SOD Farm: Core Values

There are many programs and ministries that seek to teach the next generation.  Our goal is to closely link intentional discipleship building with the local church.  SOD Farm shares the core values of Mechanic Grove.

Unconditional Love - We believe all are welcome to come as you are with the expectation that you will leave differently than you came.  We seek to model this love through hospitality towards those that would partner with us as well as those in our community need hospitality.  We expect visitors at our table.  We expect to see strangers at the farm.  Romans 12:13 instructs us to share with those in need and practice hospitality.

Jesus-centered Worship - Jesus is the model for our lives.  We seek to be citizens of his kingdom and to do the work of his kingdom.  We approach the Bible with Jesus Christ at the center of our understanding.  At the SOD Farm we engage in community worship each morning and afternoon with those living at or working at the farm.  We also understand that we try to make everything we do an act or worship.

Faithful Service - The SOD Farm is a serve to the church as it seeks to educate disciples on living intentionally, with every area of life surrendered to Jesus.  We seek to serve the local community through growing food for the local food bank, assisting those who are in need through education and to seek the general peace and prosperity of our local and global community.  We believe we are called to live out our faith in actions.

Lifestyle Witness - We seek to model Jesus and the values of the kingdom of God through the way we live our lives.  We try to be aware of our impact on the earth and on the people God loves.  We believe that through living lives dedicated to Jesus and by teaching those around us about Jesus, others will be drawn to relationship and surrender to Jesus.

Developing Disciples - SOD Farm seeks to be a place where the church is challenged to think deeper about what real discipleship and surrender to Jesus means.  We want to be a partner in raising a new generation of leaders that will impact the church and the world.  We ask partners to commit to a new level of surrender and service and to grow through biblical training and engaging the world.

Anabaptist Heritage - We have a heritage connected to those once called "Radicals."  They were called radical because of their complete surrender to Jesus and their intense drive to become better disciples of Jesus.  These were a people connect to God, to each other and to the land.  We uphold these convictions through seeking Jesus, being connected to one another and working closely with the earth.  The SOD Farm connects with the local church through Brethren practices of foot washing, Love Feast, and baptism.  We try to pursue peace between ourselves and our neighbors and our enemies.  We try to live simply in order to provide more resources for others to simply live.  We try to live connected to one another, understanding that is is in community that God exists and speaks.

SOD Farm: Who and What?

The School of Discipleship Farm would attempt to connect with people in a variety of ways.  The primary way would be through Partners, age 18-30, who commit 10 months of their lives to come and learn and serve at the SOD Farm.  The farm would connect with the Mechanic Grove congregation by learning from the experience of elders and serving alongside different ministries of the church.  SOD Farm would also seek to be a place that connects with those in need in the community and provide resources and education.

What is it?

SOD Farm is an intentional community of disciples who commit 10 months of their lives to come and live, learn, serve and explore in community.  This that come to SOD Farm would find a curriculum focused on Bible training, cultural engagement and seeking the peace and prosperity to the place we have been called to live.  Partners would learn how to connect their faith in everyday work on the farm, growing and preserving food for themselves and others through the local food bank.  They would also be a part of serving neighbors through community service and volunteering in the local church.  The partners that come to SOD Farm will commit themselves to live by a Rule of Life focused on serving God and serving others in Christian community.

SOD Farm

Have you ever wondered if Jesus really meant the stuff he said?  What if he meant "Go and make disciples"?  What if he meant all that stuff about loving your neighbors (and even enemies)?  What might it look like for the church to live some of this out in radical obedience?

Some of us at Mechanic Grove have been asking those same questions.  In our world; in our culture, what would it look like?

Enter SOD Farm.  This is a new idea at Mechanic Grove, but one which is very much in line with our tradition, our core values and our calling.

SOD Farm is short for School of Discipleship Farm.  What we are trying to do is have a place that takes discipleship very seriously.  It's not that the rest of the church doesn't take it seriously, but this would be an experiment in costly discipleship.

The idea is to have a farm where people commit 10 months of their lives to come and live in community, learn the Bible and theology, serve the community and larger congregation, and explore what God is doing in the world.  These partners would come to live at the farm and work the farm.  They would engage with rigorous biblical and theological training.  They would also serve in different community ministries such as food banks, rescue missions, etc. as well as different ministries of the church.  My hope is that they would also get three cross-cultural experiences during the 10 months as well.

In the coming posts we'll explore some of the questions that need some answering as we begin this journey.

Surprised by Hope

It's been a while, but I just finished reading another great book.  "Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church," by N.T. Wright is a book that firstly looks at the question of heaven.  The inside flap of the cover says, "For years Christians have been asking, 'If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?' It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer.  It is not heaven."

It's a provocative book from the start.  Right away I thought the title should be changed to "Rediscovering Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church."  While many of the ideas presented may seem new to Western Evangelicals, they are, as Wright argues, the beliefs of Jesus, the New Testament and the early church.  Wright is not breaking new ground completely as much as helping the church understand what was intended by the resurrection language of the New Testament writers.

