I loved this article by Karina Kreminski, author of Urban Spirituality​, Embodying God's Mission In The Neighborhood, on a recent Missio Alliance Blog and asked her permission to repost it here. 

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NT Wright has written:
Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s prayer is about.

We’ve just come throught the season of Eastertide in which we continue to think about what it means to “practice the resurrection” in our daily lives. What does it mean to live daily as people who are a foretaste of the kingdom? What does it look like to embody the fragrance of heaven here on earth as we wait for the consummation of the reign of God?

In my last article I wrote:
Instead of practicing a Gnostic Christianity, or holding to an eschatology that leads us to thinking that we will ultimately live a disembodied existence in a ghostly place called heaven, we must see this world as our home and engage in homemaking practices or habits that will help us work with God to bring his rule on earth. And we must do this locally because the local space is where God has placed us to be God’s shalom to our neighbors as we work together for God’s rule to manifest.

If we are to work with God’s mission to proclaim and embody his shalom in our world, then we must see this world as our ultimate home that God is bringing to restoration. This means that instead of primarily seeing this earth as our place of exile, which is a popular Christian metaphor for our relationship to the world, we see ourselves as homemakers in a reconstruction plan that is God inspired and designed.
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If we are to work with God's mission to proclaim and embody his shalom in our world, then we must see this world as our ultimate home that God is bringing to restoration.

To Join God’s Mission is to Be a Homemaker

To be a homemaker does not mean that we can become comfortable. In our culture, homemaking can have connotations of settling down, insularity, and becoming complacent. Rather, homemaking from a missional perspective means that we discern the Spirit of God who is on mission in our neighborhoods where God has placed us. We bring affirmation to the places that represent the shalom of God. We disrupt and subvert the places that do not.

So what are some homemaking practices that we can be engaging today in our local neighborhoods? Here are three of them: celebration, re-enchantment, and placemaking.

1. Celebration

When we celebrate, we challenge the status quo which mocks us by saying “This is all there is.” When we celebrate, we embody hope—which is a subversion of our culture of despair.

Everyone on earth is acquainted with death, grief, and despair. We live in the “in-between times” where we wait for the consummation of the reign of God. There must be more room in Christian worship for lament, solidarity with those who suffer, and righteous anger towards the dark powers in our world.

However, we must not forget that our ultimate posture is joy because of the victory of Jesus Christ over those dark powers which cause such despair. As the authors of Slow Church write:

The resurrection of Jesus relieves us of the fear of death. ‘Where oh death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?’ (1 Cor 15:55). But the fuller story of the New Testament is that God’s people have been resurrected as the body of Christ. Just as Jesus is the embodiment of the shalom that God intends for creation, the church’s role in the drama of creation is likewise to be the embodiment of God’s shalom, albeit in a form that hasn’t yet been fully realized.

A characteristic of this shalom? Joy and celebration. These are foundational for God’s people as we make our pilgrim journey in our ultimate homeland.

As we work among the poor and the marginalized, we will often be plagued with feelings of inadequacy. The challenges of ministry in these broken places can be overwhelming. Most missionaries in these grief-filled contexts also make a habit to practice celebration—not only to create a positive atmosphere, but to prophetically embody the coming kingdom when we will see the death of death.

We can celebrate the progress that our neighborhoods are making towards God’s shalom. We can affirm people when they take small steps towards healing and breakthrough. We can celebrate community groups as they work to relieve inadequacies such as homelessness.

What if Christians were known for hosting and attending the most parties and events that celebrate the life of your community?

Where can you see God’s shalom peeping through the darkness in your neighborhood—and how can you then celebrate that?

2. Re-enchantment

In his book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor writes that the sacred has been stripped from the daily stuff of life. Contrary to Christendom—where church bells rang to call the faithful to prayer and buildings were designed to inspire awe of the merged power of state and Church—today we have no daily reminders of the sacred in our public life.

However, there are still traces of the sacred in the midst of a secular society.

People in our neighborhoods may not find these sacred spaces in churches or liturgy, but there are places in our neighborhoods that can provide context for the sacred.

