happy holidays!

last night i received a festivus card from one of my precious afterschool kids. it reads (exactly) as follows:

front: merry chrismas jeff
inside: i now know you are pain in a but but you are nice.

it was, without a doubt, the most meaningful card i've received this season.

more ecclesiological musing

back when rick served as our resident bodhisattva, he often said things like "our worship gatherings are inconsequential to who we really are" and "our gatherings do not define our identity." since he also said things like "the boston red sox will never win the world series until the city forgives buckner" and "pedro martinez is the sexiest dominican i have ever seen," i never really took him that seriously.

what did he mean by suggesting that our worship gatherings were not the beating heart of our community? in our estranged, yet closely related theological backgrounds, a church leader's function was so heavily emphasized that we often referred to them not by a sanctimonious title, but in reference to what they did. thus, we tended to refer to the guy who got paid the most, "the preacher," the lady who spent a torturous hour with us on sunday mornings "teacher," and the guitar player with repressed sexual desires "worship leader or worship guy." on a practical level, if the worship gatherings weren't at the center of what we were doing, why the hell did rick and i waste years of our lives in seminary parsing greek verbs and crafting smooth sermonic transitions?

so i never really allowed rick's idea to germinate within the acidic soil of my mind. instead, i spent the majority of my time preparing for home church teachings (sometimes spending as much as ten hours, usually clocking around 7), crafting discussing questions (since we're such a progressional church!) and worrying about the quality of the hour and a half of time s & s spent together on thursday nights, while all the really important developments, such as deepening our relationships, connecting with individuals who would later follow Christ (hey al!), admonishing one another of sin (yup, we still believe in that), challenging one another to holiness (uh-huh, that too) and finding ways to incarnate the compassion of Christ and effectively proclaim the hope and truth of the gospel took place at the salem beer works (bring back the imperial stout, you e.o.e.rs!), michelle's diner, at packing parties and in the beds of u-hauls and, lately, around the bio-diesel processor. john lenin famously said that "life is what happens while you're making other plans." i think the same can be said about spiritual formation, equipping, discipling or whatever other forms of christian shorthand you want to use to talk about growing up towards our head who is Christ.

in the end, i'll probably never stop thinking about our worship gatherings. i'll continue to fret about whether i've prepared enough for a teaching, wish i would have constructed a baptism liturgy a little more creatively and spoken a little more clearly about the mystery we elevate and ingest on regular occasion. however, i'm going to try my best not to let our worship gatherings completely determine or, God help us, be a detriment to the spiritual maturity God intends for us. i am beginning to suspect that a shoe is as apt a metaphor for services as it is for buildings.

i was just kidding about rick's pedro infatuation. he's always been more of a 'tek kinda guy: ) i would also like to note that the following quote reminded me of rick's teaching and led to this occasionally libelous reflection.

"Jesus was not a church planter. He created communities that embodied the Torah, that reflected the kingdom of God in their entire way of life. He asked his followers to do the same. Emerging churches seek first the kingdom. They do not seek to start churches per se but to foster communities that embody the kingdom. Whether a community explicitly becomes a church is not the immediate goal. The priority is that the Kingdom is expressed. Inherent to kingdom activities is that the community will reflect the local context, and therefore forms vary greatly." emerging churches, gibbs and bolger, pg. 61.

in the words of the right reverend smith: "happy kwanza muthae.o.e.ahs!"

i don't want to beat this topic into the ground (kiss my arse american family association. don't go picking on my sears and yuppie wal-mart!), but my the reverend paul board, my adopted brother-in-law would like to share a few good words about the holday v. christmas debate.

occasionally, even I get tired of satire

from my perspective, the emerging church is, in large part, a missional reorientation of the church. i believe this emphasis is readily evident in our language as we speak of ourselves as people who do not merely have a mission, but are a mission to the world. moreover, our missional bent is evident in the emphasis we place on contextualization (people started using coffee and candles as well as liturgical elements in worship for a reason) as well as the manner in which our ecclesiology has been influenced by churches in other cultures. in regards to the latter, the current emphasis on home churches has been deeply influenced by the preponderance of "ecclesiolae in ecclesia" or small worship "groups of twelve" in latin america as well as the strength of home and relational church models in south east asia. in addition, the non-institutional tendencies of christians that are developing in the hindu and muslim world are now quite evident among us as well on a popular level (in the last year, how many people have you known that have want to eschew the name of Christian or disassociate themselves from the local church, while still retaining a deep - and perhaps even radical - commitment to a life of discipleship? i've known quite a few. in sum, as the emerging church we see ourselves as an ongoing mission to the world and this self-understanding has deeply influenced our theology, ecclesiological structures and engagement with the people of the world.

