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Mon - February 19, 2007
Understanding (Link)
It can be so very refreshing to hear someone
left-leaning and bright who gets
it.
Posted at 07:28 AM |
Sun - December 17, 2006
Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant
He woke up every day saying, "this is the day the
Lord has made - let us rejoice and be glad in it."
Papa died around 11:00 last night. He had been in
intensive care for over
eight weeks. Though his heart did great after the surgery, his lungs
simply couldn't recover. As recently as a week ago, we were thinking he could
still pull through. But even death is a kind of healing. He isn't suffering any
more.
Mom, Dad, and Grandma have had quite an ordeal through the whole thing. I think we're all pretty emotionally tired.
He woke up every day saying, "this is the day the Lord has made - let us rejoice and be glad in it." He prayed for the pastoral staff of his church - out loud - every day. He spent his life teaching and leading. Before the surgery, he said, "I've had a good life." Yes, indeed.
Mom, Dad, and Grandma have had quite an ordeal through the whole thing. I think we're all pretty emotionally tired.
He woke up every day saying, "this is the day the Lord has made - let us rejoice and be glad in it." He prayed for the pastoral staff of his church - out loud - every day. He spent his life teaching and leading. Before the surgery, he said, "I've had a good life." Yes, indeed.
Posted at 06:27 PM |
Sat - December 16, 2006
Kitchen Design and Theology
But at some point in the 50's or 60's (forgive my
lack of historical house-building knowledge, here) people started building
"living rooms" that nobody actually lived in and kitchens tucked away in the
back of their houses, as if they were going to ring their staff and have their
help bring the dishes out while they entertained in the "living
room."
I just mopped the floor.
Every time I mop the floor I have time to reflect, and the subject upon which I reflect is this: crumb-catchers. Specifically, why crumb-catchers? Why that little space under the cabinets that makes the floor so difficult to clean? When I've asked this question aloud people respond "so you don't bump your toes and scuff the cabinets." What kind of stupid answer is that? How about making the counter-top extend further so you a) have more room to work and b) don't kick the stupid cabinets? Why not put a steel plate around the base of the cabinets? How about amputating your feet and walking on your ankles?
While I'm on the subject of kitchen design, let me rant for a minute about soffits. There's a word for these things. I learned what they were called by watching TLC or This Old House or somesuch. This is the area above the kitchen cabinets that some people decide to wall off. Neurons in someone's brain actually had to fire to make this happen. It was an intentional decision. Somebody looked at the space above the cabinets and thought, "hm. What do we do with that space above the cabinets? Put in more cabinets? Use it as a shelf to store all the souvenir coffee mugs that people collect? No, I've a better idea. Let's wall it off. Who could possibly need more storage space?" When I've voiced my amazement over this decision aloud, I sometimes get the response, "well, you don't want to look at the stove vent pipe, do you?" I don't care! Paint the thing fire engine red and let it be a design feature or something. If we're going to talk about the aesthetics of kitchen design, let's start with the spaghetti that has dried to the floor under my freakin' crumb-catcher.
Somebody in the last decade got smart and realized the kitchen was where people spent the majority of their time in their house. Newer houses have bigger kitchens in a central location That's because we prepare our food there and eat it. "Primitive" cultures often had their cook fires in a central location, because they understood this idea. But at some point in the 50's or 60's (forgive my lack of historical house-building knowledge, here) people started building "living rooms" that nobody actually lived in and kitchens tucked away in the back of their houses, as if they were going to ring their staff and have their help bring the dishes out while they entertained in the "living room." In spite of getting direct mail featuring photographs of white families in front of their McMansions which says, and I wish I were kidding:
...life is too short to clean your own house...
I've found that we are simply too poor to be able to afford our own cook and wait staff. Therefore the whole living room / kitchen / formal dining room arrangement is pretty irrelevant. Now, don't for a minute think that I'm complaining about my own house. I really, really like the parsonage we live in. It's the best place we've lived since we've been married. It's just that I see these design - we'll call them "features," with the understanding that, like the PR experts at Microsoft, we really mean "bugs" - in most houses.
There are some key things that go on in whatever kitchen we use. We prepare food there. We eat there. We hang out and talk there. I will, at least once each presidential administration, mop the sticky goo off the floor (or at least smear it around a bit). We must also store approximately two metric tonnes of plastic containers with mismatched lids. We do not need soffits or crumb-catchers.
And would it kill someone to put a drain in the floor? I've asked this question before as well. The response I got was "well, apparently they do that in Sweden." Well, hooray for the Swedes! God bless 'em! Can we please ask them to invade?
Once, when I was Resident Manager at the theology student housing at Candler, as I was using a shop-vac to suck up water from an overflowing bathtub on the second floor at 3 AM, I asked the Japanese theology students, a very sweet couple, why they had not been concerned when their bathtub began to overflow. He said, "I thought the drain in the floor would take care of it." I said, "there isn't a drain in the floor." He asked, "why not?" Exactly! Some homebuilder - someone American - should have thought, "you know, sometimes bathtubs overflow. Sometimes dishwashers leak. Sometimes, when people are operating indoor plumbing, water will actually flow in a downward direction. Maybe we should put a DRAIN IN THE FLOOR. And because grown men occasionally but of course very seldom miss the potty while urinating, perhaps we should reconsider carpeting the bathroom."
Since I'm always on the lookout for implicit theologies, I'm thinking there is an implicit theology wrapped up in the design of houses. I think the dominant theology of the 50's and 60's was sort of a traditionalist evangelical pseudo-Puritanism a la Jonathan Edwards, and the house design reflects his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Crumb-catchers and soffits are a holdover from this earlier period, and they are here to remind us that we are very, very bad people, and that God doesn't so much love us as hate our stinking guts, and were it not for grace He would fling us into the eternal fire and torment which we truly deserve.
This may be why keep procrastinating about mopping the kitchen.
Every time I mop the floor I have time to reflect, and the subject upon which I reflect is this: crumb-catchers. Specifically, why crumb-catchers? Why that little space under the cabinets that makes the floor so difficult to clean? When I've asked this question aloud people respond "so you don't bump your toes and scuff the cabinets." What kind of stupid answer is that? How about making the counter-top extend further so you a) have more room to work and b) don't kick the stupid cabinets? Why not put a steel plate around the base of the cabinets? How about amputating your feet and walking on your ankles?
While I'm on the subject of kitchen design, let me rant for a minute about soffits. There's a word for these things. I learned what they were called by watching TLC or This Old House or somesuch. This is the area above the kitchen cabinets that some people decide to wall off. Neurons in someone's brain actually had to fire to make this happen. It was an intentional decision. Somebody looked at the space above the cabinets and thought, "hm. What do we do with that space above the cabinets? Put in more cabinets? Use it as a shelf to store all the souvenir coffee mugs that people collect? No, I've a better idea. Let's wall it off. Who could possibly need more storage space?" When I've voiced my amazement over this decision aloud, I sometimes get the response, "well, you don't want to look at the stove vent pipe, do you?" I don't care! Paint the thing fire engine red and let it be a design feature or something. If we're going to talk about the aesthetics of kitchen design, let's start with the spaghetti that has dried to the floor under my freakin' crumb-catcher.
Somebody in the last decade got smart and realized the kitchen was where people spent the majority of their time in their house. Newer houses have bigger kitchens in a central location That's because we prepare our food there and eat it. "Primitive" cultures often had their cook fires in a central location, because they understood this idea. But at some point in the 50's or 60's (forgive my lack of historical house-building knowledge, here) people started building "living rooms" that nobody actually lived in and kitchens tucked away in the back of their houses, as if they were going to ring their staff and have their help bring the dishes out while they entertained in the "living room." In spite of getting direct mail featuring photographs of white families in front of their McMansions which says, and I wish I were kidding:
...life is too short to clean your own house...
I've found that we are simply too poor to be able to afford our own cook and wait staff. Therefore the whole living room / kitchen / formal dining room arrangement is pretty irrelevant. Now, don't for a minute think that I'm complaining about my own house. I really, really like the parsonage we live in. It's the best place we've lived since we've been married. It's just that I see these design - we'll call them "features," with the understanding that, like the PR experts at Microsoft, we really mean "bugs" - in most houses.
There are some key things that go on in whatever kitchen we use. We prepare food there. We eat there. We hang out and talk there. I will, at least once each presidential administration, mop the sticky goo off the floor (or at least smear it around a bit). We must also store approximately two metric tonnes of plastic containers with mismatched lids. We do not need soffits or crumb-catchers.
And would it kill someone to put a drain in the floor? I've asked this question before as well. The response I got was "well, apparently they do that in Sweden." Well, hooray for the Swedes! God bless 'em! Can we please ask them to invade?
Once, when I was Resident Manager at the theology student housing at Candler, as I was using a shop-vac to suck up water from an overflowing bathtub on the second floor at 3 AM, I asked the Japanese theology students, a very sweet couple, why they had not been concerned when their bathtub began to overflow. He said, "I thought the drain in the floor would take care of it." I said, "there isn't a drain in the floor." He asked, "why not?" Exactly! Some homebuilder - someone American - should have thought, "you know, sometimes bathtubs overflow. Sometimes dishwashers leak. Sometimes, when people are operating indoor plumbing, water will actually flow in a downward direction. Maybe we should put a DRAIN IN THE FLOOR. And because grown men occasionally but of course very seldom miss the potty while urinating, perhaps we should reconsider carpeting the bathroom."
Since I'm always on the lookout for implicit theologies, I'm thinking there is an implicit theology wrapped up in the design of houses. I think the dominant theology of the 50's and 60's was sort of a traditionalist evangelical pseudo-Puritanism a la Jonathan Edwards, and the house design reflects his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Crumb-catchers and soffits are a holdover from this earlier period, and they are here to remind us that we are very, very bad people, and that God doesn't so much love us as hate our stinking guts, and were it not for grace He would fling us into the eternal fire and torment which we truly deserve.
