Reflections

I'm writing the Cultural Analysis section of my Theology of Ministry paper and I've been looking through things I've written in the past (primarily blog posts, papers and journal entries for online classes). I'm trying to find different comments and studies of culture and suburban life since I don't have my books here...

Anyway, I came across this assignment from a class I took while we were in Mandeville. The class, Engaging Contemporary Culture, was meant to help students learn to...never mind, you can figure that out. This particular paper was a part of a series of assignments meant to help us become aware of the things we encounter regularly but uncritically. 

Its interesting to read this because it chronicled an important time in my development - it was during this season that I was becoming aware that God had called me to connect with people outside of the church where I served!

Anyway, I thought it was interesting and worth posting. If you disagree, then go re-read the May quotes on the Wellsbrothers blog...maybe you should do that regardless...

Starbucks in Particular

Mandeville, LA - Fall 2007

A year ago things were very different. Life here was incredibly hectic, harried, stressful, and unpredictable – it was the most insane environment I’d ever witnessed. It is still quite stressful here, but most everything else is different.

We were a church of over 150 and recovering (down from 230 pre-Katrina) – we now run around 100. The lower numbers are due to what can only be described as a church split, but in reality one large, power-driven family led a failed coup attempt, took their toys and left…about 40 of them (we also had several families move out of state this fall). 

When that family left, they took a lot of the “ick” with them – there were literally folks whispering in corners on Sunday mornings, secret meetings that led to ultimatums being sent to the elders demanding the resignation of the whole leadership and the installment of their family members…very ugly. Now, things are pretty quiet. 

There were 3 ministers on staff including myself (I was just a temporary associate minister brought in to help following the storm). The youth minister resigned because things were so ugly and he was tired of getting caught in the middle (among other things of course). Then the preacher left too. Now I’m here alone in a building we can barely pay for, with a congregation full of people who work on the other side of the lake…

So I spend most of my time at Starbucks.

I go to Starbucks for several reasons. First, I don’t care what some “anti” folks say, I think the coffee is really good – it’s considerably better than CC’s – the Louisiana version of Starbucks. Second, I enjoy the atmosphere – the people who work here are pleasant, the music isn’t too loud, the place smells good, they know my name and what I like to drink…it’s enjoyable. But the biggest reason: there are always people here. 

Our church building is empty (when I moved here we were housing disaster relief volunteers – there were between 20 and 200 volunteers in the building 7 days a week) and the phone doesn’t ring often. We’ve got around 10 families in pretty serious crisis right now, so I check in on them. But most everyone else is busy with their lives and I see them on Sunday and Wednesday.

I like studying and preparing lessons around other people. There have been countless conversations overheard that have inspired or helped me with a class or sermon. There have been numerous conversations entered into that provide me with encouragement to continue. And so I go (not everyday, but often), I watch, I listen and sometimes I even talk.

As I find at seat in one of the hard back chairs at the community table (which is what I call the large table with a power strip in the middle…it’s the only table where people feel comfortable sitting down when another person is already there) I usually set up my computer before ordering (grande medium roast, grande non-fat latte or triple-grande non-fat latte…depending on the severity of the need for caffeine). After I get my drink I let the computer “warm up” for about 5 minutes before trying to do anything – it seems to operate more efficiently when I do that…its probably in my head.

During that time I love to see who is there. There is the old guy from Church of the King (the very big charismatic church in town) who will want to engage you in redundant conversations about the Bible if you aren’t careful. I know it seems weird, but I don’t like talking to him – its very difficult to have a meaningful conversation with someone who seems to always either be speaking in clichés or trying to get a fix for how well you line up theologically.

Then there are usually 5 or 6 business folks either having actual meetings or holding meetings over the phone while scanning the internet. Steve has really good stories, but hates his job as a pharmaceutical rep. I like Steve. He always asks me lots of questions about church (usually more logistical and practical rather than theological) and then seems interested enough in my answers to have a conversation. 

