expectations are funny things

i ran into an old friend a couple of weeks ago. she is a children's minister at a church which has been embroiled in conflict and, for a while, seemed on the verge of division. after we embraced and exchanged the small pleasantries that serve as foreplay for conversation, she looked me straight in the eyes and said, "so how's dying treating you?" how's that for an unexpected climax? i didn't immediately understand her question, but a moment of reflection helped me make the connection.

my friend was equating ministry - this kenotic life of compassion and proclamation - with dying. i think her connection is a good one. perhaps even essential.

those of us who follow Christ have been called to pursue death in hopes that we might be surprised by life. we've been told to empty ourselves completely, so that we might eventually be filled. we've been called to shelve our ambition in order to wade knee deep into our own, and other people's, e.o.e. sometimes we Christ-followers fool ourselves by expecting happiness, a sense of meaning or at least a bit of contentment upon this journey. but none of those are promised. death, on the other hand, is.

so let's fix our expectations on and continue to pursue death in hope that we might eventually, and unexpectedly, be caught up in and written into the eternal song of life.

identifying as well as inciting missional churches

on saturday morning, while i was staffing a small fly-in at riverside airport in tulsa and helping prepare for the commemorative air force's (or CAF's) big hangar dance that night, i met an elderly man named jim. jim is a distinguished military veteran, an evangelistic proponent of a piece of evangelical drivel that is known as The Tulsa Beacon and a passionate composer and performer of both Christian and "secular" music (he designates the latter as secular because they focus on human love. a lot of them, i suspect, feature an accordion). but none of jim's hobbies or his steady handed support of the CAF interests me as much as his commitment to Christian mission.

the moment jim heard that i was some sort of pastor, he told me that in the past two years he has been a part of two different church plants. the first one was a fairly traditional, $300,000 down, more on the back-end and meets in a school gymnasium type of plant. however, the second is a small, mission oriented church that meets in a hangar out at riverside airport. when i asked jim why the second church, which he has recently made his official church home, meets at the airport he simply shrugged and said something like "that's where the people are." although i doubt john would put it this way, he is committed to taking the church to communities instead of asking the community to come to the church. i think that willingness to incarnate the church in different contexts and enculturate the body of Christ in the midst of particular sub-cultures is an essential part of being a missional Christian.

i think there are a number of Christians like jim, even in the gleamin' brass buckle of the Bible belt, who are as missional as emergent folk, but don't use our language. i think it is as important for us to identify these missional initiatives and perhaps even partner with them as it is for us to incite missional communities and initiatives of our own. to paraphrase rick warren (and so risk excommunication from the emergent elite:), if God is raising up a missional wave around the world, we best ride it.

other highlights and lowlights from the weekend:

highlight: seeing my pops in his element. my dad is a master organizer, shameless ham and effective leader. never was this more apparent than this weekend. way to go dad!

lowlight: waiting for 12 minutes (that's right 12!) to purchase a pair of tennis shoes at the local kohls. guess how many people were ahead of me in line? 2! in the midst of the weekend someone said that the food service at the oklahoma-italiano bistro we were eating at was a bit slow. if i was an uncharitable man, i'd say that everything in oklahoma runs a bit slow. but i'm not an uncharitable kind of guy.

highlight: hearing my baby cousin, lindsay, croon big band standards before a full dance floor and a hangar full of at least 1,100 people. i would piss my pants if i had to do that.

lowlight: being lured into political conversations (the magic word today, kids is: massachusetts!) with individuals who learned their reason and logic from rush limbaugh. if i was uncharitable i'd say that the majority of political wags in oklahoma don't know their appendixes from their arseholes. but i'm not uncharitable, so i'll just say that i wish that all of us, right and left, would learn to respect the political opinions of others and discuss our differences in a reasonable way.

highlight: carpenter winning the cy young (even without my staunch, principled advocacy). he was the first redbird since gibson in '68 to bring that award back into the nest. now that pujols has been awarded the mvp we have our first consecutive cy young/mvp season since '68. i may or may not have a clipping from the post-dispatch hanging up in my cubicle right now. moreover, i may or may not want becky to pick me up a copy of today's pd, so that i can make my post-season award wallpaper complete.

