Sweet irony

The church I posted about yesterday ironically is doing a series about money.

"“Bling bling” is the Oxford English Dictionary-approved term that began as hip hop slang referring to jewelry, diamonds and all forms of showy style. It also refers to a materialistic lifestyle built around excessive spending. "

"Jesus instructs us to practice good stewardship with all that we have. This includes managing our money and our spending habits..."

"This series isn’t about a “prosperity gospel” that promises to make you rich if you follow the right steps. Instead it’s about the miracle of giving and receiving; about how if we put God first we will walk in unique blessing; about living in covenant relationship with God."

[Lily slowly shakes her head.]

Sigh.

It's hard to be a good steward of six million dollars.

Links of Note

What's going on in the blog world?


I have made a ridiculous commitment. I joined NaNoWriMo. Think you can write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November? Yeah, me neither. But trying might be fun.

At The Ooze, Spencer Burke writes about Bankers Hours.

At Sacred Journey, the full text of Scot McKnight's "What is the Emerging Church?" is available in pdf.

Johnny Baker mentions the Church Planter's Reading List, notices that all the contributors are men, then asks "What are the women reading?"

Rick Meigs, aka The Blind Beggar, Asks the Right Question about the difference between Maintenance and Missional Congregations. Helpful differentiations.


That's all for now.

Repentance

Ok, so here's my promised repentance for last night's post. If you haven't read it, please do.

I'm truly sorry if my language offended you: When I read the "offending" article, I was moved to tears. I was livid, and sometimes when I'm really passionate about something, strong words help get the point across.

I apologize if my attitude was ungodly. It's not very often something comes up that makes me so blasted angry. In my anger I know I was lacking grace. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions (if I did). I know I had little information, and what I had was vague. But I think the graphs they shared don't lie. If there really is more to it than the information they provided, I would love to know what the truth really is.

I'm NOT sorry for being pissed (is pissed a bad word?). I think any place that calls itself a church ought to be ashamed for even daring to publish this. What pride there must exist for a church to think that people reading this article will feel GOOD about what the church is doing with their tithe!

It's not often that I choose to share things when I'm this passionate. I know that being passionate generally gets me into vocabulary and attitude trouble. But this time, I couldn't help myself from sharing.

One clarification I want to make about my rant:

I know that if I were to look at each individual person who is involved in this church, I would find most people are wholeheartedly seeking after God, people are generous and kind, loving and accepting.

But when I look at thee church as an entity, I see sickness.

How is it possible that the sum of the whole could have deviated so far from the collective hearts of the parts?

So last night I was conversing with my husband about my passion for this subject (consumerism, frivolity and waste in the church), he asked me this

"What do you think should be done about it?"

I began thinking about the practical application of "fixing" this problem.

Tough question. It takes a little time to turn the Titanic around.

Obviously there is nothing that can be done very quickly, unless the hearts of everyone in the congregation were to simultaneously become outrageous agents of change.

I mean, we can't immediately sell the building and begin meeting in houses. We can't just fire all the staff. We can't suddenly not offer the circus of amusement and events that everyone is accustomed to.

Here's my idealistic take on what could happen.

For starters, we can preach from the pulpit that we have messed up, big time, that we are so far off track we don't even remember how we got here.

Preach about how the church as an entity doesn't even tithe; we don't give even 10% of our income to really helping others. Speak about how much we spend on the buildings, the mortgage, the property taxes, the maintenance, the utilities. Tell about how many people we have on staff and how much we pay them, not that they aren't each and every one entirely worth their salaries, but is there a better way to spend our money? Engage us about how much we spend on programs (including children's ministry) and their supplies -- books and workbooks and videos and advertising.

Then ask the question of the congregants "What should we do about it?"

Now the really frustrating part in all this is simple: people are downright proud to belong to such a large, prosperous, technologically advanced church. They enjoy the programs and they utilize the ministries.

I say, "Ask not what your church can do for you, ask what you can do for your church."

And all the people say, "Huh?"

I am as guilty as anyone. I was one of the few, the proud. I LOVED my church. I was passionate for it. But I guess in this season on exile I God had something to teach me that I didn't expect.

That God didn't create the church for the Christians. It's not for our benefit, our pleasure. The church is a place where we can be built up and encouraged in community, so that we can go out and make disciples. It's not meant for us to camp in the church, it's meant for us to take a break there so we can be refueled in our mission.

Paul was a tentmaker. Let's not overlook the fact that God could have had Paul be a brick-maker. He could have been a builder. He could have been an architect. He could have been a plumber or an electrician (Ok, well maybe not, but you get my drift). God could have given Paul a trade that participated in building the church as a structure. Instead, he participated in building the church as a spirit, and had a trade that was representative of what church should be like.

When we get to a place where we are spending more (not just a little more, but far, far more) on church structures (the buildings, the salaries, the programs) instead of church spirit (love, generosity, missions) , then we have seriously lost our way.

Ok, I'll be done now.

Consumer Church and Capital

Warning -- today's post drove me to some profanity and a downright un-Godlike attitude.

Tomorrow I will repent. Today, this is what I have to say.



Today my hubby took the kids to our ex-church. I guess there are varying ideas of exactly how ex our ex-church is, because hubby has been taking the kids there lately (maybe he'll rethink that after this post). Anyhow there was a big hoo-rah there that kids didn't want to miss; they had heard about it a couple weeks ago when hubby took them there. The big hoo-rah itself is another whole story.

