postmodern – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa… Part 1

Posted on September 8, 20102 Comments

In our final year at Vanderbilt Divinity School, we work on the crowning glory of our graduate work: our seminar paper. As I sat down three years ago to write this work, I was very interested in how I might take all that I had learned and take it back home to Iowa. I knew I was heading into a rural congregation and I wanted to prepare myself.

During that time at Vandy, my eyes were opened to postmodern culture and theology – particularly manifested in the emerging church movement. I am convinced that this “movement” is not a fad within the church, but a group of individuals and communities who are thoughtfully re-examining their theologies and practices in order to be more faithful to the gospel in their particular place and time. I have begun to be a part of their discussions in small group meetings, conferences, on blogs and through email and every chance that I get to explore what this might mean for the institutional church, especially my United Methodist tradition, invigorates me! I resonate with the ways in which tradition is invited to become organically connected with the present reality of our lives. I find new energy and hope in the emphasis on ritual, community and shared experience. Above all, I have discovered a new framework by which to describe the most meaningful religious experiences of my life.

At the same time, I felt a deep calling to be in ministry in Iowa… which perpetuated a small identity crisis as I tried to figure out how this integration might be possible. Postmodernism was rarely discussed in the churches I grew up in and was often seen more as a threat than a blessing. I am not like the pastors who nurtured my own faith and the “model leaders” who are uplifted and revered by the church culture. I am aware of a deeper, more authentic and communal style of leadership within me and postmodern theology has helped me to claim my own voice and calling as authentic. But the question in the back of my mind was whether the church in Iowa would see it the same way? This seminar conversation began as I asked myself what God wanted me to bring from my own experience that would be beneficial to the church there?

The reality is that the church itself (mainline, United Methodist, Protestant, small churches, you name it) is in danger of becoming irrelevant. More and more young people are seeking their faith outside of the institutional church – not in a rejection of Christianity, but in an attempt to preserve their own best faithfulness. I have in fact been one of those people, and yet cannot escape a call to remain within my tradition.

Which is possibly why this quote by Karl Barth stood out to me:

To the distinctiveness of its calling and commission, and therefore to the form of its existence as the people of God in [the] world…, there does not correspond in the first instance or intrinsically any absolutely distinctive social form [of the church].

If the church is not authentically living out its calling and commission through its present form, then perhaps in light of postmodernism it does need to be reformed.

At the time, I was interested in how I could take my education, my experiences, and the resources I gained in an urban and academic setting and apply it to rural ministry. I have always understood that it is my duty as a pastoral theologian to help the church hold in tension its tradition and its present reality… while at the same time being faithful to the gospel. So now, three years later, I want to return to the paper to see what has changed, what I have learned, and where I still want to wrestle. This conversation is my attempt to point to the intersection of postmodern church and rural United Methodist life I discovered, but now, with three years of ministry under my belt, I want to not only imagine what this faithful living might look like, but share what I have learned on the ground.

In the next few weeks, I’ll share some of the various contexts that are at play, some basic background on postmodernism, and what its like to be a congregation in a small town in Iowa. Then we’ll look at the role of theology and practice on the ground. I hope you’ll join me – and if you have any questions or want to share your own insights – join in!

Sources of Revelation

Posted on January 12, 2010Leave a comment

The United Methodist Church holds that Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason are sources and norms for belief and practice, but that the Bible is primary among them. What is your understanding of this theological position of the church?

In traditional Wesleyan thinking, scripture must be the central source of theology and all of the other three means listed above are secondary. Yet, that can create an interesting dilemma. Do we use scripture to interpret our experiences and to put hedges around our tradition and to limit our reasoning, or are each of the three ways of interpreting and using said scripture. I think that one of the challenges presented by both postmodernity and the emergent movement is that we are in all cases limited by our human finitude. We simply cannot go back and use scripture in a vacuum. We always interpret it through a lens, through a glass dimly. Our historical understandings of events are culturally flavored. And scientific advances have also challenged tried and true scriptural understandings, leaving us to ask whether we read passages in scripture as absolute truth or as humanity’s best understanding of events, at the time, as inspired by God.

