Charlie Wear’s Notes

Have you ever had a premonition? Or what you believed to be a message to yourself or others about the future? Did you act on it? Did you deliver the message?

It’s hard to know the difference between being truly prophetic and merely being a prognosticator. There are so many people prediciting what is going to happen to the economy, our national security, and all other and sundry types of information, it creates a miasma of information that is difficult to sort out.

An additional problem is the proclivity of public relations practitioners to advise their clients to predict how bad or good things are going to be in order to spin public perception toward them in a favorable way. We have seen a round of this last weekend as numerous politicians took to the air waves to tell us that the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. When things do get worse, these same politicians can avoid responsibility for their share in the problem. When they get better, they can take credit for things getting better.

One of the chief practitioners of this art is the Bloviator in Chief, Joe Biden. This morning a well-circulated report has him predicting that casualties in Afghanistan are going to rise. That’s because they inherited a “real mess.” Up until this point I suppose that Afghanistan has been a faux mess. Clearly it is all President Bush’s fault. Of course, the fact that it is difficult to tell the difference between a terrorist and a civilian is seldom mentioned. What I can’t figure out is, how can Biden get away with this?

My opinion, in the long run he can’t. I am already tired of these predictions. I am also sick and tired of hearing that we are in the “Greatest Economic Crisis Since the Great Depression.” I mean, what is this, a new mini-series? Quit talking about it and do something!

I was only half-kidding last week when I talked with Next-Wave editor, Scott Bane, about this month’s tenth anniversary issue of Next-Wave. The cover story for the issue is a Ten Year Retrospective on the Emerging Church by Stephen Shields. If you have read Stephen’s writing in the past, you know that he is an excellent journalist, fair and comprehensive with the material he is covering. His articles is based on interviews with several people who have been writing and speaking about the emerging church for nearly all of the ten years that Next-Wave has been publishing.

Anyway, I remember saying something like this to Scott: “Maybe this should be the last issue of Next-Wave. It’s been ten years, and maybe it is time to call it a day.” In reading some of the comments on the internet about Stephen’s article I ran across some who wondered if there would be a ten-year retrospective on the “missional” church one of these days?

I must confess. To me, “emerging,” and “missional,” when applied to church all seem like the same thing. You see we started out writing about postmodern, then emerging became a word of choice. It wasn’t long before there were other words showing up, like missional, transformational and incarnational. Every once in a while more ancient terms like monastic or liturgical would sneak in.

For me, the whole Next-Wave enterprise has been about evangelizing rising generations. It has not been about deconstruction, or relativism. These were terms I knew nothing about when I first talked to Rogier Bos about starting Next-Wave. At the time I was talking about something called Gen-X, you know the folks who are now mostly heading rapidly into their 40s?

A little anecdote about the term missional. When I first began hearing the term used by practitioners (that is, people who were assembling groups of people into churches), I made the mistake of asking, “What is missional?” After about 5 paragraphs of explanation, I still don’t think I understood what he was talking about. (Sorry it wasn’t a woman that I was asking, but you can be darn sure that I am aware that there are plenty of women out there who could give me a better explanation today.) I asked “What is the mission?” Another 5 paragraphs.

I am trying to get simpler in my old age. I use the terms emerging, missional, and sometimes emergent, to try and communicate something. But what I am really talking about, in every context, is all about “following Jesus.” Learning how to do this in my own life and learning how to help others, including my children and grandchildren, seems pretty important to me.

My main mentor used to describe himself as a “fat man trying to get to heaven.” He also used to say “I want to grow up before I grow old.” I might modify his sentiments slightly, but it is still all about following Jesus isn’t it?

I didn’t know what to expect when I went to see Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Gran Torino. I guess I was expecting a kind of Death Wish meets Billy Jack (and if you understand these references you are no doubt a senior citizen like me). What I got was something I wasn’t expecting, a lesson on life and death and missional living.

Eastwood’s Polish protagonist, Walter Kowalski, is someone “you don’t want to mess with.” He is angry and bitter and doesn’t seem to understand what is happening to the world around him. He’s racist and profane. He is desperately sad at the passing of his wife. He is disappointed in God and the church.

Then, a strange thing happens. When the next-door neighbor Hmong family infiltrates his life in unexpected ways, he becomes a bridge builder and a mentor to the next generation. How this all plays out is a lovely example of outstanding storytelling.

Kowalski’s relationship with the local priest is worth the price of admission. I was gripped and surprised by Gran Torino, especially it’s unexpected conclusion.

Matthew 9:35-38: Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

My good friend Scott Bane is starting a church in Indiana. He has a great post about some lost diapers and compassion. It reminded me of a time that God’s compassion moved me to pray for a city. Here is a dangerous prayer: “Lord, show me those around me that I can help today and move me with your compassion.”