description of the day

The Left Behind movies have raised the bar for end times thrillers. The first two films in this series have featured intriguing plot lines, high-tech special effects and stellar performances from a cast that features Kirk Cameron. Now, we are pleased to announce that the third installment of this series, Left Behind: World at War is available on DVD and video. The Left Behind films will challenge your unbelieving friends and family to make a decision for Christ and encourage you as you eagerly await the Lord’s return. Don’t delay, pick up World at War and additional end times thrillers today!

see what $3,500 additional dollars can compel a man to do? sometimes, i want to shoot myself.

flight 683

patchwork quilt
roads radiate
towns separate
slowly reconcile

whining engine
mouth cotton
vivid dreams
future forgotten

returning home
an illusion
beverly or tulsa
willful collusion

won't be long
don't get comfortable
the coup's a comin'
You're responsible.

more memorandum from captain random:

while riding home for lunch yesterday, n.p.r. talked about the conventions of american "contractors" which often meet at the Hyatt Amman Hotel in Jordan. this report follows on the heels of two years worth of discussions about the number of american "contractors" in iraq, the unfortunately tragic hanging of american "contractors" in iraq, etc. every time we hear reporters talking about american "contractors" we should remember that most of these men and women are former army rangers, navy seals and marines who are serving in highly armed security details and even occasionally interrogating iraqi prisoners. in short, most of the "contractors" are domestic mercenaries. i know this note may sound a bit like quibbling, but i believe that it is important identify a person and explain their function correctly. by referring to them as "contractors" we are insulating ourselves from reality. america has anywhere between 20 - 40,0000 domestic mercenaries working in iraq. my hunch is that these particular "contractors" far outnumber the plumbers, engineers and aluminum siders working to rebuild the country. i'm not looking to pick a fight, i'm just interested in accurate reporting.

i have a confession to make: i have an ATM handicap. i have left my debit card in a local ATM machine not once, not twice, but four times in the past six months. moreover, as much as i would like to blame my fiscal failure on the machine, the truth constrains me from doing so. i have not only lost debit cards to the beverly co-op bank, but have left them at the local bank of america branch as well. i am so ashamed! maybe i should go on oprah.

okay, i have two confessions. since taking the copywriter position here at lightway i've really enjoyed my job. my day has gone crazy, i have more responsibilities than i can manage and i feel like i am constantly working in areas that are outside of my actual skill set...and i am loving it. who knew that i could enjoy life at lightway?

to balance that last note, i would like to encourage those of you who currently hate your jobs. i personally know of two amazingly creative individuals, bill james of bill james' abstract and sabr fame, and harvey pekar, the author of american splendor, who have openly confessed to utilizing the lull periods at their daily occupations, bill worked for van kamp baked beans and pekar for the veteran's administration, as opportunities to write, create, study and explore their vocations. i am not encouraging you should read flaubert, edit your indie films or examine folios of abstract art while you're on the clock, but they certainly are.

okay, i'm off to indian territory. i'll try to provide periodic updates this weekend.

memorandum from captain random:

i am beginning to think that a number of my lightway co-workers do not share my sense of humor. a little bit of evidence that supports my assumption...

two weeks ago, just before our staff meeting, i decided to walk the diz in the rain. thus, when i walked into the conference room, my pants were sopping wet, but my torso was relatively dry due to the water resistant qualities of my long coveted, AA flight line jacket. anyway, when the manager announced that i was the new copywriter and asked if i had anything i would like to say, the following words tumbled out: "i'm so happy i just pissed myself." instead of laughter, i heard a literal "pip" squeak.

moreover, yesterday, about midway through my introduction to the new "sanctified spam" project, i encouraged the editors by telling them they no longer had to create a monotonous, time consuming, text version of the "spam" to stand alongside their html version. a few of them actually broke out into a cheer, that quickly subsided as soon as i told them that i was "just kidding" (e-i-e-i-o!). at that point, i almost had a mutiny on my hands. this morning, while reflecting on the failure of my humor i was tempted to think that i am not funny. but both of us know that's not true. the apparent failure of my humor clearly lies at the feet of the editors.


so i spent some time working with the dirty hippy down at vagabond records last night. about halfway through the tracy chapman disc, which was preceded by a marc cohn cd and a frantic search for a hidden bruce cockburn disc, i realized that i am going to be the most uninspiring music clerk ever. i won't have the musically inspired, manaical energy of barry at championship vinyl or even the artistic, detached, artistic cool of a.j. at the empire. the best i can shoot for is a second rate imitation of randall over at rst video. i've got the mixture of antipathy and anger towards the customers down. but, admittedly, i'd rather talk about the protest lyrics of tracy chapman than the ethics of the empire. so i'm still going to suck. oh well, if i'm not what vagabond is looking for i can always work at the virgin megastore.


