the reality of the situation

Today I came across a sermon which focused on Christ the King as it was Christ the King Sunday in the revised common lectionary this past week. I was never one to go gaga for the pericopal system but today I found it particularly apropos. You can read the full text of the sermon here but I want to focus in on one quote...


"On the cross we don’t see a legal transaction where Jesus pays our debt.  We see God. The Word made flesh hangs from the cross. And let there be no mistake – this is Christ the King."


What a reminder. So often when I think about the crucifixion I focus on the result of the act. Sins paid for. Wrath poured out. The typical ideas and realities that are the result of that moment. But that is jumping the gun. It's moving past the reality of the situation. Hanging on that cross wasn't just a sacrifice that brought forgiveness it was God. Christ the king on his throne.


As we move into Advent it's so easy to jump the gun. We like Jesus as a baby but in the back of our minds we know where the story is going and it is so easy to miss the reality of the moment. That's why this Sunday's pericope and that sermon were so apropos to me, they made me focus on the situation, not the result.

the event

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only a week away. I never seem to know where the time actually goes, but the days have ticked away and now we stand on the precipice of the holiday season. Families will come together, meals will be shared, and the inevitable trips to the mall in an effort to find that perfect gift will commence. And without fail, advertisements will saturate the airwaves, television screens, and the internet, all in an effort to help us pick out this year's hottest gift. 

Now, it is not my intent to rail against the materialism that accompanies this time of year but to point out an aspect of human behavior. Frankly, I like having things. Chances are, you like things too. For the longest time I wanted an iPhone, and when the iPhone 4 came out, I knew I had to have it. Not because I needed it, but because it was/is the pinnacle of cell phone perfection. (Some may disagree, but I happen to be a huge Apple devotee.) For whatever reason, this season really brings out the need we have to obtain the highest ideal. Thats why we line up at 2:30am the day after Thanksgiving, we want that must have perfect item, but not just the item, we want the ideal price on that item too. Its about the pinnacle of perfection. 

It would be deceptive of me to pretend that this was limited to buying gifts, this behavior plays out in various areas of life. Whether its sports, education, music, art, even drug use, all of these activities are manifestations of us attempting to obtain an ideal, whether that is a skill or a state of mind or an emotion.  Life's pursuits are often tied to an ideal. 

My own pursuit for an ideal has caused me to become bitter and jaded. I am often so full of cynicism its hard to tell what I acutally believe. The ideal I pursue is the perfect "church," or a perfect version of Christian thought and experience. I know I am not the only one wants to obtain this ideal. So many of us want to find the perfect church, want to have the perfect theology, want to be the perfect christians. This isn't just personal though, entire denominations have formed because of people earnestly striving for this ideal. 

Throughout this pursuit there are times when we encounter ideas we don't agree with and we retreat to the safety of the past, taking comfort in the thoughts and beliefs of those who have gone before us. There are also times when we encounter ideas that we reject the past completely and offer up our own interpretation, or if we don't reject the past, we attempt to go back further to somehow trump the argument. 

Recently I discovered a well known author/philosopher/theologian named Peter Rollins. A few days ago I posted on my blog a quote from him which deals directly with the pursuit of this ideal. He says, "The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church. The church before Constantine. The church before Platonic philosophy. The church before Paul. The church before... For these moves fail to bring us back far enough. 

Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance." 

Its not about a return to or the pursuit of an ideal, its about a return to an event. 


THE EVENT.


Christ on a cross.


Death and Resurrection.  

The more I think about my own pursuit, the more I think he is right. You cant experience an ideal. But in that event, you experience death and resurrection. You experience grace. Isn't that the point?

What do you think?

the task

"The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church. The church before Constantine. The church before Platonic philosophy. The church before Paul. The church before... For these moves fail to bring us back far enough. Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance." - Peter Rollins


Thoughts? More to come...

God is in the rain?

Last night my wife and I watched V for Vendetta. A superb film, one of my favorites, I was amazed at how much I still loved this movie not having seen it in a while. (Just in case someone hasn't seen it who might be reading this I wont give away the plot). There is one scene, that although is serious in the film, makes me burst out laughing. Its the scene when "Eve" is on the roof and it is raining. I know it is emotionally moving but for me, it brings back a different memory. 


A while back when I was still in college my friend and I were facilitating a college-age small group get together at Starbucks. There never were more than a handful but I really enjoyed those little meetings. One night it was a little rainy as we were about to finish up. During the prayer, my best friend blurted out, "And as we learned from V for Vendetta, you are in the rain." 


