Poverty and Change

A while ago when the fight against SOPA was in full effect, I made some comment similar to the following "I wish we would put some of the energy and unity seen with SOPA into helping fix those things that affect peoples real rights everyday."  I tried to blog on it at the time but most things I typed were just angry, but today while out shopping it hit me.  My issue isn't the idea that SOPA wasn't worth the fight or even that the energy could have been better directed, the core of my issue was the argument that this was a justice issue over a comfort issue. 

We find it easy when our comfort is being threatened to get up in arms.  We find it easy to fight against change, easy to fight against things that affect our "personal" rights, easy to sign petitions and write letters and even go protest, but are we willing to get down and get dirty and help on the relational level?  Are we willing to actually enact the change we want to see? 

So what does that have to do with my shopping trip?  I headed out today to get some yummy diabetic friendly food from Trader Joes.  This trip involves me driving off the island I live on, through the inner city and then out to a place that others call Mt Plastic.  (I've never been sure if that relates to the appearance focused culture, how many there spend money, or if it related to the view of things as disposable, but that's another blog.)  On my way out there I realized that I was taking a long trip just to get "healthy" food.  While there I realized the extreme lack of diversity in the parking lot (mine was the only car which didn't look like it was kept in a garage and had been purchased in the past 2 years) or in the store (white, upper middle class or above).  So on the way home I decided to stop at 2 stores, a corner grocery downtown and a Piggly Wiggly that was found nearish to the area and it cemented my thoughts for this blog.

In the corner grocery store there was basically nothing that could be called diabetic friendly and most everything was high sodium and fat.  There was a bit more selection in the Piggly Wiggly, but still only hard candy that was diabetic friendly and most "healthy" food is what I'd call nasty-healthy.  There was nothing like some of the things I saw at Trader Joes.  Yet in this consumer based culture why would Trader Joes or anywhere build or stock things in that area?  People there aren't going to pay the prices or buy as much as those in more affluent areas.  Nor are they as "interested" in nutrition (because they're interested in survival, saving what little money they can, making it through, etc.).  So in a consumer capitalistic culture of course there's no reason to build a place like that in an area it won't survive as a business.

So what?  Well I realize due to being diabetic shopping these places regularly isn't a real option, but at the same time it points to how we so often avoid going where we're uncomfortable to shop, eat, or do anything financial.  We don't do anything to support the areas of poverty, we rail against the system that creates the issue, but we don't get down and dirty, risking our own comfort, money, or safety to actually travel with these who are struggling.  We avoid their pain by looking at our own.  Do we have debt?  Are we struggling? Yes, but guess what, if we have smart phones, I can point to a lot of people that need our help more.  Yes, there is a place to fight to change the system, but God came to the world not to change the system, but to change the world and do it relationally.  If we're not willing to put our money and treasures where our mouths are, we're not doing anything.

We can be passionate about our precious "information superhighway" but it's not what changes the world.  Those who claim it helps the poor fight oppression, the poor fought for years without it and still do so.  Those who say it gives movements more reach, are not places and movements from before this digital age famous and became large without the help of social media?  I have nothing against fighting for free information, open source, and all of that, but to claim it's anything more than fighting for comfort is to give up the relational connective power that comes from being made in God's image in favor of something made of self.  It is a tool, it is not the source of change.  The source of change is relational, physical world relational, the movement of people is the coming together in physical community, anything less has yet to change the world.  I want to change the world, who's with me?

The Missed and What's Missing

A few times in the past day I have been part of discussions about "better terms for 'unchurched.'"  There have been attempts to explain/differentiate: "those who've not connected yet," "those who have disconnected," or "those who may never connect" and snarky responses: "Hell-goers," "heathens," "target population," "opportunities," or "lucky."  Mixed in all these "typical" responses there were also a few more honest attempts (from varied backgrounds, and all with issues admittedly) "Lost," "Missed/Missing," and "Seeking."  "Lost" and "Seeking" come from the same argument.  People out there are looking for something they can't or haven't found yet, and WE have it, so how do we let them know they can find it HERE.  They are cheap advertising words, not words that should be used when talking about real people or a real community (church).  "Missed/Missing" is an interesting idea: We miss these people in theory and want them in community, and God likewise misses these beloved treasures that are not in a relationship supposedly.  Of course again there is a major issue here: We're assuming a lot about what is going on inside of these actual people and trying to put a label on them.  Same problem that comes with the attempts to differentiate sub groups of this "group" that we so often talk about in the church and in relation to evangelism.