This may be why keep procrastinating about mopping the kitchen.
Posted at 01:44 PM |
Mon - November 20, 2006
Ben
When we did the story of the angels visiting
Abraham and Sarah, when they announced that Abe and Sarah would conceive and
bear a son, we played a clip from Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On." I'm not
kidding.
I met Ben a few years ago when I was thinking
about launching a new worship service at our church. He was tall and had a
toothy grin. I complained to him that most contemporary worship music was too
white. All ethereal guitar riffs, hand-waving, and rock-opera drum beats. There
was no funk, no groove to "praise and worship" music. It all gravitated to 60's
sentimentality.
He agreed and got excited about some kind of alternative. He named about a dozen musical sources. I knew I was no longer hip because the only one I recognized was the Dave Matthews Band.
We started working on putting together a worship team. I told them there was no canon of great Christian music I wanted them to draw from. They would have to find or create whatever fit best with our story. Once we did the story of Jacob meeting Leah at the well. She is so beautiful that he cries. So we sang "Pretty Woman." The week before that we did the story of Jacob's ladder, and for our time of meditation they played the instrumental bit from "Stairway to Heaven." When we did the story of the angels visiting Abraham and Sarah, when they announced that Abe and Sarah would conceive and bear a son, we played a clip from Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On." I'm not kidding. It was great stuff. He wrote two songs that became standards for our band - one based on Psalm 25 and one that was a rewrite of "For the Beauty of the Earth."
My fondest memories are of him sitting at our dining room table, eating peanut-butter waffles and joking about politics, love, and fart jokes. My two-year old son saw him so often at church that he called the church building "Ben's house." My toughest memory is of praying with him in the back of a police car when he was arrested for trying to break into a church member's house. I had thought that he was a recovering addict. I learned that he was not as "recovering" as I had hoped. The last year had been really tough on our relationship, but I heard that he was making a turnaround. He had a job. He had a fiancee.
He died in a car wreck on Friday night on his way to attend a funeral. His own funeral was Tuesday. He was 23 years old.
In my eulogy, I pointed out that nearly every time Jesus talks about the Kingdom of Heaven, he uses the image of a party. The father welcomes the prodigal son and throws a party. A king invites wealthy citizens to a banquet, they refuse, and he goes out and invites the street people instead. A woman sweeps madly for a silver dollar and, when she finds it, throws a hundred-dollar celebration. A messiah passes bread and wine to his disciples and says, "this is my body and blood."
For me, the Kingdom of Heaven will always look a lot like Ben sitting across the table, eating peanut butter waffles, making fart jokes, and telling me about this new song he's working on.
He agreed and got excited about some kind of alternative. He named about a dozen musical sources. I knew I was no longer hip because the only one I recognized was the Dave Matthews Band.
We started working on putting together a worship team. I told them there was no canon of great Christian music I wanted them to draw from. They would have to find or create whatever fit best with our story. Once we did the story of Jacob meeting Leah at the well. She is so beautiful that he cries. So we sang "Pretty Woman." The week before that we did the story of Jacob's ladder, and for our time of meditation they played the instrumental bit from "Stairway to Heaven." When we did the story of the angels visiting Abraham and Sarah, when they announced that Abe and Sarah would conceive and bear a son, we played a clip from Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On." I'm not kidding. It was great stuff. He wrote two songs that became standards for our band - one based on Psalm 25 and one that was a rewrite of "For the Beauty of the Earth."
My fondest memories are of him sitting at our dining room table, eating peanut-butter waffles and joking about politics, love, and fart jokes. My two-year old son saw him so often at church that he called the church building "Ben's house." My toughest memory is of praying with him in the back of a police car when he was arrested for trying to break into a church member's house. I had thought that he was a recovering addict. I learned that he was not as "recovering" as I had hoped. The last year had been really tough on our relationship, but I heard that he was making a turnaround. He had a job. He had a fiancee.
He died in a car wreck on Friday night on his way to attend a funeral. His own funeral was Tuesday. He was 23 years old.
In my eulogy, I pointed out that nearly every time Jesus talks about the Kingdom of Heaven, he uses the image of a party. The father welcomes the prodigal son and throws a party. A king invites wealthy citizens to a banquet, they refuse, and he goes out and invites the street people instead. A woman sweeps madly for a silver dollar and, when she finds it, throws a hundred-dollar celebration. A messiah passes bread and wine to his disciples and says, "this is my body and blood."
For me, the Kingdom of Heaven will always look a lot like Ben sitting across the table, eating peanut butter waffles, making fart jokes, and telling me about this new song he's working on.
Posted at 10:58 PM |
Sat - November 4, 2006
Marking Time
Then we hold Papa's hands, give him the day's
news, try to make him wake up, try to decipher his mouth movements (when he's
awake), say a prayer, and receive a debriefing from the nurse or his
cardiologist.
Visitation
hours:
9 AM
1 PM
5 PM
8:30 PM
This is how we mark time these days. Families in the waiting room gather around double doors and wait for them to open. At the appointed time (or sometimes a few minutes after) a nurse opens one of the doors and the little parade of parents, siblings, and sons and daughters file through the CICU. Infant patients lie in beds on the left. Adults are on the right. Flat-panel monitors above the beds show temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen level, urine output, and a bunch of other numbers I don't understand. Having grown up on old Star Trek reruns, our walk through the CICU always makes me think of DeForest Kelley saying, "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle-worker!" We're in our fourth week of waiting for Papa to wake all the way up and get mobile. We've had a few setbacks, but his numbers are good. There's still no reason why he couldn't be sitting in a chair next week. I am thankful for both the doctors and the miracle-workers.
It's a bit surreal, marking our time by visitation hours. Life goes on. I go to church and keep my schedule. We pay bills and go shopping. Recently I've gone to visit only about once a day, but Mom and Grandma go at least twice.
It's caused me to think about our routines, and how we mark time. I make a ritual of going to my office. I try to get there 15 minutes early. I sit and go through my devotional ritual. I look at my calendar to get my head in the game. I pay a visit to the front office, say hello to the other staff, check my mail. If I don't do these things, my day feels off-kilter.
We've created rituals around these visiting times. We wash our hands before and after. We put on gown and gloves and follow the contact protocol. It's strangely sacramental. Then we hold Papa's hands, give him the day's news, try to make him wake up, try to decipher his mouth movements (when he's awake), say a prayer, and receive a debriefing from the nurse or his cardiologist. Sometimes Mom puts the headphones on him and plays Elvis' gospel music.
We mark time at points where we can meet and be with our families or communities - Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter. Weddings. Funerals. Graduations. I mark time by Sundays on the liturgical calendar: Advent, Lent, Pentecost. Though this waiting time is wearing, and we can't wait for it to be over, when we'll be reunited with my healed grandfather, I am thankful that it has made me more aware of time. Christians are all waiting, really. Marking time. It makes the time between the marks that much more salient. We anticipate the future, when there will be healing, and togetherness. Even now we see the healing taking hold. Even now we can almost taste it.
9 AM
1 PM
5 PM
8:30 PM
This is how we mark time these days. Families in the waiting room gather around double doors and wait for them to open. At the appointed time (or sometimes a few minutes after) a nurse opens one of the doors and the little parade of parents, siblings, and sons and daughters file through the CICU. Infant patients lie in beds on the left. Adults are on the right. Flat-panel monitors above the beds show temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen level, urine output, and a bunch of other numbers I don't understand. Having grown up on old Star Trek reruns, our walk through the CICU always makes me think of DeForest Kelley saying, "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle-worker!" We're in our fourth week of waiting for Papa to wake all the way up and get mobile. We've had a few setbacks, but his numbers are good. There's still no reason why he couldn't be sitting in a chair next week. I am thankful for both the doctors and the miracle-workers.
It's a bit surreal, marking our time by visitation hours. Life goes on. I go to church and keep my schedule. We pay bills and go shopping. Recently I've gone to visit only about once a day, but Mom and Grandma go at least twice.
It's caused me to think about our routines, and how we mark time. I make a ritual of going to my office. I try to get there 15 minutes early. I sit and go through my devotional ritual. I look at my calendar to get my head in the game. I pay a visit to the front office, say hello to the other staff, check my mail. If I don't do these things, my day feels off-kilter.
We've created rituals around these visiting times. We wash our hands before and after. We put on gown and gloves and follow the contact protocol. It's strangely sacramental. Then we hold Papa's hands, give him the day's news, try to make him wake up, try to decipher his mouth movements (when he's awake), say a prayer, and receive a debriefing from the nurse or his cardiologist. Sometimes Mom puts the headphones on him and plays Elvis' gospel music.
We mark time at points where we can meet and be with our families or communities - Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter. Weddings. Funerals. Graduations. I mark time by Sundays on the liturgical calendar: Advent, Lent, Pentecost. Though this waiting time is wearing, and we can't wait for it to be over, when we'll be reunited with my healed grandfather, I am thankful that it has made me more aware of time. Christians are all waiting, really. Marking time. It makes the time between the marks that much more salient. We anticipate the future, when there will be healing, and togetherness. Even now we see the healing taking hold. Even now we can almost taste it.
Posted at 05:24 PM |
Wed - October 18, 2006
Grandma & Papa
My grandfather went
through open-heart surgery last
Thursday. We're still waiting for him to wake up. In the meantime, my Mom and
Grandma have been staying with us.
It is neat to hear Grandma reflect on their life together. She told me about how she was selected to go teach at a black school during integration. She shook her head as she talked about how the ceiling was never finished, how the playground was simply an empty lot. "Not playground equipment," she said. "Rocks. This was what they called 'separate but equal,'" she said. She said that she felt that the principal distrusted her. "Why wouldn't he?" she asked. "This white woman with a strange accent coming into his school? He didn't know that I wasn't sent to trip him up, that I wasn't a spy or something." She's a remarkable woman who saw history close up. She and grandpa both.
I've known intellectually that my grandparents have significant lifetimes of stories that should be shared, but while sitting at the dinner table listening to her talk, it hit me how important their stories are.
