Pictorial Imagination the new Propositional Thinking

From my favorite daily email, The Daily Asterisk (at Culture Is Not Optional)

The literalism that surrounds us has so steeped our minds in the logic of proposition statements that we've lost our ability to hear anything addressed to the logic of the imagination. Consequently, we miss the point of almost everything Jesus has to say--because it's the logic of images that makes his parables tick. He doesn't give them so that the flickering lights of reason will burn brighter in our heads. He tells them to put out all the lights we have so that in the darkening of mere intellect we can see the images of the true Light who, by his incarnate presence, is the light of every human being. ...Only the logic of the imagination can fathom the parables--or the Bible itself, for that matter.

Robert Farrar Capon
The Fingerprints of God


For people who don't like emergent, or are trying to understand emergent with some frustration - this quote says the hard to grasp, hard to communicate thing that kind of stands between "us and them" mentally/imaginatively - that there is a whole way of thinking in the modern era that we had been locked into, and now we see glimpses of this new way of thinking that is so fundamentally different, that you can't judge the one by the criteria of the other.

ie. when "emergent critical" thinkers try to understand and judge emergent by their, what one might call, "modern intellectual process" they will always find frustration and deem emergent as coming up short. No problem, I can take it. But these constant requests/demands that we explain ourselves to them are always going to fall into this rut, short of the following; Hopefully some of our folks can find ways to bridge that gap, as this post is also attempting to do. But ultimately, they are going to have to do some cross-cultural type thinking themselves and attempt to imagine in a new way. I do believe that will begin to happen.

My New Year's in Times Square

I went out to my front yard for a New Year's celebration, later I noticed the NY Times took a few photos of it, so here they are.

This shot was taken right from our spot in the crowd, which also happens to be a half a block from where Cota started in the Lamb's theater, and where I lived for the last year and a half (so if you had a really big front yard, that would be about the distance of half a block).

I just moved all my storage out of that home yesterday, days before the demolition of the building begins. What a great celebration this was, and what a fitting way for me to end my saga in Times Square, living, starting a church, and enjoying the energy of the place, while being annoyed by the constant touristy crowds and lack of personal amenities like dry cleaning, neighborhood restaurants and cafes, etc. I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I'm glad to be out of there. The normal neighborhoods of NYC are much more comfortable.

This is right where we were next to the Toys R' Us store. I can't believe we didn't make it into this shot and NY Times international fame. Those red hats were passed out by Chevrolet. At first, everyone was clamoring to get one as they would go by and throw them into the crowd. After a while it became apparent that they wanted everyone to have one, and I'm sure somebody got hit in the head while not bothering to care and look up anymore when they came by and threw them into the crowd.

The slow realization that we were being used for the commodification of life became clear during the "on-the-hour celebrations" of the New Year having arrived in Paris, or Easter Island as the earth spun towards our own time zone's New Year, when the confetti that floated down began to have Target ads printed on it. Living in Times Square you realize that there are a number of confetti opportunities throughout the year, and sometimes pieces of it from random events would float onto the roof of the Lamb's Theater - and none of them ever had advertising. So it seems we have crossed a new low here.



We were right next to the yellow triangle, to the right of the top of it. That was a utility stage that had all sorts of equipment and special boom camera's that they could swing out over the crowd, which they did all the time, so I'm sure we got on TV. You can see me in the white hat and white coat. I'm the one not wearing the red chevy hat.

We could just barely see some of the performers on the big white stage at the bottom of the photo. Christina Aguilera wore a big white fur trimmed outfit, along with a big blond wig and so we could see her pretty good.

Seeing as this is just at the end of the block where I lived, I walked through this area every day for the last year and a half. It's funny how different it is when a million other people come by for a visit.

One of my friends had a gut feeling there would be a terror attack – but he came anyway, not sure if that was brave or stupid...I wasn’t sure how I felt, there were reports that there was absolutely no concern by homeland security for a terror attack. But I thought maybe the lack of "chatter" they were picking up might be a sign that they were going to "radio silence" right before the attack. While in that crowd, you can’t help but imagine how easy it really would be for ten terrorists to filter in amongst the crowd and blow up bombs full of anti-personnel shrapnel (remember the "steel balls" in the films Black Sunday and Swordfish).

