Goose, Goose

The following is a paraphrase of a parable originally written by Sorenn Kierkegaard, the famous Danish Christian philosopher. It can be found in Steve Chalke’s book Intelligent Church.
“Sorenn grew up in the countryside surrounded by farms that reared geese (among other animals). Each spring he would watch as a new gaggle of goslings was hatched and began to be fattened for the table. Over the course of their short lives these geese would gorge themselves at constantly refilled troughs of grain until they were so fat they could hardly walk. He imagined that they believed their lives to be perfect, as every need they had was catered in abundance.
When autumn came, the truth became apparent. The wild geese that had spent the warm summer months in Denmark would gather in preparation for their southerly migration. As they assembled to fly south they would circle in the skies above the farms, calling out to any stragglers to join in their flight. At this point the farmed geese would lift their heads from the feeding troughs and look into the skies, heeding the call of their wild cousins. For the first time in their lives they would become animated, running as best they could around their enclosures and attempting to fly. Of course, their gluttonous diet and life of luxury meant that they were far too fat to get airborne – but still they would try. And then, as quickly as the commotion had started, the wild geese would fly off and the fattened farm geese would watch them briefly before returning to their grain to continue eating their way to their deaths.”

So then, herein lies the challenge for us and our churches in the 21st century. Are we wild geese or farm geese?

Does God trust you enough to let you fail?

“What son is not disciplined by his father?” ~ Writer of Hebrews

Does God trust you enough to let you fail?

I have been taught from the time I was little that I needed to trust God.  But does God trust me enough to let me fail?  I have five children (1 son and 4 daughters) and on most days the workload is plenty big enough to keep my wife and I out of trouble.  Our goal as we teach our children is for them to learn from their mistakes when they are young so they will grow up to be productive and mature adults.  If I always coddle my kids and never let them experience the pain of failure, how will they ever learn the joy of hard work and success?

As God’s children, most of us are taught by our churches growing up to be spoiled rotten.  I’m sure that God wants all of His children to grow up to be productive and mature people of faith.  So then why would we expect God to give us everything we want and never learn the pain of failure?

My youngest daughter is just getting the hang of walking.  I watch her fall down over and over again.  But this is essential training so that she can learn balance.  If she doesn’t learn to walk, how will she ever run?  Does it hurt me as her father to see her fall?  Of course, but what kind of father would I be if I always carried her everywhere and never let her learn on her own?

Likewise, how will we ever grow up in our faith if we are coddled by our Heavenly Father and never encouraged to walk on our own?  How will we ever learn to be responsible and mature if we always expect God to remove the consequences of our own actions?  God wants us to grow up in our faith.  He wants us to be spiritually healthy and well balanced.  So then, does God trust me enough to let me fail?

Food for thought.

“Let’s go to a place where we can be alone and get some rest.” ~ Jesus

What a great invitation… for those who have the time.  Lets be honest, I have 5 kids.  I own a house in the suburbs and work 2 jobs to keep it so my wife can stay home with the kids.  The lawn needs to be mowed.  The leaves are falling and need to be cleared.  The gutters are filled with leaves and need to be cleared out.  The garage needs to be cleaned out.  My son’s bike needs to be fixed. The list goes on (and my wife would love to add to it, I’m sure).  I spend several hours a week doing good things for other people to make their lives better.  And as I ponder my growing list, it becomes painfully obvious that there never seems to be enough time to get all the stuff done that comes with doing life in the 21^st century.

Besides, I’m a doer.  If there’s one thing my parents got through to me was the importance of being productive- to make your life count- even if by the sheer number of things you get accomplished in the time you are given.  I have found myself busy lately doing lots of things for God, and have found there to be little time left for God.  It seems odd that there would seem to be a lack of time to actually rest in the presence of God- to grow my friendship with Him- to quiet my heart and still my restless mind, and to allow Him to take up my worries for me.

