on shifting sands

yesterday talked with a former colleague about the shifting role that sertoma plays in the disability community. when sertoma was founded in 1976 many of its participants were transitioning out of state institutions and into group homes and other supportive community settings. organizations like sertoma rose up to provide job training for these individuals so that they could make their way in the marketplace just like they were learning to make their way in the local communities.

from facility to facilitation
sertoma was able to help some individuals transition into the workforce, but a number, perhaps even a preponderance, of others were allowed and/or encouraged to spend their career working in sertoma's packaging, cedar shim production and recycling businesses. transitioning out of separate institutions and into the community is no small matter, so it is not surprising that many individuals were encouraged by family persuasion, state funding and/or personal choice to go for the gold watch at sertoma.

however, now it is 2009 and the sertoma employees who initially transitioned out of the institutions and into the workshop are either retired or on the precipice of retirement and younger individuals with disabilities have never known anything but integrated disability or rehabilitation services. as a result, the government has reaffirmed their commitment to integrating people with disabilities into the workforce and they are restricting or removing long-term subsidies for individuals who work in workshops like sertoma. this transition makes sense for younger individuals with disabilities, but it is understandably threatening for individuals who have logged 30 years cutting cedar shims and are now wondering whether sertoma's businesses will survive the funding shift and, if not, what role they will play in the marketplace and how they will spend their days.

in response to these challenges, organizations like sertoma are shifting their emphasis from being an employer to being a resource that provides health and life development supports for individuals with disabilities. traditionally, sertoma integrated elements of the institution such as case management, nursing supports, etc., with the elements of a business such as the opportunity to participate in real work, earn a paycheck, follow employee guidelines, etc. in a sense one could say that sertoma is transitioning from an institution - that tries to provide comprehensive services for individuals with disabilities - to a network or a hub that will help connect individuals with disabilities with the employment and life development opportunities as well as the personal supports that they need.

my friend reported that some of the staff members are navigating the transition from the institution to the network well, while others are finding the shift difficult. she said that many of the support staff have worked at sertoma for such a long time that they are as unsettled by the shift as the participants with disabilities are. others, especially the younger staff at sertoma, seem to be making the transition well. but, whether people like the transition or not, my friend said that the "writing was on the wall," and change was coming to sertoma whether people liked it or not.

unexpected revelation
somewhere in the midst of the conversation, i think when my friend was talking about the transition from an institution to a network, i felt the shock of revelation and i literally cradled my face in my hands. since sertoma is no longer the quasi-institution that it once was, the staff needs to find out how to network the individuals they serve with the diverse, individualized services they need. sertoma's future is not in building the institution but expanding the network.

in a similar way, my role to play in the church, that community of people who have been called out by God and inclined towards his Kingdom, is not to build the institution but to expand the network.

my role is not to build the institution, although i was trained to do just that by becoming the engaging preacher for a local church that was committed to providing more and better services so that we could build a bigger congregation, expand our real estate and help buttress our brand.

my role is to expand the network, by loving, listening to and collaborating with other Christians and seekers of any stripe so that we can embody the gospel, serve the inheritors of the Kingdom and reflect the awe inspiring unity and delightful diversity of the Three-in-One who was, and is and is to come.

my job is to expand the network. others have noticed this long before now. hell, pastor phil has directly told me on an occasion or two that, whether i realized it or not, one of my great gifts is networking. others, tasked with building up the institution, have noticed it too, and so have parted ways with me and gone off to serve. i'm not going to lie, the separation from the institution builders has been painful for me, since we love the same One and are called to assist, encourage, exhort and accompany the same body. fortunately, this recent, shocking revelation of our divergent roles has served as a bit of a salve for my wounds.

new metaphor, new world
i love those who for almost 40 years have built up sertoma and i can see why they grieve the transition of their beloved institution. but, in all honesty, i resonate more with the individuals that are envisioning sertoma 2.0 and expanding the network of resources that individuals with disabilities will need to live a holistic life in this integrated world.

in a similar way, i love those who have built the Christian Churches, Churches of Christ and i acknowledge that without their dedication to the gospel shaped institution, i probably would not be following Jesus, who is the greatest joy of my life. however, my role is not to buttress the institution, but to build a network of diverse individuals who are seeking, expressing, embodying and exclaiming the Kingdom that is here and somehow is yet to come.

i realize that this metaphor shift is simple and something should have realized long ago. however, though i'm late to the show, i cannot fully explain how surprised and blessed i have been by this revelation.

i'm starting to suspect that if you change the metaphor, you change the world.

channeling perkins

a couple of months ago a local group of well intentioned, church planting obsessed anglicans asked our andrew the protester how they could balance their passion for evangelism with the biblical demands for social justice.

andrew's response: "if you plant your churches in areas of great need the balance will take care of itself."

i think there is a world of wisdom in the protester's response. in fact, it sounds downright perkinsonian.

out of the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. my friends, this should not be.

last week as we were rushing out the door preston grabbed the sleeve of my 2006 world series jacket, pointed at the blessed insignia and said: "daddy's bird?" "yes," i quickly replied. "my bird?" he asked. "yes!" i immediately responded.

that moment nearly brought tears to my eyes. such great hope.

tonight, as kellie and i keep doing 30 pound curls as we drag our screaming tot back to bed he caught me stealing glimpses of the cards/reds game on the laptop. for about ten bed runs thereafter he kept screaming "baseball! baseball! baseball!" and darting towards the laptop.

that dirty little schemer.

cheshire cat
by: ramos


My friends and I gathered together at my old apartment in Beverly off Rantoul to celebrate the significant moment of my graduation from Gordon-Conwell. I had just walked across the platform and smiled for the camera with my degree in hand, and said all my departing goodbyes and farewells to all teachers and friends who were close to my heart. After the ceremony my friends and I had two things intensely occupying our mind: beer and food. I worked very hard to get to this moment of closure, so it was crucial that we finish with a toast and celebration.

