As Kung Fu is to Buddhism...

Last week in the Wall Street Journal, a group of Chinese Buddhist monks were profiled on the front page. They are unique because they are experts in the Kung Fu martial arts. It's not used by them for fighting, competition, and/or self-defense. The leader of the monastic sect mentioned that he started practicing kung fu as a spiritual discipline because of its emphasis on muscle control. It gets the monks into a spiritual, peaceful mindset it seems.

The article spurred my thinking, 'As kung fu is to Buddhism so is improv to Christianity.' The spiritual life of Christianity is active not passive. We're not trying to attain an inner state of peace or reach nirvana by discipline. There is a meditative, prayerful, mystical side to Christianity (see Jesus' praying and teachings on prayer to the disciples), but mostly it is living by faith. Faith is inherently active, not passive. We act on faith. We move forward on faith. We live by faith...trusting that God has our back (and our front and all around us--see Psalm 139). We move. We initiate into the unknown. We act without having all the answers...essentially improv.

The first improv movement started with Abram when God asked him to respond to the promise and move forward to a new land. The story is shaped by the movement of God and the steps of Abram. Jesus pushes his disciples into a improvised movement of ministry telling them to "go" and heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, small stuff...to some town, somewhere, with some people who may or may not accept you. By the way, take nothing with you (no props what so ever), just yourselves and one other person (your scene partner).

In America and the Western world where Christianity has been domesticated to religion status, we've lost the improvised sense of this movement responding to and motivated by the Spirit among us. It's time to recover Christians who improvise their way through life moving into unknown places, spaces to encounter people by the activity of the living God. Exciting stories are told in good to great improv as actors engage one another in the moment. So to, with God, the exciting stories of God's interaction with humanity are told when you and I move by faith. We have the honor of acting with God and others to move the story of humanity forward in positive directions.

Into the unknown...