But today, hubby brought home the church's quarterly "magazine".

Argh.

I took one look at it and was quite seriously tempted to throw it energetically and wholeheartedy across the f***ing room.

So this "magazine" contains information about "programs", "groups" and ministries, along with "happenings" and a couple of (I must say) rather good articles. Pretty normal, informative stuff. Nothing really wrong with the content, all "programs" aside. Information about service times, resources and finances ... yes, finances ... well, I'll get to that in a minute.

But this THING...

It's semi-glossy, almost 30 pages, 11x13. Full-color on every page. Numerous professional photos. Produced 4 times a year. Probably upwards of 2000 copies printed each quarter. Has it's own staff. Nicer quality than my Time magazine. Heavy-duty paper throughout.

Any idea how much that would cost? I'm guessing between 6-10 thousand buck-bucks quarterly. Now it's likely some portion of the costs/services are donated. Yipity-skipity. If the church didn't require these services in the first place, the donors could actually contribute the cost of their services to something really meaningful.

So, it's produced quarterly -- every three months. In three months, the cost of producing this magazine equals:

• Enough to put food on the tables of 45 families for an entire month each.
• Enough to help 25 families with rent.
• Enough to help alleviate the medical expenses of 40 people.

Instead, that money sits in all it's 11x13 full color glory, in neat little stacks on cute little tables by every entrance, eagerly waiting to go home with someone to be useful and loved.

Buuuuut ... it's not really helping anyone. Yeah, maybe a small few people get some really meaningful information from it. Otherwise, the church has an extraordinarily comprehensive (and , of course, expensive) website with precisely ALL this information available. Not everyone has internet access, you say? Well the church also has an amply staffed office and a toll-free phone number. Oh, but the office staff doesn't really answer general information phone calls? Well they f***ing should. They are paid for it, ferpetessake. Oh, but theyr're too busy pushing paper to actually talk to anyone. If you're really lucky, you might get someone's voicemail.

Moving right along ... I'm thoroughly irritated at this gross behemoth icon of modern consumeristic church ... but I flip through anyhow, it at my husband's behest.

Lo-and-behold, I come across a page entitled "Finances".

OK, this should be interesting. I had no idea exactly how interesting.

"We couldn't help bragging about what YOU and your church staff were able to accomplish this past fiscal year!"

Oh, good freakin' God!

The shameless back-patting continues (emphasis belongs to the original author) ...

"As you can see, you gave more than we planned that your would (but not more than we thought possible), and we spent less than we thought we were going to."

"Great job, congregation and staff!"

The Finances section also includes a couple of budget graphs. The graphs are pretty vague, so my percentages won't add up to 100 and are approximate.

Total fiscal budget : $6,000,000.00. No, that's not a typo. Six. Flippin'. Million.

I'm a little disturbed by the fact that there are no real specifics as to what falls under each category, so we'll just have to roughly guess ... but here's how it breaks down:

"Services" (My guess: the cost of salaries, buildings, maintenance utilities, etc. You have to remember this church has a huge multi-acre, multi-building campus, so it's pretty expensive to own/maintain. Plus a couple-hundred full-time paid staff) :

• About 50%
• That equals $3,000,000.00. Three million annually.

"Discipleship" (My guess: programs, classes, printing of the big-honkin Magazine, etc.):

• About 40%
• That equals about $2,400,000.00. Two million, four hundred thousand annually.

"Outreach":

• Percentage: about 8% (clearly falls below the 10% marker on the graph)
  
• That equals about $480,000.00 annually. Four-hundred-eighty thousand.

The article's necessary disclaimer quote:

"The Outreach group, which includes local and global outreach, is a distant third, but the group is supported by designated giving for Benevolence, specific missions and (Denominational) Missions."

I'm sure that such "designated giving" totals around, say, four additional million annually, right? Oh geez, of course not.

OK, you might say, $480,000.00, that's still a heck of a lot of money. Ya think? Well, let's look at it this way:

A church of about 10,000 people. Each year the church spends, per-person:

• $300 for "Services", annually.
  
• $240 for "Discipleship", annually.
  
• $48.00 for "Outreach" . Forty-eight freakin' dollars. Less than two tanks of gas. One month of cable TV. One dinner for two at a medium-nice restaurant. Maybe two months of gym membership. ANNUALLY.

So let's say our family of four pays $5000 annually for tithe. Here's what we get for our chunk-of-change:

$2500 for Services. Those are some damn fine worship services.
$2000 for Discipleship. I certainly need classes to be taught how to be a good steward.
$400 for Outreach. What? There are actually poor people in the world? But, I don't know any poor people!

Is there ANYONE out there that can explain this to me so that it makes sense? Pretty please?

Because:

• I personally know church members who struggle monthly to pay the rent and put food on the table, but get no help from the church.
  
• I personally know people in this church who do not get the medical care they need because they simply can't afford it, yet get no help from the church.

-- begin sarcasm --

Oh, but we must be sure that we have state-of-the-art entertainment equipment, plenty of full-time staff, and of course, a full-color quarterly magazine. These are the things that are important to the Kingdom of God, you know. Besides, if we actually begin helping people, they might start to expect it. They might begin to "abuse the system".

If you build it, they will come.
And they will give you money.
And then you can build it BIGGER!

-- end sarcasm --

And people wonder why the hell I don't tithe?