There’s also Melissa, who is one of the managers, but I’ve seen her more often this week just coming in for coffee and to talk to the other manager and the employees. They like Melissa. I think they like her because her kindness seems genuine rather than the required politeness of management at an image conscious coffee shop. I saw her in Wal-Mart with her two kids on Saturday – she was nice to me, which is interesting because moms with kids at Wal-Mart are rarely in the mood to be nice. 

I really noticed the ceilings and walls for the first time this week. They’re really layered – nothing is flat. There are multiple sections of drop-ceiling which are all at different heights and each with lights. Then there are hanging lights which are also suspended at different heights. The walls have sections that stick out or are recessed and are several different colors. All of this serves to create a very “lived in” feel – not sterile like our office…I guess that’s another reason I like being there. 

I had never spent any real amount of time considering the architecture of Starbucks – I’d noticed before that they were decorated to feel inviting, like a living room at a really cool person’s house…I don’t know very many really cool people, so I haven’t been in many cool people’s houses, but if I did, I bet their living rooms would look like that.

But the layered effect is really effective. It is interesting what architects and designers can accomplish with space. I wish we took that more seriously in our church buildings – not that we should spend incredible amounts of money on “contemporary” architectural design…but maybe we could at least give “space” a little more consideration.

I felt a little silly, but at one point in this whole ordeal I found myself affected emotionally and spiritually by the stinking ceiling in Starbucks. But I guess that’s the point of this little “exercise” in normalcy...

As I read that post written around the end of a dark, difficult but important time in my life, I am struck by the way that community was beginning to become a controlling theme. Today the understanding of God as the Community of Love is one of the primary lenses through which I view most of what happens in life and ministry. 

Okay, enough nostalgia, back to paper writing!

My Theological Center

In my class at SMU I've been asked to write about my "Theological Center for Ministry." Part of the challenge of this assignment has been limiting it to the four pages we were allowed. To those who don't like to write much, that may seem like a lot, but boiling the essence of your theological convictions down to 1200 words is not easy.

Through this process I have continually thought about the concepts of Story, Community, Love and Mission. And I couldn't help but think back to several sermons I preached during the Foundations season where these aspects informed much of what we discussed.
Since most of what I'm writing for class is inappropriate for the blogosphere for one reason or another, there hasn't been much opportunity to share what I've been working on. So I didn't want to miss this chance.

I made a few revisions to first draft I posted last night...

The Story of the Community of Missional Love

Before the beginning there was Community. This Community of what we refer to as Father, Son and Holy Spirit had a perfect relationship of mutual love and respect. This Community was not incomplete, it was the definition of completion. It needed nothing, it lacked nothing.

However, the relationship of the Community, being rooted and established in a deep indescribable love, felt compelled to create. For that is what love is and what love does, it continually creates expansive opportunity for love to be expressed. 

So the Community created. God brushed away the darkness, stepped into the midst of chaos and brought forth solid foundations. God molded and formed an unbelievably expansive and expanding universe and in an inconspicuous section of all that he began to paint with beautiful strokes a landscape that was begging to be enjoyed. 

God walked in the garden he had created. He knelt down and from the same material that formed mountains, deserts and jungles; the same material that made up the fish and birds and lions and bugs, he began to mold something new; something that would see and know and laugh and love. He began to form something that would walk with him, that he could teach and love. He formed out of himself - using his own image as a mold and model. This new thing he was making would be the pinnacle of everything he’d created. He would be able to point out the sunrise and this new thing's breath would catch; when a thunderstorm would pass through this new thing would come running to God for protection; God would hold this small creature and explain that everything would be okay.

God formed this living being. He breathed his own life into this thing. The Community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - the relationship that was full, complete and needed nothing - invited these new small frail children to share this powerful community. And it was so very good.

God could have formed these creatures without the ability to choose their course. That was a decision that God made with the stars and planets and mountains and streams. None of these had been given the freedom to choose - planets and moons are in their orbit and have no ability to choose to do otherwise. Mountains are tall and strong and they will never think, "I want to be a valley now." Gravity does not choose whether it will influence objects or not.