You wonder why they haven’t attacked since 2001 – are they biding their time for a bigger more significant attack, or have we really undermined them to the point where they can’t do it? It seems a little dramatic to talk about, but here in NYC the thought of it is something that lingers.

By the way, I had a great time down in Georgia visiting my Mom, Stepdad and little brother. They have three acres out in the country outside Atlanta, and I was able to finally get out of the city and relax. I have great hopes for the New Year, and look forward soon to some clarity about what is going to happen to our little struggling church and my life. The possible merge is still in the works but not moving as fast as I'd like. I will keep you updated.

Happy New Year!

Broken and Back

First new post in two months! For the few of you out there who follow my blog, I am back, sorry for the delay, it was inevitable.

You remember I had a hard summer, well I had an even harder fall. I am not some complainer, but God has seen fit to mold me some more in ways that are harder than anything I've gone through in decades. I am here, and my little church is here, and I am amazed that it survived. After a brutal summer where my little church seemed to be falling apart, I thought I was due a time of refreshment and blessing, instead I got the dial turned up. It made my summer feel like a caribbean cruise.

Basically I had a perfect storm of events all hit me and my church all at once and it left me literally homeless, broke, wandering around in a stupor for a month, completely ready to close the church, sad, lonely, cut off from desperately needed resources because I am an emergent leader by powers that be and just sitting there waiting for God to show up and teach me what I was supposed to learn, and re-direct me to where I was supposed to go. I don't want to be overly dramatic, but just so you understand why I couldn't post at all, I had a month where I was literally in a stupor. I was walking around like a zombie - the reality I was living was so far removed from anything I was prepared to understand that I didnt have anything to say or think or do but survive by looking for work to make money.

Now I've learned what he wanted me to learn, at least THE BIG THING. Cota is going forward by teaming with another church whose pastor has been a lifeline for me. Community is what I've always wanted, and it's through community that God has allowed me to resuscitate. I'm actually quite full of joy now as I look forward to many wonderful things that will come out of this new partnership.

Please pray that we will have wisdom in how to structure our relationship - something like a merge, or you could say, we will come alongside each other for some time, and later we will be launched again as our own church - something like that, it's still being worked out. But the key is that I will be doing it with more people than before, and that is wonderful.

The deep inner things God has done in me I'm not quite prepared to talk about in public, but I'm sure I will in the future. I do feel freed and glad to have gone through what I did in order to gain more of God and less of me - or a more "whole" me. Sorry to be vague on this, but it needs some time to settle.

Amahoro

Amahoro means peace. It is a word of Bantu origin used widely across Africa. It has special meaning in places like Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo, where violence and genocide have inflicted such pain and suffering. When people from various tribes embrace, shake hands or kiss, and say "amahoro," they are expressing a deep hope for a better future.

Amahoro my friends. This is a post I'm very passionate about and it has been simmering under the surface for some time while I was busy with so many church creation difficulties on the surface.

There are moments when things find their tipping point, the tip over and all this stuff flows out and starts a whole new reality.

Here is a prophetic statement that I have been feeling for some time - in terms of the emerging church "conversation" evolving from it's early conversation stage to its full blown movement stage - I feel that in a spiritual way and a body of Christ being prepared and ready kind of way - that this big meeting taking place in Uganda in May of 2007 will be one of the biggest, if not the actual moment when this thing tips over and just blows up in so many awesome ways into full fledged movement. You won't see it in April, but a year or two later when you look back, there will be evidence that this was the moment. End of prophetic statment.

What is this big meeting.? It is when disoriented westerners like us, trying to find our way forward in the aftermath of modernity, and stumbling into postmodernity and whatever that becomes, have a chance to get together with the folks at the center of God's movement on the earth - African church leaders.

As we are emerging from modernity, they are emerging from colonialism. Both of us are in this total space of emergence from the old and into the new. It is time now for us to meet, make friendships and fellowship with a sense that we have much to learn from one another. And probably we from the west will have the most to learn.

There's a lot of wonderful details about how it is going to be held - three segments, first a series of meetings together, then a time of travelling in smaller teams back to their home bases and churches and seeing their world, then a time together with just the westerners at the end to bring it all together and see what we're learning.