We broke our group into two tasks teams: Jeff (my friend who came from Dallas to visit) and I were to get the Spirits, and Marcos and Brittney were to get the Food. There are two local liquor joints on Rantoul that are a few blocks apart from my apartment. There is the one owned by Indians, who have the best hours and are super friendly towards me, believing that I too am Indian, and they call me ‘bro’. I went to them for the longest, but I began noticing that their beer tastes bitter and metallic. I can’t explain it, other than perhaps they store it improperly. So I vowed to never again buy beer from them again. I then started going to Chrispy’s liquor next to the Pickled Onion. The store, which has a bit of a dirty, grimy dive feel, has a large neon sign that says “Liquor” that hangs above the sidewalk of Rantoul, and has strange people buzzing around underneath the large sign who smoke cigarettes and seemingly have nothing else to do all day but stare across the street. Chrispy’s has better prices than the Indian store, and I never bought a sour tasting beer from them. But they are super stringent about I.D. rules, so I developed the habit of always throwing my I.D. at them first thing every time I made a purchase, even though they recognized me personally by this point.

Jeff and I brought a Patron Silver Tequila and a twelve pack Ipswich Ale to the counter, and out of habit I immediately threw my I.D. at the lady. She briefly glanced at it from afar, and continued ringing, failing to ask to Jeff for his I.D., which I found at first quite odd given the stringent ID rules of the store. I guessed that perhaps she was about to ask for our ID’s within the next moment, so I pushed my ID which laid on the counter closer to her direction. She then grabbed my ID, went over to some scanner and ran it through, and within a few seconds she came my way, said “It’s a fake, get out of my store,” threw my ID in some cardboard box behind the counter, and ignored my plea. Confused, I left the store and called the police. I explained my situation to dispatch, who responded that “she can’t do that, we’ll send somebody over right away.”

The cop shows up minutes later. He gets out of the car with his Oakley’s on and has a smile that seemed happy, almost as if he recognized me. We greet each other and he immediately asks for my ID. I respond, “Well, I don’t have it because she has it,” thinking to myself “Is this not precisely why you are here, did they not communicate to you why you were being sent?”. He goes “Oh right, she has your ID, so you can’t give me one, ahh.’ “Ahh, yes”. Jeff, who is standing next to me, reaches into his back pocket to present his ID, saying “here is my ID officer”. The cop reacts: “whoa whoa, did I ask you for your ID? Put it back slowly. From now on this is how we are going to operate: you do only what I ask for.”

At this point Marcos and Britney are getting out of the pizza joint next door where they have placed our order. They notice Jeff and I outside Chrispy’s talking to a cop, so they curiously walk up to us. The cop spins around and blurts “Whoa, Hey, who are you guys?” with that same smile and apparent jovial cheer. Marcos extends his hand, “hello officer, my name is Marcos,” and the cop stood back refusing the shake, “I don’t shake hands”. “It is policy for me, you could be a threat”. Marcos, who is about as threatening in appearance as an ice cold beer on a hot summer day, says “I can understand that”, to which the cop replies “I could drop you to your knees if I wanted to. In fact I could drop a man who is twice your size, three hundred pounds to his knees”. With that statement being said, which abruptly fell from nowhere and left us in bewilderment as to what was his point and what does this have to do with anything whatsoever about our current situation, the cop proceeded inside to talk to the counter lady, only just after he lined us up against the car and telling us to “stay put”. I thought it humorously ironic that 30 minutes after my graduation from Seminary I now find myself with the police lined up against a car in front of a shady liquor store on the dirty side of Rantoul.

The cop returns with his bright teeth shining through his grin and a piece of paper with my ID photocopied on it. He first comments that the lady is a loner and her only help behind the counter is about “this big,” quickly questioning the boy’s manhood by extending his pinky finger in reference. He then proceeds to show me the apparent flaws with my ID, which were deficiencies with lamination and margin setting. It scans my age apparently, but didn’t provide some other info that should be provided in her scanner. Behind all the jargon the point was that “it works, but there are problems with it.” But in his wise judgment he left the ball in the ladies court. He said “this is a problem between you, her and the commonwealth of Mass.” (I will note here that he took the time to correct me when I said the state of MA; “It is not the ‘state,’ it is the ‘commonwealth,” he pontificated).

Frustrated at this point, I tried to plea with him that my flight to Texas was in two days. In his brilliantly powerful reasoning ability, he deduced “Ahh, and you cant get on the plane unless you have your ID, and she has it” “Ahh, yes.” It was here where I noticed that his fixated grin contrasted with his eyes that began to move erratically, which betrayed something wild and savage hidden underneath. Marcos acutely observed that he reminds one of the “Cheshire Cat”. He replies “You look like a smart guy, and I hate repeating myself: this is not my problem.” He walks to his car and turns around, guffawing a friendly chuckle and offering one last remark “You know, I am glad that this happened to you. I have a lot of Bad Luck in life, and it is good to see someone else having Bad Luck in their life also. Bye,” and waves his hand farewell.

musing...

after the first piece in GIMP, in which the dancers stand directly before you in their brokenness and beauty, lawrence carter-long begins the second piece with the stem of a joke, "so three cripples walk into a bar."

carter-long fails to complete the joke and so trusts the audience to make the connection* between three objects of the joke and the three individuals with disabilities in the crew. look at us, he slyly suggests, as we struggle through the violence, soak up the intimacy, shrivel in alienation and strive before your very eyes.

look at us, carter-long demands, in all of our brokenness, boldness and beauty.

look at us, he telegraphs with his distinctive gait, but don't forget that we've been watching you too.

and though our observations could be full of bitterness and our jokes could easily objectify three able bodied assholes, i think you are beautiful. i look at you in all of your beauty, i see the risks you take and i cannot help but be changed.

i suspect that christian homiletics** are the last thing on carter-long's mind when, objectified under the stranger's eye he refuses to reduce the object before him to anything less than beauty. but i think christian preachers*** can learn so much from his self-awareness, refusal of reciprocity and his proclamation of beauty.

lawrence, i echo your assertion that "this has changed me...it has been an honor and privilege to have the time to stop and really look at you."