It is striking how out of balance my life seems at times.  I’m not the person I think I should be, and that just drives me to do more.  And then I hear the voice of Jesus calling his very first students in the midst of their busyness to rest with him.  This call is not something new.  This is something that I have heard before.  I’ve spent time studying it- pondering it- contemplating it.  And then the busyness returns and I am left to the mercy of my schedule of good things.  And once again his invitation fades into the background, well below the noise of other “important” things that demand my attention.

I recently returned from a spiritual retreat.  Yes, once again my schedule got the best of me and I was forced to retreat and recover the voice of God in the stillness.  And as I contemplated on the story of Adam and Eve, it struck me.  God had created this amazing paradise- a garden- for the first family to live in and enjoy.  But the real kicker was that the presence of God would enter the garden in the cool of the evening and walk with Adam and Eve.  I can’t even comprehend what that must have been like.  But this is the picture of the creation the way God originally set it up to be.  I noticed that God never asked Adam or Eve to do great things.  He simply asked them to tend the garden and be available for their daily walk together.  His presence with them was the climax of their day.

As I contemplated this it hit me, God is more interested in our being present with Him than what we ‘do for Him’. This may come as a surprise to many, because somewhere along the line, many of us have confused doing great things for God, for a relationship with Him.  And when we choose that busyness over relationship, our neighbors and friends are not likely to see that inner relationship shining through our busyness.  And then we look just like everybody else.

In the end, our mission must be to allow the presence of God to take center stage in our lives and homes so that others will be drawn to Christ through us.  It is not as much what we say or do, but Christ living in residence within us that is the hope for the world.  So may we be ever returning to the start and accept what God has for us in the here and now of our lives, and leave the busyness for another time.

The Infamous Swear Jar

Ever utilized a swear jar?  I have to say that in spite of my colorful
language usage in high school, I was able to conquer that habit
without the help of an outside aid.
Our faith community will be moving to an off site location in a couple weeks and we have received the blessing? of a building in which to meet.  Now I have to say that I was very leery of having a building to call our own as it has the tendency to define your future much more than we often realize.  Certain factors such as the size, location, layout and even the look of the building can have a tremendous impact on a new faith community. We learned this reality in our last mission in Illinois.  But perhaps, even more importantly, inheriting a building can have a negative impact on how we express our faith as well.  Our words often betray us.

In the Old Testament the tabernacle contained the sanctuary, where the presence of God rested.  But when Jesus have up his life on the cross, the curtain that separated that holy place from the greater community was torn right down the middle and the presence of God was unleashed and no longer subject to a physical space.  Then the New Testament is very deliberate in pointing out the fact that the sanctuary has moved from a room in a building to the heart.  However, our language and practice often betrays this transition.   Most churches still call the main meeting room a sanctuary.  This allows us to become very attached to our buildings.  Instead, our lives should mirror what
happened when the curtain was torn in two.  The presence of God has been released into our hearts and we now carry that presence outside of the building and into our homes and neighborhood and workplace.

So back to the swear jar.  We have been joking all summer since we decided to use the building that we should have a swear jar with special rules…

• whenever someone refers to the building as “the church” it will cost them $1

• whenever someone refers to the. Room in which we will meet as the “sanctuary” it will cost them $1

This exercise will allow us to maintain our focus on the building
being used as a public space and not as a religious security blanket.
I think its a small thing, yet a much needed preventative measure to
ensure that we refrain from developing an unhealthy attachment to the
building.   Its ok for the building to have a deep meaning in the life
of a faith community, but in the end we don’t worship the building.
Your thoughts.

The Body Pt. 3

The suburbs can be very Politically correct.  Even as a follower of Jesus, I find myself not always sharing my faith because I don’t want to offend others.  I don’t mean beating people over the head with my faith- just not talking about God at all so as not to be deemed “offensive.”  As I talked with my wife this week I realize how disingenuous that is- to have a great group of people to share life with, and to not make that available to others.  We often talk about how hard it is to get our neighbors to let us help them when they need it.  Even simple things like shoveling snow or raking leaves.  We are so conditioned to be self-sufficient that we bristle at the thought of being unable to “carry our own weight.”  But as my wife and I discussed this fact, we realize that we are just as guilty.  Just one example… Last fall our leaf blower broke down, and, instead of asking our neighbor to borrow theirs, we went out immediately and bought another one.  Then later that winter, we offered to clear the snow from the same neighbor’s driveway and almost had to argue with them for them to allow us to help.