There are still openings for westerners, and they also need funds to help cover the expenses of the Africans. I have been longing to go to this since it was first announced a while ago. I want to be there when everyone is gathered at the table and the Lord brings down the hammer (which crashes through all the confusion and listlessness of transitional moments) and moves us to the next phase. Wow, what a historic moment.

Check it out www.amahoro-africa.com

Cota goes Academic

This week we had a seminarian from Union Theological Seminary (The Seminary connected to Columbia University, and where Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught before returning to Germany to help the church oppose the Nazi's) visit with us. We discovered that we are now listed on Union's list of churches to visit for first year seminarians.

Here's how he described the listing....."a list of what our professors are calling "post-denominational" churches, the short description for Commuion of the Arts is "post-evangelical, with active artistic participation. Experimentally Eucharistic"

The class is called "Christianities in the City" and it is meant to introduce us to the diversity of Christianity through the unique perspective of the city, in particular New York."

Yes, I like that very much..."post-evangelical, with active artistic participation. Experimentally Eucharistic" Very spot on description of us.

Emergence

When the seed bursts, the plant then suddenly spreads asunder. At that instant it feels that it is being dissolved, after lying so long narrowly folded in the seed. On the contrary it gains a new world.... Birth must seem to the new-born babe what death seems to us--the annihilation of all the conditions which had hitherto made life possible in the womb of its mother, but proved to be its emergence into a wider life.

Gustave Fechner
Life After Death (1836)

This was todays "daily asterisk" the daily email I enjoy from "culture is not optional" (cino)

Surfing For a Story and a Home

People inhabit stories – surfer, political type, artist, jock….

The Modern era had a few big stories that gave coherence to everyone, that everybody kind of bought into – for example, even though a surfer, you were also an American and listened to the same music as the politico and the jock. Fashion had the big look of the season, and you had it or didn’t.

But now in the post-modern era there are so many stories flying all around everywhere, that ultimately the confusion leads to nobody having a story. You can wear whatever you want, the music industry is segmented unbelievably – there are just so many channels to choose from, that you end up “story surfing” so much that you never really have one story to call home and come out of the streets and into.

This leads to weariness.

The church needs to be the place that people can go to experience a coherent story that gives meaning to their life and a place to rest from their weariness.

The community of the church needs to live out its story in two ways – in relational lifestyle – making and keeping promises to be there for one another over the long term. And in the liturgy; the liturgy is the place where we will literally create a habitable reality – a story which people can inhabit with coherence leading to rest.

Your life’s reality is the story you inhabit. The surfer dude spends ten years of his life wearing clothes, talking with a specific language and hanging out with others just like him. The story of “surfer dude” is the actual reality he lived.

The liturgy needs to be so artistically moving that it pulls us in and tells a story we can be inspired by - just as we are at a rock concert or football game.

The liturgy has to have the artistic depth to draw us in with desire every week. We have to want to keep coming back for more.

If we can tell a powerful story in the liturgy that creates a habitable world, and make it legitimate by the way we live our lives communally, by making promises to be there for one another and keeping them – then the church will be a welcome haven for the weary souls “surfing” through life without a story or warm bed to come home to.

– Most of the ideas here were inspired by Robert W. Jensen in his article, “How the World Lost its Story” published in First Things.

Cota Website Down

Sorry to report we've had some communication problems with our website and the email connected to it - cotanyc.com

Our Sunday gathering is at 11am
Lamb's Theater
130 W 44th St.
(between 6th & 7th Ave.)
5th Floor

My email is jkursonis@yahoo.com
cell phone 917-553-6843

"the words of your heart..."

We had this big Brian Mclaren meeting which you can read about in the early posts of this blog. When I got up to talk for a few minutes about our hopes for this new faith gathering, I blurted out something which I had thought about a number of times, but had never planned on saying in public quite so straighforwardly.

"I'm starting this church because I'm lonely and I don't have enough love in my life"

Everyone including myself was kind of stunned by those words.

But it turned out to be a really wonderful thing that made a lot of people listen, and feel something real was happening. My team remembers it like a moment frozen in history.

My motivation remains the same.

