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Monday, February 28, 2011

The New Individualism?

Isolation in Communal Clothing

The following represents my own internal struggle with experiencing community and how “church” is faithfully lived out. I am often torn between expressions of the gathered and scattered church; it is sometimes difficult to see how best to faithfully live into both sides of the coin. If you think my depiction of disciple-making in “organic” missional contexts doesn’t describe you...you’re probably right. I’m not setting out to describe you. I’m working through my own inconsistencies. However, it is my prayer that my journey is beneficial to others, if only to help you feel a little better about your own pathology! :)


A friend recently commented on how often I write about community while carrying certain burdens on my own. He’s right, I repent.

I'm sure there are a number of reasons why that is the case, but I must begin by acknowledging the most obvious - I am drawn to write about community out of my desire and longing, not the expertise of experience. And I need to continue addressing that longing in my own life.

I know community is messy and dangerous. I have seen that first-hand. And sometimes, as much as I want to enter it anyway, I’m still guilty of holding back. Whether its from fear or my introverted personality doesn't really matter. That my fears are based in real-life experience is of no consequence, I need to embrace community more fully.

I do want to say that I use the word “sometimes” intentionally. This is something I’m aware of and have tried to address. It is far from dealt with, but that doesn’t mean its being avoided.

I’ve written/said before that it seems many of us are drawn to certain things not because of gifting and success but rather because of need and failure. We may be drawn to champion and lead a program like Celebrate Recovery not because we’ve seen how well it sets people free from different addictions but because we recognize that we ourselves still struggle with addictive tendencies. We may be drawn to contemplative spiritual disciplines NOT because we are that contemplative but precisely because we are frenetic and undisciplined.

Similarly we may well be drawn to things like community and missional engagement because we are withdrawn and isolated.

When we feel a powerful draw to critique a particular vice, we should consider carefully how that vice is manifested in our lives. It is easy to see our own dysfunctions played out in others, even when we cannot see them in ourselves. So, perhaps when we can clearly see a dysfunction is someone or a group of someones, we should carefully examine how that the same dysfunction may well be plaguing our own life in some way.

So maybe, in a strange way, I am an expert on community. Not in that I have the course mapped out, but because I am acutely aware of the pain caused by its absence. First and foremost, I need to continue addressing the need for connection to others in my own life. And I will.

However, first and foremost does not mean solely and completely.

My own need for community and connection to something larger than myself - namely the Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God (two separate but closely related things) - is perhaps more than just a personal deficiency. In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us of his own experience in learning that our weaknesses are the venue for God’s power to be made known (12:9 grossly paraphrased). This means lots of things, perhaps including that through our own weaknesses, God reveals where the Spirit is at work - not only in our own lives, but in the Church and in all creation.

Those who know me well are aware that I struggle with the current tendency to reject anything that appears structured or organized. On the one hand, I agree and lend my voice to the symphony of critiques against the overly-programmed approach to church that dominates the landscape.

I agree that when we connect with a group of people, the compulsion to get them out of the place we found them and into a worship assembly can be quite destructive.

I see the wisdom of coming alongside people and helping them become devoted disciples without extracting them from the places where they already have relationships.

I agree that too often we’ve failed to help people become disciples of Jesus right where they are and instead converted them to CHURCHianity...effectively converting them to passive consumption of religious goods and services.

I get all that.

However, I fear that we (I) may run the risk of getting the emperor to run around naked in more appropriate places...while still convinced he’s wearing clothes.

Is it possible that those of us who used to function as “professional clergy” in a context where people were dependent on us for their spiritual feeding, haven’t really changed the script all that much? Could it be the case that we’re still doing the same thing when we attempt to cultivate discipleship relationships that are cut off from a body of believers? Here’s a possible test: what happens in the life of the new disciple when (not if) we drop the ball in the relationship? Even if there’s another person or two in the mix, is it the case that when it gets difficult to juggle our schedule and we miss a couple opportunities for coffee or beer that we’re still fine...but they’re not?

