Sometimes, when I go to the movies, I can\u2019t tell the film\u2019s name 24 hours later.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s all gone: plot, players, why I bothered to spend $11 to sit in a dark room for two hours.\u00a0 There are those few, though, that affected me so profoundly that, even now, 26 years later, I can still remember where I was when, unexpected, \u201cThe Mission\u201d<\/a> reshaped my soul.<\/p>\n Having grown up in a conservative Christian home, I\u2019d learned, by other names, notions of American Exceptionalism, and that white guys always wore white hats because we always had the moral high ground by claiming that, whatever our cause, God was on our side.\u00a0 That movie, so brilliantly crafted, began plowing the soul of my heart, chipping away at all those hardened assumptions.\u00a0 A more thorough reading of church history furthered the process, and the Christianity\u2019s rethinking of mission planted new seeds, so that now I can see, with greater clarity, some truths that we desperately need to recover if we\u2019re to recover our real calling of making Christ visible in the world:<\/p>\n 1. \u201cChurch\u201d as institution has insidious dangers in it.<\/strong> The most powerful scene in the mission is that one where the church authorities come to Jeremy Irons, the local missionary evangelist who has intertwined his life with a tribe, loving them, serving them, pointing them to Christ.\u00a0 The authorities tell him that both he and the people must leave the land (because there are resources that Europe needs for their economy, and this tribe, on this their own land, stands in the way).<\/p>\n \u201cTell them they must leave\u201d<\/em>, the authority says.<\/p>\n In a short and powerful dialogue, the priest responds by saying that they don\u2019t want to leave, that this is their home, that they\u2019re afraid of the forest.\u00a0 When the church authorities threaten not only war, but the loss of salvation if the people resist relocation, Jeremy Irons tells him that their not leaving and, holding\u00a0 a child in his arms, that he\u2019s not leaving either.<\/p>\n The choice the priest made was between the kingdom of God, dressed in the clothes of poverty and simplicity, and the powers of the world dressed in the wealth and fear wielding of a power hungry church.\u00a0 It\u2019s tempting to think of \u201cthe world\u201d as that which happens out on the streets, or in crack houses, or maybe if you\u2019re really liberal, in board rooms somewhere.\u00a0 But 26 years ago it began to dawn on me that perhaps the most dangerous form of worldliness all is the ambition and lust for power that can easily hide behind big Bibles and high flying flags<\/em>.\u00a0 The idols of nationalism and institutional religion are both bad.\u00a0 Together, they\u2019re a toxic cocktail.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I resist any attempts to align Christianity with any single party, or denomination, or church.<\/p>\n 2. Outside the camp is where good things happen<\/strong>.\u00a0 When Jeremy Irons walks away with a child in his arms, he seals his fate of excommunication.\u00a0 And at the same time he seals his fate as one committed to being the presence of Christ with people he loves.<\/p>\n I\u2019m increasingly of the opinion (and it\u2019s just that \u2013 my personal opinion<\/em>), that the best moments of church history have happened outside the camp.<\/a> I think of the Celtic Christian expressions that thrived outside the reach of the Roman hierarchy.\u00a0 Rural, de-centralized, co-ed in their leadership, adhering to a sound creation theology, and with a bent towards co-opting cultural elements rather than destroying them, they ended up with people like Columbanus <\/a>and Patrick, Hilda, and Caedman.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the Taize work<\/a>, the work of Dr. Paul Brand with Lepers<\/a>, and the people who are simply fed up with all the trappings and politics of religion, like Shane Claiborn<\/a>, and decide to get on with it, and seek to actually live like Jesus.<\/p>\n