overheard: on not transforming the culture

yesterday's edition of christianity today online featured an article entitled, on not transforming the culture by mark galli, the senior managing editor of CT. when i first read this article, i found it intriguing because it seems to call evangelicals away from a niebuhrian focus on transforming culture towards a more individualistic focus upon discipling individuals and setting up the church as an institution that is contra culture.

i think that galli's work is interesting insofar as it reminds us that "transforming the world" is an end rather than an effective means of Christian work. however, i'm afraid that his argument oversimplifies the diverse idea of mission that is presented in the NT and his apparent elevation of the individual over the system is both historically evangelical and problematic. i have more to say about this, but i have to go teach a class.

please take a few moments to read the article, chew on the quote below and join the conversation.

"We are certainly responsible for going to the ends of the earth and making disciples from people of every nation. There is plenty in Scripture about doing justice and loving mercy and feeding the hungry and caring for the widow and orphan. But I find little or nothing about us having the task of transforming the culture.

We fall into this rhetoric because we know the problems we face are huge and we feel so small. We worry that if we don't boldly proclaim that we can "change the world," everybody will give up before we even begin. We all face the common temptation of Adam and Eve. We want to feel significant. We want to feel like we're players. We want to make a difference in the world. And only by imagining that we can change the world do we think our actions have any meaning."

historically inaccurate, but funny


historically accurate and funny

words of wisdom, quotable quotes

when i received a personal update email from a close friend this morning, i was amazed by the following quote. i would like to say more, but i really need to get to work:

"I have been thinking about the fact that we idolize ministry among the "marginalized." We want to minister to these folks because that's who Jesus was especially concerned about... but even in our churches we want them on the margins. We don't want to give them the microphone... at least not for more than a quick 2-5 minute testimony. The rest of the time we want someone "educated," "balanced" and "together" up front, keeping order. But real ministry among the "marginalized" makes you marginalized! It is messy and unruly and uneducated and emotional and gutsy and shabby and embarrassing. It's hard to be in fellowship with those who are hard-core, right wing republican / homophobic and loud about it! Ugh! What do we do? Stay and give? Stay and be embarrassed and frustrated?"

thoughts?

musing...



last night i and a couple of my closest had an opportunity to catch bill mallonee at club passim in harvard square. by all accounts it was a remarkable evening filled with unexpectedly delicious vegan pizza, an extended set of heartbreakers by bill and a chance to catch up with bill and his lovely wife muriah rose.
there are so many things i could say about bill and his music, but since i've got an appointment in five i'll settle for this one. after spending years engaged in an important conversation about deconstructing and reconstructing church bill's music and life constantly remind me of the need to keep deconstructing myself. for it is only when i shine the lights through the cracks and coax my inadequacies into consciousness that i am prepared to receive the heart-wrenching, wholly undeserved, reconstructive grace of Christ. in sum, bill constantly reminds me that mortifying truth is always preferable to half-concealed hypocrisy.

i love the way that man lives the gospel and am certainly better for his (however limited) companionship on this journey.

now, back to building all things up.

musing

as i mentioned to my friend aaron and a couple of others this week, in regards to worship i am beginning to suspect that most Christ followers have very little interest in collaboratively creating the content of Christian teaching or shaping the liturgy of the church every week. since we live in a society wherein we are constantly engaged in the process of self-creation (see: myspace, blogging, fake breasts) i do not find it surprising that that relatively few people are interested in open source teaching approaches or truly interactive worship. rather, when they come to worship they simply want to hear the word, receive the sacrament and, perhaps, participate in the sharing/fellowship of their faith.

what is more, i really think this ok. while i really appreciate innovative services in which the teachings are dialogical, the worship is improvisational and the fellowship is quirky and unpredictable, i’m not sure that’s where i want to live. i would rather focus on cultivating the creativity that springs out of order and regularly practicing the traditions/disciplines of the faith in hopes that the tried and true paths will lead us towards something of enduring worth.

anyway, that’s what i’m thinking at the moment. does that sound traditionalist or what?

discuss


the thought of rosie o'donnell joining the cast of friday night lights is as despicable as:

1) fred thompson's pro-life record

2) lindsay lohan's "wild amputee" sex scene

3) rush limbaugh anchoring all things considered

4) michael vick, spca volunteer

5) joel osteen

only in massachusetts: helping hands monkey helpers


yesterday while researching grants i stumbled upon helping hands a massachusetts based non-prof that provides spider monkey assistants to quadri and paraplegic individuals. i've always had a particular affinity for our knuckle scraping forbears and heartily share david sedaris' sentiment that these monkeys are so cute it "makes you want to throw yourself in front of a bus just to get one."

m-m-m-my patronus!


what's yours?

overheard: sorrow but no regrets

yesterday, ChristianityToday.com posted this remarkable reflection by christine scheller. based on the article, i would venture to guess that mrs. scheller has seen and experienced more ecclesial brokeness than most. yet, even in the midst of all that sh*t, she's found a way to hold off bitterness and hold onto the hope of reconciliation.

here's to hoping that the Holy Spirit teaches us to sing similar songs.

musing...

right now i am standing on the edge of exhaustion. i'm working too many hours, haven't taken a day of vacation since preston was born and am (clearly) on the verge of singing poor, poor pitiful me.

yet, in the midst of all this, i am not without hope. last week rectangle decided to expand my responsibilities,* which will enable me to curb my night job and significantly reduce my work hours. further, i have a remarkable wife who in the midst of her own exhaustion continues to carve out space so that i can enjoy some amount of respite and solitude.** finally, i have fantastic friends who have buoyed my spirits during this time by sending unexpected gifts of encouragement, freeing pix and i up to spend a few seconds alone, moving back to bev town after long absences and simply chatting on gchat while i grind the nights away.

in my better moments i suspect that my current circumstance is a sort of elementary education in the discipline of perseverance. moreover, since i believe that perseverance is a key to the holy and hidden heart of both salvation and healthy relations, most days i'm more than willing to attend class.

so that's where i'm at right now. many thanks to those who continue to sustain me and to the Spirit who speaks in the midst of chaos.

* they finally asked me to teach the afternoon break dance class now. how cool is that?
** without which i would not have finished harry potter and the deathly hallows within 72 hours or invest in the gathering/s & s community in any significant way.

pretty much the funniest shirt i've seen all year


there is nothing more to see here. keep moving.

elmer gantry goes to uganda

"When Ghanaian pastor Obiri Konjo Yeboah (or Kojo Nana Obiri-Yeboah or Yeboah Nana Kojo, depending on the news source) entered Uganda, officials at the airport seized his luggage. Inside was a machine that they believed was a piece of bomb-making equipment.

It turns out that it was the Yigal Mesika Electric Touch, a gadget sold in magic stores that sends a 12-volt charge into anyone touching the person who's wearing it. The company says it will 'create excitement, mystery, curiosity, and supernatural powers all in one forgettable experience.'

Ugandan officials are worried about that "supernatural powers" part, and the pastor is now being investigated for fraud."

(ht: CT Weblog)

three good reasons to work nights

nobody knew his secret ambition

i have never been able to understand the role that personal ambition plays in the christian life. i realize that Jesus' secret ambition was to give his life away, generations of my evangelical forbears sought to accomplish the great commission through individual conversions and in more recent times mainstream protestants and their emergent stepchildren redirected the church's focus to proclaiming and incarnating the Kingdom of God. but, up until this point in my life, i haven't learned how to develop a sense of personal ambition that benefits rather than detracts from the larger ecclesial, local and international communities of which i am a part.

on account of my confusion i have pretty much ignored stephen covey's immortal advice to "begin with the end in mind" and have simply tried to respond to vocational and occupational opportunities as they arise. fortunately, my ambivalence towards personal ambition has yet to wreck much havoc in my life. in fact, i suspect that the aforementioned approach has saved me from a number of significant personal mistakes, such as stepping into professional christian positions before i was mature* enough to handle the responsibility and yielding to mr. dewitt's wishes by succeeding walt jocketty before the 2004 season.

but, as i break into my thirties, i realize that if i do not take a more active interest in shaping my personal vocational and occupational worlds others will be only too happy to fashion these worlds for me. thus, in lieu of submitting myself to the service of the other's** ambitions i am going to take the risk of setting my course, fixing my sights and venturing forth.

i only hope that if my ambition doesn't exactly align with God's, it's not totally at odds. moreover, in the midst of this process i hope that the value i place on living for others is not eclipsed by my rather lamentable tendency towards radical individualism.