Update (10-18-06): Today he woke up. They took out the breathing tube and he is able to look around and talk in a hoarse whisper, although he is still pretty disoriented. It's great to see him look around and communicate.
It is neat to hear Grandma reflect on their life together. She told me about how she was selected to go teach at a black school during integration. She shook her head as she talked about how the ceiling was never finished, how the playground was simply an empty lot. "Not playground equipment," she said. "Rocks. This was what they called 'separate but equal,'" she said. She said that she felt that the principal distrusted her. "Why wouldn't he?" she asked. "This white woman with a strange accent coming into his school? He didn't know that I wasn't sent to trip him up, that I wasn't a spy or something." She's a remarkable woman who saw history close up. She and grandpa both.
I've known intellectually that my grandparents have significant lifetimes of stories that should be shared, but while sitting at the dinner table listening to her talk, it hit me how important their stories are.
Update (10-18-06): Today he woke up. They took out the breathing tube and he is able to look around and talk in a hoarse whisper, although he is still pretty disoriented. It's great to see him look around and communicate.
Posted at 06:32 PM |
Sun - October 8, 2006
Integrity
Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not
able to do?
That belief in Christ is to some a
matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer
to think of it as no great consequence. For them Hazel Motes' integrity lies in
his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree
to tree in the back of his mind. For the author Hazel's integrity lies in his
not being able to. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to
do?
-Flannery O'Connor, in her foreword to Wise Blood, 1962.
-Flannery O'Connor, in her foreword to Wise Blood, 1962.
Posted at 02:24 PM |
Fri - September 8, 2006
9-11 Reflection
I think the reason churches were full is that the
events of September 11 made people think about what's really important to
them.
The fear of God is the beginning of
Wisdom - Proverbs
1:7
On the Sunday after September 11, 2001, churches were full. The standard media interpretation was that "people were looking for answers." Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think that's an adequate interpretation.
That afternoon, I stood in the grocery store checkout line, because even during the eschaton your family still needs milk. The people standing in line looked at each other. We ceased being zombies and saw each other as real human beings. The cashier said to the woman in front of me, "I just want work to end so I can go home and hug my kids. I want to tell them I love them." We made sympathetic noises. I talked with the man behind me and when I said good-bye he said, "God bless you." The normally noisy streets of Nashville were unusually quiet. People didn't drive too fast. Why risk it? Nobody honked their horn. Life is too short to spend it angry.
I think the reason churches were full is that the events of September 11 made people think about what's really important to them. We stopped and, for a short while, felt united by our common humanity, by the realization that we die. In the face of such destruction, we had to reevaluate whether the time we spend chasing money or sex or self-satisfaction is really worth it.
I think that's why churches were full.
On the Sunday after September 11, 2001, churches were full. The standard media interpretation was that "people were looking for answers." Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think that's an adequate interpretation.
That afternoon, I stood in the grocery store checkout line, because even during the eschaton your family still needs milk. The people standing in line looked at each other. We ceased being zombies and saw each other as real human beings. The cashier said to the woman in front of me, "I just want work to end so I can go home and hug my kids. I want to tell them I love them." We made sympathetic noises. I talked with the man behind me and when I said good-bye he said, "God bless you." The normally noisy streets of Nashville were unusually quiet. People didn't drive too fast. Why risk it? Nobody honked their horn. Life is too short to spend it angry.
I think the reason churches were full is that the events of September 11 made people think about what's really important to them. We stopped and, for a short while, felt united by our common humanity, by the realization that we die. In the face of such destruction, we had to reevaluate whether the time we spend chasing money or sex or self-satisfaction is really worth it.
I think that's why churches were full.
Posted at 08:35 PM |
Sat - August 12, 2006
Something of a Testimony, Part 2
So at some point, my intellectual openness to God
met my experience of culture, and I came to see that there is, indeed, a
liberating force that’s active and at work in the world as well as demonic
ones that work to enslave us. There is a spiritual war going on (though not
exactly in the same way that fundamentalists like to talk about “spiritual
war”).
I finished up my last post vaguely hinting at a
William James-y perspective of religious faith. Our social discourses -
everything from the way we dress to the way we speak - is in some sense modeled
on an image of who we want to be, the kind of person we want to “pull
off” being. It’s one reason adolescence
is so trying. You can try to pull off being any number of things, but
if you threaten the social order by getting out of line, there’s always
the enforcers: folks whose job it is to make sure you stay on your rung of the
ladder. You can only pull off being a certain set of social discourses in any
given context. Maybe you can get away with wearing a kilt and Chuck Taylors, but
not everyone can.
(One of the ways I survived being a geek in high school was by embracing geek culture. At that time, the aspects of mass culture that appealed to me were things associated with geeks: comic books, science fiction, computer games, role-playing games, obscure “alternative” music. It blows my mind that all these things have become completely mainstream. Geek culture won.)
I’m more and more aware that there are often winners and losers in these discourses. A pretty young woman wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch mid-riff T-shirt participates in a discourse in which the obvious winner is the A&F company. But the other winner is the system that says the primary value of a woman is her ability to be sexy - a system that benefits cosmetics companies, diet drug manufacturers, liquor companies and - most of all - advertisers - but also rapists, pimps, fundamentalist Christians pushing a “male headship” agenda, pornographers, and so on. And any attempt to disrupt that system will bring down the wrath of the professional or lay enforcers - radio talk show hosts, morning news programs, politicians, peers, even the military. You might call these systems “powers and principalities.” Or just come right out and call them demons. These are organic, living systems, after all, many of which have the same legal rights as citizens. If they can hold property, reproduce, consume, and produce waste - are they not alive?
So at some point, my intellectual openness to God met my experience of culture, and I came to see that there is, indeed, a liberating force that’s active and at work in the world as well as demonic ones that work to enslave us. There is a spiritual war going on (though not exactly in the same way that fundamentalists like to talk about “spiritual war”). Hell, even Tyler Durden recognized it.
I’d never really bought into the idea of Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice for sins. The atonement theory peddled by evangelical culture didn’t crank my tractor (though I’m beginning to embrace it again, with some nuanced difference). While I believed Jesus provides forgiveness for sins, I didn't believe forgiveness was the primary work of the cross. I came to see Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection as the ultimate act of resistance - God’s own personal subversion of a system of religious and political domination, not through more dominating force, but through radical love and an infusion of spiritual power (grace) into regular, everyday human beings.
That sounds a lot more clear-cut and revolutionary than it actually works out in practice. It tends to look a lot more mundane.
Anyway, the question of whether or not God “exists” has really ceased to be important to me. Once I opened myself to the idea “if God exists, what kind of God do I serve?” faith sort of began to grow organically. Since my basis for faith no longer begins in what I can rationally think about God, but on God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ, I always have to bracket my philosophical speculations as abstractions about real life. I cannot say for certain that I am philosophically or theologically correct about any given doctrine, but I am attracted to the kind of person I want to be - modeled after J.C. - and I want to “pull off” being a disciple. I do carry with me the agnostic I once claimed to be. Any given spiritual or miraculous experience I’ve had always carries beside it a little asterisk and footnote, which says, “whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God’s touch. God got involved.”
I no longer believe that faith happens the same way for all people. But I do believe one constant is that it is not bought or thought. All we can do is cultivate an openness to it, and God gives the growth. I think this is what Martin Luther and John Wesley and others of the Reformation meant when they said that even our faith is a gift of grace. Faith is planted and grows like a living thing. We can cultivate habits that help or hinder it, but God gives the growth. Why do some people have it and some don’t? I don’t know. I can’t dance well because I think about it too much. Some people can’t play jazz music because they can’t improvise in the moment and they feel a need to have a plan. Some people can’t even grow decent weeds in their garden. I don’t think any of these situations is incurable. Some people will always do them well because they have a gift, and others of us will stumble along the best we can. If faith is a spiritual gift, then some people will have more of it, and some of us will have less.
As for me, the best thing I can do is develop a method for keeping myself open to faith. (See? I am Welseyan). My personal list involves:
1. Prayer - both alone and with others. Funny how that one always winds up on the list, isn’t it?
2. Accountability - with one or more people, someone I answer to that is not a family member, who will also pray for me and talk with me. A mentor. A small group.
3. Disciplined financial giving - because I’m not living just for myself. I have a mission that’s more important than me.
4. Time spent doing good - both alone and with others. This is why I’m a costumed vigilante and a member of the Justice League. See number 3.
5. Time spent intentionally working on relationships. This is about marriage, parenthood, and friendship, but also about things like networking, evangelism, missions, recruitment, and that sort of thing.
None of these things delivers faith to my doorstep, but it keeps my faith well-watered, well-lit, and in good soil. God gives the growth.
Tags:
faith, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, conversion, evangelism
(One of the ways I survived being a geek in high school was by embracing geek culture. At that time, the aspects of mass culture that appealed to me were things associated with geeks: comic books, science fiction, computer games, role-playing games, obscure “alternative” music. It blows my mind that all these things have become completely mainstream. Geek culture won.)
I’m more and more aware that there are often winners and losers in these discourses. A pretty young woman wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch mid-riff T-shirt participates in a discourse in which the obvious winner is the A&F company. But the other winner is the system that says the primary value of a woman is her ability to be sexy - a system that benefits cosmetics companies, diet drug manufacturers, liquor companies and - most of all - advertisers - but also rapists, pimps, fundamentalist Christians pushing a “male headship” agenda, pornographers, and so on. And any attempt to disrupt that system will bring down the wrath of the professional or lay enforcers - radio talk show hosts, morning news programs, politicians, peers, even the military. You might call these systems “powers and principalities.” Or just come right out and call them demons. These are organic, living systems, after all, many of which have the same legal rights as citizens. If they can hold property, reproduce, consume, and produce waste - are they not alive?