So if it's not about "The Missed" then what is it about?  I want to argue it's about "What's Missing."  We shouldn't be worried about "who" is out there and how to describe "them."  We should be doing our job as the Body of Christ.  Jesus doesn't go around asking who is going to come to him, people just do.  The sense something they want there, they sense a spirit of love and healing, they see someone who comes to them without question, without judging, without requirements.  We don't do that, we rarely even get out and do good in a lot of cases.  We may do a little here, and a little there, but Jesus says that The Son of Man has no where to lay his head.  And well if we're Christ's body, that means we also shouldn't be looking for a home, but going, doing, acting as Christ to this world.  Yes, God wants people to come to know Christ and through him Godself, but people will come to know God because God is active in their lives, not because we bring them to church. 

I do believe people want community, I believe God made our deepest desire one of escaping our aloneness, to feel part of something greater, to understand love in it's truest form, to build relationships. As the story goes, after Adam and Even had eaten of the tree of knowledge, after they have become aware of themselves, the world, and each other, they are aware of their separateness. The awareness of separation is the source of anxiety and the deepest need of human beings is our need to overcome our separateness, to leave the prison of our aloneness.  This is an internal pull, we can do nothing to change to what extent someone feels it, nor are we able to really understand how it manifests itself in another.  Thus I argue that we need to get beyond a desire to know who we're "evangelizing" to, and just "evangelize" the world through action, actions of love, of justice, of care and concern for others regardless of who they are or where they are in life.  We are all seeking, we all are a bit lost, we all have parts of church we love, hate, and are ambivalent about, we all are unique but connected in that we all are made in God's image.  May we treat all people as such. 

Too Much?

Today I pounced on an opportunity to preach.  I've made a big deal at work about wanting to focus on doing my job the best I can and thus skipping out on more things like session, being liturgist, and planning meetings, and trusting the Education committee to pick up that slack.  So I understand when my Head of Staff questioned me offering and wondered if I was being hypocritical.

Yet as a seminary trained educator I feel that I need the random occasion to preach.  It is an important place of education, and for some people the only place that they receive education in the church.  Do I dislike that second fact? Yes, but it is a fact.  Thus I try to do lots of other things where maybe they'll read or see something educational.  Part of the reason this blog has been quiet for almost 3 months is that I was starting up a church blog that I hope will help people hear other voices and grow in their faith.  So in order to put my creative energy into that something had to give.  In this case it was my voice here that went.

Priorities, my friend.  We all have them, and we should review them regularly.  What was important to me last year, last week, or even last hour may not be now.  Our priorities constantly change and rearrange and we need to be willing to move with them, or to move them around as needed.  I hear often of the need to be focused on prayer, scripture reading, service, confession, submission, or worship, but while all of those are good, they are only half of the classical spiritual disciplines.  The others: Fasting, Meditation, Simplicity, Solitude, Celebration, and Guidance?  They're no less important to us in the big picture.  There is no one set list of what makes us most spiritual, most human, most righteous, most anything.  It's not about being most, it's about finding what touches us, reaches others, stewards creation, and seeks God at any moment of our lives.  All we can do is the best we can do at any one moment.  Well that and enjoy things like this:




ENJOY!

Also, if you missed my return late last night to blogging please take a look at this and then my view.

Bible Thumping Christians

I have heard a number of people I respect told recently that they don't hold the bible in the proper esteem or that they completely ignore it.  I know better than to fight their fights, but I do know that I want to state my own view on the subject.


I am the very model of a modern major general . . . oops.

I take great pride in calling myself a Bible Thumping Christian today.  I take scripture VERY seriously.  It is at the core of what I believe and what I desire for life and all of creation.  I don't think there is any of scripture that is not useful for teaching and learning and talking about.  I don't think there's anything in there that's just a waste of words. Actually my feelings on those words is what I think makes me able to claim that title of "Bible Thumper."