* a connection i failed to make, by the way, until i read the globe's review
** a five dollar seminary word for preaching
*** of which i, in my off-work hours anyway, am one

blessed are the acehnese

check out this fascinating story about muslim refugees who were abandoned at sea by the rich and have been embraced by the desperately poor.

the poor acehnese hosts have put in more than all the others, for out of their poverty they have put in all they have to live on.

i suspect that the kingdom of God belongs to these acehnese.

ht: nytimes; lk. 6:20; jam. 2:5

An Open Invite to Cohort and Cavort* with Gordon Students

On Tuesday, April 21 from 7 to 9 pm several members of Boston's Emergent Cohort will be attending a debate at Gordon College (255 Grapevine Road, Wenham, MA; the debate is taking place in the Ken Olsen Science Center which is pictured on the left and located, um, somewhere on campus; if you're taking the rail you'll need to stop on the Beverly Depot, North Beverly or Montserrat station on the Newburyport/Rockport line and get a ride from someone like me). Sounds exiting, I know...but wait, there's more!

The question being considered at the debate is "whether the movement commonly designated 'emergent' church or 'emerging' church bears witness to the positive flourishing of Christianity in our time." This is a huge conversation taking place within evangelicalism (we always like to foster an internecine feud or two to keep us from the real work of mission:), so I'm excited to hear what the students say.

Since Emergent is more of a conversation than a proposition or ecclesial practice, after the debate a number of us are heading over to the Salem Beer Works (278 Derby Street, Salem, MA - easily accessible from the Salem stop on the Newburyport/Rockport Line) around 9:45 to discuss this topic at greater length.

I hope that a number of you are able to join us for the debate and/or the beers and pseudo cohort gathering after. If you're going to attend, please RSVP so that I can keep an eye out for you. If you have questions about this event, please shoot me an email at gentry13ATgmailDOTcom. If you are looking for a couple of home remedies for prostatitis, I can share a few of those as well.

Be Well,

Gentry

* Single seminarians, don't get the wrong idea.

Ordinary Resurrection

Although my blogging fast was successful, I had a mostly busy, ambiguous, unholy Lent. I entered the season with every intention to enter the desert in order to conduct a “fearless moral inventory” and I ended the season relieved that I wasn’t slated to preach the resurrection. I don’t know quite what to make of that.

Fortunately, early last week I received the proclamation I was so hesitant to offer.

Shortly after arriving at my satellite office (also known as the Beverly Public Library) I ran into Jandelle*, an enthusiastic, uber-intelligent young adult who had attended the Beverly Bootstraps Homework Helpers Club I helped sponsor years ago. Although Janelle has the intellect and intrinsic dignity of Michelle Obama, she hails from a challenging family background and a neighborhood that most would consider less than ideal. Her background, along with the fact that I had witnessed a brutish twenty-something bullying her in a parking lot a couple of years ago, left me worried that she would fail to fulfill her potential.

So it was with a little hesitancy that I asked Jandelle what college she was planning on attending next fall.

Immediately she smiled and said: “I’ve already received acceptance letters from UMass Amherest, BU, BC and St. Mary’s, but my first choice is Columbia and I should be hearing back from them within the week.”

Somehow I avoided tears as I congratulated Jandelle and wished her good luck. Then, as quickly as she appeared, she was gone.

When Jesus proclaims a blessing on the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of God, I believe him. For that reason among others I consider it a privilege to empower, and be empowered by, people throughout my workday.

However, in the darker moments, working in social services feels an awful lot like servicing poverty and one is tempted to wonder if all of the hours, dollars and prayers contributed is going to do a damn bit of good.

For that reason, I treasure moments of ordinary resurrection like these. Jandelle’s story serves as a powerful reminder that God is always in the business of bringing life out of death and if I had been slated to proclaim the resurrection yesterday morning her story would have been my text.

* Not her real name.

musings is going dark

for the next forty days. have a blessed lent.

emergency water landing - 600 miles per hour


blank faces, calm as hindu cows.

musing...

this morning the nytimes is reporting that robert allen stanford, the alleged perpetrator of yet another financial fraud, has been served papers by the f.b.i.

during these difficult times in which an overwhelming amount of financial fraud is being uncovered, i suspect that much of the fraud and dross within the church is going to be revealed as well.

i fear that when the foundations of the church is laid bare we will find that:

1. the church is just as addicted to easy credit as consumers.
2. the church's commitment to "staffing for growth" has led us to underutilize the latent gifts of the laity.
3. the church has replicated far too many services for the silliest of ideological reasons.
4. the church's narcissistic spending patterns has rendered it largely incapable of assisting and empowering the poor.
5. the church has used a frenzy of activity to avoid the desert of prayer.

i share these suspicions not to accuse, for, God knows, i am the guiltiest of all. rather, during the upcoming season of lent i hope that the body of Christ, God's church, is inspired by the Holy Spirit to confess our sin, embrace obedience to Christ's mission and be surprised by new life.

musing...

if pithiness is next to godliness
i'm going to need an assload of indulgences

fun with metaphors

on march 7th the gathering gang is leading a breakout session on the topic of worship at the brian mclaren/everything must change conference that the episcopal diocese is hosting.

as i've been preparing for this discussion, i've started thinking about the liturgy at the gathering as a "mashup." i'm a bit of a technological idiot, but as far as i can tell a mashup is an artistic piece that is a creative combination of two or more divergent video or audio sources.

for example a cursory search on youtube yielded this mashup of office space and the trailer for xmen 3 and that brilliant mashup of christian bale's latest profane tirade.*

at the gathering, we often offer up a new mashup every week. last week's mashup might be pentecostal worship whipped with a evangelical "big idea" sermon, while next week's mashup might be classic hymns of the reformation intertwined with lectio divina and a zwinglian framed communion. sometimes these mashups are inspiring and provocative and sometimes the juxtapositions are cumbersome and distracting. however, since we are a diverse community each member has to trust that the elements that do not connect with them speak directly to someone else in the congregation, while another element which does speak to them might not connect with the other at all.

i'm not going to lie, sometimes i wish our worship had the cohesion of a catholic mass or the plodding regularity of a presbyterian order. but i love our quirky community and believe that the mashup is the best fit for our diverse congregation.

one side note: while reading the most recent modern reformation david wells states that "emergents" have rejected the niche marketed vacuity of the megachurch and have instead embraced "casual blending of different belief systems in their churchly experimenting-a bit of Catholicism here, a bit of Greek Orthodoxy there, a hip rendition somewhere else-has also come about because of a rejection of traditional ideas of authority and because the self is exercising its autonomy to shape its spiritual context the way in which it wants."

