How to shrink a church

A friend passed this along to me and I figured it was so good that I'd share it here. The title says it all.... "How to shrink a church". The author makes some very interesting points about our current American religious landscape.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/aprilweb-only/116-41.0.html

Ikea = not from around here

So I'm in Ikea today to buy clay pots for tomato planting. I buy two pots only to note that one of them has a crack in it while I'm packing it into the car. Thinking it would only take a minute to exchange a cracked pot for a good one, I walk back inside with receipt and pot in hand. I am directed to the returns/exchanges station at the end of the store. Upon arrival, I note that there are two employees behind a desk and one other lady present. She is with one of the attendants. The other attendant seems available, so I walk to him to make my exchange. He stops me and points to a ticket dispenser and informs me that I must take a ticket. I smile, walk over and grab a ticket. I wait with ticket, receipt and cracked pot in hand. A coupe of minutes go by and the available attendant walks over to a button on the wall, hits it and then calls out loud, "Number 9." I look down at my ticket... look around and see only myself and one another confused person who'd just walked up, then look down at the number 9 on my ticket. It's my turn. I step forward and a process ensues where he examines the cracked pot, looks at my receipt and then issues me a store credit card that resembles a credit card... Why does everything look like a credit card these days? Everything from library cards, to YMCA cards, to Starbucks gift cards, to store credit(cards) looks like a credit card. I hate that... because I hate credit cards.

Ikea built to handle thousands of returns, I guess. (That makes sense because I am convinced IKEA is a Swedish term meaning cheaply made) But today there were only two of us needing help and the process seemed very odd... very formal. It made me laugh... and then think - IKEA... not from around here.

A ring (on the ground) in the dark

I've just now got 'round to reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I honestly don't know how I've made it this far without reading this, but I have. Maybe it was all the Dungeons and Dragons folks from my youth that loved the Hobbit stories... At any rate, I'm reading them now.

The imagery of the books is like water to my imagination. I'm glad, after a fashion, to only now be discovering these works for the first time. You know, there is only one first time for everything we experience... it's a joy to be touching this wonderful world for the first time as a 33 year old man. A gift, indeed! What I'd give to read To Kill a Mockingbird again for the first time, or the Narnia books. At least I get this 'first time' at this time in my life.

I was struck by Bilbo finding the ring - and I know enough about these stories to know that this ring changes everything - whilst lying alone in a Goblin's cave in the pitch black darkness. He's been knocked unconscious in a battle and left alone on the cold, hard floor of a cave. He wakes with fear, realizing that he is alone and lost... as Bilbo gropes in the dark, looking for a wall or way out, he comes across something the shape of a ring... he slips it into his pocket (instinctively as he had no idea of it's ultimate usefulness) as he's looking for a way out. Isn't that a funny way to introduce a profound discovery? A Hobbit, alone and terrified - lost, finds a ring that will change his destiny while looking for anything but a ring. Sometimes I've found rings like this in the darkness... but at the time I was never very happy about groping in the dark - mainly because I'm afraid of that kind of darkness. I wonder if Tolkien is trying to show us something about our life and about our own struggles with darkness - and about the things we might discover while in those lonely places.

Again, it's fun to read these books as a grown up... or at least as a person who is (hopefully) growing up.