if we assume this missional orientation is true, we have to ask ourselves why many emerging churches (yes, i'm including s & s here) are not "growing" very rapidly or are not as effective at "making more and better disciples" as we would like. i've turned this question over a time or two in my head and have produced a couple of provisional conclusions. as always, i would really appreciate your thoughts and reflections on this matter as well.

i think many emergent churches and communities are not "growing" very rapidly or making "more and better disciples" as we would like because:

most of our communities opt for a shared leadership structure.

instead of being clearly defined and/or strictly creedal, our theology is constantly evolving.

instead of imposing a statement upon the church or definitively defining values, many churches believe that their agenda is as diverse as the number of people who are in their community. as doug pagitt once put it to me, "every time we add a member to our community our agenda expands. conversely, every time we lose a person our agenda shrinks."

our soteriology (def: concerning salvation) is more progressional than punctiliar. that's a fancy way of saying that we aren't fond of drawing a line in the religious sand and demanding that people cross the line or telling them exactly what they must do to cross from one side to the other. instead, we understand salvation as something which was accomplished in Christ, but is experienced by us as we continue to submit our lives to God and pour ourselves out in service to the world.

our eschatology (def: concerning the end times) tends to emphasize the here and now rather than the sweet by and by. another way of saying that is that our eschatology is more realized than future in its orientation. i suspect that a future eschatology, especially when partnered with punctiliar soteriology, tends to produce a kind of "salvific angst" in those inside and outside the church. those who are inside are tortured by thoughts of their friends and family going to hell and guilting them with the ole heaven's gates and hell's flames credo ("why didn't you tell me???), while those outside feel the need to hedge their eternal bets. please note, although i am speaking with my tongue planted in my cheek in regards to the latter understanding, i respect those who hold it and even believe that they may be right.

so that's what i'm thinking. i honestly believe that if sinners and saints appointed one primary leader (a "first" among equals who negates the very concept by calling almost all of the shots), clearly defined our theology, and embraced a soteriology and eschatology that manufactured a little religious angst, we would grow more quickly and make more - though perhaps not better - disciples. however, i have serious doubts whether that would provide the best way forward for our community. i believe that what we are doing is good, beautiful and true. moreover, although s & s may very well seem irrelevant to the world, and to our brothers and sisters who embrace a very different ecclesiology, i think that our little experimental church is quite relevant to both the mission of God and the invaluable lives of those in our community.

her pleasure, my pain

the moment we pulled into the parking lot, i saw the cruel, impassive profile of the armenian hygienist as she silently wound her way into the office. “darn,” i said to james. $5 says i’m destined for her chair.

of course i was right.

after glaring at me with predatory eyes and offering only the most cursory greetings, she went to work. if her barbarous hook could find metal - in my cavernous mouth that is not a spectacular feat - it did. when she found an exposed nerve, she vigorously probed. as her high pitched water instrument eagerly expressed her pleasure and my pain she thrust her milky white suction tube down my throat, much farther than in needed to go.

i reflexively gagged she finally relented, instructing me that it was time to rinse. i quickly sat up only to discover that in the midst of my subjugation i was most utterly exposed. zippers have long been my bane.

as i quickly tried to recover i stole a glance at my oppressor. her impassive eyes reflected neither embarrassment nor delight.

that is one hard-arsed hygienist.

A Guest Editorial by Dave Chappelle

According to Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times, Dave Chappelle is branching out from his standard R. Kelly impersonations and Clayton Bixby skits by providing perceptive political commentary. The quotations below, both of which this editor wholeheartedly endorses, are quoted directly from Mr. Itzkoff’s article, which is entitled Dave Chappelle is Alive and Well (and Playing Los Vegas).