* read: slick, pragmatic and political.
** some of whom i love and respect.

an all-star running diary


i'm utterly exhausted, sans sleeping baby and attendant wife and for some unknown reason interested in watching the all-star game. so i thought i would keep a running diary tonight since i have nothing better to do and i'm a self-absorbed arrogant prick.

pregame

would it be possible to have a major baseball ceremony without MLB having to shove patriotism down our throats? i'd be a baseball fan whether i was american or armenian. in fact, i plan on remaining a fan after i defect to canada. so stop f*cking shoving god bless america down my throat before every major baseball event.

ooh, willie mays is introduced against a backdrop of the catch. now that's something i can be patriotic about. what a playa.

did you know that mays doubled off a runner after making the catch that is captured so elegantly above?

did you know that i was just confronted with a rachel ray "quilicious" advert when i jaunted over to baseball-reference.com? could have lived without that?

i'm debating whether i should spend the evening bitching about mccarver and buck? any opinions?

eric byrnes is from san francisco? somehow that just makes sense.

today i was really, really suffering from the mid-summer malaise. as a result i found it difficult to get work done, was a bit too snippy with one of my clients and would have watched a mid-night movie with paul reubens if it meant i could have fifteen freaking minutes to read my paper in relative piece and quiet. when you find yourself in a similar state at work what do you do for relief? do tell...

cal ripken junior: not an announcer.

ozzie smith: capable announcer, hall of famer, all-around bodhisattva.

T1

peavy's overthrowing. look for an early run from the AL.

damn tough inside pitch to jeter. maybe i'm wrong headed there.

6-4-3 nice.

joe, you're wondering why ortiz's power is down? you wonder why pujols is also down? you ever heard the phrase cycling down?

peavy just got hosed. big papi should have been punched out.

wright just saved fielder's ass.

wow MJ and cuba gooding are working for haines. kevin bacon must have been busy.

B1

damn reyes can fly. now, if bonds can just rope one to the wall and then tear his ACL rounding first base...

haren grooved one and bonds popped it up. way to honor your godfather's legacy cheater.

--- rachel ray and dunkin donuts themed comment removed due to gentry's poor taste ---

speaking of dunkin donuts, the boston phoenix (of all rags) recently published a fun little article that explores the new england's devotion to the dunks and differentiates dunkie junkies from bucks bitches. for the record: count me in the latter camp. i'm afraid that if i fell in love with dunks, i'd have to start reading the herald and discovering a developing new interest in nascar. no thanks.

way to go griff. secure that home field advantage for us. THIS ONE COUNTS!

T2

man, i know that reyes, rolen and the golden gloves in the NL are incredibly talented. but man they display some bad fundamentals in the field. i just saw rolen pull a roger dorn "ole!" on a ball late last week. i know you guys are infield gods, but square up to the ball.

B2

for the past three minutes, i've sat here wondering whether "bad fundamentals" would be an adequate excuse for terminating rolens interminable contract. maybe i'll shoot jock an email.

tough break there for r. martin. the NL needs to tack some runs on the board. i know that this is going to surprise the baseball fans among you, but the AL has a much deeper roster.

don't tell anyone, but when i get exhausted, i sometimes get a bit sentimental. and when i get sentimental, i love to head over to lost tulsa.com. at that site, i can read brief updates about the gradual demolition of my childhood and laugh at the future land architecturethat graces oral roberts university's campus. are there any sites that you find yourself drifting towards when you're sentimental? do tell.

T3

ok, i'm still reading about my lost childhood and starting to forget about you.

T4

who doesn't love the wolf? man that's a great commercial.

barry bonds and a-rod. the closest of friends. shocker. on that note, griff just totally smoked a-rod at home. nice.