This, for me, is why church planting is still important (or connection to a church, new or established). It is good to talk about planting the gospel. It is good to recognize that “church” happens along the way, during the week. But, while we cannot ignore the need for the scattered church, the gathered church still has an important function and one that we should feel compelled to share with new friends as well as old.

This does not mean that everyone needs to be plugged into a traditional church, with well-funded programs and paid staff (though perhaps we shouldn’t discount the reality that some disciples may still flourish in those contexts). It does not mean that everyone we meet and develop relationship with should be coerced into gathering in one place each week.

But it does mean that part of inviting people to follow Jesus is introducing them to the Body of Christ. It is God’s design that humans experience life in community, and disciples experience the life of faith in a community of faith.

This may mean that a church is born in a local pub, or on the lake or wherever. It may mean that people you connect with do not worship with your community on Sunday.

But, it also means that they do need a worshipping community beyond your occasional contact...and for true discipleship to take place, there needs to be an expectation that they will invite others to come and see this Jesus as well.

We can bemoan the “numbers” focus all we want, but we can’t forget that those numbers represent individual people who are loved by God...people that God desires to be reconciled to, and whom the Spirit has been working in long before we came along.

So, yes, church happens “on the way,” and we are inviting people to more than an event. The kingdom of God is about more than the church, but it isn’t about less. If the worshipping community is important to us, why would it be unimportant to new disciples?

Friday, February 18, 2011

Prophets and Priests

Somebody put a quote on twitter a few days ago that I've been thinking about a lot. It basically said "young preachers who want to be prophets should first strive to be priests."

Before I go any further, I want to make sure and clarify what is meant by “prophet” and “priest.”

Many of us have a mental image of the prophetic role as someone who sees the future, has supernatural visions, hears voices...or all of the above. While this has certainly been the case in several instances, it should not be used a general descriptor. The role of the prophet has been described as “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” It is the call to inform the emperor that he is, in fact, quite naked. The prophet is called to imagine what life would look like were we to experience the reign of God; the coming of the kingdom, in our midst...and to help others imagine in such a way as well.

In this conversation “priest,” does not imply someone who wears all black and changes their first name to Father. Instead it refers to the pastoral role of caring for the spiritual and emotional needs of others. In scripture the metaphor is that of shepherd; one who protects, defends, comforts and guides.

For years I've listened to people tell me that young people have no place being prophets - its only after you've learned the system, earned your stripes, as it were, that you have a right to be critical of it. I've always had 2 major problems with this idea.

1) I look around and, with a few notable exceptions, many of those who've spent enough time in the system to offer critique seem most interested in keeping things calm and perhaps protecting their hard fought place in that system. Perhaps they’ve experienced a Shawshank-like institutionalization, maybe they just don’t have the energy anymore or maybe they’ve learned how to make the system work for them. Whatever the reason, it begs the question of whether we should keep the younger people from serving as prophets when the older people refuse to do so.

2) My other problem is that neither scripture nor history seem to agree with this position. Samuel was a young man, David was a young man, the apostles were young, Mary was young, Esther was young... (I would point out that Jesus was my age when he began his paradigmatically prophetic ministry...but, being the eternal Logos and all, Jesus was what we might call, an old soul.) Throughout history it has been youth movements that have often caused the most important and needed social change and revolution.

As far as being a priest before being a prophet, again scripture doesn't share this prerequisite. Some of the prophets, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were priests... but many were not. There were schools of prophets in ancient Israel; prestigious and in high demand among the elite... and then there were the nut-jobs, like John the Baptizer who everyone knew were a little off their rocker, but whose words carried wisdom beyond the person.

I realize that the prophet/priest comment is not meant in quite these literal terms. At its purest it is a statement about loving people. A warning to hold up both the afflicting the comfortable AND comforting the afflicted aspects.

But honestly, sometimes the “be a priest first” requirement is merely a new spin on the old political adage, “first you get along then you go along.” - In others words, this little bit of advice can seem a touch business-as-usual given the radical reshaping of world systems and rejection of political pandering modeled by Christ.

