At the Margins

I’ve been at the Envision 08 conference the last couple of days.  I’ve had lots of great and challenging conversations which I’m still processing.  There’s a good overview of each session here.

While there I met some amazing college students.  We had some great conversations–needless to say, they all left with Irresistible Revolution in hand.  None of them knew what the emerging church was, so, at their request, I clumsily tried to define it.

 The neat thing was, though none of them knew the term “emerging,” our conversations revealed that the concepts spoke of most often in emerging circles were in no way foreign to them, in fact, they were givens in their conception and understanding of God.

Many people think of emerging as a movement to do something different and shift thinking in the church.  This tends to be less and less the point the younger the person is.

I didn’t have to introduce my new friends to the concepts of emerging.  I didn’t have to show them how to be emerging.  At core, they culturally are already emerging.

In John 13:34-35, Christ says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

It’s funny to me that most churches today decide if you are a disciple by a “conversion” moment, baptism, a profession of faith, or agreement with a belief statement.

Being a disciple of Christ has NOTHING to do with a mental assent and everything to do with having Him as the decisionmaker in each of our lives.  The gage Christ has given us is love not law.

Too bad gaging love requires relationship instead of a few words on a form.  God forbid we waste church resources on truly getting to know people instead of building better and bigger programs and expanding our rolls.  The way of the Kingdom is always ineffecient and ineffective in the eyes of the world.

I had a new friend ask me what I meant by an activity listed in my facebook profile: “Learning to be the Church while helping others do the same.” 

Here’s how I tried to concisely describe what I am trying to say:

During college I experienced a lot of growth in my faith–I was surrounded by people seeking to give their whole lives to Christ, who challenged one another, lived simply, sought to love one another unconditionally, prayed and worshipped together throughout the week, met up throughout the day, shared possessions, and so fourth. When I got out of college, I discovered that, though I did all the churchy things like going to worship, being in a small group, leading the missions team, working with the homeless, and even practicing hospitality, I became more and more like the world and less and less like Christ. I was an A+ citizen of a church, but I was becoming less and less of a follower of Christ while I became more and more “American.” I continued to discover more and more how selective and myopic churches are as to scripture and the gospel. Because I wanted to be a follower of Christ (even though the cost was much more than churches let on), I sought a community of people dedicated to doing life together (much like I’d experienced in college).

I think that the Church is very specifically defined as people and, while theologically and rhetorically pretty much everyone would agree, churches structurally tell people that church is an event, a building, a club, or an institution. (Check out what I wrote about “my church” a few months ago: http://www.atthemargins.com/2007/05/04/where-do-you-go-to-church/ ).

I want to be a part of the Church that sets people free from those things that afflict them, that is powerful, that is known by it’s unconditional love for others, that radically follows Christ, that is willing to die to itself, and that, as a result of all this, sees people transformed day after day.

My friends and I are slowly, but surely learning to be that Church.

Yesterday I preached for the first time at Fairlington.  Well, kind of–I shared my testimony with Holy Grounds a few months ago and yesterday was certainly not a traditional form of preaching.

I came as Herod and shared in first person my/his perspective on himself.  Then I did a quick costume change and shared as Simeon.

I’d planned to repeat both Herod and Simeon last night, but, because of a wonderful discussion, I ended up just sharing as Herod.

I was just remarking to Israel, that the morning felt like a performance, while the evening felt like a conversation.  Perhaps it was just because I had already done it once, perhaps it was because I know the folks from Holy Grounds better.  However, I think it’s because of a difference in atmosphere.  I knew in the evening that all I had to do was spark–spark thinking, spark conversation–and we would be able to grapple with things together.  In the morning, I felt I needed to impress (ugghhh) and to do a good job–I needed to perform well. I knew that people were only going to be able to take away what I brought and what the Holy Spirit said through me, that we wouldn’t be able to process as a community.

What pressure people who preach week after week must feel!

So many Christians are focused on the fact that Jesus died for us. One of my favorite things to tell people is that “He lives for us,” not to mention “in us” through the Holy Spirit.

Sure, He definitely died for us, but I’m not so sure that that was the sine quo non of His earthly mission. It seems to me the fact that He came to live as one us for 30 odd years is pretty important, not to mention the fact that He still lives now. Oh yeah, and there’s the whole ressurection thing.

I’ll be the first to proclaim that the cost of discipleship is death. Followers of Christ must both figuratively die to themselves for Christ and others and be willing to, in the model of Christ, literally die for Christ and others.

Fixation with Christ’s death however only fuels the oft-quoted, but seldom contextualized, Nietzschen axiom that “God is dead.”

The Church really needs a God that is not dead. A God who is speaking and active in His people. A God that is equipping His people to “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1). A God who continues to reveal Himself to us and show us the Way. A God who is actively involved in the continual transformation and liberation of His creation.

1 Peter 4:8
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

For a long time, I interpretted 1 Peter 4:8 as my love for others covers a multitude of their sins.  While this is certainly true, a few weeks ago I realized that my love for other covers a multitude of my own sins.

