The Internet Monk Archives

Slow Church Week 1: The Convivial Church

SLOW CHURCH WEEK 1
The Convivial Church

Before this strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts…

– Matthew Arnold

* * *

In their revelatory new book, Slow Church, Chris Smith and John Pattison reflect upon the following important words from the beginning of the Slow Food Manifesto (1989): “Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model” (p. 12).

As a result, the document’s authors say, today’s societies have succumbed to an “insidious virus” — Fast Life.

Churches are not immune to Fast Life; in fact, particular types of church such as the megachurch seem to have mastered the form. Churches deemed “successful” today are buzzing beehives of action, 24/7 centers of perpetual motion, with programs for every age and interest, keeping individuals and families on the move as their spiritual leaders continually try to think up new offerings. After all, they are competing with a culture that is constantly trying to get our attention so that we will partake of their goods and services.

A wise friend once told pastor and author John Ortberg that the one and only thing he must concentrate on to be more spiritually healthy was: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” Reflecting on this, Ortberg says,

I’ve concluded that my life and the well-being of the people I serve depends on following his prescription, for hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. Hurry destroys souls. As Carl Jung wrote, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”

For most of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.

– John Ortberg
Ruthlessly Eliminate Hurry

Slow Church calls us to form congregations that will not skim life.

It calls Christians to the kind of faith community described in the early chapters of the Book of Acts: “They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers” (Acts 2:42, MSG). Note especially how Peterson renders the Greek term koinonia in The Message: “the life together.” It is a common life, not simply participation in common activities or programs. And the activities that are shared together are slow activities: soaking up apostolic teaching together, sharing common meals, and participating in regular community worship (the phrase “the prayers” reflects the daily services in the Jerusalem Temple).

In contrast, the “Fast Life” church emphasizes the principles of “McDonaldization” identified by sociologist George Ritzer:

Efficiency
Predictability
Calculability (quantifiable results)
Control

Christianity becomes a commodity. The church becomes a dispenser of goods and services. As the authors say, the “Christian life” then revolves around two poles: (1) the Sunday morning “experience,” which is produced, controlled, and dispensed by the professionals and church leaders, and (2) one’s “personal relationship with Jesus,” which can be managed by each individual. It perfectly mirrors the consumer experience in a technological culture.

Smith and Pattison note that commodified Christianity is characterized by “plug-and-play ministries, target marketing, celebrity pastors, tightly-scripted worship performances, corporate branding, the substitution of nonhuman technology for human work, church growth formulas that can be applied without deference to local context, and programs upon programs upon programs — these entice us with promises of miraculous results in just a few easy steps” (p. 15).

In contrast, they invite us “to start exploring and experimenting with the possibilities of Slow Church. Not as another growth strategy, but as a way of reimagining what it means to be communities of believers gathered and rooted in particular places at a particular time” (p. 15). They encourage us to embrace conviviality and to make the table and conversation and sharing life together the essence of congregational life.

The book does that by offering us a three-course meal based on the principles that characterize a “slow” movement:

The ethics of slow church: an allegiance to quality rather than quantity or efficiency.

The ecology of slow church: understanding that our call to follow Christ is within God’s mission of the reconciliation of all things — that how we do things is as important as what we do.

The economy of slow church: relying upon God’s abundant provision for God’s reconciling work.

This week, we will be exploring these themes here on Internet Monk.

I am heartened to know that this subject is not theoretical to Chris and John. John lives in western Oregon in a rural community where he and his family attend an evangelical Quaker meeting. There, they seek to practice community life in their small town as well as in their church, hoping to preserve its character and history. Chris is a city-dweller who lives in downtown Indianapolis. His congregation is 118 years old and the neighborhood in which it exists has a rich history. Like many urban communities, however, the place has changed over the years and Chris calls it “a gritty, urban neighborhood.” For the last 25 years, the congregation has worked hard to be “fully present” to its neighbors, and Chris has written about this in another book, The Virtue of Dialogue: Conversation as a Hopeful Practice of Church Communities.

It is my opinion that Slow Church may well be one of the most important books on the church in our generation. It does for congregational life as a whole what Eugene Peterson did when writing about pastoral ministry and what Robert Webber did on the subject of worship. None of these folks who love the church is trying to be innovative or faddish, suggesting something that is “new and improved” with regard to our life with Christ. Instead, they commend simple wisdom that is tried and true and tied to living as full and redeemed human beings in community with others for the life of the world.

* * *

Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus
C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison
IVP Books (May 6, 2014)

Full disclosure: CM received this book as a complimentary copy.

Saturday Ramblings, June 7, 2014

Mormon shoulder wars, Left-Behind trailers, and road trips with a corpse: Welcome to the weekend, fellow imonkers.

First, some sports news. The Evil Empire lost the first game of the NBA finals Thursday night in San Antonio. The big news of the game was that the AC in the arena went out, and courtside temps pushed 90. The Heat could not take the heat, and LeBron James had to be carried off the court with a leg cramp. Words cannot express my deep grief and sympathy.