book reflections, Next Christendom

Reflections on the North American response to Jenkins' book. I will say this: I was a bit frightened by this book... in a good way, I think. Jenkins raises some very important questions about the changing face of Christianity among our brothers and sisters in the global South churches.
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Philip Jenkins explores the explosive growth of global South Christianity in his work The Next Christendom. The Church in the South is increasingly distinct from the Church in the North (or West), but many Western Christians only consider Christianity on their terms. At the beginning of the book Jenkins says, “Many of us share the stereotype of Christianity as the religion of the West or, to use another popular metaphor, the global North.” This stereotype begs for deconstruction, and that is exactly what Jenkins sets out to do in The Next Christendom. The expansion of Christianity in Africa, Latin America and Asia paints a picture of a vibrant Christianity. This images stands in striking contrast to the declining Churches across Europe and North America, which once served as the center of the Christian world (specifically Europe). Jenkins articulates this reality toward the end of the book when he says, “Looking at Christianity as a planetary phenomenon, not merely a Western one, makes it impossible to read the New Testament in quite the same way ever again. And the Christianity we see through this exercise looks like a very exotic beast indeed, intriguing, exciting and a little frightening.” The statistics offered by Jenkins are mind numbing. Growth among nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America is unparalleled - both in terms of conversion and population expansion. Here in the United States, the emergence of Global South Christianity presents us with many challenges and opportunities. We must embrace the reality of a changing Church if we’re to keep up with the shifting ethos of our faith.

The first opportunity at hand for the Western (also Northern – I will interchange these terms) is to simply recognize the changing world. We have a penchant for ignoring the world around us as it changes. This ignorance is pervasive and very destructive. If we don’t expand our vision of Christianity to include the global South churches, we may just deceive ourselves into thinking that Christianity is a dying religion. Jenkins says, “To adapt the phrase once applied to the increasingly conservative U.S. electorate of the 1970s, the stereotype holds that Christians are un-black, un-poor, un-young. If that is true, then the growing secularization of the West can mean only that Christianity is in its dying days.” I have heard people lament the impending death of Christianity because of the many empty churches in Atlanta’s city center. If we don’t expand our search to areas often overlooked by white middle class Americans, we might be convinced to believe them. The fist step is opening our eyes to see something we might have missed.

This exploration must begin with a question. How is it possible that many in the church of the global North are ill informed when it comes to the dramatic expansion of Christianity among those in the South? There are several reasons for this, but one reason in particular must be addressed. There exists a latent racism in the North when it comes to people of color. This ugly reality manifests itself in many ways, not the least of which being negative media coverage of events in the global South. Our common (and historic) perceptions of peoples in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia are largely negative. We think of tribal warfare and civic unrest more than we ought, all the while ignoring the many advances that have occurred in parts of the world that exist well outside the shadow of Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty.

Facing these attitudes is a crucial step in our being able to fully recognize what is happening in the Church in other parts of the world. Without an appreciation for their contribution to Christianity, we will never embrace and learn from our brothers and sisters in the global South. It is important to note that this embrace and appreciation is not just a foreign missions concern. Atlanta, my city, is home to an increasing immigrant population. We house more refugees than most cities in North America, and the Latin American community is booming. If we’re to truly love our city we must make room for the people groups that do not traditionally originate from here. I must confess that The Next Christendom has been very challenging in this respect. I have not paid sufficient attention to the foreign population that resides very close to my own church, convincing myself that I had my hands full with our North American population. My heart has been pricked in a new way over the past couple of weeks as I’ve noticed resident aliens living side by side with folks who attend my church, and noting that we have not been aware of those who exist outside the mainstream of society.

One reason why we don’t typically pay much attention is due to cultural differences. The old adage of separate but equal comes to mind. Learning new languages and developing sensitivity to cultural divides make for hard work, so too often people groups exist side by side but experience little to no overlap. This speaks to an inherent laziness in majority people groups. This tendency toward apathy and ignorance is as true for middle class Americans as any majority group in the world. I am guilty of this sin. One of the liturgical rhythms in my life is a prayer of repentance, where I confess sins connected to what I have done in addition to those stemming from what I have left undone. My ignorance of local immigrant communities is a sin of omission. I have left this part of my local responsibility undone, and I do not think I’m alone in this respect.

