Journeying in the Wilderness

Forming Faith in the 21st Century

Terri Martinson Elton

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781506455600
• eBook ISBN: 9781506455617
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In Journeying in the Wilderness, author Terri Martinson Elton observes that faith formation in the church setting is contextual, and multiple forces are coming together today to create seismic contextual changes at record speed. These changes are disrupting aspects of our lives, challenging assumptions, and dislodging personal and communal practices. For the church to take seriously its call to form faith in each generation, it must be attentive to current contextual realities. Elton places confessional understanding of faith in dialogue with five contextually altering forces in order to provide a pathway for congregations to reimagine faith formation in the midst of twenty-first-century realities. The use of stories, nontechnical language, and biblical perspectives make this work accessible for congregational leaders and others who seek to explore new directions in forming faith. Processes and practices are offered to help both leaders and congregations contextualize their approach to their particular settings. Each chapter includes leadership competencies, shared practices, and group discussion questions.

4

People on the Move: #LivingAbundant

The social fabric is tearing across this country, but everywhere it seems healers are rising up to repair their small piece of it. They are going into hollow places and creating community, building intimate relationships that change lives one by one.^[1]

Our Minnesota winter came early that year. By Thanksgiving, the single-digit temperatures made it feel like January. The day after Thanksgiving would have been a nice day to stay inside and make Christmas cookies, but our daughter had an alternative plan—get outside. Our family loves being outside in the summer and fall, but our daughter wanted to #OptOutside—more on that below—in the winter. So on Black Friday, with the windchill below zero, we prepared to spend the day outside.

If you wanted to challenge societal norms, would you choose consumerism’s biggest holiday to do an experiment? That’s what outdoor-gear store REI did. REI, a purpose-led co-op of sixteen million members, believes “a life outdoors is a life well lived.”^[2] On Black Friday 2015, they embodied that purpose as they closed their doors (something no other large retailer had done before), paid their employees to be outside, and invited America to join. Participants used the hashtag #OptOutside to share images of their outdoor adventures, and more than 1.4 million people and 170 companies and nonprofit organizations did. It was an experiment that worked. The next year, #OptOutside quadrupled, and now fifteen million people and 700 organizations have “created a new tradition to #OptOutside on Black Friday.”^[3] REI is advancing their mission and cultivating a vision for living well as they experiment their way into the future.

REI has a long tradition (eighty years) of making great outdoor gear accessible, offering adventure experiences for all abilities, and telling inspiring stories, but REI’s mission is not complete until outdoor activity is helping everyone live well. REI is concerned about society’s sedentary lifestyle, citing that half of Americans are not doing any sort of outdoor activity.^[4] #OptOutside addresses this challenge, as do research and partnering with hundreds of organizations. #OptOutside is not about a day or event; it is about an abundant way of life.^[5]

A New Narrative

As I see it, Christian formation is the number one challenge facing the church today. Declining church attendance and an increase in people not claiming any religious affiliation are signs our current approaches to forming faith are not working. What risks will the church take to address this challenge? What experiments will it engage in to witness to future generations? It is time for the church to boldly live its mission and embody a new narrative.

The church is not dying. God is present and active, the Holy Spirit continues to transform, and Christians regularly pray and confess their belief in the triune God. The church is being disrupted. Dying and disrupted are different; death is the absence of life, whereas disruptions happen in the midst of life. Disruptions close paths as they open others, forcing the church to change current patterns and experiment with new forms—but the church is more than patterns and forms. The church is God’s, and its future is a gift we receive, not something we create. As God’s people dwell, listen, and wait with open hands, minds, and hearts, God shows up. The path to the future is discerning God’s presence in the midst of disruptions and the uncertainties of the wilderness.

The future expression of church is not yet apparent, but characteristics are emerging. As I’ve already said, the church is becoming less established and more fluid. Decentralized and dispersed, it looks and behaves differently than before, functioning more like a network than a hierarchy. The church of the future is agile, with unprecedented collaborations, blurred boundaries, unique communities of learning, and leaders equipped in a constellation of ways. It appears haphazard and chaotic as conventional lines of authority give way to addressing real-world challenges, but the Spirit is at work sparking imagination and bringing forth new voices. God is creating, redeeming, and sustaining life, and we are invited to participate.

While some people want the institutional church to lead the church into the future, the truth is, ordinary people doing extraordinary things have always been the way God’s future has entered the world. Transformed by God’s love and directed by God’s promised future, we are a becoming people. Placed in the world and on the move, we are invited to join God in co-creating the future. Like it or not, God’s crazy plan for redeeming the world includes us. Are you ready to lean into this wilderness journey?

Like it or not, God’s crazy plan for redeeming the world includes us.