i just had my workday rudely interrupted by a publisher's meeting with a certain southern baptist publishing house that we could abbreviate with a B and H but, as per larry cannon's request, i am not going to identify here. anyway, at the end of the long-winded meeting i made a point of shaking hands with donald smith, the sales rep for the aforementioned company, and saying, "i interviewed the C.E.O. of your company last month and i told him what a helpful and attentive sales rep you are." at this, he smiled and thanked me. "no problem," i responded, "i just affirmed that even though you voted for Kerry, the folks at lightway still love ya." once again, no response.

more to come...

my soul? soluble

universe? permeable

sleep still eludes me

overheard

"How tempting it can be - and how distracting from our primary mission - to devote so many efforts to rehabilitating society at large, especially when these efforts demonize the opposition. (After all, neither Jesus nor Paul showed much concern about cleaning up the degenerate Roman Empire.) As history has proven, especially in times when church and state closely mingle, it is possible for the church to gain a nation and in the process lose the kingdom."

~Philip Yancey - musing about the cultural influence of evangelicalism in USAmerica and making me wonder, yet again, how he keeps his job - on "the back page" of the most recent Christianity Today

theological jargon, the South Hamilton Institute of Theology and banal conclusions born of bowel movements

for those of you who haven't noticed, it is now november and i am well into my sixth year at the South Hamilton Institute of Theology.

i am currently taking a class on the life of jesus with dr. colin nichol and, since it is a 500 level class, i often find myself quite bored with it (though i am thankful that this life of Christ class does not require me to utilize my mad coloring skills).

anyway, at some point in every single class dr. nichol is somehow loosed from the fetters of his outline and really starts to preach. this past week he preached on the economic demands of discipleship that are highlighted in the gospel of Luke. that lead to a good bit of discussion that i am too tired to recount here.

the week before that, nichol started preaching about the gospel. in the midst of his sermon he commended evangelicalism for emphasizing the substitutionary atonement (read: efficacious sacrifice, Christ's death for our sins, etc.) of Christ, but he bewailed the fact that we have often ignored Christ's call to obedience. a full orbed understanding of the gospel, nichol argued, must emphasize the grace that is offered upon the cross and the life of obedience that is demanded of those who follow in the way of the cross. to ignore either of these emphases in our preaching and teaching, he suggested, is to leave the church with an anemic gospel.

in the midst of nichol's homiletical moment, i was engaged enough to ask him, "if we (evangelicals) have traditionally overemphasized substitutionary atonement and disregarded Christ's call to obedience, isn't it reasonable to assume that we have misunderstood the gospel?" after a brief pause, dr. nichol answered in the affirmative.

this is the point at which i am supposed to revel in my cleverness and disembody my straw man of evangelical orthodoxy. but i think we'll both be better off if we let this point pass.

what i would like to say is this: if obedience to the demands of Jesus (the god-man who called us to "be perfect as his heavenly father is perfect," embrace a righteousness that "exceeds that of the pharisees and sadducees," and "lose your life so that you can save us") plays a bigger part in my salvation/reconciliation/renewal than i originally thought, then i have some serious work to do.

obedience hasn't traditionally been my cup of tazo, but as i think more often and a bit more deeply about it, i think i'll find a way forward. here's what i'm thinking at present: if salvation/reconciliation is the result of God's grace, and the purpose of such work is to lead me into the eternal quality of life, then obedience is simply living in rhythm with this quality of life instead of unraveling in the despair, monotony and unoriginality of death. if i put it that way, it doesn't sound so bad.

in short, if i'm really going to receive the reconciliation that God has offered and be the reconciler that he intended, then i need to be a more obedient disciple. i'm starting to think that obedience isn't such a bad thing. of course, that thought as well as this untidy, rushed conclusion might be the result of the bowel movement that is about to begin. now, if you'll excuse me...

overheard

there are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge;
that is curiosity.

there are those who seek knowledge to be known by others;
that is vanity.

there are those who seek knowledge in order to serve;
that is love.