Jesus never sinned, but he did make mistakes: that is the verdict of Mark Driscoll in a sermon last month. Mars Hill Church deleted a section from the video of Driscoll’s original message. In that deleted section, Driscoll distinguished between sin and mistakes, claiming that Jesus never sinned but that he did make mistakes. CT asked a bunch of really smart people their thoughts on the question. But hey, we don’t need no stinkin’ talking heads on this one, do we? What do you think? Did Jesus make mistakes? If so, what kind?

“You come across (online comments) about yourself and about your friends, and it’s a very dehumanizing thing. It’s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing, and then something is defined out of it. My hope is, as we get out of it, we’ll reach the next level of conscience.” This from Gwennyeth Paltrow, in an interview last weekend. The negative comments = war meme did not go over to well with those who had actually been in war, such as this Green Beret: “I could see how you, and others like you in “the biz”, could be so insecure and mentally weak that you could pair the difficulty of your life on twitter to my brothers who have had their limbs ripped off and seen their friends shot, blown up, burned and disfigured, or wake up every morning in pain – while just starting the day is a challenge… Yeah, reading a mean tweet is just like all that. You know what is really “dehumanizing”, Miss Paltrow? The fact that you’d even consider that your life as an “A-list” celebrity reading internet comments could even compare to war and what is endured on the battlefield.” Ouch.

After Peter Leithart made a case for “Reformational catholicism” last month, many have asked him why he stays Presbyterian. Here is his answer. The quote below is only one of his reasons, but hopefully its enough to start a good argument: “If I were to become Catholic or Orthodox, I would have to conclude that I have never participated in a full Eucharistic service. I would have to conclude that neither I nor my pastor friends have ever stood in loco Christi in the liturgy. I would go from a church where every baptized Christian is welcome at the Eucharist to a church that excludes hundreds of millions of validly baptized Christians, and I would never again share the Lord’s Supper with Protestant friends or family members. Becoming Catholic or Orthodox would, in my estimation, make me less catholic, not more.”

Shockingly, Pope Francis was in the news this week. This time for warning young couples to avoid childlessness: “You can go explore the world, go on holiday, you can have a villa in the countryside, you can be carefree. It might be better — more comfortable — to have a dog, two cats, and the love goes to the two cats and the dog…Then, in the end this marriage comes to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness.”

Trinity Broadcast Network saw revenue decline 30 million dollars in 2012 (the last year reported). TBN reported a total revenue of approximately $144 million, compared to $176 million in revenue the year before. Amazingly, by the close of 2012 TBN still had over $831 million in total assets. Good thing Jesus never spoke warnings against the rich.

"Hey, this kind of style aint cheap!" — “Hey, this kind of style aint cheap!”

Meanwhile, in North Korea, an American tourist was arrested in for ‘hostile activities‘ after leaving a Bible at in his hotel room.

Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of D-day. The Atlantic featured an amazing collection of then-and-now photos . The pictures are interactive; simply click on them to see the same scene as it was 70 years ago and now.

Do you remember the singing nun who shocked Italy’s version of The Voice with her vocal chops? Well, turned out Sister Christina won the whole thing.

It’s the woman’s fault. Even if you are 56 and she is 16. Even if you are the Senior Pastor of a Baptist Mega-church and she is a high school student seeking counseling. Even if you are the powerful heir of Jack Hyle’s mantle, and she is a troubled teen. It’s still her fault. At least if you are Jack A. Schaap, who is asking a federal judge to overturn his 12-year sentence (for transporting an underage girl across state lines for sexual purposes) because of “the aggressiveness of (the girl) that inhibited impulse control …” This no doubt explains the 637 texts (in one month) to each other, and the testimony of the girl: “I was raised by my parents and teachers to trust and obey my pastor. He was a celebrity to me, a father figure and a man of God. As my pastor, I sought guidance and counseling from him when I was in need of help…He violated my trust. But when it was being violated, I didn’t even know it because he made me believe what we were doing was OK and right in the eyes of God. When I asked him if it was wrong, he told me no and that I was his precious gift from God. I felt so special when he texted me from the holy altar during his sermons.” Excuse me while I go vomit…

Did you know that the Mormons are involved in a shoulder war? Jana Reiss reports from the front line. First she tells us about the sharp uptick in articles in Mormon magazines about the need for young women to cover their shoulders. Next she mentions how a public high school in Utah photoshopped sleeves onto the class pictures of girls who dared to bare their shoulders. And Reiss notes publications for children as young as four years old make an issue of this. Finally, she asks, “why?” Her answer: “Perhaps it’s because shoulders are a recognizable symbol of human power…the human shoulder is a locus of might. As tense discussions continue to erupt about Mormon women’s power, it’s not an accident that the corporeal locus of that tension has become their shoulders. We are acting out our discomfort with women’s power by covering their shoulders, the part of the body that most represents responsibility, capability, and authority.” Umm….Jana? Did you, perchance, major in women’s studies? Sometimes a shoulder is just a shoulder, and modesty zealots are just modesty zealots.