I refuse to worship God this way. The way I see it, I am NOT a good stweard if I choose to partake of this frivolity and insanity.

Now, I'm not saying you can't partcipate in this. I'm just saying that I can't, in good conscience, support this disaster.

If there was anything that could cement the ex-ness of my ex-church, this was it.

As of today, there is no going back.

I've never said that before.

I'm. Not. Going. Back.

See ya later, suckers.

Americans want sleep more than anything ... and what does Church have to do with that?

According to the Barna Group, Americans want sleep more than anything else.

(I got the link to this via Jesus Creed.)

"October 16, 2006

(Ventura, CA) – Americans look forward to a variety of things. While one might guess that it would include travel to exotic locations or seeing the latest movie, by far the most alluring possibility is the simplest: getting a good night of sleep! Seven out of ten adults (71%) said they look forward “a lot” to having a refreshing snooze. That’s one of the results from a newly released nationwide survey of 1005 adults conducted by The Barna Group."

The article goes on to say

"The ranking of the items examined might surprise people. For instance, the fourth most appealing activity was attending church services, which 40% said they look forward to. In fact, further confirming that religion is “hot” right now, Americans were more likely to say they look forward to reading the Bible (31%) than to look forward to reading a novel for pleasure (25%). And the fact that shopping for clothing was ranked by women fifteenth out of the 17 options conflicts with the venerable stereotype."

So considering these two statistics, I wonder ... is the church something that is making us tired? Are we over-committed to the Body of Christ?

In my heyday, I was at church virtually every day for some reason. I was just a humble volunteer, serving in a variety of roles. Some of those roles were in a leadership capacity, but not all.

An example week:

Monday: Various ministry team meetings
Tuesday: Volunteer in the church office in the morning, attend a class in the evening
Wednesday: Attend bible study in the morning and church service in the evening. Sometimes arrive a church early to pray for the Pastor and the service.
Thursday: volunteer in the church office in the morning, attend prayer group in the evening.
Friday: off, unless a special event needed help or prayer support.
Saturday: attend one evening service, serve on altar team or pastoral prayer team for the other service.
Sunday: attend a class in the morning, have small group in my home in the afternoon.

All the while being certain to complete my 1 hour of daily bible study homework, take care of the kids, the cooking, the laundry, and being sure the house was clean in case of visitors or at least because of home-group on Sunday.

Yes, I was exhausted and my family suffered. But I was a good and faithful servant.

Why, you might wonder, in a church of nearly 10,000, should one person have to do so much?

Well for one thing, I did it in order to build my self-esteem. People needed me, I was important. It felt fantastic. It was a drug, a high. I'm not kidding.

For another thing, my ex-church had one very big problem: they needed more help but had far too high of standards for the people who wanted to help. Our church was a "healing" church, which meant we had higher-than-usual percentage of attendees who were recovering from some kind of trauma - drug addiction, sexual abuse, abortion, divorce, the occult, etc. I'm not knocking this for one single moment.

But here's the rub: unless you knew someone on staff who could personally vouch for you, you were guilty until proven innocent. In other words, you had to personally know someone on staff who could say that you weren't a recovering drug addict in order to be considered for any type of leadership role, and for most types of ministry-service. You also had to be a verified "safe person". You had to take a plethora of classes in order "equip" you for ministry. You had to be attending a Bible study, and had to have verifiable accountability. This doesn't really paint an accurate picture for how hard it was to be considered "qualified" for ministry - it was jumping through hoops in a big way.

Then, of course, once you had been "approved" for ministry, every ministry wanted a piece of you. And there were always ongoing classes that leadership wanted me (and everyone else) to take so that we were "continuing to grow and expand our ministry service abilities".

So back to the subject matter...

There were far too few doing far too much.

I never served in any paid role, so I can imagine how much more so this might be true of paid staff members.

I was a lucky one, too, I wasn't trying to hold down a full-time real-world job in the midst of my flurry of activities. The church provided childcare for almost every activity, so my kids were taken care of.

So ... I was a stay-home-mom of toddlers and pre-schoolers, and childcare was provided How much easier could it get to have time to serve? (This message of sarcasm has been generously brought to you by overbearing church leadership).

Don't get me wrong ... I WANTED to do everything I was doing. But did GOD want me to be doing this much? Umm ... maybe the fact that I become so thoroughly burnt-up and broken-down that I had to crawl out of the church on my hands and knees because my blistered and bruised spirit could no longer stand upright should be some kind of clue. I tried to be autonomous of God. I knew He was frustrated with me in all this because I tried to do it all under my own power. I was addicted to church-service. I loved the feeling of being "important for God".

[Sidenote: So when people refer to the out-of-church season as "detox" there really is more than one way to look at it. For some people it's a season of ridding their spirit of the poisons of unhealthy church, for some it's more a season of ridding themselves of "church addiction".]

Anyhow, I know I'm painting with broad strokes, but the first thing that came to my mind when reading the Barna article was exactly the portrait I've painted here. We love our church and our sleep suffers because of it. When trying to raise a family, have a job, have a life, get enough sleep and serve your church, something has got to give.

Often it's not the Church. Maybe sometimes it should be?

Meanderings, Musings and Miscellany

*** I bought our tickets for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra today!!!!! They come through here every year, and every year we just don't get around to it. But this morning hubby said "Go ahead and order those tickets." I was sooo excited!