With that said, it is still a needed reminder to young men and women that in their (or shall I say, “our”) zeal, we must not forget Paul’s reminder that without love we are, at best, just a bothersome noise. This point is well received.

Perhaps part of the problem is that many of us, young and old alike, seem to confuse being a jerk with being a prophet. We confuse healthy confrontation with someone who enjoys picking a fight. We confuse speaking the truth with saying whatever you want however you want because you have some external validation which provides diplomatic immunity.

The ability to identify someone’s insecurities and point out their flaws doesn’t make you a prophet, it makes you a bully. Just because (or perhaps especially when) you do this in a humorous way doesn’t make you less sinister, it doubles your guilt.

I do not want there to be any confusion, so let me be as clear as possible. The prophetic call is not a free pass to run around being an ass. It does not release you from the call to offer compassion or mercy to the weak. Again, the prophetic call is just as much about comforting the afflicted as it is about afflicting the comfortable.

For the sake of full disclosure, yes, I am well aware that several prophets did seem to have, shall we say, diplomacy issues. I guess if you’re going up against someone with all the cards perhaps you can’t afford to bluff. But beware of temptation. Calling people white-washed tombs can be addictive. Its easy to enjoy the rush so much that you begin throwing out zingers at the slightest offense (real or imagined)...and once you cross the line to afflicting the afflicted, by proxy you’re also comforting the comfortable and the prophet’s finger is pointed at you as the one who stole that poor guy’s lamb (if you missed that reference, let me know and we’ll read about a dangerously exciting example of rhetorically dominating a warrior-poet king.)

Being angry or rejecting authority does not mean that you have a prophetic calling on your life. A chip on the shoulder does not a prophet make. It is important to remember that the prophetic role involves more than critiquing the system, it involves casting a compelling vision of God’s alternative to the present system. If both the criticism and the engagement are not in your heart, you may be called to another role.

However, here is the very painful truth as far as I can tell: the time for sitting around pretending that things are mostly okay and just need a few tweaks here and there is over. The time when God’s prophets could afford to bite their tongues until society deemed them properly invested (as if that would ever happen) has past. Like everyone else, the prophets must remember the admonition to put on love first, but once they are clothed with love, it is time to let that love lead them to acknowledge the brood of vipers wearing sheep costumes (I love mixed metaphors). The prophetic role is, in a sense, like being a missionary sent to the church.

Just as in mission work, the soil may not always be receptive or hospitable. But before we get to wound up in testing the acidity of the sandy-loam mixture upon which we tread, its interesting to remember that in Jesus’ parable about good vs bad soil, the farmer wasn’t all that careful where he scattered the seed. We often gloss over that little tid-bit because we don’t plant much. Perhaps it was just a necessary story-telling device. Or perhaps, once again, Jesus was describing the upside-down nature of this kingdom. The seed gets scattered everywhere, it is the soil’s response to the seed rather than predetermined markers of receptivity which determine its “good” or “bad” status.

I mentioned before that a healthy prophetic ministry combines criticism with engagement. Similarly, for the message to be received with open ears people must a) mourn the current state of affairs and b) have the emotional capacity for hopeful imagination to be fanned into flame. Those whose heads are buried in their...sand, and those whose hopes have been thoroughly crushed will both likely be just as resistant to the call for change as those who actually benefit from things staying as they are.

For this reason the role of the prophet is always painful and seldom externally rewarding. It should not be undertaken by any, save those who have been called and can do no other. Wounds and painful pasts will often exist in the life of the prophet, but someone operating out of untreated woundedness (the “walking wounded” as Nouwen and others have referred to them) will likely only bring more harm to themselves and others. They may have a tendency to overcorrect or unconsciously embark on campaigns born more of personal vendetta and retribution to those who have wronged them than out of a desire to help others imagine a life under the reign of the new kingdom.