So at some point, my intellectual openness to God met my experience of culture, and I came to see that there is, indeed, a liberating force that’s active and at work in the world as well as demonic ones that work to enslave us. There is a spiritual war going on (though not exactly in the same way that fundamentalists like to talk about “spiritual war”). Hell, even Tyler Durden recognized it.
I’d never really bought into the idea of Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice for sins. The atonement theory peddled by evangelical culture didn’t crank my tractor (though I’m beginning to embrace it again, with some nuanced difference). While I believed Jesus provides forgiveness for sins, I didn't believe forgiveness was the primary work of the cross. I came to see Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection as the ultimate act of resistance - God’s own personal subversion of a system of religious and political domination, not through more dominating force, but through radical love and an infusion of spiritual power (grace) into regular, everyday human beings.
That sounds a lot more clear-cut and revolutionary than it actually works out in practice. It tends to look a lot more mundane.
Anyway, the question of whether or not God “exists” has really ceased to be important to me. Once I opened myself to the idea “if God exists, what kind of God do I serve?” faith sort of began to grow organically. Since my basis for faith no longer begins in what I can rationally think about God, but on God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ, I always have to bracket my philosophical speculations as abstractions about real life. I cannot say for certain that I am philosophically or theologically correct about any given doctrine, but I am attracted to the kind of person I want to be - modeled after J.C. - and I want to “pull off” being a disciple. I do carry with me the agnostic I once claimed to be. Any given spiritual or miraculous experience I’ve had always carries beside it a little asterisk and footnote, which says, “whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God’s touch. God got involved.”
I no longer believe that faith happens the same way for all people. But I do believe one constant is that it is not bought or thought. All we can do is cultivate an openness to it, and God gives the growth. I think this is what Martin Luther and John Wesley and others of the Reformation meant when they said that even our faith is a gift of grace. Faith is planted and grows like a living thing. We can cultivate habits that help or hinder it, but God gives the growth. Why do some people have it and some don’t? I don’t know. I can’t dance well because I think about it too much. Some people can’t play jazz music because they can’t improvise in the moment and they feel a need to have a plan. Some people can’t even grow decent weeds in their garden. I don’t think any of these situations is incurable. Some people will always do them well because they have a gift, and others of us will stumble along the best we can. If faith is a spiritual gift, then some people will have more of it, and some of us will have less.
As for me, the best thing I can do is develop a method for keeping myself open to faith. (See? I am Welseyan). My personal list involves:
1. Prayer - both alone and with others. Funny how that one always winds up on the list, isn’t it?
2. Accountability - with one or more people, someone I answer to that is not a family member, who will also pray for me and talk with me. A mentor. A small group.
3. Disciplined financial giving - because I’m not living just for myself. I have a mission that’s more important than me.
4. Time spent doing good - both alone and with others. This is why I’m a costumed vigilante and a member of the Justice League. See number 3.
5. Time spent intentionally working on relationships. This is about marriage, parenthood, and friendship, but also about things like networking, evangelism, missions, recruitment, and that sort of thing.
None of these things delivers faith to my doorstep, but it keeps my faith well-watered, well-lit, and in good soil. God gives the growth.
Tags:
faith, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, conversion, evangelism
Posted at 09:23 PM |
Thu - August 10, 2006
Something of a Testimony, Part 1
So it really pissed me off to hear an evangelical
guest preacher say one night at a church youth function that my agnostic and
non-Christian friends would be getting a one-way ticket to eternal torment in
hell, while the popular blonde Christian jocks and babes would be raptured on up
to heaven.
I was thrilled to hear from an old friend the
other day. Greg has started a blog which promises to
be very interesting, and I look forward to hearing more of what he has to
say.
I met Greg in middle school. He and some friends pretty much saved my life. I’ve always been a geek, but in seventh grade I moved from a school that required very little of me to a school where I actually had to study. The social environment was something like Lord of the Flies, only without the sharpened sticks. We were mostly on the Piggy end of the equation. From about 7th grade to 10th grade I learned to appreciate all the nuances of toxic adolescent culture, the kind of environment that makes you understand, if not sympathize with, school shooters. Michael Thompson and Dan Kindlon call it “the culture of cruelty.” All boys have to run this gauntlet. Girls get sucked into it as well.
Greg and I were part of a circle of friends, all of us freaks and geeks, who clung together in the storm. He has always had the gift of poetry, and when we formed a band he wrote lyrics that were far beyond the ability of the rest of us to do justice to them musically. He’s a wordsmith.
So it really pissed me off to hear an evangelical guest preacher say one night at a church youth function that my agnostic and non-Christian friends would be getting a one-way ticket to eternal torment in hell, while the popular blonde Christian jocks and babes would be raptured on up to heaven. I thought: Why should they get to heaven when they had made my life hell? And why should my friends who had more moral sense and compassion in their little fingers be condemned just because they didn’t love a tyrannical savior?
I remember, just months after a particularly powerful conversion experience, sitting in the kitchen arguing with my parents about the whole afterlife thing. If God had designed such a lousy deal, I didn’t really want any part of it.
For a few years after, I was a closet nonbeliever. Jesus, I thought, would not recognize this thing that we have come to call “Christianity.” (I didn’t know any church history at this point, and figured that “Christianity” was what I knew from my experience in 20th century North America).
Then when I was 17, we had a Christmas party at Greg’s house. He knew I had been having a sort of crisis of faith, and he gave me a copy of The Screwtape Letters. I devoured it in one sitting.
Afterward I read Mere Christianity, reread the Narnia chronicles, and then read the Great Divorce. I had the same kind of liberating experience that many others have had in reading C.S. Lewis. I finally felt like I had permission not to leave my brain at the door when I went to church. My faith at that point was very much a head thing. Heart and hand didn’t come into it much. But a door had opened. Now when I read Lewis, there is some stuff that strikes me as sophomoric and simplistic. But he has the ability to make common sense seem so... sensible. And I still find his idea of joy and imagination compelling.
The problem that had originally pushed me away from Christianity, the problem of hell, seemed not as huge to me. For one thing, we choose hell all the time: people stay in abusive relationships, going from one bad situation to another. We willingly leap into addictions, knowing that they can and probably will ruin our lives. And we give in to consumer culture, buying our way into slavery, selling off our souls a little bit at a time (90 days, same as cash). Another thing is that, according to Matthew 25, one of the main features of divine judgment is that people are surprised at where they wind up, never realizing that the judge has been with them all along. And the last thing, the thing that made the most sense to me and stays with me until now, is that hell is the state of wishing other people were in hell. I love the passage in The Great Divorce where a man gets off the bus in heaven, sees his enemy, and says in effect, “well, if he can get in here, there’s no way I’m staying!” And he gets on the bus and heads back to hell. Hell is an extension of the this-worldly desire to cut ourselves off from portions of humanity. Every morning on my way to high school I drove past a new gated community, a golden ghetto, and I thought, “who would have thought people would pay big bucks to live in hell?”
A few years later I felt a call to ministry. I remember talking it over with my pastor. I said I wasn’t sure I could be a pastor, because I had a love-hate relationship with the church. He chuckled, took off his glasses, looked at me and asked, “is there any other kind?”
Anyway - all that to say that Greg has had a formative impact on where I am and what I’m doing now, and that it’s a bit ironic, I think, that we wind up in such different - and yet similar - faith positions. See, the thing is, I’ve never really stopped being agnostic. It’s not something you “get over.” It’s just that I’m an agnostic who believes. When I watch the last scene in Pulp Fiction, where Vincent and Jules debate what actually makes something a miracle, I fall on the side of Jules - more because Samuel L. Jackson is a Bad MFr than because of any theological merit, but there you have it.
(I also decided in graduate school to believe in the virgin birth - mainly because it would piss off my professors. Does “Son of God” only mean that Jesus had a unique Y chromosome? That his unique genetic makeup plus the power of our yellow sun gave him super powers? Certainly it must mean more than physiology! But if it isn't also physical, and more than metaphor, it loses symbolic power.)
Greg responded to something I wrote about something Scott Kurtz said about religion. And I appreciate his statement, although I do feel I need to point out that what I wrote was about Scott Kurtz, not Greg, and was mostly a reaction to the phrase, “committing intellectual suicide.” I do not think prayer is a panacea for all faith crises, but it is an essential component of asking, seeking, and knocking. John Wesley lived a most disciplined and prayerful life, and yet when he went to talk to a Moravian pastor honestly about his lack of faith, the pastor advised him, “preach faith until you have it.” So apparently it’s not always enough to pray, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” I don’t know what synapses had to fire or what neurotransmitters had to be present for Wesley’s heart to be “strangely warmed.” I’m sure if we could bottle it, we would.
But I do think one of the major barriers to faith is our social discourses - the kind of persons we present ourselves as and aspire to be. This is one of the weaknesses and the strengths of religious faith in general, I think. It’s a strength in that the witness of the saints and the martyrs - Martin Luther King, Jr., Deitrich Bonhoeffer, John Rutland, and folks like that - inspire us to want to be like them. In some sense when we hear and read their stories we have a small inkling of wanting to be Christ-like. It’s a weakness, though, in that similar religious idiocy makes us want to distance ourselves from real or perceived religious tyranny. In the positive sense, I may try to pass myself off as a spiritually enlightened guy. In a negative sense, I may come off as a pompous ass.
So as to not come off as a pompous ass, I will end here, for now. More later.
Tags:
faith, C.S. Lewis, conversion, evangelism
I met Greg in middle school. He and some friends pretty much saved my life. I’ve always been a geek, but in seventh grade I moved from a school that required very little of me to a school where I actually had to study. The social environment was something like Lord of the Flies, only without the sharpened sticks. We were mostly on the Piggy end of the equation. From about 7th grade to 10th grade I learned to appreciate all the nuances of toxic adolescent culture, the kind of environment that makes you understand, if not sympathize with, school shooters. Michael Thompson and Dan Kindlon call it “the culture of cruelty.” All boys have to run this gauntlet. Girls get sucked into it as well.
