Category: Church

The God Who Sees: International Women’s Day Synchroblog

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Shortly after I took a position as Children’s Ministry Director at a small Baptist church, I sat down with the kids under my care and asked them what questions they would like to ask God. One girl, one of the oldest in the class who had grown up in churches and private Christian schools, told me that she would ask God why he hates girls. I asked her why she thought that and she replied that since there were no women in the Bible and since Jesus only choose male disciples, God must hate girls. To a fifth grader at least that’s the way things appeared.

I was shocked to hear her assumption. Here was a girl immersed in the church who had never been exposed to the stories of the women of the Bible. She had never been told of the mothers of the faith or the women leaders in the early church. The stories of women faithfully choosing to serve and follow God no matter the consequences were not part of her heritage. She didn’t see herself reflected in the Bible, and so her only assumption was that God had rejected her entire gender. My heart broke for her (and as children’s director, I did my best to tell the stories of biblical women).

Unfortunately though, ignoring the women of the Bible is far too common in many churches. When their stories aren’t told regularly, the church forgets about them and starts to assume that our faith has roots solely in the deeds of men. While of course those men’s stories are to be valued and explored, the Bible is rich with examples of women of faith as well. Though the church fails to heed their stories, God remembers who they were and how they served him. He is in truth the God who sees.

The name “the God who sees” (El Roi) was a name given to God by Hagar. An Egyptian slave, cast out by Sarah and Abraham into the desert, she epitomized rejection. But God noticed her plight and came to her aid. In thanksgiving she reaches into her pagan background and ascribes a name to this God who saw her struggles. God accepts this name just as he accepted the rejected and dejected Hagar. Her story is woven into our story of faith

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Listening to Pete Rollins

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I spent Saturday at the Journey Warehouse getting to hear from Pete Rollins. In all, it was a fantastic day. Besides getting an entire day to hang out with adults (without the kids) and getting to listen to Pete, I got to hang out with really cool people. It was great to see Laci Scott again and to finally meet Glenn Barbier, and Adam and Brooke Moore. Good times.

But of course the point of the day was to listen and learn from Pete. Which was of course amazing. It was refreshing to be around someone so unapologetically intellectual. At one point I asked him how those who aren’t intellectual or cultural creatives find a voice in his community Ikon and he simply replied that he just makes them that way. That he believes that all people are capable of creativity and thinking, all they need is encouragement. For once it was just stinking nice to not hear excuses or apologies for thinking deeply. And there was a lot of deep thoughts being thrown around yesterday. I’m not going to bother trying to summarize his talk – just highlight a couple of things.

I loved his portrayal of the church as a fetish. He describes our approach to church as like a child to a security blanket – something that protects us from dealing with life as it really is. We use church to escape from reality instead of engaging that reality. So we sing with certainity about justice but don’t actually do it. The church is actually what stands in the way of our transforming the world. Pete insists instead that church needs to become the place where there is no certainty – where we are free to doubt and question and seek. But that as we enter the world we are to live with certainty – to live as if God exists (no matter what we believe) and to live by his call to justice. It is our everyday lives that should be lived radically for transformation. We need to get over church as an impotent force that inhibits life, but make it alive by making it unstable and unsure.

I also was intrigued by his challenging of fellow Belfast native C.S. Lewis (and Chesterton) on the subject of longing for God. As Chesterton suggested that every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God, but Pete asked “what if he is really just looking for sex?” He explored how we often use God as an excuse for our longings. We desire comfort or meaning in life and so find that in church but give it the name God (relating back to the fetish thing). This actually dismisses God and belittles him. The point isn’t that we all have a “God-shaped hole” that causes us to long for God, but that when we long for God he shows up in the form of the God-shaped hole. The idea isn’t “seek and THEN you shall find” but that the seeking is the finding. The need for God is created by the desire for God. The illustration Pete used was that of parents who say their life was incomplete before they had kids. But technically before that point their life wasn’t really incomplete. We can’t go around saying that single people are incomplete because they don’t have kids. But the statement is true in that once the couple had a child, the incompleteness appeared retroactively. Once they have the child, and only then, they can truly say that their life was incomplete before. Once we seek for God we start seeking him. I liked this take on things because it helps get around many of the imperialistic overtones to evangelical discourse. Instead of telling people that we understand their desires better than they themselves, we can start to understand them as they are. It moves us from a position of superiority to that of friend. But at the same time I find it so hard to question ideas that are so ingrained in evangelical thought (especially for a post-wheatie) that they are assumed to be biblical.