Courageously answering the need for more Bible editions in the U.S. market, Thomas Nelson has unveiled their new Duck Dynasty Bible. It will be KJV, and feature “30 life-changing testimonials along with 125 ‘Set Your Sights’ features from Phil and Al Robertson”. Yes, I am sure those testimonials will be not simply interesting or informative, but “life-changing”. I bet no life will ever be the same after reading them. You’ll have to get a new name after reading one, since no-one will believe it’s the same you. See, that was the problem with the Stock Car Bible: It’s features are only “exciting and inspiring”, not “life-changing”. C’mon, Zondervan, step up your game!

Oh, but do click on the link for the stock car Bible, just to see what items Amazon lists under the Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed section. Personally, I think $700,000 is a bit steep for a fresh, whole rabbit…

Gallup has a new study on what issues Americans find morally acceptable. Did you know that the percentage of people who approve of homosexual relations is now higher than those who approve of animal testing? Other findings:

66% of Americans feel pre-marital sex is A-OK, but only 7% say the same thing about adultery.
In 2002, only 53 percent of Americans said pre-marital sex was ok.
5% felt polygamy was acceptable in 2006, but that has almost tripled now to 14%
38% in 2002 said homosexual relations were acceptable, compared to 58% today.
In the twelve years Gallup has tracked these questions, the shift on the issues has come almost entirely from democrats.

Well, this is a little weird: A new Lifetime reality show will film young mothers giving birth in the wilderness. Born in the Wild will tell the story of mums who will give birth (on camera) in creeks, woods and forests, with no pain killers or medical attendants. Shockingly, not everyone is a fan. Dr. Ron Jaekle, “I understand everybody wants to believe we over-medicalise pregnancy and that it’s a natural process. But it’s a natural process that historically has caused an extraordinary loss of life.”

And you get to vote for the strangest headline of the week: Puppy drives car into Massachusetts pond, owner says, or No charges for Michigan man who drove across U.S. with corpse, or Corpse of partially stuffed crocodile found on golf course leaves charity baffled.

And finally, Chaplain Mike has just been ecstatic over the new Left Behind movie, starring none other than Nic Cage, everyone’s favorite thespian. Great news, Mike, the trailer was finally released this week! We conclude our Ramblings with this:

Items on the List

We encounter people throughout our days and, instead of being people with hopes and dreams, despair and failures, they become items on the list…
– Craig Gross

I want to tell the stories this week of six of my friends. Four became Christians. Two have not. So many of your comments this past week speak to their stories, and I will try to weave some of these comments into my friends stories.

On Wednesday our frequent commentator, Headless Unicorn Guy, had this to say:

And more recently in various fandoms, once someone is outed as a Christian(TM), their invitations are only accepted ONCE. After accepting once (and getting high-pressure proselytized at whatever Christian(TM) event they got invited to), they usually run far far away once the identified Christian(TM) tries to invite them to any subsequent event. The usual reaction is to NOT mention the “event” is a Crusade or P&W “concert” or Christian event, which only adds to the bait-and-switch distrust.

Andy and I have been friends for 36 years. We still get together once a year when I take my yearly canoe trip into his part of the province. I met Andy in grade 10, just after I had arrived in Canada, and he invited me over to his house for a game of table tennis. It became a second home for me. His basement was a hangout for a motley crew of misfits, myself included. We listened to the latest music, sharpened our ping pong skills, and had great debates and discussions about everything under the sun. A mutual friend invited Andy to a production of “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s flames” and Andy agreed to go. He was caught up in the emotion of the play and went forward to give his life to Christ. That is until he realized the next day that they had been playing on his emotions, and that he wouldn’t have done that if he had been thinking rationally. We have had many conversations in the ensuing years, he even contributed to a piece I wrote at Internet Monk, but I have to wonder how much that first experience turned him away from Christianity.

A few years later Bill and I met in the Computer Science Labs at the University of Western Ontario. We became friends, had some great conversations, and he started joining me for lunch in the University Centre where I was hanging out with a bunch of other friends from the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. Bill was studying philosophy (among other thing) when one day he was reading one of the ancient Greek philosophers and was thinking about the concept of “truth”. It suddenly hit him, “Jesus is the embodiment of truth!” he exclaimed to me. “If I want to know what is true I need to look at what Jesus said and did.” I recall talking to him about John 1, and how Jesus is the “logos”, and that his eureka moment did fit with what scripture teaches. Our friendship continued for several years beyond that. He joined my cell group at Inter Varsity, and we even dated the same girl (albeit at different times.)

Lynn made the following comment about “closing the deal”:

my husband and I were being assessed as church planters and during the Evangelism section I found myself debating this very thing with one of the leaders/assessors. He actually said that eventually you have to “close the deal.” I was stunned and here my disillusionment grew. Human beings are not business deals. How we live our lives in this world and how we love will speak volumes more than the feeble, faulty words that fall from our tongues.

With Bill I never had to close the deal. It seemed like the Holy Spirit was working in his heart in a way that never would have crossed my mind. I have never been a fan of “closing the deal”, my experience has been that it tends to alienate rather than attract people to Christ.

The year after I met Bill I was sitting having lunch with another friend John. A Campus Crusade staff worker who I knew walked up and asked if he could join us. He then whipped out his “four spiritual laws” and proceeded to take John through the booklet. I could tell that John wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment. He asked John if he would pray the sinners prayer with him, and John agreed, I believe just to get rid of him. John never talked to me again.