Greg and I were part of a circle of friends, all of us freaks and geeks, who clung together in the storm. He has always had the gift of poetry, and when we formed a band he wrote lyrics that were far beyond the ability of the rest of us to do justice to them musically. He’s a wordsmith.
So it really pissed me off to hear an evangelical guest preacher say one night at a church youth function that my agnostic and non-Christian friends would be getting a one-way ticket to eternal torment in hell, while the popular blonde Christian jocks and babes would be raptured on up to heaven. I thought: Why should they get to heaven when they had made my life hell? And why should my friends who had more moral sense and compassion in their little fingers be condemned just because they didn’t love a tyrannical savior?
I remember, just months after a particularly powerful conversion experience, sitting in the kitchen arguing with my parents about the whole afterlife thing. If God had designed such a lousy deal, I didn’t really want any part of it.
For a few years after, I was a closet nonbeliever. Jesus, I thought, would not recognize this thing that we have come to call “Christianity.” (I didn’t know any church history at this point, and figured that “Christianity” was what I knew from my experience in 20th century North America).
Then when I was 17, we had a Christmas party at Greg’s house. He knew I had been having a sort of crisis of faith, and he gave me a copy of The Screwtape Letters. I devoured it in one sitting.
Afterward I read Mere Christianity, reread the Narnia chronicles, and then read the Great Divorce. I had the same kind of liberating experience that many others have had in reading C.S. Lewis. I finally felt like I had permission not to leave my brain at the door when I went to church. My faith at that point was very much a head thing. Heart and hand didn’t come into it much. But a door had opened. Now when I read Lewis, there is some stuff that strikes me as sophomoric and simplistic. But he has the ability to make common sense seem so... sensible. And I still find his idea of joy and imagination compelling.
The problem that had originally pushed me away from Christianity, the problem of hell, seemed not as huge to me. For one thing, we choose hell all the time: people stay in abusive relationships, going from one bad situation to another. We willingly leap into addictions, knowing that they can and probably will ruin our lives. And we give in to consumer culture, buying our way into slavery, selling off our souls a little bit at a time (90 days, same as cash). Another thing is that, according to Matthew 25, one of the main features of divine judgment is that people are surprised at where they wind up, never realizing that the judge has been with them all along. And the last thing, the thing that made the most sense to me and stays with me until now, is that hell is the state of wishing other people were in hell. I love the passage in The Great Divorce where a man gets off the bus in heaven, sees his enemy, and says in effect, “well, if he can get in here, there’s no way I’m staying!” And he gets on the bus and heads back to hell. Hell is an extension of the this-worldly desire to cut ourselves off from portions of humanity. Every morning on my way to high school I drove past a new gated community, a golden ghetto, and I thought, “who would have thought people would pay big bucks to live in hell?”
A few years later I felt a call to ministry. I remember talking it over with my pastor. I said I wasn’t sure I could be a pastor, because I had a love-hate relationship with the church. He chuckled, took off his glasses, looked at me and asked, “is there any other kind?”
Anyway - all that to say that Greg has had a formative impact on where I am and what I’m doing now, and that it’s a bit ironic, I think, that we wind up in such different - and yet similar - faith positions. See, the thing is, I’ve never really stopped being agnostic. It’s not something you “get over.” It’s just that I’m an agnostic who believes. When I watch the last scene in Pulp Fiction, where Vincent and Jules debate what actually makes something a miracle, I fall on the side of Jules - more because Samuel L. Jackson is a Bad MFr than because of any theological merit, but there you have it.
(I also decided in graduate school to believe in the virgin birth - mainly because it would piss off my professors. Does “Son of God” only mean that Jesus had a unique Y chromosome? That his unique genetic makeup plus the power of our yellow sun gave him super powers? Certainly it must mean more than physiology! But if it isn't also physical, and more than metaphor, it loses symbolic power.)
Greg responded to something I wrote about something Scott Kurtz said about religion. And I appreciate his statement, although I do feel I need to point out that what I wrote was about Scott Kurtz, not Greg, and was mostly a reaction to the phrase, “committing intellectual suicide.” I do not think prayer is a panacea for all faith crises, but it is an essential component of asking, seeking, and knocking. John Wesley lived a most disciplined and prayerful life, and yet when he went to talk to a Moravian pastor honestly about his lack of faith, the pastor advised him, “preach faith until you have it.” So apparently it’s not always enough to pray, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” I don’t know what synapses had to fire or what neurotransmitters had to be present for Wesley’s heart to be “strangely warmed.” I’m sure if we could bottle it, we would.
But I do think one of the major barriers to faith is our social discourses - the kind of persons we present ourselves as and aspire to be. This is one of the weaknesses and the strengths of religious faith in general, I think. It’s a strength in that the witness of the saints and the martyrs - Martin Luther King, Jr., Deitrich Bonhoeffer, John Rutland, and folks like that - inspire us to want to be like them. In some sense when we hear and read their stories we have a small inkling of wanting to be Christ-like. It’s a weakness, though, in that similar religious idiocy makes us want to distance ourselves from real or perceived religious tyranny. In the positive sense, I may try to pass myself off as a spiritually enlightened guy. In a negative sense, I may come off as a pompous ass.
So as to not come off as a pompous ass, I will end here, for now. More later.
Tags:
faith, C.S. Lewis, conversion, evangelism
Posted at 08:37 PM |
Thu - August 3, 2006
Being Perfect
Occasionally I run up against those statements in
the sermon on the mount - like "don't be like the pagans," or "don't be like the
hypocrites," or "your righteousness must exceed the fundamentalists and
evangelicals," and "love your enemies - otherwise, how are you any different
from anybody else, even extortionists, gangsters, con artists, whores,
inside-traders, tobacco executives, and bitchy, nagging curmudgeons - all of
whom love their families?"
The grandmother has died. The pastor sits with
the crying family in the grandmother’s living room. He looks for clues
about who the grandmother was. Portraits hang on every wall and smile from every
shelf. In their photographs, younger versions of the grandchildren wear
cheerleader or baseball uniforms.
What you would not be able to glean from the living room was that the woman was mean as a snake. She was a racist, a manipulator, and a gossip. She managed to drive off 9 pastors from her church before the last one wouldn’t leave. So she stopped coming. She never put a dime in the offering plate. Her favorite form of recreation was complaining about her family to her neighbors, and complaining about her neighbors to her family.
The pastor asks, “can you tell me something about your grandmother’s spiritual life?” The son puffs out his chest. “Well, I know she got saved, if that’s what you’re asking. Walked down the aisle and got saved when she was twelve.” The daughter nods and says, “I’ll tell you one thing. You always knew where you stood with her. She never beat around the bush. She told it like it was.” The granddaughter says, “And she loved her family.”
The pastor thinks: did Joseph Stalin love his family? The pastor nods and says, “mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.”
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:46-47)
This is not a story of something that happened to me - except that it is, in a way. It's an amalgamation of many different experiences. It is civic religion - the kind that asks you not to mind my business and I will not mind yours, and we'll agree to call it "community." The kind that says religion makes us into good citizens and that we are not sinners as long as we don't do anything criminal or taboo.
Occasionally I run up against those statements in the sermon on the mount - like "don't be like the pagans," or "don't be like the hypocrites," or "your righteousness must exceed the fundamentalists and evangelicals," and "love your enemies - otherwise, how are you any different from anybody else, even extortionists, gangsters, con artists, whores, inside-traders, tobacco executives, and bitchy, nagging curmudgeons - all of whom love their families?"
And if I answer honestly, I say, "I'm not." Somewhere I hear, like an echo, a patient voice going, "mm-hmm. Mm-hmm."
Tags: sanctification, Sermon on the Mount, hypocrisy
What you would not be able to glean from the living room was that the woman was mean as a snake. She was a racist, a manipulator, and a gossip. She managed to drive off 9 pastors from her church before the last one wouldn’t leave. So she stopped coming. She never put a dime in the offering plate. Her favorite form of recreation was complaining about her family to her neighbors, and complaining about her neighbors to her family.
The pastor asks, “can you tell me something about your grandmother’s spiritual life?” The son puffs out his chest. “Well, I know she got saved, if that’s what you’re asking. Walked down the aisle and got saved when she was twelve.” The daughter nods and says, “I’ll tell you one thing. You always knew where you stood with her. She never beat around the bush. She told it like it was.” The granddaughter says, “And she loved her family.”
The pastor thinks: did Joseph Stalin love his family? The pastor nods and says, “mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.”
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:46-47)
This is not a story of something that happened to me - except that it is, in a way. It's an amalgamation of many different experiences. It is civic religion - the kind that asks you not to mind my business and I will not mind yours, and we'll agree to call it "community." The kind that says religion makes us into good citizens and that we are not sinners as long as we don't do anything criminal or taboo.
Occasionally I run up against those statements in the sermon on the mount - like "don't be like the pagans," or "don't be like the hypocrites," or "your righteousness must exceed the fundamentalists and evangelicals," and "love your enemies - otherwise, how are you any different from anybody else, even extortionists, gangsters, con artists, whores, inside-traders, tobacco executives, and bitchy, nagging curmudgeons - all of whom love their families?"
And if I answer honestly, I say, "I'm not." Somewhere I hear, like an echo, a patient voice going, "mm-hmm. Mm-hmm."
Tags: sanctification, Sermon on the Mount, hypocrisy
Posted at 11:23 PM |
Wed - March 15, 2006
Who Am I as a Bearer of Good News?
I don't really remember what the guy said, only
that at some point I was on my knees, and my friend had put his hand on my
shoulder, and I was crying because I knew what a horrible, horrible person I
was, and that I didn't deserve grace, and I that it was somehow my fault that
Jesus got nailed to a cross.
I've been struggling with the concepts of
evangelism and missions for the past several years.
I generally point to an experience at summer camp when I was 13 as my first salvation experience - the point at which justifying grace snagged my heart and wouldn't let go. But I had an experience much earlier, when I was maybe eight. I went to a friend's church. We sat in metal folding chairs and listened to an evangelist tell us that we were all going to hell unless we accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.