Okay I should probably stop rambling and butchering these ideas and just tell you to go hear Pete or read his books. What he’s saying is brilliant – it challenges assumptions but also pushes us out to live rightly. This is intellectualism – but real life intellectualism. Thinking deeply about real life and how we live – this is the stuff we all need, even when it shakes us up.

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Liturgy

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Recently a conversation has developed in a post from last fall, Vespers at the Orthodox Church, on the purpose of liturgy and worship. I know very little about liturgy and barely understand what I do know. So I want to ask some questions and relate a bit of my experience. These questions aren’t meant to condemn, just to relate my confusion. I would love to hear from those who do participate in and love liturgy. Here’s part of the recent conversation –

“I understand in theory how liturgy is meant to feed and fill worshipers”

But that’s just it — liturgy isn’t meant to do that. Expecting to be fed and filled is part of the consumerist mentality.

Liturgy is “the work of the people”. It’s not directed towards the people; it is done by the people, and directed towards God.

And that is the chief difference between liturgical worship and other kinds. Non-liturgical worship may directed towards the people, to instruct them, to edify them, or to entertain them. But liturgical worship is done by the people, and directed towards God. So it’s definitely not “seeker sensitive”.

Now I’ve confessed here before that I am a very low church mutt. I grew up not only thinking denominations were bad, but that Catholics and Orthodox weren’t really Christians. I didn’t even start attending “big church” until I was in 6th grade and instead spent the worship hour hearing stories told by puppets and singing songs with motions. My first liturgical experience was at a Vespers service at Westminster Abbey when I was 12. And, I kid you not, I spent the whole time thinking I was participating in idolatry because of all the kneeling.

At the same time I seriously can’t stand singing songs in church for worship. I liked it back in youth group days when that involved upbeat rhythms that prompted a somewhat uninhibited letting go of the self. But honestly there is much more a sense of that in pagany drum circles than in any church. And while in theory singing songs is a way to worship, thank, or praise God – I generally hear people mention how singing connects them with God. It is a personal relationship issue, using things they like to help them feel close to God.

So it is with this low church “worship as personal experience” lens that I look at liturgy. I know it’s technically the “work of the people” and like low-church worship theoretically directed to God, but I have a hard time really understanding that. In one sense I’m uncomfortable with the system having never participated long enough to become accustomed. Recitation, repetition, kneeling, standing, crossing oneself, putting to the same flat music any number of different hymns or verses – none of it seems done by me. Instead I feel directed to perform and scorned for not knowing the right steps.  How exactly is it “my work”?  Is it a ritual meant to be done by me but in spite of me?

But beyond my unfamiliarity, my underlying questions are what is the purpose of this work and why do those who abide by various forms of liturgy insist that theirs is the best (or only) way of doing church? I don’t understand how some 17th or 18th century program represents the highest calling of the people. How exactly does chanting verses fulfill our call to serve others? If it’s not meant to “feed” those doing it, how can it be for the benefit of others? Similarly I’ve had Catholics, Orthodox, and Presbyterians quite forcefully tell me how their formulation of the liturgy is the only real way to worship. To an outsider if often seems like they are insisting that the correct incantation and sequence of pew calisthenics is the magical formula that (abracadabra) creates worship. Or that God is too small to be found outside of whatever century’s chosen formulation they happen to settle upon.

So all that to say I’m confused about liturgy. I’m not one of those who want to push some crappy low church model instead, to me insisting on the rightness of any form seems culturally imperialistic and a far cry from worship. So I’m honestly asking those that participate in liturgy why. Why do you do it? How is it the work of the people? What is it’s purpose? Is it the only or best way?