Who knows where that friendship would have gone and what might have happened with John had the Crusader not stepped in. It seemed to me at the time though that John had become a notch on a belt to be mentioned as a praise item in the next weekly meeting, and was probably further from God than he was before that encounter.

Now I must admit I have been guilty of wanting to close the deal. Kelly had been talking to a co-worker at the furniture store that she worked at, and he had been quite open about his Christianity and what Jesus meant to him. He encouraged her to check out a church. His church however was at the opposite end of town from where she lived, so he encouraged her to check out the one I was going to. “It’s a good church, and it’s right across the road from you.” So one Sunday she showed up unannounced. A bunch of us saw her there by herself and we invited her out to lunch. She started attending our college and career group. She said that she was going to be around for a year and was then heading off to Australia. That year quickly passed, she was going to be leaving soon, and I wasn’t sure where she stood with God. I invited her to go for a skate on the historical Rideau Canal where I carefully broached the topic. I don’t remember my words at all but I vividly remember her response. “Last month when we had communion the Pastor invited all those who are believers in Jesus Christ to take part. It was at that moment that I said to myself that yes, I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I took communion for the first time. That was the moment at which I became a Christian.” I do remember pressing her on what it meant to be a believer and her response surprised me. “Imagine a tight rope walker walking back and forth on a tight rope. He says to a person in the audience, ‘Do you believe a could cross this tight rope carrying a person on my back?’ ‘Yes’ the person responded. ‘Okay then’, said the tight rope walker. ‘Get on!'” “Believing in Jesus”, said Kelley, “is not just believing a set of facts about him, but being willing to climb on his back and trusting him to take you where ever he wants to go.” I was glad we had that conversation, but the Holy Spirit had certainly been talking to her before I could mess things up with my words. One month later she was gone, and I never saw her again.

Several years later I was approached by a co-worker named Rav. He said that he knew that I was a Christian and he had a few questions for me about Christianity. His family was Hindu, his girlfriend was Christian, and he knew that he either had to convert to Christianity or break it off with her. He also knew that he couldn’t become “just a nominal Christian. If I become a Christian it is going to hurt my family,” he said. “And I am not going to hurt them over something that is meaningless to me.” He had 1001 questions about Christianity, and we spent hours discussing it. One of the most significant areas that he wanted to discuss was the deity of Christ. “It seems to me that the truth of Christianity revolves around whether or not Jesus is God. I don’t think I can become a Christian unless I believe that that is true.” We spent a long time on that topic. Rav did become a Christian. He got baptized and he got married. My interaction with Rav was the same as with everyone else. Be friendly, be open, and be available to talk.

So what am I trying to communicate here? My experiences with “closing the deal” have generally been negative. It my case it has been in letting friendships and conversations develop, some times over several years, that has resulted in people coming to Christ. And I will throw a bone to my Calvinist friends on this blog. In each of these cases it seems like I have had a bit role to play. The Holy Spirit was working in their hearts long before they had their conversations with me.

Finally let me make this clear. If you ask me to invite my friend to a “special event” I am going to be pretty reticent, because you know what? They have a pretty good idea when they are becoming “an item on the list.”

iMonk Classic: Leaving Behind the Church-Shaped Life

Since it has been a rather post-evangelical week here on Internet Monk, I think it only fitting that the last words I contribute to the subject, before turning things over to Mike Bell tomorrow, come from Michael Spencer.

The following is an excerpt from Michael’s book, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality and its chapter, “Leaving the Church-Shaped Life.”

Much of what passes for proclaiming Jesus is, in actuality, churches concerned with attracting large numbers of Sunday mornings, directing financial resources toward church budgets, and showing Christians how to get in synch with church activities. What’s needed is a wave of churches that are committed to helping you become a missionary in your world.

Millions of Christians have moved out of the traditional church and into the culture. They have moved into alternative forms of the church and into new and little-understood expressions of the church. What are these Christians looking for, and what are they finding? I believe they want to affirm a balance of Jesus, Kingdom of God, church, and individual life.

There have been times in my church-dominated, church-shaped experience when I caught the sound and sight of something entirely different from what I was experiencing. I’m not talking about the plastic happiness of pretend spirituality, nor am I talking about impressive rooms full of rocking-out worshipers.

When I caught sight of something that was so different and real that it captured my attntion and drew my spirit, it was always as a person. It was the appeal of a person who chose the way of Jesus and not the way of money, success, popularity, or fame. They were not looking for a bigger crowd. They were not looking to sell books or make their name famous. They did not show up to attract an audience or attention. They showed up to give to others.

They gave away their money and chose suffering. They were little known or unknown but lived openly and honestly before God.

They saw the possibility of God’s Kingdom in places such as senior-adult apartment complexes, AIDS hospices, Alzheimer’s wards, mountain schools, and remote villages far from their home.

They never pointed to anything as much as Christ, the gospel, and the love of Jesus.

Their beliefs and actions flowed together seamlessly. Love, faith, hope, and good works were inseparable.

They were humble, silent when necessary, and speaking up as the Holy Spirit led. The great expression of their faith was to serve in Jesus’ name and to count all things valuable only in relationship to Christ.