I don't think I've ever even told my parents about it. I'm not really sure why. I suspect it may be because I felt it was something like child abuse. I don't really remember what the guy said, only that at some point I was on my knees, and my friend had put his hand on my shoulder, and I was crying because I knew what a horrible, horrible person I was, and that I didn't deserve grace, and that it was somehow my fault that Jesus got nailed to a cross. That evening I cried myself to sleep, saying "I want to be a Christian." I am sure that the evangelist was very proud of making a roomful of children cry. Perhaps he went home and told his wife "30 children got saved tonight." And then they thanked the Lord in prayer. I, on the other hand, didn't know how to talk about it. I felt terrible.
You know what? That event didn't make me a Christian.
So I tend to squirm a bit when we start talking about "evangelism." Of course, apologists could point to the experience and talk about all the things the evangelist did wrong. They could say that there is a difference between what he did and real or appropriate evangelism. But I suspect that most active proselytizing is based on similar principles of power and rhetoric. We could perhaps create a continuum: on one end would be a conversation of mutual power-sharing, and on the other a rhetoric of domination. As the power differential increases, we'd go from persuasion, to manipulation, to exploitation, to abuse.
As I mentioned, my real conversion experience happened when I was thirteen. I had had a miserable experience at camp. I was one of few people at camp who didn't go every summer. It was impossible to break into the closed circles of long-time friends who gathered during free-time, sharing soft drinks and gossiping. I remember that the theme of the camp was "building the body of Christ," and there were a lot of speeches and activities about unity and inclusiveness. At the closing worship service, everyone arrived wearing dress clothes - coats and ties and dresses. This was, apparently, camp tradition - and one which nobody bothered to tell new people. There were perhaps three of us wearing shorts and t-shirts. We were the geeks, the outsiders. There have been few times in my life when I felt so excluded. After worship, everyone gathered in a circle outside, sang songs, and got all huggy and teary as they said their goodbyes until next year. I stood on the outside of that circle. I hated all of those people. I wanted to die.
After the closing, I walked around the camp. A lonely anger made me feel as if my head were somewhere in space, looking down on the world, and I regarded all humankind with contempt. I found my way back into the sanctuary, which was empty. I knelt down with the intention of telling God I was through with him and all his people.
A youth counselor - I don't think I ever saw her face - came up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder. The knot in my chest came undone, and I wept. I prayed simply that I didn't want to be alone anymore. As she prayed with me, she put it into words that made sense to me - that my value didn't come from the way I felt, or whose friend I was, or where I fit in the pecking order of the culture of cruelty. My value came from God's incomprehensibly powerful love for me. We prayed that God himself would take up residence in me, that I would never walk alone again.
That was a conversion experience.
My first experience was an expression of power in a domination system. My second was being freed from a domination system. The first involved a man speaking at us, in front of us. The second involved an anonymous stranger who came alongside me. One was bad news. The other was Good News.
I drifted away from being a Christian only a few months later, when I began to struggle with salvation issues. How could a good and loving God send people to hell simply because they hadn't had the same kind of experience I had? I decided that maybe Christianity wasn't for me after all. I wasn't exactly losing my faith. I was losing somebody else's faith. I described myself as an agnostic even as I went to youth group meetings at church.
I came back to embrace Christian faith, but it was largely an intellectual journey, and not one of the heart. Honestly, most of my heart journey, my spiritual conversion, has only been in the past 6 or 7 years. But that is a different story.
So it is that I've been struggling with who I am as a bearer of Good News. I do not come out of a culture of evangelicalism. I grew up in the United Methodist Church, which newspapers describe as "mainline Protestant," or even "liberal mainline Protestant," to distinguish the denomination from "evangelical" denominations. There are Methodist evangelicals, but my congregation didn't really fit that description. My experiences of the evangelical subculture have been mostly negative, as they have for many other people. I've been fascinated with discussions about the emerging church movement/conversation, because in many ways it seems as if those from evangelical backgrounds are rediscovering John Wesley. In a similar movement, I'm rediscovering the evangelical roots of Methodism. John Wesley was a pioneer of "Both/And" Christianity in the post-Enlightenment West - with an emphasis on both social justice and personal piety, on both the sacraments and preaching, on both small groups and corporate worship. The Methodist church joined with the Evangelical Brethren to become the United Methodist church. So there is something "evangelical" in my spiritual heritage.
A couple of years ago we took our first mission trip to Bolivia. It was an interesting experience for me as a preacher. I make my living with words - talking and listening, preaching and studying. What do you do when your words are no longer useful? When you don't speak the language?
I had the experience that so many others talk about when they do mission work. I've often heard missionaries say they went to "take Jesus to the natives," and they found that Jesus was already there. They went to be a blessing, and they were blessed. The hospitality and love shown to them humbled or even shamed them into realizing how thin their own expressions of love have been. All true. I know why they say that.
I've started thinking about evangelism the same way. You don't give Jesus to people. You find where Jesus is already working. People don't come to "know the Lord." They come to know that they already know the Lord, that Christ is in fact right there in front of them. Part of embracing Jesus is embracing the humanity of Jesus, that weakness, failure, and even death can still be redemptive when we allow the power of God to work through them. I think those are notions that many self-described "evangelicals" are uncomfortable with.
So who am I as a bearer of Good News? How am I to understand evangelism in light of my own experiences and what I find in the Bible? I'm still working on it.
Tags:
faith, conversion, evangelism
I generally point to an experience at summer camp when I was 13 as my first salvation experience - the point at which justifying grace snagged my heart and wouldn't let go. But I had an experience much earlier, when I was maybe eight. I went to a friend's church. We sat in metal folding chairs and listened to an evangelist tell us that we were all going to hell unless we accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.
I don't think I've ever even told my parents about it. I'm not really sure why. I suspect it may be because I felt it was something like child abuse. I don't really remember what the guy said, only that at some point I was on my knees, and my friend had put his hand on my shoulder, and I was crying because I knew what a horrible, horrible person I was, and that I didn't deserve grace, and that it was somehow my fault that Jesus got nailed to a cross. That evening I cried myself to sleep, saying "I want to be a Christian." I am sure that the evangelist was very proud of making a roomful of children cry. Perhaps he went home and told his wife "30 children got saved tonight." And then they thanked the Lord in prayer. I, on the other hand, didn't know how to talk about it. I felt terrible.
You know what? That event didn't make me a Christian.
So I tend to squirm a bit when we start talking about "evangelism." Of course, apologists could point to the experience and talk about all the things the evangelist did wrong. They could say that there is a difference between what he did and real or appropriate evangelism. But I suspect that most active proselytizing is based on similar principles of power and rhetoric. We could perhaps create a continuum: on one end would be a conversation of mutual power-sharing, and on the other a rhetoric of domination. As the power differential increases, we'd go from persuasion, to manipulation, to exploitation, to abuse.
As I mentioned, my real conversion experience happened when I was thirteen. I had had a miserable experience at camp. I was one of few people at camp who didn't go every summer. It was impossible to break into the closed circles of long-time friends who gathered during free-time, sharing soft drinks and gossiping. I remember that the theme of the camp was "building the body of Christ," and there were a lot of speeches and activities about unity and inclusiveness. At the closing worship service, everyone arrived wearing dress clothes - coats and ties and dresses. This was, apparently, camp tradition - and one which nobody bothered to tell new people. There were perhaps three of us wearing shorts and t-shirts. We were the geeks, the outsiders. There have been few times in my life when I felt so excluded. After worship, everyone gathered in a circle outside, sang songs, and got all huggy and teary as they said their goodbyes until next year. I stood on the outside of that circle. I hated all of those people. I wanted to die.
After the closing, I walked around the camp. A lonely anger made me feel as if my head were somewhere in space, looking down on the world, and I regarded all humankind with contempt. I found my way back into the sanctuary, which was empty. I knelt down with the intention of telling God I was through with him and all his people.
A youth counselor - I don't think I ever saw her face - came up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder. The knot in my chest came undone, and I wept. I prayed simply that I didn't want to be alone anymore. As she prayed with me, she put it into words that made sense to me - that my value didn't come from the way I felt, or whose friend I was, or where I fit in the pecking order of the culture of cruelty. My value came from God's incomprehensibly powerful love for me. We prayed that God himself would take up residence in me, that I would never walk alone again.
That was a conversion experience.
My first experience was an expression of power in a domination system. My second was being freed from a domination system. The first involved a man speaking at us, in front of us. The second involved an anonymous stranger who came alongside me. One was bad news. The other was Good News.
I drifted away from being a Christian only a few months later, when I began to struggle with salvation issues. How could a good and loving God send people to hell simply because they hadn't had the same kind of experience I had? I decided that maybe Christianity wasn't for me after all. I wasn't exactly losing my faith. I was losing somebody else's faith. I described myself as an agnostic even as I went to youth group meetings at church.
I came back to embrace Christian faith, but it was largely an intellectual journey, and not one of the heart. Honestly, most of my heart journey, my spiritual conversion, has only been in the past 6 or 7 years. But that is a different story.
So it is that I've been struggling with who I am as a bearer of Good News. I do not come out of a culture of evangelicalism. I grew up in the United Methodist Church, which newspapers describe as "mainline Protestant," or even "liberal mainline Protestant," to distinguish the denomination from "evangelical" denominations. There are Methodist evangelicals, but my congregation didn't really fit that description. My experiences of the evangelical subculture have been mostly negative, as they have for many other people. I've been fascinated with discussions about the emerging church movement/conversation, because in many ways it seems as if those from evangelical backgrounds are rediscovering John Wesley. In a similar movement, I'm rediscovering the evangelical roots of Methodism. John Wesley was a pioneer of "Both/And" Christianity in the post-Enlightenment West - with an emphasis on both social justice and personal piety, on both the sacraments and preaching, on both small groups and corporate worship. The Methodist church joined with the Evangelical Brethren to become the United Methodist church. So there is something "evangelical" in my spiritual heritage.