*** Thursday is our 15th anniversary. Holy Toledo! Where the heck do the years go? Incidentally I will be on the road to Seattle on our anniversary, but that's OK. Our trip to Indiana last month was our "anniversary gift" to each other, we had already decided that. We talked about the conference before I committed to it, and decided that we would just celebrate the next weekend. So on the 12th we are going to dinner with two other couples (how's that for a romantic anniversary?) that are good friends of ours, to celebrate two anniversaries and a birthday. It will be fun and I'm looking forward to it.

*** Brother Maynard talks about "unplugging from the matrix" and "detox". He quotes from Paul Viera's Jesus Has Left the Building:

"Getting out of the “organized church” was only half the battle. Getting the “organization out of me has been nearly impossible to do."

Then he says,

"The issue has to do with the religion that’s in our hearts, and for many of us, the the institutional church was the context in which this inner religiousity flourished."

Bro Maynard also refers to a good new post at House Church Blog about "Life After Detox".

*** My friend Grace is blogging about "Submission to Authority".

*** Religion & Ethics newsweekly on PBS is talking about Gay Marriage and Kevin Phillips book American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, OilL, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.

That's all, folks.

About Portland

My husband's nephew who lives in Indiana sent us this thing where we have to write about where we live; it's for a class project. So I spent some time working on it yesterday and thought it would be fun to post it here for those who may not know much about the Rose City.

This was written for a 4th grade class, so if it seems over-simplified at times, that's why. I'm also adding links for some of the information - most of the links are from Wikipedia.

Portland, Oregon

Facts:

• Population: Portland proper - 538,000, Metropolitan area - about 2 million
• Area: 130 square miles
• Elevation: officially 130 feet above sea level, though varies greatly between 0 and 1100 feet above sea level.

Climate:

• Temperate and Seasonal.
  
• Average of 155 days of rain per year. Average 40-45 inches of rain per year.
• Average winter low temperature 35º F, average summer high temperature 80º F
• Record low -3º F, record high 107º F.
• November-April is the rainy season, July-September are very dry months.
• Portland is a pleasant place to live. We do not generally have weather extremes (our summers are warm but not scortching, and we rarely get significant snow or deep freezes in the winter), and generally we do not have any natural disasters: tornadoes (very rarely), earthquakes (very rarely), hurricanes (never), floods (occasionally). We typically are known for rain, and we sometimes have periods of really windy weather.
  

Landmarks:

• Portland is located at the convergence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers. Oregon is known for the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, which has 77 waterfalls (including the 620 foot Multnomah Falls), and excellent hiking and windsurfing.
• Portland is about 50 miles west of Mt. Hood, an 11,000 foot high mountain in the Cascade Mountain Range, where skiing is a huge winter industry. Mt. Hood is home to the United States' only year-round skiing facility, at Palmer Glacier, where Olympic teams often train.
• Portland lies 50 miles south of Mt. St. Helens, which is famous for it's volcanic eruption on May 18, 1980. This eruption sent ash over 12 miles into the atmosphere. It was the largest volcanic eruption in the continental US in recorded history. Mt. St. Helens is still considered an active (alive) volcano and may erupt again at any time.
• Portland lies on top of an extinct (dead) volcanic zone called the Boring Lava Field. Portland has a number of extinct (dead) volcanoes and cinder cones within it's city limits, including Mt. Scott, Mt. Tabor, Rocky Butte, Kelly Butte, and Powell Butte. Mt. Hood is also a dormant (sleeping) volcano; it's only been about 200 years since Mt. Hood was active.
• Portland is home to the International Rose Test Garden, Pioneer Courthouse Square, the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center (actually in Oregon City, but very close to Portland), and the Portland Memorial Coliseum/The Rose Garden Arena, which are home of the Portland Trail Blazers NBA team.
• Portland is about 75 miles east of the Pacific Ocean. The Oregon coast is famous for tidepools, which are pools of water left standing at low tide that are home to starfish, sea anemones, mussels, crabs, kelp and other sea life. The Oregon Coast has more rocky cliffs and rainforests than sandy beaches. The Oregon coast is also famous for it's many Lighthouses. Astoria, on the North Coast, is home to the Wreck of the Peter Iredale, a four-masted steel sailing ship. It's skeletal remains have been embedded in the beach for 100 years. The Central Coast is home of Depoe Bay, the world's Smallest Harbor (6 acres); and the D River, the world's Shortest River (200 yards). The South Coast is home of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, which is 40 miles of enormous sand dunes.

Industries:

• Oregon is famous for forestry, including logging, reforestation and paper products manufacturing. Portland is home of the World Forestry Center, designed to educate people about how important forests are to human life.
• Oregon is home to a large salmon fishing industry. There is a large salmon run on the Columbia river. The Columbia river is also home to the Bonneville Dam, Fish Hatchery (to grow baby fish) and Fish Ladders (help the fish get up the river).
• Portland is home to a very busy industrial river port. Portland also supports technology (such as Lattice Semiconductor) and manufacturing (such as Columbia Sportswear). The Portland area is also home to Nike's World Headqurters.
• Oregon is known for developing alternative forms of power and energy. There are four hydroelectric dams in Oregon on the Columbia river. Oregon is also developing wind power in the Columbia River Gorge. Oregon was home to the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, which was closed and decommissioned in the 1990's and demolished May 21, 2006 (video).
• Portland is at the north end of the Willamette Valley, which is home to numerous vineyards, wineries and breweries. The Willamette Valley is also home to faming and dairy industries.
• Oregon is famous for it's environmentalism. We are always looking for ways to protect the environment and natural resources from pollution and industry. For instance, Tri-Met, our public transportation system, is replacing diesel powered buses with hybrid diesel-elerctric buses because they use 50% less fuel. As the diesel buses are retired, they are replacing them with the hybrid ones. Tri-met is also converting their existing diesel-fuel buses to a bio-diesel blend. Bio-diesel is partly made with vegetable oil (a renewable resource) instead of diesel oil (a non-renewable resource).
  
