The Island in the Confluence

By Marc Engelhardt

Now more than ever before, people have access to pick, choose, and customize the communities in which they take part. The communities stream together in a Confluence, and individuals wade in the water. That reality is not inherently good or bad, but it does have real consequences that influence how individuals regard themselves, how they regard each other, and how they see the role of community fitting into their lives.

The Confluences direct effect on the Church is clear. The Church is a community that has something to say about personal identity, as well as how people view and interact with the world. The Island in the Confluence explores how individuals, community, and the Church interact in Western culture. In doing so, it gives practical ways to faithfully live out the life that Jesus has prepared for his people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449753665

Marc Engelhardt

After receiving a Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Marc Engelhardt was ordained in 2009 in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He is passionate about the Church and applying the theology and history of the past two thousand years to today’s context. He currently serves as pastor of Reconcile Church, a church-plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife, Lauren, and dog, Scooter.

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Copyright © 2012 Marc Engelhardt

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909250

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-5365-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5367-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5366-5 (e)

All Bible quotes are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 Wheaton: Standard Bible Society

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/25/2012

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part One:

The Rise of the Individual

Defining Terms

History

John Locke

David Hume

Søren Kierkegaard

Friedrich Nietzsche

Manifest Destiny

Summary Analysis

Part Two:

The Transition from Modern Thought

Part Three:

The Fluid Confluence of Communities

Complications

Communication

Identity

Compartmentalization

Summary of the Fluid Confluence of Communities

Part Four:

The Kingdom Community

The Rise of the King

King Jesus

The Island in the Confluence

Part Five:

Life on the Island of the Kingdom Community

Who?

Free to Serve: A Life of Worship

Conclusion

Appendix:

How to Engage Others

in the Confluence: Foundational Elements

About the Author

Bibliography

Endnotes

Preface

This book is the culmination of several years of observation, study, presentations, and discussion with friends. I have put it all together in the hope that it will benefit the Bride of Christ, of which I am so grateful to be a part. Some of the ideas in this book will not be new to many leaders in the Church—after all, I’m not making this stuff up—then again, many of the ideas may be new to the reader. My desire is to make connections among these ideas so that we may grasp the reality of the Church’s situation.

The book is primarily written in the way I think—that is, inductively, with an infusion of story. The result is that the text will likely raise questions in the reader’s mind that are eventually answered as the reader moves through the book. The story is mixed in to ground the theory and give examples of the concepts.

While this is not intended to be a scholarly book I have included a few footnotes for two purposes: to give credit where credit is due and to include my tangential thoughts. These thoughts do not belong in the main text but give more color to the overall picture. If desired, the reader could ignore all the footnotes and miss nothing of the main thrust of the book.

Contemporary usage tends no longer to regard the masculine pronoun as all-inclusive. I can understand some of the reasons that this has happened. My options instead were to use the cumbersome he or she, the confusing s/he, or to use both he and she inclusively. I chose to use he and she randomly, both as inclusive pronouns.

Since this has been an ongoing project for years, I undoubtedly will forget to thank some people who have given me insight into this topic or have encouraged me. I ask you for grace. For now, I wish to acknowledge, in no particular order, those of whom I am most aware who have helped me: my wife, Lauren, who understands that not everyone understands me; my grace-full parents, Tim and Kathy; Lauren’s parents, Tom and Joan; the rest of my family members, who have been a source of love, support, and prayer; all the folks at Reconcile Church and Brookfield Lutheran Church; the people committed to Regeneration and its discussion; Melissa Ritterbusch my editor; my faithful sounding board, the Rev. Ryan Alvey; my mentor on the bike and in theology, the Rev. Dr. Jeffery Kloha; and my mentor in the parish, the Rev. Roger Heintz. Anything that I write that makes sense is the result of all of their help and influence. If something comes across as confusing and wrong, well, that’s all me.

My writing this book is evidence that Jesus redeems and restores people. The potential of His Church, and the people who make it up, is far more than most give credit. This book is a beginning of a discussion; if you want to discuss it more, please visit https://mengelhardt.wordpress.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Island-in-the-Confluence/305794349461809.