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Welcoming the Young Adult

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Having just recently entered my 30’s, I’ve experienced church mostly as a young adult.  From that limited experience though I’ve discovered that in church, as in life, young adults wish to be treated as what they are – real people.  Too often young adults are seen as separate – a demographic to be dealt with instead of embraced.  Because of their youth, clothing and musical tastes, and limited giving resources, the church often views them as a necessary but bothersome commodity.  Young adults are vital for church survival, so churches fund programs to attract and entertain them while simultaneously hoping to mold them into members that look and act just like everyone else.  But treating people as acquisitions and not as real people usually doesn’t work well in the long term.

 

The church is a gathering of believers and young adults want to truly be part of that community.  They want to be respected for who they are, not for what they represent or who they might become.  If the church believes that it is one body with many parts (all of which are necessary), then it needs to embrace young adults as young adults.  In my experience, this can involve inviting all ages to speak up in discussions – not in perfunctory condescending ways, but in ways that honestly seek their perspectives.  Churches can also include young adults on boards and committees, allowing their voice help guide the church.  Young adults can serve, not just as physical laborers, but as musicians, readers, and teachers.  Integrating young adults into church life is a far more effective sign of welcome than simply tacking on services with guitars and drums here and there.

 

Yet as young adults become part of the church they should be allowed to be young adults.  I served at a church once that opened its choir to high schoolers, but then immediately imposed a new choir dress code obviously meant to keep the students from dressing as themselves.  Other churches invite young adults in but then balk at the styles of music they like or condemn them for the hard theological questions they ask.  While mentoring young adults into the faith is vital, it shouldn’t suppress their very nature.   Instead churches where the old and young believe they can learn from each other represent a better model of a fully functioning body of Christ where all parts are appreciated.

 

I’ve participated in small traditional churches, large mega-churches, and missional house-churches.  I have grown the most though in the settings where I was more than just part of the audience, but was also invited to be a contributing and connected member of the church family.  In those settings, my age and culture, although not ignored, mattered less than the fact that I was part of an integrated whole.  I’ve heard the same from other young adults – it’s the community that attracts us to gatherings of the church.  Programs are useful, but nowhere near as meaningful as respect and love.

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Church and Mission

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Once again a commentary on the missional musings at the Out of Ur blog…
I have to say that I found Skye Jethani’s recent post on mission and recession to be an insightful look at the dangers economic hard times pose for the models of “church as we know it.” He points out that typical models of church involvement depend on people having leisure time to devote to the church. But as the economy tanks, that affluent leisure time evaporates. Skye writes, “people who could previously spend multiple hours each week in church programming are now holding down part-time jobs, job hunting, spending more time at home cooking rather than eating out, or taking classes to train for new careers.” He questions this mission based on leisure time not only for its current downfall, but because it “devalues members without expendable hours…mothers with the 24/7 job of caring for young children, single-parent households, laborers working multiple jobs to stay afloat, or those in the “sandwich generation” using their leisure hours to care for aging parents. Do we write these members off because they do not have leisure time to dedicate to the church’s programs and ministry teams? Do they get a pass on the Great Commission?”

Skye suggests that we need to shift how we think about mission and the institution of the church in light of these issues. While I like his ideas about helping people see that their everyday lives (jobs, commitments, errands) are actually mission and that the church is about people living out incarnation and not institutionalized programs, I am not fully on board with all of his suggestions. He proposes equipping the believer to be in communion with Christ in her everyday life and then come to church to celebrate not to do mission. He believes this would eliminate the focus on church programs, buildings, and staff and turn the focus to ordinary lives.

Unfortunately this alternative focus of church still requires much of the same programs and structures to survive as before, just with fewer people. To hold a celebration service that “feeds” the masses one still needs buildings, staff, and programming for the celebration. It’s church as we know it just without commitments. In addition, rubberstamping what people are already doing leaves out some rather important aspects of what it means to be the church and do mission. Letting one’s co-workers know that Jesus loves them is all good, but what about caring for the poor and being in community with other believers? I’m all for slashing programs – committees, choir, and multiple Beth Moore bible studies can, yes, just be a waste of time. And I’m all for affirming that being a 24/7 mom who can’t leave the house to do anything because she doesn’t have childcare is a way of serving Christ.