The interesting thing is that a relationship of unconditional love is the only environment where we actually have the freedom to expose our sins that we may be set free from them.

This week I was speaking with someone about the church she once knew dying.

It’s kind of like my first year of college. I was pretty homesick. I longed for home day after day.

Eventually it dawned on me that I wasn’t in fact just desiring a place–home, but actually a time. The reality was that I could go back home, but doing so would do little to truly affect my homesickness as all my friends from high school were no longer there. I realized I was longing more for a season than for a place.

Given going back was not a possibility, I knew I had to embrace the new season God had given me.

Likewise, many are homesick for a church that no longer exists. No matter how much we try to keep everything physically the same, the reality is we cannot return to the season we are longing for, even if we think it was better, it has passed away.

Of course, the best way to get over homesickness is, instead of constantly seeking to return to where you were, to embrace the new place you are. Seek to know it, understand it, and live in it and eventually it will become home.

It’s funny how quickly I revert back into the institutional function.  It’s something I’m going to have to be mindful of—a lot.  There was a little snafu in the middle of Sunday’s worship where I said I would pray and the woman who was sharing her story (she did such a great job!) thought I was asking her to pray and a look of dread came over her.  I cleared it up that I was planning to pray. 

At the end, she and I talked about how hard it is for her to pray out loud (something I’ve heard from many people before).  She added that I pray so well.  I told her that one of my friends has often challenged me, “do you talk to anyone in the manner that you pray out loud.”  The truth is I don’t.  I use stilted flourishes, not to mention a different voice.

For a little while in high school I sang in the church choir.  We would pray at the beginning of each rehearsal and I remember always looking forward to hearing Ms. C pray.  Unlike anyone I’d known to that point, she truly prayed to “Daddy.”  Her prayers were simple, intimate, and loving, but at the same time, there was no confusing the awe and revere she had for her Father.

When I pray religious prayers, I enforce the lie that God desires prayers that are formal and articulate rather than personal and sincere.  My actions tell people that they are unable to pray.  For shame!  When I pray formally it is certainly not for God, rather for show and the institution. I need to pray simply, intimately, lovingly, personally, and sincerely—he’s my Dad after all—so that others may know that they are able to talk with Him as well.

Keith, a friend who often joins us at Culpeper House for Wednesday dinners, shared a wonderful post by one of his previous pastors.  It’s a damning critique of the institutional church:

“Someone somewhere along the line got the idea of putting on a ‘play’ for people and calling it church.”

Take a moment to read “What I think of Church”

A few weeks ago I applied for a job with a local church (I know shocking).  More about that later.  At the suggestion of the guy who disciples me, I provided them a personal Philosophy of Ministry.  I thought it might be cool to share it.

In my interactions with people, I most often impart the love that Jesus has for his own people, stirring people up to love one another and to become connected in relationships with one another.  My calling is to the Church, helping people develop authentic, deep relationships of great love with God and with one another where they have freedom to seek after Him with reckless abandon, that is disciple-making.  I desire for people to come alive in their relationship with God—for Him to be the tangible and core reason for being and doing and the ultimate decision maker in their lives.  Often this requires people to leave the control, safety, success, and comfort they perceive themselves as having and simply trust what God has told/shown them to do.  This can only happen when people have a deep and abiding knowledge that they are children of God and that, as such, He loves them and desires for their best.  Having been loved and liberated by Christ, people gain freedom to reveal the sin and brokenness that afflicts them that they may be healed and set free to go and love more and more like Him—self-sacrificially.  As they love more and more like God, God uses them to make disciples and thus the Kingdom grows.

So practically, what does that look like?  For me it looks like (and I’m far from perfect at it):

• listening
• praying
• seeking to actively love all I come into contact/surrounding them with love
• sharing meals with people in groups and individually
• spending time with people one-on-one
• coming to relationships with the understanding that we both have things to teach one-another
• hearing people’s passions and connecting them with people of similar passions
• being available to people
• helping people discover/understand their spiritual gifts and helping them learn to use them
• helping people understand that they worship a God who speaks and learn to recognize and obey His voice
• helping people to allow faith to guide their actions/make God the decision-maker in their life (moving from belief in God’s existence to faith in God’s promises/identity)
• listening to the Holy Spirit and allowing Him to guide my conversations
• seeking to learn and grow each and every day
• seeking to chase after God with reckless abandon myself, making Him the decision-maker in my life
• being “discipled” myself
• living and functioning in community
• walking alongside people on their journey/getting on their sinking ships with them and helping them plug the hole instead of simply bailing out the water

Unfortunately, disciple-making is a messy, time-consuming, labor-intensive process that requires depth of relationship to be developed and, as such, is impossible to do in mass or quickly. The good news however is that, as people become disciples, the Holy Spirit will equip them and provide them opportunities to make disciples themselves… thus the Kingdom grows both exponentially and with power.