-bernard of clairvaux as quoted in frost and hirsch's the shaping of things to come

soybean bible, ecclesiastical zeitgeist and a penchant for salt

during the years that i attended soybean bible, the seeker church was the constant topic of conversation. most of the professors openly questioned the way that seeker churches: accommodated unbelievers, transformed worship services into evangelistic infomercials and drained the vitality of smaller congregations through transfer growth. i can still remember hearing faculty members bristle at the fact that, courtesy of john wasem, they had received the willow creek association (wca) newsletter in their mail boxes.

since i spent the majority of my time at soybean working with river glen christian church, a seeker-sensitive, w.c.a. affiliated church that was effectively evangelizing upper-middle class suburbanites and enabling them to follow Jesus, i took many of my professor's opinions with a grain of salt. most of the time, their critiques of the seeker church did not square with my experience, but i never attempted to mount an apologetic or say much of anything about it. i figured that my role was to use my gifts to honor God and to seek to build up the church, so that's what i spent my time doing.

after i left soybean, i spent a little over two years working with a seeker church in manchester, new hampshire. i enjoyed my time at manchester christian church and was proud to oversee a twenty-something ministry that welcomed and sought to equip everyone from missionary kids to wiccans to young adults who were in the midst of trysts with strippers. sure, there were times that i was terrified to hear three hundred suburbanites jubilantly singing "show us your power, O Lord our God" and other times when my hands trembled as i listened to sermons on topics like the prayer of jabez, but, by and large, my time there was quite fruitful.

after i had spent a few years there, i felt like it was time to either move to manchester and immerse myself in that ministry, since it's hard to bail your small group members out of jail when you live sixty miles away and i didn't want the girl who left laughably demonic messages on my cell phone to be saddled with excessive long distance charges, or become part of a ministry that was incarnating both the good news and the overwhelming compassion of Jesus within my local community. when rick bennett and j & b wilcox invited me to take part in the latter, i decided to move to beverly and invest my life in sinners and saints.

that transition took place over three years ago. since that time our little community has been worshipping God together, studying the Bible in an (mostly) expository manner, regularly volunteering with our local social services organization, welcoming sinners and saints, the drunk and the brain damaged to share life with us, and contributing a significant amount of prayer and payola to God's subversive mission in the world. i don't want to sound like a pollyanna when i say that it has been the most intriguing and fruitful period of my life thus far, but it has been a pretty wonderful experience.

anyway, after spending three years in the a-institutional church that God placed me in, developing friendships and partnerships with a number of people who are participating in the mission of God in innovative ways and walking with those who are seeking to re-imagine the way we talk about God, interpret His words and, individually and communally reflect His beauty, goodness and truth, i admit that i have a lot in common with and am deeply appreciative of the fellowship i share with those who play a part in the conversation and mission that is known as emergent (as a copywriter, i must confess that this is a horribly written, run-on sentence. maybe i'll use it as an example of "what not to do" in my next training seminar). as a result, i have found that i am once again affiliated with the group that currently sits in the cross-hairs of many of the professors and mentors that i deeply respect. many of these men, a number of which questioned the validity of the seeker church, are now wholly invested within those church structures. now that the seeker sensitive methodology has transitioned from an innovation to an acceptable institution, they have apparently chosen to critique and deconstruct emergent.

i find the latter situation rather ironic. it leads me to wonder whether in ten years emergent will become such a part of the evangelical fabric that we'll no longer question its existence or viability. on a more negative note, it makes me wonder whether Christians (please note: i am including emergent folk in this crass generalization) spend our time critiquing, defending and deconstructing church structures and systems because those tasks are a hell of a lot easier than fully pouring ourselves into the mission of compassion and proclamation that God is calling us to.

in the end, that's why i'm taking the pronouncements of my former professors (whom i deeply love, respect and am eager to please) with a grain of salt.

vote for gentry

a number of people asked me to run. for some reason they always did.

as we stood in front of the "gordon-conwell student association" table, friends and foes goaded me to sign up. the optimists reminded me that someone had to lead the body and lead it well, while the pessimists, who outnumbered the optimists 3 to 1, suggested that this would provide me with yet another opportunity to piss off the administration.

in years past i would have ignored such calls as hubris, a temptation to embrace the ambitious road of ascent or simply a sarcastic aside. this year, however, i responded boldly by choosing to run for korean student association president.

three hours later, the phone in my dorm room rang. "jeffsch, this isch schteven schcott, the schtudent assochiation president." i'd love to tell you that the mere sound of his speech impediment made me feel guilty, but it only confirmed that this was going to be a hell of a lot of fun. "jeffsch, i would likesch to thank for for schigning up to run for korean schtudent assochiation president." i affirmed that it was my privilege to run for this fine office and, if elected, i would serve the Korean students well.