A couple of years ago we took our first mission trip to Bolivia. It was an interesting experience for me as a preacher. I make my living with words - talking and listening, preaching and studying. What do you do when your words are no longer useful? When you don't speak the language?
I had the experience that so many others talk about when they do mission work. I've often heard missionaries say they went to "take Jesus to the natives," and they found that Jesus was already there. They went to be a blessing, and they were blessed. The hospitality and love shown to them humbled or even shamed them into realizing how thin their own expressions of love have been. All true. I know why they say that.
I've started thinking about evangelism the same way. You don't give Jesus to people. You find where Jesus is already working. People don't come to "know the Lord." They come to know that they already know the Lord, that Christ is in fact right there in front of them. Part of embracing Jesus is embracing the humanity of Jesus, that weakness, failure, and even death can still be redemptive when we allow the power of God to work through them. I think those are notions that many self-described "evangelicals" are uncomfortable with.
So who am I as a bearer of Good News? How am I to understand evangelism in light of my own experiences and what I find in the Bible? I'm still working on it.
Tags:
faith, conversion, evangelism
Posted at 05:17 PM |
Sun - December 4, 2005
Good News Stories
My District Superintendent asked me to share some
of the good news about what's been happening at our church. I thought I would
share my response here.
My District Superintendent asked me to share some
of the good news about what's been happening at our church. I thought I would
share my response here.
----------------------------------
Okay, here's a thumbnail of what's been happening at our church.
Just some perspective for the story: at our Valentine's banquet in 2003, we honored those members who were 80 years old or over. Our roll at the time said we had about 120 members (I had started auditing the rolls, but there were still a lot of nominal members on it). We had *30* folks who were over 80. That was 25% of our roll - and our roll was inflated. Average age in our congregation was probably 70.
The idea to start a coffee house came out of a few small group meetings with a couple of young adults in our congregation. We began talking up the idea among some of the other folks we knew would be receptive. We launched the Escape Coffee House in October of 2004. We converted the old youth room, paying attention to details like lighting and colors. The goal was to create a comfortable, pleasant space - far different from the harsh glare of fluorescent bulbs and ratty furniture that characterize most church attempts to create a "hang out for young people." For at least 6 months it was a happening place. One night we had over 40 people come through the coffee house - drinking mochas, playing video games and board games, chatting, and just hanging out. The mission of the Escape was "to provide a safe space for Christian fellowship and low-pressure evangelism." There was no formal Bible study. It made some people uncomfortable, because they could not detect an overt "Jesus message" apart from the environment - the decoration, the literature left around, the music in the background. We prayed before we opened, but the goal was to build relationships.
Since spring of this year, the Escape attendance dwindled. But this was not unanticipated. We knew the "new" would wear off at some point, but that even if we stopped doing the coffee house, we would have created a fantastic place for Bible studies and future events. Nowadays we have about a dozen regulars who come to watch movies, play board games and such. After Christmas, we're starting a Bible study on the movie Napoleon Dynamite. But the secondary goal of the Escape was to create a community out of which we might develop a new worship service. I said early on that this was a launching pad for other ministries. We found the people we were looking for.
After we put together a team of 4 or 5 young adults, we began meeting on Sunday mornings before Sunday school to pray for each other and ask what God was leading us toward in this worship service. For the six months we met, our meetings had the same format: how has your week been? Where have you seen God active? What in the coming week do we need to pray for in your life? If we got around to actually discussing worship issues, we would - but I knew that the most important thing was building and bonding the worship team. As time went on, we added team members. But it has continued to function as a small group. The standard greeting nowadays is "how has your week been?" which they feel comfortable answering honestly - not "how are you doing?"
We established some goals for this new worship service: we would feel free to draw from multiple traditions, both ancient and contemporary. We would emphasize community. We would facilitate discussion and interaction in the service. We would change something significant every few weeks. We would feel free to innovate, to try new things, and to fail. We would tell the Bible story, beginning with creation, and going all the way through the Bible - with occasional breaks for special seasons (Advent, Holy Week) or special topic discussion services.
The Story is - different. The worship team established early on that they didn't want to just be "contemporary." We do not use a stage. We sit, most often, in a circle, preferably not more than two rows deep (so there is no back row to slink into - we add chairs as needed, but we try to make sure it always feels crowded). There is coffee (of course!) We keep the lights low, backlight everything, use candles and worship stations - some of the stuff that stereotypically characterizes emerging worship. But we also sing traditional hymns, occasionally recite the Apostle's Creed. Sometimes we use electric instruments, but most often we go for an acoustic, more contemplative sound. I always begin by letting visitors know that we never really know what is going to work and what isn't, but that we are all trying to give glory to God in whatever fumbling way we can.
When we started in April of this year, we averaged mid-twenties in attendance. Most recently, we have been averaging 40 and above. Two Sundays ago we had 55. That may not sound like much to a larger church, but here it is a big deal.
We have, of course, experienced some of the pains that many churches experience when they begin a new service. But by and large, this congregation has understood our mission and why we began a new service. Most have been very accepting, and have gone out of their way to make sure bonds of community reach across the worship services. Our traditional service attendance has taken a hit, but we have, I think, at least reversed an overall trend of decline. When we began, we said that we would take the lessons we learned in the early service and apply them to the later service. We're now at the point where we can begin to do that. We're looking at using projection and increasing the amount of lay involvement in planning and carrying out worship.
Even more encouraging, we are beginning to see visitors on a regular basis. There are more kids about, and we are finally at a point where we can begin to talk about children's ministry. Next week we plan on having the first children's Sunday school class we've had in a long time. This Friday, we're taking a group to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
I always feel weird writing this kind of thing, because it is impossible to talk about it without making it sound like an unqualified success. I think it's important to point out that this is really hard. Any significant gain can be offset by an important member getting sick or going to jail. One negative "event" in our church's life can take an entire family out of the picture, from which it is hard to recover. There are days when both services have low attendance, when the projector is too dim, when key music people are missing and we stumble through our planned songs or resort to singing "Jesus Loves Me." Those are days I am nearly ready to pack it in. But usually those are balanced with some affirmation, no matter how slight, reminding me that this is slow, and that it takes time.
Re-orienting people to see everything we do as relational is difficult. It would be easy to look at our experience with the Escape, shrug, and say, "well, that was a failure," since we have not maintained 40+ people there every Saturday. But the fact is that we have done something cool, reached new people, and built relationships - and who knows what it might evolve into next? I think folks are beginning to understand that it isn't about successful programs, but about building relationships with Jesus and with each other. I think it's important to stress that, even when we are sharing success stories - that this isn't about successful programs. God help us - we don't need any more programs!
For me, the glimpses of the Kingdom happen when someone tells me that this is the first church they've been to which sees them as a person instead of a problem, where they are loved instead of merely tolerated. Or when someone comes to church who has never been before - and in our county, such people are hard to find. Or when we commission yet another person who has felt called into one form of ministry or another - even when that means sending them away from our community into some new challenge.
The numerical data: last year, weekly attendance average was in the low 70's, and moving lower. This year it's in the high 80's (thus far). But the numbers can't really capture it. It's something you have to feel.
So that's the basic story, raw, unedited and uncut. I hope it was somewhat coherent. If you need me to provide a more edited, concise version, I can do that. Right now, we're rocking along, and I have a good feeling about our church. I'm really looking forward to implementing NCD here. I think we will soon begin to see some of the other seeds we have planted begin to sprout. At any moment we could turn the corner and experience phenomenal growth, - or tragic decline. But I suspect that's just the reality of church. Who knows where God will lead us next?
Peace,
-Dave
----------------------------------
Okay, here's a thumbnail of what's been happening at our church.
Just some perspective for the story: at our Valentine's banquet in 2003, we honored those members who were 80 years old or over. Our roll at the time said we had about 120 members (I had started auditing the rolls, but there were still a lot of nominal members on it). We had *30* folks who were over 80. That was 25% of our roll - and our roll was inflated. Average age in our congregation was probably 70.
The idea to start a coffee house came out of a few small group meetings with a couple of young adults in our congregation. We began talking up the idea among some of the other folks we knew would be receptive. We launched the Escape Coffee House in October of 2004. We converted the old youth room, paying attention to details like lighting and colors. The goal was to create a comfortable, pleasant space - far different from the harsh glare of fluorescent bulbs and ratty furniture that characterize most church attempts to create a "hang out for young people." For at least 6 months it was a happening place. One night we had over 40 people come through the coffee house - drinking mochas, playing video games and board games, chatting, and just hanging out. The mission of the Escape was "to provide a safe space for Christian fellowship and low-pressure evangelism." There was no formal Bible study. It made some people uncomfortable, because they could not detect an overt "Jesus message" apart from the environment - the decoration, the literature left around, the music in the background. We prayed before we opened, but the goal was to build relationships.
Since spring of this year, the Escape attendance dwindled. But this was not unanticipated. We knew the "new" would wear off at some point, but that even if we stopped doing the coffee house, we would have created a fantastic place for Bible studies and future events. Nowadays we have about a dozen regulars who come to watch movies, play board games and such. After Christmas, we're starting a Bible study on the movie Napoleon Dynamite. But the secondary goal of the Escape was to create a community out of which we might develop a new worship service. I said early on that this was a launching pad for other ministries. We found the people we were looking for.
After we put together a team of 4 or 5 young adults, we began meeting on Sunday mornings before Sunday school to pray for each other and ask what God was leading us toward in this worship service. For the six months we met, our meetings had the same format: how has your week been? Where have you seen God active? What in the coming week do we need to pray for in your life? If we got around to actually discussing worship issues, we would - but I knew that the most important thing was building and bonding the worship team. As time went on, we added team members. But it has continued to function as a small group. The standard greeting nowadays is "how has your week been?" which they feel comfortable answering honestly - not "how are you doing?"