i think that his former assertion is right on, but i don't believe that the tendency of the participants in the emergent conversation to drink deeply from multiple streams of christian tradition and to weave the strands of that tradition** into their worship is, necessarily, a rejection of "traditional ideas of authority" or a narcissistic pastiche. rather, i think that many of the participants in the emergent conversation are trying to respect and practice their received tradition of the christian faith while also exploring and utilizing the untold riches of resources that have been discovered by christians throughout the centuries. although i'm a evangelical protestant by birth i think it would be foolish for me to ignore the valuable practice of lectio or lenten fasting just because my immediate forbears did not embrace these practices. i'm proud of my christian church/church of christ tradition, but my forefathers and foremothers are many, and i don't think i am dishonoring alexander campbell - neal windham for that matter! - or rejecting their "authority," by listening to the words and being shaped by the practices of st. francis of assisi, martin luther king jr. or henri nouwen.

second side note: feel free to share mashups that you love. i've just started to explore this art form and would love to receive your recommendations.

* this clip is inappropriate for children and those who are easily offended. consider yourself warned.
** talk about your mixed metaphors.

in context

is a sailboat. stupid head!

read and reviewed: creating a world without poverty by muhammad yunus
submitted by: anita

I thought that I was a dreamer and an optimist, but compared to Muhammad Yunus I would almost be considered a cynic. In Creating a World Without Poverty, not only does he envision eliminating poverty in his native country of Bangladesh, he envisions "putting poverty into museums" throughout the world so that future generations of children could go and marvel at the way large parts of the world used to live.

He acknowledges that he is a dreamer. Yet he has in fact reduced Bangladesh's poverty level from 73% in 1973 to 40% in 2005. The poverty level continues to decrease by 1 percent each year and so in the not too distant future, his dream of eliminating poverty in his country could become a reality.

How is he doing it? It's pretty simple. He has dared to think outside of the box. He has refused to buy into the capitalistic, maximizing profit model that the developed countries have lived by. Instead, he introduces the concept of social businesses. These are businesses that are created not to be PMBs (profit maximizing businesses) but businesses that have as their goal a social benefit to the world's poor. People who invest in the businesses get their investment back, eventually, but they do not receive any profit. Instead any profit that the business makes is re-invested into the business or else it goes to the shareholders who are the poor. As an added benefit, the investors in these businesses can then invest in another social business and keep perpetuating the benefits. It is much better than a hand-out, for both the investors and the recipients.

How can a model like this work? Yunus has shown that it works well. He started out by offering loans to poor people who had no collateral and who would be poor risks by most bank's standards. He found that these poor borrowers had a far better rate of loan repayment than more well-off borrowers. He also found that the poor were extremely resourceful and hard-working when it came to using their loaned money. As a result many of them were able to create viable businesses, pay back their loans and better the standard of living for themselves and their families.

For example, some poor women would take out a loan and become telephone ladies. They would purchase a cell phone and then sell minutes to people in their village. This provided benefit to them and also to others around them. And connecting a poor village with the world helps to remove them from isolation which further increases the likelihood that they will escape poverty.

It is a hopeful book. Yet it also is pleading with the world to adopt this same model of social businesses in order to save our planet as well as eliminate poverty. As has become obvious to many, the world can no longer afford to maximize profit and ignore the effect that this idea has had on the world's resources and on the use of the these resources by the privileged few.

I found it an inspiring book, with lots of practical insight. Putting its ideas into practice should be given serious thought by the developed nations. Success will only be hindered by a stubborn clinging to the current model of business that has benefited only a small portion of the world's population. Yunus believes that investors and people in general, are capable of and even attracted to making a choice that does not result in financial gain, but instead contributes to a world where those at the bottom of the socioeconomic structure are benefited and given a way of escape.

on "emergent"

lately i have had a number of people ask me what "emergent" is. actually, they usually ask me what the "emergent church" is and question what the "movement" is all about.

i'm not a philosopher and i'm not all that qualified to hold court on such issues, but for what (little) it is worth, emergent is a conversation.

in our cohort anyway, the conversation usually centers upon theology, ecclesiology and missiology. when our crew meets at danny's diner we bitch occasionally about dissonance we feel with our church traditions or the anemic expressions of christian "culture" (see: fireproof), but generally everyone around the table is there because they are in awe of Jesus Christ and, individually and collectively, are committed to finding a way to persevere upon this journey in order that they might be, as Jesus promised, saved/reconciled/redeemed/resurrected/made new.

i'd encourage you to question sweeping generalizations about the "emerging church" or the "emerging movement." last time i checked, emergent isn't looking to plant any churches, pen any creeds or establish the clear leadership structure* and steady income stream that movements generally require. since emergent is a conversation, i think most of its detractors are simply protective of their authority structures and/or they need a new whipping girl to take the place of open theism, the mega-church, carman, contemporary worship, third-wave charismaticism and whatever other developments have threatened (that also hard to define thing we call) american eeevangelicalism over the past bundle of years.

if you would rather hear it from the horses' mouth, here you go:

"Emergent Village is a growing, generative friendship among missional Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ." - emergentvillage.com

"As a follower of God in the way of Jesus, I've been involved in a profoundly interesting and enjoyable conversation over the last ten years or so. It's a conversation about what it means to be 'a new kind of Christian' - not an angry and reactionary fundamentalist, not a stuffy traditionalist, not a blase minimalist, not a wishy-washy liberal, not a New Agey religious hipster, not a crusading religious imperialist, and not an overly enthused Bible-waving fanatic--but something fresh and authentic and challenging and adventurous. Around the world, millions of people have gotten involved in this conversation, and more are getting involved each day. (One reason we keep calling it a conversation is that we can't find a short way of describing it yet," Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change, pg. 3.

* what little leadership structure we had was deconstructed when tony jones stepped down as emergent's national coordinator in the fall of 2009.

Impending Emergence

Hey There,

Our friends at The Boston Faith and Justice Network and The Crossing are hosting a few killer events in in February and March. Take a look at what's on tap:

What: The Gratitude Economy Event featuring Shane Claiborne
When: Saturday, February 21st from 4-9:30 pm
Where: Park Street Church
How (Much): $0
Visit: The Boston Faith and Justice Network at http://www.bostonfaithjustice.org/.