Once again I am reminded of Ghandi’s statement, “We must become the change we want to see in the world.”  If I want to teach our neighbors to depend on others, we must be willing to set the example and depend on them when we are in need.

Over the summer, our faith community is collectively participating in a series of missional experiments designed to help us get out of the rut of seeing church just as a place you go, and engaging our friends and neighbors as we go about our lives.  Our group has moved off site from the church building we were meeting in as a way to help us reengage our faith life without the trappings of a building.

Well, the opportunity has come about for us to utilize a building rent free when we relaunch in the fall.  We have been hesitant to fall back into seeing the building as “church,” however, we have come up with a way to combat that.  We are planning to open the building up as a community center that our group serves as “tenants” in.  This will allow us to host events that will directly benefit a local neighborhood and bring the community together.  This way we can start to bring the positive change we want to see in the community and keep the building from being a potential barrier to bring that change.  Then the neighborhood can reap the benefits of a “church” being active and alive in the community, which is the real mission that God gave the church in the first place. I’ll continue to provide updates as we go along.

The Body Pt. 2

“The body of Christ is not a metaphor. Christ and the church are a single reality.  Jesus Christ inhabits a body, and we are it.  The church is the actual body of Christ present in the world, His physical presence on the planet.”~ Frank Viola (Reimagining Church)

A body is a warm, breathing, full of life, highly functional- organism. Sorry, but unfortunately, that just doesn’t describe most churches I have visited. Many churches’ only resemblance of a body is one downtown on a slab. They seem cold, dysfunctional, self-absorbed, lacking energy. This of course is not representative of all, but you have, I’m sure, stumbled across one like I’m describing. As I reflect on it, its like something out of some fifties B scare flick.

We all know the church isn’t a building, but why do we live as though it is? The lion’s share of resources goes to keeping the building and property up. Everything happens “at church.” But wherever the church has been most successful at its God-given mission, it’s always described as ‘alive,’ life-giving,’ ‘contagious’- all indicative of life. The first church was full of life and people couldn’t get enough of being together- so much so that they met daily in public spaces to serve as a public witness that something new was at work in the world. I want to be a part of something that is so relationally alive that it’s infectious.

I am a friendly person. I have friends (I think). But I would love to be part of a group of people that allow me to be myself- to share my true feelings (not in a girly way, you know what I mean) – to explore the deeper issues of life and to wrestle with being a person of faith in 2009.  But when most people gather “at church” we spend less than 5 minutes on average actually communicating directly to each other.  So those precious moments get spent on life altering issues such as the weather and the kids, because we don’t really know each other.

So, because I am not one to point fingers, Let me share some of the things we are doing to restore the church to the living, breathing organism it was meant to be. We host a weekly gathering. But we are seated around tables. We have no stage- no pulpit, pews, or choir loft or other signs that we are gathering “at church.” We have a band- but it is not the focal point- it is off to the side. We break bread together at each table. We have a prayer focus. I serve in a role I call a “catalyst.” I prepare a creative lesson plan in which I introduce the topic for the day with background on the scripture, and then provide questions for the groups to discuss. We read the scripture, and then break into our groups to wrestle with the passage. When the groups are finished we part with a blessing and then people stay around and discuss life together. Oh, and did I mention, this all happens around world class coffee? It’s the glue that holds us together (not really- its Jesus- but the coffee is really good!)

But it doesn’t end there. We are involved in each other’s lives. We are learning to share life together as we struggle through the rat race that is the suburbs. It’s a shared life that I, unfortunately have not experienced outside of my friends in college. And, coming this summer, we will be dividing into missional groups to begin wrestling through what it means to be the church at work, and at the grocery store, and at soccer practice. I have to admit it’s a very different life than the one modeled for me “at church” growing up. Its messy- we all have rough edges and baggage. But as one goes- we all go. I could go on for a year, but you would get tired after a while. I want to be the body of Christ to my neighbors and my coworkers and even my enemies. Maybe my experience is similar to yours. Maybe you are seeking the same thing I am. Maybe you are further down the road and have something to offer the discussion. What has been your experience? Too harsh? To kind? What are your thoughts?

