brokenness over their sin, their joyful celebration.   He challenged us with the question: “Does God’s Word still excite and invigorate you?” And then he left us with the reminder that Scripture study doesn’t have to be dry and abstract because when we immerse ourselves in it with are “entering into the story of God’s Great Rescue.”  Only then, after he had helped us to enter in to the story, did he bring it around to his points for practical application.  I know his teaching had an impact on me, and my husband said he felt like the speaker was speaking right to him.  I can’t help but think that his pattern of preaching – of bringing us along with him in the story – had something to do with that.

 

A couple of days later in my devotional reading – currently Matthew alongside JC Ryle’s commentary – a similar point was brought home to me again.  In contrasting the Magi, who saw the star and believed, with the priests and Pharisees who refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, Ryle points out that head knowledge (which the priests and Pharisees had in spades) matters very little if it makes no difference in our hearts, and that “familiarity with sacred things has a dreadful tendency to make men despise them.”   I got to thinking that perhaps approaching the Word with wonder, intentionally engaging our imaginations, helps to avoid that ‘familiarity that breeds resentment’, that familiarity the keeps the Word from moving past our heads and into our hearts.   I know that I have been guilty of this - having been raised in the church and well-versed in all the stories from the time I was little, it is so easy for me to gloss over the Scripture with the thought that there is nothing new to take away from it.   That’s not true of course – there’s always something new to learn because I haven’t ‘arrived’ yet, and won’t until He takes me home.  But it has occurred to me that perhaps I do need an attitude shift in the way I approach Scripture.  (Shoot, I’ve encountered this idea from so many different angles lately, how can I ignore it?)

 

So I’ve been trying this out a bit – this idea of approaching  in my personal Bible reading with wonder, engaging myself not only in the truths to be applied, but also the Story of it – both in my personal Bible reading as well as in our family Bible reading.  When we do our family Bible stories in the evening, I’ve been asking the children to try to imagine as if they are there in the story, or to “make a movie in your mind” as I read.  (We are currently reading through Catherine Vos’ The Child’s Story Bible, and the tone with which she writes lends itself quite well to doing this).  I have been trying to do likewise in my personal Bible reading.  It’s too soon to tell, really, just what kind of impact this might be making.    I just know that I long to be invigorated by the Word, and I long for my children to not only know the Word, but to love it too.  (If anyone else has thoughts or ideas on this topic, I’d love to hear them!)

 

Click Here for more posts on this section!

 

 

DTK Chapter 5, Part 4, Post 1: The Role of the Mind

And…I’m back.  The last couple of weeks have been good but crazy here with our mission organization’s annual conference, a weekend away for our tenth anniversary, and tired kiddos with colds. (Well, that part’s not good, but I suppose to be expected with the long days spent in childcare during the conference and general lack of normal routine.)  Now we are in to three weeks of our co-op program which is busy in its own way, but it does mean that I do get a wee bit of time at home with all the kids gone to their respective classes when I don’t have to go help with something.  So here’s to hoping that I will have a little more time to chat with you in this space (assuming that both power and internet are functional at the same time). J

 

In this week’s section of Desiring the Kingdom, Smith discusses (among other things) the role that the recitation of the Creed (referring to the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed) and the exposition of the Scriptures in the sermon have in worship and formation.  This section made me think about these issues from a couple of different angles, and in order to keep my post for this section from rambling on too much, I am breaking it into two parts (look for part two on Thursday).   He likened the Creed to the ‘pledge of allegiance’ for the Kingdom of God and noted that it roots us to our historical faith – a faith that has endured for many generations.  The exposition of the story of the Scriptures “narrates the identity of the people of God, [is] the constitution of this baptismal city, and [fuels] the Christian imagination.”  He also says that Scripture shows us “the kind of people we’re called to be”.  

 

In the midst of his discussion he also made a couple of comments that rather struck me.  Regarding the Creed he says: “What is articulated in the Creed has been behind much of what we’ve been doing in worship.”  He also says that “Christian worship is deeply shaped by an explicit articulation of the story in the Scriptures.”  In other words our practices are (or should be) rooted in and informed by our beliefs – our doctrines – as articulated in the Creed and in the Word.   He also made the comment that “By emphasizing that the practices of Christian worship are formative at a fundamentally precognitive, affective level, I am not suggesting that in Christian worship we kiss our brains goodbye.”