Once we in the North begin to notice the emergence of the Church in the global South, we will have to fight the temptation to use Southern Christians for our own gain. Methods of church growth run the spectrum here in the United States and this will surely prove to be a temptation for Western Christians as they begin to learn of the growth in the South. I am reminded of Wendell Berry’s description of the difference between strip miners and cultivators. Strip miners extract from the environment only what they can use, all the while doing damage to the overall ecosystem. We are often times very effective strip miners in this respect. We must adopt a learning posture with relationship to our brothers and sisters in the South. We must receive, not just take at will by borrowing principles indiscriminately. I see a challenge of humility for those of us in the North that do, in fact, come to recognize what’s happening in the South. In times past, when the Western world saw resources in other parts of the globe, we took what we wanted without much thought to the impact of our actions. Jenkins highlights this as a recurring weakness of Imperialistic endeavor in The Next Christendom. A new sensitivity is needed for this exploration. We cannot see the growth in the South and try to distill principles for church growth on our own soil. We have to look deeper than that, to the heart of what’s happening in the South, so we can participate in the renewal (where it’s appropriate for us to do so) without doing harm to it.

Another challenge will be learning to hold our own models of ministry lightly in light of emerging theology in the churches of the global South. This openness becomes more relevant because of immigrant peoples that may live near us. For too long we have believed the myth that we hold all the cards when it comes to foreign relations. Westerners have presumed to possess superior resources (money) and expertise, regardless of the endeavor. But some of the flavors emerging from the Kingdom expansion in the global South are quite different from what we’ve grown accustomed to here in the North. Elements of Pentecostal fervor feature more prominently in Churches of Africa, Latin America and Asia. South world Christians place great emphasis on a vital experience with God. This stands in sharp contrast to our more staid religious expression here in North America and across many countries in Europe. African writer Chinua Achebe describes the conversion of a Nigerian man in these terms, “ It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow…” This sense of feeling faith in the bones is demonstrated across a wide spectrum of denominations in the global South, but specifically so in Pentecostal denominations. Jenkins notes, “According to reputable observers, by 2000, Pentecostal numbers worldwide were increasing at the rate of about 19 million each year.” That is remarkable growth indeed!

Western Christians have to work out ways to understand and embrace this Pentecostal fervor as a part of the changing face of Christianity. Too often, we either resist or exploit changing dynamics – either opting to reject an idea that is foreign to us as false or use it as a tool for growth and innovation. In this instance, I believe a learning posture would serve us best. It could be possible that the decline of religion in the west is due, in part, to our lack of fervor. Maybe we don’t hold fast to the God of the scriptures like our brothers and sisters in the South. Jenkins notes that, “… the apostolic world as described in the New Testament is not just a historical account of the ancient Levant, but an ever-present reality open to any modern believer, and that includes the whole culture of signs and wonders.” These words present a real challenge to me. My Charismatic upbringing afforded ample opportunity to wrestle with perceived spiritual excesses. These struggles with a Christian culture that made me feel uncomfortable have caused me to step back from overtly Pentecostal worship expressions. But reading Jenkins reminds me that I cannot simply sweep Charismatic expressions of Christianity under the proverbial rug. Millions of believers per year are embracing elements of Charismatic Christianity, and this reality is changing the face of Christianity. I want to wrestle with this tension – both in my own walk with God and in our community context. Could it be that we have grown too sophisticated? I sometimes wonder if we’ve thrown the baby out along with the dirty bathwater? It seems as if Christians in the South truly do benefit from interacting with the scripture, and the God of the scripture, as a present possibility. We need to sit with this tension and be open to re-negotiate some of the cultural biases that have shaped our worship.

Another opportunity open to the church in North America is mission and engagement in urban city centers of the world. Urbanization and immigration brings many global South peoples to city centers in search of work. This trend is occurring all over the world. As North American churches consider mission work across the planet, we must pay attention to centers of population growth, namely emerging mega cities in the developing world. Jenkins notes that, “More than 1 billion people – one-sixth of the world – are illegal squatters living on the fringes of a Third World city.” If we want to mobilize our money effectively, support in these areas will prove to be as strategic as it gets. But trends suggest that North American churches are giving less than ever before to mission work. One way for the churches in the United States to engage with this process is by partnering with reputable missions organizations in these strategic centers of population growth around the world. This partnership would be money well spent because many of the people living in these parts of the world are among the world’s poorest people, and they are candidates for Christian conversion.

