Compelled to act | Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World

Heuertz makes simple sense of profound ideas... | Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World | Christopher L. Heuertz

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	• Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World Christopher L. Heuertz IVP Books, 2008 - 159 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Simple, yet profound

In spite of the popularity of the term "simplicity", it seems that not much is simple these days. "Real Simple" magazine gives guidance on decorating your table for a five course meal or coordinating your living room curtains with your TV remote control. Stores sell wall plaques declaring "Simplicity" for $19.99 to add pizzazz to your home ambience.
To further complicate matters, we live in an information saturated society with the ability to access incredible amounts of knowledge in rapid fire succession. At times, this excessive knowledge spills over into spiritual lives, leaving us with piles of books, concordances, and commentaries with which to understand our spirituality. Sometimes the tools are useful, and sometimes, the weight of it all can be slightly overwhelming.

The attempt to sort through such complexities first drew me to a little book entitled Simple Spirituality. Written by Chris Heuertz, director of Word Made Flesh, an organization which serves among the poorest of the poor, Simple Spirituality stays true to its title by exploring five simple yet profound commitments:

* Humility
* Community
* Simplicity
* Submission
* Brokenness

In exploring these "lifestyle celebrations", Heuertz uses stories of his relationships with the poor around the world to illustrate the depth of spirituality he has learned from the poor. He examines what the wealthy western church misses from its lack of connection to the poor. "I believe that God is using the cries of our friends who suffer in poverty today to call the church out of its sound-proof sanctuaries," he writes. "God is challenging the church to respond to a world in need. Too often, however, the church has isolated itself and failed to listen, and thus contributed to the suffering. God is calling us to establish communities that offer the prophetic presence of Christ in today's world."

Heuertz addresses the temptation to use personal geography to justify disengaging from the difficulties of the rest of the world. His conclusion that "those who go without the basic necessities of life, regardless of their geographical location or proximity, are nevertheless counted as our family: fellow believers in the Sudan or Sri Lanka or Peru are as much an intrinsic part of the body of Christ as are the Methodists, Presbyterians, or Catholics down the street." He asserts that it is simplicity that helps us to remember such family obligations.

With deep gentleness, Heuertz uses the brokenness of the world as a springboard for spiritual vitality. Using what he calls the "Five Stones of Brokenness" - humility, community, simplicity, submission, and brokenness - he challenges those of us who live in plenty to seek a fuller faith by reconsidering how we might "live more simply so others may simply live" (Mother Theresa).

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Compelled to act

Humility. Community. Simplicity. Submission. Brokenness.
Five stones with which we can stand as David did, ready to battle our own giants.

Humility to slay the giant of pride and arrogance.
Community to slay the giant of individualism and independence.
Simplicity to slay the giant of intemperance and excess.
Submission to slay the giant of power and control.
Brokenness to slay the giant of triumphalism, defiance and resistance.

Chris Heuertz looks at these "stones" with eyes that have been refreshed by encounters with Scripture, Bob Marley, Mother Teresa, Henri Nouwen, and suffering friends.

What touched me most were the stories Heuertz shares. He captivates me with his personal encounters with friends who are very poor, who always seem to reveal mysterious truths about the heart of God. Heuertz humbly, honestly tells us ways he has been confronted by the God of the vulnerable. And as he draws closer to truth, he can't help but challenge us to find it for ourselves too--and he demands that the church respond to the voice of Christ. I am inspired and compelled to act on what I've read in this book.

Here's what you'll walk away with:
-Powerful stories etched into your mind
-A reading list, because Heuertz points you to incredible writers (theological, missional, devotional, etc.)
-A heart heavy for the poor
-Questions
-Ideas

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Heuertz makes simple sense of profound ideas...

For some (probably complex) reason, serving Jesus among those who are poor (or, as Heuertz' better phrases it, "[people] who happen to be poor") has been somewhat of a distant cousin of Christian spirituality; less a profoundly beautiful mode of worship and more something one feels they must do, despite the clear posture of worship Jesus himself embodied in bringing the good news to the poor. Thankfully, Heuertz's thoughtful examination of service among those who are poor defines the paradigm shift that must occur in our spirituality - a shift marked by a drastically broadened expression and experience of Christian spirituality in the midst of a suffering world - a shift which prophetically urges us away from our common, limited perspective of serving the poor fortified in obligation, toward a new, life-giving reality rich in relationship and much fuller in form as the body of Christ.

Through an array of craftfully woven together reflections surrounding his experiences among his international community, Heuertz remarkably helps us make simple sense of this necessary shift. He shows us that "it is in our intimate relationships with... our friends who happen to be poor, that our tainted views of God are transformed." Mysteriously, it is within this context of being "exposed to the suffering of neighbors who are poor [that] our own poverty comes more clearly into view", and where we come in closer contact with the indispensable gifts of humility, community, simplicity, submission, and brokenness. Heuertz's voice is a gift given to remind us of one of God's simple truths: it is among those who are poor that not only can He be served, but found.