 

 Huh.  Really?  Did anyone else kind of get the feeling that he was kind of contradicting himself?  I have had the niggling sensation from the beginning of the book that Smith has been trying to dismiss the importance of the life of the mind, the role of ideas and beliefs in shaping us.   In both of my posts on Chapter 4, I basically laid out why I disagreed with this point of view and why (here are those posts again: Part 1 and Part 2).  While I agree with doctrine/belief alone aren’t enough to change us and that they must be coupled to our practices, I will always maintain that our beliefs need to be the guide for our practices and not the other way around.  And without the informing ideas behind our practices (worship practices or otherwise), the practices themselves become pretty meaningless.  It seems very much to me that here Smith is changing his tune and basically saying what I was trying to say in my response to Chapter 4.   Not really sure what to make of that – did I miss something along the way, or is he really contradicting himself? Or was he just being hyperbolic to make a point in Chapter 4 (he does sort of seem to like to do this)? Am I just too practical to wrap my head around his philosophical meanderings? I don’t know. 

 

As I’ve been thinking about these issues over the last couple of weeks, I came across this very interesting article on “Intellectual Discipleship” by Al Mohler.  It is full of the type of language that Smith detests: “worldview”, “cognitive principles”, “thinkers”, “doctrine”.   And yet, at the same time, I think they are working towards similar ends.  Mohler points out that “A robust and rich model of Christian thinking – the quality of thinking that culminates in a God-centered worldview – requires that we see all truth as interconnected.  Ultimately, the systematic wholeness of truth can be traced to the fact that God is himself the author of all truth.  Christianity is not a set of doctrines in the sense that a mechanic operates with a set of tools.  Instead, Christianity is a comprehensive worldview and way of life that grows out of Christian reflection on the Bible and the unfolding plan of God revealed in the unity of the Scriptures.”   The role of the mind is vitally important – I think the key is to make sure that we don’t stay there.  Our ‘way of life’ needs to grow out of the beliefs and doctrines and ideas that our minds receive.  Our whole selves need to be affected.   Perhaps paying attention to our practices is part of the way that we can ensure this takes place – that ideas and beliefs don’t remain only in our minds?   Just a thought that crossed my mind as I consider the interaction between belief and practice.

 

Just this morning I came across this thought in Sinclair Ferguson’s book Children of the Living God:

“Paul says we are transformed as we ‘reflect’ or ‘contemplate’ the Lord’s glory.  How do we do this? Primarily by looking at the Lord as he has revealed himself in Scripture.  It is only as our lives are in line with Scripture, and as our minds are devoted to understanding and applying it obediently, that this reflection of Christ takes place.  This produces the renewing of the mind which Paul describes elsewhere (Romans 12:1-2).  Notice that such renewal is the opposite of being conformed to the image the world desires to produce in our lives.  Conformity to Christ, through the use of the renewed mind,  always produces nonconformists!  But Christians are not nonconformists in order to be difficult, or even simply for the sake of being different.  Rather, we are nonconformists because we conform to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This new attitude of mind emerges from the fact that we are new men and women, children of God ‘created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness’ (Ephesians 4:23-24).”

 

Nonconformists.  A ‘peculiar people’ – that’s Smith’s terminology.  A people who are not conformed to the habits and patterns of this world, but who are conformed to the image of Christ – who are committed to pursuing His Kingdom.  That’s the goal, regardless of what vocabulary one wants to use to describe how to get there.

 

Click Here to read more posts on this section!

 

 

 

DTK Chapter 5, Part 2: The Power of Music

One of the worship practices that Smith describes in this section is song.  I agree with him wholeheartedly  when he describes the power of music to leave an impression on and shape us: “A song gets absorbed into our imagination in a way that mere texts rarely do.  Indeed a song can come back to haunt us almost, catching us off guard or welling up within our memories because of situations or contexts that we find ourselves in, then perhaps spilling over into our mouths till we find ourselves humming a tune or quietly singing.  The song can evoke a time and a place, even the smells and tastes of a moment.”

 

Biola University Chorale Chicago Tour, Spring 2001

 

Have you ever had that experience that he describes?  I do all the time.  Just about anytime I hear a familiar song I immediately associate it with the place where I first heard it.  I have songs that I associate with the year 1996 (the “Macarena” and “Shine Jesus Shine” if you really want to know…), songs that take me back to the summer of 2002 when I had my first new car, songs that will forever be associated with the Ukarumpa Meeting House.   I still occasionally get songs I sang in junior high choir stuck in my head for no apparent reason at all.  Yes: music has a way of staying with us.