Madeleine L’Engle has said in her book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art:
There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.
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If we believe that our neighborhoods are sacred in that they are places where God’s Spirit is at work, then what does it mean to bring about “re-enchantment”? Phillip Sheldrake in The Spiritual City: Theology, Spirituality and the Urban says:

Re-enchantment seeks to make public space more than a context for human socialization created purely by consumerism or tourism. Rather, we should work imaginatively and experimentally with public space to make it the medium for a transformation of imagination and behavior through protest gatherings (non-legislative politics), art, education, and entertainment.

This means paying detailed attention to our place. It means working to redeem broken spaces in our communities. It means creating objects, activities, and gatherings that are helpful for people to connect with a sense of their own spirituality.

What does it mean for you to “re-enchant” your neighborhood?

How can a sense of the “sacred” be made visible for your community?

3. Placemaking

​Re-enchantment leads to placemaking as a homemaking practice.

Again, this is about the practice of an embodied, deeply incarnational theology that understands that this world is our ultimate home.

Placemaking relates to the humanizing of a city or a community. Often designers plan cities with technology, cars, and production in mind.

But placemaking seeks the betterment of the city by advocating a more humane approach to design and planning—through mediums such as art, community consultation, and even action-research.

There is continuity between this world and the next. It is our responsibility and privilege to be placemakers in our local neighborhoods, redeeming what is needed and affirming what already exists that is good, just, and true.

In every sense, place-making is about beautifying, engaging with, and contributing to the local city neighborhood for its good. We can do this by engaging with local community groups involved in the design of our neighborhoods. We can also do this by making friends with local artists who work to bring beauty to the places where we live.

Making A Home in Your Neighborhood

What is the vision of “the good neighborhood” God would have for your community once you tell and embody the story of the reign of God in that place?

If we engage in homemaking practices, then we will be at work with God on his mission to bring his shalom into our world. We will then be the fragrance of another reality in a world that longs for the manifestation of a hope that can truly be trusted.

Homemaking from a missional perspective means that we discern the Spirit of God who is on mission in our neighborhoods where God has placed us. Here’s three practical ways we can enter into that work.

Last weekend, we celebrated Pentecost as we gathered for our Community Creativity Session to dream together and reimagine what it means to live out the gospel together in our neighborhoods. We took inventory of all the gifts within our faith community and our neighborhoods and we were overwhelmed with the abundance of what is possible. And the Spirit began to breathe on some collective ideas and there was some good energy around continuing to explore where the Spirit is leading us.

And then as we gathered for worship on Sunday, Carrie Cates spoke so eloquently to us about the gift and the wonder of the Spirit -- and how we as followers of Jesus and as part of His body are filled with the Spirit. And one line that keeps reverberating within me is this.

Through the work of the Spirit, we have enough.

We have everything we need to be faithfully present to God and to our neighbors. We have everything we need to live into God's Dream. We have enough. We are enough. We don't have to wait until.... when.... if.... this and that happens... when we get healed or free or trained or we get a different job or our kids grow up or we win the lottery.

The Spirit within us is enough.

And this seemed to coalesce so beautifully with Saturday's Creativity Session. As we did our asset mapping, we experienced an epiphany together.

There is more than enough.

There is an abundance of riches. And anything is possible.

For with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. -Matt 19:26

And what you or me on our own could never accomplish, WE can. What we would never have the bandwidth or skills or energy to do on our own becomes possible with the power of the collective WE.

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much. -Helen Keller

And not only possible -- FUN! You could feel it palpably in the room! To begin to realize that all the dreams that seem so far out of reach are actually possible! And that there is deep meaning, connection and joy found in the discovery of abundance, creativity and shared gifts.

For me, this is the dream. When we all come together in the community to share our small gifts, a few fish, a couple of loaves, a gift of finance, a gift of cooking, a gift of gardening, a gift of therapy, a gift of wood working to experience the miracle. To bear witness to what happens when the same Spirit that multiplied the fish and the loaves for the multitudes breathes on our humble offerings.

And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to dream big.

​This was something that was discerned in our time together. That if we shoot for Mars, we just might end up on the Moon. And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to leave behind our worldview of scarcity and all the reasons why we simply cannot live into the dream to turn towards a worldview of the kingdom that says...

There is more than enough.

In fact, there is an abundance. And all thing are possible with God. And it's going to more wild and challenging and joyful and meaningful than we could ever imagine.

Those who sign on and depart the system of anxious scarcity become the historymakers in the neighborhood. -Walter Brueggemann

The Spirit is here. Pouring out dreams and visions and fresh revelation and imagination that are prophetic invitations to us in our day and in our time. And these dreams are for everyone, regardless of gender, class, age and race. This big and beautiful Dream of God is for everyone!