"jeffsch, there isch only one problem. the korean schtudent asshociation isch not technically a part of the schtudent assochiation. in fact, it isch its own scheperate group." "really?" i countered. "if that is the case, why were signups included on the student association table in the dining room steven? i've put my heart and my reputation on the line by deciding to run and now you're telling me that i am not eligible? i am not going to kid you schteven (i couldn't help myself), i feel like the student association has failed me."

"well," steven said pensively, "the korean schtudent asshociation isch its own organizaschion. they have their own elecschions which are not overscheen by the Schtudent Assochiation. so that schinup wasch a mischtake. however they are an important partsch of the fabric of our inschtitution." "i know they are an important part steven," i said with traces of true pain in my voice, "that's why i want to be their next president."

"well, if you have friendsch who are a partsch of the k.sch.a. you can aschk them to nominate you and put you on the ballot for their elecschion." i thought for a moment, before responding. "thanks for trying to make the best of a bad situation steven, but i think i'll pass. i already feel like a jap walking the streets of seoul by this point, if you know what i mean."

"isch there anything elsch i can do for you?" steven asked. "isch there another schtudent office you would like to run for?" "well, now that you mention it," i said, "i would like to start campaigning for the presidency of the women's resource network. if you'd throw my name in that hat, i'd highly appreciate it."

if that ain’t the gospel…

"like a trash can fire in a prison cell
like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell
i will walk…down to the end…with you
if you will come all the way down…with me."

~the mountain goats, all the way down

listening to, and learning from, a different creed

dr. james and i were interviewed this morning by a film crew that is developing a documentary on salem. (side note: this crew is also responsible for the discovery channel's firehouse usa. if you've watched the latter show, let me know what you think). the director was intrigued by the confession booth and wanted to know what we thought about the inflammatory preaching and preachers that often foul our fair city during this time, how christians and wiccans co-exist in this supernaturally charged environment and whether we prefer beer that tastes great or beer that is less filling.

anyway, in the midst my artificial interview i began to think about what the church can learn from people who profess to be "spiritual, but not religious." i know that the latter statement is quickly becoming cliché, but i still think that it communicates something important about many people's approach to spirituality. we might even be able to call it their creed.

i've heard a fair number of christians (including myself) speak about this creed negatively, suggesting that people who say this are often superficial, anti-authoritarian individuals who only want their MTV and their salad bar spirituality. conversely, i've heard others speak about it in a more positive way, by discussing how we can create ministries, churches and other spaces in which these individuals can feel welcome (as miah recently noted, many churches have created spaces that have more in common with panera bread than a congregational sanctuary. the feel of these places is not accidental), hear and dialogue with others about the Christian faith and hopefully be catechized, assimilated into the body and sent out to share the gospel (which, in this context, usually means: our sins + jesus blood = salvation/eternal life. the gospel is such a contextual concept. when writing, teaching or talking about the gospel i think we should always provide a contextual definition, explanation, analogy or some other way of unloading this most loaded concept).

so back to the interview. somewhere in the midst of discussing the current political landscape of salem (which i know precious little about by the way. but it is t.v., so i guess informed discussion and ideational nuance isn't all that important), i began to wonder why we often do not allow our christian practice and mission to be at least partially shaped and informed by this postmodern creed. what if, instead of condemning this a-institutional creed or accommodating it by transforming it into a hook for our churches/communities/institutions, we listened more carefully to and learned from this creed and her confessors?

would such listening and learning lead us to provide more careful spiritual formation for the individual instead of the minimal catechization that many churches (i include s & s in this group) currently provide? in the midst of the formation process would we go to greater lengths to help the individual integrate into the community rather than simply throwing them into a generational, interest oriented or educational box? would they teach us how to move beyond focusing either wholly on the individual or wholly on the community by learning how to focus on individuals-in-community?

what else could the confessors of this creed teach us? what role do these postmodern confessors and their creed have to play in the formation of our communities and our personal spiritual formation? i can't help but wonder.

your input is welcome.

confessions of an emerging pastor

after spending four days spilling the church's sins, revealing her weaknesses and begging the world for forgiveness, i think it is time for me to offer a few ecclesiastical confessions.