I think the best way of defining our norms and practices is to hold all four of these sources as important and yet also realize that even grounded in all four of these, we might not have the full picture. Our practices and our beliefs might still need to grow and change as we grow in our faithfulness towards the God of all creation. One of the gifts that postmodernity brings is the idea of the intersubjective – that which we hold as a community in common. It allows us to discern together what the best practices are for us right now as we attempt to be faithful, and yet also leaves open the possibility that another truth, a better practice, a more precise or expansive norm may exist.

In effect, that is what we do through conferencing. We leave open the possibility that the Holy Spirit still has places to move us. We share our stories and allow ourselves to be formed by others. We read the bible through new eyes when we hear it read at General Conference in the voice of a brother from India or a sister from Africa. We can communally gain a more holistic picture of God than our own subjective experiences and methods of reasoning and traditions and even versions of the scriptures permit.

Photo by: Jon Wisbey

what kind of shepherd will I be?

Posted on October 10, 20092 Comments

Earlier this week I found the Internet Monk blog and in particular this article about sermons. Most of what was said was very helpful advice, but one thing really struck me.

In the discussion especially there was a lot of talk about how long it takes to prepare a sermon. My first introduction to this question was from my homiletics professor – an esteemed preacher in the Black church tradition who told us it should take 40 hours to prepare a sermon… 20 hours in one week spent preparing and writing, and 20 hours the next week rehearsing and memorizing the text to be performed. (yes, performed). To which our obvious response was: where on earth is your time for your pastoral duties?

Photo by: Terri HeiseleHe comes from a very different context than I find myself in. In his tradition the preacher is called – and then the preacher equips the laity to do the work of the church. The elders care for the congregation, the preacher speaks God’s word.

On the other hand, in the discussion on Internet Monk there were quite a few people who were deeply concerned about the time we spend preparing sermons. One of the more common themes is that we need to spend even less time working with translating a text and reading what other “shepherds” have thought about it and get out there and spend more time with the sheep.

Perhaps I fall somewhere in between. I might spend some time mulling over a text – reading it, researching it, reading commentaries, but I also try to spend time thinking about the text with my community. We have a weekly lectionary study both in my congregation and with other pastors in our town. And then whatever happens during that week is framed by the texts that surround us for that week. I often will find sermon illustrations in potlucks or news from the days between Sunday and Sunday. I can’t really and truly count how long it takes me to prepare to write – because it happens in all sorts of ways. I might spend a few hours on textweek.com researching. But I’ll spend hours reading blogs, watching the news, listening to npr, talking with people in the church, reading the local paper, playing games with my youth, praying for situations I know about… all of that is preparation for what I say on Sunday.

Then comes the writing. On a good week, the writing happens quickly. One warm sunny afternoon I sat down and wrote the manuscript -one shot, straight through – on a picnic table in the time it took my friends to shoot 18 holes of disc golf (an hour +). And then I played the next course with them. Sometimes it happens in fits and spurts – with ideas coming here and there, phrases coming to me in dreams that I desperately hope I remember in the morning, paragraphs being written that then have to be woven together and edited and cut.

I almost never rehearse my text. I take a full manuscript into the pulpit but I tend to write my manuscripts as I would say them. I had lots of terrible experiences with outlines and extemporaneous speaking in high school – trust me, I need a manuscript. That being said, I never read my manuscript – I talk to and with my congregation. I may speak the words on the page, but they come from somewhere beyond the page. And I don’t let the page limit what I’m going to say or what the Holy Spirit wants to do. If I could get those past experiences out of my mind, perhaps I could be freer to do the work of prepartion and write an outline and trust that the Holy Spirit will help the work I’ve done and the Word of God to come across. But I’m not there yet. I still need my “blankie.” On the other hand, I feel blessed that I have been given a gift that doesn’t require me to spend countless hours rehearsing and memorizing – time that would take away from my family, my own sabbath time, and my congregation.

As I think about both ends of that spectrum – both the preacher who sees it as their responsibility to take care researching and preparing to proclaim a text… and the shepherd who may use few words on a Sunday but sees their primary job as spending time caring for the flock, I wonder about how to find a balance that does not rest solely with the person of the pastor.

