Everyone is gone for the day.
The church is quiet and still.
And here I sit, pouring over the words in the hymnal and songbooks.
Looking for just the right combination of joy and reflection. Of longing and praise. Of reality and possibility. Of the familiar and the uncomfortable.
Sometimes I forget we also have to sing the tunes.
At our conference Orders Event a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about being anxious. The talk was from a systems theory perspective and focused on how pastors need to be non-anxious participants in the system to effectively lead change and help the system to be healthy.
I’m not going to comment on the style of the presentation, but I realized as the day went on that I am not at all anxious about the future of the church.
Maybe it is because I’m one of those “young adults” who don’t put a lot of stock in the institution itself. (As much as I hate the constant labeling of young adults and the characterization of who they are and what they believe – sometimes the label fits and I’m going to wear it with pride). The truth is, if it all went upside down tomorrow, I have faith and trust that God would birth something new.
There is a feeling all around us that we need to do something to right this leaning ship… that it is all in danger of capsizing or falling apart. But would that really be so terrible?
Don’t get me wrong… Part of me loves this church. I know its not perfect. It is trying to hear God’s call and struggling to answer. It is broken and beautiful. I see and recognize its flaws, but I love it. I’m still here, aren’t I?
But part of me really doesn’t care if the church is here tomorrow… as long as we are being faithful to the one we claim to worship inside the walls of those fancy buildings.
It is… well, interesting to live in the midst of this both/and situation. I find myself both working proactively to restructure and revitalize what is present, while I find comfort and solace in small communities of folks who gather to read and discuss and lift up hopes and dreams. You might be able to tell just by how I worded that sentence that the hard proactive work makes me want to tear out my hair more than it bathes me in the hope and joy of the Lord.
But I’m still here. Still plodding along. I’m not worried. I’m going to do what I can. I’m going to use the best of my resources. But I’m not anxious. If our best human efforts fail… if this institution can’t be saved by our hands, so be it. Maybe then we’ll finally remember the church isn’t a place but a people. Maybe we’ll see a resurrection out of death. Maybe that’s what the whole gospel is about. Not us, not our attempts… but the love and grace of God that overcomes all. ALL. Even the “death tsunami.”
It strikes me that maybe it is exactly my “live or let die” casual spirit about the whole future of the church that keeps getting me invited to those grueling conversations about what we are going to do to save ourselves. While others worry about this and fret about that and leverage positions and ministries and try this and that… I’m the non-anxious presence in the room. I can sit and listen. I can interpret. I can pray. I can offer guidance and direction. But as much as I love this church, I also have the ability to detach myself from its survivability. I don’t necessarily have a dog in the fight.
As I talk with my other young adult colleagues, we see a completely different church ahead of us. A church of collaboration and connection, networking and accountability. We know that there is money in some far off pension fund, but we don’t actually believe we’ll ever see it. We buy into the system, but we aren’t counting on it to sustain us. We are just at the beginning of giving 40+ years to the institution… whether or not it is actually around for that long. We love it, but if it all fell apart, we’d pick ourselves up and move on to the new thing God is doing.
But please, don’t take that to mean that we aren’t trying, that we are lazy, or that we are just sitting back waiting for it to die.
What it means is that in the midst of doing this thing called church, we are eagerly looking around to see where God might lead us next.
Anxious? Nope. Not in the least.
Honey badger don’t care.
I admit… I may not have done my due diligence in digging out the details of Plan UMC. Not that as a reserve delegate I got to vote on it. Not that we had enough time to absorb it. Not that there was enough time and attention given during plenary to truly perfect it.
But I knew that when I went home, I was going to have to explain what we did, so I’ve been digging deep through it so I could share honestly and truthfully.
Here are some discoveries:
1) There is absolutely no process listed for the election of the new Executive General Secretary of the board… none whatsoever. Not who elects, not where from. Nothing.
2) Any cobbled together piece of legislation is messy… it jumps all over the place… it took me hours to figure out what everything was and make sense of it.