 

I think music has an incredible power to bond together those who make it as well.  I sang in choir and did musical theatre for many, many years and had a brief stint as a voice major my first year of college (little known secrets!) – even after changing my major, I continued to sing in our college choir.  99% of the high school and college friends I am still in contact with are people that I sang with.  There’s something about those experiences that bound us together in unique ways.

 

Some of the most powerful worship experiences I have had have been musically related too.  Singing beautiful Christmas music by candlelight in a dim chapel.  Hearing the harmonies of “And Can it Be” sung by a men’s ensemble in an echoing tunnel. Singing excerpts of The Messiah with a full orchestra.  The sung benediction of “God Be in My Head” at the end of every choir concert for 4 years and then again at my college graduation, and then again a few years later at my wedding.   More recently, joining together in a mish-mash of French and English to sing a hymn like “How Great Thou Art” or “To God Be the Glory” with our African brothers and sisters.  A little foretaste of heaven, all of these things.

 

Music does have a tremendous sticking power, and with that comes tremendous shaping power.  Which begs the question: what do we want to stick?   A lot of the music that has stuck with me is good.  I don’t mind it coming to mind at random moments.   But there’s also a fair amount of music in there that I rather wish wasn’t.   The bad sticks just as much as the good.  There is a reason that Paul admonishes us “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything is worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8, NASB)  There is a reason why Edith Schaeffer, in her book The Hidden Art of Homemaking, tells us that “Christian homes should not be places where nothing but a bit of sentimental or romantic music is heard, but places where there is the greatest variety of good music…” (p. 40).  (As an aside, I love how Ambleside encourages this by the inclusion of Hymns, Folk Songs, and Classical Composer studies in the curriculum.)  This is why we pursue Truth, Beauty, and Goodness – these are the things that we want to stick because it is the Good, True, and Beautiful that will direct our hearts towards God and His Kingdom.

 

Click Here for more thoughts on this section!

DTK Chapter 5, Part 1: The Liturgical Year

Easter Sunday 2010, Australia

 

At the very end of chapter 4, Smith starts shifting gears a little bit towards where he is heading with chapter 5 – a detailed look at the various liturgical practices that are contained within a worship service – what truths they are meant to embody and how they can be a helpful counter-formation to the ‘secular’ liturgies of our modern culture.  Even though I still maintain that ideas, belief, and doctrine must inform our practices (rather than the other way around as Smith claims), I found this section really interesting and helpful to think about.    I come from a pretty generic non-denominational, evangelical background that has (unfortunately, in my opinion), shed quite a few of these liturgical practices in an effort to become more ‘relevant’ and ‘applicable’.  Smith points out that when we lose some of these traditional practices, we also lose some of the ‘counter-formational’ benefit to worship. Chapter 5 is a long and meaty chapter, and even with it broken up over 5 weeks, I still doubt I will comment on every practice that Smith mentions.  I do hope to be able to comment on those that I found most interesting and significant.   And I may also take some time to comment on some of the other practices that we have found helpful in our home even if they aren’t mentioned by Smith in this chapter.  This week’s section started off with a discussion of the liturgical year.

 

Advent Candles in France, 2012

 

Smith points out several ways that following the seasons of the church year can be an effective counter-formation to our secular culture:

• Celebrating Advent as a time of waiting, longing, and expectation is clearly a different orientation to the over-commercialization of the Season.
• Celebrating the seasons of the church year reminds us that our Messiah “does not float in some esoteric, ahistorical heaven, but [is one] who made a dent on the calendar – and will again.”
• Celebrating the seasons of the church year counters the idea of ‘presentism’ and living for the moment as it remembers back to the events of Christ in history and points forward to His return and coming kingdom.  (We also do this in Communion as we look back and remember what Christ has done and ‘proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes’.)  We become people of expectancy – we have the sense that this world isn’t all there is.  “Thus we are constituted as a people who live between times, remembering and hoping at the same time.”