What: The Everything Must Change tour featuring Brian McLaren
When: Saturday, March 7th from 9:30 am-3:00 pm
Where: George Sherman Union, Boston University, 775 Commonwealth Ave
How (Much): $15 for adults, $9 for students, $10 for a box lunch
Visit: This site to register: http://www.diomass.org/event/diocesan/brian-mclaren-one-americas-25-most-influential-evangelicals-keynote-spring-learning-e. Seating is limited.

What: The Crossing Presents Phyllis Tickle
When: Thursday, March 26th from 2-7:30 pm
Where: Cathedral Church of St. Paul, 138 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
How (Much): $25
Visit: This site to register: https://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=697167. Seating is limited.

We hope to see you at one or some of these events. If you have any questions about these events, feel free to email me at gentry13ATgmail.com.

an open invite to friends near and far

Hey All,

Just a reminder that the cohort is meeting this Tuesday night at Danny's Diner (300 Beacon Street, Somerville, MA) from 7-9 pm.

When I was a student at Soybean Bible College my favorite professor and spiritual director always taught me to "study and experience abroad, but always find a way back home." In light of this advice, I have always been open to diverse theological conversations and new forms of Christian mission, but I have also tried to stay consciously rooted in the Christian Church, Church of Christ tradition of my youth.

This month I would like for us to discuss the beliefs and practices of our faith tradition that we value and aim to sustain. The Emergent conversation is often concerned with letting go of the past so that we can lean into God's future. While those discussions are necessary and valuable I think it is also important for us to discuss the beliefs and practices that have shaped us in the past and shape us still. At this meeting we'll also review the Peter Rollins event and talk about the upcoming events sponsored by the Crossing Community.

I hope to see you there!

gentry

gentry13ATgmail.com

ht: dr. james

the cardinals' winter warmer



ht: aubucade

musing...

as much fun as it is to ridicule governor blagojevich, his allegedly unethical activity raises a troubling question or two in my mind.

what if blagojevich's current position mirrors jose canseco's in 2005 when juiced was first published and he was a universal object of ridicule and scorn? are we going to find out in the coming months that blagojevich is more the norm than the exception? perhaps pundits are right in suggesting that he is only guilty of "doing politics on tape."

as we continue to track through the nuclear winter of recession and there is far less capital to grease the wheels of the government machine are we going to see an increasing number of politicians revealing the corrupt schemes of their "friends" in order to ensure that there is enough slop in the trough? in massachusetts we've already seen the speaker of the house bounced due to alleged ethics violations, a state senator fell in december after taking bribes on tape from the fbi and a city counselor from roxbury is about to fall. once you start indicting mass politicians where are you going to stop?

enough politics for now.

musing...

for the past four weeks we have been listening to abram's story at the gathering. last night, as we rambled down highway 51, i couldn't help but but admire abram's responsiveness. although abram had significant faults and flaws, when God spoke abram responded and when God visited abram was quick to welcome.

as much as i hate to admit it, i am not seared by the experience of God as Abram was and i rarely receive the revelation of God as a call to action.

over the past several years, i've devoured books like spirit and flesh, salvation on sand mountain, the family and even body piercing saved my life that enable me to reflect upon my own faith tradition from a critical distance.

if i'm going to continue on this road of pastoral ministry i need to find my way - or be led - back to the place where the revelation of God can cut me open, reorder my understanding, recreate my heart and so ready me to walk together with God's community towards the good, the beautiful and the true.

happy haiku friday

loving and killing
legacy double-dealing
i have the cancer

happy haiku friday

with velocity
of thermal viscosity
open mouth, insert foot

musing...

reason 2,342,656 i love living in massachusetts: incredible, non-commercial radio. almost every day i listen to wbur, boston's npr news station that produces such fan favorites as car talk and tom ashbrook's on point, wers an eclectic, indie-music giant out of emerson college, wumb an influential folk music station, that regularly features john hiatt, out of umass boston and wgbh, a classical music/npr news format station that is a perfect refuge from wbur during fundraisers. now, if we can only get a non-commercial sports talk station that is hosted by michael lewis, thomas boswell, chris collinsworth, bill simmons, chuck klosterman, ken rosenthal, rob neyer, bill james and joe morgan we'll be all set!

i read phyllis tickle's the great emergence a little over a month ago and i enjoyed it. i wish i would have reviewed it immediately after reading so that her assertions were fresh on my mind. tickle's central premise is that every 500 years or so - think pope gregory the great, the great schism, the great reformation and brian mclaren - the church undergoes a major seismic shift. she goes to great lengths to show that the last shift was inspired not only by luther's theological complaints but by the printing press, the rise of the nation state and the renaissance/enlightenment/late middle ages. tickle believes that we are currently undergoing a major shift she calls the great emergence on account of the rise of globalization, the internet revolution and the forthcoming decriminalization of marijuana.

anyway, in regards to western christianity tickle asserts that the playing field has long looked like a quadrant that included the roman catholics, the social justice christians, the fundamentalists/evangelicals and the pentecostal/charismatics. as christians have been more and more exposed to the valuable elements of other quadrants and have even incorporated practices that were characteristic of other quadrants into their worship and mission, tickle suggests that there has been a "gathering center" of believers who are leaving their old denominational designations and exclusivistic theological systems behind in order to plumb the diverse depths of the traditions and join with others on the redemptive, kingdom mission of Christ.

where am i going with? right. tickle notes that in each quadrant there are 10-15% of believers who will refuse to move towards the center and will become quadrant fundamentalists of sorts. she also notes that there currently are and will continue to be "hyphenated" groups such as preby-mergent that hold on firm to their quadrant with one hand and reach as far towards the gathering center as they can with the other hand.

as for me, i would love to be numbered among the hyphenateds by maintaining my roots in the stone-campbell movement while continuing to be an active participant in the great emergence. since i am already a part of the latter, i've been thinking about the elements of my tradition that will help me keep a firm hold on the former. thus, my great question is: what elements of the stone-campbell tradition are worth holding onto?

so far, i've decided that the weekly practice of the eucharist, believers baptism, a dedication to world mission, an openness to utilizing contemporary mediums in order to communicate the message and shared leadership are stone-campbellish elements that i would like to hold onto. if you are a part of "the movement" or have simply had a movement and would like to comment on either tickle's book or the idea of living a hyphenated christian life, feel free.

one more thing: kellie mentioned yesterday that she does not think it is the government's responsibility to provide vouchers, and thus PAY, for americans with rabbit eared sets to make the jump to digital broadcasting. i can't agree with her more. since when did the ability to watch stupid schlock like american idol become an inalienable right!? now they want to delay the conversion because people haven't listened to two years of endless commercials about the shift or don't care enough about the transition to pony up the $200. come on!!!