• Google, the world's leading internet search engine, is building a server facility in The Dalles, Oregon, which is about 80 miles east of Portland. It is expected to be the size of two football fields.

Other neat facts:

• Portland is known as the "River City" or the "Rose City", or "Bridge City". Portland has 3 bridges over the Columbia river and 11 over the Willamette River. Portland has a huge "Rose Festival" each year in June, with a carnival, parades (including a lighted parade at night), Navy ships you can tour, and hundreds of other activities.
• Portland was given it's name in a coin toss in 1845. Asa Lovejoy wanted to name it Boston, Francis Pettygrove wanted to name it Portland. Guess who won?
• Portland is home to the World's Smallest Park, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It is called Mill Ends Park, and is about two feet in diameter. It has, in the past, been home to a miniature ferris wheel, swimming pool and statues. Right now there is a shrub and flowers in it.
  
• Portland is home to the Metropolitan Area Express, otherwise known as MAX. MAX is a 44 mile light-rail system (like a small train the runs on electricity) and it is operated by Tri-Met, Portland's public transportation system. MAX runs all throughout the Portland area. It is the most-ridden light rail system in the nation. The first MAX line opened in 1986, and we are still expanding the system, with plans all the way into 2014. MAX is a worldwide renowned transportation model.
• Portland is home to Oregon Health Sciences University, a world famous teaching and research hospital. Doctors at OHSU are always developing new drugs and treatments for many illnesses, including cancer. Doctors at OHSU treated Lance Armstrong for his cancer and are credited with saving his life.

The Small and the Big Picture: Part I

More from the Draft Files

A friend and I like to have intense discussions about faith. Don't get me wrong, this isn't arguing, as we both have tons of fun with it and it's all good-natured. The interesting thing is we can start out believing we are on opposite sides of an issue, but with further discussion and clearer communication we find in the end that we ultimately agree.

We recently realized why this happens. I am a big picture kind of person and she is a small picture one. Now popular opinion will tell you that the big picture is more important than the small one, but that's not where I'm going with this. At least in matters of faith, it's equally important to have both.

I'm going to try to sum it up as best I can, because I thought it was really great insight about discussions and how people might believe they hold different views, but with further dialogue they will realize that the reason they seem to see it so differently is because of the breadth of their focus. She sometimes reads this blog, so I will say that I am open to her correction if she thinks I have characterized this insight inaccurately.

I tend to see things from a broad perspective, making sweeping generalizations. I tend to be wide-minded, seeing how an issue affects life or faith as a whole, in the long-term. I might make a statement about something with the perspective that all people associated with that thing are similar in beliefs. I will see the benefit of the process as more important than the end result. I will think about the general context, or spirit, of a biblical passage. I'm always looking at the larger context.

My friend, on the other hand, tends to see things in the right now. She will look at the individual people involved with something and admit they have differences, that just because they are on the same side of something does not mean they are all alike. She will look at the letter and specifics of what is written in the bible. She will see the end result as being more important than the process, and will generally see the smaller context.

The issue we were discussing recently was this: is it our primary mission, as Christians, to save souls or make disciples (assuming these two things are different)? We also got into "which comes first": the disciple or the salvation? Now we know these are not either/or questions, but many Christians see converting people as the quintessential aspect of Christianity. I feel this is a distorted attitude about the mission of Christ, but she sees this as our prime directive. While the question certainly can be quantified by how your define the word disciple (convert or follower?) in the concept of "go therefore and make disciples...". I can agree that we are to aim for BOTH, but in this conversation we were talking about which should be done first, which is more important: to get as many people saved as possible, or create fewer but more thorough and more relational disciples.

At least initially, these were our positions, but as the conversation progressed we both began to see things differently.

More to follow.

The Merging Church

No, that's not a typo.

I was lying awake last night (our furnace suddenly began making all kinds of racket in the middle of the night. So as a mom I couldn't help but lie awake thinking of the worst case scenario) thinking about my faith.

Isn't it funny how we can intellectualize the spiritual? In a perfect world, we would be able to 'feel' or 'sense' our spiritual health without having to 'think' or 'know' anything about it. But because we are human, and I guess God gave us brains for a reason, we tend to 'think' about our 'faith'. I know that's probably a modern mindset, too, because matters of faith for so long have been about 'knowing' truth, about theology and interpretation and other 'brainy' applications of faith.

I wonder if, way-back-when, if faith ever was more of a spiritual endeavor than a mental one? With the enlightenment, reformation, and all that history of faith stuff that I know virtually nothing about, did the pendulum swung away from a spiritual faith and more towards a mental faith? I know the charismatics tried to remedy this by 'swinging' towards spirituality and away from knowledge ... and they managed to swing right out of the neighborhood. Will we ever manage a healthy balance? Is the emerging church the key to achieving equilibrium?

Anyhow, I am wandering.

