Eikon Church - Little Rock, AR

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point/counterpoint: voting results Posted by 03.24.2010 8:07 am

point/counterpoint

a couple weeks ago, we announced our upcoming series (that will begin april 11) called point/counterpoint. in it, we’ll be tackling some hotly-debated topics. the format will consist of 2 speakers that will present opposing viewpoints of a topic. for example, if we do a week on homosexuality, one speaker would present “homosexuality is a sin’ and the other would present “homosexuality is not a sin.” each speaker would use the bible as their primary starting point to present their argument. ultimately, our goal isn’t to “tell you the answers”, but to present 2 thought-out, bible-centric options to guide your own thinking. it won’t be a debate or an argument or a one-up kind of thing, but rather, a healthy, balanced presentation of the issues.

in addition to announcing the series, we presented you an opportunity to actually choose the 4 topics by voting in our poll. we had a great response and we’re excited to reveal what the top 4 vote-getters were. here’s a graph showing the vote tally.

you’ll notice that the top vote-getters are the following (in descending order): homosexuality, death penalty, war & politics. it was a close race several days for nationalism, abortion & sustainable food sources, but they just missed the cut.

we’re really excited about the series & we think it will be a great time to get a variety of viewpoints that all, ultimately, center around what scripture has to say. in other words, one of the things we affirm at eikon is that the bible isn’t necessarily a book full of singular answers, but rather, a guide that helps us plot out ways of engaging in hard-to-understand topics such as the ones you all have chosen.

so, mark it on your calendars! the series begins april 11 and will conclude may 2. as always, we meet at 6 pm on sunday nights at the r street community church’s building (more info). see you there!

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point/counterpoint: vote to decide our upcoming series’ topics Posted by 03.11.2010 9:07 am

point/counterpoint

even as i type, i’m hiding my face in shame… yes friends, it’s been just over a month (!!) since we last blogged. wow…

well, we have good(ish) reasons (we’re trying to make ourselves feel better…). since kicking off weekly worship gatherings several weeks ago, we’ve been busy, busy, busy. the current series, confessional booth is going great and we’ve been excited to convey our guiding theologies while confessing some of our shortcomings.

even in the midst of this series, though (we have a few weeks left), we’re planning for the next one. we’re excited to announce that the upcoming series (that will begin april 11) is called point/counterpoint. in it, we’ll be tackling some hotly-debated topics. the format will consist of 2 speakers that will present opposing viewpoints of a topic. for example, if we do a week on homosexuality, one speaker would present “homosexuality is a sin’ and the other would present “homosexuality is not a sin.” each speaker would use the bible as their primary starting point to present their argument. ultimately, our goal isn’t to “tell you the answers”, but to present 2 thought-out, bible-centric options to guide your own thinking. it won’t be a debate or an argument or a one-up kind of thing, but rather, a healthy, balanced presentation of the issues.

we really think this will be a great series, but we need your help to make it happen! instead of us just choosing the 4 topics, we thought we’d put it up for a vote. so, please fill out the following survey (and pass this link onto friends!!).

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so what does eikon believe?: orthodoxy vs. monodoxy Posted by 01.10.2010 3:15 pm

last night on twitter, author/theologian/semiotician/generally brilliant person len sweet posted the following tweet:

Orthodox or “Monodox” (Keith Ward’s word)? Orthodoxy=right beliefs: Monodoxy=1 belief, 1 right way to believe, only 1 set of true beliefs.

intriguing.

his thoughts were particularly engaging to me because i think they point to a value of eikon that’s worth exploring. as we’re still in the initial phases of development and growth, we have a lot of people seeking information about what kind of community eikon is and will become. as a part of this process and as people begin to join us at our various gatherings, we get a wide range of commentary like the following:

you guys aren’t very churchy.
you guys are more churchy than i expected.
i can’t really pin down what eikon believes.
eikon seems to be pretty narrow in its beliefs.

in other words, everyone has their own particular perspective and set of presuppositions which lends itself to seeing something very different than the next person. i think a part of this comes from, ultimately, the fact that we’re a little more fluid in the way we define our set of “truths” or hard-and-fast standard of so-called orthodoxy.

don’t get me wrong, we certainly have a series of “guiding theologies” that help to bring some cohesion to our community and shape the way we interact with each other and make decisions as leaders. these things are at the core of what it means to be a part of this faith community, but we’re careful to distinguish—as len sweet points out—between “orthodoxy” and “monodoxy”.

without going into tangential detail, we’re a little leary of a word like “orthodoxy” because it’s simultaneously broad and narrow. on one hand, it encompasses so many things to so many different people. “orthodoxy” to those in the roman catholic tradition might be heresy to those in the pentecostal tradition (or vice versa). on the other hand, “orthodoxy” can be seen as a very narrow window of beliefs that disallows a robust conversation about ideas and theologies. ultimately, though, i think what len sweet is getting at is simply some kind of shared beliefs that help to garner a cohesive theological conversation.