But to take a foundering institution and try to keep it afloat by redefining a few things doesn’t go far enough in my opinion. The mission of the church doesn’t just need to be switched from programs to everyday living (although that is a good step), it needs to become the driving force of church. Telling members to do mission in their day to day lives isn’t a “get out of jail free” card for a church. Abandoning programming but retaining the structure of a come and see celebration service moves us farther away from mission and truly being the church. If church was not about the event in a building, but really about who we are as followers of Christ then there wouldn’t have to be this huge distinction between real life and church. Church isn’t a place you volunteer at or go to to be fed, it is simple the life you lead and the community you indwell. The church does life together – eats together, raises kids together, serves together… We shouldn’t be individuals serving God that come together to be encouraged in that endeavour once a week, but a group of people on the same journey, sharing its joys and sorrows.

So while I like the intent of Skye’s article, I think a more radical redefining of church and mission than what he is proposing is needed. Not just to save the structure of the church in hard times, but to help us reorient ourselves in relation to each other. We are the church, we all do mission – as individuals and as a group. As a 24/7 mom I don’t just want to be told that I’m doing mission already even if I can’t make it to some church meeting. I want to be with the church while I am being a mom – relating to others, serving with others, and being one with them. This isn’t about me being fed and then living my life (even if its for God), its about being in committed messy communion with believers as the church.

at least that’s the way I’d like it to be…

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Missional Effectiveness

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Foolishly entering the fray…

So the whole missional vs. attractional church debate has risen to the bloggy surface yet once again sparked by Dan Kimball’s recent post on the Out of Ur blog. In the piece he questions the fruit of so-called missional churches because a few that he knows of anecdotally haven’t grown while attractional churches are making converts in droves. Since they aren’t making converts, they therefore are ineffectual. Being missional means squat apparently unless you are growing in numbers and the sins of attractional models are incidentally absolved since they are making converts. Others have questioned the reality of such conversions, and I especially liked Dave Fitch’s response on that account. But to the specific accusation that missional churches are ineffectual, I have to ask – at what?

According to Dan, effective churches are those which make (and continue to make) a lot of converts. I’m all for conversions, but what exactly are they being converted to? Is a conversion that professes the name of Christ, but is consumeristic and “me-centered” really the sort of conversions we want? It may be easy to attract people to that sort of faith, but to pull out the old phrase – what you call people with is what you call them to. What’s the point of “converting” people to American consumer culture with a Jesus veneer? Even if you desire that they will eventually change, why the bait n’ switch? But to write off the people who are attempting to give up all that in favor of self-sacrificial living because not enough people want to jump on that bandwagon simply astounds me. When did Christianity become a popularity contest? I know I’m being extreme and harsh with those questions, and in many ways I am a both/and sort of person in regards to this issue, but I was just really shocked to hear the missional church dismissed in such a way.

And of course I’m saying all this as a “failed” missional church planter. Failed in terms of numbers and money. We couldn’t attract enough people willing to give enough money to pay our salary and so the church failed. Yes, that’s crass, but that’s what happened. And it also totally misses the entire point of what the church actually was. We were a bunch of messy people working our butts off serving each other. We had people attending who really weren’t welcome in other churches because they were “too much work” or because they “asked the wrong questions” or because they just weren’t cool enough for the attractional churches. Our church became family to each other – opening our homes (literally) and seriously caring for each other and for our community. Throwing parties for the “poor” and the mentally disabled, working to improve the local environment, helping the struggling get back on their feet. No – not one person I know of “converted” because of the church, but a lot of people made decisions to follow Christ because of it. Decisions to not walk away from the faith, decisions to return to the faith, decisions to not just go through the churchy motions any longer, decisions to devote their lives to service. That failed missional church made some serious impact for the Kingdom.

So Dan, I just want to throw my anecdotal evidence right back atcha. Missional churches are effective. It all just depends on how you define effective.

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Vespers at the Orthodox Church

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This past weekend we headed to downtown Austin for the oldest festival in Austin – the 76th annual Mediterranean Festival at St. Elias Orthodox Church. The church, officially an Antiochian Orthodox church, has since become a pan-orthodox community – proximity of geography achieving what centuries of dogma never could – an ecumenicalish orthodoxy. So here the Coptics, Syrians, Greeks, Russians (to name a few) worship together (in English nonetheless) and share their cultural heritages. The Mediterranean Festival is a chance for that heritage to be shared with the larger community. Taking the term “Mediterranean” lightly the offerings included Greek, Turkish, Eritrean, and Romanian foods and folk and belly dancing lessons. As great as these elements were, what intrigued me the most was the evening vespers service I attended at the church itself.