So what I was thinking, late last night while the furnace was making horrific noises, was this question:

Is the emerging church more about merging things together than about something emerging from something else?

I consider myself a Christian amalgam. I am LutherBaptiCathoChurchofChristoCharismatic. With a dash of of AoG for good measure. I have participated in bodies from each end of the spectrum in several areas. I was always able to find the Living God in there somewhere, but sometimes it was easier than others.

So I see in the 'emerging' church the tendency to draw on ancient faith practices, mixing them with modern thought and postmodern-somewhat-relativism, and, in some cases with a side of liberalism. This is an amalgamated faith -- a combination of diverse elements; a mixture.

What else is merging in the emerging church, besides spiritual practices?

Are we merging knowledge with spirituality? In other words, are these two things no longer mutually exclusive?

Are we merging our sin nature with the unlimited grace of God? In other words, as we learn to accept humanity as incredibly diverse, do we begin to be willing to admit that all people are loved equally regardless of the sin in their lives? That God's grace is powerful enough to overcome anything? That people do not need to be "pre-purified" before they can set foot in church?

Are we merging community with church? Have we begun to realize that a weekly service in a building is not the sole aspect of faith, but that our faith must be evident in the ways we relate in all kinds of community?

Are we merging tangible relationships and virtual ones? Have we begun to realize that we can supplement healthy real-life relationships by sharing experience, knowledge, and wisdom with people we have never met?

Are we merging evangelism with mission? Do we see that simply telling people they need Jesus is not alone going expand the Kingdom? Are we beginning to understand that Jesus did as much serving as He did preaching?

Are we merging legalism with liberalism? Have we decided that while there are *some* non-negotiables to which we will hold fast, things which are valuable and necessary to faith, but that there are far fewer of them than we have previously believed?

Are all these aspects of the merging church good things? Are there any ways in which we have gone too far in blurring the lines between seemingly opposing aspects of faith and spirituality?

I think the merging church is about balance. It's about losing our either/ors and substituting both/ands. I see it as a good thing.

After all, we all will always remain accountable to each other. When someone crosses the line, whatever someone else might believe that line to be, we will be called on it. We then have the responsibility to weigh each view objectively and see where we might have erred. I constantly see the emerging church experiencing this, which is a good thing. I don't think we need to worry too much about going renegade ... as long as we are willing to be honest with ourselves.

So in the big picture, I see the merging that is going on as not only a good thing, but as a priceless and necessary reworking of Christianity.

I know every major change in the "system" of Christianity has seen itself as the one that finally got it right. I don't think the 'emerging' church has got it right. But I think they are on the right road.

May we never think we have ever 'got it right', but only continue to faithfully merge the diverse and beautifully varied aspects of Christian faith. May we value each individual as bringing something to the table and be willing to engage and consider all experiences of Christianity as something that can be 'merged' with something else, to ever be creating a more balanced, rounded faith.

What do you think?

Children and Church

My husband took the kids to church twice this week. There is nothing that will give me the heebie-jeebies like that. It's not that I have a problem with it in theory, but I so very much don't want my kids to be religion-damaged like I am. But in trying to prevent that, am I damaging them in other ways?

I know church has it's value to kids. For one thing -- they absolutely love it. I know that ideally they should get all their faith training at home, but realistically there is something to be said for the group-activities, wild and crazy Veggie Tales kind of stuff.

I don't know how to give them all the benefits of church without all the baggage. I know it's confusing for them when I don't go to church with them. But I don't want them to grow up legalistic about church and the things they learn there, any more than I want them to grow up altogether faithless.

I don't want them to learn that worshipping God best practiced by several rounds of " I Can Only Imagine". I don't want them to learn that people who don't plant their butt in a pew each week are slacker Christians. I don't want them to learn that there is only one way to believe -- the traditional conservative evangelical one. I don't want them to believe their Pastors are supermen. I don't want them to learn to judge people who are different from them, especially in matters of faith. I don't want them to learn that church is something we take people to rather than something we take TO people.

I know I probably have more influence on their faith than the church does, but I still worry. I worry that my influence has been bad rather than good, even though I know I have more patience and love and grace than ever before. Do they see that? Or do they just see "mommy doesn't go to church anymore?"

I know it doesn't help that I'm not particularly motivated to attend church at all, let alone the church I left. For me, it's not just about what's wrong with the church we left. It's about what's wrong with church as an idea. If I could just get over that, I know they don't care where we go. I know if I went out there in the world and found a gathering that had the good without the bad, they would willingly go there with me. I also know no such place exists.

I'm an idealist. I want it all without all the side effects.

I'm so afraid of losing my freedom. Call me an anarchist, but I believe for me the best faith is the disorganized kind. The unplanned kind. The kind that has been liberated from all the constraints of modern church. I'm not saying that it's best for me to be completely devoid of body-life, I just haven't found the body I belong to. [Some body somewhere is missing it's rectum]. But then again, maybe it's not up to us to choose. Maybe we should "bloom where we're planted". I don't know.

I certainly never imagined that this season would last so long for me. Maybe I've just become too comfortable in it and am being lazy. Maybe I am more bitter than I think I am.

My husband says I expect too much. He was telling me that at the church his parents just started, in the months where there is a 5th Sunday, they arrange the chairs "in the round' rather than "speaker-centric" and then they "share what God is doing in their lives".

I said, "I hate those words". He says, " You hate everything". I replied that "I hate christianese. I hate anything that you couldn't say to a non-believer and have them understand what you meant." He did agree with me on that point.