The Body Pt. 1

Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and
each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it.~ The Apostle Paul

I’ve always heard that the church is Christ’s body.  And each week when everybody comes “to church” we are his body.  Its a no brainer when his “body” gathers for “church.”  Jesus is at the church building when the “church” is “at church.”  But what happens when everybody goes home?  Is the “body” dismembered?  Is it just a “spiritual” reality?  Is this why we are taught to bring outsiders “to church”- so they can see “the body” all together?  Is this really what Jesus had in mind when he gave up his body for the church?  And are we being his body just because we are all gathered in the same place for a worship service?  And what does it mean to be a member of a body?

Paul said we, all together, are Christ’s body.  Based on the language he is clearly saying that each community of faith is an expression of Christ’s physical presence in that area.  And yet, each local body has a deep connectedness to those all around the world.  But, from how the church functions in our culture, it appears that it is just a part-time reality.

In my experience, when the church (the people) gathers at church (the building), we usually lack the type of oneness that the Bible describes as crucial to being the body of Christ.  Our language betrays us.  We even describe our faith community as a place that we “attend”.  The church service is not designed at all in order for people to be together in community.  We tend to be passive spectators of a show  (much like the local school musical) that is produced and presented by very few people- seemingly for our benefit.  The proof is in how we describe a “successful” service- ‘It moved me,’ ‘it connected with me,’ I really liked _______.”  I’m pretty sure that the purpose of meeting together was in order that I becomes we, and then we become one, in order to be formed into a unified body in which Christ becomes present in some mysterious way that I just can’t explain (we’ll leave that up to the guys with advanced religious degrees).

So when we talk about reaching the emerging generations with the good news, it can’t just be about how much better the “service” we “attend” is.  It has to be much deeper than that.

I’ll finish my thoughts in part 2.  Your thoughts…

Passing Out Condoms In Church

Someone sent me a link to a story from the United Church of Christ.  You can read the entire article here.

The article begins, “Highlighting the need for churches to be places of spiritual and physical wellness, UCAN, Inc. (United Church of Christ HIV and AIDS Network) has issued a statement encouraging condom distribution at places of worship.”

Now I grew up in a very conservative tradition, but I work very hard to be understanding of differing viewpoints.  I also think its a great idea for the church to care for the physical needs of people as well as spiritual.  But passing out condoms during church?  Is this a practical joke?  Am I missing the seriousness of the need to pass out condoms?  I understand the need to prevent disease.  I understand the desire for people to want to help.  But passing out condoms at places of Worship?

How can the church stand for bringing people into wholeness under the Shalom of God and at the same time support a practice that undermines the longterm health and stability of our culture?  I know its considered old- fashioned to support the idea that sex should be reserved only for a lifelong commited relationship.  But if the church never stands apart from the prevailing culture, then what’s the point of being Ekklesia in the first place?  What do you think?  Is this is a good way to support the community?  Do you agree/disagree?

On “Those Beautiful Church Buildings Downtown”

Recently, my family and I took a couple days off and invaded a hotel swimming pool and hot tub as is our household custom.  One of our favorite stopovers is a lodge in Geneva on the Lake, Ohio.  As we made our return trip we drove through East Cleveland into Little Italy to enjoy some fresh pastries (nothing beats a fresh cannoli).  Because it was a nice day and we weren’t in a hurry, I decided to get off the interstate and drive through town.  As we made our way through the neighborhoods my wife and I began discussing the innumerable houses and businesses that were either vacant or boarded up.  This is nothing new, as this is one of the most onerous signs of urban blight.  But what struck me as I drove from street to street, was the beautiful church buildings that anchored many of the street corners.  For the most part they were updated and in good repair.  But as I surveyed each one compared to the neighborhoods that surrounded them, I was struck by the fact that, from the outside looking in, they seemed to have almost no connection to the rest of the neighborhood that enveloped them.  They were sitting quiet- empty- as most church buildings do during the week.