This decision allowed the universe to be orderly, but it also ensured that no planet would ever decide to write a song about the Father. True, God created great beauty in the planet, a beauty which is itself a kind of song, but it isn’t a song that the planet created. In humanity, God has created something which is able to create as God creates - not on the same level; neither as equal nor rival, but as something which understands, as God does, that when love is present beautiful things result.

The children could not be like the stars or the trees, they had to be able to choose. 

Some say that God was disobeyed and so his wrath was stirred. I think its much more sad and tragic than that. The Lord had created these children to live in the trusting, loving relationship that he enjoyed as himself; God had created room for the Community of Missional Love to be experienced. In the moment of choice, the creation rejected both Community and Love. The course of the Story was altered from its intended trajectory.

This crisis was devastating and cataclysmic, but it would not have the last word. It WILL not have the last word. Even in the midst of great crisis, when the creation rejected the relationship of love and community and instead launched into selfishness and isolation...The Creator continued going to his creation. He called a man named Abraham and made a covenant with this man. The Lord God blessed Abraham and promised that through him all peoples on earth would be blessed...in fact all of creation would be blessed.

As the children of Israel continued year after year to cycle through seasons of confusion and clarity, The Lord kept going back to them seeking to restore and reconcile community with His creation. He patiently taught and corrected and reminded and invited and urged and groaned and pleaded. Community could not stand to see Creation languishing in isolation.

The sending relationship with great leaders and the inspiration of great prophets continued until the Community of Missional Love decided that ambassadors would no longer suffice. Once again, God would walk in the garden with his creation. Once again the missionary God sent himself - which is the nature of true love and true community. And Jesus the Christ walked among us.

He gathered a community and continually invited the broken, overlooked, forgotten and oppressed to rejoice because the Community of God was at hand; it was here and they were invited in.

When the time came for Jesus to return to the Father, the Spirit was sent. The Spirit wasn’t sent to wander aimlessly. It came to form and cultivate community in the Church in anticipation of experiencing Community on earth as it is in heaven. The Spirit called for the community of believers to be sent to the ends of the earth; continuing the ministry to which Jesus had dedicated himself, continuing the ministry to which God had called Abraham, continuing the ministry which God initiated in the first garden, continuing the Act that began in the beginning, continuing the character of the One who was Community before the beginning.

The Community of Missional Love cannot be understood as something that exists somewhere off by itself. The nature of True Community is expansive. It is dynamic. It is always growing and bringing into itself everything around it. The Community is not located somewhere behind closed doors, it sends itself to the Other.

Speaking of theology through narrative is more than just a device for communication, the medium is part of the message. God as a Community of Missional Love is understood best by participation in the Story. Story is relational; it is communal. This language of community is essential to begin grasping the centrality and reality of Love in the character of God. 

God’s revelation to humanity as Love, as the One full of loving kindness, the gracious and compassionate, begins losing its grip on our hearts and minds unless we understand it as an orientation toward the Other. This is, I believe, why it is so important for Jesus to teach his disciples about the eternal community of mutual engagement and submission he experiences with the Father. This is Love. There is no love without it. We cannot love unless there is an Other.

As the Image Bearers, we make a lamentable mistake if we see mission as something we are called to “do.” Mission is active, but it is more than doing; it is an essential part of our being, because it is part of the revealed nature of God. The missionary God who sends himself as Love has sent us.

God’s mission is to restore relationship and expand Community. As we lift up prayers for the poor, oppressed and forgotten; for those who care for them and those who have failed to do so, we do not say something new to God. Rather we join him in his mission of reconciling relationships, restoring community and healing the broken creation. This is love.

We are the people of this Story. We are the rememberers of the Story of the Community of Missional Love. Not only this, we are the story of the Community of Missional Love in action. 

Update from the Field...er, classroom

Two days are down and I’m about 58% confident that I’m going to survive. For those who don’t know, I recently had the privilege of beginning a new course of study with SMU to work on a degree in evangelism. It has already been an amazing experience.