on the other hand, though, his suggestion (as i see it) that “monodoxy” is a dangerous element within the church is one we most certainly share. whereas, again, we have a set of theologies that help to communicate the vision for our community, a key theme of those theologies is that there’s room for a wide variety of interpretations of those values. when we say that our most fundamental guiding theology is the centrality of jesus, the question, naturally, that we’ve received from people is, “which jesus are you talking about?” the jesus who wept over the death of a friend or the jesus who used a whip to clear out the temple money collectors? certainly, one’s way of viewing jesus can be fundamentally different than the next person without straying away from a shared sense of “orthodoxy”. this, though, isn’t true with the concept of “monodoxy.’

monodoxy insists that there is only one view of jesus and if one strays from that singular viewpoint, then they have violated a sacred sense of “rightness”. if you worked your way through our list of guiding theologies, you could use any as an example. take ‘scripture.’ for many, scripture is the inerrant, infallible word of god. for many others, though, there’s a sense of “limited inerrancy”, which is a nuanced version of the preceding view of scripture. both of these views can certainly fall in line with an orthodox understanding of bibliology, but would certainly violate the singularity of one’s monodoxy.

ultimately, the point i’m getting at is that we certainly have overarching shared beliefs that characterize our faith community, but never want to be guilty of monodoxy. we have room for a variety of beliefs about god (or even lack of beliefs about god). we hope eikon can be a place where people don’t have to agree, but can engage in a conversation that leads to mutual understanding and growth. we absolutely hope to make jesus known and guide people in living in a way that resembles the life and person of christ, but we think there’s a bigger conversation involved with that than just a singular angle or a narrow monodoxy.

so, we’re currently in the process of adding voices to this community called eikon. there’s certainly room at the table for you and the perspectives you bring. we hope to both connect with and learn from you soon.

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defining eikon: what we are vs. what we aren’t Posted by 08.08.2009 4:11 pm

our community is shaped and defined by a number of ideas and guiding theologies (which, of course, you can find here). our list isn’t a chiseled-in-stone final statement of authority, but rather, an evolving list of descriptions of god that help us to grow in community in biblically and culturally relevant ways. so, as our community grows and begins to flesh out, we hope to revisit the list every now and then and think through ways to tweak language or even add to or subtract from the list.

one of the things, though, we hope to remain consistent is our desire to define eikon by what we are, as opposed to what we aren’t.

what’s the difference?

we think the church–particularly in the united states over the last hundred years or so–has claimed its identity primarily in the form of rules, cultural blacklists and social dichotomies. we don’t drink. we aren’t gay. we think harry potter is corrupting our youth. we disengage from artforms that aren’t explicitly “christian”. the list could go on.

please don’t misunderstand or over-imply our point: we certainly affirm that there are plenty of great churches who don’t define themselves in these ways. no doubt, even here in little rock, there are churches who have made a decision not to make exclusion their chief mode of description. our point is that, by and large, american christianity has become virtually synonymous with this type of self-branding.

one of the key words we like to use at eikon is alternative and we certainly hope to practice an alternative way of defining than what we’ve described thus far.

instead of a church who defines itself by what we aren’t, we hope to define ourselves by what we are.

so, what are we?

we are people who try to follow in the way of jesus. we’re a community that says grace is more compatible with jesus than judgment. we are guided by scripture in ways that help us to engage and embrace culture rather than run from it and create false dichotomies. we are a community that lives in a space of humility rather than arrogant certainty. we want to be a community that serves our city by meeting the needs of those who are broken, oppressed and voiceless. we want to offer new life and hope to the “least of these.”

much like the previous list, this list could go on.

are we all these things right now? certainly not. are we striving to be these things? absolutely. are we connecting with people with like sensibilities and like communal expectations? of course.

so, we invite you to be a part of what we’re doing and what we’re trying to be. our invitation isn’t based on a commonality of “anti-” but rather a commonality of “pro-”.

if you connect with these sentiments (or even if you don’t) :), take a minute to read over our list of guiding theologies. everything we are isn’t there, so hit us up with an email or a phone call and we’ll talk more about this thing called eikon.

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eikon: not just a bunch of dudes Posted by 05.31.2009 9:31 pm

how’s that for a blog post title??… :)

soon and very soon, i plan on blogging a series of posts that will present our core values and some of the various theologies that are the underpinning in the shaping of this faith community. while i hope to do that in greater detail soon, i stumbled across an article that i thought was worth sharing and worth offering a couple brief thoughts.

one of the things we want to have at the core of our values and dna, so to speak, at eikon is gender equality. quite frankly, we hope that equality across the board is highly valued, but it seems that, in the church, gender equality has historically been a great barrier. to cut straight to the point, we believe that men and women, because they are both made in the image of god, are equal in not only being but also in function. in other words, we believe women can be pastors and teachers and leaders and elders and have full functional equivalence of men.

