John Frye at Jesus The Radical Pastor wrote a post a few weeks ago called Jesus The Trouble-maker. A couple great lines:

From one perspective, Jesus was a trouble-maker. For the “don’t rock the boat” crowd, Jesus danced in the canoe. What is a trouble-maker?

One of my favorite teachers, “Prof” Howard Hendricks, use to say, “All true learning takes place only after you are thoroughly confused.” Trouble-makers confuse us and, in that sense, serve us. We so easily petrify in our views, in what appears to us “to be right.”

Have we so sanitized Jesus that it seems sacrilegious to us to see him as a trouble-maker? The Roman Empire did not crucify “nice guys.” They crucified trouble-makers.

Jesus was a troublemaker. He was a destabilizing force that radically demonstrated the furious love of God, the fullness of God’s Reality and invasion of Yahweh’s Kingdom-movement. And this post got me thinking about something: are we as followers of this radical Jesus following Him into this radicalness? If Jesus started a movement by announcing the “Kingdom of God is now invading this reality” and if he assembled a commmunity of people to lead this movement and do what He, this troublemaker, was doing while on earth, what does this look like for his followers?

I am encouraged by a new group of troublemakers that is emerging within the Church. They see things within and without the Church differently. And this new emergence can take some great inspiration for this following from two unlikely sources: the .alt internet hierarchy and Apple.

The .alt hierarchy is a 20th century internet term that refers to a major class of newsgroups in Usenet (the global, internet discussion system), containing allnewsgroups whose name begins with “alt.”, organized hierarchically. The name ‘alt’ was said to refer humorously to “anarchists, lunatics, and terrorists”, but is understood by most people today as an abbreviation of “alternative”. Like all parts of the UserNetwork discussion system, .alt is entirely organic, communal and generative; .alt naturally evolved out of a desire to discuss issues and topics outside of the mainstream and stir up trouble. And rather than taking its cues from the power-brokers of information, “anarchists, lunatics and terrorists” seek fresh discussions in the alleyways of status quo conversations.

In the spirit and inspiration of these early efforts at communal, organic and networked discussions on the alternative, many people within emerging forms of church are seeking a fresh clearness and new understand on the teachings, way and person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is an underground conversation outside of mainstream Christianity conducted by the misfits, rebels, troublemakers and round pegs of the Christian religion who see things differently.Who need a different, alternative following. They also seek to be this radical Troublemaker to the world around them by speaking prophetically into the culture, while loving it to life wherever that culture and this emerging church collide.

There is also some great inspiration for this alternative following by the rebels and innovators of all things digital: Apple Computer. From the original Macintosh Classic to the iMac and iPod to the newly released iPhone, Apple has led the charge of innovation by “speaking prophetically” into everything from operating systemarchitecture to computer industrial design. And during the late 1990’s when this digital innovator almost died, Apple launched their Think Different ad campaign. While it was certainly a rebranding effort, this campaign was also intended to help that community re-understand and re-discover who they were as Apple.

The Church needs the same re-understanding and same re-discovery for the 21st century. Like Apple’s own little revolution of the alternative, we see things differently:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can
change the world, are the ones who do.