1. about three years ago, after a valiant struggle against categorization and cunning attempts to label myself as an eh-vangelical instead of an ee-vangelical, i finally confessed that i wade in the evangelical stream. now after a couple of years of dancing on the margins and regularly deflecting criticism that has been launched at the emerging church by raising my hands in a sign of resignation and saying something like, "i'm not an apologist for emergent, just an interested party," i'm ready to come clean. i am a willing and ongoing participant in the emerging church conversation. i am proud to walk forward with this crew as together we submit to and pursue the mission of God.

2. i also confess that i often do not what "emergent" stands for and means. from my perspective, "emergent" is more of a missional community than a clearly defined institution or organization. that makes definitions a bit difficult.

3. although i have a deep love for the church, in all its various and sundry forms, i have occasionally scrutinized and judged other forms/methods/modes and denominations/organizations with a hermeneutic of suspicion instead of one of charity. for my lack of charity and the divisions it undoubtedly caused, i ask forgiveness.

4. for many years i mentally characterized committed pentecostal and charismatic christians as anti-intellectual enthusiasts. now i realize that individuals from these very traditions are expanding my perception in significant ways and are challenging me to replace many of my ministerial fears with a thoroughgoing missional faith. i thank God for these brothers and sisters and beg their forgiveness for the way i slandered them in the past.

5. i do not know how to pursue the missional opportunities God has given our community without embracing an entrepreneurial spirit. so instead of risking failure, i do nothing. i confess my fear of failure and will need a number of you to help me if i am to move forward.

6. i wax eloquent about social justice and commit a bit of my time to the poor. but when someone is truly disordered, in a psychological/physical/spiritual way, i often ignore them instead of accompanying them through their desert. in fact, i have a friend who is languishing on a "ward" right now and am almost afraid to visit her. i don't know what to do in these situations and do not know what to say. moreover, with this friend in particular, i question the value of my accompaniment.

7. i realize that when i'm teaching, preaching or praying i occasionally sound certain about what i believe and where i think the church should go. these slivers of certainty are completely unintended and often extremely untrustworthy. beware.

8. i don't do the mission/vision/values thing well. maybe one of the reasons i'm outside of the institutional church is because i am not a very organized person. i don't know if that's true, but it's definitely something to consider.

9. i am as uncomfortable with God's sovereignty as you are. i have openly questioned his ordering of sexual relationships on a number of occasions and, in periods of great suffering, such as those we have witnessed in South Asia, Iraq and Mississippi/Louisiana, i am quick to question both his presence and the extent of his control. i also have great, overwhelming questions about the last word and the word after that (the concept, not the aptly titled book) and the final consummation of the Kingdom.

10. i love Christ and am committed to His church. it is an honor to walk with you. i will walk, teach, sing (yes, even the girls' parts), accompany, lead, listen, serve and sacrifice beside you for as long as you will have me.

11. i confess that i have often had a false humility concerning my teaching and preaching gifts. i think that this tendency has occasionally had a negative impact upon the church and, more importantly, has dishonored our Creator by blighting the beauty of his creation.

may the peace of Christ be with you.

snapshots of a fragmented soul

cloaked in burlap, wrapped in snow, an introverted preacher calls to the crowd:

"city of peace, receive the peace of God."

"hot chocolate to warm your bodies, confession to warm your souls!"

"you've received condemnation from the church, now receive her confession!"

"drink our free hot chocolate, 'tis sure to ward off the bird flu."

"isn't it time the church came clean? come hear her confession."

somewhere along the line, the preacher realizes that his slogans are not the bane of the boulevard's existence. rather, his slogans are his way of blessing the churning, chaotic and charmed city. faith is such a funny thing. then again, so is fear.

the well-groomed pastor and the cynical confessor stop in front of a store front. the latter leans against a warped door, while the former lays his bag of crullers on a window frame. the pastor works for a mega, while the cynic helps lead a micro. one of the pastors carefully explains the four squares of his tradition, while the other laughingly imitates a friends' astute observation: "buncha e.o.e.in' whores in this town." both of these pastors, one carefully coiffed and bright-eyed, the other cynical, yet harassed by hope, are walking the same path. the body is broken, the blood is shared.

his name is scotland. i desperately want him to hear my confession, he simply wants to spend a few moments with me. i speak of the church and he asks about life, i talk about life and he questions the church. after twenty minutes together, i am standing on the fence of frustration, due to our failure of communication, when i stop. these moments, inviting the stranger walk beside, if only for a moment, are sacred. accompanying someone to a destination, rather than blithely providing directions, can be sacramental. i realize that i learned to administer this sacrament at the cracker barrel and cannot conceal a snicker.

