“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” 

Howard Thurman

This week I spent three days in New Orleans with the wonderful folks from The Fund for Theological Education (FTE) at their VocationCARE training.  I had no idea what to expect from this training but I was pleasantly surprised how much I got out of this particular experience.

I used to think “vocation” was equivalent to career.  However, over the past eight years as I have walked with folks who may never move into what we would call “employment”, my definition of vocation has changed, expanded and grown.  Recently a disabled chronically unemployed man came to one of our conversations and said, “I just want to know my purposes.  Why I am even on this earth?”  He touched on a richer, fuller understanding of vocation.  For me vocation has come to mean purpose, call, reason for existence.  However, it is deeper than our common “purpose” as humans or our “call” as Christians; it is deeply personal and unique to each individual.  When we discover our “vocation” we discover our life – we come alive.  We become more fully who we were created to be.  In a sense, we discover ourselves.

Through this conference the folks at FTE are training pastors and Christian leaders in practices that aid people in vocational discovery.  While the conference was developed to help Christian leaders guide young people in unlocking their vocational call, I truly believe discovery of our vocational call is an on-going process.

Reverend D is a 70+ year old lively soul who was one of our co-participants in this training.  She was a continual reminder that we are to follow God by taking the next faithful step but the ultimate destination is never fully revealed this side of heaven.  If we are breathing, God is still writing our story. The journey and the destination are one.

There were many revelations that came during the three days of largely inner work.  The first came through a young man who asked me, “What cages have you been set free from?”  I was actually speechless at first.  I spend so much time thinking of myself as someone who opens the cages of others, I have never taken the time to think about the cages I myself have had to break free of.

As I reflected on this question, I wrote these reflections in my journal:

• As a young girl growing up outside the church in the heart of the Bible belt, I was told that only church people could go to heaven.  I remember being told that my uncle, who had committed suicide, would burn in hell.  It all made me feel “less than” – rejected. I felt cut off from the creator – held in bondage by bad theology.  Judged and not at all loved by those who called themselves Christians.
• I thought of the fact that I am a female called to vocational ministry and the barriers that I face that my male counter parts do not face.  Again seen as “less than” – cut off from opportunities. Judged and not fully accepted.
• I reflected on my call and how God has called me to create alternative ways of being the body of Christ that honor and give voice to all – especially those who have felt cut off from the Christian tradition by those who claim to love like Christ.
• I thought of the young man who was asking me this question – a young gay man who senses a call to vocational ministry and is creating space for others who feel cut off from the church.  I had a revelation that I was participating in the construction of his cage through my silence and complacency with the way our tradition has treated our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers.
• While I have known for a while that an essential part of my vocational call involves writing, I realized in that moment that the call to write is not about words – it is about voice.  It is about giving voice to those who have little or no voice in our existing church structures.  It is about exposing the invisible cages we as the church are constructing.  Cages that are keeping people from becoming fully who they were created to be.  A part of my vocational call involves creating more room at the table for those who have been told they don’t belong.  It involves resisting attitudes of judgment that wound and sever parts of the body. It involves embracing all, even when it could mean that I will experience the same judgment as those I seek to bring to the table.

I expected to come and learn how to help others be more fully who they are called to be.  I left having found the boldness to be more fully who God called me to be.  What a beautiful gift.   No one preached at me.  No one told me which way I was to go.   They simply provided a safe place for me to explore what the spirit was already doing in my life.

VocationCARE practices are summed up by Dori Baker in her book “Greenhouses of Hope” this way:

C – Create hospitable space to explore Christian vocation

A – Ask self-awakening questions

R – Reflect theologically on self and community

E – Explore, enact and establish ministry opportunities

Over the past few months, my Embrace Richmond team has been asking the question, “How do we help people grow?”  We all know that true transformative growth happens at the core of our being.  It is an inner work that is facilitated and advanced through the work of the Holy Spirit as we come into contact with the Christ spirit that dwells in us.  This kind of inner work requires intentionality, safe space and stillness.

I was reminded of Margret Gunther’s book “Holy Listening.”  Gunther compares our work as ministers to that of “mid-wives” who simply help people bring forth what has been conceived within them.  It is a delicate process that requires immense patience and a respect for God’s timing.

I pray God uses me and Embrace Richmond to pass this gift of vocational discovery along to others.  I am very thankful to FTE for the work they are doing and for the hospitality they extended us all.

So when was the last time you felt fully alive?

What practices have helped you connect to the inner work of the Spirit?

What role has Christian community played in helping you discover your vocational call?

Her new found interest in politics was sparked by a Rick Perry ad with this quote:

She asked me,

“Why does Rick Perry hate gays and why is he making such a big deal out of them serving in the army? Why is he so concerned about prayer in school when the real issue is people being beaten and picked on because people think they are gay?  They don’t even have to be really gay, if they just look a little gay, people pick on them and he is just going to make it worse for kids. Why does he make it sound like being Christian is about hating gays and pushing Christianity on non-Christians?  If I was going to run for office, I would focus on making America a place where no one is picked on – a place where people can just be who they are; gay or straight, Christian or non-Christian, black, white, Hispanic, or Asian.   That is what people my age care about!  We want a country that treats everyone equally.”

I asked my budding politician if she wanted to someday be president and she said, “No, I want to be a congresswoman because they have the real power.” She is one smart little cookie.

I know Governor Perry is a politician who is playing to the Christian right.  Perhaps he would see my daughter’s dream as naïve and political suicide.   I am sure his campaign manager has little interest in the dreams of a 13-year-old red-head from Virginia.  However, it is the dreams of that little red-head and young people just like her who give me hope for this country.