True Love (Can't) Wait
by: slowfo

Ah....the South...nothin' but country charm, bluegrass, and lots and lots and lots of unprotected, teenage sex. My Yahoo front page today told me that a new report is out and Mississippi is finally #1 for something other than being the fattest state in the union: highest number of teenage babies being born (and please, stop having mental images of what all the fat Mississippi teens are doing with their free time...it's gross). Cheer up though Mississippi...one of the fifty states had to take the prize. And if it wasn't going to be Mississippi, it would be Texas, New Mexico, or Arkansas (Arkansas wasn't mentioned in the article, but come on....it's Arkansas). Although frankly, I was inwardly hoping that Alaska would have been #1 because the comedians and late-night hosts would have been both relentless and hilarious with it.

What I find most interesting about the report is that the states with the highest teenage birth percentages all come from a very familiar band of states also known as "The Bible Belt." So what is going on here besides the obvious? Is it that this strip of states is more ignorant than the rest and doesn't think ahead about either a) using some sort of protection, b) abstinence, or c) the repercussions that having unprotected sex might actually lead to dragging a newborn baby onto the school bus next fall?

I throw out a few more questions for discussion:
1. As some Christians advocate, should the Church just accept that kids are going to have sex and help them use protection to avoid disease and unwanted pregnancies?

2. If Christianity really is more prevalent in the South, then why haven't these same people (who are more theologically conservative and apt to preach abstinence to teens) been able to make more of a difference?

3. Is this more about how Christianity is played out among different races? If you go directly to the report, it shows that Non-Hispanic Whites have a teenage birth rate that is more than 50% less than Non-Hispanic Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians. Why the difference if the same or similar theology is preached in all churches?

Whatever your conclusion, it looks as though there's a whole lot more going on in the South than just Whistlin' Dixie....then again, maybe Dixie's skillful whistlin' was part of the problem to begin with.

musing...

i just finished watching david simon and ed burns' television adaptation of evan wright's generation kill. while watching this stark and remarkable series i couldn't help but think about the lack of publicity generated by generation kill as well as the low box office takes for iraq-related movies over the past couple of years

i suppose that the apparent lack of interest in iraq related fare might be related to questions concerning the quality of films or the poor publicity these films have been afforded.

however, i suspect that this media has largely been ignored because the public would rather consume, and corporations would rather promote, a few more stories about our country's past "glories" than spend a few hours reflecting on our current quagmire.

if you're interested in a thought-provoking reflection on the iraq war and you live local i'll be happy to lend generation kill to you.

musing...

on last year's long road home kellie and i tried to listen to joan didion's the year of magical thinking. i tried to listen to it anyway, i think kellie slept.

since the introductory chapters of the book are nothing short of morose the book didn't make for great road reading and somewhere between amarillo and mclean i turned it off.

however, before i clicked it didion remarked how her husband, who was also an author, often said something like "note taking is what distinguishes a writer, from a non-writer."

while i'm not a writer - though i'd be lying if i denied that in my more grandiose dreams i fancy myself one - i'm going to do my damndest to take better notes this year. even if it doesn't help my writing Lord knows it won't hurt my preaching.

reflections from the road: sunday, december 28th, monday, december 29th, tuesday, december 30th and wednesday, december 31st

crap. i really lost my way with these reflections. i was hoping to write on a daily basis in order to reincorporate the practice of blogging into my life, but i, obviously, fell far short. anyway, here are some scatter-shot reflections from our final days on vacation. please note: the date of the activity precedes the drivel.

28th: kellie, preston and i went to my home church to attend the morning service. due to the need to return the tire shredded rental car that morning, we arrived late and walked in just when the sermon was getting started. when the sermon began with three long, scarcely related, political quotes and then continued with step-by-step instructions on how to "forget your past" and prepare for the future, i realized once again that i really don't understand a lot about bible belt homiletics anymore.

the sermon was well delivered and it seemed to connect with the audience, but, from my perspective anyway, it lacked the provocation and subversion that marks a good sermon. i think that sermons should bring a sense of dislocation to christians who tend to become a little to comfortable in the midst of their exile and should shock visitors with the grace and compassion of the gospel. it appears to me that the christian churches we visited on this trip expect their pastors to serve more as chaplains than prophets, storytellers and social advocates. maybe that's part of the reason why, much to my dismay, i can't seem to fit in there anymore.

in the afternoon we celebrated christmas with the gentry side of the family. i was encouraged and surprised to hear that my cousin jeremiah, who is currently a captain in the air force, is pursuing an online theology degree through liberty university. so we had a lot to talk about and we enjoyed watching the patriots put a wind-blown pasting on the bills.

not that the pasting mattered, because brett farve SUCKS!

in the evening we celebrated christmas with the davis/holland side of the family. during that celebration, a minature replication of our traditional christmas eve gatherings, preston, kellie and i were showered with gifts. i'm not going to run through the particulars at any length, but preston received a game quality cardinals warm-up jacket, kellie received a gift card for a sewing machine, i received money to purchase some new clothes and we all received a snazzy sony handi-cam. a good time was had by all.

after the latter celebration, my cousin chris, my brother josh and i went to the fox and hound pub for a few beers. as josh and i drank skanky $2 shiner bocks and chris enjoyed tastier libations we had a great conversation about where we are, where we might be going and what the hell this might all mean. i really enjoyed our time together.

earlier that evening i also used a couple of gift cards to purchase hbo's generation kill mini-series of dvd. i really enjoyed the book on which the mini-series was based and apparently i'm such a devoted fan of the wire that i've decided to purchase anything david simon and ed burns produce. i'll let you know what i think about the series once i complete it.

jeez this is getting long already...