3) There are inconsistencies in the number of reps the boards will have. I may be a preacher, but I once was good at math, and my addition leaves me with one extra member on almost every board.
4) The numbers for the representation for UMW are different than what we passed on consent calendar and because it was passed afterwards thus supercede the request and approved numbers from the UMW themselves.
5) Faith and Order moves from being a committee that reports to General Conference to a committee under that Council of Bishops. This, I believe, is one of the most amazing changes in this legislation… it means that the theological and ecclesiological questions of how we live together now rest where (I believe) it should… with those we have chosen to lead us and with those who are set apart to offer prophetic witness and to move the church to where the Holy Spirit calls.
6) A new General Secretaries Council is created that is a gathering of all of the general secretaries from the boards and agencies + the executive general secretary. This is for the purposes of collaboration and sharing. But, it is also stated very clearly that if the direction from the new General Council on Strategy and Oversight conflicts with the intention of a specific board, that General Secretary is obligated to follow the direction of the board and not the GCSO. There is freedom here
7) I was worried about young people. Previously, there were specific spots mentioned in the discipline regarding membership of each board/agency and representation. In the Book of Discipline… under the description of membership on each of the boards, an item regarding diversity WAS RETAINED. It actually calls for diversity in gender, clergy/lay, race/ethnicity, and mandates 10% of the board members be young people. On a board of 30… that is at least 3 seats. On the GCSO, that is at least 5 seats at the table.
8) As the new Committee on Inclusiveness is described, I am not so fearful as I once was when we seemingly lost the work of GCSRW and GCORR… there are some hopes that the monitoring, ethical, and prophetic work they do might actually have a stronger voice in it’s new location… only time will tell.
As you can see, I have a positive feelings and negative feelings. I’m not sure how it will all shake out, but some pieces of this plan give me reason to hope that maybe we didn’t just restructure money… but might have done some small adaptive changes… God help us!
Too Much Information. I’m not entirely sure that is what was envisioned by the framers of amendment one when they gave freedom to the press. I’m not sure that was what was envisioned by the inventors of the internet, or cable tv, or email.
But we are inundated constantly with information. And depending on which sources we use for our information we read completely different “facts.” Even within one publication we can have radically different portrayals of the truth. Or opinion – which has begun to substitute just fine for truth these days.
As a pastor, I face this when I have congregants reading different interpretations of scripture from vastly different sources and theological frameworks. While it provides and opportunity to talk about why these interpretations might be different, do we ever reach back and find out what the truth of the text is? Is there Truth to be found? or is it all a matter of interpretation?
Certainly this isn’t a new problem. That’s why throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition there have always been schools of thought that argued with one another. There is a reason that Jesus had to interact with Pharisees and Sadducees and Zealots and Essenes. They were all holding on to different pieces of the truth, and holding on to them so fast that they became the Truth for each.
We do this in the church. We do this in politics. We do this in schools. We do this everywhere. Because the idea that we can’t fully grasp the Truth – that it is something that is bigger than us, is scary. We want black and white – truth and falsehood, good guys and bad guys. The in between stuff is a mess and we don’t want to live there.
I chatted with a fellow pastor a while back about how people seem to like morality sermons better than grace sermons. Because with morality and justification sermons the choice is clear – do this, don’t do that. When we talk about love and forgiveness and grace, suddenly we are in the gray area… showing love to a murderer? having compassion for a drug addict? Witnessing someone transform their lives? it’s messy, and hard and challenging, and we would much rather label people as good or bad – even labeling ourselves as good or bad is easier than accepting messy grace.
But the world we live in is not black and white. Reality is dirty and messy and complicated. When we finally dig deep and get to the truth, sometimes we learn that it cannot always be reduced to either/or… sometimes it is both/and.
So what are we to do when we are swimming in a culture of information and mis-information? How do we know which way to turn?