So go ahead.

Dream big.

‘In the last days,’ God says, 
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. 
Your sons and daughters will prophesy. 
Your young men will see visions, 
and your old men will dream dreams. 
In those days I will pour out my Spirit 
even on my servants–men and women alike– 
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

​by Jessica Ketola

This Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the church and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles even as we come together for our Community Creativity Session in our own holy huddle to wait for the inspiration and empowerment of the Spirit. We will commemorate the bestowal of the Spirit’s gifts that enabled the apostles to leave the Upper Room and preach the Gospel just as we will wait for the Spirit to enable us also to leave our safe and silo'd lives to be good news to our neighbors. And we will remember that God is with us, from Creation to Mount Sinai to Pentecost to today, the presence of God upon God's people, revealed in wind and fire is our beautiful Holy Spirit who is continuing to lead us just as the cloud of shekinah glory led the Israelites through the wilderness. 

Pentecost derives its origin from a Jewish Festival called the “Feast of Weeks,” otherwise known as the Shavu’ot, which celebrated God's providence and the harvest of wheat. The Feast of Weeks, deriving from the Greek word Pentekostos (meaning “fifty”) occurs fifty days after the Passover. Shavu'ot soon came to commemorate the covenant God established with his people through Moses on Mount Sinai as many believe that Moses received the Law on Sinai during the Feast of the Weeks. And so just as the shekinah glory descended on the mountain as God bestowed a covenant with God's people, so the Holy Spirit descended in the upper room as God bestowed a new covenant of his blood. And gifts were poured out in abundance, hearts were emboldened, and the all inclusive sweeping nature of the gospel was made known as a multicultural crowd heard this revolutionary message in their own language. And the Church was birthed as three thousand hearts were compelled to join God's dream in the world, fulfilling the words of the prophet Joel.

‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants–men and women alike–
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

This Saturday, as The Feast of Weeks begins, we will meet for our Community Creativity Session to celebrate that God's Spirit has been poured out upon all people. And we will remember that we are a part of this sweeping story of God that is so much bigger than ourselves and includes everything and everyone! We will pray for the Spirit to move upon us so that every man, woman and child regardless of race, class, gender or difference can hear the good news in a way that makes sense to them. And as we stir up creativity and imagination, we will pray for the gifts of the Spirit to be poured out upon us propelling us into God's Dream for our neighborhoods. And we will prophetically call forth that which is unseen. We will share visions and dreams. And we will pray for the Spirit to continue to birth her work among us.

​by Jessica Ketola

I was recently asked to share my story at the Inhabit Conference on April 27-28, 2018 in Seattle and so thought I'd share it here as well.

This is my story of the foolish and audacious yes -- a glorious and daunting tale of saying yes to what the Spirit is birthing in our community. And it is not for the faint of heart. But I believe that this is what the Spirit is up to today. Beckoning us to leave behind what is familiar, we are being asked to cross the threshold into the wilderness. To leave behind what is dead and lifeless and the systems of oppression to step into the new, into life and into freedom. To let go of our own small, individual stories to be invited into a much larger story that is so compelling, it is worth giving our lives to.
 
foolish and audacious yes #1
Five years ago, my first foolish and audacious yes was to sign myself up for a program called Leadership in the New Parish. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had never attended the Inhabit Conference. I didn’t really know much about the Parish Collective. All I knew was that I was desperate to find a way forward and to explore new practices and paradigms for church.
 
For I was well aware that our current models were for the most part failing us, and yet I was still very much immersed in them. At the time, I was the associate pastor of a small but vibrant Vineyard community church in Shoreline, Washington, where I also served as the director our local nonprofit, Turning Point. But while there were only a few of us who lived in the community where our church building was located, we had intentioned to be a presence for good in our neighborhood. We were following the missional conversation and longing to practice the way of Jesus. And so we did a lot of listening -- opening up our building to be a cold weather shelter, being a part of community round tables, starting a food bank giving garden, birthing a nonprofit, and investing in immigrant youth and families in the neighborhood. And yet in spite of all of this, we began to see that our model of church was actually at times working against us - working against the embodiment of our faith to live into the teachings of Jesus in a transformative way.
 