What I’m worried about is that maybe the protestant tradition has overemphasized both the shepherd and the preacher models. Sunday worship is seen as the time where we come and listen to a sermon (for better or for worse). But even outside of that time, the congregation looks to me to speak the word to them – whether in bible study, or in administrative board meetings or during worship. While I’m not the preacher in the same way that my homiletics professor is in his congregations, I have become a shepherd that leads the sheep, rather than the shepherd who in a more eastern understanding walks with the sheep.

I am not called to be a figurehead or a dictator. While I am a natural leader, my ministry is to be a servant. I am called to empower my congregation. I am called to give them voice – to help them hear the Word of God that lives amongst us all. I am called to listen to the stories of people who walk through my church doors and to the stories of people who would never set foot in the church on their own. People like the young man who came with friends to help me move a couch on Wednesday afternoon and then came back to youth group the next night and then felt comfortable enough to ask me for help when he needed it later in the week.

Maybe a first step is bringing worship back to the table instead of the pulpit. Making communion a part of our worship every week – making it the focal point of worship every week. I know my congregation is resistant to that idea – but I wonder what doing it for even just a season might do to change minds.

A second place to begin is changing the way I work with teams/committees in my congregation. I want to spend a lot more time working one on one with the leaders and a lot less time talking in meetings. I need to help people claim their voices and their gifts, and (something that is really hard for me) not fill the silence in a conversation or the void in leadership. I need to wait and pray for God to bless someone to emerge. Because my people are not sheep… they are children of God who are called and sent just as I am.

Moltmann Conversation – Notes from Opening with John Franke

Posted on September 10, 2009Leave a comment

1. Job of theology – what is God doing in the world today? in the church today?
2. Have you ever noticed Christians don’t and have never agreed? especially on BIG issues!
3. How do we make sense of that?
4. It’s not THE Christian tradition, but many traditions and ways of Christ.
5. Franke hopes in part that his work (Manifold Witness) will cause people to stop asking why the emergent village doesn’t have set theological beliefs/values
6. the proper way to understand orthodox Biblical Christianity is diverse and pluralist and that is what God designed!
7. Emergent village values church in all its forms
8. 16th century debate = struggle to come up with one right way , but we value plurality.
9. we ALL do theology – not one right system of doctrine, not experts who stand at the front who tell everyone the way it has to be… but within the framework there will/should be a HUGE plurality.
10. Explorations in Theology “Thelogy was and still is an adventure of ideas…. the road emerged only as I walk in it, shaped by personal experiences and political climate of my time. Not concerned with correct idea, but want to explore what is new – and to help others discover theology themselves.” – Moltmann
11. “Don’t ever let my theology keep me from seeing what you are doing in the world” Franke’s prayer
12. We have to be faithful to the vision of plurality we have set for ourselves… How do we open up the dialogue and expand our demographics? Include more people!! The church NEEDS all the nations – all voices, all people.

Amen.

Posted on January 21, 2009Leave a comment

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I got to watch the inauguration after holding bible study at church. Three parishoners joined me quickly in my office to watch the cnn.com live feed on my laptop.

I’ve been watching tv pretty much all day and really feel like there isn’t a lot left to say. It’s all been said, or at least I’ve had all the rhetoric and ideas and phrases spun around my sphere of influence that I’d probably just repeat other people’s profound thoughts.

I thought of all the moments I wanted to share, to remember, to really carry with me, the first was Rev. Lowery’s benediction. It was real and authentic and funny and gave glory to God and moved the crowd and he’s a United Methodist.

Second, how cute President Obama and the First Lady look while dancing (and how amazing was Beyonce’s version of “At Last”… which got old after the second time… although they didn’t) They kind of did the same spiel at each ball stop, although I was really touched by some of the things he said at the youth ball.

They really just have this aura of real and true love and confidence in one another and just seemed to be having such a good time. It was refreshing and beautiful – Rachel Maddow said something about how it must never get old to dance with your beloved. Beloved is a really good word to use to describe at least what I saw today.

