The ReIMAGINE community in San Francisco focuses on creating “green space.” It’s not an environmental goal, though they also are passionate about stewardship of the earth.

Rather, it’s based on the elementary fact that green is the blending of yellow and blue. ReIMAGINE wants to blend yellow and blue spirituality.

Yellow spirituality includes Bible study, spiritual disciplines and every aspect of personal discipleship. Blue spirituality centers on actions that demonstrate the better world that God has promised us upon Christ’s return.

Too often yellow and blue never meet. The Christian world has at one extreme those who spend their lives engaged in personal spiritual endeavor with no impact on others. “Too much existing Bible teaching happens to passive groups of Christians, many of whom are not involved in any kind of risky missional activity,” claim Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, in The Shaping of Things to Come.

At the other extreme are those who exhaust themselves on the front lines of service to others while never replenishing the well. They too often end up embittered, having forgotten that in the end it is God who ushers in the Kingdom, not humans.

Recognizing these two extremes, seven radical Christians in San Francisco began a group experiment four years ago to bring the inner and outer aspects of the Christian life together. They formed the missional community ReIMAGINE, with this purpose:

“We fuel initiatives integrating spiritual formation, community building, the arts and social action. As a collective of artists, activists, educators, tech professionals and social entrepreneurs we invite people into conversations, projects and community experiences that explore the question: ‘How can we cultivate a way of life together that leads to greater wholeness for ourselves and our world?’”

I think we need more green space in Faith Church, where I serve. I returned from my sabbatical fired with the conviction that too much of our yellow spiritual activity – Sunday School, worship, small groups – is disconnected from what we are being sent by God to do.

Jesus modeled a way that avoided both extremes. His disciples were immersed in the ministry of Jesus: observing, interacting and demonstrating. On regular occasions they were sent out to practice what they were learning. Gradually they began to grasp not only how Jesus is central to God’s mission to the world, but how they could participate in Jesus’ mission as well.

Years ago my home church in Cincinnati came up with a design for mission to the community that was ahead of its time. They created mission base communities, which were small fellowship groups with a missional purpose.

When a group of people decided to tackle a local problem, they would form a mission base community. Half their time together was devoted to Bible study, prayer, interpersonal support, and developing strategy for addressing the community issue. The other half of their time together was engaged in shared activity to meet the community need or solve the problem.

It was a brilliant idea for avoiding passivity on the one hand and burnout on the other. It was “green” long before the ReIMAGINE community developed the same concept.

Now it is time for Faith Church to go green. We believe in yellow and we are committed to blue. Can we merge the two? It won’t be easy.

Next blog entry: Going Green – 2: The Push Back