So, if you are a pollster trying to figure out how I will vote – my vote is for Caroline and future generations.  May we all listen to our children and embrace their dreams of a more loving society.

Today the Embrace Richmond team celebrated MLK Day in the Hillside community and Qasarah Bey, our program director, did a dramatic reading of Dr. King’s “I have a Dream Speech.” Dr. King’s dream and that of my daughter don’t really sound all that different to me.  They sound surprisingly like the dreams of our founding fathers who envisioned a country that affirmed that all men (yes, not only blacks but also gays) were created equal.

So as the rhetoric and politicking continue, and as our politicians crawl into the gutter and sling mud at one another, I pray we will not get swept up in the ugliness that tends to only polarize and divide us as a nation.  I pray instead we cling to a dream, a dream that will lead to freedom, equality and the pursuit of happiness for all our nation’s citizens.

One of my favorite quotes from my book, “From the Sanctuary to the Streets”, was from an interview I did with a case manager named Martha who is helping homeless women break out of poverty. Martha said,

“With a dream comes hope, hope in a future that is better than today’s reality.  A dream is a powerful motivator.”

Today in Hillside Court, one of Richmond’s most distressed communities, we took the time to dream together.  We gave the children from the community a large banner and asked them to draw their dreams.  The children drew pictures of people caring for one another, of a more beautiful neighborhood complete with an apple tree, but the overarching theme was one of peace and mutual respect.  It was amazing how that same theme of love for our fellow man dominated not only the drawings of the children but also of the four adult groups who drew their own dream banners. It was the hope of a more loving society that inspired our dreams today.

Hope in a better future – it is the beginning of every dream.  When our dreams grow out of God’s desires, our dreams have the power to change the world. Have you ever noticed that dreams are contagious?  Dr. King’s dream ignited a hope that spread across this nation and changed our society.  Today in Hillside, I saw people rediscovering hope for their neighborhood and the power of unity to bring it to life.  My daughter’s dream gave me hope in our future generation of leaders and inspired me to write this post.  Want to start a revolution of hope?  Start sharing your dreams!

What are your dreams for this community and this country?

What are the dreams of your children?

Do we dare dream of a society defined by its love?

This post is a part of a synchroblog. Below is a list of all the posts and participants in this month’s synchroblog:

The Trouble With Hope: John Ptacek

Hope = Possibility x Imagination: Wayne Rumsby

Little Reminders: Mike Victorino

Where Is My Hope: Jonathan Brink

Hope for Hypocrites: Jeremy Myers

Now These Three Remain: Sonny Lemmons

Perplexed, But Still Hopeful: Carol Kuniholm

A Hope that Lives: Amy Mitchell

Generations Come and Generations Go: Adam Gonnerman

Demystifying Hope: Glenn Hager

God in the Dark: On Hope: Renee Ronika Klug

Keeping Hope Alive: Maurice Broaddus

Are We Afraid to Hope?: Christine Sine

On Wobbly Wheels, Split Churches and Fear: Laura Droege

Adopting Hope: Travis Klassen

Hope is Held Between Us: Ellen Haroutunian

Hope: In the Hands of the Creatively Maladjusted: Mihee Kim-Kort

Paradox, Hope and Revival: City Safari

Good Theology Saves: Reverend Robyn

Linear: Never Was, Never Will Be: Kathy Escobar

Better Than Hope: Liz Dyer

Caroline for Congress: Hope for the Future: Wendy McCaig

Fumbling the Ball on Hope: KW Leslie

Content to Hope: Alise Wright

Hope: Oh, the Humanity!: Deanna Ogle

“Serving in a seeker sensitive church provides challenges to my understanding of the gospel, which tends to look more like the island of misfit toys. How do we form communities of authenticity and reality within the confines of seeker church? Is it possible? I see glimpses, but too often, protectors arise and defame what is actually gospel incarnate. At its best, it is a glimpse of heaven. At it’s worst, well…Lord, help us, and more, help us receive your help, your vision, your love!”

I am making an assumption here that from Karen’s vision of an island of misfit toys, that she is envisioning a church that is willing to embrace those in the margins – something more missional in nature.  Seeker churches are generally very attractional in nature so for me the question is “Can you be “attractional – come us us” and “missional – go to them” at the same time?”  Karen’s question reminded me of a question I asked Kathy Escobar recently after reading her book “Down We Go”.

Dear Kathy,

You wrote – “When we started The Refuge, we tried to mix the attractional model (come to us) with the missional model (go to others). We wanted people to come to our wider gatherings so we figured out a way to make sure that we included music, teaching and a fairly good vibe…Most of our life together didn’t happen in that main gathering. Instead, it happened in eye-to-eye and heart-to heart encounters throughout the week…After about a year muddling around trying to find ourselves, it became clear that we were mixing models that can’t be mixed.”

Would you mind sharing a bit more on this? I am working with a church that is trying to basically “restart” the church and they want to move toward a missional model and to become a ” missional community-focused” church in a distressed community near their church. But, they are trying to carry the Saddleback seeker-sensitive structure into this new way of being.  I have expressed my concerns to the pastor that I feel like they are mixing models that do not mix. He said to me “show me something better.”

Can you give me a bit more clarity on how you guys structured the church that kept it from being attractional and fostered a missional culture?

Kathy and I had a wonderful conversation and my take away from her was that you can’t move in two directions at the same time.  However, I do believe it is possible to plant a missional expression of a church alongside an attractional model if they are seen as complementary and not one serving the needs of the other.  I have not done it yet, but I hope to get a chance to experiment with a few things in the near future.