Wright argues that when we die we our souls receive rest and refreshment in the presence of God.  Perhaps you can call it heaven, but it is only the first part of a two stage process.  He discusses the current view of disembodied souls going to an other-worldly heaven as a current form of Gnosticism which believes that matter is essentially evil.  Wright suggests that the true hope of Christians is not in our souls leaving this place and the earth being destroyed by God in favor of a matter-less heaven.  What the New Testament, Jesus and the early church were far more interested in was the Resurrection and restoration of the created order.  God created a good creation in the beginning and his goal is to redeem and restore not to destroy that creation.  Ultimately the hope of Christians is that of a bodily resurrection and restoration of creation when Christ returns to fulfill and complete his kingdom on earth which has already begun.

Wright combats the gnosticism of current views of heaven as well as the escapist rapture theology made popular in American Evangelical circles by Hal Lindsay (Late, Great Planet Earth) and the Left Behind books and movie series.  In these views God will destroy the created order and whisk his chosen to a heaven somewhere else.  Wright suggests that heaven is not really somewhere else, but that the realms of heaven and earth can be thought of as concentric circles with the goal of one day heaven and earth becoming fully visible to one another.

Wright briefly discusses purgatory and hell.  He tears down the traditional idea of purgatory and says little about hell.  He leaves room for a final judgement, but casts judgement in a positive light as the wrongs of the world are made right.  Judgement is not primarily a vindictive act.  Rather the longing for judgement throughout the Bible is for God to correct the wrongs of the world.

In the end, Wright talks about how our hope for the resurrection and restoration as God's "kingdom comes on earth as in heaven" affects our thinking of salvation (no more eyes closed, hand raised magical "sinner's prayer"), building of the kingdom and mission of the church.

There's a lot in this book and too dense for such a short summary.  Go read the book.  It's great stuff.  The conclusion is that this life matter so much more than most Western Evangelicals want to admit.  Christians have a responsibility to seek Justice, Beauty and Evangelize (bear witness to the true hope of the Gospels and live as colonists of the kingdom now).  Wright believes that the things we do to reveal and expand the kingdom not only in human lives, but in the whole created order as well, will somehow be carried over in a redeemed state into God's marriage of heavens and earth.  Christians have a responsibility to care for the justice of the outcast and poor.  We have a responsibility to care for creation and help to see it restored.

Wright voices many of the concerns I've had in the last few years of pop-Christianity and its love affair with escapism and reducing the human being to a disembodied soul.  How can God look down at Creation and declare everything "good" only to have us believe that Revelation is about God destroying that good creation.  Wright points out that the final picture of the Revelation of John the Seer is of heaven coming down to earth and God making his dwelling among man.  It's described as a great wedding between heaven and earth that were made for one another.   Go Read this Book!

The Naked Anabaptist

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything.  Recently I finished reading The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of the Radical Faith.  If you're thinking "Amish gone wild" or "I knew there was something screwy about those Brethren," sorry to disappoint.

Stuart Murray is an Anabaptist writing from England.  His book is a look at the basic principles of the Anabaptist tradition.  He wanted to look at the Anabaptist faith when it's not clothed in Amish or Mennonite clothing and traditions (hence, "Naked Anabaptist").  At the start he deals with some common misconceptions or ideas of Anabaptism.  They are questions Murray hears often being a part of the Anabaptist Network in England where Anabaptism has not traditionally been a part of the religious make-up.

The rest of the book is mostly spent looking at seven core convictions of Anabaptists.

1. Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer, and Lord.  He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church, and our engagement with society.  We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him.  
2. Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation.  We are committed to a Jesus-centered approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship.
3. Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era, when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian.  Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalized Jesus, and has left the churches ill equipped for mission in a post-Christendom culture.  As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving.
4. The frequent association of the church with status, wealth, and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness.  We are committed to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless, and persecuted, aware that such discipleship may attract opposition, resulting in suffering and sometimes ultimately martyrdom.  
5. Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability, and multivoiced worship.  As we eat together, sharing bread and wine, we sustain hope as we seek God’s kingdom together.  We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender, and baptism is for believers.  
6. Spirituality and economics are interconnected.  In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation, and working for justice.  
7. Peace is at the heart of the gospel.  As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding nonviolent alternatives and to learning how to make peace between individuals, within and among churches, in society, and between nations.

The book concludes by looking at where the Anabaptists have come from and looks at Anabaptism today.  Murray's conclusion is that there is a lot to be taken from the Anabaptist tradition in, what he labels, post-Christendom.

This is not an overly scholarly book.  Murray and his network are trying to provide resources for the emerging Anabaptists in England and Ireland.  I appreciated his critique of Christendom (the time from the 4th Century conversion of Constantine through the late 20th Century) when the church and state together controlled society.  He admits that there was good that came out of that period, but that in general it was not an idea that was faithful to Christ's sacrificial love.  Part of the reason for his admiration of Anabaptism is its noncompliance with Christendom ideology.  He sees Anabaptism as a movement focused on Jesus-centered discipleship whose moment in church history has finally come.  Murray confesses weaknesses of Anabaptism but evaluates it positively.  