My "summer absent" community is now reconverging on NYC, and all I am looking forward to doing is to spending time with them, loving and being loved. We made a good start in the spring, but we have so far to go in discovering one another.

Bon Voyage, social isolation! And good riddance, don't let the door slam your a** on the way out!

Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says

"Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States.

The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties -- once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits -- are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone."

Wow, a friend brought this Washington Post article from June 23rd to my attention. This is a big part of what motivates me to build a community of people - to bring people together in deeply bonded relationships.

I'm constantly using the word, "fragmented" to describe our social reality, and this study proves what we already observe on our own.

This is such a time for the church to reform aspects of itself that lead away from community forming, and to do the opposite. For example, a few leaders holding all the spiritual responsibility and running programs just kills the opportunity for gifted folks to use their spiritual gifts to serve and bless others and build relationships.

Sitting next to someone mutually experiencing a performance or program is not the same as engaging with the person side by side in a project together that gets you both involved serving others and allows you to build the bonds of working side by side. But we just deny that over and over again when we invite people to attend a service, and they sit there and watch it, and go home just as fragmented as they arrived.

Blessed Relief

Thanks to all who have prayed for me during this "brutal" time as in the post below. I am glad to announce that the Lord has brought me out of that and shown me that I was going through a 40 day time in the desert - from late June through all of July.

In the midst of it, I had a few oasis of respite, and I was about to write a new post a number of times, but then I was right back into the desert before I could get to the post. Then I was glad I hadn't posted because it would have been...I'm back...now I'm not...wait, I'm better...crap, I still am going through this....

But finally after some good time out of it, the Lord showed me that it was over. I look forward to some more posts on what I learned, but I thought I would get this up here for now.

Thanks for your many prayers and encouragements.

As I told some of my people now and previously - the blessing of a pastor that walks beside you as a fellow journeyer is that he is real, and your friend, and treats you with respect like an equal, and really teaches you the way to walk with Christ. The way through suffering to blessing...but the downside is that you don't get the "role model" to give you a false sense of hope that someday you also could live in a trouble free world and be a super Christian with no problems or struggles and only enjoy increasing prosperity of heart and pocketbook.

The first is real and really equips you for life, the second only sets you up for disappointment and creates community where upward mobility in leadership is sought after for the social benefits and perceived spiritual benefits. And when it is discovered that neither exist, fakeness is created so that all who have become leaders can at least pretend that they got all that they wanted so those below will still look up to them at least and they will have that benefit. The fakeness is perpetuated from one disillusioned generation to the next, until reform comes.

The main thing God has been doing in my heart during this time is centering me. Helping me to become truly and fully just me before him. When I am simply myself, it helps me to seek simply him, and to have a simple faith in the simple him. Fortunately the simple Him is the huge loving God of the universe that he is, who wants to lavish love on all who come to him and to make them right and through them to make the world right.

Awesome to walk through pain and suffering and find God.

Brutal

This blog is supposed to be about the journey of starting a church within the NYC art community, but it also goes into general emerging stuff also. This post is very much about our journey.

We are on a bumpy part of the road, rather than a boat in a storm, we are a sailboat in the doldrums. No wind, really hot.

70% of our congregation is gone for the whole summer - and when you have 20 people and only 5 are left, it's quite hard to hold a meeting. After two and a half years of struggling and battling, with amazing miracles and signs of growth, to suddenly hit this wall of nothingness has been brutal. The only word is brutal.

To make it worse, the building that I live in, and that the church meets in has just been sold and we need to vacate by Sept. 1st. Finding space in NYC is very difficult, and with human and other resources so low this summer, it adds it right into the brutal category.

I'm going to God for my strength, but I have been quite depressed for two weeks now. So, there you have the journey...brutal and depressed. If anyone in the future ever gives me any grief about taking a salary or having too much power in the churches decisions, I am going to just remember this brutal, hot, dry doldrums and ignore them completely. They weren't here.

I'm not despairing, but I am depressed. I know God is with me, but it's still brutal.

By the way, I knew this was coming, I just didn't think it would be this bad. The other ministry I used to be a part of here with NYC artists, would just take the whole summer off because of this same thing. I'm hoping next year we have 50 people going into the summer, so then we can carry on with 20...that would be fine.