Here are a few things I don’t think work:

• Planting missional communities with the real goal of growing your church attendance so in other works “community outreach as as a way of growing the church.”
• Trying to take a church built on an attractional model and transitioning it to a missional model.  I have seen too many church splits form from this kind of radical change.
• Treating missional engagement as just a technique to “attract” people and then call yourself missional.  This looks like a church that does a bunch of service activities as a part of their attractional structure but mission is not central to the way of being church.  It is simply another activity people are invited to participate in.

What might work in theory (I will tell you in a few months if the theory holds any water):

• Allowing a missional expression to form outside the control of the attractional church with no expectation that it will “grow the church” or that the people will “join the church” but with the understanding that missional engagement is a legitimate way of “being the church.”  These missional communities form around shared mission with mission being the central organizing principal.  We currently have several of these expressions in our Hillside community – one around vocational development, one around family support, and one around hospitality and food.
• Forming “mission centered” small groups that support the work of missional ministries similar to the vision I shared regarding “Dream Teams.” We are launching several over the next few months.  These are small groups formed in communities of resource that are formed with the goal of supporting our neighborhood based groups.  Mission is core to the group but this group will likely support the mission through encouragement, prayer and sharing of resources more than direct engagement in the mission context.  So we are building suburban groups to support our urban groups (vocation, family, hospitality) – twinning leaders with proximity and passion with Christians who share their passion but lack proximity to the neighborhood.

My dream is that Embrace will be able to develop a way of being missional that congregations who are attractional will be able to birth alongside their existing structures – the answer my pastor friend is seeking.  If we can develop new models, my prayer is that someday, churches will see that releasing their members to plant “missional expressions” of the church is actually what Jesus told us to do when he said, “Go, therefore into the world…”.

Churches exist to give themselves away – their members, their resources and their authority.  Missional is an outward movement away from the church instead of an inward movement trying to draw more and more into the church.  Jesus told us, “Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it cannot produce new life.”

How many churches are willing to die to themselves and their own needs in order to bring forth new life?

What do you think?  How would you answer the question, can attractional be missional?

Dr. Kinney shared with us that he has been meditating on how to raise the dead.  Dr. Kinney shared some of his insights with us and I found them enlightening.  I am sure I will not even come close to conveying the richness of Dr. Kinney’s teaching so those of you who were there, please grant me grace.  Below are my personal gleanings and I am in no way suggesting that they represent perfectly or fully Dr. Kinney’s teaching.

So here is Dr. Kinney’s formula for how to raise the dead.

Step One: Alternative Visualization

In the stories of Jesus raising the dead, Jesus sees things differently than the rest of the world.  For example in the raising of Jairus’s Daughter, Jesus says that the dead girl is only sleeping. (Luke 8:52)

Step Two: Radical Alteration

Dr. Kinney pointed out that Jesus broke with traditional Jewish law to bring about healing.  He took the little girls hand – thus touching the untouchable.  He does something similar in the raising of the widow’s son in Luke 7 by touching the coffin.  In order to raise the dead, Jesus had to push back against the teachings of the religious leaders and be willing to alter tradition.

Step Three: Authentic Identification

While the world labeled these individuals as “dead”, Jesus called them by their true identity.  Lazarus by his name, the girl he called “my child”, and the widow’s son he called, “young man.”  The point being that we have to see what Jesus sees and name it and not what the world sees – dead, stinky corpse.  We can’t raise the dead if we focus on externals.  Labels like “lost”, “sinner”, and “poor” are not life giving.

Step Four: Behavior Modification

Jesus tells those who are dead, to behave differently.  He says, “Lazarus, come out!”, “My child, get up!”, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” Dr Kinney made the point that you can’t behave differently if you don’t know your real identity.  He also stressed that it is in the encounter with God that we are convicted and are able to do things differently.  Attempts by humans to convict others only result in judgment and is never life giving.  Our role is simply to invite people into life giving behavior.

Step Five: Establishing Authorization

I never liked that Jesus delayed going to Martha and Mary in the story of Lazarus death.  Jesus said, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” He says to God  before raising Lazarus, “I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” In the story of the widow’s son we learn, “They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.”” When Peter raises Tabitha the outcome is similar, “And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed on the Lord.” So, when God gives life, God’s authority is established.

What struck me in the raising of the dead stories with Peter and Paul was that no one invoked the name of Jesus.  The power to bring life was not dependent on the name of Jesus, but the spirit of the risen Christ.  I was actually a bit surprised by this fact when I went and read these stories.

I believe Dean Kinney would say that too often we get caught up in arguing about whether these miracles actually happened and that we miss the spiritual message of this passage.  Dr. Kinney said, “We are the dead!”  If we want new life, if we want to bring our churches, our city or our communities back from the dead, we need to follow these spiritual principals.

• We have to start with a new vision – seeing ourselves, our neighbors, our churches, our communities and our city as God sees them.
• We may have to reject the religious traditions or practices of the church and be willing to touch the unclean.
• We have to stop labeling ourselves and others according to our present condition and name our given identity as a child of God.
• We have to let God do the convicting and direct people toward new behaviors consistent with their true identity.
• We need to remember it is God who gives new life, not us. It should be God, not us, who gets the glory.

Dr. Kinney then contrasted this biblical methodology with our modern methodology for evangelization which he portrayed as some thing like this, “You are a wretched sinner and you need Jesus.  If you don’t do what I say and accept Jesus, you are going to die and burn in hell.”  Quite a stark contrast don’t you think?