I will always laugh at this because it was one of those usual occurrences of my friend saying something stupid and at the time, we all poked fun at him for it. But last night, as I watched that scene and remembered that moment I thought to myself that maybe he wasn't all that far off. Not in his assertion that God somehow inhabits the rain, but in that he found a truth concerning the omnipresence of his creator in a source outside the biblical narrative.


Paul spoke to something similar to this in Romans when he said, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Now, I know that this passage is usually taken to mean the natural aspects God's creation, the physical earth and all its creatures, but I wonder if its more than that. If God left marks of jimself upon the ground he created, as Paul is claiming, why couldn't he leave marks of himself in other things like books, movies, or other technology? Is it possible for this verse to mean that God left marks of himself throughout the whole of his creation, even in what we create? Im not sure, but I'm curious. 

everyone matters

Yesterday I came across "An Open Letter to Young Christians on Their Way to College" written by Stanley Hauerwas. (You can find the full letter here.) While I have my agreements and disagreements with parts of his letter, one line really jumped out at me. 


"Don’t underestimate how much the Church needs your mind."


While it is obvious he was speaking to college students, I think these words need to be heard and remembered by all of us who are part of the Church, adults and youth. This is not just some flippant homage to the body of Christ. So often we forget how valuable each person is. We are all different. We have different experiences, thoughts, and habits. It is those differences which foster creativity and growth within our worshipping communities. The Christian faith is communal by nature. We cannot exist apart from one another nor should that be our aim. 


Another thing that we must remember is that no one person is more important than the other. Today being "Reformation Day" it is so easy to get caught up in the overly-romanticized version of events from 1517.  Martin Luther may have played a major role in the historical events surrounding the reformation era but he is no more important than those of us who inhabit worshipping communities today. Furthermore, we should not pretend that Luther, or anyone else, reformed the church independently from others. 


I really struggle with celebrating "Reformation Day" for several reasons, not the least of which is the overly-romaticized version of events. But I think in celebrating that day we are setting up other people to believe they will never matter as much as Luther did. That could not be more false. The world is constantly changing and although Luther was great for his time, he cannot address all things throughout all time. In the end it is up to us to, as a community, change our interactions with both our worshipping communities and the world. We cannot do that by ourselves. We all need to be part of the conversation. We need to remember that everyone has different thoughts and experiences and those things are important for us and our interactions with the world in which we live. Everyone matters.

money

As per usual, money seems to be playing a big issue in some decisions my wife and I have to make regarding our future. While this is true in our lives as individuals who live in a society where money matters, should this also be the case for worshipping communities? I understand that those communities are also under the same constraints as us as individuals when it comes to living in the world but are the methodologies employed by worshipping communities good for them? It seems that everyone these days is speaking up and asking why we need buildings and paid church workers and my voice is among them. My favorite blogger Dave Fitch posted regarding this topic and I think he gets it right. 


Here is his blog reposted from www.reclaimingthemission.com

When it Comes to the Ministry – Money changes everything

Money change things. And so when we pastors accept money from our churches to do ministry it changes everything. This is to say the obvious. Right? More specifically, when we pastors accept money from the church:

1.) We as pastors(s) now have to worry about the income flowing into the bank account every Sunday. We have to have a responsible eye for the budget.  Which means you have to worry about people with big pockets being “happy” with your church. There is a dynamic set in place that changes what we say, how we interpret ministry, how we challenge our selves and community towards mission. Often, this dynamic stalls mission in the local church.

2.) We as pastors now come under performance review. Money changes the relationship between the pastor(s) and the rest of the congregation. There is now the inescapable reality that the pastor is being paid to provide something, some basic goods and services for Christians or maybe some growth in the bottom line for the church. The relationship between the congregation and pastors takes on the character of performance reviews. As a result, pushing the church outward where time and effort does not produce such measurables  gets thwarted. As a result, mission is stalled, even thwarted in this mindset.

3.)We as pastors begin to look at people differently – as viable “giving units.” A business mindset starts to take over the church. This dynamic undercuts and stalls mission  for obvious reasons and must be fought at all costs.

I contend however that all of the above does not mean pastors should never be paid. I even suggest there are many times when it is appropriate for pastors to be paid full time. I also contend that there must be ministry accountability within the leadership of the church. I contend however than in all this, the dynamics outlined above should be fought with all our might if we would shape communities of Christ’s people into mission.

What do you think? What is the role of money? I know its an inescapable fact of reality but are there better ways of using our resources in a worshipping community so that others might benefit and we might not be constrained? Lets talk.

think different

Many of you will recognize what follows as being from Apple, Inc's marketing in the 1990's. It may have been used for marketing but I think these words could have great impact on the church's mindset. What if we thought about people this way?