T5

who am i kidding? i'm totally swimming in sentimentality and ignoring the game and the post. catch you later.

musing...

"your system is perfectly designed to produce the results that you are now receiving."

someone somewhere planted that saying in my mind years ago and i have yet to forget it. sometime in late may, after completing five months of incredibly hard job development work that yielded precious little fruit, i did two things. first, i prayer for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. second, i set out to break down my current job development system.

the first step took, well, prayer and the second step meant eschewing the internet and pre-fabricated job leads in order to start cold-calling and engaging in aggressive interpersonal marketing. both steps took a great deal of faith and the second required this failure-phobic pastor to set aside not a small amount of fear. however, now that i sit six weeks on the other side of that conversion and half a dozen of my clients are now working, i am beginning to realize the value of the steps that i took.

i am not posting this to boast of what God has done through my small efforts or to portray myself as an innovator of faith. rather, i am curious to hear your answer to the following questions:

are there systems in your life, your community and our world do you need to break?

if you were to break the aforementioned system, what results would you seek?

do you need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to break the system and assist you with the process of reinvention? what do you think His accompaniment would look like in your life?

maybe nobody is interested in answering these questions right now except for me. whether you are interested in the conversation or not, thanks for listening.

jobs i would never want: overnight truck unloader at huckabees



after a extended drought of almost 3 months my clients have finally begun to find competitive employment. since "empowering clients by helping them find competitive employment" would be part of my personal mission statement* this development has been most welcome. however, since 5 of my clients have secured positions within the past three weeks, and i am obliged to provide free job coaching for every job offered, my life has been a little crazy lately.

since i cannot divulge information about my clients due to nitpicky little issues such as the American Disabilities Act i cannot tell you anything specific about either my clients or the crazy, alternative universe** i inhabit over at rectangle. however, i think i can legally tell you a little about my off-site job coaching experiences. thus, this series, "jobs i would never want."

now that i've lost all my readers, i guess i can continue.

on thursday night, after gathering with our newly christened s & s small group, i made my way to huckabees*** where i was scheduled to job coach my client on a 10 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. truck unloader shift. when we arrived the manager quickly escorted us to the back of the store where about 25 members from a wide assortment of individuals from united nations affiliated countries was preparing to unload two trucks. before we really knew what to do with ourselves the manager was clipping the seal on the semis and immediately standing aside as an overwhelming assortment of bikes, dvds, cosmetics and a truly ridiculous amount of kitty litter came cascading out of the truck.**** over the next hour we "carefully" loaded all of the product onto specific pallets and then wheeled the pallets out into specific sections of the store.

then, just as we prepared to open the boxes and stock the inventory the manager called "first break" over the intercom, we wearily wound our way to the break room and, i shit you not, feasted on a delectable assortment of haitian food.***** at that point, i noticed that the white bread manager was walking table to table and speaking to everyone in their own native tongue. when he pressed enough flesh to make it over to my table, i asked him how many languages he spoke and he quickly replied: "spanish, portuguese and i'm learning bosnian." at that moment, and throughout the night, i was impressed by his both his ability to contextualize every instruction and interaction with his workers and the overwhelming generosity he showed towards myself and my client.

of course, there were things i hated about the evening such as the horrible, sappy, coldplay inspired bitch pop that played over the speakers all night and the utterly mind numbing process of sorting and stocking trivial shit like confetti colored ribbon, spiderman 3 branded speedo goggles and "so hot," "you're hot" and "stay hot" colors of maybelliene lipstick. but after i left for the evening, barely survived the sleep deprived hour drive home and reflected on my experience the next afternoon i found it nothing short of remarkable.

i was amazed by the amount of man hours it takes to receive, stock and display the incredible assortment of trivial shit that we buy on a weekly basis. further, i was enriched by the overwhelming diversity and generosity of huckabees' multi-cultural staff****** and impressive management. finally, this experience helped confirm my suspicion that there are a number of people within every corporate behemoth who really want to do something good, beautiful and true with their work day. thus, by encouraging my client to apply, accompanying that person through the interview and assisting through the job coaching process i'm not simply serving my client's interests, but also empowering a well intentioned corporate worker or two to do something beautiful.

so, in the future i would like to balance my bitching about corporate behemoths by actively seeking to assist those within the corporate structure who long to live out a life that is more beautiful, good and true. moreover, i would like to thank my client and huckabees for providing a night to remember.