 

Advent Candles in Cameroon, 2013

 

I don’t come from a church tradition that particularly values the seasons of the church year – maybe a nod to Advent, and Easter Sunday is a big deal of course.   In my family growing up, we pretty much tacked “Jesus” on to the rest of the hype of the season – sure, Christmas and Easter were about Jesus, but they were also about glitz and food and parties and candy and presents (and as a student heavily involved in the performing arts in high school, an over-the-top performance schedule).   We might have gone around with our nifty “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” buttons, but really, was He?  Not so much I don’t think – at least this is not the sense that I got as a child.    My husband comes from a similar background, and as we started our own family we both had the sense that something was missing.  I’d read about some of the meaningful liturgical traditions that some of the Catholic bloggers I like to follow practiced in their homes and began thinking about how we could make some of those ideas work within the context of our belief system.  I wanted that sense of beauty and rhythm and Christ-centered traditions in our home too.    We began to be intentional about bringing Jesus back as the centerpiece of our Christmas celebrations.  Several years later, we realized that Easter really gets glossed over while Christmas gets all the hype.  This seemed sort of disproportionate to us – Jesus’ death and resurrection is the focal point of the Christian faith.  If we don’t have those, we have nothing, you know?   Didn’t it deserve at least as much attention as Christmas did then?   So we began to be more intentional about observing the season of Lent as it led up to Easter.   That’s still a work in progress.  (Actually I had resolved back at the end of 2012 that 2013 would be the year of being more intentional about bringing these kinds of liturgical practices into our home…and then we moved to Africa. J  I am just now picking up the pieces.)  Both in Advent and in Lent we light candles every evening.  We do special family devotionals.  This year we’re hoping to extend our Lent meditations through the season of Easter.  We go fairly easy on the gifts, decorations, treats, and other activities – we’ve not gotten rid of them altogether, but we’ve tried to ensure that they don’t completely take over life in those seasons either.  Over the years, we have come to really love these simple family traditions – and I think that perhaps our children are starting to pick up on them too.  It didn’t even faze them that our Christmas packages from grandparents arrived 3 months late this year.  That’s not the focal point of the celebration for them.  These simple practices have helped keep our hearts focused on Christ rather than all the commercial hype of these holiday seasons and have given us something constant to hold onto in the midst of all of the moves our family has made over the last several years – this is the first time since 2009 we’ve set up our Advent and Lent-Easter candle displays in the same house (let alone same country!) two years in a row!  It’s a comforting reminder that the truth of the gospel doesn’t change even when the world all around us does.

 

Click Here for more posts on this section!

DTK Chapter 4, Part 2: Worship, Doctrine, and Imagination

In the first part of this section, Smith continues in his disparagement of propositions, doctrines, and belief.  Worship practices are superior, he says, because they “catch hold of our imagination.”   They are “aesthetic and not didactic”.    He accuses the “doctrine police” of “lacking imagination” and “thinking truth only adheres in propositions and doctrines.”

 

[Jen cringes and very seriously considers dropping this and reading another book instead.  I have lots of others on my to-read list already, ya know?  Cindy warned us that Smith has a tendency to get kind of sneery.  I’ve just about had enough of it.]

 

As I stated last time, I believe that right belief goes hand-in-hand with right practices (for life or for worship), and the standard to determine both is the Word of God.   Our practices are certainly a good indication of what we really believe to be true, but cannot be the determining factor for Truth.  

 

Despite the fact that I don’t agree with Smith's approach, I think I do understand what he is reacting against.  I have seen far too often people and churches who may say that they ascribe to a certain set of beliefs, but don’t back that up with practices that mark us as set-apart from the rest of the world or worship that is meaningful and authentic.  Or Christian people who are ‘stuck in a rut’ and just going through the motions of Christian faith (I have been guilty of this myself at times).   Or that tendency to emphasize and debate various interpretations of the minutiae of doctrine, analyzing and tearing apart Scripture to prove a certain point of view.  These things have concerned me too.

 

And maybe I'm weird, but I would disagree that doctrine can't capture our imagination.  A couple of years ago, I realized that I wanted to more fully explore the theme of grace in my life and so I turned to a slow, meditative study of the book of Romans.  It's been a slow transformation, but I do very much believe that that study has made a difference in the way I live out my faith (my practices, in other words).   And I find that the language in the Heidelberg Catechism is just beautiful, almost like poetry in parts.  If the book of Romans and a catechism aren't "doctrinal", I don't know what is?!