The humble service of Jesus, the believers who serve Christ and his Kingdom asking for nothing, remind me that the beauty of the life of discipleship is “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This life grows in the soil of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It is the church’s calling to produce disciples who hunger for Jesus, and it is the believer’s calling to know the difference between Jesus and the church that points to Jesus.

– Michael Spencer
Mere Churchianity, pp. 159-161

The Pressure to Produce Results

Note from CM: Today’s post is from our friend Adam Palmer, who has written a new book with Craig Gross coming out in August, called Go Small: Because God Doesn’t Care About Your Status, Size, or Success. This book is an encouragement to ditch the evangelical church world’s “success” mentality and simply do the thing that God puts in front of you, no matter how “small” it might look. The excerpt, written from Craig Gross’s perspective, speaks to ways the culture of evangelicalism puts the responsibilities of building the kingdom of God on our own shoulders.

* * *

I recently gave a sermon on how we Christians in the church tend to treat evangelism as a checklist. We encounter people throughout our days and, instead of being people with hopes and dreams, despair and failures, they become items on the list, and it’s our job as Christians to make sure we place check marks next to their names in the “Did Witness To” box. If we have to put check-marks in the “Did Not Witness To” box, then we’ve failed in our duty and, likely, are directly responsible for sending them to hell.

In my sermon, I talked about how this mentality of sharing our faith can really mess us up, putting the emphasis on “closing the deal” rather than exhibiting a life that is being constantly redeemed and renewed by Christ. I talked about my long friendship with Ron Jeremy, who is the undisputed king of porn stars and is such a legend that people line up to meet him and shake his hand. I’ve gone all over the United States with Ron, and no matter what town we roll up to, he never fails to draw a crowd of enthusiastic fans.

I’ve been friends with Ron for years and, at the time of this writing, he’s still wavering about needing a relationship with Jesus. We’ve talked and talked and talked about God, about Jesus, about heaven and hell, about life with Christ and life without Christ—if it has to do with faith, Ron and I have covered it. While we’ve become really good friends, and while Ron knows where I stand on everything, he’s still not entirely convinced he needs to turn his life over to the Lord.

In this sermon, I also related a story about the former porn star Brittni, how one person on our team managed to minister to her over the course of seven years through something as small as chitchat, what that looked like, how the Holy Spirit convicts people at different times and in different ways, and how Brittni’s conversion was exactly what the Lord had in mind for her but may not be what He has in mind for others.

I talked about how these things happen on God’s time-table, not mine. Not yours. Not the church’s. I talked about how, in general, evangelism takes time and usually requires building some type of relationship with people first.

After I gave this very wonderful, very biblical sermon, the senior pastor got up, thanked me, and, as was standard routine in their church, gave an altar call—and no one came forward.

No big deal, right? Wasn’t that the point of my entire message? That God will do His thing in His time?

Except to the people on the leadership team of this church, it was a big deal.

When that service was over and we all met backstage, this church’s leaders and pastoral staff were freaking out with all sorts of questions. Why had there been no response? Why didn’t anyone come forward at the end? Was it the song the band played—was it too heavy-handed? Or maybe it wasn’t heavy-handed enough? Was it the language the pastor had used in his invitation—was it too grace-oriented or too works-oriented? Was it something else entirely that they couldn’t put their finger on, like lighting or sound issues?

I wish I were making this up.

Like many evangelical churches in America today, this church had multiple services on a weekend, and this service had been the first one for that particular weekend. The church leaders immediately began planning what they could do differently for the remaining services, specifically to get a conversion or two at the conclusion of each one.

Why? Because whether they realize it or not, in their minds they have to have numbers. They have to produce.

In the end, the leadership at this church decided to change the song the band would play at the end of the service and rearrange the order of some of the closing bits of procedure in order to get more people to come forward. It’s as if we were on an episode of Survivor trying to light a fire for the first time: you just keep trying and trying until you get the thing done.

But do you see what’s happening in their definition of success? Not only are they deciding that success equals a certain number of people coming forward during the altar call, but they’re defining it with the wrong focus.

It’s all on them.

The idea that the Holy Spirit might not have convicted anyone to come forward—or that He was, but people were actively resisting it—didn’t occur to them. No, the burden of conversion rested solely upon their shoulders, with none of it on God’s.

Shouldn’t we all just take a step back and say to God, “I don’t think You necessarily need my song or my sermon or my story or my video to do what You want to do.” Isn’t that the uncomfortable truth behind God’s sovereignty? That He uses us and gives us value and purpose, but that He doesn’t rely on us in the same ways we rely on each other?

Would that church be any less valid if they didn’t see a salvation that weekend? Would their ministry to their community be any less effective? Would their members suddenly begin backsliding into a pit of moral depravity?

Let’s take it a step further: in the long run, could this air ball of an altar call actually have been a good thing for this church and its leadership?

Here’s why I say that: I’ve been a part of something big and extraordinary, and one thing I’ve noticed about it is that when you see God using you in those types of big environments, it’s very tempting for that to go to your head. The thing can very easily become bigger in your eyes than God is, and guess who’s at the center of this very big thing. You are. Suddenly it has become all about you and not about Jesus.

