The Great Reversal

Emmanuel. God with us.
Us the dreamers.
Us the marginalized.
Us the forgotten.
Us the poor.

Emmanuel. God in the flesh.
You offered a new identity.
You restored our humanity.
You called us friends.

King of Kings.
We did not expect you.
Not like this.
A crying babe surrounded by rumor, filth and manure.
You disrupted the Empire with a love so powerful,
A gospel so dangerous,
A message so revolutionary,
Bringing liberation to the poor and to the slave.

Prince of Peace.
You entered a world of violence.
They tried to kill you and the killing continues.
You were a refugee, seeking asylum in a foreign land.
And the innocent blood of 2,000 babies still did not quench their thirst for violence,
Until they nailed your broken body to the cross.
But you conquered violence with peace; hate with love.
And so must we.
​
Savior of The World.
Caesar declared He was Lord and the Savior of The World.
But in your coming lies the greatest reversal the world has ever known.
The poor would be lifted up and the powerful would be brought down.
The hungry would be filled with good things and the rich would be sent away empty.
And a poor and young unwed mother living under oppressive occupation would give birth to the Son of God.
The salvation of the whole world came through a poor, humble servant,
Through a woman with no power
And the vulnerability of a child.
Emmanuel, our God with us.

​by Jessica Ketola

As many of you know, we have been in a process of discerning what we feel the Spirit is inviting us to in the next iteration of The Practicing Church. It is clear that much is shifting in the North American church today. Much is unraveling. The good news, however, is that underneath the unravelling, God is up to something. And we want to be a part of it.

All along, we have known that we didn’t want to do church in the classic way. We often say that we don’t simply want to attend church or go to church, but we want to BE the church embodying love in our neighborhoods. Our desire has been to be a part of how God is refounding the church in the context of the neighborhood, and we are truly passionate about this.

So many of the prophetic voices of our day from social justice activists to community developers, theologians, and on-the-ground practitioners have the same message. Across the diversity of their experiences and contexts, they are convinced that being incarnational in our places is absolutely essential if we are to participate in God's work of reconciliation in the world. We must be love embodied. For we are called to be the body of Christ for a reason. We are meant to to be family, community and a dwelling place for God's presence. And yet, the church is so very fragmented today and must be re-membered and fit together in the context of everyday life.

I am convinced that we must create new forms of being the church that don’t continue to perpetuate the consumerism, individualism and fragmentation of our culture, but that form us in another way. The way of Jesus, the way of love and generosity, and the laying down of our lives. There is another way to live. It is the upside down, subversive way of the kindom that Jesus proclaimed in the radical teachings of the beatitudes that spells out what it looks like to love God and neighbor. This way of love that is impossible to embody outside of the context of community and proximity.

And more and more, I am realizing that I am an evangelist at heart. Not in the traditional sense of getting folks to pray a prayer. But I want people to know the beauty and the goodness of our God. And so many people today do not know this. They are turned off by the messages of religion. They have been harmed in church. And they are seeking something real, something meaningful and beautiful and true.

And so I am passionate about creating fresh and authentic expressions of church that invite those who are currently not in church, whether they are the dones or the nones or some of us who don't know how to be a part of a traditional church. I want to help create places of belonging, hospitality, and formation, where the gifts of the community are activated as we are pulled into a bigger story to join in God’s healing work in the world.

And so I feel the Spirit continuing to invite us to be an incarnational community rooted in the neighborhood. We are longing to be a community that is embodying the presence of Jesus in flesh and blood and living out a way of love that is compelling. I believe that our form of church must be congruent with our values and our mission. For it is true that the medium is the message. Because of this, we are discerning that we want to move our gathering away from the traditional Sunday morning (with all of its inherent meaning about what church is) to sacred gatherings around a dinner.

For we want to create communal spaces that form us around the teachings of Jesus and a way of self-sacrificing love. And we also want to create hospitable places where our neighbors, friends and coworkers can explore their questions and doubts and experience the extravagance of God's goodness and grace. We are also increasingly convinced that the Spirit is at work in our neighborhoods. And we believe that the way forward is to continue to innovate and to pioneer new and yet ancient ways to reclaim faith and community in a time of such fragmentation.

“More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.” -Henri Nouwen


​by Jessica Ketola

 In Advent, we celebrate that God is with us.

God is near. In John 1, we encounter a God, who became flesh and blood to dwell among us. God with skin on, here with us, Immanuel. It is absolutely breath-taking.

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
[I John 1:14 MSG]

All this so that we would see what God is like. So we would see this one-of-a-kind glory, this extravagant goodness, and this bountiful generosity.

This is the mystery of the incarnation (God in human form) that now by the Holy Spirit continues in us, the church. Our shared, everyday lives are to be a sign and a witness that God is near.

For are we not meant to be the community of God embodying the compassion of Jesus in the neighborhoods we live in?

Like Christ, aren't we to be faithfully present amongst our neighbors in the particularities of our places, seeking healing, peace, and the flourishing of all? Are we not called to be fit together brick by brick to be a dwelling place for the presence of God?

God is building a home. God's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what God is building. God used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now God's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. [Eph 2:21-22 MSG]

This is why our current models of church fail us. For we are not called to be individualistic, spiritual consumers but followers of Jesus -- being formed and knit together to join God's work of transformation in the world. Much is at stake. For our current brand of Western Christianity seems to have not only lost its mooring but its spiritual vitality and social credibility. It has sold-out to nationalism, economic imperialism, and the idols of technological progress, materialism, and wanton individualism.

Alan Roxburgh, in Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World, argues that the traditional, institutional church (like other social institutions) no longer works; it is unravelling. The good news, however, is that underneath the unravelling, God is up to something.

“The Spirit is busy re-founding the church for our time... showing us how to embody a way of life that makes space for alternative patterns of organizing life together—not more and better church programming that tries harder and harder to attract people, but a thicker sense of community that joins people together more holistically and organically."

We are called to be the church.

To be an incarnational community that participates in and demonstrates God's goodness to our neighbors.

This is why we emphasize faithful presence over a slick worship gathering and formational practices over spiritual consumption. We want to join God's work already present here in our place, at our neighborhood dinners, at Turning Point community meals, at the Social Justice Book Club, at One Cup Coffee, and at the Methadone Clinic. We want to join with God's work of peace and wholeness in our community by partnering with the city, the schools, local nonprofits, our neighborhood association and other faith communities. And we want to live a way of Love here together in this place in a way that is compelling to our neighbors.

As the letter to Colossians puts it, “In Christ, the fullness of Deity is presently living in bodily form—and you [Colossians, together among yourselves] have the fullness of Christ” [2:9]. This radical vision of a local community incarnating the reign of God now, of God’s future penetrating the present through a Spirit-led extended family, was vital to the dynamic witness and power of the early church.

No one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day.
[John 1:18 MSG]

Jesus, our Immanuel, came to show us a God with us and among us. And as followers of Jesus, we too, are called to be God with skin — embodying the presence of God in the world. We are called to be a visible, viable, social alternative. We are to be a transformative community living life together rooted in our places, joining in God’s work of renewing all things. So that all those around us can see this God as plain as day and can experience God's love present with and among them.

by Jessica Ketola