“Mr. Chappelle…already has his eye on a potential presidential match-up between Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice…‘You know who’s going to win? Ralph Nader by a landslide.’”

“By far, Mr. Chappelle’s most illuminating observation of the night occurred as he was discussing the rap star Kanye West’s nationally broadcast remarks that President Bush does not care about African Americans. ‘I don’t know if you agree with him or not, but give it up for him,’ Mr. Chappelle said. ‘I’ve got a lot of respect for him. And,’ he added, ‘I’m going to miss him.’ Then, almost as an aside, he continued, ‘I’m not risking my entire career to tell white people obvious things.”

on doorknobs, academic deans and asherah poles

during my sojourn at soybean bible college, tom tanner, the academic dean, had a battered do-not-disturb type of doorhanger on his office door that read "praying for interruptions." when i first saw that sign i thought it was nothing but pious tripe. however, as the years went by, and i got to know tom as more of a mentor than an administrator, i realized how clearly that sign reflected his character. tom didn't decide to be an academic dean because he wanted prestige or was in love with the work. rather, he chose to be dean because he believed that the job would provide him with opportunities to interact with and empower other members of Christ's body.

i really want to be more like tom. i'd love to tell you that i spend my early morning hour praying for interruptions and throughout the day i long for people to stop by my cube, connect with me via cell phone or force me out of one of my little safe spaces by stopping by the house. unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

instead of praying for interruptions, i spend my time carving, staining and zealously protecting the asherah pole of my "space." i love my space and i know that it has a place in my life. however, i also fear that the way i idolize space is keeping me from experiencing the fullness of the Kingdom in my interaction with family, friends and foes.

so tonight i am praying for interruptions. may the Spirit give me the strength to strike down my asherah pole, so that i can dwell more fully in the sacred space that is God's Kingdom and interact more willingly and lovingly with those i encounter along the way.

i'd also like to thank tom for his irreplaceable friendship as well as his many years of service to soybean bible college and seminary.

on the now and not yet

there have been a few sequestered times when spiritual scales have fallen from my eyes, but most of the time my eyes are opened and my heart is fissured in the midst of the mundane. that's how it happened yesterday, anyway.

as kellie and i were walking through the local dirt mall, scurrying from target to marshalls, to pier one (i may or may not have been a little testy by that point) and back to marshalls (neither of us majored in logistics), i was overwhelmed by how distraught and profoundly unhappy so many of our fellow shoppers appeared. it wasn't the youth group goths - with their spikes, mascara and macabre hearts upon their sleeves - that cracked me. call me callous, but by this point i'm rather accustomed to their angst. rather, it was the forty-something, middle-aged, lower-middle class married couples that i found troubling. as these couples trudged through the mall, their posture pathetic, their eyes sodden and downcast, i couldn't help but question the cause of their misery. was the demolition derby that was taking place in the oak tree lot simply too much for them or were their issues rooted much deeper? were they locked in the solitary confinement of loneliness, where even the voice of a mother, lover or life-long friend provides no solace? were they taking stock of their lives only to find themselves relationally, intellectually and spiritually bankrupt? or were they simply believe that their is life abundant buried in the midst of routine?

i really don't know...much of anything, actually. but i do have some suspicions. here is one of them: we are mistaken to assume that strangers, acquaintances, enemies and allies are self-sufficient and satisfied with their lives. some of them may have indeed found a temporary key to contentment, meaning, beauty and all of those things that evaporate as quickly as august dew. however the overwhelming majority of our companions are desperate to: hear a rumor of hope, receive a tender touch, whisper in an ear that is not attached to a tongue and perhaps even find a seat at our secluded table.

the Kingdom has indeed come. living water is available for the parched, bread that does not rot is being distributed to beggars, the prostitutes of sunset strip are unexpectedly inheriting vineyards. the Kingdom has indeed come.

i hope to God the Kingdom finds fulfillment in our relationships with the strangers, acquaintances, enemies and allies that shop alongside of us, live on the streets we dare not frequent and sleep in our beds. more and more, that's the type of fulfillment God is teaching me to look and long for.