Intentionally incarnational...

Question: what do muslims, satanists, pagans, atheists and conservative evengelical women and Jesus all have in common? 

It may have something to do with the term 'intentionally incarnational' so whilst you ponder let me unpack those terms further:

intentional -  done with intention or on purpose; intended...

incarnation - the event of God revealed into/inhabiting the world through Jesus who was both fully God/fully human.

In that sense Jesus was intentionally incarnational - he inhabited a particular time, culture, context and country.   It was in this deliberate chosen time/setting/place that he revealed God -

as John puts it so beautifully:

"The Word became flesh and blood,
      and moved into the neighborhood.
   We saw the glory with our own eyes,
      the one-of-a-kind glory,
      like Father, like Son,
   Generous inside and out,
      true from start to finish."

In the same way we too inhabit a particular culture in a particular time and can reveal the incarnate Jesus who lives in us to the people in the communities around us (we are not God/human i.e. we are not The incarntion but we can in/through/by Christ bare a witness that reveals him).

When we choose however to reveal Jesus by reaching towards/inhabitting with/listening/loving/engaging with a  particular people/context/culture then we are being intentionally incarnational as well.  In other words we are not seeking to engage as a Christian on our terms (i.e. imposition from the outside) but to deliberately engage in ways are appropriate and understandable for the community we are reaching out to by participating with and alongside them.

This is maybe a concept that is easier to understand if we can go see how it works in practice. So back to the Q with which this post began - the answer is that these are all groups where the following people I have encountered have modelled being intentionally incarnational and to whom I am learning a lot from observing them and the love, openness, listening and respect with which they reveal Jesus with:

Marc Alton-Cooper - great interaction with a muslim blog

John Smulo - some great articles about his engagement with satanists here, here and here and paganism here

Helen Mildenhall - who hosts a brilliant site for christian/atheist interaction

Molly - I  don't think you have to leave the faith to be incarnational (afterall Jesus was a jew) so here's a great site where conservative evengelical women (mainly) exploring emergent thought (amongst other things)

HT to all four of you, blessed are the cracked vessels for they shall admit light :)

Comments

[Tim]

Every day's a school day - I now something about Satanisim - how interesting. Guess I'd never asked the questions, but now I feel like I don't have too.

[Tim]

Also, I can't spell or type...

[molly]

Shucks...
Paul, you deserve a big round of applause for modeling to us all what it means to listen before you speak. Hats off, brother! :)

[Paul]

Heh Tim, maybe you can be incarnational with people like me who are thinking about being intentional with satinists (particularly knights in...) and saturninsts (altho i fear they may run rings around us :)

Molls, you are far too modest but thank you for your brill encouragement! L)

[johnsmulo]

Thanks for posting this Paul!

[James]

I have been thinking a lot about being incarnational, I am even planting a church where we try to help one another become incarantional in various groups and cultures.

Thanks for your thoughts.

James

[Paul]

Thanks James for stopping by and your encouragement. your cgurch sounds cool, what challenges have you encountered/lesons learnt?