We do have money to give, but we must not assume that means Americans have the corner on the market when it comes to our spirituality. As we’ve noted above, the spiritual vitality in the church of the global South reminds us that Christians in Africa, Asia and Latin America have much to teach us. Due to the fact that the American Church is simultaneously rich in resources and impoverished in our spirituality, there is great potential for a new kind of holistic relationship to emerge between North and South Christians. American money can go a long way toward relieving social ills in Christian communities in the developing world, just as African leadership can help us navigate the problems we are facing in our Western culture. Desmond Tutu’s No Future without Forgiveness is a beautiful account of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and carries with it much insight for racial healing in our own context here in the United States. Additionally, The Bishop of Rwanda by Bishop John Rucyahana contains many valuable insights from the perspective of a suffering Church, which enables readers to look for God’s goodness in the midst of extreme difficulty.

No single book has spoken to this issue more than Never Silent by Thaddeus Barnum. In this work, Barnum tells the story of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) and how the Anglican Church in Rwanda came to the aid of Americans who were suffering due to liberal trends in The Episcopalian Church (TEC). Jenkins references this phenomenon toward the end of The Next Christendom. He says, “AMIA still flourishes. As the use of the “Anglican” term suggests, conservatives were seeking to place their own views in the global context, rather than merely using the local American term “Episcopal.” More conservative Anglicans have placed themselves under global South prelates…” Here we see spiritual oversight of Western churches coming under global South leadership. The Anglican Mission is part of the Province of Rwanda in the Anglican Church. This type of innovation speaks to the increasing collaboration among churches from the North and South. As the future comes to meet us, we must be open to new kinds of partnerships. The Anglican Mission is one of many who are leading the way into the future.

The last challenge I will highlight concerns world religions other than Christianity. The United States is predominately a Christian nation at the moment, but the rise of Islam in the fastest growing centers of population will make for an interesting future. Jenkins states, “The future centers of global population are chiefly in countries that are already divided between the two great religions (Christianity and Islam), and where divisions are likely to intensify.” The attacks on September 11, 2001 testify to this reality. Both religions are enjoying strong growth in the global South, which means American Christians will need to be more thoughtful and knowledgeable when it comes to Islam. One of the largest Mosques in North America stands 3 miles from the church where I serve as pastor. In addition to knowing and loving our emerging Latin American immigrant population, we must seek to know and love our Iranian neighbors. This challenge appears to be more difficult than Latino relationship building because of the massive divide between Christianity and Islam, but it is a challenge that begs for engagement.

At the end of his work, Jenkins states the basic thrust of the entire book. He says, “Christianity is flourishing wonderfully among the poor and persecuted, while it atrophies among the rich and secure.” That reality should give us pause here in the states, but should be cause for rejoicing that though increasingly embattled on our shores, Christianity is alive and well! The near future of the faith seems to rest in the hands of our brothers and sisters from the South. My prayer is that we would allow them to teach us something of what they’ve learned from God. If Christians are a worldwide family, with each branch demonstrating a different character component of God, then we need to receive from our relatives in Africa, Asia and Latin America. To this end Desmund Tutu speaks pastorally to African Christians. He says, “Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.”

Book review and reflections on Resident Aliens

Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon tackle the question of how the church is to function in the world in their work entitled Resident Aliens (A provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know that something is wrong). The subtitle says it all. The authors put forward the idea that something is wrong in the world and the church is (as usual) slow to perceive it. Hauerwas and Willimon suggest that the church view itself as a colony rather an a cosmetic enhancement of the prevailing culture of the day. Their definition of colony gives us some insight into what they mean. They say, “A colony is a beachhead, an outpost, an island of one culture in the middle of another, a place where the values of home are reiterated and passed on to the young, a place where the distinctive language and life-style of the resident aliens are lovingly nurtured and reinforced.” There have been times in our history when the church carried the day - times when the church would set political agendas, shape artistic expression, and drive the economy. However those days, according to Willimon and Hauerwas, are gone forever. Consequently, the church must learn to function as an outpost in a society that has moved away from what it was in another time. We are no longer a Christian society, and the authors suggest that might not be a bad thing.