With all that being said, I’m not sure that those who would be prophets should first strive to be priests. However, just because you like causing a scene it doesn’t mean you’re a prophet. Lead with the imagination, save the white-washed tombs for when you need them.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Previous Thoughts Revisited

In keeping with the themes of my previous post - namely the themes of community and revisiting things I've written before - I thought I'd repost these thoughts on community, originally posted on this blog over a year ago...
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer once talked about our desire for community; he noted that many people love the IDEA of community more than the experience itself. Why is that?

To speak simply about a complex matter: Actual community is messy.

When we think about community we begin to realize how great it would be to have others to walk through the trials of life with. It would be wonderful to have someone(s) to join us in those things that stoke our passion and vision. It would be great to have the synergy that comes from people sharing talents and resources. We know that it is not good for people to be alone and community seems to be part of God’s answer to the dark and oppressive prison of isolation.

And the great thing is that all of this is true.

But...

Community doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it happens in the context of life with real, actual human people...all of whom carry around their wounds, flaws and smelly baggage. So, getting close to others (an unavoidable requirement to cultivate community) means that we can see their flaws and smell their baggage.

And they can see ours.

So there are lots of people who know they need community; people who realize that they can’t deal with all of life’s curve balls alone. Many of those people are seeking to fill that hole of loneliness.

For many young people the desire to join gangs is a desire to find a family that will accept them and be loyal to them. This is the pull of the drug and party culture...as long as you’re partying you’re usually accepted. And for a while this seems like community.

Until you get arrested and no one from the party shows up at your hearing.

...Or until you run out of money and no one who you smoke with helps you pay the electric bill - even though you can’t pay the electric bill because they smoked most of your weed or drank most of your beer.

...Or until you try to leave the life of violence and that same gang that welcomed you in refuses to let you out.

But these aren’t the only folks who find it difficult to cultivate authentic community. Many of us have sought community in very healthy ways. There are lots of larger churches that hire a Community Connections Minister - people whose sole responsibility is finding ways for their congregation to connect with their community and for visitors and new members to connect to the congregation.

Christ Journey is dedicated to the cultivation of real, deep and true community. And guess what we’ve found? It is hard. It is messy. Sometimes, it is dangerous.

People let us down. People who we love hurt us. People we love are hurt by us and we let them down.

We try to reach out and our efforts are not reciprocated. We invest in someone and love them and then they move.

We trust someone enough to let our guard down and be vulnerable and they betray our trust in one way or another.

Or we do one or all of these to others. Sometimes unwittingly and sometimes because our sin and selfishness are just a little too deeply ingrained.

Community is hard because of all of this. Its also hard because we begin taking on the hurts of those we love. Our friends go through a separation or divorce and we feel a bit of that pain. A home is foreclosed on and it feels like it was our own house. We see a young single mother struggling to keep all the plates spinning and also go back to school so that she won’t be stuck in poverty and continue this cycle for another generation...and we want to pick up all the plates, but we don’t know how.

We can’t make the marriage work, we can’t pay the mortgage, we can only help so much. And we begin to think, “It was easier when the answer to ‘how ya doing?’ was a simple, ‘fine, and you?’”

We begin to think, it was easier when I just occupied a pew and there was no expectation that I would be vulnerable around these people. We begin to say, “things were better in Egypt...” (check out the story of Israel in Exodus and also read Numbers chapter 11).

I understand this fear. Rachel and I have lived with the fear that comes from trusting church after being let down in a major way by church. But, like the prophet Hosea (whose life was meant as a metaphor for God and us) we are called to commit to our community even if we have good reason to suspect we will be betrayed again.

We have to because, as Andy Lancaster commented to me once, “Community is hard, but life is harder.” If we continue to try life without community we will find ourselves constantly retreating from both.

I know that community is hard, but life without it is not easier - unless we hide behind sports, alcohol, addictions, gossip, or any number of other escapist activities and fantasy worlds.

I am so glad to be a part of a church that is trying to cultivate real community. It doesn’t happen overnight and it will never happen (during this leg of the journey) in a complete or perfect way, but at least we don’t have to continue retreating.