My first round of classes started this week. There are 5 of us taking the class: an African-American female who is a Methodist Pastor in Louisiana, a white female Methodist Pastor from south of the metroplex, an African American male Methodist Pastor working in urban ministry in South Dallas and a Church Planter from Nepal...who is the son of a Hindu High Priest and has planted 47 churches and 100 house fellowships with his team in Nepal since 2001. And then there’s me.

We have only spent a few hours with each other, but there have already been some incredible conversations from this very diverse group of people. We’ve heard stories of tragedy and trauma as well as stories of great success and victory...and then we’ve heard stories about “beating the brahman boys,” which made me laugh so hard that I almost passed out...very doctoral of me I know, but its a great story that I’d be happy to tell you some time.

Everyone who knows me well at all is aware that I am a huge nerd. My friends' responses to the news that I've begun this program tend to fall in one of two categories. An clear example can be seen in the replies to a facebook status update that said I was getting ready to start my first class. One person replied, “I’m a little envious” and another sent me an email warning me not to let those academics ruin my ability to connect with “regular” people.

For my skeptical friends let me describe (very briefly) our professors. Dr. Sylvest just retired from SMU and is teaching this course as adjunct faculty. He was a professor at Perkins (the theology school) for several decades. Today he gave us all acorns as a reminder to continue cultivating the seed of spiritual life that God placed within us. It could have been really cheesy, but this 73 year old man has shown such genuine concern for Christ and for us as ambassadors of Christ that instead it was quite moving. Make no mistake, his mind is sharp and we aren’t just sitting around singing campfire songs...in fact, I suspect that tomorrow we’re going to be put through the ringer as we begin presenting the case studies we’ve been preparing. But this is FAR from ivory tower egg-headedness!

Our other professor, Dr. Somers-Clark, has worked as a supervisor for clinical pastoral education (basically, hospital chaplaincy) for many years. She shared some personal stories yesterday regarding some of her struggles in ministry that helped me know immediately that this was a person whom I could trust to process through the ups and downs of serving people in the midst of their ups and downs! She has a disarming way of asking questions which elicit greater reflection and insight...and she also knows how to ask questions which push through the bluffing and posturing and expose what’s really going on under the surface.

So, the work we’re doing is quite rigorous, but its sole purpose is to further challenge and equip us to love and serve the people we come into contact with and to help them do the same.

Okay...back to reading...must not look like an idiot tomorrow.

Ministry Journal

Ten Days left. 

I haven't blogged at all lately because I've been scrambling to prepare for my first round of classes at SMU. Our classes meet from June 15 to July 3 - normally I'll only take one at a time, but during this first session there are two that function together for a more terrifying experience. 

Ministry/Theology degrees involve lots of reading and writing, so I'm used to having a significant load of pre-course work. What I'm not used to is only 2 months to prepare this amount. Welcome to big boy school I guess.

So far I've written about 13K words for this class (around 30 single spaced pages) and I have probably another 8-10K to go BEFORE class begins. Then the real stuff begins!

I don't say this to drum up sympathy - I'm loving it! It has been a bit overwhelming trying to readjust to school, but I'm slowing finding a groove. But the material itself has been great. Of all the books we have for these two courses I only knew of 1 before hand and very few of them were written in the last 20 years...but so far they've all been great.

One of the more time consuming projects has been a daily "reflective journal" on my ministry activities. This is where the bulk of my writing has come from. My entry last night struck me as something worth putting here on the blog. It may be a little different from my normal style (which might be a good thing), but it chronicles a very exciting aspect of our ministry...

Thursday, June 4

I didn’t meet with Robey and Chappotin for our formation group today. We knew that the  arrival of summer would mean sporadic meetings - particularly since Robey is a youth minister. 

So Chappotin and I played racquetball early and then I had all day to read, study and prepare for our house church gathering tonight. 