For anyone who wants to be introduced to Anabaptism, for Anabaptists who don't know where they come from, for those longing to be part of a community which worships and follows Jesus, I would highly recommend giving it a read.  It's challenging whether you are an Anabaptist or not. 

Christian History

It's been a while since I've written a book review.  This is probably because with a baby, garden on top of everything happening at church, I haven't had time to read a whole lot.  What I have been reading is a Quicknotes version of Church History.  I decided it was about time I refreshed my memory of some of the things that are a part of our history as the church.  This isn't really a review of the book itself.  The authors/editors do a good job of giving a brief overview of primarily Western church history.  It offers a few value judgements of history, some of which I agree with and others I don't.

The history moves from the early, primitive church in Acts through the Roman persecution, theological developments, Middle Ages, into the Reformation, Great Awakening and finally ends with the 20th Century development of "Evangelical" Christianity in the West and also offers a look and guidance for the church in the 21st Century.

What comes to life is a twisted history in the institutional church.  The church begins as a movement of people trying to live as members of the kingdom of God.  They were persecuted by Roman and Jewish authorities at the start.  With Constantine, all of that subversive, underground, Christ-following movement becomes powerful.  Church and State become united and remain that way until the secularization of the Enlightenment begins.  There are major developments that occur in the theology of the church as it develops.

One thing I found interesting was the development of the Reformation.  Martin Luther is often credited as starting the Reformation.  This review of history also points out those that paved the way for the Reformation such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus.  It also talks about the developing of state churches following Luther, Calvin or Catholicism.  The book also goes into some detail of the Radical Reformers which developed Anabaptism.  Anabaptists suffered persecution  under the state churches whether Lutheran, Calvinist or Catholic.

The book concludes by looking at the effects of the Enlightenment on the church.  It then  talks about the evangelistic movements of the 19th and 20th Century.  They also mention that eventually Evangelical Christianity began to divorce the social and spiritual Gospel.  For centuries the faithful church had sought ways to reform societies ills while also seeking to bring people to Christ.  They were one in the same.  During the 20th Century the church began to split the gospel.

Two things become clear by looking at church history.  The first is that the church with worldly power is really no different than the world with worldly power.  The only difference is that the church with worldly power assumes God has ordained it.  When the church identifies with the the outcasts and speaks prophetically to centers of power, then it is faithful and grows.  The church and state relationship  does not work.  The second thing that becomes clear is that the church has one Gospel to live out.  Jesus fed people with bread and told them he was the bread of life.  He cared for people's physical and spiritual needs.  One Gospel.  Jesus has come to change the world.  Physical or Spiritual.  Everything comes under Jesus.  The Church, then, must do likewise.  We look for ways to help the disenfranchised, poor and outcasts while reconciling people to Christ.  When the church tries to use the power of the state or fragments the Gospel it begins to turn away from faithfully following Christ.

Weeds, the Fall and More

So today is a collection of a few scattered thoughts I've had while working around my garden and yard.  Right now with the rain we've been having my garden is looking pretty good.  I'll have to take some pics and upload them.  My potatoes are thriving, my beans are coming up, lettuce almost ready, carrots coming up sunflowers growing and everything else looking good.

With taking care of my garden and yard I've been pulling up weeds.  I started thinking about the significance of weeds as pertains to my walk with Christ.  My thoughts came to Matthew 13:24-30 and the Parable of the Weeds.  In the story Jesus talks about the Kingdom being a place where the wheat and weeds grow together for a time.  The servants ask if they should separate them.  The owner instructs to allow them to grow together and separate them at the harvest.  Jesus goes on the explain the parable in verses 36-43.  As I was pulling weeds I was thinking about people in my life who right now at least appear to be weeds.  So I prayed for the weeds that I know that they may be shown to be wheat.

Another random thought I had came about because of the lovely poison ivy now irritating my fingers.  Why do we have things like poison ivy?  It's similar to questions I've asked about the purpose of mosquitoes or other parts of creation that seem to just be a nuisance.  Perhaps poison ivy does serve some good purpose.  I sure would like to know what it is.  For right now it's a painful reminder of the Fall.  The event and events that make up the Fall are all around.  I think of poison ivy as something that's not right; as part of creation that is fallen in its purpose.  We see people around the world torn apart from God and from each other as a result of the Fall.  People hurting, creation groaning waiting for the Fall to be permanently made right.  The poison ivy is reminding me of my own fallenness.  I say "event and events" because at times we like to blame Adam for humanities fallenness.  But I have to admit my compliance with Adam's decision to turn from God every time I turn away from God myself.

I'd like to think that gardening is all great.  But the reality is that there are hard things to deal with in the garden.  There are weeds that will be destroyed, so I pray for the weeds hoping they might turn out to be something different.  And there's poison ivy reminding me that all is not right yet with Creation or with my own relationship with Christ.