29th: the morning was fairly uneventful. i enjoyed a late mcdonald's breakfast with with ian and landon, josh's fiances' two sons, and rounded out the morning and early afternoon hours by playing with preston, who was in the process of gorging on his new petro-chemical products toys.

at 3 pm i met slowfo for a coffee at one of the dozens of starbucks that have sprouted up around town. scott and i were having a nice, breezy conversation concerning our role in our respective family systems and how much the ou sooners suck, when he asked me whether i thought that the church of our youth "prepared us for life in the real world." obviously the conversation that followed that question was long and drawn out as we questioned the unified telos, i.e., individual salvation, that was the apparent focus of our church's mission at that time, touched on the anemic perspectives on sexual ethics that were bestowed by youth groups and pondered the historicity of the divine genocide recorded in genesis 6. more importantly, after our conversation i walked away with confidence that slowfo is asking the right questions about life and is serving his family well. i love that guy.

after 3 pm, there's no nice way to say this, i entered my, "i'm tired of being away from home so now i'm going to be an asshole" mode. this happens on the backside of every trip that lasts for more than 5 days and there is generally little excuse for it. i apologize to those i victimized and will try to make the trip shorter next year.

in the evening, kellie, preston and i were planning to have dinner with wesley-wesley wilson and his lovely - yet, until now, completely unseen - wife amanda. but wes' food poisoning and my decision to spend a little more time with josh and crystal, made those plans untenable. next year in jerusalem! wesley.

in the evening, we went to see the CURIOUS case of benjamin button, which i thought was a pretty good flick. the original story was written by f. scott fitzgerald, but the setting and style reminded me of walker percy's the moviegoer. anyway, the movie was decent, with an excellent performance by cate blanchett, characteristically funny touches by david fincher and noteworthy cinematography of an epic scale. that being said, i wasn't sold on brad pitt's performance - although he's a fellow, characteristically handsome, oklahoman, i have to agree with one of the npr reviewer's accusation that there is little of interest going on in his face. aside from makeup, there was little nuance to his performance. i also thought the movie was a little self-important and would have benefited from both a few more touches of fincher's absurdist humor and a stronger editor.

30th: we enjoyed a great southern breakfast with my Pa Pa - for the record: little p adores big p - and we had a great lunch with my old seminary friends crystal and jenn in okmulgee, ok. after lunch, crystal showed us her beautiful, roomy, shotgun style house that sits on 3/4 of an acre, features two large porches and a fire pit and was purchased for well below 100K. i am now insanely jealous. i suppose at this point i should note that for all the bitching i do about s.h.i.t., i walked away from that experience with some excellent, long-term friends. i love you guys! and girls for that matter. always remember i'm an egalitarian eh-vangelical.

later that evening we celebrated my grandmother's 84th birthday with grilled steaks and cakes. it was great to celebrate my grandmother, who is a wonderful woman with a fascinating life story, and fun to reconnect with my uncle phou and aunt jeanie from texas.

31st: kellie, preston and i woke up at 4:45 am, which was probably about 15 minutes late, so we had to rush out the door to catch our plane. we were worried that the impending snow storm on the east coast would strand us in newark, nj, but, surprisingly - since most folks on the east coast are cowards when it comes to snow - our flight was released three hours late from newark and we made it back to providence. after which we had to struggle through three and a half hours of 30 mph driving to get home.

when we arrived in our beloved beverly, i went to pick up an order at china river, and unexpectedly ran into the pope, who told me he and aime are expecting a ____* in the spring. after our conversation, our food was finally ready so we slogged our way back to judson - where we had to make an illegal turn to access the homestead - put a screaming little p back down, enjoyed our food and watched a little killing.

btw - we didn't stay up to watch the balldrop. i may have some insecurity issues, but i respect myself far too much to subject myself to ryan seacrest and lionel richie.

* you'll have to ask them yourself!

reflections from the road: saturday, december 27th

since today was our last in amarillo i decided to take syd, my five year old niece, to see bolt the most recent film by disney's increasingly irrelevant* pixar unit. although bolt was vaguely entertaining the primary lessons i learned by the end of the film were:

a) acquaint yourself with the voice actors before going to see a glorified cartoon lest you spend an hour and a half guessing whose annoyingly scratchy voice is behind the wonder dog
b) thou shalt feed pre-schoolers before the film lest you spend most of the film refusing to buy additional concessions, and
c) if one tears up during the "climactic" finale when the child actor voiced by miley cyrus is unexpectedly reunited and subsequently saved by the sans super power, but still darling and devoted wonder dog voiced by john travolta one probably misses his dog more than he would like to admit.

all in all, i enjoyed hanging with syd. maybe next year she'll be old enough to catch an anniversary edition of raging bull with me or something.

one of the things i love best about celebrating with two families is expanding my christmas palate. at the morris house Christmas is not the time for turkey or god-forsaken spiral ham sandwiches, but the time to enjoy authentic hand-rolled tamales, tasty green chili and texas brisket with a nice, cold miller high life. we ate well in amarillo.

kellie's dad, commonly referred to as "grumpy" also surprised preston and i with an uncle henry pocket knife for christmas. i'm crap with knives but little p has been having a blast with it!

on our long trip back to tulsa kellie and i listened to john le carre's absolute friends, which is a lengthy examination of back story in search of a plot, stopped at bucks in okc for much needed pit stop and made it within three miles of my parent's house before the left rear tire on our rental car shredded to bits. fortunately, thanks to my masterful mechanical skills, the donut was affixed in short order and we dragged our tired arses home.