At the beginning of Resident Aliens the authors suggest that the world changed for them in 1963 when a local movie theater decided to air a John Wayne movie on a Sunday. Up until that time the churches in their sleepy town had no competition on Sundays. But, when the film went head to head with local church services something changed. Christianity no longer had a culturally reinforced ‘no compete clause’ to protect her from decline. Willimon and Hauerwas suggest, “Before the Fox Theater opened on Sunday, we could convince ourselves that, with an adapted and domesticated gospel, we could fit American values into a loosely Christian framework, and we could thereby be culturally significant.” The authors refer to this way of thinking as Constantinian Christianity. The end of Constantinian Christianity is not necessarily a bad thing. Hauerwas and Willimon suggest that, “…we have an opportunity to discover what was and always is the case – that the church, as those called out by God, embodies a social alternative that the world cannot on its own terms know.” The problem rests in the fact that too many Christians have no idea that ‘culture with a tinge of Christianity whitewashed over it’ is a bad idea.

My mind immediately goes to the typical mega-church in the southeastern United States. We spend so much time in our mega-churches (really most churches) telling people that they are essentially good and that Christianity will take what’s already there (the good inside of us) and make it even better. But that’s not my understanding of the gospel. It doesn’t seem to be what Willimon and Hauerwas have in mind, either. One of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis (I love this dude so much that my son’s middle name is Lewis) is, “ God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature.” Constantinian Christianity teaches us to jump better and better. Many of our churches want us to jump better and better. We are taught early on (as pastors) to produce better men of the old kind. So, our rejection of Constantinian Christianity becomes a matter of necessity if we’re to apprehend and apply the gospel message.

We get into trouble, say the authors, when we take Jesus and divorce Him from His context. Willimon and Hauerwas challenge our modern theological innovations, saying, “By the very act of our modern theological attempts at translation, we have unconsciously distorted the gospel and transformed it into something it never claimed to be – ideas abstracted from Jesus, rather than Jesus with His people.” This is powerfully relevant. I believe that we in the American Church fall into this trap very easily. When we abstract Jesus’ words (or any scripture for that matter) we run the risk of hijacking scripture because it’s easy then to make Jesus say what we want Him to say. Jesus conceptualized as the ideal super human fosters an environment where it’s easier for radicals to begin to worship ‘Jesus the Arian’. The slippery slope is indeed slippery. In our context, Constantinian thinking within the American Church enabled many good Christians to not blink an eye when millions of Japanese people were killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the hands of the military. The bible does not state anywhere (explicitly or implicitly) that the ends justify the means, however an America tinged with Christian ideals can tell us that. We must not confuse the two.

Christians are to live as colonists in the midst of a world that does not share their values. Based on Howard Snyder’s book Models of the Kingdom, Hauerwas and Willimon clearly embody the Counter system kingdom model. We Christians believe (or we should believe) that justice and peace can only come as a result of God’s kingdom dynamic. But the prevailing thought of the world is that those ideals of peace and justice can be attained through positive human effort. As T.S. Elliot said, “We dream of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.” The authors point to the reality that even Christians play into this cultural problem. The fact that religion is seen as private and subjective proves that we see systemic change for good as being somehow disconnected from the action of God working within Christian community. We’ve dressed up Christian values in order to bring them to Washington, all the while leaving Jesus at home.

