May 27th :: Mustard Seed vs. McWorld

Our theme for the night was Mustard Seed vs. McWorld which we borrowed from Tom Sine's excellent book of the same name. Our idea was that there is an alternative to living in the values of McWorld if we are willing to accept the values of the Kingdom of God.

Here are some of the book, resources, and materials that we used for the installation.

We drew from the following books

• Mustard Seed vs. McWorld by Tom Sine
• Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic
• Soul Grafitti by Mark Scandrette
• End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs
• Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster
• Colossians Remixed
  

Making a Difference Globally
This is related to the next Freehouse and it has to deal with ways we can make a difference in McWorld. For many of us the term globalization came to our minds when New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote the Lexus and the Olive tree which was about his observations on globalization. While no one is going to say that globalization has been without it's negative affects on the world, it has made the world a lot smaller and a lot easier to make a difference (good or bad) anywhere.

What are Microfinancing Loans?

While microfinancing loans have been around since the 1970s with the start Accion and has gained a lot of momentum with Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank.

There are some agencies using the web to bring lenders and borrowers together. So how do you be a banker to the world? Kiva was recently featured by Nicholas Krustof in the New York Times. You can read the article here (PDF ahead) or check out Kiva's website.

You can read up on this yourself:

• Accion
• Grameen
• Microfinance Gateway
• Microfinance FAQs
  
• Kiva
• 2005 was the U.N. Year of the Microcredit
• Millions for Millions: The New Yorker talks about microfinancing
• What is Microfinancing?

You can also check out Modest Needs.org. Founded in 2002, Modest Needs is an award-winning charity that works to stop the cycle of poverty before it starts for low-income workers struggling to afford emergency expenses like those we've all encountered before: the unexpected auto repair, the unanticipated trip to the doctor, the unusually large winter heating bill.

Other Websites

• Mustard Seed Associates
• U.N. Millennium Development Goals

Thirst Liturgy by Jonny Baker/Grace
From Alternative Worship

It’s been a hot day.

You’ve been out in the heat,
Had nothing to drink
And are thirsty

My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

What does it feel like to be this thirsty?
Your mouth is dry.
You are weary.
Your whole body longs for water.

Come, all you are thirsty, come to the waters….

Jesus feels like this traveling through Samaria on a hot day.
Tried from the journey, he sits down by the well.
A Samaritan woman comes to draw water.
Jesus asks her for a drink.

Will you give me a drink?

Samaritans are distrusted by Jews.
Women are not to be approached in public.
She is surprised and asked why Jesus did this.
He replies

If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

Living water?
What’s that?
How will Jesus get it without a bucket?

Everyone who drinks this water (from the well) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Never be thirsty again…
A spring of water welling up to eternal life;
The woman asks for some of this water.
Think about your own thirst;
Imagine being with Jesus at the well as he speaks of this life giving water;
It’s freely available to all who are thirsty.

If anyone is thirsty let them come to me and drink…

Speak to Jesus
If you want to ask him for this water.

Cups of water will be brought around. Take some time to pray and ask God quench your thirst. Let this drink be the gift of God’s life giving Spirit. As you drink, be refreshed.

Three Targums from Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire that we used as part of a station.

Rom Targum 1: Rehearing Colossians 1.1–14 in the Context of Disquieted Globalism

But here is the rub. Everything in this monolithic culture of McWorld globalization is allied against you and will try to keep your imaginations captive, stripping you of the courage to dream of alternative ways to live. So may you be strengthened with all strength and empowered with nothing less than the weighty power of God in this disempowered culture of unbearable lightness. May your vision, your stubborn refusal to allow your imaginations to be taken captive, have an endurance, an ability to hang in there for the long haul and a patience that doesn’t need to aggressively and triumphalistically realize the kingdom of God now because it has the faith and trust to work and wait for a miracle, for the coming of God’s shalom to our terribly broken world.