This certainly isn’t the first time I have seen the depressed state of urban neighborhoods.  Though I do struggle to understand the conditions that contribute to this reality, I am not so naive as to think there are simple solutions to the problem.  But what made this day different was the way these church buildings seemed to stick out as memorials to a Christiandom that is just as faded as the glory days of the neighborhoods they inhabit.  I often hear the lament by those in the suburbs that our churches throughout the inner city are closing.  But this day, I remembered something that a man named John wrote in a letter to the church in the first century.  He said, “if anyone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help–how can God’s love be in that person?”

As someone charged with the task of starting communities of faith to connect with people who won’t ‘come to church,’ I can’t help thinking that God’s intention for the church was not to have a building serving as a monument for a life giving group of people who used to inhabit the neighborhood with the love of God.  And, sadly,  the lament from most suburban Christians is not for the neighborhoods that are in decay, but for the fact that the church buildings are no longer filled with people.  And our number one strategic priority for parishioners in the suburbs seems to be, “how can we improve our worship service so people will want to come to our church?”  Is that really supposed to be how we define success?

The organization given the primary charge for the care of the ‘poor’ is not the government, but the church.  Are we not a people charged with the task of physically showing others that God is alive and well by how we care for those around us?  How can we worship, in comfort, a God who chose to become homeless for our benefit, when the physical needs around these church buildings are so great?  I’m sure there are spiritual problems in these communities that need to be addressed.   But how can we seek to meet those needs when the neighborhood is physically falling down around the church buildings?

Some ideas…

We tend to prefer to throw money at the problem, much the same way the government does.  But we have decades of evidence that money alone doesn’t solve the problem.  It requires our personal investment.

Instead, what if suburban churches adopted neigborhoods as many churches do communities in other countries?  What if we sold or mortgaged the church properties and used the funds to bring in entrepreneurs who will start businesses and train those who need jobs.  First thing on the list… remodeling homes and businesses and restoring a sense of pride in the neighborhoods.  What if suburban churches came together and transformed vacant lots into gardens that provide fresh perishables to the segment of the population most in need of healthy food?  What if we provided job training, literacy classes, tutoring, and counseling, simple things the government is, frankly, not proficient or efficient at, free of charge.  Then, when the residents in the neighborhoods have their lives transformed, we can engage them in helping to carry on the blessing to others in need.  And what if we, the suburban Christians, drove by our suburban churches on our way to serve as pioneering members of urban congregations?  What if some people made the ultimate sacrifice and actually moved into one of those neighborhoods?

Just a few quick thoughts on the fly.  Maybe I am just naive, but I think that may be a more Biblical (to use a “churchy” word) model of Church to neighborhoods in need.

Your thoughts… other ideas?

On Instilling Missional Habits in a Congregation

I just read this article by David Fitch and I thought it would be a good for discussion.  You can follow his blog at reclaimingthemission.org

How do we lead a church community to engage mission as a way of life? How do we steer a congregation out of evangelism programs into everyday missional living? How do we train a congregation out of Christendom habits and instill post Christendom virtues (character for living faithfully in post Christendom)? I think leaders walk along and among their communities. Along the way, they lead by consistently (and kindly) rejecting some old habits and directing the imagination towards other possibilities. This is the never-ending work of cultivating missional habits of imagination among a people. Here’s my list of what to reject (slowly put to death in a congregation) and what to direct (nudge people forward) a congregation’s imagination toward. I’ve learned a lot of these things from missional thinkers/practitioners but have found all these things to be surprisingly simple and possible in my own life.