Willimon and Hauerwas heavily criticize Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, saying that Niebuhr was clearly promoting the idea of Christianizing culture. The concept of Christ transforming culture does, in fact, seem to be the logical conclusion of Niebuhr’s work. I am not, however, sure that’s entirely a bad idea. Engagement with culture can, in my opinion, be useful when embraced within certain limits. My personal view of the kingdom falls somewhere between the Counter System and Christianized Culture models. I do agree with Willimon and Hauerwas in their assessment of one of the weaknesses of cultural engagement - namely that the world can tame the church. But this does not negate the positive forces that can spring from cultural engagement. I think of William Wilburforce and his abolitionist work in England. Also, the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. comes to mind. Both men worked for transformative good and brought significant levels of kingdom transformation to the cultures in which they lived. I also see both men as being resident aliens. I don’t see those two worldviews as being mutually exclusive. Measures of societal change can spill over from our faithful living in the Christian colony. I contend that these two worldviews, when held in their proper tension, keep us honest. We are to be countercultural, while at the same time remaining open to larger impact. The danger the authors highlight comes when we forget that we must first be members of a counter cultural colony.

One of the great joys of living colony life in the midst of a crumbling, decadent world is the sense of adventure that results from being different! Hauerwas and Willimon brilliantly describe the adventure of living in Christian community in the second half of the book. Honestly, I personally engaged with the latter portion of Resident Aliens more than the earlier chapters. This was probably due to the fact that I wanted to see what they were thinking once they got beyond the more philosophical groundwork laid out in the first few chapters. First, their use of journey language was good. W and H assert, “When we are baptized, we (like the first disciples) jump on a moving train…We become part of a journey that began long before we got here and shall continue long after we are gone.” Our journey gives us meaning. If we only believe in Jesus as truth or as religious principle or ideal, we miss our on the meaning that comes from being on pilgrimage. I’m reminded of Psalm 84v5, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” When we see life as a journey, we’re able to embrace process. Also, this brings to mind the reality that when we set out on Christian pilgrimage, we’re invited to follow Jesus rather than devise our own pathway.

Whilst on pilgrimage certain tools become necessary for survival. Hauerwas and Willimon call these tools ethics, reminding us that ethics were, “…tools necessary to sustain Israel on the road.” One of these ethical tools is best understood as story. The individual stories of those in the Christian colony – from parishioner to priest – remind us that story locates us along the way. We know whom we are, where we are, by story. Story gives meaning to the bends and turns we experience along the way. This reminds us that following God is not primarily about efficiency, but process. It also reminds us that God loves us enough to bear with us as we walk along the way. To this end H and W say, “…what we have is not first of all a heroic people, but a heroic God who refuses to abandon God’s creation, a God who keeps coming back, picking up the pieces, and continuing the story…” This truth is something we highlight at Trinity (my home church). We continually remind people that God calls us to a long walk. There will be detours along the way, but so long as we remember that God is loving enough to be present with us as we journey, we are more apt to keep after it. The stories of people in the church give strength to others as they work out their salvation.

Much of this adventure, for both parishioner and priest, is found in the ordinary events of life. Willimon and Hauerwas’ treatment of the Christian concept of saint is insightful. The authors suggest that, “An unbelieving world can make a saint out of almost anybody who dares to be faithful.” By sharing life, and not just the highlight reel portions of life, we are able to see God in the midst of the details, thus finding God’s activity where we might have otherwise overlooked it. If the devil is in the details, it would appear that God is there, too. As we journey together, we require constancy if we’re ever going to make progress because the road toward spiritual maturity is fraught with difficulty. In a culture that rewards and exalts independence and fickleness, constancy is a rare virtue. By it we affirm that we are not living according to the virtues and standards of our world, but rather that we are living in compliance with the Way of Jesus.

A very important aspect of living in the Christian Colony is living life together. The authors ask, “What if our true selves are made from the materials of our communal life?” They then state, “By cutting back our attachments and commitments, the self shrinks rather than grows.” When we say yes to Jesus, we’re also saying yes to Christian community. We’re not only linked to Jesus, we’re also linked to one another. I was very challenged by this notion because too often our churches don’t model this very well. Too often, religion takes on that private, subjective nature warned against in Resident Aliens. Life together, as Bonhoeffer put it, is truly a mark of the adventure. I can attest to this. My own life with God is reflective of this concept of shared life. Apart from my community relationships, I’d be hard pressed to live in obedience.