Marc Engelhardt

February, 2012

Introduction

The city of Milwaukee was centered and founded at the junction of three rivers. The Kinnickinnic comes from the south; the Menomonee flows from the west; and the Milwaukee surges from the north. The point where they meet is a confluence, surrounded by land where German, Polish, and French settlers of the 1800s worked together to start a city. Milwaukee not only holds a confluence of rivers but also a confluence of communities.

Technically speaking, a Confluence is a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point; the flowing together of two or more streams; the place where two streams meet. Whereas the term defines a gathering point, I also find the Confluence to be a fitting term for describing the state of individual participation in communities today. Now more than ever before, people have access to pick, choose, and customize the communities in which they take part. The communities come together in a Confluence, and individuals wade in the water. That reality is not inherently good or bad, but it does have real consequences that influence how individuals regard themselves, how they regard each other, and how they see the role of community fitting into their lives.

The Confluence’s direct effect on the Church is clear. The Church is a community that has something to say about personal identity, as well as how people view and interact with the world. The idea of the Confluence then raises some major questions for the Church: What is the role of the Church in the Confluence? How should Christians act in the Confluence? How do we effectively share the Gospel in the Confluence?

In order to address these questions, we first need to understand the situation in which we find ourselves. We will first take a broad look at the development of individual identity in Western culture during the past three hundred years, and then we will assess how that individual identity interacts within the Fluid Confluence of Communities.

The next step will be to identify the marks of the Kingdom Community. We will then look at the role the Kingdom Community plays in the life of the individual in the Confluence. After having all of that in place, I believe we can then address some concerns about mission, discipleship, and church structure. In the end, the ideal is to arrive at some practical, adaptable strategies to engage Western culture more effectively with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

The Bride of Christ, the Church, will not die out or fade. It will continue to flourish, grow, and take shapes we may never have imagined. Jesus is faithful and keeps His promises. We need to follow Him wherever He leads, work with what He has given us, and look as He describes. Too often we are in front of Him, creating barriers, and telling Him what we want. How long can the Church continue with such an attitude before pieces of us fall off the Body and are no longer part of the Bride? Let’s take an honest look at ourselves and be willing to follow Christ faithfully, with the courage of the Holy Spirit, into the world in which we live.

Part One:

The Rise of the Individual

When I have the chance to travel, I am not one to check out the tourist spots. I am not big on sightseeing unless it involves the awe of creation. What I like to do is experience a little bit of the life of the people I am visiting. Where and what do they like to eat? What is the local beer of choice? What do they consider a good time? What are the morning and evening routines? Experiencing these things allows me a vacation from myself, but, for the people I am visiting, the routine is the same—except for the oddity that I am tagging along. I get to observe a different culture, while they don’t even realize they are participating in one.

Experiencing a different culture generally involves something weird, new, wonderful, perplexing, or annoying. When such things occur and I consciously notice them, I have a choice either to become an observer or a judge. If I become an observer, I notice the difference then seek to discover why it is a difference in the first place. How or why does such a thing strike me as abnormal?

Being an observer requires introspection. One needs to be open to tracing back the path of an initial reaction and be willing to recognize built-in biases as different, not necessarily correct. In short, when one becomes an observer of others, one becomes an observer of oneself. To be an observer takes work, and I believe in its purest form it is impossible.¹

To take the role of a judge is one of the most natural things in the world. In the role of a judge, I become the norm. Everything is measured against my values, ideas, and concepts of how the world works. Nothing happens beyond my initial response to stimuli. I judge it against what I find to be normal, routine, awful, simple, or pleasing, and the process ends there.

In this venture I am asking you to assume the role of observer rather than judge. Doing so may be somewhat difficult because the assignment does not entail visiting another culture; instead, you will be attempting to observe your own. By attempting to observe rather than judge, you will be able to gather insights into your world that are otherwise unobtainable. If you remain a judge, you will be unable to see past yourself, and you will likely miss much of the hope this book provides.

My goal in Part One is to illustrate that many of the characteristics of thought we find to be innate are actually somewhat recent developments in history. In other words, we have not always thought this way, and what you may believe to be the very bedrock of your thought processes has in fact developed over time. We are so immersed in these thought processes from birth that we can easily take them to be simply the way the world works. That is why it