We established some goals for this new worship service: we would feel free to draw from multiple traditions, both ancient and contemporary. We would emphasize community. We would facilitate discussion and interaction in the service. We would change something significant every few weeks. We would feel free to innovate, to try new things, and to fail. We would tell the Bible story, beginning with creation, and going all the way through the Bible - with occasional breaks for special seasons (Advent, Holy Week) or special topic discussion services.
The Story is - different. The worship team established early on that they didn't want to just be "contemporary." We do not use a stage. We sit, most often, in a circle, preferably not more than two rows deep (so there is no back row to slink into - we add chairs as needed, but we try to make sure it always feels crowded). There is coffee (of course!) We keep the lights low, backlight everything, use candles and worship stations - some of the stuff that stereotypically characterizes emerging worship. But we also sing traditional hymns, occasionally recite the Apostle's Creed. Sometimes we use electric instruments, but most often we go for an acoustic, more contemplative sound. I always begin by letting visitors know that we never really know what is going to work and what isn't, but that we are all trying to give glory to God in whatever fumbling way we can.
When we started in April of this year, we averaged mid-twenties in attendance. Most recently, we have been averaging 40 and above. Two Sundays ago we had 55. That may not sound like much to a larger church, but here it is a big deal.
We have, of course, experienced some of the pains that many churches experience when they begin a new service. But by and large, this congregation has understood our mission and why we began a new service. Most have been very accepting, and have gone out of their way to make sure bonds of community reach across the worship services. Our traditional service attendance has taken a hit, but we have, I think, at least reversed an overall trend of decline. When we began, we said that we would take the lessons we learned in the early service and apply them to the later service. We're now at the point where we can begin to do that. We're looking at using projection and increasing the amount of lay involvement in planning and carrying out worship.
Even more encouraging, we are beginning to see visitors on a regular basis. There are more kids about, and we are finally at a point where we can begin to talk about children's ministry. Next week we plan on having the first children's Sunday school class we've had in a long time. This Friday, we're taking a group to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
I always feel weird writing this kind of thing, because it is impossible to talk about it without making it sound like an unqualified success. I think it's important to point out that this is really hard. Any significant gain can be offset by an important member getting sick or going to jail. One negative "event" in our church's life can take an entire family out of the picture, from which it is hard to recover. There are days when both services have low attendance, when the projector is too dim, when key music people are missing and we stumble through our planned songs or resort to singing "Jesus Loves Me." Those are days I am nearly ready to pack it in. But usually those are balanced with some affirmation, no matter how slight, reminding me that this is slow, and that it takes time.
Re-orienting people to see everything we do as relational is difficult. It would be easy to look at our experience with the Escape, shrug, and say, "well, that was a failure," since we have not maintained 40+ people there every Saturday. But the fact is that we have done something cool, reached new people, and built relationships - and who knows what it might evolve into next? I think folks are beginning to understand that it isn't about successful programs, but about building relationships with Jesus and with each other. I think it's important to stress that, even when we are sharing success stories - that this isn't about successful programs. God help us - we don't need any more programs!
For me, the glimpses of the Kingdom happen when someone tells me that this is the first church they've been to which sees them as a person instead of a problem, where they are loved instead of merely tolerated. Or when someone comes to church who has never been before - and in our county, such people are hard to find. Or when we commission yet another person who has felt called into one form of ministry or another - even when that means sending them away from our community into some new challenge.
The numerical data: last year, weekly attendance average was in the low 70's, and moving lower. This year it's in the high 80's (thus far). But the numbers can't really capture it. It's something you have to feel.
So that's the basic story, raw, unedited and uncut. I hope it was somewhat coherent. If you need me to provide a more edited, concise version, I can do that. Right now, we're rocking along, and I have a good feeling about our church. I'm really looking forward to implementing NCD here. I think we will soon begin to see some of the other seeds we have planted begin to sprout. At any moment we could turn the corner and experience phenomenal growth, - or tragic decline. But I suspect that's just the reality of church. Who knows where God will lead us next?
Peace,
-Dave
Posted at 12:04 AM |
Mon - November 7, 2005
Small Churches and Money
The photo above is the Bible with all pages referencing money, offerings, stewardship, justice for the poor, and tithing removed.
The photo above is the Bible with all pages referencing money, offerings, stewardship, justice for the poor, and tithing removed.
I used the Desecrated Bible in my sermon in worship this past Sunday. It had the desired effect. When people see all the pages referencing money removed from the Bible, it makes an impression. The flimsy little thing left over can hardly be called a Bible. There were very few books of the Bible remaining intact.
We have a generous congregation. I would estimate a dozen or more family units that give a tithe or more, so this sermon was a bit like preaching to the choir. Even so, we frequently have quite a bit of month left over at the end of the offering checks. Songbird has been facing similar situations. I think it is the state of the small church wherever you go.
Of course, I tell myself I wouldn't really have it any other way. We should be using everything we take in, and giving away what we can't use. Still, it would be nice to have a little more "cushion" in the bank. We'd be able to be more flexible in our ministries. Do I feel that way because I lack sufficient trust that God will take care of next month? I confess - I would be one of those raking up a little more manna than I needed for today. You know, just in case.
Posted at 09:44 AM |
Tue - November 1, 2005
Walk to Emmaus
I'll admit that I went reluctantly. Over ten
years ago, a friend told me that I "had to go," and that it would take me "to
the next level" of Christianity. That pretty well turned me off. Emmaus gets a
bad rep sometimes. People have an intense experience of belonging during the
weekend, and they carry those in-group bonds away. That tends to make people
aware of an us/them distinction.
As a pastor, however, I observed that folks who went on an Emmaus weekend came back as church leaders. They took small group fellowship and study seriously. They prayed. They even prayed for me. And people who truly continued to grow in spiritual maturity were inclusive, not exclusive. So, over time, I decided that I should probably check it out.
The main activity at an Emmaus walk is a series of talks and small group discussions, but that description doesn't begin to do it justice. It is a sort of immersion activity in Christian counter-culture, an experience of authentic early church agape. There is, I will admit, a certain amount of camp and kitsch about the whole thing. But as another academic friend of mine observed, sometimes you have to kick intellectual hubris in the teeth and embrace the cheese. I have learned that in order to be an effective teacher, I must be willing to learn from anybody, in any context. Christian intellectuals are often guilty of a particularly insidious form of religious classism. I know I am often guilty of it.
The fact is, Emmaus is an excellent tool for developing spiritual maturity and deepening people's relationship with Jesus and their Christian community. It is a tool, and it is not necessarily an all-purpose tool that will do the same thing for everybody. But it is versatile enough that everyone who goes has a different experience. Some people are deeply convicted of their separation from God and moved toward repentance. Others who have been burdened by guilt find freedom. Some are called to more devoted service and social holiness, others to more personal holiness.
For me, I had a clarifying experience. I realized I have some habits that sabotage my ministry. I also realized - again - that it is essential to let myself be filled up spiritually. It is okay to admit that I like appreciation. In fact, I need it in order to endure the occasional conflict. I was also amazed to see other people's prayers answered during the weekend - no, I mean really answered in powerful ways. This isn't just abstract feel-goodness. Prayer makes stuff happen. I know that kind of statement makes some people shudder, but I think, again, that many Christians have been lured away from believing in the power of the Holy Spirit not because of their theology, but because of a kind of intellectual classism.
Regarding the unfortunate perception of the Emmaus community as a cult: anyone who is Christian needs to realize that we are a cult. We worship a guy who died and came back to life, some kind of Zombie Lord who preached that he would soon initiate a New Age, and that until that time his followers would eat his flesh and drink his blood. We are a bunch of freaks.
Anyway, I am still processing and reflecting on the events of the weekend. I have much to chew on.
As a pastor, however, I observed that folks who went on an Emmaus weekend came back as church leaders. They took small group fellowship and study seriously. They prayed. They even prayed for me. And people who truly continued to grow in spiritual maturity were inclusive, not exclusive. So, over time, I decided that I should probably check it out.
The main activity at an Emmaus walk is a series of talks and small group discussions, but that description doesn't begin to do it justice. It is a sort of immersion activity in Christian counter-culture, an experience of authentic early church agape. There is, I will admit, a certain amount of camp and kitsch about the whole thing. But as another academic friend of mine observed, sometimes you have to kick intellectual hubris in the teeth and embrace the cheese. I have learned that in order to be an effective teacher, I must be willing to learn from anybody, in any context. Christian intellectuals are often guilty of a particularly insidious form of religious classism. I know I am often guilty of it.
The fact is, Emmaus is an excellent tool for developing spiritual maturity and deepening people's relationship with Jesus and their Christian community. It is a tool, and it is not necessarily an all-purpose tool that will do the same thing for everybody. But it is versatile enough that everyone who goes has a different experience. Some people are deeply convicted of their separation from God and moved toward repentance. Others who have been burdened by guilt find freedom. Some are called to more devoted service and social holiness, others to more personal holiness.
For me, I had a clarifying experience. I realized I have some habits that sabotage my ministry. I also realized - again - that it is essential to let myself be filled up spiritually. It is okay to admit that I like appreciation. In fact, I need it in order to endure the occasional conflict. I was also amazed to see other people's prayers answered during the weekend - no, I mean really answered in powerful ways. This isn't just abstract feel-goodness. Prayer makes stuff happen. I know that kind of statement makes some people shudder, but I think, again, that many Christians have been lured away from believing in the power of the Holy Spirit not because of their theology, but because of a kind of intellectual classism.
Regarding the unfortunate perception of the Emmaus community as a cult: anyone who is Christian needs to realize that we are a cult. We worship a guy who died and came back to life, some kind of Zombie Lord who preached that he would soon initiate a New Age, and that until that time his followers would eat his flesh and drink his blood. We are a bunch of freaks.
Anyway, I am still processing and reflecting on the events of the weekend. I have much to chew on.
Posted at 03:27 PM |
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Published On: Feb 19, 2007 07:29 AM
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Published On: Feb 19, 2007 07:29 AM