 

Smith seems to have a bit of a tendency to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’.    His approach seems to be ‘cognitive assent to a set of beliefs isn’t enough to change us, so let’s not use didactic sermons as our starting place, let’s focus on our practices instead’, and thereby apparently dismissing the power of the Word preached.   I wonder if rather than throwing out belief, doctrines, and God’s Word as the centerpiece of our worship from which our other practices flow, perhaps we should reconsider the way that we interact with God’s Word.   Perhaps instead of glossing over doctrine or using it as a tool for debate, we need to approach God’s Word as a thing of wonder, as something that really does have the power to change us.  I would contend that the Word – our source for belief, doctrine, theology – also has the power to “catch hold of our imaginations”.  This is actually something that I’ve been thinking about a lot in recent months – I wrote about this before here, and this fairly recent article from Circe addresses the same thing.  Dr Perrin seemed to be heading in this direction in his answers to the questions that Smith raised in the first chapters of the book.  Carolyn Weber describes the Bible as "the most compelling piece of creative non-fiction" she has ever read.  It came up again in the comments to last week’s Wednesday with Words post, and in a conversation with my husband on how we could make our family devotional time more living and robust.   This idea is popping up in a lot of different places, so I think maybe I’m not crazy. J

 

To his credit, towards the end of this chapter, Smith finally does acknowledge the role of the Spirit in all of this talk about belief, worship, and formation:

            “..the Spirit meets, nourishes, transforms, and empowers us just through and in such material practices.”

 

            “The point of worship is not formation, rather, formation is an overflow effect of our encounters with the Redeemer in praise and prayer, adoration and communion.”

 

To both of these statements, I would also add that we encounter Him through His Word.   We mustn’t leave that out of the equation.

 

Click Here to read more posts on this section.

 

 

DTK Chapter 4, Part 1: Doctrine and Practice

I want to start my post today with a true story I once heard from missionary colleagues of ours in Papua New Guinea – one of many just like it I could tell you.  Des Oatridge was one of the first Bible translators working with our organization to arrive in PNG back in 1956.  He and his wife worked for many years among the Binumarien people:

 

 

At the time that Des and his wife allocated to this area in 1959, the Binumarien people were facing extinction - there were only 112 people left, mainly due to excessive amount of tribal warfare with neighboring clans.  Des shared that when they arrived in the area, it was obvious to them that the people had lost the will to live.  Although they had a church in their area, the preaching and teaching were in one of the coastal languages and translated into Binumarien.  Many years later, the local man who translated sermons for the pastor told Des that when things were hard to understand, he would just make something up or say what he thought it meant.  As a result, the people had a great deal of misunderstanding of the Bible's teaching – some really bizarre things like God created only men in the beginning and then turned Eve into a woman as a punishment for sins.  Or that you were saved by works done for the mission church. It was not until the Oatridges began to help them translate the Bible into Binumarien that the people's misunderstandings about the Bible were cleared and they came to a true understanding that salvation comes not through the things that you do but by trusting in the things that Jesus did for us.  One particularly poignant example that was shared was about one of the old men who was sort of viewed by the people as the village idiot.  After hearing the Easter story read in Binumarien, he stood up in church and said: “God is great!  God is big!  He’s very powerful and He walks on the clouds and on the wind.  He’s got a fighting stick in His hand.  And He took that fighting stick and put it down.  And He very humbly entered into the stomach of a young woman.  And He put away His anger and His strength – He put it all aside and He took on humility and gentleness.  And He grew up to be a man and He died on the cross for our sins and now we can be forgiven and that’s how powerful and how humble God is.”  He got it right the first time. This clear understanding of Scripture, as a result of having it in their own heart-language, has totally transformed and saved the lives of the Binumarien people in more ways than just the spiritual sense.  The population has more than quadrupled in the past 50 years - there are over 574 full-blooded Binumariens living in Papua New Guinea today [as of the writing of this story in 2006]. 

 

 

So why do I tell it?  I tell it because I think it counters some of the ideas that Smith is trying to propose in this section.   I got very squirmy when Smith started saying things like “Lived worship is the fount from which a worldview springs rather than being the expression or application of some cognitive set of beliefs already in place”  and “Doctrines, beliefs, and a Christian worldview emerge from the nexus of Christian worship practices.”   He claims that this is so because the early church didn’t have “the Bible” (at least not in the form we have it today), and yet they had worship practices that were far more formative and effective at shaping their desire for the Kingdom than what we typically see in the modern church, so they must have had it right.   But if that is so, why is so much of the New Testament filled with teachings aimed at countering heresies and correcting some of the practices that the early church got wrong?   God’s Word is a gift, and one that we should not – indeed, must not – ignore in any discussion of Christian doctrine, belief, worship and practice.