Tonight we discussed the final episode of the Foundations series - Culmination - unfortunately it was just the Hunters, Tooles and I. I wasn’t overly surprised, nor was I that bothered by it. With this being the last week of school most families have been running around like crazy and I suspected that most were not likely to join us. 

I took the opportunity to do some leadership development, only I didn’t tell anyone that’s what I was doing. The five of us sat around the kitchen table and began telling stories from our childhood - it was mostly impromptu, but I knew that if I told a story, this group would run with it. Sure enough we were soon discussing different trials and the ways we wished things had turned out differently.

I let this go on for quite some time and then I asked why these stories are so compelling. The reality is that we tell these stories because we know that 1) they represent a way of life that is all too common and 2) we know that they are not the way things were intended. We tell these stories so that we can hope they’ll eventually be set right. We tell these stories because we long for the day when they will no longer be reality.

I talked to our group about the power of storytelling and the need for confession/testimony. Stories resonate. Narratives draw us in to truth. People need to know that what they experience connects with others and can be set within a larger story. Our individual stories often seem to be nonsensical and it is fruitless to even attempt to make them appear logical. And yet, when set in the context of the larger Story, things begin falling in place.

Often this is what a great leader does - listens to the stories of others and comes alongside them as they seek to discern how their story fits into The Story.

The episode of Culmination is about our anticipation of God setting things right. The intended harmony in creation that was seemingly destroyed in the crisis has been lingering for entirely too long. We know that all creation - everything - is groaning in anticipation of that day when that which is broken (which is pretty much everything) gets mended.

Until the day that things ARE set right people will likely dispute just how they anticipate it coming about. This realization set the stage for the next issue for discussion with our two leading couples. 

Sorting through to a final draft of the “end times” is not the point and there is room for people to hold differing opinions. The issue for the leader, we discussed tonight, is not necessarily to get everyone to espouse a certain picture of how the Culmination will play out, save for one major detail. If our eschatology is not one of hope in the reconciling work of God then the rest of our theology begins to fall flat. 

When helping people think about our future we need to remember that we are putting all our eggs in one basket - that God really does care about his creation and is willing to see this whole ordeal through to the end.

We spent some time discussing what needs to happen during June in order to help solidify commitments from our other friends in Shenendoah. We talked a little about the Tangible Kingdom material and what Robin and Ronnie will need to be ready to lead this  house church. 

Its a formality really. I’m leading the discussions right now, but the Hunters have already emerged as leaders of God’s people in the midst of their community. 

Robin has been involved in starting a homework club in her living room and a Neighborhood Watch to address the growing problem with vandalism and other crimes. Showing a true love for people over mere protection of assets, she has also talked about getting together some kind of "safe house" program for teens to have constructive and positive place to hang out - boredom inspires as many crimes as malevolence. 

Robin and our friend, Jeanie have gotten community cookouts scheduled for June 27 and July 25. These get-togethers (based loosely on the Wednesday front yard barbecues at Chris and Heidi's) are a way to get those who live on Remington Circle involved and invested in each other's lives. The Christ Journey worship band has been invited to provide live music - I hope that my weekend schedule during class in June will allow me enough time to attend and play. 

Robin also told me that she and a couple other folks involved in the neighborhood watch have decided to start a crisis ministry - encouragement and assistance for single moms in difficult situations, people in the middle of divorces or loss of loved ones, etc. When she was talking about this my mind started racing and I didn’t have time to properly dwell on it, but now at midnight, I can’t stop thinking about it. 

We haven’t had more than 9 people at any one time in our Thursday night gatherings; outside of the Hunters, Tooles, Jeanie and I, no one has made it to consecutive meetings. And yet, this gathering of God’s people is already turning the Shenendoah community upside down. They are concerned about teenagers having a safe place to hang out; students have been helped with their homework, mothers are going to have help with their lives, mourners will have friends around them, neighbors will share meals, one family will watch out for the well-being of another...in short, the Kingdom of God is being experienced. 

This is beyond me. I am brought low in humility by the greatness of a God who works through the weakness of his people. And I have been blessed to watch true church planters at work.

I love my life.