Then I told him I don't know the answer. If I knew the answer I'd be doing it. And them some.

I used to be angry, asking God "why the hell did You do this to me?!". I used to be impatient, "Alright already. I GET that I'm supposed to rest in You. Now can we get on with it?" I used to be ready to move on, run ahead, like in the Point of Grace song "Like a child tugging daddy's hand", trying to get God to move with me. I used to worry that I would miss the signs, that I would miss what He wanted me to do.

Now, I just have become an expert at being patient with God. I have no idea what He's up to. I try to track with Him, but I just get lost, like trying to follow someone in the dark. Maybe I'm just out-of-touch, lazy, self-centered ... or worse, completely crazy.

But in any case, I don't know what to do about my kids. It kills me no matter how you slice it: I hate having them not get some kind of church. I hate them having to go without me. I hate to go. We've tried the "family church" thing, though not recently. I just felt too contrived. Like we were force-feeding them Bible lessons. Like vegetables -- "It's for their own good."

And then I wonder -- I try to remember church when I was their age. We were Baptist then. (When I say "then", it's a long story.) I don't remember anything I disliked about church, except the fact that my parents always ended up yelling at us or each other on Sunday morning while trying to get 4 kids off to church, each dressed appropriately with hair combed. But church itself was something I looked forward to. It was fun. I had friends there.

Maybe it's not a bad thing for kids.

I mean, I didn't really begin to suffer the fallout until I was in my 30's.

So how can I provide my kids with faith-leading, and yet prevent my kids from entering the religious minefield?

Any thoughts you guys have would be appreciated.

Things like this make me cry...

...and make me want to throw my Bible in frustration. I know I shouldn't throw it, but sometimes ...

Anyhow, there are so many things wrong with the following story I don't even know where to start. It's times like this that make me wonder why God doesn't just strike us all dead, because being human is so incredibly insane. We are driven to lunacy by the most momentary things. We are so unpredictable, so self-centered, so fallible.

And so fragile.

From CNN.com

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A lovesick teenage girl drove into an oncoming car in a suicide attempt that she counted down "8, 7, 6..." in a text message to the female classmate who spurned her, authorities said. The teenager survived but a woman in the other car -- a mother of three -- died.

Louise Egan Brunstad, 16, was charged Thursday with felony murder. Prosecutors said they intend to try her as an adult. If convicted, she faces an automatic life sentence.

"She was actually counting down her imminent threat: 'Nine, eight, seven, six ... I'm going to do it,"' said Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard.

Authorities said Brunstad rammed her family's Mercedes-Benz head-on into a smaller Daewoo driven by 30-year-old Nancy Salado-Mayo, who was killed. Salado-Mayo's middle child, Lesly, 6, was in a child safety seat and was treated for fractured ribs and other injuries.

Brunstad, who was treated for an ankle injury, had told friends she planned to kill herself after another female student at Holy Innocents Episcopal School refused to have sex with her, Howard said.

Witnesses told police the girl never slowed as she crossed over a turning lane and into oncoming traffic on busy Roswell Road in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood on October 4.

"She was traveling at a high rate of speed," Howard said. "This is an intentional action."

The girl's attorney, Drew Findling, declined to discuss the allegations but expressed the family's sadness over the accident.

"This young lady and her parents are devastated by this horrible accident and by the death of Mrs. Salado-Mayo and the injuries of her daughter," Findling said. "They are praying for the quick and healthy recovery of her daughter and for the well-being of her husband and other children."

After a memorial service in Atlanta, Salado-Mayo's body was returned to her native Mexico for burial. Her husband, Mario Bibiano, a steel worker, was unable to attend the funeral because he remained by his daughter's bedside at an Atlanta hospital.

Brunstad was on crutches in court Thursday for a brief hearing on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault. Howard said she is being held at a mental health facility, and is wearing an electronic monitor around her ankle to prevent her from running away.

Some days I just wonder where God's justice is. Certainly not that I wish the suicidal girl had died, but that she had survived and also managed not to kill or injure anyone else. I'm sure God can work good in this, but still ... it's so hard to see.

Sigh.

I'm going to have a soapbox moment here -- on the thing they don't often enough tell teens about sex.

Open letter to teenagers -- Don't do it.

Not because of unwanted pregnancy -- not because of sexually transmitted diseases -- not because you don't want to develop a "bad reputation" -- not even because it's wrong or a sin. [Not to minimize any of those reasons. That's not my point.]

We tell you not to have sex as a teenager because the world is still so internal to you. Everything is so tragic. Your life is full of highs and lows and very little in-betweens. We all were like that. We have all had those moments as a teen where we believed life couldn't possibly go on. When I was 16, my boyfriend of 9 months [darned near eternity in high school] dumped me. I was sure he was my soul-mate. The ONE. He gave me a ring fercryinoutloud. Life would never go on without him.

And yet it did. And today, after 15 years of marriage [to someone else, thank God] , that context of 9 months seems so insignificant. But at 16, I was willing to end my life over it. You see, teenagers live in their own world. Everything that is important to you seems like it ought to be all-important to everyone. That's not because you are not mature or capable of feeling true love or passion, but because YOU ARE. Everything that happens to you, everything you feel, is tangible and real, but it lies only within the context of a limited number of years of life experience. Broaden the focus a decade or two and your perspective is sure to change.