Similarly, the adventure of the faith is deepened when we develop a view of the church (The Christian Colony) as the primary expression of our ethics. Willimon and Hauerwas’ exploration of the Sermon on the Mount explores this in detail. Jesus’ words, “You have heard it said…But I say…” pinpoint the counter cultural shift brought on by the coming of Jesus. There is something very practical about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The goal of the sermon is to create, according to W and H, “ ... a visible, practical, Christian community.” However, this togetherness is not simply practical and logical (though there are definitely practical and logical reasons for engaging in community), our togetherness is mandated primarily because the Church is a community centered on the truth. As we respond to the call of Jesus, we find ourselves in community with others who have also responded to that same call. The Sermon on the Mount also highlights the kinds of people God blesses. This enables us to see who God is, and it’s only after we begin to see the character of God that we can understand what we’re to be like. Thus, the Sermon shapes us. The church learns how she’s to look by sitting with Jesus’ Sermon. God paints a new picture about the way the world works in the Sermon on the Mount. Even the parts that don’t make sense (like the meek inheriting the earth) point to the reality of God’s new world – and the church is called to walk in the truth of God’s new world.

If we’re not careful, we can develop grand ideas about how we’re called, as Christians, to demonstrate God’s new world. This is where Christians are tempted to hide their ‘normalness’, promoting only the superstars among us. Hauerwas and Willimon challenge this notion in their exploration of Saints. Upon reading the subheading “Saints as significant examples” in chapter 5, I fully expected a detailed exploration of the great men and women of the faith throughout history. But that’s not what the authors give us to ponder. Rather, they explore the lives of ordinary Christians who worship in our own communities. Names like Dorothy and Max remind us that the Saints are sitting next to us in church. Learning from one another is a powerful way to acclimate to the new world God has created for us to live in. I found W and H’s example of the woman who’d been assaulted in her backyard to be especially moving. When asked by her pastor who she’d like to talk with in the church, she names Sam Smith, a recovering alcoholic. When asked why Sam she responds, “ Because Sam has been to hell and back. I think he will know what it has felt like for me to go there. Perhaps he can tell me how he got back.” This reminds me of a pastoral session I had recently. I met with a couple in our church who are preparing for marriage. They are both in recovery from substance abuse. Their past troubles would disqualify them from helping others in some worshipping communities, but this couple is a goldmine of wisdom, care and love because of the road they’ve walked. Their voice is one of healing and life to many who are struggling to overcome addictive patterns. The exploration of Saints in chapter 5 made it my favorite chapter of the entire book.

Willimon and Hauerwas turn their attention to pastors toward the end of Resident Aliens. They say that we pastors have forgotten the purpose of our call to ministry. The authors remind us that kindness, politeness and helping are not the primary functions of our calling. No! We’re called to tell the truth, to orientate the people in our churches to truth hearing. When we feel that our primary purpose (as pastors or Christians in general) is helping people feel good, we become merchants of sentimentality. Willimon and Hauerwas state that, “Sentimentality, that attitude of being always ready to understand but not to judge, corrupts us and the ministry.” Those are strong words, but I’ve found them to be very true. In my own ministry context we’ve discovered that young people want to hear the truth, even if it hurts a bit when they hear it. In creating a culture of sentimentality, we’ve treated people with less respect than they deserve. The people that sit in our pews are capable of more – they are capable of hearing the truth spoken in love. This need to tell the truth is not reserved only for those in pastoral ministry. The call to truth telling extends all the way up to the Dean at the seminary and down to the person sitting on the back row on a Sunday night. Otherwise we will end up with cheap grace. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in his book The Cost of Discipleship, “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices.”