First, hang out with people who don’t think like you. One of the best ways to fact-check your information is to compare it with what other people are hearing. I am involved in both a weekly bible study and a monthly pastoral gathering and one of the things I cherish the most is that we don’t always agree. We approach theology and scripture from different angles. We place our emphasis on different words. But in dialogue with one another, we peel back layers of delusion and confusion and we all grow because of the experience. I also try to listen with patience when I am home visiting my family and the news is on. While we might not turn to the same sources of information, we can help one another to gain a larger picture of the truth by asking questions, sharing what we have also hear about that situation, and trying to understand the rhetoric behind the news. The key to this piece of advice is that we cannot immediately get defensive. We must listen and share with grace and love.
Second, seek outside sources of information that you know to be trusted. Not all questions can be answered adequately with a google search, not every website has accurate and honest information. In the midst of the chaos, I’m becoming increasingly grateful for websites like snopes.com. They help sift through lots of information and help to clear up some of the mis-information out there. But they do so in a way that realizes that there is fact and fiction out there. They are willing to say that parts are true and parts aren’t. They show you which is which. They show which items are a matter of interpretation and opinion. They back stuff up with resources. They are indespensible!!!! I am now in the habit of running any email forward I recieve through snopes.com – just to see what’s out there. But I am sad to say that I have had to actually fact check news stories lately as well. While I am not aware of any specific website that does this for theological dilemmas, I am open to suggestions! The biggest rule here is to seek out a source that doesn’t have a dog in the fight. Look for a source that doesn’t have a financial investment or tie to the information and how it might be used.
Third, get as close to the source of information as you can. If you are trying to study the bible – take some lessons in greek or hebrew. Carry a dictionary with you and look at what a particular word might mean. Spend some time studying the context and what is going on in history at the time. The same principles apply to news stories. You are going to be much farther from the truth if you are reading a blog responding to an opinion page article about the Super Bowl than if you were there in person. Reading in-depth sports news articles from the day after adds another layer. Get as close as possible to the source as you can for the most accurate descriptions.
Fourth, think carefully about “crowd sourcing”. There is an idea in the Wesleyan tradition about Christian Conferencing – that when we gather to discuss and discern with the help of the Holy Spirit we will find God’s will. We use it to guide important decisions we make (like voting on issues at General Conference) but also in the discernment of truth and what sources of information are important to consider. I believe God is good and that it is possible to discern the truth among many, so I want to lift this up as an important principle to share. In scripture study, this might be thought of as communal lectio divina, where we allow the responses of the group inform us. In today’s networked world, simply asking a question like “How did Whitney Houston die?” on facebook or twitter might get you the right information and from a number of people with a number of different sources. But it could also lead you directly into the midst of mis-information, rumors, speculation and nonsense. Accept “crowd sourced” information with a grain of salt and let it lead you deeper into some of the other principles we have mentioned here, rather than simply being your final stop.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when we try to pretend that this world of information is cut and dry and easy. When we skew facts and figures, stories, and information, we do so in order to get OUR point across, but in doing so tell only part of the story. It seems like everyone has their own corner on the truth – a news station for just about every perspective you might care to have, a biblical translation that cuts out all liberal or conservative viewpoints. We are so good at owning up to our biases that we actually forget there are other sides of the story to tell. What used to be sources of real news and information have become just another layer of scum you need to dig through in order to gain a smidgen of knowledge.
Truth is not easy to find. It will take work. It will take some self-awareness to see outside of the fishbowl we are swimming in. But in this world of far too much information, it is work that we must do.
In this installment, I want to talk about some of the “best practices” that I see coming out of emerging, missional, and postmodern churches. Some of these practices are mentioned in Diana Butler Bass’ book, Christianity for the Rest of Us
First, I think in emergent churches there is a deep shift towards becoming a community of practitioners. Rather than offering services to be consumed, these congregations invite individuals to become a part of a communal pilgrimage. Or as Dan Kimball claims, the emerging church will have to teach people “that they are the church and that they don’t simply attend or go to one.”
Faith becomes “a craft learned over time in community,” according to Bass, as she describes the Seattle Church of the Apostles which takes seriously this communal pilgrimage. Realizing that many in the community had no experience whatsoever with Christianity, they developed a process called The WAY, focused on creating pilgrims rather than members. In the year long journey, “the goal is to help them at their own pace to come into a living relationship with Jesus Christ that takes over the center of their life.”