Targum 2 : subversive poetry in a postmodern world col 1:15-20 :

In an image-saturated world
a world of ubiquitous corporate logos
permeating your consciousness
a world of dehydrated and captive imaginations
in which we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted
to be able to dream of life otherwise
a world in which the empire of global economic affluence
has achieved the monopoly of our imaginations
in this world
Christ is the image of the invisible God
in this world
driven by images with a vengeance
Christ is the image par excellence
the image above all other images
the image that is not a facade
the image that is not trying to sell you anything
the image that refuses to co-opt you
Christ is the image of the invisible God
the image of God
a flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who God is
the image of God
a flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who we are called to be
image-bearers of this God
He is the source of a liberated imagination
a sub-version of the empire
because it all starts with him
and it all ends with him
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space and cyberspace
whether it be the Pentagon, Disneyland,
Microsoft or AT&T
whether it be the institutionalized power structures
of the state, the academy or the market all
things have been created in him and through him
he is their source, their purpose, their goal
even in their rebellion
even in their idolatry
he is the sovereign one
their power and authority is derived at best
parasitic at worse
In the face of the empire
in the face of presumptuous claims to sovereignty
in the face of the imperial and idolatrous forces in our lives
Christ is before all things
he is sovereign in life
not the pimped dreams of the global market
not the idolatrous forces of nationalism
not the insatiable desires of a consumerist culture
In the face of a disconnected world
where home is a domain in cyberspace
where neighbourhood is a chat room
where public space is a shopping mall
where information technology promises
a tuned in, reconnected world
all things hold together in Christ
the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
all cohering and interconnected in Jesus
And this sovereignty takes on cultural flesh
And this coherence of all things is socially embodied
in the church
against all odds
against most of the evidence
In a “show me” culture where words alone don’t cut it
the church is
the flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
embodiment of this Christ
as a body politic
around a common meal
in alternative economic practices
in radical service to the most vulnerable
in refusal to the empire
in love of this creation
the church reimagines the world
in the image of the invisible God
In the face of a disappointed world of betrayal
a world in which all fixed points have proven illusory
a world in which we are anchorless and adrift
Christ is the foundation
the origin
the way
the truth
and the life
In the face of a culture of death
a world of killing fields
a world of the walking dead
Christ is at the head of the resurrection parade
transforming our tears of betrayal into tears of joy
giving us dancing shoes for the resurrection party
And this glittering joker
who has danced in the dragon’s jaws of death
now dances with a dance that is full
of nothing less than the fullness of God
this is the dance of the new creation
this is the dance of life out of death
and in this dance all that was broken
all that was estranged
all that was alienated
all that was dislocated and disconnected
is reconciled
comes home
is healed
and is made whole
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space and cyberspace
every inch of creation
every dimension of our lives
all things are reconciled in him
And it all happens on a cross
it all happens at a state execution
where the governor did not commute the sentence
it all happens at the hands of the empire
that has captivated our imaginations
it all happens through blood
not through a power grab by the sovereign one
it all happens in embraced pain
for the sake of others
it all happens on a cross
arms outstretched in embrace
and this is the image of the invisible God
this is the body of Christ

Targum 4(re)citing Paul: Colossians 2:8-3:4 meets postmodernity :

You see, my friends, the postmodern incredulity toward all metanarratives is well-founded. The modernist metanarrative of civilizations progress manifest in an aggressive conquering of colonized peoples, so-called scientific objectivism, a technological will-to-power and a market capitalism that would commodify all of life, deplete creational resources and create an ecological nightmare, was a tall tale – a lying, self-justifying, ideological narrative. The problem, however, is that humans are constitutionally story-telling creatures. And any local narrative will necessarily and invariably function as a metanarrative in the lives of those who hold it as their story. So the issue isn’t whether to live out of a metanarrative or not, but which metanarrative, and whose grand story? Without a grounding and directing story, no praxis is possible. That is why the crisis of storyless postmodern people, animated by little more than media and market produced images, is a crisis of moral and cultural paralysis. But that’s not the way it is with you, is it? You know which metanarrative brings life, don’t you? You know whose grand story has set you free, don’t you? Remember that I have already told you that in Christ you have died and were buried and have been raised to new life. His story, is your story!

How to Build a Global Community
How to Build Community

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