And so over the course of that year, I began to have a new imagination for what the kingdom could look like in my community and in my neighborhood and it set me on a trajectory that has forever changed the course of my life and of our faith community.
 
foolish and audacious yes #2
And so my second foolish and audacious yes was to the invitation of the Spirit to move into the neighborhood. We sold our home. We uprooted our family of 6. And we took some huge risks. Because we weren’t entirely convinced that this neighborhood stuff would really work in our suburban/semi-urban context. We didn’t look like many of the neighborhoods that were having success in more urban and walkable neighborhoods. But would it work here? And would we be able to transition our commuter church to have an imagination to root in our neighborhoods? Was this even possible?

Now I wish I could tell you that it all went glowingly after this. But as we journeyed to follow the Spirit into the unknown, we found that often life comes out of death. New paradigms are birthed out of disorientation. New assignments are born out of scattering and wilderness. This is the way of the Spirit, of transformation, of death and of birth.
 
And so our first attempts at neighboring were pretty much a flop. Who knew it was so hard to get to know your neighbors? We held barbecues in our front yard that no one came to. We baked cookies as offerings of friendship that were never returned. I have vivid images of my husband who would literally run after the neighbor’s car down our driveway just to say hello.
 
foolish and audacious yes #3
Our third foolish and audacious yes was to disrupt the status quo in our faith community. And this is where it got real. We were growing increasingly discontent with the way that our lived experience as the church was forming us and how irrelevant we seemed to our neighbors. So we entered a community discernment process and made the decision to move our regular Sunday service to a Sunday night dinner church and the whole thing blew up. I mean, for real. The ugly church stuff that those of you who have lived through are now having PTS symptoms just thinking of it, and half of our community left. I know this may not be exactly heartening to you. But it is what happened. It was horrible. Awful. I cried every day and at times, our lead pastor and I considered just giving up, throwing in the towel and going to work for Amazon. We felt disillusioned and disoriented, and yet somehow through it all, the Spirit sustained us.
 
foolish and audacious yes #4
It was less than a year later when I said my fourth foolish and audacious yes -- which was the biggest yet (you think I would have learned my lesson by now) -- but I said yes to step in as lead pastor. Utterly foolish after our beloved pastor of 20 years was forced to resign suffering from congestive heart failure. This was another huge blow. Utterly audacious to believe that there was still hope for our struggling and now traumatized congregation.
 
But I had this crazy good dream, this fire in my belly. You see I had no interest in doing church if it meant more of the same religious activity. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with it. But this dream. Where our neighborhoods are pulled into shalom, seeking justice for those without power and privilege, where everyone across difference, race and class are coming together to seek the flourishing of our communities. The hope of seeing God revealed here in us, the body of Christ - where our neighbors begin to see that God is for them, where church is experienced around the table, and hopes are shared on the bus and the coffee shop and the community forums. This, this was compelling.

And so this is where the story gets crazy good. For we as the church are celebrating Eastertide and we know that there is life after death. And I have seen miracle upon miracle of this spirit of resurrection at work in our church and in our neighborhood. It has been just over one year since we re-launched The Practicing Church in our living room and I’m beginning to believe that this dream is actually possible. We have seen many miracles of the Spirit: sending us people across the country to join us; opening up housing so that we could live in proximity; miracles of finances and jobs in the neighborhood; miracles of friendships and shared life with our neighbors as we share a weekly meal together and connect over parties, fire pits and summer bbq's. And we are beginning to be a part of the fabric of care here, active in our neighborhood associations and schools, hosting a social justice book club, participating on diversity and equity task forces, breaking bread with our immigrant neighbors and continuing to be faithfully present to children and families through our after school tutoring program.  
 
And I feel like I’m home. I no longer feel the incongruence and disconnects of my former church experience. And while we are only just beginning to live into God’s dream, learning what it means to be faithfully present, it feels resonate and integrated in a way that I have never experienced before. And yet we still don’t know what it’s going to look like. We are staring into the darkness of the unknown, waiting for the Spirit to lead us on. But we believe with all of our hearts that the Spirit is birthing something new in the church, inviting us to believe that there is a better way - to live as a beautifully diverse beloved community into the dare of the gospel.

And so the question remains.
 
Will we be just foolish enough?

Just audacious enough?
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To say yes?
 
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” -God Knows by Minnie Haskins

by Jessica Ketola