When pastors and Christians learn to tell the truth, the power of God enters our life and ministry. We gain credibility when we engage in truth telling. Peter’s words to Ananias and Sapphira certainly attest to this! Rather than adopting the role of one in the helping profession, Peter speaks the truth in Acts 5. The result is powerful (and unnerving). When we respond to Jesus’ mandate to speak the truth in love, we find that confidence to be liberating. Willimon and Hauerwas’ words about teaching from the lectionary were especially interesting to me. They say, “The very act of reading and preaching from scripture is a deeply moral act in our age, a reminder of the source of pastoral authority.” Our power comes because we believe in, and submit to, a truth that is higher than us. We have seen this firsthand at Trinity. The scripture shapes us as a Christian colony, not our own personal opinions about issues of the day. I wonder if more and more church leaders will turn to the Lectionary in the coming years in an effort to foster sustainability and to better engage in truth telling. I am seeing this desire emerge among many of my pastoral colleagues (across denominations) around Atlanta. Many of them have watched us teach the Lectionary for several years now and are ready to begin exploring it themselves.

My own ministry context was in the front of my mind as I read Resident Aliens. While I do maintain that an element of the Transforming Culture model can be useful in addition to the views put forward by Willimon and Hauerwas, I did deeply appreciate this book. At Trinity (the church where I serve as pastor) we are working toward forging a community shaped by the story of God with us. W and H speak of the, “…necessity of the church being a community of people who embody our language about God, where talk about God is used without apology because our life together does not mock our words.” That is my prayer – that our words about God won’t be mocked by our actions. That’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s where life matters in the Christian colony. I pray that my own church would increasingly embody this integrated truth.

Eastertide

Today we had mid day services here at Trinity. The texts were great. The gospel reading came from John 15, where Jesus reminds us that he is the vine and we are the branches. We must remain in him if we're to have life in us. Jason told us in his homily that vine wood is the most useless of all woods... it's meant for nothing more than fire. You can't build with it, you can't use it for other purposes. It's only good for burning. If we live separate from our source then we are most useless. I can attest to this reality in my own life. What good words for us to hear as we stand at the threshold of the Easter Feast!

Here's a prayer for this week: "O God, who made this most holy night to shine with the glory of the Lord's resurrection: Stir up in your Church that Spirit of adoption which is given to us in Baptism, that we, being renewed both in body and mind, may worship you in sincerity and truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen."

Sunday, Easter Sunday, we baptized 16 Christians in our community. Two of them were my daughters, Mady and Scout. I can think of no better day than Easter Day to baptize believers into the church. Tears were shed, testimonies were offered, joy was shared. It was a beautiful day. I cannot think of a time where I've been more proud to be part of the body at Trinity... or proud to be a father to my children. This season is a time for renewal. If you are wandering far from the Good Shepherd please know that I am praying for you.

a birthday month

My children have all had birthdays in the past month. At the beginning of March they were 9,7 and 4. Now they are 10, 8, and 5. Scout was last. She turned 8 on April 7, which we were at the beach. I struggle to believe that I'm a father to three kids who are so big! I'm very grateful for my babies. They are really not babies any longer, but I'm starting to understand why parents call their grown up children babies. That's because no matter how big they get we will always remember the times when they were little.

But....

I know that there will be a time (soon coming) when they won't be little any longer. Mady is the oldest and she's getting there fast. I want to be the kind of father that believes in the goodness of God when it comes to my children and their decision making once they reach that age when they have to stand on their own two feet. Too many parents baulk when it comes time to trust that they've done the job with their kids. There comes a time when we have to let them stand up and be counted. I am already praying for that day with our three kids. I'm praying now because I know that day is coming.... and it'll be here sooner than I'd like.

We have to envision the day when our kids will have to answer for themselves. We have to prepare for it. Parents, your kids won't be any stupider than you were when you had to stand on your own two feet. How is it that we so quickly forget what those growing up times were like for us? We have to give our kids the grace we wanted when we were in that young adult time of life. God help our children grow up well. God help us parents grow up well, too.