While the bands got going and the alcohol began to flow (clear sign that this was an Orthodox not Evangelical fest), Saturday evening vespers commenced as scheduled at Saint Elias. It was immediately apparent that most of us attending the service weren’t regular attenders. There were of course the gawkers who wandered in throughout the service, stood listening for a couple of minutes, got tired and sat down, and then got bored and wandered out. Then there were those of us who stuck it out with the whole stranger in a foreign land demeanor. We stealthily (or not so much) watched the few regulars for when to bow or cross ourselves or pray aloud. I gave up on that after awhile and just listened.

Although almost entirely in English, I understood little of the service. I am unused to sung prayers or liturgy of any sort for that matter. I’m not part of that whole ancient/future stream of emergent; it’s just not in my realm of experience. So, I had no clue what the role of the parade of priests (or whatever title they hold) was as they each performed different aspects of the service. I recognized a few familiar verses and prayers and I caught phrases referencing the salvation of the pious orthodox and some stuff about heretics, but mostly I heard repeated over and over again the phrase “Lord, have Mercy.” It was devout, but from my vantage point, utterly confusing.

So I was torn in my response to the service. I felt out of place. I wasn’t unwelcome, but it was obvious that no concessions were made to help make the service accessible to outsiders (who this night at least were in the majority). My low-church, seeker-sensitive/evangelical roots balk at such a system although I intellectually know that such a reaction is unfair and unloving. This was about a prayer service, not about what I expect from church. So I attempted then to simply acknowledge the beauty of the service and of the faith reflected in it. It was beautiful and the repeated prayers for mercy were moving (although the icons done in sentimental 1930’s styles were more cheezy than transcendent). But then as I sought to see the beauty, I wondered if I was merely being condescending. Was I acting too much like the outside observer patronizing a cultural event not so much as to enter into it and become part of it, but to stand apart and look down upon it.? Philosophical discussions about the possibility of either and all that gets lost in translation aside, I left the vespers feeling more like an outsider than when I entered in. I didn’t want to be an anthropologist, but I discovered I wasn’t a participant either. I was assuredly out of place.

Perhaps that is a good thing, perhaps not. Whatever the case, it has had me thinking and asking questions about such experiences and what they mean for my faith and for the church…

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Loving Our Neighbor and Ourselves

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Listening to the message at church this morning was a reminder of the tension the presentation of our beliefs often puts us in. Sometimes in affirming one thing it can appear that one is negating or ignoring other equally important and necessary beliefs. I know I do it all the time – create an either/or scenario when something is really both/and.

So at church Rick led a discussion about serving others. You know the whole first shall be last we are called to humble ourselves and serve thing. I obviously affirm all that, but a comment from someone bothered me a bit. She talked about how in devoting ourselves to others – giving up of ourselves – we are then filled as our cups overflow. The point wasn’t an economic exchange (we give in order to get), but more of an example of how God sustains those that serve. It’s the whole “it’s not about me” message.

I’m all for the whole love your neighbor/serve others thing, but I can’t affirm that such things are necessarily all you need to “fill one’s cup.” I’m a mom with young kids. I serve my kids 24/7, but as much as I love them and would do anything for them I can’t say that doing so is what fills me up. Absolutely and utterly drained is the more common feeling these days. I guess some could say I just have the wrong sort of attitude or am too selfish, but I think there is more that is needed. I can’t do this all the time – I need rest, I need a Sabbath. I need to be the person God created me to be. I need to love myself as well as love my neighbor. It sounds selfish (and it very well can be), but I think it is part of this both/and message that needs to be told. A good number of us do need to be told to get over ourselves and to serve – others though need to be told to care for themselves and rest. Both are needed – neither should be ignored or exalted.

It reminded me of recent conversations I’ve had with Mike on feminist theologians’ conceptions of sin. In traditional  conceptions the greatest sin is that of pride. To seek power and prestige is condemned and humility and service encouraged. Yet in feminist and other theologies of the oppressed, the greatest sin becomes allowing oneself to be walked over. One does not love oneself enough to lead. I see the truth there. And how these sins are presented depends both on the audience and the presenter. So it is dissonant for those who have never held or sought power to be told to relinquish it and serve. They are made to feel guilty for sins they have never committed, all the while failing to fulfill their calling in other ways.