dear God, how i loathe lyric posts

"remember to remember me.
standing still, in your past...
floating fast like a hummingbird."
~wilco, hummingbird

"hey jude,
don't make it bad.
take a sad song,
and make it better."
~paul mccartney, hey jude

"somedays i'm bursting at the seams
with all my half remembered dreams
and then it shoots me down again

i feel the dampness as it creeps
i hear you coughing in your sleep
beneath a broken window pane."
~david gray, this ain't no love that's guiding me

"saint joseph's baby aspirin, bartles and jaymes and you...
or your memory."
~the mountain goats, you or your memory

rest assured that there are lips and assholes on the counter and i'm planning on grinding. more to come on my unexpected stint as a street preacher, the third anniversary of sinners and saints, david gray and more.

overheard

"God loves you and has a hard plan for your life." ~Mark Galli, as quoted in Rob Moll's CT article, "The New Monasticism."

i think i just pissed myself

check out holy ghost tees. props to matthew for the link.

pixie notes, volume 1 part 2

please note: kellie wrote this post in response to a conversation that is taking place on aaron monts’ blog. so, if you are the kind of person who cares about context, read his post entitled house church. if you could care less about context, feel free to read it anyway. i think it’s stimulating stuff.

OK, so I know I’m getting in late on the conversation. I originally wrote a long comment which Jeff was going to post on his blog and link through the comments (I am married to Jeff by the way) but now this thing has 55 comments. So I might as well go and make it longer.

My intention is to help try and give a little more clarity on a very fuzzy thing: what home churches are and how they operate. Here is my curriculum vitae on homechurches (if you need it): I did my internship for LCC with Xenos Christian Fellowship and after graduating spent two years living with them. I have spent two years now helping to lead Sinners and Saints. OK…so not extensive, but still.

Side note: someone comments back hit the nail straight on the head. The author of the article that started this here shindig is a blessed child of God who doesn’t support his arguments well at all. I think it was called “cultish”. Anyways, I read his book with wineskins in the title during my internship. Long-time ago, so don’t have all the details straight but I do remember a strain linking the tabernacle times (good, Israel directed by God chosen Moses, and the church is mobile) and temple times (bad, Israel ruled by lots of bad and some good kings, not everybody can make it to temple) as a reason to go with homechurches vs. traditional churches. I think this sufficiently highlights the background of said article and provides evidence for referenced comments.

I understand the main difference between the home church model and traditional model to be the point of entry for the convert. In both models, people are brought through relationships. One will tend to invite them to the home church first and the other to the main church service. This is largely because home-churchers will identify themselves first with their home church and then the fellowship when asked where they attend. “I am a part of the Sinners and Saints home church. We’re with City on a Hill Christian Fellowship.” When I was in the traditional church I said, “I am a part of Jefferson Street Christian Church. I go to the Land home group.”

As to us getting the same bugs as the traditional church…would we be a church without it? I mean, wasn’t the NT with the exception of the Gospels largely written to corral said problems? Bit of info for you here: Xenos did go through a church split a while back. I think that it involved music.

So, why home churches? Here are my personal reasons:

1. Personally, as a woman, it opens ministry opportunities that are rarely open to me in the traditional church. Or if they are available there, I am to afraid of controversy to take. Honestly, I went through all of college planning on taking the academic route. My parents were always involved with ministry and when I was twelve one of their friends took another position because the church he was at didn’t want to change anymore. And ministers moved all the time…I’d already had enough of that. So I went to a ministry focused college with the intention of never marrying a paid minister or doing paid ministry. Besides, I’m a girl that doesn’t like to teach kids or sing songs so there weren’t many areas that I thought a church would hire me. And then Doc Kurka suggests I go to Xenos because the internship I wanted to do in Germany fell through. So I head out to Xenos thinking I’ll be studying worldviews or something (they do a big lecture series on that) and end up spending my time building relationships and learning to do church. My mentor challenged me to stay in the church…. “too many of our minds go into academia, we need some here in the church too” and “the best thing you could do is to teach someone else what you know…teach them to live Christ.” He told me that I could plant home churches. Wow, somebody actually telling me that I could teach and plant churches and help with church strategy. No one had ever thought I could do that before.