Dr. Kinney ended his message commanding us all to, “Go To Hell!”  He then delivered my favorite quote of the day, “If all the Christians went to hell, we could raise hell!”

He then said, “Jesus went to hell for us, does he expect us to do any less for those living in hell on this earth?”

This was my first opportunity to hear Dr. Kinney live and I think I am going to become a John Kinney groupie.  I loved his powerful delivery but more importantly his theology resonated deeply with me.  He is the first person who told me to go to hell and made me want to come back for more!

So, what do you think of Dr. Kinney’s formula for raising the dead?

Are you willing to go to hell to help others find life?

At the age of 26, after three miscarriages, God became relevant.  I discovered the one thing this type A over-achiever, success-oriented human being could not do – create life.  It was out of utter desperation that I prayed my first prayer and I believe God answered in a miraculous way with the birth of my first child.  I came to know a God whom I could not yet name.  Church was still irrelevant.

I made a deal with God, it went something like this, “God, if you will give me a baby, I will commit to do whatever you want.”   So, when my daughter was born, I assumed that going to church was what God expected.   I fulfilled my end of the bargain and started going to church. When I got there I was so confused. I did not understand any of the language.  I had never opened a bible before and did not even own one.  I had no idea what a lectionary, liturgy or creed was.  Church was still irrelevant.

Our very young and at the time on-the-cutting-edge pastor, recognized that as newbie’s to the faith, my husband and I needed more.  So he formed the churches’ very first small group and wrapped us up in it.  What I found in that small group of people was unconditional love and acceptance and through them was introduced to the Christ who was incarnate in them.  They were not perfect people but they were people who truly wanted to love me and my husband with the love of Christ.  Jesus became relevant but I was still not sure about this thing called “church.”

Within a year this totally un-churched girl who had yet to read the whole bible, who had never gone to Sunday School, who had no experience in ministry, found herself on staff at this loving little church as the small group coordinator.  My job was to help others experience what I had experienced.  I found my calling.  The church was now relevant.

I wanted to help our little church become more relevant to other non-Christians so I started reading everything I could on church methodology and it was about that time that Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Church” came out and I discovered Willow Creek’s materials on being “seeker driven.”  I thought that was what the church needed.  It needed to be more “seeker oriented!”  I thought I had found the answer.  I went to California and to Chicago to conferences and believed I was helping make the church more relevant.

When we moved away from our little loving church, I went looking for a church that was “relevant” which for me now meant, “seeker sensitive.”  We found the perfect one.  It had video’s, a full rock band, amazing Children’s ministry, a women’s ministry with free childcare and the pastor was funny and told great stories.  I ended up on the church staff and the church became one of the fasting growing churches in America.  We watched the church go from 500 to over 8,000.  I thought this church had it all figured out.  It was very relevant.

Then something totally unexpected happened. With the collapse of Enron, my husband and I found ourselves in Richmond, Virginia, a place where the seeker movement had yet to take off.  I thought it was some kind of cruel cosmic joke.  I was Job and God let Satan take away my “relevant” expression of church and plopped me down in a place that felt spiritually dead to me.  Once again church was “irrelevant.”

Once again I made a deal with God, I would move to Richmond but only if I got to go to seminary.  It was in seminary that my perspective began to change.  During all those years as a church-goer, relevance was about “me.”  Did this expression of church “speak to me” or “do anything for me?”  If it did not, I judged it “irrelevant.”  However, as I immersed myself in the gospels, what I found was a very different measure of relevance.  Jesus did not say, “I came to entertain the bored, inspire the complacent, bring riches to the hard working who pay their tithes.”  No, Jesus said, “I came to proclaim good news to the poor, set the captives free and give sight to the blind.” (Luke 4:18)  Relative to Jesus vision for the church, most of the churches I had ever been a part of were irrelevant.

So, I started hanging out with the poor, addicts, homeless, and abused – those on the margins of society.  Not only was the church irrelevant to my new friends, it was also invisible.  The only time they saw “church folks” was when they were giving handouts on the corner or reminding my friends that they were going to hell if they did not repent.  The church was beyond irrelevant, it was abusive.

Then a weird thing happened.  As I began hanging out with my new friends, we started to share our spiritual stories and I met some of the most spiritually enlightened people I know.  I shared my dream of being relevant for God with them and they shared their dreams of being relevant with me and before I knew it – we weren’t just “dreaming” together, we were “doing” together.    But, I still thought the church was irrelevant.

Over the past six months, I had an “ah ha” moment.  I was sitting at one of our fellowship events, breaking bread with my more than 30 friends who now gather and serve together in our community, and I was listening to people sharing stories of how God was working in their lives, watching people love on each other, encouraging one another and I realized – this weird gathering of misfits who simply want to do God’s will had become my church.  With this new perspective, I am starting to see “the church” in some unexpected places and I am more hopeful than ever about the future of the Church universal.  The church became beyond relevant – it became Christ incarnate body in the world.

When my focus was on growing the church – I misunderstood “popularity” as “relevance.”  Once I got Jesus Kingdom perspective, I learned to see the “real church” and it will always be relevant!

I have not given up on the inherited models of doing church.  However, for those who want to be more relevant, my advice would be this – stop going to conferences and reading books about how to grow your church. Start hanging out in the margins with Jesus and just see what happens.  I think walking like Jesus is the only way to make a church truly relevant.

What do you think, is the church relevant?

“Religion is lived by people who are afraid of hell.