1.) Kindly Reject doing Outreach Events. Instead direct imagination towards ways of connecting with people where they are. Outreach events take up much time, planning and enormous “congregational capital” (if I may put it that way). In post Christendom outreach events rarely “work.” And you simply cannot compete with the local Park District or Megachurch event planning neutral site events. Instead, with little effort or cost, direct the people’s imagination towards seeing the ways you can connect with people in their everyday situations by going to the same place at the same time every week. Stoke imagination for the way ordinary life is the stage of God’s working. Visit the same places at the same time every week (this is easy for me because I am pathetically boring and love doing the same thing everyday). This has revolutionized my missional life with not a single ounce of extra-expended energy spent on my part. I believe the same could be true for every member of our church Body. Thanks to Alan Hirsch for teaching me about this.

2.) Kindly Reject evangelism as a one time hit on a target with a preconceived outcome. Kindle imagination toward seeing mission as part of regular daily, weekly and monthly life rhythms where out or regular life God works to use your life to impact people for the gospel in unforeseen ways. There is no precision strike technique, instead we need to train our eyes to pay attention to our life rhythms and be ready to minister out of everyday life, where God is already working to bring people to Christ.

3.) Kindly reject building multiple use buildings as if by building a gymnasium on the church campus we can bring people into the orbit of the church. Instead stoke imagination for what can happen when we go inhabit the gyms already in the neighborhoods. We should build less third spaces, and inhabit more the ones already there.

4.) Kindly reject one-on-one evangelism and the techniques associated with such apologetic persuasion. Instead direct imagination for inhabiting places in two’s or three’s or more. Hospitals, PADS Centers, the school systems, the park districts and places of hurt and pain too numerous to mention are all places where there are forces at work that can take under any one isolated saint. But two or three Christians together become an undeniable force for the kingdom under the Lordship of Christ.

5.) Kindly reject the Sunday morning gathering as an evangelistic event for it cannot be that in the new post Christendom cultures. Instead fire up imagination for the formation that comes from a communal encounter with the living God in Jesus Christ. As we hover around the altar, in silence, in prayers of submission, in affirmation, in confession, in healing prayers, in the hearing of the Word, and the Table, as we sing in praise and thanksgiving at what He has done, and then as we are sent out by God in the Benedictory challenge, we are shaped for His Life in Mission. It is simple, organic, takes a lot less planning than a mega show, and alot less money. And if any non-believers do happen to come, they won’t confuse this with a Tony Robbins event.

6.) Kindly reject coercive persuasion and argument in our witness. Instead stoke the imagination of your people for seeking “one person of peace” (Luke 10) among the lost of their neighborhoods. Look for that one who, though never having heard the gospel, is dispositionally ready (been readied by God) to receive. (Thanks to Mike Breen at the EcclesiaNet conference this past week for this idea).

7.) Kindly reject presumptuous postures of power as we live our lives among those who do not know Christ yet. Instead direct the imagination towards the way Christ always enters the human situation in humility. So don’t come to your neighbors as the one with the answer, but as the one searching for the answers that always point you towards Christ. Come to your neighbors humbly and in need. Instead of offering them a meal, find ways to participate in a meal with them. If you’re in the suburbs ask them if you can borrow their lawnmower.

8.) Kindly Reject Surveying the neighborhood – Direct the imagination toward exegeting the neighborhood. Surveying looks at the neighborhood as a place to market our church, find out what they are looking for and appeal to it so that they are attracted to the idea of coming to church. Exegeting a neighborhood requires inhabiting the neighborhood, seeing the neighborhood as a place for redemption, discovering where the hurting are and the unjust structures are. See the possibilities for ministering the gospel to those who are lost and through the gospel (over time) seeing that very culture transformed.

9.) Kindly Reject problem solving – instead direct the imagination towards “appreciative inquiry.” We often approach church through problem solving. What is wrong with our programs? What needs are we not meeting? What needs to be tweaked? What are we not doing right? This is negative, mechanical and lifeless. Instead, let’s direct our community’s imagination to noticing where God is working among us and around us, to recognize it, praise God for it and participate in it through the gifts we have been given. Thanks to Mark Lau Branson for this insight.
These are just a few of the ways we can lead our congregations to make our whole way of life a participation in God’s mission. There are many more I am sure.

Do you agree?  Disagree?  Your thoughts?