Brian McLaren's plenary from Faith Forward in Nashville, May 2014

1. framing a converstion
launching a revolution
Text

3. This CartoonChurch.com cartoon by Dave Walker
originally appeared in the Church Times

6. The Universal Unwritten Sunday School Curriculum:
1. We want you to be a good child and church-goer.
2. To be a Christian is to believe certain teachings.
3. We (the church) are here to teach the correct
interpretation of the Bible.
4. Jesus told us how to be nice, be successful, and
go to heaven.
5. Because God is watching, you should be very
careful (and afraid).
6. We are sinners and need forgiveness.
7. You love God by being a good child and church-
goer.

9. What’s missing today is a
high-quality discourse on
rethinking the design and
evolution of the entire
system from scratch.
- Otto Scharmer

13. Death Resurrection
Burial

14. Letting Go Letting Come
Letting Be

15. A Revolutionary Children’s Ministry Curriculum:
1. We want to help you become a life-long follower of
God in the way of Jesus.
2. To be a Christian is to join Jesus in seeking justice
for all, peace for all, and joy for all.
3. God is greater than anyone can explain or
imagine.
4. Jesus gave us good news of a better way to be
human, individually and together.
5. Because God loves (likes) you perfectly, you don’t
have to be afraid.
6. We all make mistakes, God forgives, and we can
learn from our mistakes.
7. You love God by loving all creation with God.

16. 1. We want to help you become a life-long follower of
God in the way of Jesus.
Disciple - life-long learner.
Anticipating stages.
Listening to “testimonies” - stories of faith.
Telling stories of what you’re learning now.
Opt-out option, with an opt-back-in escape clause
Jesus - the Word of God with a unique and needed
message and example

17. 2. To be a Christian is to join Jesus in seeking justice
for all, peace for all, and joy for all.
Romans 14:17 - For the kingdom of God is not a
matter of food and drink, but of justice, peace, and
joy in the Holy Spirit.
Training a new generation of contemplative activists/
reflective practitioners
Joining Jesus - “follow me”
Goal: Christ-like people
Kids as agents of mission in their worlds....

18. 3. God is greater than anyone can explain or
imagine.

19. 19

25. The Bible is the family scrapbook showing how our
ideas of God have grown and changed through
time ... and we are part of that unending
conversation.

26. Isn’t it confusing that there are so many different
understandings of God, when only one can be right?

27. Isn’t it confusing that there are so many different
understandings of God, when only one can be right?
Isn’t it wonderful that we live in a time when so
many are developing fresh ways of imagining God?

28. Isn’t it confusing that there are so many different
understandings of God, when only one can be right?
Isn’t it amazing
that Jesus opens up
a beautiful window into God’s heart?
Isn’t it wonderful that we live in a time when so
many are developing fresh ways of imagining God?

29. 4. Jesus gave us good news of a better way to be
human, individually and together.

30. How to be human in a world of ...
-- Violence, war, conflict, hatred, weapons of mass
destruction, religious hostility
-- Global climate change, overconsumption,
toxification, ecological destruction, greed, sea level
rise, extinction of species, soil depletion, waste
-- Poverty, mass migration, 1% vs. 99%, growing
gap between elites and masses, bought elections,
political corruption, unaccountable corporations,
vulnerable minorities ... and majorities.

31. Good news of the kingdom of God ...
The world as God dreams
it to be ...
Ecosystem of God
Community of God
God’s circle of friendship

32. 5. Because God loves (likes) you perfectly, you don’t
have to be afraid.

33. 5. Because God loves (likes) you perfectly, you don’t
have to be afraid.

34. 5. Because God loves (likes) you perfectly, you don’t
have to be afraid.

35. 6. We all make mistakes, God forgives, and we can
learn from our mistakes.
-- The art of failing wisely and well
-- The joy of being wrong
-- The joy of receiving and giving grace
-- Not a forgiveness market, but a whole grace
economy

36. 7. You love God by loving all creation with God.

37. 7. You love God by loving all creation with God.
What is God’s stance toward all creation?
Damning hostility?
Saving love?

39. Hell
Salvation
History/
The world
Fall
HeavenEden

41. Hell
Salvation
History/
The world
Fall
HeavenEden
Minor Adjustment 1: Inclusivism

42. Salvation
History/
The world
Fall
HeavenEden
Minor Adjustment 2: Universalism

43. Salvation
History/
The world
Fall
Heaven
Eden
Is it time for a paradigm shift?
?

44. Exodus: Liberation & Formation

45. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

46. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy - Beloved community

47. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy

48. Stories in conversation ...
David, Goliath, and the Temple
Two Arks
Pharaoh, Hagar, Solomon
Joshua, Jesus, and the Canaanites
Ezra versus Ruth
Jacob, Esau and Prodigal Son

49. 7. You love God by loving all creation with God.
Training children and youth
to become protagonists (reflective
practitioners/contemplative activists)
in the story of God’s healing love
for all creation.

51. 51

52. 52

53. 53

55. 55

56. 56

59. 59

61. Fr. Vincent Donovan:

62. Religion is our own creation. Its horizons are necessarily
limited to our horizons. Since it is our creation it will serve
us. In a time of social, political, and economic upheaval, we
look to it as that one, solid, taken-for-granted basis to our
lives. It leads us to cling to the forms and structures with
which we are familiar and which we have found
comforting. At the dying of an age and the birth of a new
one, religion will be in the forefront of those institutions
clinging desperately to that immovable rock of unanalyzed
assumptions.
But revelation shatters that rock, disturbs our horizons,
presents a God who is not like us at all, a destabilizing and
surprising God who cannot be used to justify all our
projects; instead, One who asks us questions we do not
want to hear. (The Church in the Midst of Creation, p. 118)

63. Never accept and be content with unanalyzed
assumptions, assumptions about the work, about the
people, about the church or Christianity. Never be
afraid to ask questions about the work we have
inherited or the work we are doing. There is no
question that should not be asked or that is outlawed.
The day we are completely satisfied with what we
have been doing; the day we have found the perfect,
unchangeable system of work, the perfect answer,
never in need of being corrected again, on that day
we will know that we are wrong, that we have made
the greatest mistake of all. (Christianity
Rediscovered, 146)

64. Critical Communities
Dangerous Conversations
Movements
Revolutions
Transformed Institutions

65. framing a converstion
launching a revolution
Text