Spirituality is lived by people who have been through hell.”

Over the years some of the most sensitive and compassionate people I have met have been recovering addicts and some of the most spiritually enlightened people I know, are recovering addicts who have taken seriously the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Richard Rohr, in his book “Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps”, helped me understand this phenomenon a little better.  Rohr writes:

“On the practical (read “transformational”) level, the Gospel message of Jesus and the Twelve Step message of Bill Wilson are largely the same message.”

Rohr goes on to say that all who seek to grow spiritually must start with the experience of “powerlessness.”  According to Rohr, you cannot experience powerlessness, “until you bottom out, and come to the limits of your own fuel supply.”   Few things other than addiction, moral failure or a loss beyond our control can bring us to a place of total powerlessness.  Yet the reality is that we are all powerless over our own sin, alcoholics just have their powerlessness visible for all to see.  If we hold on to our own power, we cannot take hold of the Devine power available to us.  So in a sense, addicts are forced into this place, which is strangely the starting place for all spiritual growth.  Rohr writes,

“Jesus made it step one, you might say: “If anyone wants to follow me, let him renounce himself [or herself!]… You must step back from your compulsiveness, and your attachment to yourself, to be truly conscious…All mature spirituality, in one sense or another, is about letting go…early Franciscans seemed to talk about nothing else, though they called it “poverty.””

Here is a great paradox.  It is only by complete surrender and through our own powerlessness that we gain power and become something more.  By seeing our own poverty contrast against God’s unmerited love, we are somehow transformed.  Rohr writes:

“God forever sees and loves Christ in you; it is only we who doubt our divine identity as children of God…  Once we see our inherent dignity clearly, the game of evil and addiction begins to collapse… Only love effects true inner transformation, not duress, guilt, shunning, or social pressure… It is a lot of work to get out of the way and allow that grace to fully operate and liberate.”

So how does one surrender and receive this inner transformation?  The answer for Rohr and AA is found in contemplative prayer.  Rohr writes:

“It is work to learn how to pray, largely the work of emptying the mind and filling the heart. That is all of prayer in one concise and truthful phrase!… In short, prayer is not about changing God, but being willing to let God change us, or as Step 11 says, “praying only for the knowledge of his will.

True prayer is always about getting the “who” right. Who is doing the praying? You or God in you? Little you or the Christ Consciousness? The contemplative mind prays from a different sense of Who–I–am. It rests, and abides in the Great I AM, and draws its life from the Larger Vine (John 15:4–5), the Deeper Well (John 4:10–14). Paul puts it this way: “You are hidden with Christ in God. When Christ is revealed—and he is your life—you too will be revealed in all your glory within him” (Colossians 3:3–4).

The will of God is not a ‘fate’ to which we must submit, but a creative act in our life that produces something absolutely new, something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation consists not solely in conforming to external laws, but in opening our wills to this mutually creative act.”

So, what are you co-creating through this process?  Your life!  Rohr writes,

Jesus says, “the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21) and “If you bring forth that which is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring it forth, it will destroy you.” (The Gospel of Thomas)

 

How you do life is your real and final truth, not what ideas you believe.

I love the way Rohr brings the whole of the Christian narrative to the level of the individual journey.  I have seen in my own life and the lives of those in recovery from addiction, the truth of his observations but never put all the pieces together the way he did.  I know this little synopsis will not capture the richness of his full manuscript and I highly recommend those of you who are interested, read this wonderful book.

Have you experienced your own “powerlessness?”

What practices do you find helpful in bringing forth that which is within you?

I want to thank those of you who have viewed and commented on this blog over the past year.  I have really enjoyed having the opportunity to write and share ideas with you.  It is always interesting for me to compile the numbers and see what posts are most visited each year.

Drum roll please!  The top 11 most viewed posts of 2011were:

#11. Letter to the White Moderate Christian – From Dr. Martin Luther King  January 11, 2011

#10. Unwanted Gifts: You Can Run But You Can Not Hide  December 27, 2011

#9. We’re Expecting a Baby!  November 5, 2011

#8. Church Planting: Hostile Take Over?  December 3, 2011

#7. Is it Safe?   Feb 27, 2011

#6. Mud Slinging Christians: Dreaming of Another Way  March 27, 2011

#5. Will Gandhi Burn?   March 5, 2011

#4. Religionless Christianity: Finding God Outside the Institutional Church  June 26, 2010

#3. I Have a Dream that John Piper and Rob Bell will one day walk side by side in the Kingdom of God both here on earth and in the age to come   April 20, 2011

#2. The New Pastor: Rob Bell or Your Mother?  December 16, 2011

#1. Handouts Do Not Equal Social Justice  October 3, 2010

It is also interesting for me to see what topics get the most traffic.  These posts fall into three categories:

1. New forms of church, spirituality and ministry – #2, #4, #8, #9,

2. Challenging theological issues- #3, #5, #6, #10

3. Social Justice – #1, #7, #11

So which posts were your favorites?

What topics would you like for me to write about this coming year?

I have moved through the past two days asking this question posed by this month’s Synchroblog organizers:

“Jesus Came: Did You Get What You Expected?”

My answer would be a firm “No!”  What I wanted was joy, holiday cheer and peace.  What I got was a head on collision with my own sin – my refusal to face darkness, brokenness and dysfunction.  In so doing, I was unwittingly denying the whole reason behind the incarnation.