Wretched Enthusiasm

It felt so big to you, that fire in your heart. It filled your body, gave you a sort of buoyancy and belonging. A sense of purpose.

. . . The God-fire grew big and hot and wild, and your whole world began to glow with it. It raged in your heart, and before you knew it, you were entirely consumed.

– Addie Zierman
When We Were on Fire

* * *

Oh my. What an unsettling day yesterday turned out to be. A day of introspection and pondering the past, and its impact on the present and future.

First, I gave an update about my journey through the post-evangelical wilderness.

Then, during the ensuing discussion I was stunned by this pitch-perfect, on the mark comment by regular reader Danielle (I’ve underlined parts that struck home to me with special resonance):

“There is a level of participation that one becomes accustomed to, a certain “insider” mentality from having been a part of the leadership, and certain expectations from others about one’s role that requires adjustments all around.”

I’ve never been in professional ministry or felt called to it, but I feel like I have experienced some of this shift just in migrating out of evangelicalism.

The way I experienced evangelicalism, the expectation was that one would center one’s life on church involvement and devotional life. If you went into ministry (most “spiritual” and talented people were supposed to consider that path), this vocation was both your full-time job and an entire lifestyle. If you didn’t go into ministry, you were to duplicate that level of commitment in other spheres, and the goal was to “influence the culture”–while still volunteering a lot in the church. Not everyone was living this way, but everyone knew what the ideals were—if you were really spiritual, you were going for a total life commitment. It touched everything you did. And if you were in the inner core of a church, all the more so. At least, this was the message I picked up from communal ideals adults hoped that teenagers and college students would adopt, before taking over.

Then I went into self-imposed exile, and eventually settled in the mainline. It was a relief to be out from under the mental pressure of my prior expectations. I needed the space, intellectually and spiritually, and it has become obvious to me over time that I either can’t or won’t conform myself to some of the expectations that I found in evangelicalism. And it was a tremendous relief to have the tools of liturgy and sacrament to reconstruct faith and faithful living. Yet, it still creeps me out that I have this space. The pressure cooker culture that exists inside evangelicalism offers two carrots: it professes to take God very seriously, and it takes an interest getting people (that is, you personally) involved in its mission. If you can get with the program, there can be an exhilarating sense of belonging. Sometimes, my inner activist reads other church cultures as being lax or not caring as much. Perhaps that’s true, in some cases. But I think it is far more the case that I just don’t understand the rules and am not sure how regain my old sense of commitment (or act on it) outside of the evangelical context. Truthfully, I am not even sure how to pose the question. So I am still a bit lost. It’s like I’ve learned a second language from excellent book study, but I’m still thinking in my native language, then translating my thoughts into the new one. A person isn’t fully fluent until they can dream in the language. So I still feel a little out of sorts.

Wow. Talk about hitting the nail on the head — “If you were really spiritual, you were going for a total life commitment.”

Danielle’s insight is to recognize that the “total life commitment” in the culture of evangelicalism is not necessarily to the person of Jesus Christ but rather to the mission and program and expectations of the culture itself. Though it would claim to represent Christ’s calling, in fact it is the culture itself that often defines the “lifestyle,” the honored vocations, the meaning of total commitment. She rightly describes it as a “pressure cooker” that appeals to “activists” who will not feel that they are “taking God seriously” unless they are “getting with the program” wholeheartedly and without question.

Thanks, Danielle, for permission to reproduce your comment. You said it so well! Here’s to hoping we will all learn to dream in Jesus’ language and not merely in the language of our religious culture.

* * *

And then I came home after work and started reading Addie Zierman’s remarkable memoir, When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over.

Right before me, on the page, was my life, or rather the life I tried to live and help create for my children and others in churches I served in the 1980s and 90s — the daily devotion – AWANA program – CCM soundtrack – What Would Jesus Do? – True Love Waits – See You at the Pole – Teen Mania/Acquire the Fire – overseas mission trip – T-shirt wearing – Bible carrying – home-schooled or Christian-schooled – culture warrior – wholly devoted – sold out to Jesus – on-fire world of evangelicalism.

Zierman writes about herself and the people in her world who “worshiped in all capitals,” whose faith was a “do-or-die mission,” who participated in a “throbbing evangelical culture . . . with abandon.”

All that fire burned her out. Addie Zierman describes how, as a young adult, she eventually succumbed to the scorching heat of expectations that centered on proper performance, the right language, and maintaining godly appearances. Her departure from the church was accompanied by a swift descent into depression, alcohol abuse, marriage troubles, and cynicism. Thankfully, she eventually found her way back to a gentler, more nourishing, more deeply human faith journey that accepts its complexities and nuances. She got to a point where she said, “I think I’m ready to stop hating the evangelicals.” She and her husband started attending church again. They had a baby. She began growing up. She gave up on trying to define life with a few tidy Christian cliches. “You are in motion, in transit, in flux. You will be sad. You will be happy. You will love and doubt and cry and rage, and all of it matters,” she writes.

Out of his life experience among the Southern Baptists, Michael Spencer wrote eloquently about “Wretched Urgency” — a revivalistic church culture that promoted “a definition of the Christian life that was oriented to one thing: converting people.”