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Review of

Review: Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World
by Christopher Heuertz

What a delightful little book!

It seems part memoir, though from someone too young to write a memoir, part theological reflection, though simple in its aims, and part guide, though not from someone who has arrived.

I had the good fortune of meeting Chris while he and his wife Phileena were on a sabbatical from their work with Word Made Flesh [...], an organization that feels called by Jesus to birth communities which practice the presence and proclamation of the Kingdom of God among the poorest of the poor.

As the title suggests, this is a book about seeing God. With a fair measure of humility, it discusses both where to look and what it takes to see. Heuertz uses stories, his own and his friends, to make his points. It's a personal book, a book designed to be approachable in its writing and tone, and a book where Heuertz argues that spirituality is often made too difficult.

There is much to commend in Heuertz' book. He discusses five spiritual disciplines that he sees as essential to shaping the Christian life: humility, community, simplicity, submission, and brokeness. His life, work and stories continually point to those who are poor, marginalized, and exploited in society. This is the strength of the book. He is right to suggest that Christianity errs when it insulates and isolates itself from those who are poor, because in so doing it insulates and isolates itself from Jesus. The book gives snapshots of a life transformed by eschewing such isolation and it speaks to some of the pitfalls of our lives: our pride, individualism and independence, lives of excess, desire to be in control and be on the winning team. These pitfalls warp our lives and our churches making Christianity far from compelling.

Heuertz' book weighs in at a mere 150 pages (with afterword, epilogue, and acknowledgments and the print isn't small). Published by a wing of IVP, Likewise Books seeks to publish books that support a practicable, active faith. Heuertz' book fits in this vein, but possesses a wisdom which outstrips its simple and conversational writing. Part of this comes from hard won experience, part from relying heavily on some great thinkers and Christian practitioners (though they aren't necessarily ones with which everyone will be familiar). The reflections are wide-ranging:

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"Humility is a principle and virtue that flows from love in its purest form."

[about MySpace and Facebook] "I wonder if this virtual environment is actually damaging the spirit of true community because they're actually more closely related to role playing games."

"Our view of poverty [unfortunately] becomes defined not by access to resources or opportunity but by possessions."

"...if we are unable to give something away, then we do not possess it, rather it possesses us."

"On one hand, we assumed that giving to someone begging encourages a lifestyle of pathetic dependency. They all seem to have the same needs, but many of them fabricate stories to prey on the emotions of rich foreigners. It is also a challenge to determine whether the man, woman or child is being forced to beg. Black markets (informal economic endeavors) around the world have been known to kidnap children and intentionally mutilate them, gouge out their eyes, or otherwise maim them, then place them in strategic locations to earn money for their handlers. On the other hand, the man, woman, or child begging from you may literally be dying before your eyes. How, then, can you not give? Scripture says, 'Give to the one who asks you' (Matthew 5:42). But does that mean giving exactly what they ask?"

"When we don't submit our lives to God and our possessions to people in need, when we mistake our financial and material blessings as personal provision rather than as resources with potential for kingdom development -- have we perpetuated an unjust imbalance between us and our neighbors?"

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It's Heuertz' stories, however, that hold the chapters together. Getting to meet his friends through the stories he tells is worth the price of the book.

The only contention I had with the book is that in his effort to show that spirituality can and does have connections to the everyday activities of our lives, Heuertz seemingly harbors an implicit anti-institutional stance toward Christian practice. His desire to show us Jesus in the lives of those who happen to be poor is commendable, but that doesn't necessitate his worry about trying to fit our spirituality into complex religious practices. While religious practices can become corrupted or lose the purpose for which they created, all practices need institutions to sustain them. In a way, Heuertz knows this insofar as he works for the WMF organization. We need to police our institutions and keep them from becoming parasitic on the practices which they sustain and we need to make sure that they evolve with the evolution of our practices. However, while Heuertz is right to refresh us by returning our gaze to Jesus in and through those who might be considered least, the book could do more to think through God's creation and use of institutions for God's redemptive plans. Do our practices of baptism, eucharist, and ministry make connections to humility, community, simplicity, submission, and brokeness? Do they drive us to seek Jesus in the poor? This a criticism of what he does not say rather than what he says and in that sense perhaps the book (or his view of spirituality) is refreshing but too simple.

This is only Heuertz' first book, and what he does say I highly recommend. I promise you'll gain something from his discussion of humility, community, simplicity, submission, and brokeness. For a welterweight book, Simple Spirituality occasionally throws a cruiserweight punch.

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