Third, it really is amazing how much technology has played a part in this inauguration. I just looked up at the t.v. and there was an image of a crowd waiting and the stage lit up waiting for them to come out and there were all of these little blue squares. I realized they were all digital cameras, held up by the crowd, pointed at the stage. All of those little screens waiting to take pictures, like lighters held up at a concert. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m paying attention this time, but I can’t remember other inaugurations bringing this many people together in so many ways and all of this technology being employed to bring the message, the celebration to so many.

Who Would Jesus Smack Down?

Posted on January 13, 20091 Comment

This morning one of our small groups met and I started Joyce Rupp’s “The Cup of Our Lives” with them. It thought it went really well! I’m also now up to 5 youth and a male chaperone besides myself who are able to go on our youth mission trip this summer. Which is fantastic!

I ran some errands – including buying some good nutritious food to stock the fridge with, and then sat down for lunch with my computer. And came across this article:

Who Would Jesus Smack Down?
By MOLLY WORTHEN
Published: January 11, 2009
The Seattle minister Mark Driscoll is out to transform American evangelicalism with his macho conception of Christ and neo-Calvinist belief in the total depravity of man.

I know I said that I would be commenting on “The Shack” soon… and I hope to… but for some reason I stumbled across this today and just sat there with my jaw dropped staring at the screen.

I didn’t know anything about this church before I read the article and there are some things about how it is portrayed that make my blood boil and there are other things that really resonate with me. And so I’m going to talk about them in no particular order.

First of all, the Calvinist theology. It’s not me. I’m a die-hard Methodist. And while there may only be a hair’s breadth between Calvinism and Methodism, I would say that it’s a mighty thick hair. And to be fair to Calvin, this New Calvinism takes his attempt to hang on to the sovereignty of God and just runs with the unintended implications much more than Calvin ever would have. There is a determinism there that is extremely uncomfortable for me. Not because I’m a “limp-wristed liberal,” but because I want to leave room for God to do what God wants – and that includes redeeming the irredeemable.

Secondly, along with the theology comes an interpretation of the bible that is ironically more refreshing that traditional conservative literal evangelical spin… because it takes seriously the New Testament messsage that prohibitions against things like drinking and dancing just don’t jive with what Jesus tried to teach… that attempting to live righteously by the law is to live like a Pharisee. But, the interpretative framework doesn’t leave any room for the contextual explanations of Paul’s comments on the genders or leave room for the call of God to teach and preach to come to women. And I have a huge problem with that since I am a woman and have experienced that call. (Perhaps this is where I stick in a not so subtle comment about Wesleyan theology and the quadralateral of biblical interpretation: scripture, tradition, reason and experience.)

Third, and this is related to the gender discussion, Driscoll wants to basically save Jesus from the theology that has emasculated him. I want to both agree and disagree here. There is a lot within theology that does paint Jesus as the soft and gentle one who loves us. And there are some interpretations of the crucifixion that want to see pacifism as weak, as Christ’s refusal to fight back or stand up for himself as a feminine way of being (Not my interpretation). BUT, why are feminine attributes so negative in Driscoll’s eyes? Why can’t Jesus embrace both the traditionally masculine and feminine aspects of humanity? And the whole argument supposes that Christ’s form of resistance to power… his refusal to give in AND his willingness to die for sinners… is what has made Christ weak, or in the words of the article:

has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”

On the contrary, the true power of Christ in my theology is described in terms of kenosis – of emptying himself – of pouring out himself for others. In doing so, he fully took on human existence and redeemed it, once and for all. He gave up everything in order that none would have to be condemned to hell. But, there is still a choice involved. Christ, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, continues to reach out to us but it is up to us whether or not we respond. That’s not weak. That is what love and relationship look like.

Fourth, I love the way that the church meets people where they are and believe that God is found everywhere within the culture. I can totally relate to the description of the people as:

cultural activists who play in rock bands and care about the arts, living out a long Reformed tradition that asserts Christ’s mandate over every corner of creation

I have no complaint here and applaud their ability not only to reach out to those who would be uncomfortable in a mainline church, but also to challenge them to live differently. In the words of Anne Lamott (or someone else if it came before her) “God loves you just the way you are, and loves you too much to let you stay that way.”