As I have seen this lived out, on the ground, many emergent faith communities are actually small groups that are connected to more institutional churches. In some ways, I think of them as that magic 10% of the people who get it and who really want to live out their faith. As Taylor Burton Edwards has talked about Wesleyan missional groups and accountability groups and class meetings – in some ways he has encouraged people to focus on those people who want to take the deeper plunge. Their journey and witness can become a catalyst for other transformations in the lives of your congregation members and in people completely unconnected to the church. Praxis rather than doctrine rules this shift.For example, Bass describes an Episcopal church that began a Hispanic congregation for new immigrants. In their worship practices, and especially in communion, they felt they needed to pay attention to what it means to be “home”:
Think of the joy of going home to the house you grew up in, with the smell of your mother’s cooking in the kitchen, the tastes of food, the sounds of family. Here, like your mother’s table, the Lord’s table welcomes you home. Here we are an extended family in the Spirit through communion. You are all members of God’s house.
That might seem comforting to us who fondly remember what it is like to be gathered around a parent’s dinner table. But how much more welcoming is it for a community of people who are far from the homes they grew up in. How much more inviting is that statement for a people who are creating a new home in unfamiliar territory. When you are disoriented and alone, the reminder that God welcomes us into a wider family is powerful. The goal is not to market to a specific audience or offer a product; rather the church must look seriously at how the gospel comes alive within the experiences of the people.
In Indianapolis last year, I was able to immerse myself in the Earth House Collective and Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church. They recognized that their neighborhood was quickly changing and that their dying congregation needed to adapt. So they transformed their basement into a restaurant and their fellowship space into a coffee shop and they tore out the pews and in addition to Sunday night worship, they host plays, dance performances, movies, and concerts. Their church became a community center and thousands of people come in through their doors each year. That is not something that I can just transplant into a rural community – but it authentically came from their location near the Indy arts district.
The third thing that I find imporant in these churches is their spirit of discernment. Brewin describes this as creative waiting:
So against our hasty judgment, and in God’s scientific wisdom, before we can experience the transformation that is vital to our survival, we will be required to wait. To be acted on gently, gracefully, and peacefully. Shaped, not crushed; guided, not dragged.
The Church of the Epiphany in Washington, D.C. has adopted the more traditional Quaker practice of open worship. They are asking what God wants for them as a church by listening together in small groups. They gather to hear the truthfulness of God. There are no speeches, no panel discussions, and no debates here, only the deeply countercultural act of silence… When ready, someone shares… the speaker, who is never interrupted by the group, tries to focus the presentation on God’s presence in the midst of these concerns.
Finally, these congregations live with “both/and.” This is the postmodern notion of being comfortable with paradox and contradiction, yet it is also deeply Christian. When asked what he had learned during his long life about the Christian journey, Elton Trueblood responded with the word “and”:
It is good and bad; it is made up of life and death; it is being close to God and sometimes distant… It is the task of the Christian to live in the ‘and,’ in the ambivalence of life.
All the vital congregations Bass studied lived in this tension. They were “creative and traditional, risk-taking and grounded, confident and humble, open and orthodox.” The church I interned with in Nashville, Tennessee was large enough that some of those tensions were felt. We were a fairly diverse group of folks – liberal and conservative, traditional and yet also willing to try new things. A small and powerful worship service began on the fourth floor of the building in an old theater space and I think for a year and a half – the folks who gathered there really lived in that tension of the “both/and.”
These four characteristics are what have inspired me about the praxis and theology of the emergent church. I find in each of them deep biblical roots and have seen the transformation that occurs when they are allowed to take center stage in communities and congregations. But for the most part – that happened in urban contexts, in population centers, with resources like money and talent and time to help foster them.
What happens when the theology and practice are transported to a small county seat town in Iowa? Stay tuned…
In the second part of the pilot, we find John Locke sitting on the beach setting up a backgammon board. Young Walt walks up and wants to know what the game is and how to play.