Here's to the crazy ones. 
The misfits. The rebels. 
The troublemakers. 
The round pegs in the square holes. 
The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, gorify them or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they
can change the world, are the ones who do.

Think Different

What would the church look like? How would it affect our theology? What if we encouraged one another to think different?

image problem?

It may come as no shock to most of you that Christians have an image problem. I saw this video from CNN the other day about what one church is doing to change that.





To add some more fuel to the fire, I want to repost this quote from Moltmann:


"The church cannot understand itself simply from itself alone. It can only comprehend its mission and its meaning, its roles and its functions in relation to others."


So, what do you think? Does the church have an image problem? What can we do to fix it? Lets talk about it.

what do you think?

Over the last week I stumbled across a few different quotes. Two are from Jurgen Moltmann and the other is from Tony Campolo. I had hoped to be able to put them all into a post with some sort of golden thread to weave them together but I have had trouble verbalizing the thoughts in my head. I think what I need to process these is some outside help. Here you go...



"My fundamentalist friends have no trouble allowing women to be missionaries. It’s alright for you to preach to black men, you just can’t preach to white men. If that doesn’t have racist overtones, I don’t know what does." -Tony Campolo


"Hierarchy is a church for looking after people; it is not a self-confident church *of* God's people." -Moltmann


"The church cannot understand itself simply from itself alone. It can only comprehend its mission and its meaning, its roles and its functions in relation to others." -Moltmann


Suffice it to say I agree with them, but what do you think? 


More to come...

an open letter

This letter was written about a year ago by Shane Claiborne. I want to sign my name but I feel like there is more to living this out than just signing my name. I believe what he says is true, living it out is another matter. What do you think?


To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.


Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.
The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn's Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn't quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don't know Jesus.
Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, "God is not a monster." Maybe next time I will.


The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.


At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, "I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ." A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That's the ugly stuff. And that's why I begin by saying that I'm sorry.


Now for the good news.


I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice.)


The Bible that I read says that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it... it was because "God so loved the world." That is the God I know, and I long for others to know. I did not choose to devote my life to Jesus because I was scared to death of hell or because I wanted crowns in heaven... but because he is good. For those of you who are on a sincere spiritual journey, I hope that you do not reject Christ because of Christians. We have always been a messed-up bunch, and somehow God has survived the embarrassing things we do in His name. At the core of our "Gospel" is the message that Jesus came "not [for] the healthy... but the sick." And if you choose Jesus, may it not be simply because of a fear of hell or hope for mansions in heaven.
Don't get me wrong, I still believe in the afterlife, but too often all the church has done is promise the world that there is life after death and use it as a ticket to ignore the hells around us. I am convinced that the Christian Gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and that the message of that Gospel is not just about going up when we die but about bringing God's Kingdom down. It was Jesus who taught us to pray that God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven." On earth.


One of Jesus' most scandalous stories is the story of the Good Samaritan. As sentimental as we may have made it, the original story was about a man who gets beat up and left on the side of the road. A priest passes by. A Levite, the quintessential religious guy, also passes by on the other side (perhaps late for a meeting at church). And then comes the Samaritan... you can almost imagine a snicker in the Jewish crowd. Jews did not talk to Samaritans, or even walk through Samaria. But the Samaritan stops and takes care of the guy in the ditch and is lifted up as the hero of the story. I'm sure some of the listeners were ticked. According to the religious elite, Samaritans did not keep the right rules, and they did not have sound doctrine... but Jesus shows that true faith has to work itself out in a way that is Good News to the most bruised and broken person lying in the ditch.


It is so simple, but the pious forget this lesson constantly. God may indeed be evident in a priest, but God is just as likely to be at work through a Samaritan or a prostitute. In fact the Scripture is brimful of God using folks like a lying prostitute named Rahab, an adulterous king named David... at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Some say God spoke to Balaam through his ass and has been speaking through asses ever since. So if God should choose to use us, then we should be grateful but not think too highly of ourselves. And if upon meeting someone we think God could never use, we should think again.


After all, Jesus says to the religious elite who looked down on everybody else: "The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom ahead of you." And we wonder what got him killed?


I have a friend in the UK who talks about "dirty theology" — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man's eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)


In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay "out there" but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, "Nothing good could come." It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society's rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.
It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors... a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.


In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, "I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you." If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.



Your brother,
Shane

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2009/shane-claiborne-1209#ixzz12B2HgV2K

food for thought

I know the last couple of posts have been focused on this but I cannot stop the thoughts from swirling around in my head. It is hard to dispute the fact that our thoughts or theological stance on homosexuality affect how we choose to interact with the LGBTQ community. Perhaps before we are able to spread the hope that it gets better we have to rethink our position. Maybe if we stop and think if we really believe that we have a God that can and does change reality and our perceptions of it that we can begin to change the way we interact with our reality. The following videos are some food for thought.