While I knew coming home would be hard, I could not wait to get out of Richmond this holiday season.  It seemed everywhere I turned, things were not working. Crime was on the rise again in the Hillside community with almost daily stories of people being robbed and the nightly explosions of gunfire were tormenting our friends. There was fighting among our team members and a growing unrest inside our Embrace team.  People were not meeting my expectations and there was a growing resentment in my own heart.  Old wounds that I had tried to run from were being dredged up by people who claimed to be my friends.  I had a strong desire to flee.  It is an impulse I know all too well.  In my family when the going gets tough, the tough run away.

My unwanted Christmas gifts came from three new friends whom I have never met: Annie Bullock, Jamie Arpin-Ricci, and Mumford and Sons.  These writers and artists helped me retrieve gifts that I had left behind in my attempts to flee from what I perceived as
harmful theology.

My first gift came from my publisher who requested that I write an endorsement for Annie Vocature Bullock’s first book titled, “Real Austin: The Homeless and the Image of God.”   Being from the Austin area and having spent the past eight years of my life working with homeless men and women, I accepted the invitation.  I was stunned to find that Annie’s insights touched me so deeply.  For years I have struggled with what felt to me to be an over emphasis by some Christians on the “personal sins” of others and as a result I have all but abandoned the concept of “sin.”  Annie helped me retrieve what I had lost.   Annie writes:

“Personal sin is too much a part of the human story. Ron Sider makes the important observation that there is a kind of split in Christianity, reflected now in the split between evangelical and post-evangelical thought, on the nature of sin and salvation. On the one hand, there are those who emphasize evangelism and conversion, which requires greater attention to issues of personal sin, judgment, and even hell. Against that, others emphasize social justice and therefore focus on collective or systemic sin. Sider observes that both personal and systemic sin are in fact points of biblical emphasis and yet “each group uses the other’s one-sidedness to justify its own continuing lack of balance, and the division devastates the church’s witness and credibility.”

 

What folks on both sides of this opposi­tion have in common is the overwhelming tendency to refer sin outward. Naming a sinful system is easier than identifying my own complicity in it. Listing personal sins and describing paths of destruction is far easier than considering the many sinful patterns of thought and action in my own life. Most of us are quite comfortable laying out, often in great detail, the failings of other people, people who are largely not like us.”

Through Annie, I was able to retrieve the biblical understanding of “sin.” She reminds us that

“The locus of accusation is fixed firmly and clearly in the self. It functions as a template for critical self-examination. It is a theological means to evaluate my own way of being in the world and to determine if it is Christian after all. And finding that it is not, as I am sure to discover, naming this way of being sin is a call to change.  If I can’t acknowledge the ways I fail, I can’t root out their causes. If I can’t do that, I can’t participate with the Holy Spirit in my own healing.”

Jamie Arpin-Ricci helped me un-wrap a second gift this Christmas.  Jamie started an intentional community in an urban setting in Winnipeg, Canada that grew into a Christian community called “Little Flowers.”  In his book “The Cost of Community,” Jamie shares how his community has been shaped by Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount.   Jamie shares stories of how his community practices both personal and public confession and repentance and how these practices have led to reconciliation.  Jamie writes:

“Learning the discipline of being a confessing community will not only minimize the risk of becoming self-righteous judges, but create a context in which people can find the genuine hope of healing and forgiveness in light of their very real brokenness and sin.

 

Only in seeing the sinfulness in ourselves are we able to effectively see the challenges of others clearly enough to help them.  When we acknowledge and experience the painful and difficult process of having such sin addressed in ourselves, our hearts are shaped by the understanding and compassion necessary to do so appropriately with others. The truest transformation comes when we share in the healing grace of God together in light of our common brokenness and mutual dependence.

 

Here the contrast becomes the clearest: the self-righteous seek to establish their authority by judging others to be less worthy, while the truly faithful receive the fullness of God’s power and authority by declaring themselves weak and in need.”

From Jamie, I received a tool to bring about health and healing in my own community – public confession of my own sin. As the leader, I cannot expect others to do what I myself am unwilling to do.  I really hate this gift and wish I never would have picked up Jamie’s very convicting book.

Jamie points out a truth I have seen in my walk with addicts who have effectively recovered from drug addiction – confession holds the power to heal.  When there is no acceptance, no admission that we are powerless over our sin, there can be no healing.  When I first started working with men and women in recovery, I was blown away by this practice of making amends to one another.  I did not know what to do when people would come up to me and say, “Wendy, I need to make amends to you because yesterday I …”  It was weird.  At first, I tried to stop them from doing this because it made me uncomfortable.  I would say things like, “That was no big deal, you don’t need to apologize.”  In so doing, I was robbing them of the healing power of that confession.

I am still very uncomfortable with this practice.  In my family, we don’t name our sins, we hide them, we excuse them,we pretend they do not exist.  This practice requires a level of honesty with self and others that I am not sure I am able to embrace.  As much as I would like to march up to God’s customer service representative tomorrow and return these gifts with their price tag still intact, it is the words of the third gift bearer that stop me.

I had no idea where this post would go when I sat down to write it.  I grabbed my ipod to block out the noise so I could concentrate and the song, Sigh No More, by Mumford and Son was the first song that played – these lyrics caught my attention:

“Love that will not betray you,

Dismay or enslave you,

It will set you free

Be more like the man

You were made to be.

There is a design,

An alignment to cry,

At my heart you see,

The beauty of love

As it was made to be”

Jesus did not come to save me from the wrath of an angry God, but to free me from my own sinful nature.   It is only through the incarnation of Christ that lives in me that I can be the person I was made to be.  It is only through my recognition of my own sin that the beauty of love will ever become manifest in my life.  I ran half way across the country to escape and I ran head long into what I was running from – myself.  No matter where I go, there I am.  I can keep on running, or I can choose to accept these three gifts:  The gift of self-examination, the gift of confession, and the gift of knowing that my heavenly father loves me in spite of all my brokenness.