Fifth, the idea that to question authority is to sin. OMG. seriously. That paragraph in the article about made me scream. To start off with, since Calvinism is a REFORMED tradtion… there was some questioning of authority somewhere along the way. That being said, I have no tolerance for authoritarianism. (haha, i made a joke) Questioning is what makes us human, it is the gift of the Holy Spirit that allows the body of Christ to discern what is the will of God. I must admit here that Mr. Wesley himself could be fairly authoritarian in his own day, and he made some bad choices as a result of which (see his love life in Georgia for example). But to shun elders within the church because they opposed the new organizational structure? Are you serious? I guess that’s a long way from the idea of Christian conferencing that became a part of the Wesleyan tradition… Or maybe I’m just being limp-wristed again. GAH!

Lectionary Leanings

Posted on December 2, 2008Leave a comment

The second installment of my articles for the Circuit Rider:

December 7
Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13,
II Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8
Anticipation is not an emotion that we experience too often these days. We live in a “have it your way, fast” kind of culture. Anything you want in the entire world is at your fingertips through the wonders of the Internet, and now that the Internet is built into many of our cellular devices, we can literally take the world with us wherever we go.

Not only can we access information, music, images, and people with lightning speed, but we actually seem to be able to fit more things and tasks into our lives through the wonders of multitasking. The other day, I was driving to a meeting, trying to go over my notes, eating pretzels and listening to NPR on the radio. Coincidentally, the morning program was about multitasking. According to the neuroscientist on the program, our minds really can’t do multiple things at once; we simply shift our focus between all of these tasks very, very quickly.The problem with all of these rapid shifts between activities is that we leave ourselves very little time and space to prepare for what comes next.

More importantly, we have forgotten about the importance of waiting. We think we are avoiding all of those terrible feelings like anxiety and impatience and frustration when we occupy our waiting minds with other things, but we also miss out on feelings of what Merriam-Webster calls “pleasurable expectation,” or anticipation.

Just think of the anticipation that would have surrounded the crowds who came out to hear John preaching there in the wilderness. He was a sight to see for sure, with his camel hair garb and that strange diet of locusts and honey. We get to experience
Advent every year. It’s on our calendars and so we know it’s on its way. But those crowds who traveled from Jerusalem out to the countryside had no idea how long they would have to wait or what they were even waiting for. All they knew was that this crazy guy was standing in the river, washing away sins, but that someone even more powerful was coming. Someone who would not only wash them clean, but who could make them whole. Someone who was about to turn the whole world upside down.
Now, that’s what I call anticipation.

Advent Conspiracy

Posted on November 25, 2008Leave a comment

My friend Matt posted over at his blog “The Truth As Best I Know It” about the supposed war on Christmas and the Advent Consipracy.

I too, fail to lament the taking of Christmas out of stores of our courthouses… when Christianity becomes too confused with the civic religion, it suffers and gets bogged down in consumerism and appearances. If the only place I see a nativity is outside of the church – fine by me. Heck, our church is right next to the courthouse anyways! When we reclaim the tradition from the culture, than we truly can celebrate the scandal that is the Advent and Christmas proclamation.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we privatize it. It just means that we don’t allow it to be controlled and dictated by the culture around us. We let the Word of God speak.

As far as my own Advent Conspiracy – we normally decide what to do about presents at Thanksgiving. Usually we all draw a name so that we are only buying for one person in each family. But I want to do something for the whole family as well – in a way that is meaningful and not cheesy. There isn’t a lot of time left, but my thinking cap is definately on! In some ways, this meal that Brandon and I are cooking for his family this week is our gift to them. It’s a lot of work, but I think that if we weren’t the ones doing the cooking, we wouldn’t be getting together.

On my mom’s side of the family, the year after my grandma died, we bought presents for a family in their hometown. And it seems like there has been something special like that every year. My grandpa is so generous and I would really like to do something like that for them again this year. One of my ideas is to get a simple brick and talk about a donation made in their name to the hospital we are working to support in Tanzania