Product Description

Using the most compelling e-mail conversations from theOoze.com, an online meeting place for those interested in postmodern spirituality, author Spencer Burke comments on and guides the reader through subjects such as authentic community, experiential worship, the internet and God, and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #787690 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 174 pages

From the Back Cover
Samplings of online discussions about God, truth, and church—from theOoze.com

Our culture is rapidly changing andpeople are searching for new models and paradigms to find meaning in their lives. As in all transitional periods, this search takes place in grass-roots conversations where the "new" is taking form. No other place so uniquely captures this struggle more than the message boards at theOoze.com, the premier melting pot of emerging spiritual conversation.

Making Sense of Church is a snapshot of this "community conversation" as it tries to make sense of God in the emerging worldview. It represents a gathering of individuals with different points of view, theologies, life contexts, and feelings. Author Spencer Burke, creator of theOoze.com, provides the framework writing for each chapter and acts as a "guide" to the accompanying e-mail postings that supplement the chapters.

Subjects discussed include: • Authentic Community • Experiential Worship • The Internet and God • Art as a Vehicle for Communicating Truth • Spirituality and Sexuality • What Is the Church? • What Is Postmodernism?

About the Author
During the last 22 years of ministry, Spencer Burke has explored his passion for arts, technology, and the church. Spencer now serves at both THEOOZE and at his church, ROCKharbor, in Costa Mesa, California. As creator and sustainer of THEOOZE, Spencer has the opportunity to merge all of his passions together into one organization as he strives to understand what being a real and authentic follower of Jesus means in our world. ROCKharbor gives him the privilege to serve on the elder board, the speaking team, and---as strategic planner---facilitator and counselor to the staff.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Making Sense of Church Copyright © 2003 Spencer Burke Youth Specialties product, 300 South Pierce Street, El Cajon, CA 92020, are published by Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Avenue SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49530 ISBN-10: 0-310-25499-X ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25499-7 Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version (North American Edition). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Web site addresses listed in this book were current at the time of publication. Please contact Youth Specialties via e-mail (YS@YouthSpecialties.com) to report URLs that are no longer operational and replacement URLs if available. Edited by David Sanford Interior and Cover design by Ricardo Lopez De Azua (Prototype Syndicate). Printed in the United States of America. 03 04 05 06 07 08 • 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Reality Check—Metaphors for Transition_25 The word "postmodern" first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1949. Postmodern is what’s come about after—and often in reaction to—modernism, which dominated Western thought for a majority of the twentieth century. In recent decades, every major sphere of life has evolved to become postmodern— movies, literature, art, architecture, business, politics. Everything, that is, except "The Church." In many ways, the church is the last bastion of modernism in our culture. It’s not that the church hasn’t changed over the years, but the changes have been cosmetic. We’ve unplugged organs, padded pews, removed shag carpet, and added video projectors. Meanwhile, everything else in our culture has undergone a complete metamorphosis. The changes are so radical that some parts of our culture are barely recognizable to modern eyes. The world has changed Been to a movie lately? Forget linear, moralistic plots. Instead, films like Memento and Being John Malkovich and newer releases continue to push the limits of visual storytelling. Bizarre, brain-twisting movies, these films demand their viewers to create meaning for themselves. Locations and time frames are deliberately ambiguous. Characters are complex contradictions—a fascinating mix of good, evil, and things in between. The same can be said of postmodern literature. In the past fifty years, a new character has emerged: the antihero. No longer can we assume that the good guy will win in the end. Such expectations seem nostalgic, if not painfully naïve. In our experience, the world just doesn’t work like that. What about business? We’ve come to accept that profits, not people, are the ultimate priority. Corporate downsizing has become an everyday occurrence. Chances of working for the same company for forty years and someday picking up a gold watch for your trouble are slim. Can you imagine 1950s TV dad Ward Cleaver ever losing his job? I didn’t think so. In today’s world, though, nothing is certain. Dot coms are here today and gone tomorrow. Hostile takeovers are a way of life, and strategic mergers an apparent necessity. The landscape continuously shifts, and only those who adapt quickly seem to survive. Our politics have shifted, too. Criticize big government in the 1950s and a sweaty senator from Wisconsin might interrogate you on national television and brand you a traitor. In the 1960s, however, the rules began to change. Sit-ins and protests paved the way for a greater degree of free speech. Today, we’re able to protest to our hearts’ content. Why? Because we’ve come to see just how fallible our leaders are. History has shown us that U.S. presidents, in spite of their power and prestige, still manage to lie and lust like everyone else. We no longer have illusions about these things. As a country, we’ve come to distrust authority, recognizing instead that our nation is indeed capable of getting involved in unjust wars, and that we, too, have the potential to oppress people in other countries for our own economic gain. The divine right of kings—or authority figures, in general—is dead. We’ve seen too much. The reality is, postmodernism is not a fad. It’s not a hot new trend we can ride out and ignore. Whether or not you realize it, you live in a postmodern world—and you have been living in it for quite some time! It’s like Madge, the Palmolive lady, used to say: "You’re soaking in it." There’s no point in pretending that you’re not— or wishing that things would go back to the way they were thirty years ago. They can’t; you can’t. No fountain of youth exists. The challenge, of course, is determining what all of this means for the church and knowing how to move forward. What does it mean to be postmodern and Christian? If such a combination is possible, then what does a "postmodern church" look like? And just how far are we willing to go in unwrapping the evangelical package? Rising to the challenge Oddly enough, Jesus found himself at the center of a similar cultural debate. Remember the discussion about whether God’s people should pay taxes to Caesar? Forever trying to trip up Jesus, the religious leaders of the day sent out men to challenge him on his obedience to the law. "Teacher," they said, "we know that you speak and teach what is right and are not influenced by what others think. You sincerely teach the ways of God. Now tell Reality Check—Metaphors for Transition_27 us—is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?" (Luke 20:21–22 NLT). What does Jesus do? He asks them to show him a coin. "Whose picture and title are stamped on it?" Upon hearing their answer, "Caesar’s," he simply replies, "Well then, give to Caesar what belongs to him. But everything that belongs to God must be given to God." It’s crazy, really. Considering that Jesus could make coins appear anywhere he wanted, including inside a fish’s mouth (Matthew 17:24–27), did he really need to give an answer to this question? Since it’s all God’s, why not tell these people off, or just ignore them and move on? Perhaps Jesus was making a point about respecting the culture in which we live. In a wonderful, sarcastic and playful way, Jesus affirmed his deity while acknowledging the reality of life on planet Earth. True, this world is not our home, so we don’t necessarily have to play by its rules, but we may choose to do so for the cause of Jesus Christ. Yet in doing so, we may sometimes find ourselves at odds with other Christians. I find it interesting that Jesus instructed the people to figure out what was Caesar’s. In most of life, that’s not as easy as it sounds. The more I think about Jesus’ statement, the more convinced I become that taking a hard look at our lives is actually biblical. As I see it, postmodernism provides an unprecedented opportunity for selfexamination. By its very nature, postmodernism offers us a chance to think long and hard about why we do the things we do. It forces us to wrestle with our beliefs and our traditions, our programs and our theology, all in an effort to uncover those aspects of our faith that are really and truly God’s—and, by extension, those that are not. Still, the concept of deconstruction is a scary one. We get nervous at the thought of deconstructing anything—primarily because we’re afraid if we pull our religion apart, we may end up with nothing in the end. We picture home repair projects gone wrong—with heaven or hell hanging in the balance. Never mind an angry spouse.