I love language.  I took Chinese, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and German in school.  And then when I made it to seminary I was so addicted to Greek that I was named our schools language scholar and got into regular long winded discussions with my language professors.  I started trying to find as many ancient Greek texts as I could from all areas.  Trying to find how words may have been used outside of scripture.  I started looking at the little nuances of words and phrases, not taking even the "best" English translations at face value.  I picked apart words, trying to make it all make more sense, trying to see what it is that scripture could teach me about this God who I knew existed.

I knew tons about the world, I wrote my proof of God based on things I found in String Theory.  I saw a spirit moving in people and throughout the world, but it is scripture that brings me back to God.  Scripture brings me to a place where I face the struggle, the epic struggle of humanity to be who we were created to be.  The struggle that makes us question how someone like David could be "after God's own heart."  The struggle that makes us wonder why God made a world so diverse that we actually have to work to be in community even when we're around people very much like ourselves.  The struggle that brings people into a church crying because they are desperate for God.  The struggle that makes us look at what is written in scripture and wonder what pieces are contextual, and what is really truly a universal truth.

Yes, I know this is the sensitive subject.  Yet we all claim some things are universal and others aren't.  We know that scripture is written in a certain time, and in many cases there is no debate also for a certain community.  We all teach about the specific problems in Judah, or Egypt, or Ephesus, or Corinth.  We know that was the context that these are created for originally.  We also know that the words that are chosen are specific and nuanced for those communities and even the best of us who translate betray the actual text to some extent.

This is especially true when you get into word studies.  Some words are used differently in law texts, social texts, religious texts.  Other words are only found in one type outside of scripture.  Some aren't found at all and we really start playing games to try to define them.  Do I think there is one meaning that HAS to be the meaning? Well in some ways yes, because there was an original context. Yet in other ways no, because it's really not that simple.  I will argue till I die that Pistis is best translated as Faithfulness, and that will influence everything I teach and lead because it changes how I interpret scripture.  That is the key for those of us who are claiming a title others want to keep away from us.  We are Bible Thumping because we value that text as something special, something that informs all we do, and is a key to our faith.  It is not the only key, but without it we do fall down, or at least I do. God Bless the Bible Thumpers.

What makes a good neighbour?

“Which one of these was a neighbour to the man in need?” This question is the conclusion to Jesus' answer to another question “Who is my neighbour?” Note that Jesus doesn't answer the question asked, Jesus doesn't say “Those in need are your neighbor.” Jesus asks who acted as a neighbor, he really answers the question “Why be a neighbor?” with “Be a neighbor because you see ones in need.” Everyone is our neighbor in this world, it honestly may be the best term we can use for others. The Greek term used here literally means “the one nearby” and has the implication of “a person I know of.” We all know people in need, either specific people who we know by name, or people who we know exist even if we don't happen to see them everyday because of how our world is sometimes divided. We can all talk about places where there are struggles and people who are in need, and because of that we should call them neighbor.

One of the ministries we worked with this past summer was the Urban Ministry center in Charlotte. They call all who come to see them neighbors, and often over time by name. They care about the homeless who have need of medical care, food, clothing, shelter, help getting paperwork so that they can be employed, and just love from another person who has the ability to help. Our youth were touched by one of these neighbors, Gary. As Gary told his story, you could see the stories of others we had met over the week flood through the minds and hearts of our youth. They saw someone who they could help and could love, and made a decision that they weren't leaving without finding him again and giving him a gift. This isn't because it was the right thing to do, but because he was a neighbor. One in need.

It doesn't matter who our neighbors are, we will know them when we see them, because the Spirit that lives within us sees others spirits and feels their needs. This is God at work in this world, caring for others and fighting for justice. But more than that it is building a relationship and being that neighbor, a neighbor who doesn't separate from others, whose concern, like the Samaritan in scripture is for the “other” the “neighbor.” There are no walls, no rules, no laws, no expectations that keep him from being a neighbor. Likewise we must question the things that divide us, do they likewise keep us from seeing each other and our needs, from letting the Spirit of God act among us as it wishes, bringing all together in God's love. In The Mending Wall by Robert Frost we see a narrator who questions the walls that are built between neighbors, and a neighbor who seems to the narrator to walk in a sort of darkness, protecting self interest and not sharing love, even as he is unable to understand the need for such a divide and just clings to it because it's always been there. May we be ones who question the walls in our lives and in the world. Thus may we become the neighbors to all that we are called to be.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

What would I ask myself:

While I was out directing 50 HS/MS on how to act on the Ed Sullivan Show, someone asked me online what questions I'd ask someone interviewing for a youth and family position. Here is a short list of things:

Why do you feel this ministry is important to a church?