 

That’s where this story comes in.   The Binumarien people had had a church among them for years and years.  They knew what the practices of Christian worship and Christian living should look like, and I daresay many of them followed these practices, whatever their motivation for doing so may have been.   But it wasn’t until they heard the Word preached – really preached in their own mother tongue – that they really got it.  It was God’s Word that “speared them in the liver” as the saying often goes in that part of the world and caused them to reorient their lives towards His Kingdom.    

 

I agree with Smith that worship  practices are important.  And that head-level belief in a set of doctrines alone is not enough.   And that our worship practices ought to align with our doctrines and beliefs – there shouldn’t be a disconnect between them.  And I think that often our practices do reflect what we really believe at our core, even if we say we believe differently.   But practices cannot be the starting place in defining our doctrines and beliefs.   God’s Word is the starting place for that.   God’s Word has the power to speak to our hearts (Hebrews 4:12) and contains the wisdom we need to discern what our practices for Christian life and worship ought to be (2 Timothy 3:14-17).    Trying to go at it the other way around lays us open to syncretism, error, and emotionalism that fades because it isn't rooted in Truth.  Perhaps this is harder to see in the West because we have such a heritage of Christian faith (even though that is fading in today’s world).  But having lived and observed churches in two different non-Western-Christian cultures, I can say that this is true.   Right practices flow from a deep understanding, appreciation, and belief in the Truth of His Word.

 

 




Click Here to Read More Posts on this Section

Desiring the Kingdom Book Club, Chapter 3

So, I haven’t had a ton to say about chapter 3.  In this chapter, Smith dissects several common ‘liturgies’ of our culture in order to show just how powerful these things can be in directing our desires and affections.   He gets a little controversial in some places, and I haven’t made a lot of comment on this chapter mostly because I didn’t want to get into all of that controversy.  However, I do see the point he is trying to make: these things do have an influence on our lives.  They do make a difference in what our hearts desire.  Even the most subtle of these practices have the power to draw our hearts away from desiring the Kingdom.   In this final section of the chapter, he gives an example from a novel about  a university student who entered the university with the lofty goal of increasing her knowledge and enhancing the life of her mind, but finds herself drawn away by the stereotypical rituals and practices of a university campus – frat parties and the like.  Those were just the things that one does at university after all, right?

 

In the conclusion of the chapter, he reminds us that, assuming our goal is to produce Christian disciples, then we ought to be striving to resist these kinds of ‘secular’ liturgies and ultimately to provide a counter-formation: liturgies, practices that pull our hearts towards Him rather than away.  How could the university student in the example have been better prepared not to be drawn away by the temptations of secular campus life?  How can we effectively counter the secular culture that surrounds us and keep our hearts focused on His Kingdom?

 

Well, Smith hasn’t told us yet, although I expect that that is the direction he is heading in Part 2 of the book.  I’m curious to see where he goes with it.  In the meantime,  I’ve been thinking about that a bit, however.   Reading this final section of Chapter 3 reminded me a bit of a talk I had listened to by Christopher Perrin awhile back entitled Learning to Love What Must Be Done.  The funny thing about it is that he does actually cite Smith in his talk, thematically they are very similar.  No wonder I was reminded of it as I read this week! (Click Here and scroll down to the 2011 Conference Recordings if you want to give it a listen.)   I re-listened to it while washing dishes this weekend, and some of the suggestions  towards this end that he made:

 

• It starts with us.   If we want our students (or children) to be lovers of truth, goodness and beauty, we need to model it.   We need to become contagious lovers of truth, goodness, and beauty ourselves.
• We need to help develop a sense of wonder and awe in our students.   We want them to marvel in amazement over those glimpses of glory that are to be seen everywhere if only we have eyes to see.   Our choice of teaching materials and teaching methods will be effected by this consideration.
• Linked to the above, we need to give them time to ponder and reflect and discover and think.   It is important that we don’t cram their lives so full of activity that they don’t have space to do this. 

 

(Hmm…once again, I’m seeing shades of Charlotte Mason and Poetic Knowledge….)

