Compost Tea

Fabric of Faithfulness Conclusion

I finished Garber's Fabric of Faithfulness a couple of days ago and feel no need to do any further chapter reviews. What I do feel the need to do is to give some final thoughts.

First, the book caused a lot of welling--the welling up of a grateful heart for having been blessed to have wise mentors and role models during my college years, and to have had college friends to explore the depths of faith together. The eyes welled up to as I thought about how it could have been without those experiences. But they also welled up because the faith integration process within me is still going on--and at a pace slower than I want.

Second, as a pastor who longs for people entrusted to my care to make the connections, I know that an hour a week won't get the job done. A six week confirmation class won't get the job done. So much more is needed. May God help us all figure this out in the congregational context.

Fabric of Faithfulness, Ch. 1: Learning to Care

"What do you care about?" is the beginning question of this chapter. To put a sharper point on it as it relates to educators and Christian leaders, "How does someone decide which cares and commitments will give shape and substance to life, for life?"

After sharing some examples of young people he has known work through this question, Garber reveals his very interesting early adult years. Another question he pursued in those early years was "What does it mean to be made in the image of God?"

In his work with young people, Garber has wondered why some students can make the connection between faith and practice, while others don't. He decided to research this as best he could be studying people who have been out of college for at least twenty years and who are effectively living out their beliefs. His findings pointed to three common themes: convictions, character, and community.

Convictions: They were taught a worldview which was sufficient for the questions and crises of the next twenty years, particularly the challenge of modern and postmodern consciousness with its implicit secularization and pluralization.

Character: They met a teacher that incarnated the worldview which they were coming to consciously identify as their own, and in and through that relationship saw that it was possible to reside within that worldview themselves.

Community: They made choices over the years to live out their worldview in the company of mutually committed folk who provided a network of stimulation and support which showed that the ideas could be coherent across the whole of life.

As I reflect on my experience, Taylor University spoke over and over and over about worldviews! Each discipline would address the worldview question and try to make cross-discipline connections. So, point one (convictions) is well taken.

Taylor also provided me with plenty of good role models, even if one doesn't stand out much greater than others. Seminary provided one or two others. While in ministry, however, there have been fewer opportunities to have such relationships (or maybe I didn't take potential opportunities). Point two (character) shows up in my experience as well.

As one who has served churches ever since college, I have always been in communities of supportive Christians and have found that to be a great blessing (with a few exceptions!). But, I would say that the communities I have served have been pretty conventional, americanized, Christendom-type churches. To be honest, there was more cultural "pressure" to be a normal, upstanding citizen, than a risk-taking, counter-cultural follower of Christ. That makes me think.

Fabric of Faithfulness, Introduction

Garber explains that throughout his career he has asked students, "Why do you get up in the morning?" as a way of getting them to think about ultimate issues. He says,

It gets at the relationship between what one believes about the world and how one lives in the world, particularly as that dynamic interaction is being formed as young people begin to move out of their parents' worlds and worldviews and take up their convictions as frameworks within which to live and move and have their being.

As a pastor this, of course, is of great interest to me--especially as I am in the middle of preparing for a confirmation class. I could easily make sure their beliefs are correct and feel like I did my job; but my greater task is to help them make the connection between faith and practice.

This book interests me greatly for an even more personal reason: my major faith development occurred during my years at Taylor University (a Christian liberal arts college). I have reflected on how those years have shaped me, but Garber's work will allow me to look at that experience with new lenses.

Fabric of Faithfulness, Preface

I recently received this book as a gift and decided to read it and journal my reflections on it.

The preface is not to be skipped over for it sets the tone of the book. Garber recounts how some Chinese dissident leaders studying in the US came to him asking,

"We have been reading the philosophers of the world, and are not satisfied. We want to return to China, and know that we might be imprisoned or die if we do. But we love China, and so we will go home. The more we read it seems that the Christian vision of human nature and history might give us a basis to return, a raison d'etre that makes sense to us philosophically--what do you think?"

Does what we believe matter? Do our worldviews have legs? These are the questions Garber is raising, asserting that what we believe can have life-changing, even country-changing consequences. Right away the reader knows that Garber will be leading him into a serious exploration of ultimate issues.

Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Self-Imposed Exiles

Why would one want to become an exile, to say that "this just isn't where I belong"? Michael Frost reminds us that our world is not warm and cozy for everyone. 11,000 children dying daily from curable diseases. 35,000 children starving to death each day. After making the same point (that our world is in bad shape) in different ways, he is challenging anyone who would feel too at home with the world: How could you be so content and satisfied? How can you not go through each day, reminding yourself that our world is broken and in the process of cutting up countless people?

To the point: He wants us to have a "holy rage" and "generous anger", to distance ourselves from this mess, saying "this is not the world of which I want to be a part." Yet, Frost does not condone any kind of isolationism that simply waits for the return of Christ. He wants us, I believe, to step mentally out of the messy world, only to reenter it as change agents for Christ, full of the courage necessary to jump back in.