The last shall be first and the first shall be last. We must love our neighbors and ourselves. We must be humble servants and leaders. We must serve actively and seek to rest. The tension is there always and it’s hard to present paradox without tipping the balance to one side or the other.

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God Uses Disciples

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I’ve been reading through Brian McLaren’s newest book, Finding Our Way Again, an exploration of spiritual practices. I am enjoying his down to earth everyday perspective on the spiritual practices and have appreciated how he has integrated other issues he has written about into his thoughts on these topics. Our spiritual lives must be integrated, so of course one cannot have a theology of the kingdom or engage in changing everything without those things affecting our spiritual formation. It is all part of what it means holistically to be a Christian and must be a lifelong process as well. On that dimension, I was struck by the following passage (sorry for the lengthy quote, I just thought it was good) –

When any sector of the church stops learning, God simply overflows the structures that are in the way and works outside them with those willing to learn. As the old hymn says, God’s truth keeps marching on. God can’t be contained by the structures that claim to serve him but often try to manage and control him.

But then, as soon as the center of gravity shifts and those within the structures are ready to learn again, the Holy Spirit is there, ready to move to the next lesson in the ongoing educational process called history. Again and again through history, although we want to create “right people” and “wrong people” columns into which groups are sorted, God flips the script and sees two rows that cut across both columns: the “proud and unteachable people” row on top and the “humble and teachable people” row on the bottom. Grace flows downward, Scripture tells us, in both columns.

I find this delightful, because it tells the traditionalists that their tradition doesn’t protect them from losing their way, and it tells the revolutionaries that their zeal and courage don’t provide guarantees either. It calls everyone to humility and teachability, and invites everyone to climb up to a higher altitude and look for the larger pattern of God for which God constantly works – the common good.

And this, of course, is essential to finding our way. Practices are not for know-it-alls. Practices are for those who feel the need for change, growth, development, learning. Practices are for disciples. We could say that rituals are practices of learners, and ritualism is the continuation of the practice by people who have stopped learning. Similarly, we could say that traditions are the heritage of a community of learners, and traditionalism is the continuation of the heritage by people who have stopped learning.

The life-and-death question for each of our churches and denominations may boil down to this: are we a club for the elite who pretend to have arrived or a school for disciples who are still on the way? p. 137

I like how this perspective gives all the power and glory to God. When good things are happening, it is all God overflowing who he is into the world. We can draw lines, point fingers, and call names at the divisive or the new, but when God is moving does it really matter?

This ability to be lifelong learners and grow in our practice of faith seems like such a basic necessity for believers, but I have run into so many who think otherwise. I’ve had people tell me that they refuse to read certain books because it may force them to consider new things about God. Others who claim that they are too simple or too old to alter their faith habits. Still others who are assured that they know everything there is to know about the faith so they have no need to engage in learning or spiritual practices. I have always been uncomfortable with such attitudes, but have to admit that in their own way these people still love God even if they are not actively seeking him out. So I like the image of God overflowing (as opposed to abandoning) these stagnant vessels to still move in this world. I’d like to think that I am a disciple – continuing to grow and be used by God – at least that is what I seek. But if anything it is a good lesson in humility to know that God can overflow whatever boxes I create for him and move powerfully in the world.

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Via Christus Retreat

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This past weekend we had our annual (and final) Via Christus Retreat. It was a strange time in that the church is wrapping up soon and a number of the small group we have left will be moving all over the country within the next month or so. So naturally we spent a lot of time reflecting on such things this weekend. Our theme was “Walking by Faith” and we focused on looking back at our spiritual journey and looking forward in hope to where God is taking us next. Many of us are facing significant life changes very soon, so time for prayer and spiritual reflection on those changes helped us process.

We also had a great time together. I of course enjoyed just hanging out on the couch for most of the time. But we played board games, ate lots of yummy food, and just had a good time together. I’m still trying to recover from an emotionally intense and rather sleepless weekend though (pregnancy + camp beds = no sleep).

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