What things would be a sign to you that a church thought this ministry was important?

In doing this ministry, what things do you see being the best use of your time and skills?

What are some of the best things you've seen others do that you have not been able to replicate (and follow up with "Why" if needed)?

How do you see other ministries in this church affecting and intersecting with this ministry?

Where do you feel you (would) work best when doing this ministry?

In what ways do you find the parts of this ministry similar? different?  (depending on what info they have may also have to ask "what do you find to be the essentials of this ministry")

Something you thought would work really well didn't turn out the way you expected, what would you do?

How do see relationships, programing, resourcing, and planning working together in your view of this ministry?

A new family comes to worship, what do you do? (or has been coming for a month, depending on what you want to know)

How does your own life reflect the ideals that you feel are most important to the work of this ministry, in what ways does it not?

How does this ministry affect other groups in the church (list if needed)?

How do you deal with someone who feels that a major part of your ministry is "not for them?"

Who are the most important people to your ministry?

I could go on for a while (and have) but this is a good kickoff interview list I think to get people to possibly give more than just canned answers and open up comfortably about if a ministry is truly a fit.

Growing or Transforming

I will not forget the words of my late seminary professor Cecil, he would always say: "Your job as pastor is to take care of the church, and taking care of the church is assuring it's health and long life.  You do this by bringing in young families.  Those are the most important people to a church."  I thought then it was a bunch of bull, and I still do.  Yes, that is now, has been, and will probably continue to be the way to assure that the church goes on functioning for yet another generation, but it misses the importance of actually being church. 

The congregation I work with is undergoing a revisioning process, and it has been hard to stop the talk of "how do we grow the church" within that conversation.  I agree we shouldn't just focus on what our church is but on a picture of what it could become in this process, but really transforming the church is different than just growing the church.  Cecil is right, if you want to grow a church get focused on your youth, children, and families, but if you want to transform a church, then everyone is involved. 

I was talking with one of the children at the church recently and asked the question "What is church here for?"  Her answer: "To take care of those who can't take care of themselves."  Do to the nature of the conversation we didn't get much deeper than that, but it is true, we are here to be community, to carry one another in a way that is healing and creative.  We're not just here to bring other people in, we're here to be part of what goes out and changes the world.  We must then focus not on those who can help us, but on helping those who can't help themselves.  We are transformed by interacting, and I would hope that we're trying to be transformed into people with a larger vision.  That means discovering new things about God, the world around us, and ourselves through relational experiences. 

I took a group of youth this summer on their first mission trip.  I watched them put together thoughts about inequality, human rights, and God's plan for all creation in ways that I'd never heard before.  They connected with people, and then made bigger connections.  We so often miss this in our normal church lives.  We disconnect what we're up to in a building or through our programs from the bigger picture.  Yet I truly believe that the reason it is essential for us to gather together is so that we can be transformed by one another. 

This then extends to the church as a whole.  If the church is going to be transformed it has to truly interact with the world around it.  It can't be just a bubble with programs to draw in, it has to be a living moving creation that goes out and interacts with the world around it.  It has to take care of those who are part of it that can't take care of themselves in order to be able to take care of all.  It has to visit, it has to love, it has to be with the world,  walking with the world and hearing the issues, and then working to help those who hurt, who are unable to help themselves, just as Jesus did. 

We are the hands and feet of Christ.  If we believe this, believe ourselves to be God's body, we need to be about God's work.  Jesus did not worry about washing himself, he served and washed others.  It was not about how many people were following him, but about what he could do for those who did.  Jesus transformed the world by doing the work of God.  The children came to him not because he created an environment that was child friendly, but because children recognize true friendliness and are attracted to it naturally.  If we want our churches to be transformed, to continue to be relevant in generations to come, we must act as friends to the world.  We must go and do God's work, and trust that God's love and grace is truly as irresistible as we claim it to be.