In his usual enigmatic way, Locke replies, holding up the black and white counters, “two players, two sides, one is light, one is dark.”
That theme of light and dark, good and evil, white and black flows throughout the series of lost. Constantly you are trying to figure out who is good, who is bad, and which side the characters are playing on.
Having known very little about the actual game of backgammon, I did some research. In the game, the goal is to get all of your counters/checkers/stones off of the board. The checkers are initially set up at various set locations across the board and the light and dark pieces are moved in opposite directions, each player trying to get their pieces “home.” It is the roll of the dice that determines how many moves each person can make.
Opposing forces, two sides, each trying to make it “home.”
Later, I want to discuss what it might mean for each side to make their stragetic moves in their attempts to get home, but right now, I’m struck by the contrast between black and white.
In Christian theology, there is a battle between good and evil, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. This is talked about both cosmically in the sense of Christ’s victory over the forces of Satan and individually as our hearts and minds are up for grabs. Christians are called to live in the light, to clothe themselves with rightousness, to put all darkness and evil out of their lives. There is no inbetween. Those who are “lukewarm” might as well be on the darkside. The choice is clear.
Yet even in the midst of this black and white, either/or language, there exists within theology another current that talks about the grey area… the both/and. Lutheran theology claims that we are simultaneously sinners and saints, darkness and light living together. In Methodist theology, we talk about sanctification – that God’s grace flows within us from the moment of justification and over time, we are gradually perfected in God’s eyes – that someday we reach that moment of perfection, but that in the meantime we are people of the light who struggle with the darkness within us.
The question is one of if and when redemption can come. If we are filled with darkness and evil, can we ever change our ways? If we are filled with light and goodness, can we ever fall from grace?
The characters on Lost constantly struggle with these questions. As we are introduced to Kate, Sawyer, Charlie, Eko, Sun, and others, we see the destruction that their past lives have caused. We see the hurt and pain they have caused not only others, but also themselves. And while at the same time running from their past, they are also running towards a new future. In small ways throughout their lives they have done redeemable acts – like Sawyer leaving his “commission” to the daughter he has never met, or Eko trying to help the villagers get their vaccine – although he chose a path of killing to get there. Their lives are a mixed back of light and darkness, each vying with the other to take control of these individuals.
The island in many ways gives them a clean slate – a tabula rasa, as one of the first episodes puts it. It is a fresh start and a chance for them to make themselves over as new people, without their past haunting them.
The ability to say that they are sorry, to confess the wrongs of their lives and to make amends is difficult. Kate finds that she cannot apologize for killing her step-father, nor Eko for the destruction that followed as he tried to save his brother from a similiar fate. But Charlie does find ways to say that he is sorry and successfully gives up heroin use. Sawyer makes amends with the survivors by throwing a boar feast. Juliet tries to prove she is on the side of the survivors through telling the truth about being a “mole.”
And yet, as fear and anger take over, darkness again creeps in. On the first night in their camp, Eko takes the lives of two men that have tried to haul him off. Sayid returns to torture as a means of getting information. Sawyer just cannot leave the con alone when he feels that power has slipped away from him.
In the game of backgammon, light and darkness cannot exist on the same point at the same time. Either there are too many counters of the one color and the other cannot move in, or there is a one on one confrontation. As the light or dark counter moves onto a point occupied by another – the “blot” – the blot must leave the board and is placed on the bar between the sides of the board. That counter must now start from the beginning and make its way all the way back around the board.
That constant interplay, the struggle between light and dark is present in our lives. Faced with temptation, encountered with fear, we must make a choice to move and to confront those opposing forces or to sit back and wait for the darkness to win. As we see all too clearly in Lost, mistrust and secrecy become avenues for darkness to work. Yet, we know through scriptures that through prayer, through community, through open hearts, we are strengthened by others and by God to face those opposing forces. Jack’s famous, “live together, die alone,” is not only a statement about survival – but a recipe for how they can strengthen themselves for the battle of hearts and minds. If only they could figure out a way to follow it.