Someone once said, “Its not as if we really think we can say anything, but in light of what we’ve seen we can’t say nothing.” Perhaps its the same with community. We may not have much hope for cultivating a perfect community, but in light of what we’ve seen and experienced we can’t sit by and do nothing.

Thank you for being my community.

Monday, February 14, 2011

The Community

I preached this sermon originally in 2009. In its initial form it began with a shorter version of the poetic retelling of the story of creation, fall and redemption. This rewrite was an assignment for the class I took this past January. The intent of this message is to remind the hearers/readers that Scripture is telling a story we’re all struggling to hear naturally and to call us to share that meaningful story of belonging with others.

Before the beginning there was Community. God, the Community of Love, whom we refer to as the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit had a perfect relationship of mutual love and respect. This isn’t to say that there were three gods - there is One God and this God is the essence of Love. Love neither exists nor is it expressed in isolation, it is expressed in community. This God, this Community of Love was not incomplete, the Trinity was and is the fullness of completion. Community needed nothing, Love lacked nothing. Love was eternally expressed within the Community of the One God in Three Persons.
While the Community of Love was not incomplete, neither is God static. The nature of True Community is expansive. It is dynamic. It is always growing and bringing into itself everything around it. 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 God, the Community of Love, 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 then, in an inconspicuous section of all that began to paint with beautiful strokes a landscape that was begging to be enjoyed.
God walked in the garden she had created. She 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, she began to mold something new; something that would see and know and laugh and love. She began to form something that would walk with her, that she could teach and love. She formed out of herself - using her own image as a mold and model.
This new thing God was making would be the pinnacle of everything God had created. She 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; he 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 decide to do otherwise. Mountains are tall and strong but they will never think, "I want to be a valley now." Gravity does not consider 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 response to its Creator. 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 and because 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 she enjoyed as herself; God had created room for the Community of 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 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 him. 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 her creation. He patiently taught and corrected and reminded and invited and urged and groaned and pleaded. The 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 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.
Jesus gathered a community around himself 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. She 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 missionary God who sends herself as Love has sent us in like fashion...
We see it everyday in a thousand ways. Walking down the fluorescent lit halls of our high school, they’re there...whispering, judging, huddled together like the impenetrable phalanx of Spartan warriors. Enter any public space: a bar, the mall, a dark alley...even most church buildings and there they are again. Notice your friends, yourself even, and perhaps you will recognize with astonishment that they are still present...even in the mirror.
Sometimes they give themselves a name and go to battle against other theys - sometimes with tanks, sometimes with machetes and assault rifles, sometimes with stolen firearms and knives, sometimes with words.
They are us. Humanity. Struggling to find meaning and belonging in the midst of a deeply scarred and broken world. Whether we’re talking about nations, religions, factions, gangs, fraternities or cliques the dynamic is the same. We long for connection and as I once heard someone say, “when we’re dying of thirst we’ll gladly drink water we know is poisonous.”
The story of Scripture - our story - reveals that this longing is natural, it was placed within us in the very act of creation by a God who exists in community.
We miss the power of the Story when we make it about rules and retribution, about medieval honor codes and penal substitution. We miss the story altogether when we make it about justifying our desperate groupings’ existence at the expense of another’s.
The Story is about the God who created out of love and is compelled by that same love to heal, reconcile and restore...The Story not only explains the origins of our longing, but also describes the landscape of those longings fulfilled. The story gives us a hope-full picture not only of an alternative vision of existence than that in which we currently dwell, but also of the lengths to which God is going to make that existence a tangible reality...on earth as it is in heaven.
This is a story worth telling. It is the story we long for...it is the story that yearns to be told. It is the story that sheds light on and deserves to replace every tale of mangled attempt at connection. It is the story that explains why we will kill to belong to a group...and calls us instead to die in order to find true belonging.
And because the story so deeply important, it is not a story that can be controlled and retold merely by a select few. It is your story, it is my story. We each have a unique translation and we are each called to share this story, through our presence and through our proclamation, with those we meet as we go along.
The Missionary God who sends Godself as Love has sent us in like fashion.