So, Jesus came, did you get what you expected?

This post is a part of a Synchroblog.   Please, visit these links other bloggers writing on the same topic:

• Glenn Hager – Underwear For Christmas
• Jeremy Myers – The Unexpected Gift From Jesus
• Jeff Goins - The Day After Christmas: A Lament
• Wendy McCaig – Unwanted Gifts: You Can Run But You Can Not Hide
• Christine Sine – The Wait Is Over – What Did I Get?
• Maria Kettleson Anderson – Following The Baby We Just Celebrated 
• Leah – Still Waiting For Redemption

“The community of God’s people is uniquely capable of affirming the dignity of the poor and enabling them to meet their own needs. One problem today has been that the church is not involved in developing its communities…and being almost irrelevant to the needs of the people around them.  Christian Community Development sees the church as taking action towards the development of its community.

 

This concept is certainly not new in the black community. The black church has spawned most of the substantial community efforts in housing and economic development. As natural as these transformations have been for the black church, they continue to be foreign to the traditional white church. Often, opposition to the church’s involvement in community development still occurs among many white denominations and church groups.”

“Church Based” is one of the “8 Key Components” that CCDA advocates for.  While I love the vision, the reality is not quite as encouraging.

Jay Van Groningen is one of the most experienced Christian community developers I know.  He is the founder of Communities First Association, an organization dedicated to engaging Christians in Asset Based Community Development.  Jay is also my coach through CFA. Jay affirms the church as an asset to the community development process providing hope, a spiritual and moral compass, prophetic imagination, shared community space, financial resources, and the time and talents of its congregational members.

This morning, I was very excited to share with Jay some exciting new relationships with several local congregations during our regular monthly coaching session.  I value Jay’s wisdom and thus far in our coaching relationship, his council has proven to be wise.  However, I hope and pray that his experience does not become mine.  His council to me this morning was this:

“Over the years, I have noticed that most Christians who get serious about community development – serious enough to work at it – try to start the work of neighborhood transformation from a church platform. They hope and expect that a congregation will engage in God’s redemption story in the neighborhood as a lead agent for positive change. They expect that the church will care enough about their neighbors and neighborhood to want to be a lead “player” in the neighborhood redemption story.

 

They are soon disappointed with Church as agent for neighborhood transformation.  Those who have launched neighborhood transformation from a church platform (be it new church or established church) feel isolated, alone, under-resourced, and disillusioned with church participation. While church is loaded with gifts for neighborhood transformation, their focus and energies seem directed to “healthy church” issues, not “healthy community” issues.

 

CFA has learned that a best practices approach is to lead neighborhood transformation from outside the church such as a non-profit and to call on the church to bring their gifts (as much as they are willing) to the neighborhood transformation process.

 

Ironically “healthy church” and “healthy community” is not a problem to be solved – it is a polarity to be managed. A community is healthier when church gifts are a shaping force; a Church is healthier when as servant/witness it stretches itself in giving gifts for the redemption of the neighborhood it occupies.”

In other words, Jay encouraged me not to anchor community development within a church but to instead find a non-profit or para-church to act as the lead agency – the owner of the transformation process.  In the past, Embrace was that non-profit but my hope has been that we move into a coaching and training role empowering church leaders.  Jay warned me that it all comes down to power and money and that when push comes to shove, building the “church” will always win over building the community.

I was deeply saddened by these words.  I know Jay is trying to keep me from experiencing the same pain and disappointments he and others have experienced in their own community development work. I would probably be wise to heed his council and not invest so heavily in coaching church leaders, but something in my spirit tells me that God is about to do something that even Jay has never seen. Perhaps I am overly idealistic and probably totally naive.  However, I am seeing far too many signs that the church is changing to simply ignore the possibility.

What I am seeing is a convergence between the work of Christian community developers and those on the cutting edge of the missional church conversation.  One particular conversation that really excites me is with “Fresh Expressions” which is being facilitated by our local Virginia Baptist Mission Board. 

Last week, I met with John Chandler and Ben Jamison who are part of the team that first developed the relationship between the VBMB and Fresh Expressions UK, which was founded by Bob and Mary Hopkins.  As I described to John and Ben the type of community that was developing out of our community development efforts and those I have witnessed emerging out of Christian community development efforts across the county, both Ben and John saw what I saw – fresh expressions of the Church Universal.

The two elements at the heart of Fresh Expressions are a strong mission focus and a willingness to re-imagine church so that people can encounter Christ in their culture.

My hope and prayer is that if the church leaders that I am working with can re-imagine what “church” looks like, that they will see these “fresh expressions,” as an expansion of “their church.” If this paradigm were to be embraced, there would not be a power struggle between community development and church development – it would all become one.  I see the principals and practices of Asset Based Community Development being the first phase of discerning where God is already at work in the community so that the church will know how to join God on mission in its local context.  However, I see “Fresh Expressions” giving the church the language and lenses it needs to see what emerges out of community development as an extension of the church and not just “a mission’s activity” that can be abandoned if it does not result in building the institutional model of church.