Anyways, enough testimony…back to the opportunities. The homechurches that I have been a part of (this may not apply to every homechurch you come across) have a head leadership of 4 people, 2 male and 2 female. They rotate teaching, take care of growth and discipline issues, and facilitate developing more leaders to hopefully plant a new homechurch. The female leaders do basically everything the male leaders do except peeing standing up. When I moved to Boston, Xenos was debating female elders, and the 2 head pastors were men. But on every other level ministry opportunity was shared across gender. Now of course, if one of the guys met some girl they worked with and she started coming ‘round we’d try and move the relationship focus to one of the girls….the “When Harry Met Sally” thing combined with ministry is a time bomb.

2. I love the fact that in home-churches most people are lay ministry. I really like hanging out with people that aren’t Christians. It is stimulating and stretches me. One of the best ways that I have found to do this naturally is through the workplace…I spend more time at work than I do with my husband. A 40-hour work week and ministry are feasible if shared with 3 other people and the church gets to 25-30 people at its largest. I find too, that it encourages people with other vocations that they can do serious ministry too. I’ve known home church leaders that were doctors and dentists and teachers and social workers down and waiters. And if you got them aside, they’d tell you that their main joy was building the church and discipling and teaching. Most of them hadn’t known Christ long before some had said to them….grow a little and you can lead a church too.

3. I love the fact that when I hear the word “ministry” in the homechurch it is applied to long conversations at coffee bars or pubs, or counseling and praying for another believer, or writing encouragement notes. I love the fact that in Xenos, when you meet with someone (even those that have been around for only months) you haven’t hung out with for a while, conversation will turn to ministry. All Christian are ministers, so it’s natural, right? And isn’t something wrong with your spiritual growth if you’re not serving? See, homechurches tend to put people to work immediately so they don’t know there is the option of pew-sitting. One of our guys was mystified that a close Southern Baptist friend evaluated his spirituality on the basis of knowledge rather than service. He thought the way to be a Christian was to spend hours loving the disabled guy that most people wouldn’t spend time with…or on the fact that he handed out money to help non-Christian friends at work with medical bills.

4. I love the fact that in home church, I get audience support when I am teaching. Another “ministry” of the church is to support the teacher by talking. If the service is dead, the members know that it is just as much their fault as the people guiding the meeting. I mean, if it didn’t make sense or you thought the teacher was completely not making the text relevant, you had the opportunity to say so, yeah? I love the fact that it is so laid back I can bring some of the classroom into a teaching, that I can go detailed background because it is a small group. I don’t have to worry about losing someone because I know that a) they tell me they don’t understand or b) I can see it on the face and I will have the opportunity to sort it out with them.

5. I love that fact that homechurches can at times totally disarm the lost. They come in with all these preconceptions about church and Christians which are immediately turned on their head. They start asking questions…You’re a church? Why are you meeting in a house? (Because the church is really the group of people worshiping God irrespective of where they meet). Who is your leader? (Well, we have 4 leaders because in the church ministry is shared and at some level everybody shares part of the responsibility). We get the chance to immediately start teaching truth because they start asking questions.

6. I love the fact that right now all of our money goes out (well except for $20 for toilet paper and coffee). Right now we don’t have any overhead and it is a blessing. Someday we may get big enough where it makes sense to get a building for the main teaching or to pay a few people to oversee a network of churches. But right now we have the blessing of giving it all away. When we started going through church finances at one set meeting a month I saw a passion for giving take hold in our members. We have our monthly missionary commitments, but our goal is to exceed that. Then we sit down and try and come up with places to give the rest too. Our goal is a near empty bank account. It’s changed us.

7. I love the history of church growth. When I interned with Xenos, I was with the North 4^th Home Church. When I came back after college, they were in the middle of birthing a new church and I soon was a part of Red House Home Church. Some of my friends stayed with the other church. When I moved to Columbus both churches had birthed a new church. So, now my friends in the original group were now part of four different home churches. That meant a lot of people came to Christ and grew up into maturity. Yeah, it took place over years but it is so cool to look back on and to look forward to for Sinners & Saints. It gives people a tangible hold on growth…like starting a new service, except it happens more often. And when they see themselves growing, they get excited to do it again.

So in the end, it’s still church. When we grow big enough we look really similar. We have the same goals. With this difference: most people become members by joining a home church and then start associating with the larger body. We start with the small and grow big because we intend for our small churches to self-replicate, because we intend our people to “self-replicate” themselves through helping someone else to grow in Christ.