Abundant Life

God has a vision for our future. Revelation 21 offers a picture of that future. Seeing a new heaven and earth, a voice says, “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone” (Revelation 21:3–4, The Message). God’s vision is a world with no tears, no death, no pain, and God literally living with us. The old is gone, and our home becomes God’s home. What can we learn about abundant life from God’s vision for our future?

First, God is about life. God’s first and last moves focus on life,^[6] with Christ’s resurrection as God’s signature on the world. Life is God’s powerful creative and redemptive force in the world. God’s life force is wired into all living things. God sees potential for life in all aspects of the world, and God wants all of creation to live abundantly. Life, not death, has the final word.

Second, life with God transforms our existence. Christ’s resurrection offers life after death, but it also transforms life on earth.^[7] Baptism marks our transformed existence and offers us practices for living abundantly. As we “live among God’s faithful people, . . . hear the Word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper, . . . proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, . . . serve all people following the example of Jesus, and . . . strive for justice and peace in all the world,”^[8] we live connected to God, others, and the world. This way of life frames our everyday encounters and guides our witness. Transformed by God’s grace, people of faith promote life and resist anything not focused on life.

Third, abundant life is a foretaste of God’s promised future. While the future God promises will not be fully realized until the end of time, Christians orient their everyday encounters toward God’s vision. By striving for justice, serving all people, and sharing the Lord’s Supper, people of faith taste God’s future now. As hope displaces despair, love overcomes hate, and peace comforts troubled souls, the gap between God’s future and the world’s present struggle is reduced, and God’s people live as if God’s future is among us.

Fourth, abundant life is driven by hope. Faith reorients time. Revelation 21 is a word of hope for the present, grounded in the past with an eye to the future.^[9] It is a reminder of God’s faithfulness across time. God is actively creating, sustaining, and reconciling the world, even when we do not see it. This was true for our ancestors, and it is true for us. The world is not yet as God intends, but we can trust God will bring it to completion.^[10] Suffering and pain call the future into question, but life is a vigorous force. Hope pulls us toward a future where life is more powerful than death. God’s grace and love fuel abundant life, sending us into the world with the capacity to see beyond current circumstances.

The Christian life is framed by a theology of abundance. Abundant living allows God’s grace and love to continually transform our lives. Martin Luther wanted to live every day in God’s abundance, so each morning, he made the sign of the cross on his forehead and prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide his day. A theology of abundance changes how we see ourselves and the world. Because God sees possibilities for life everywhere, we also trust in life’s creative and redemptive power. As we join God in creating, sustaining, and redeeming life, we participate in co-creating the future and live abundantly.

A theology of abundance changes how we see ourselves and the world.

Living Particularly

Abundant life is not a utopian lifestyle; it is the by-product of loving God and our neighbor in the ordinary aspects of life. As I said above, Christians are agents of God’s love, co-shaping the future. All of us have this same call, but we each live it differently. The ways we push against hate, evil, and death are dictated by the particulars of our lives. Loving our neighbor is not an add-on; it is integrated into everyday living through the particularities of our work, relationships, and context. For example, I love my neighbors in Minnesota as a teacher, author, mother, and friend. The ways I care for students, tend relationships, and approach writing contribute to how I co-shape the future. My friend Dawn loves her neighbors in New York as an actress, coach, business owner, and daughter. As she shares her gifts inside and outside the church, she embodies a vision of God’s creativity and encourages people to discover God’s unique design for them. My sister-in-law Erin loves her neighbors in California as a pastor, colleague, mother, and healing touch therapist. She embodies grace and works for justice in her official capacities as well as her community involvement. Each of us has different locations, relationships, and roles that situate us differently in the world. God’s love moves into the neighborhood through us. Seeing every moment as the possibility for life and love, God’s dispersed people are a powerful force in the world.

The theological concept for this idea is vocation. The word vocationcomes from a Latin word meaning “to call.” Longbefore career counselors or life coaches talked about vocation, Christians used the term to refer to how their everyday lives were made holy. Martin Luther saw vocation as a way to remind people everyone has the same status before God. We all are saved by grace and receive faith as a gift. Vocation also informs how our lives are made holy—by loving our neighbor.For Luther, our stations in life, or particular locations, roles, and responsibilities, are particular avenues for loving our neighbor.

The apostle Paul directed first-century followers to live as the unique, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Introduction
• Welcome to the Wilderness: Embracing the Call
• Finding Dynamic Stability: GPS for the Journey
• Discerning the Trail: On the Way
• People on the Move: #LivingAbundant
• Travelers Gathering and Scattering: Sanctuaries, Campfires, and Outposts
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Word and World Books