So... What do you think?

it most certainly does get better

I know I recently put up a post concerning this but it has yet to fall from the spotlight. Yesterday, Yahoo.com released an article concerning the ever growing ‘It Gets Better” movement. (You can find this article here). Although this article helped spread the hope to those who need to know it gets better, it brought with it another message, get involved. I will concede that this article does not come out and say it overtly, but it is filled with examples of people getting involved which begs the question; what are you doing to spread the hope?

As the church we should be familiar with this question. Why is it then that we are so often the ones proclaiming the message that there is no hope to the LGBTQ community? The airwaves are full of messages from worshipping communities and individual Christians condemning homosexuality even though the recent suicides have brought to light the reality of the power of words and actions. In many ways the church is directly responsible for the suicides of so many in the LGBTQ community. In many ways the church has been the biggest bully of them all by dispersing hope not in the temporal but in the eternal. 

Now, I know that the entire church has not been responsible for the propagation of such a message. There are many Christians, Christian organizations, and worshipping communities who openly affirm and support the LGBTQ community and to them I personally want to say thank you. Your voice is needed in the church. Your actions are needed in the world. 

The extremes of the spectrum regarding homosexuality will always exist. People will always condemn and harass the LGBTQ community and people will always affirm and support them. But what this spectrum has forgotten is the realization that what we say and do actually affects people. The LGBTQ community are not second class citizens, they are not worthless, they are not inferior, they are God’s children and they need to be loved. I seem to remember Jesus Christ coming for all because all are sinners, gay and straight. No expression of human love is completely devoid of sin and we in the straight community need to realize that. What was at stake for Christ was not that we all sin. What I mean is, our sins weren’t what we do that caused Him to come down, it was who we are, all of us, the fact that we are sinners. It was the fact that we were and are broken. All of us. 

The question cannot be will you spread hope or take it way. The question needs to be exactly what that Yahoo.com article asked, what will you do to get involved. The world is broken and so are we. But we need to remember that we live in the reality of the resurrection. That Christ’s death and resurrection did more than punch our ticket for eternity. It is a reality that says we can be “all things to all people.” A reality that beckons us to be “wise as serpents and gentle as doves.” A reality that fills us with the love that brought us back to life. A reality that urges us to “always have an answer for the hope that is within us.” A reality that changes the way we think and interact with all people. A reality that reminds the world of the truth that it most certainly does get better. 

it gets better

It seems that recently a lot of stories have been surfacing regarding gay teens committing suicide. The video below is part of a project to spread the word to those hurting that, "it gets better." 





Recently, Ellen Degeneres also offered a plea for people to get involved and help stop the bullying which leads to these tragic events. (You can watch her video here.) I don't think this is the time for the church to stand up and start  talking about whatever the narrative may or may not say concerning homosexuality. Right now, people dont need to hear another voice, they need to be listened to, they need to be loved, they need to feel hope again and know that it gets better. 


"We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she’s known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we’re called home.“  - Jamie Tworkowski

rethinking our interaction...

Over the last week I have watched a handful of documentaries regarding churches and their interactions with society. Two of those documentaries, Hell House (2001) and Lord Save Us From Your Followers (2008), have fueled some thoughts I have been having about the way congregations choose to interact with society (HH is on instant Netflix and LSUFYF can be found here). Further fueling the fire have been a couple of recent blog posts by Dave Fitch, prof at Northern Seminary and all around theological and missiological guru (You find both posts here and here). I suggest if you have the time to watch both documentaries and read both posts. For now here is a quick rundown of each.

Hell House (Full synopsis from IMDB here). It may be because I grew up Lutheran in a suburb of Chicago that I never knew these things existed but regrettably they still do. This documentary depicts the formation of a hell house put on in Texas by an Assemblies of God congregation which apparently draws over 10,000 people a year. A “Hell House” is like a haunted house but it depicts ‘real’ scenes of suicide, date rape, abortions, family violence, driving under the influence, etc. using makeup and props. This is done in an attempt to scare people away from hell, which is apparently where those who commit the sins depicted in those scenes will end up. Of course each tour through the hell house ends with a chance to ‘make a decision for Christ.’ 

Lord Save Us From Your Followers (Full synopsis from IMDB here). This documentary is at times playful but it takes a good look at how some Christians choose to speak to the world in which they live. The director was raised Evangelical, and he wears a suit of bumper-sticker theology, going to major cities and asking the marginalized what they think about Christianity. He also interviews people on both sides of the spectrum to get a pretty fair/balanced view. The film really emphasizes how people are not often willing to have a dialog but would rather yell and argue against a position contrary to their own. It does a good job of showing how Christians are generally perceived, i.e., judgmental and bigoted. 