so, we’re not just a bunch of dudes. :)

not only do we believe it, but over the last several months, as we’ve begun to form the core leadership group for eikon, we’ve intentionally sought out women leaders who will be key decision-makers in our community. the bottom line is that there are just certain experiences and points-of-view that i will never be able to offer being a male. there are certain filters through which i view scripture and how i see god that are simply deficient as compared to a female perspective.

just last night, while having dinner with some new friends/potential leaders at eikon (keeping my fingers crossed…), we had a great conversation about the way we see and perceive god. in this case, our new friend—who is the mother of a 2-yr old child—spoke about growing up thinking god was angry with her and that he didn’t love her because she wasn’t good enough. what struck me was that she talked about how the experience of having a child and being a mother has changed the way she views god. her deep and unconditional love for her child has shown her—if we are truly children of god—that there’s no way god could be angry with her. how could a god characterized by love and grace and sacrifice hate his child? her experience as a woman and a mother has filtered the way she perceives god and certainly, the way in which she leads and make decisions are a product of her unique perspective.

so, without going into too great of detail, i thought i would share those quick thoughts about our position on gender equality. the article that i referenced that spawned this post is from jim wallis’ god’s politics blog with guest blogger mimi haddad. haddad is president of christians for biblical equality, a great organization of “christian men and women who believe that the bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women of all racial and ethnic groups, all economic classes, and all age groups.” you can find more out about CBE here and you can read haddad’s article here.

while the article isn’t a thorough explanation of a biblical view of gender equality, i think it’s a good introduction that can help to stir a dialogue and engage those who are unfamiliar with more egalitarian biblical concepts. for an even more in-depth analysis of biblical gender equality, i highly recommend rebecca merrill groothuis’ good news for women: a biblical picture of gender quality (amazon link). i read this book 5 or 6 years ago and it greatly challenged me and put me on a path of biblical and cultural and relational discovery that has made me much more intentional about these issues and has made me place much more value on women’s vital and necessary roles in communities of faith. (p.s. if you want to get a little sneak peek, i came across this on her website. it’s a fairly significant chunk from the book to get an idea of the trajectory she takes throughout her work.)

we really look forward to the continued shaping of the leadership at eikon with both men and women who want to engage and lead others in the way of jesus—the ultimate example of a life characterized by equality.

in the end, of course, we want to be a community that isn’t just a bunch of dudes. :)

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a theology of art and creation with rob bell Posted by 02.01.2009 5:21 pm

beyond the saints in scripture, there are quite a few theologians, pastors, artists and thinkers that have shaped the guiding theologies of eikon. one of those people—who could be described by all those words—is rob bell. if you aren’t familiar with bell, he is the pastor and founder of mars hill church in grand rapids, michigan. he is also a very notable speaker and author and the main face of nooma, a series of incredible spiritual short films. he is at the same time the admired/despised/loved/hated/prophet/false prophet/messiah/antichrist voice of an emerging generation of leaders and christians.

bell sat down with patrol magazine for a conversation about faith and art. as always, bell has some deeply insightful and introspective commentary concerning these issues (particularly the brief discussion of the controversial sculpture my sweet lord by new york artist cosimo cavallaro).
at eikon, we hope to make art a central part of our expression of faith and worship. we believe, much bell expresses in the interview, that we’re all creators and there’s a sense of co-creation with god. that doesn’t mean we’re all amazing painters or sculptors, but we are all inherently creators who desire a sense of beauty and truth.
so, you can read it in its entirety here, but here’s a segment that i thought was particularly salient:

(in response to the question, what is art?)
I would begin with the understanding that God has left the world unfinished, and so, in Genesis chapter 1, this creation poem is about trees that are created to have the ability to create more trees. So, to me an authentic spirituality begins with the premise that we co-create the world with God. The world is not done, and that all of action is essentially rooted in creativity. Any way in which you contribute to the ongoing creation of the world you are in fact, in some form or another being creative and so then I think the question from there becomes “what is art?”
And I would argue that art is simply the creating within the particular medium, free of any utilitarianism. So a business person creates for the purpose of making profit, a product, providing goods and services. Art, specifically like the fine arts, music, sculpture, dance, spoken word, is the manifestation of that creativity in a form that is free from any pragmatic needs. So this painting just exists, beauty is its highest goal, as opposed to food that actually feeds us. A degree of art and creativity is in food, but it has a larger function. To which song is just a song. It may convey truth, it may have lyrics that are rooted in some particular world-view a person is trying to further express.
I think we must have art because it reminds us that God is not always a pragmatist. Because our world wants to turn us into slaves, everything is about how hard you work so you can create something so you can buy something so you can make something, so you’re back in Egypt. That’s the defining story of the Bible: people who are enslaved in Egypt, and their whole use is that they are a machine and they’re used by pharaoh to build stuff. So to me we need the artist to remind ourselves that God is not always a pragmatist. I love this passage in Job where God is like, “HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THE STORK?” It’s beautiful poetry about a God who gets off on things just cause they are and that to me is central to any sort of living, breathing spirituality is going to be plenty of room for things that don’t have any purpose other than their own beauty, design and order.
good stuff.

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