The Trouble with Paris (pt. I)

Mission in the West can be difficult, it is new uncharted terrain. Two of the great errors that we can make as we birth and nurture missional-incarnational movements, is to assume that we understand and know the context in which we incarnate, and secondly assume that we and the people that we lead have not been compromised by the culture in which we live. That is why the following resource is so needed.
My good friend and colleague Mark Sayers has just released his much anticipated book The Trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises. The book wrestles with the questions of why so many people in the West struggle to come to faith, and why so many Christians end up leaving their faith, particularly young adults. Mark points the finger at the way that consumer culture creates a sexy, photo-shopped, mirage-like version of reality (a hyperreality) that is supposedly only one purchase away, which has a corrosive effect upon faith and ends up directly competing with the kingdom of God.

Mark has managed to write a book which has real intellectual clout yet is also readable and approachable. It has picked up praise from everyone from Shane Claiborne to John Ortberg, and is creating quite a stir amongst young adults back in Australia.
There is a reading guide for people going through the book in groups that you can download for free \here

An essential, timely and prophetic resource for missional leaders!

August 11, 2008 | Filed Under resources |  

Comments

4 Responses to “The Trouble with Paris (pt. I)”

  1. Aaron on August 11th, 2008 9:38 pm

    Wow. Sounds like a must read. Just yesterday, someone in our microchurch admitted openly that they were selfish, and that they didn’t know how to break out of it. That stirred up a very pivotal conversation.

    Thanks for the timely post!

  2. Lucy J on August 13th, 2008 9:03 pm

    I just finished writing an email to a friend in the UK about my quest to find out why the Church (the ekklesia to which referred in Matt 16Open Link in New Window) seems to be impotent to a large degree these days. Impotent to attract people to Jesus and impotent to retain people in the faith, let alone make a difference to the big wide world’s wicked-patterned way of doing things! Mark Sayers is certainly onto something here… as indeed are many of our esteemed colleagues who are churning out publication in a bid to wake the Church up to the extent of conforming to God-forsaken hyper-reality patterns. Besides the stack of books towering at my bedside (literally, and including several translations of the Bible), practical fellowship with a people group grappling with the encroaching paralysis of an institutionalised church scene, cutting edge work with Christian creative artists pushing the boundaries of kinaesthetic and visual communication, many inspiring conversations with my husband AND serious gravel rash intercession on my part about the subject in question, I recently had a rather powerful dream (it felt a bit hyper-surreal, in fact) to give me a clue about the missing transformative and creative powers of the contemporary Church at large. There are of course pockets of pre-Constantinian potency, always have been, but what’s happening to the full regalia???
    Back to the dream… Scene 1. A view of a fast flowing muddy muddy muddy river… couldn’t see the banks only the middle of the stream in which was growing a very large solitary tree… a tree almost bare of browning leaves and of which only the top quarter was visible. I found myself clinging to the top branches but became aware of a kind of sinking feeling, a knowledge that I was going to fall backward into the murky waters below… and fall into it, I did.
    Flash to Scene 2. Suddenly in a totally different place like a street, there I was, with the awareness of the necessity to tell “the police” about what happened. Found a policeman and as I began to relate what had happened, a realization that I was stark naked came over me at the same time as an incredible lethargy drained me of every ounce of energy at which point I fell sideways in a heap as if slain. With great effort, I turned onto my back, my eyes rolling back in my head, desperately trying to open them but aware of incredible resistance and impotence. The policeman picked me up and put me on his lap, cradling my body trying to listen to my story as I was gasping to communicate and continuing to try unsuccessfully to will my eyes to open. This next bit is a bit confronting, so I will describe it with some degree of delicacy… basically, he could not control himself since he had a naked female at close quarters. Quick pan to Scene 3. Reported this action of the policeman to somebody who took me to a shop to buy some new clothes, something to which I had very much been looking forward, apparently!

    Well, I asked, suddenly waking up. What was that all about?… The Church, was the answer that came to me!
    The dream portrayed the experience of life that a counterfeit Church life offers… like muddy/polluted waters drowning the Tree of Life instead of the clarity of the River of Life and the nourishment from the Tree of Life in Rev 22Open Link in New Window. Falling back into the tainted waters was like being sucked into a culture that drains the life-force out of the body and a feeling of nakedness and impotency despite trying hard to wake up and articulate the story of that debilitating experience to somebody in a position of trusted authority (policeman/lawman). Unfortunately the authority figure, although interested, actually violated the trust in a shameful way. However, the new dress to which we are looking forward is coming indeed! A re-robing with wisdom, power and authority… a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, a robe of righteousness for the soiled one, so to speak. A quick look at Isaiah 61:2-4Open Link in New Window, Zech 3Open Link in New Window & 4 and Rev 3:15-19Open Link in New Window gave me some measure of confirmation about the dream, its meaning and God’s response to the effects of iniquity in our world, in our cultures (ethnic and the more recent global pop variety), and in the Church. Blogs and books illuminating these truths, and lives lived as testimony to such re-creative truth herald and mete out justice, cleansing and merciful redemption and restoration, as indeed God does! Thanks for sharing the passion and making a difference… we need more of that in this world.

  3. Richie "Rich" Merritt on August 20th, 2008 10:50 pm

    WoW Lucy J…, that is quite a dream….

    I fell in Love with the power of the Church when our 16 year old daughter died in a car crash. Our loving community of nearly all new believers and a large core of seeking folks, just loved on us like you would not believe. I saw first hand the power of Love mixed with the harsh reality of the world. There is no other force like the church; but we have to live it, not just speak it.

    IHL,

    Richie

  4. Lucy J on August 26th, 2008 3:08 pm

    Glad your brothers and sisters in Christ were there for you and yours at such a traumatic time. We all let people down at one time or another, but it’s great to experience love in action when it really counts.

    Onto another topic… interesting that Mark Sayers’ book mentions ‘plastic promises’… here in Sydney, advertising is in full swing for Mark Driscoll’s visit where he has invited us all to the Sydney Entertainment Centre this week to “burn all our plastic Jesus-es”! It sounds like a new take on “Burning Man”. I’m not sure how many Sydney-siders (Christian or otherwise) are familiar with either the concept of a plastic image of Jesus OR the Burning man festival phenomenon from USA? However, I suspect that the radio advert which features an impassioned American accented voice exhorting us to come for the purpose of burning plastic Jesus-es would highly amuse some, and highly annoy others, whether they knew what he was talking about or not. Personally, I am all for re-instating the image of Jesus to the phenomenal status he deserves (both immanent and transcendent), but I can’t help wishing that there had been a little more Aussie cultural contextualisation homework done for the promotional campaign.

    Lucy J

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