Fitch Post #1: The Greg Laurie Crusade and 2 Other Signs Christendom Ain’t Done Yet

In this post Fitch discusses three recent attempts by Christians to interact with society. The first was a ‘Crusade’ held by Greg Laurie in Chicago which mirrors the old Billy Graham crusades. The Second was the use of the Alpha Program which invites people to come ask questions about faith which is geared less toward secular folks than it appears. The third is an experience with One-on-One Tract Evangelism he had in a local park. Fitch raises the concern with each instance that these programs might just be the “church talking to herself.”

Fitch Post #2: The Video Venue Farce: Why Video Venue is the Antithesis of Missional

This post revolves around multi-site churches which use recorded videos for preaching rather than an actual person. Fitch expresses his views raising three concerns, 1) Video Venues decontextualize preaching, 2) Video venues draw crowds to a celebrity and this attraction works against (as opposed to helps) the formation of church in mission, 3)Mission requires more than words. Video venues intensify the dependence upon words. His discussion is framed within the context of a video he reposted which features a discussion regarding primarily the positives but also the negatives of video based multi-site churches held by Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill in Seattle), James McDonald (Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago Suburbs), and Mark Dever (Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC). 

First, I want to make a distinction that I will flesh out in another post soon; when I say church I mean Christians and vice versa. If I am refering to a a specific ‘church’ i will use the word congregation. I want to make this distinction because I am increasingly leery about using the word church to refer to a specific group of people located at a specific place, e.g. St. John’s Lutheran Church, because I firmly believe that the church does not exist outside of our flesh. So from now on  church = christian and congregation = name/location of a worshiping community. 

Needless to say my mind has been circling around the theme of how we interact with society. The above are only four examples of a much larger issue that has been documented numerous times and has undoubtedly been experienced by many if not all of you reading this. These examples force us to ask again the question that Dave Fitch asked in that first blog post, are we ending up just talking to ourselves? Does what we do actually impact and transform our communities or does it only serve to stroke our own egos? Is the answer somewhere in the middle?

Society has spoken concerning us whether we like it or not. For decades, the vocal majority of the church has been concerned more about being right than it has been about being compassionate. This has caused more harm than the good that was intended in that through our desire to ‘preach the truth’ we have alienated those to whom we have been called to serve. I know that this is not a new idea or realization but I thought it best to reiterate it. 

We have lost the idea that communication is not what is given but what is received. Even if we have preached the ‘truth’ that doesnt mean we have communicated anything about God’s or our love for our neighbor. The message is important, but equally important is the means because, the means is the message.  A hallowed professor of mine once said, they will never care about what you know until they know that you care. But dont just take his word for it, let us also look at only two instances from our own biblical narrative, consider James 2:15-16 and 1 John 3:18. 

James 2:15-16 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Even divorced from their context I could make a case for my point but to do so would be to ignore their context which is essential. The passage in James piggybacks a discussion concerning showing favoritism which is capped off with the phrase, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” It is then followed with a discussion concerning faith and works and the necessity of both. In this context this verse speaks even more volumes than if was simply plucked as a proof texted passage. It is not enough to have words, to speak, but we must work toward meeting physical needs even if it is at the expense of our voice. The 1 John passage emphasizes this point. This passage is within the context of the redemptive work of Christ. It is the capstone to a discussion regarding how Christ loved us and how we are to love our neighbor and it is followed in John 4 by a discussion about what love looks like. This is the point, to love with actions not with words. 

We need to come up with new ways of interacting with society. The great thing is that this is totally dependent upon context. There is no one specific way this can be achieved by congregations because the cultural context of each congregation is different. The church can no longer be hemmed in, afraid of society, because the only way we can interact with society in meaningful and impactful ways which will communicate not only our message but more importantly the love of God for all people is by being integral parts of society. By being part of the community in which we live. We have been empowered by the Spirit, we need to live like it. 

I feel that the answer to the original question is that most of what we are doing is stroking our own egos. To borrow from Fitch, its the church speaking to herself. It doesn’t have to be. We have the ability to change not only how society perceives us but how we communicate God’s love to people. To do so we must be willing to change. I want to close with a quote, “This is not a time to protect what we have and long for the good times to come back. It is a time to review what we’re doing and how we’re doing it—our heart for all our activity, our love for God and people—and find better ways to be Christ’s people in this world.” Alistair Brown - President Northern Seminary.