Danielle and Addie Zierman have written about the culture of “Wretched Enthusiasm,” which well describes the evangelicalism from which I emerged. It defined the Christian life in terms of being “wholly devoted” to Christ, or in more colloquial language: “on fire for God.”

Many end up getting burned. A significant percentage of burn victims suffer from PTSD. Some of us still smell like smoke.

Wilderness Update: Square Peg Syndrome

Wilderness Update from Chaplain Mike – June 2, 2014

It is no secret that I have long struggled with church.

Since leaving congregational ministry over nine years ago, I have been in the wilderness when it comes to having a church home and getting involved deeply in a congregation. After trying a few paths which turned out to be dead ends I eventually found a theological home among the Lutherans, but that still hasn’t made participation in a local church family any easier.

Many of you know that I became involved in a process to become ordained as a minister in the ELCA. That took the better part of the last two years, and in the end I was approved as a candidate. The next step is what the ELCA calls assignment — a person who is approved is not officially ordained until he or she accepts a call from a congregation. I ran into a bit of a roadblock at that point, writing about it somewhat cryptically in a Feb. 10 post called, “Pausing to Consider the Journey.”

For two months, I took a time-out from church, using weekends to talk and pray with my wife, seek counsel from people I respect, go on a silent retreat at Gethsemani, and think and read and write.

The end result is that I probably won’t be actively pursuing pastoral ministry and ordination in the ELCA. It still could happen, but it is growing more doubtful. It is doubtful because the process doesn’t fit someone in my position very well, but to be honest, it is also because I have my own doubts about the wisdom of taking that path.

As far as “ministry,” this poses no problems or concerns for me. Of course, I love to preach and teach and lead worship, but as far as providing pastoral care for people, I have remarkable opportunities every day to do that in hospice chaplaincy. In fact, I am sure that I can do more of it than I ever could as a congregational minister. I flat out love my job, have gained some seniority where I work, and have some potential new challenges that, if implemented, will make hospice work even more meaningful and significant. My vocational identity is secure, and I find joy in in it.

However, one of the reasons I’ve always been sad about not being in pastoral ministry is that my wife and I still haven’t found our niche together in ministry. Nothing has come close to the partnership and sense of being members of an extended family of believers together that we had when we were a pastoral family. I’m still trying to figure out how that might happen for us.

When it comes to church, call me a square peg.

There are many, many reasons for that, and I won’t bore you with them. Suffice to say that every place I’ve tried to fit in turns out to be round, and I don’t seem to fit.

Maybe the problem is mine. Perhaps I need to submit to some re-shaping. Maybe I’m just too damn insistent that the hole has to be perfectly square. I have no doubt there is truth in that. But I can’t help thinking there must be a square-er hole out there somewhere.

Thanks for listening.

I don’t share this out of some narcissistic need for attention. In fact, I’ve been hesitant to talk or write much about it, even with those closest to me, and I’ve tried to keep this post as succinct and general as possible. But I have found that, when we share our stories, it gives us a chance to connect with one another in conversation as fellow travelers.

Any other square pegs out there?

Jesus’ Ascension and Life as Gift

Traditional German Pilgrims Mark Jesus' Ascension to Heaven, at NBC News — Traditional German Pilgrims Mark Jesus’ Ascension to Heaven – May 29, 2014 (NBC News)

Many churches celebrate Jesus’ Ascension today, though the official observance was this past Thursday (May 29).

We so often leave the Ascension out of our gospel. Christ’s “finished work,” however, includes Jesus’ incarnation, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit — all of the above. These great events are the key points in Jesus’ Story, and therefore they shape the Church’s Creeds and we mark them during the liturgical year.

They are also the key events which form what we at IM call a “Jesus-shaped spirituality.”

For some perspective on how the Ascension contributes to our formation in Christ, let’s turn today to one of our favorite authors. Commenting on the words of Ephesians 4 and its use of Psalm 68, Eugene Peterson writes:

Paul lays out the conditions in which we are to grow up, namely, in a profusion of gifts: “When he ascended on high . . . he gave gifts to his people.” The ascended Jesus, Jesus at the right hand of the Father, Christ the King, launched his rule by giving gifts, gifts that turn out to be ways in which we participate in his kingly, gospel rule. This kingdom life is a life of entering more and more into a world of gifts, and then, as we are able, using them in a working relationship with our Lord.

We understand gift language well enough. We begin as gift. We don’t make ourselves. We find our fundamental identity as a gift. And then, immediately, we are given gifts: gifts of love and food and clothing and shelter, gifts of healing and nurture and education and training. “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1Cor. 4:7, NIV). “Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God?” (The Message). Gradually these gifts develop into the strengths and responsibilities of maturity. Infants are totally dependent on parents, but as children we gradually learn to dress and feed ourselves, make independent decisions, take initiative. Adolescence is the critical transition between childhood and adulthood. It is an awkward and often turbulent time as we learn to incorporate the gifts that we have been given into adult responsibilities. We have been given much. Now we begin exercising those gifts in community. We gradually learn to live what we have been given wisely and well. We grow up.