And I don't for one moment want to trivialize how difficult it is to be a teen. It royally sucks. But because your life has still been so short there are still so many things you don't know about yourself. It's nearly impossible to think outside today or to anticipate how your actions today will shape your life [and the lives of others] 20 years from now, because right now you are trying to figure out who you are. A tremendous amount of your emotional energy is consumed with introspection and self-reflection. Add sex into that equation and you can easily end up being unable to cope with your myriad of intense feelings.

But now, this 16 year old girl, who was devastated because of a love-interest's rejection, will likely spend most of her youth, if not her life, in prison. The children of the woman she killed will grow up forever without a momma. That husband, who was unable to attend his wife's funeral because he was at the bedside of his horribly injured little girl, has to face raising these children alone. All because of woman scorned.

I have no idea what else has gone on in this young lady's life -- I'm willing to bet there was more to her pain than just this one incident of rejection. But I do know one thing -- if sex hadn't been in the picture this likely would not have happened.

Sexuality at a young age is so emotionally controlling. It is all-consuming. It makes it difficult to be rational or grounded. It creates a deep fantasy world or an intensity of existence that can't be reckoned with.

Maybe I'm seeing this particular picture all wrong. Even if what I have said isn't true for this young lady, I know it is true for countless other teens.

Contrary to what the worldwide single most popular athletic brand tells you:

Don't Do It.

<-- end soapbox-->

Leaving Fundamentalism

Today as I walked through the neighbloghood, I came across an interesting site.

Leaving Fundamentalism.

Many of you probably already know of this site, but I didn't until today. It was fascinating to me, and so I poked around there for awhile. As I began to follow the links to other sites and reading about people who have been abused by fundamentalism, my heart broke.

I have not really identified myself as a fundamentalism/spiritual/religious abuse survivor, but I have identified with people who do identify themselves that way. I can clearly see how abuse happens and I have experienced some incidents of fundamental spiritual abuse in my life, although it was not the norm.

I do feel like I have been lied to and abused by the church in some ways, but I know that for the most part these things were taught by well-intentioned Jesus lovers, not by people who sought to purposefully manipulate or abuse me. I have always had a free-spirited relationship with God, and I think He designed me that way on purpose. But that means I don't work well in an environment where I am told precisely what to believe, how to live, who to judge, even how to vote; and told not to "rock the boat" if I disagree. I think God is so much bigger and more lenient than the church might want people to know, lest we find our freedom.

For the most part I think spiritual abuse and fundamentalism is advanced by people who whole-heartedly believe what they teach (even THEY love Jesus), and not by evil-doers who seek to destroy poor souls. I do see an unhappy trend that as people heal from fundamentalist spiritual abuse, they are often gravitating to agnosticism or paganism, ceasing to relate to anything vaguely christian, even God. So yes, souls have been destroyed. I only pray that in their journey, eventually these people will find a place in themselves where they can reconnect to God and Christ on some level. He is forever patient.

In my wanderings I have had to cling hard to Christ, for I, too have deeply wanted at times to disavow God. It's only in my honesty with Him about this feeling that He has been able to hang on to me. He has convinced me that He can handle my doubts, He can cope with my anger and He loves me no matter what. He has continued to shape my faith, and He has reined me in when I wander too far from His heart. Most of all, He has simply held my hand and let me grow. I hope that I never again think I know anything at all about God for sure, other than what He has promised in the Bible about Himself. I will never again pronounce that I know who God favors and who He condemns. I will never again promote an angry, punishing God, for His patience with me could never be compatible with wrath.

I digress.

What really moves me is how the internet has enabled these people to come together and support one another. In a real-world community, it can be darn near impossible to bring up the subject of abuse, let alone find people who share your experiences. But the internet opens that world up, again like I have said several times before, it makes people aware that they are not alone.

It kills me that so many Christians think they have all the answers, that they know the ONLY way - the only way to believe, the only way to have church, the only way to live, that their church is the only church that has "got it right". It kills me when fundamentalist, legalistic people believe they are entirely grace-filled and unconditionally loving. But what REALLY kills me is when people who are abused by such fiction are unable to connect with and find healing through others who have "been there".

I love to see the coming together that is going on because of the internet. A while back the authors of the Left Behind series (which I enjoyed as entertainment, though not as serious eschatology) portrayed the internet as being an essential tool christians use to connect in the "end times".

[Note: I'm not a "the end is near" fanatic. I am not concerned with when the end will be or whether or not it will ever be or what it will be like. ]

I can agree that the internet is fast becoming a place where christians can connect. In Left Behind, the internet is used because christians have to go "underground" in order to avoid the persecution of the secular world. In real life the internet seems to me to be a place where christians go "underground" from their "real-world" spiritual environment in order to avoid persecution of their church world.

Just some disjointed musings.

Heretics and Freedom

My friend Pam recently had the opportunity to interview Spencer Burke, author of "A Heretic's Guide to Eternity". She has blogged about the interview at the Revolution Conference Blog.

And I have a cameo ;)

So I'm gonna expand upon the idea that "I owe my freedom to 'Making Sense of Church'.

Way back like almost 2 years ago, my faith got seriously messed up. Well, it was a gradual process. I think it began like when I was 17, but although I like to be "different", faith was one area where I was not going to "rock the boat" because it was such a deep-seated issue for both my family and my husband's family.

In the end things had to get pretty crazy in my life before I would begin to change. My ex-Pastor's wife says something like this