 

One other thought that has occurred to me that I haven’t seen mentioned yet by Smith, or by Perrin in his talk that I recall at least, is that ultimately, our hearts won’t be pointed towards the Kingdom unless the Holy Spirit draws them.  I absolutely agree with the idea that as human beings we aren’t minds in vats, and that our habits and practices really do matter.   But I think often about my own upbringing – I would say I was raised in the type of church environment that Smith descries in this chapter – secular culture was countered in messages targeted to my rational self only (don’t do this! don’t do that!). The emphasis was very much on avoiding what was BAD rather than actively seeking out that which was GOOD.  Yet, I lived in the midst of those practices and messages in the public school I attended, the movies and music and books I was exposed to without much thought.  And yet, somehow, I didn’t completely fall prey to their lure.  This I credit to the power and protection of the Holy Spirit.  Somehow, my heart was continually drawn back towards Him.  He was at work anyway, even in the midst of a formational environment that was less than ideal.  This doesn’t negate the importance of considering our practices and what kind of effect they have on us and  our students or our children, but when it boils down to it all we are really doing is preparing the soil – it is He who gives the increase.  

 

Click Through for More Thoughts on This Section!

 

 

 

Desiring the Kingdom Book Club: On Realigning Vision and Practices

Our reading assignment this week was the first portion of Chapter 3.   Quite honestly, I don’t really have a whole lot to say about this section. Basically, he is talking about cultural exegesis - examining the liturgies (practices) of our culture at large so as to discern whether they are pulling us towards our vision of the good life or away from it. While I think this is a good practice to have, my thoughts have been veering far more towards my own personal practices and those of my family, so that's what I want to talk about today.

 

Early on in our book club, I realized that I really didn’t have a clear sense of vision – what is my vision of “the good life”?  Towards what is my heart aiming?  I know very well what it should be, what I want it to be.   The good life is the life lived for the glory of God, the life that chooses to “be content in all situations” and that embraces the good along with the bad with the recognition that it all leads to my sanctification and His greater glory.  But if I'm  honest, somewhere along the way my vision has sort of slipped.  If I’m honest, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think “the good life” now is that the good life is peaceful, quiet, and comfortable with no one to bother me or ruffle my feathers. (I could very easily be a hobbit living out my days in a peaceful hobbit-hole!)  It is a selfish vision of life centered on my own personal comfort.  

 

Ouch.

 

I’ve been thinking about where along the way my vision shifted, and why.  There are a variety of reasons that I can think of: being raised with a rules-based idea of Christianity, little sins that I've let go untended, and plain ol' weariness (physical, emotional, and spiritual) all figure in. 

 

Now, this all has me thinking about where I ought to adjust our practices to help my heart realign with the vision.   Some of those are bigger picture things – like considering how to plan our next furlough to allow for true rest and combat that sense of weariness.  Some of those are smaller picture things that I can put into practice now.  As a matter of fact, just this past week we revamped our evening routine.  This was partly inspired by Mystie's post last week -  just as she shared that she is often tempted to retreat into the computer and hide from her children in the morning, I admit that I am tempted to do this to escape the chaos of our house in the evening.  It occurred to me that this 'practice' of mine is connected to that vision of the good life being centered on my own personal comfort rather than a willingness to embrace the messiness of our family life.  It also sent the message that we just wanted the children to go away and get in bed already and that family devotional time was just something tacked on to the end of the day - an obligation to get through because we should rather than a time focused on growing in our sense of wonder, awe, and admiration of the God we serve.

So now, rather than letting chaos reign as it did previously, we are trying something like this:

Kids clean up, shower, and help set the table while I make dinner (occasionally one of them will come cook with me.)

We eat, with the goal of it being not later than 6:30pm. 

After dinner, I go clean up the kitchen.  (My husband, bless him, has done this for the past 10 years of our marriage, but I realized that if I was serious about breaking my bad habit of hiding by getting on the computer, I needed to replace it with something else tangible to do during this time.)   Dan and the kids will spend this time doing something special together - sometimes a game, sometimes an episode of a television program, sometimes some other silly project like folding paper airplanes.  This is assuming that everything got cleaned up and everyone showered before dinner...this is their motivation if you will.  If you still need to take a shower or pick up your room, then you miss out! :)

When kitchen clean up is done, we join back together again for our evening Bible story and read-aloud time before sending little ones off to bed by 8 or so (the oldest is allowed to sit up in her room quietly reading or drawing for a little longer).

It remains to be seen how this will all play out in the long run, but I do have great hope that we are headed in the right direction with this plan.  I kind of see it as a framework not only to take care of the chaos-problem, but to cultivate habits of selflessness, serving one another, enjoying one another, and growing in grace together as a family.
 

Click through for more thoughts and insights on this section!