* from what i've heard wall-e was fantastic and i enjoyed the incredibles as well. but "pixar does doc hollywood" and "pixar does milo and otis" is somewhat less than original.

reflections from the road: friday, december 26th

on friday morning i finally had the opportunity to make my way down to lubbock, texas in order to both meet with agent b and piss on the red raiders for surrendering so easily to the sooners.

on the way down i promised myself that i would not listen to npr on xm or to an audio recording of fight club that i borrowed from the (incredibly impressive) hardesty branch of the tulsa public library, so that i could soak up the silence and stark expanses of west texas and try to commune with my God. i'd love to say that i immediately embraced the silence and rhythmically prayed the Jesus prayer the entire way. unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

although i could feel myself unfolding as i passed through the great expanse, the minutes felt like hours and my 125 mile trip turned into a sojourn. such discomfort is troubling since i spend so much time preaching and sharing my inner life with others. i realize that the most effective words come out of silence and i need to be more intentional about cultivating silence in the coming year year.

meeting with agent b was like reconnecting with an old friend. although we have only known each other for four years and we've only met on three occasions, his family and mine share the mission of incarnation and the ground that separates us is indeed holy. b and i shared our evolving visions over shitty beer and sub par burgers, we stumbled across a $50 subsidy for our gathering, we drank slightly better beer at chili's and we started to cut to the heart of things at starbucks.

at the latter location i asked agent b how he would, in light of his a-congregational ministry and mission, define the gospel that we both serve. after hemming and hawing a little bit he simply defined the gospel as "doing." when i asked him how the person of Jesus informed his practical definition of the gospel he said that Jesus was "the example" of doing. he then offered a number of illustrations of what this gospel looked like in action. if you'd like to hear those stories for yourself, you'll find a few of them, along with the best characterization of my pastoral calling that i've ever read, over on the agent b files blog.

when we'd sobered up* enough to brave the trek home i embraced my friend and fellow slave and we went our separate ways. on the trip back, as i listened to fight club i was both titillated by the narrator and thankful that God has treated my disassociation disorder with His unrelenting grace and the unexpected graciousness of friends.

cheers agent b! here's to a continuing long obedience in the same direction.

* i'm not simply talking about alcohol here.

reflections from the road: thursday, december 25

i celebrated the birth of the Lord Christ by:

breaking in my new running fleece and logging a mile or so with my sister-in-law

interrupting the family's television time by laughing at matt taibbi's undercover antics as profiled in the great derangement

finally admitting to my father-in-law, whom i love and deeply respect, that i am rubbish with power tools and don't have an interest in improving myself in this area

watching the celtics dump a game to the lakers

half-watching the bucket list, a movie that is scarred by schlocky sentimentality and rob reiner's inept direction, but is carried by actors who are hard to ignore

dancing a turn or two with the girl in the moon

re-watching portions of cars with the little p. while the film is endurable it was much more aesthetically enjoyable when it was called doc hollywood. you can definitely tell that brad bird didn't write this one

and constantly reminding preston that his cousin's new dollhouse is not a: a) stepladder b) window seat or c)gender appropriate toy for him to enjoy

how did your day go?

reflections from the road: wednesday, december 24th

a couple of quick observations on our sojourn through the mostly barren wilderness that separates tulsa from amarillo:

1) there are several starbucks in the okc area that are available for mid-trip refueling. this is a good thing.
2) as opposed to years past, there are far, far fewer american flags stuck to people's bumpers, festooning pot bellies or flying festively over ford dealerships. i'm starting to suspect that oklahomans and texans hate our freedom.
3) though i would like to report otherwise, i am really freaked out and afraid when i have to stop in places like mclean texas to get gas at 11 p.m. at night. the locals screaming at their kids, the senior citizens' coffee clubs, the jalapeno corn dogs and jacked up pick-up trucks are quaint and entertaining during the daytime, but at night, when the locals could carve you up into bits and scatter your entrails in the red dirt with barely a notice, those little towns are downright spooky.*
4) the pix and i listened to michael lewis' blind side on the trip down. the book was a wonderful exploration of southern football, the effects of african-american poverty and well-intentioned eh-vangelical philanthropy. it's definitely worth a listen or read.

last night we attended a beautiful, but somewhat vacuous christmas eve service at a local church. the program was put together well and the sincerity of the participants was never in doubt, but they flattened the nativity narrative - Jesus' birth was a gift for attentive shepherds and you! - and the logocentric, low-participatory liturgy left me wanting more. in a town characterized by a significant poverty culture and a large migrant community christmas seems to be the perfect time to discuss the displacement of the holy family and the exile of the infant Christ. it seems to me that in the often xenophobic south we also need to talk a little more about the role that the magi play in the nativity story.

i would love to get out to the movies this afternoon, but few interesting movies are playing here. palatable choices include the mysterious case of benjamin button and, the mysterious case of benjamin button. can someone get me some milk and a gran torino please? please!

* this reflection makes me feel out-of-touch, elitist and arrogant. but , well...

reflections from the road: tuesday, december 23

the pix, pres and i are currently on a nine day road trip to oklahoma in texas. when i can catch a spare moment, i'm going to provide some reports from the road.

yesterday morning, after six short hours of sleep that followed ten hours of horrific christmas travel, i finally started to shake off sleep and get going. in the few short seconds between my first glimpse of the ceiling and my feet hitting the floor, i realized that i was going to see my pa pa, better known around my house as "big preston," and i could barely contain my excitement.

since i've almost always got an analytical thermometer up my ass i then tried to parse why i was so excited to see my pa pa. was it because we would have long, meaningful conversations? probably not. we've had a number of those over my 31 years, but now we're usually content to sit together. was it because i needed hug him tight and feel him reflexively scrunch his shoulders as if he was absorbing my love? closer, but that wasn't the sole reason. was it because i longed for my son to bask in the gentleness, generosity and common nobility of his namesake? that was part of it.

in the end i realized that i could no more explain my heightened expectation of his arrival than i could rationalize the incredible depths of my love for the man. at almost the same moment, i also realized that the negative correlation between my increasing love for the man and my growing inability to express or explain my love is very similar to my growing passion and investment in the Kingdom of God and my decreasing ability to speak conclusively about my faith.

apparently, for me, the deeper the love and the more abiding the passion, the less i can actually say about it. i'm starting to realize that this tension does not give way to doubt, but leads me towards wonder, story and tears.

reader/response

today's herb of grace advent reading included the following provocative reflection:

"A good question to ask in this Christmas season would be, “why did those in authority want to kill Jesus, not only as a grown rebel but even as a small child? What was he doing to disturb their kind of peace?” Once we find out exactly what kind of threat Jesus was to the established order, then all we need to do is be that same kind of threat. Then we will be praying “come Lord Jesus” as something different than a sweet Sunday morning melody."

your response?

speaks for itself



ht: sam fisherofmen