* if i was lame enough to have one.
** when i say alternative universe i mean it. we feature handicapped look-a-likes of most major celebrities, a steamy relationship scene and offer abba themed summer dance parties to boot.
*** ok, so i didn't really put in hours at huckabees, but you get the idea.
**** the next time you wonder why your new dvd player doesn't work or your caked out maybelleine compact is cracked remember this post.
***** minus the chicken heads.
****** though there were a few passing moments, late in the evening, when i felt like i was living out the script for dirty pretty things II.

on the lighter side

an overdue update


since i try to write regularly, my recent lack of posts frustrates me. over the past several weeks our little family has navigated a number of major transitions that i would like to discuss more fully, but at this point a simple update will have to do.

as i just announced in a mass email to family and friends, sinners and saints is no longer self-identifying as a church but is continuing to journey forward as a community. fortunately this transition is not the result of major conflict within the church, a significant moral lapse among our leadership or our failure to fully embrace the forty days of purpose as a primary church program. rather, after almost five years together, most of our members have been dispersed around the country where they are expressing the Kingdom of God in manifold and marvelous ways. Moreover, our remaining Beverly contingent has decided to partner with existing, missional communities such as the gathering in salem, park street church in boston or st. mary's orthodox church in cambridge and invest our lives in any additional number of innovative incarnations of God's mission. for my part, i'm simply glad that up to this point, to the best of my knowledge, none of us have made shipwreck of our faith and i'm looking forward to the unexpected ways that God is going to utilize our members and our quirky little community in the future.

i always thought that saying goodbye to the s & s church would feel like failure. fortunately, up to this point anyway, it absolutely does not feel like that at all. rest assured that i'll compensate by failing in other ways.

in lighter news, a little over a week ago dr. j and i finally sold our jetta tdi and disbanded our little car co-op. although our car co-op never saved us the amount of money we hoped, we forswore bio-diesel months ago and we're still trying to find "creative" ways to dispose of the resulting, completely bio-degradable, bi-products on the aforementioned alternative fuel, i'd have to say that our co-op was still a success. for my part, car co-oping taught me that i can live interdependently with people other than my wife,* i don't need to travel as often as i thought and volkswagens are completely worthless pieces of euro-trash that reasonable people should not purchase. in sum, i'd have to say, yeah for car co-oping, woo-hoo for wise resource management and fuck you volkswagen.

due to the arrival of our absolutely amazing son and our resultant childcare needs, i have been working a second job with our remarkably inefficient, customer unfriendly mass-transit system. i think it's safe to say that this job has put undue stress upon pretty much everyone and everything that is important to me and, as a result, i'm desperately hoping that God provides me with an offer of sustainable employment in the near future. there are a couple of decent options resting right over the horizon right now. let's pray that one of those options is realized and my sixty five hour work weeks** quickly become a thing of the past.

in other news, things have been going incredibly well at my day job. over the past several weeks i've placed four or five clients and as a result i now know the core values of target, inc., how to efficiently clean a u-haul storage unit and a few ways that one can circumvent the security cameras at tj maxx. brilliant. in all seriousness, empowering disabled men and women by helping them find sustainable employment is usually a deeply meaningful and utterly fulfilling task. on the best days the job makes me want to be both a better man and a better pastor. moreover, on my worst days, i can take a few moments to observe the afternoon break dance class. so i'm not complaining.

* granted, i am talking about the wilcox's here, but still.
** i realize that i'm wallering in self pity here. please feel free to pick up a hammer and nails.

---

addendum:

ramos weighs in on the commencement of s & s church.

in honor of our weekend guests...

my second favorite bit about oklahoma. i wish i could find my first favorite bit, which is a fantastic rip on oklahoma delivered by anthony clark on the 1995 young comedian's special on HBO, but apparently that clip is not currently on youtube. obviously, someone needs to get on that.

anyway, you gotta love ruprecht just like you gotta love family.