I am thankful that God has given the leaders of our local Virginia Baptist Mission Board the vision, freedom and courage to explore new ways of going on mission with God.  I am very thankful for the encouragement and support of John Chandler of the Spence Network who has encouraged me for years.  I am also thankful that through my relationships at the VBMB, I have the opportunity to explore these concepts with individuals who are shaping this dialog on a national level.  However, most of all I am thankful for the wisdom that Jay Van Groningen speaks into my life on a regular basis.  I know Jay’s heart is to see the church be the transformation agent it was called to be.  I hope and pray that a year from now, Jay can point to a transformation story, led by a local church here in Richmond, Virginia.  I know it will not be easy but I do believe in miracles, no matter how unlikely they are.

1. A growing number of older, second career students.  According to CNN Belief Blog post titled “Baby Boomers heading back to seminary”, “The fastest-growing group of seminarians include those older than 50.”
2. A growing number of younger students who do not see themselves in the institutional church. This quote was taken from a post written by a young seminarian, Mary Beth Foust, who visited Embrace recently.  Mary Beth shares in the post that she has been struggling with her call to ministry and goes on to write:

This past Tuesday, one of my classes visited with Embrace Richmond. We spent the morning learning about how they have simply come alongside this neighborhood allowing its members to dream about a future that could be and focusing on the positive things that they bring to their community (This is also known as Asset Based Community Development). It was simply amazing to see that they weren’t concerned with how many, but how much. What quality of care and dignity could they offer by allowing the people in this community to say this is what we need, can you come alongside of us and help us to do it?

 

As I sat in that room I couldn’t shake the fact that I felt at home among the people there. As we talked about poverty and transformation I felt like I could have talked for hours. This is it. This is the kind of work I am supposed to be doing.

3. A growing number of female students who are pursuing new and creative ways of exercising their pastoral call outside the institutional church.

BTSR was formed out of the Southern Baptist Church split with the goal of providing theological education for moderate Baptists, specifically in it’s affirmation of women in ministry. Erin Spengeman and I were students at BTSR together.  Like me Erin likes to do things kind of out of the box.  She tried going to work within the institutional setting of the church, but she always felt a bit out of place.  Several years ago Erin started a group called “Beer and Theology” in her home.  Erin found that her real passion was engaging those who would never step foot in a church in spiritual conversations.  This past year, Erin has taken on a new venture, a home based “fresh expression” of church called “Synago Church” which she co-pastors with another BTSR graduate, Nelson Taylor.

While both Erin and I see ourselves as somewhat of an anomaly, I think there is a reason for our weirdness.  We are both women who pursued our theological training in a Baptist setting.  Female Baptist seminarians have a far greater challenge than most seminarians in finding positions within local church settings.  Both Erin and I are leaders, both are apostolic in our call, both of us are very creative and we are both willing to take risks.

The institutional structures in most Baptist expressions of the church are none of the above.  Thus, to be who God created us to be, we had to go outside the traditional church walls.  The funny thing is that we are both being called back into “the church” to help change the structures so that others who are shaped like us, do not have such a hard time living their call while staying connected to the institutional church.

For years, the image of a “church planter” was a hipster type male in his late 20’s with a goatee.   The idea being that young people will connect with young pastors and that young hip pastors will make the church “cool” to the more postmodern generations and “attract” that generation.  However, the hip, cool expressions with their multi-staff structure, full worship band and large group gatherings are expensive and few have proven to be successful. This is one area David Fitch and I totally agree on.  The church of the future will likely be smaller and lighter weight.  It will have a very low overhead and is likely to have no full-time paid pastor.  It will spend less of its energy and resources on itself and invest more in building the Kingdom and going on mission in the world.

This idea of creating church structures that are lighter weight will require that we prepare pastors to be bi-vocational or better yet, that we engage pastors who are already financially stable.  There will be fewer and fewer full-time ministerial positions which means that it will be less and less feasible for the 20 something male to move into full-time vocational ministry.  Think about it.  Most males in their late 20’s are recently married, have few assets of their own to sustain them, and will likely be moving into childrearing years.  The stress of starting a family, added to the financial stress inherent in any ministry position, plus the stress of starting something from the ground up is taking a toll on these young pastors and their families.

Some look at the rise in older students and the decline in younger ones as a handicap to the church, I see it as God’s provision for a new way of being church.

I have a friend named Cathy who is in her mid 50’s.  Cathy is thinking about going to seminary.  She and her husband have raised their kids, they have financial security, they can take risks and they can endure through financial hardship.  She has tremendous wisdom because of the years she spent in corporate America.  She knows the real world and can reach people where they are because she has been there.

So as we explore what “fresh expressions” of the church will look like, I think we also need to explore “fresh images” of what a “pastor” looks like.  Instead of searching for the next “Rob Bell”, we need to open our eyes to the grandmothers and neighborhood matriarchs sitting right under our noses.

Our institutional churches also need to find a way to insure young pastors who see themselves in “fresh expressions” of the church do not have to leave the church to follow their call.  We have to create ways of releasing people to go on mission and maintain connection to the “mother” church.  We have to free people to be creative and a little weird in the name of Jesus.  This willingness to release without abandoning will add a level of support, maturity and sustainability that these young ministers need to be successful.   If we do not make these changes, my young creative seminary friends will leave the church and live out their call as nurses or a social worker and in the long-run the church will suffer.

Recently Scot McKnight posted a great article about Phoebe, the letter bearer of Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Phoebe is a great archetype for the next generation of pastor’s.  She is self-sufficient, apostolic and she has been commissioned by the mother church to carry the teachings of the faith into new territory.  If you are a female looking for affirmation of your call, I strongly encourage you to read this post.

What other trends are you seeing in the role and shape of the pastor?

How can the church better support those of us who are a little out of the box?