Paul introduces his Ascension text with the phrase: “each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Eph. 4:7). Grace (charis) is a synonym for gift. And this gift is not given sparingly, not a token gift, but “according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” I take “measure” which he later expands to “that he might fill all things” (v. 10) to carry a sense of extravagance and exuberance. If we are to become mature, we must gradually but surely realize ourselves as gift from first to last. Otherwise we will misconceive our creation as self-creation and end up in some cul-de-sac or other of arrested development.

– Eugene Peterson
Practice Resurrection

Saturday Ramblings, May 31, 2004

Welcome to the weekend, fellow imonkers. If any of you even thinks of mentioning the Pacers-Heat series I will look up your ISP and hunt you down. And do … really bad things. As soon as I can think of what they are. You have been warned.

Did you know that 33 cities have implemented (or are considering) laws prohibiting people from feeding the homeless? Daytona Beach, Florida, for example, recently fined a married couple and their friends 2,000 dollars for setting up a feeding station in a local park. Daytona Beach leaders argue that the couple’s work worsens homelessness by coaxing impoverished people away from centralized, city-run programs, and they complain that during the couple’s feedings some homeless people mistreated the park and frightened other patrons. what do you think? Do city officials have a point, or are they just playing Scrooge?

“Honoring predator Harvey Milk on a U.S. postage stamp is disturbing to say the least. Harvey Milk was a very disreputable man and used his charm and power to prey on young boys with emotional problems and drug addiction. He is the last person we should be featuring on a stamp.” This from the American Family Association, speaking out against the new stamp honoring the former San Francisco mayor. But since the deed is done, what can be done: “Refuse to accept mail at your home or business if it is postmarked with the Harvey Milk stamp. Simply write ‘Return to Sender” on the envelope and tell your postman you won’t accept it.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Pope Francis appeared to have a momentary disagreement. “Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew,” Netanyahu told the Pope at a public meeting in Jerusalem. “Aramaic,” interjected the Pope. “He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew,” Netanyahu shot back. Francis then poked Netanyahu in the eye and put him in a headlock, igniting a hilarious slap-stick bout of fisticuffs, culminating in the two of them wrestling in a large vat of kosher jello. I may have made that last sentence up…

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings, May 31, 2004”

When Children are Pawns in the Game of War

The kid who guards Fonseca’s tomb
Cradles a beat-up submachine gun —
At age fifteen he’s a veteran of four years of war
Proud to pay his dues
He knows who turns the screws
Baby face and old man’s eyes

Bruce Cockburn – “Nicaragua” – From the 1984 album “Stealing Fire”

Remember “Kony 2012”? This short documentary was made with the intent of trying to marshal the world’s resources to bring Joseph Kony to justice by 2012. To refresh your memory, Joseph Kony was the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Over the past twenty years the Lord’s Resistance Army (what an obscene name) has abducted 66,000 children to be used as either soldiers or sex slaves in the Congo, Southern Sudan, and Uganda. Kony is still at large.

The kidnapping of nearly 300 girls in Nigeria in April seems to have finally regained the attention of the world when it comes to the plight of children in war torn areas. At the moment of writing, the girls had been found, but not rescued, as it was feared that the rescue would lead to their deaths. Regardless of what happens to these girls, my concern is that once this story reaches its conclusion, their story will soon be forgotten, as the world moves along to the next big headline.

What I wanted to stress today is that this story is not ending: There are hundreds of thousands of children in similar situations.

Our connection with the story began in 1977. My mother was on a commercial flight from Botswana to Zambia, intending to visit her parents for one last time before we returned to Canada. After she was seated, 30 frightened children were herded onto the plane at gunpoint. They were being taken up to Zambia to train as child soldiers to be used in the civil war in Rhodesia. We were told that it was a scenario that was being played out over and over again.

What effect does war have on children? In 1989 a random survey was done of 504 children in Mozambique who were between the ages of 6 and 15.

. 77% had witnessed murder, often in large numbers,
. 88% had witnessed physical abuse or torture,
. 51% had been physically abused or tortured,
. 63% had witnessed rape or sexual abuse,
. 64% had been abducted from their families,
. 75% of the abducted children were forced to serve as porters or human cargo
carriers,
. 28% of the abducted children (all boys) were trained for combat.

Mozambique child soldier life outcome study: Lessons learned in rehabilitation and reintegration efforts
N. BOOTHBY, J. CRAWFORD, & J. HALPERIN
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA

According to Human Rights Watch (a report from 2007):

In over twenty countries around the world, children are direct participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in current armed conflicts.

The following amendment was made to the Geneva convention in 1977.

The Parties to the conflict shall take all feasible measures in order that children who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities and, in particular, they shall refrain from recruiting them into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of fifteen years but who have not attained the age of eighteen years, the Parties to the conflict shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest.

In spite of this, the situation has not improved.

Three hundred girls being abducted is horribly tragic, and this story is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

This is a story that we can’t let fade from our consciousness like it did between 2012 and 2014. We can’t just move on to the next headline. There are too many children out there who should not be in the situation that they are in right now. I don’t have any quick or easy suggestions about how we keep this story at the forefront of people’s minds, but I do welcome any thoughts or suggestions that you might have to offer.