Customer Reviews

This book has attitude. The right kind of attitude.
I have to admit that my shelves are getting a bit too full of books that teach us all about postmodernism and how the church should respond. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to read another one, but when I saw that Making Sense of Church was written by Spencer Burke, founder of TheOoze.com, I knew this one would be worth reading. It's not because he has become a "voice" for postmodern ministry, but because he has enabled so many other voices to be heard.

And that's what makes this book so unique. Spencer gives voice to those who would otherwise go unheard. This is more a collection of viewpoints-often conflicting-than it is a traditional book. Each chapter is a mixture of observations from his personal journey with dozens of posts from TheOoze's discussion boards.

This blending of viewpoints accomplishes what the author hopes the church can do-enter "an era where we can have meaningful, compassionate conversations with each other, no matter where our allegiances lie-modern or postmodern, Eastern Orthodox or Catholic, mega church or house church."

Admittedly, for the first few chapters I felt like this was territory that's already been explored. Some of the ideas are covered elsewhere by popular authors like Leonard Sweet. It's the later chapters that made the book worth it for me. Chapter 7, "Adversary to Ally," makes me carry on some rather uncomfortable internal dialogue. Some of the chapter frustrated or even angered me, which is why this book needs to be read. It forces me to ask some of the questions I don't want to ask, because I'm afraid of the answers I may find. In reality, what I'm discovering is that they actually lead to even deeper and more challenging questions. Which in turn shapes me into a more honest and faithful follower of Jesus.

Can this book be one part of "a bridge between these camps" of modern and postmodern argument within the church? Between conservative and liberal? As I read the book, I can easily see fundamentalists dubbing this liberalism and the liberal camp thinking some of the observations are boringly conservative. Hopefully we can embrace the attitude that this book communicates-an attitude that seeks to understand before it tries to be understood. An attitude of deep, rich, and meaningful conversation.

The Metaphors of our Lives and Culture
The books is a series of changing metaphors that are hitting culture and our church right now as seen through the eyes and life of Spencer Burke and many of the users of TheOoze.com's message boards. The result is this roadmap of change that is happening all around us told through story and rich visual metaphors.

The book is one of the best I have read this year and is one that as a pastor I have ordered for the rest of the churches leadership to read as a starting place to help them find their bearings in a world of changing values and worldviews.

The book is written from the viewpoint of a person who was in church leadership. It looks at many of the changes from that point of view. While the book can be read and understood by anyone, the perspective is that of a leader and shows that point of view. The cool part is that Spencer uses his own pastoral ministry as not a "do like me" but more of "learn from my mistakes and find your own path".

Some of the book has been covered by other authors (but hey, that are all writing on the same topic so some overlap is going to happen) but there were several sections in the book which generated some serious introspective thought and reflection. I have read the book three times now and each time brings out more I need to think through.

Unlike some books on the church by those inside it, Spencer show humility, grace, and a great sense of humor.

The book is not one that you will just read and put down but one of those books that will be re-read years from now. You may want a couple of copies to give away to friends as well (they probably won't want to give it back)

Different metaphors to guide your church
Spencer Burke offers an insighful view into the metaphors which have been guiding the established evangelical church here in the West. Rather than just a stinging critique of the established church, Spencer offers different metaphors which will help guide the church in this postmodern age.

The contributions by many who post on theooze offer a variety of perspectives and paints an interesting picture of the church in today's age. Spencer brings these conversations from theooze in to each chapter showing this isn't just one man's vision for the church, this is what God is inspiring in the body of Christ.