You aren't a styrofoam cup

I’ve mentioned before that when I was in seminary an older, well-respected professor told us very pointedly that it was our responsibility to cultivate friendships and community outside of the church for which we worked.

I’d love to say that this was a forward thinking teacher seeking to instill within us a commitment to cultivating relationships in our community or connecting directly with non-Christians. As I look back over my years of ministry in established churches, my lack of connection to people outside our church is one of the things that I regret most. I accept full responsibility for that sad fact, but I also recognize that the system made doing so very difficult.

I’ve talked to many ministers who share this frustration. The demands of preparing lessons, attending meetings, counseling members, being available at all hours for any random thing, implementing programs and attending more meetings left little room for friendships outside the congregation. It is no wonder that so many of us who have a passion and calling for introducing people to the way of Jesus find church work draining.

It would have been incredibly helpful if professors had made us aware that the church would want to monopolize our time and if we wanted to be salt and light in the dark places of our community, we’d need to build that time into our schedule intentionally. It would make the interview process more difficult with most churches, but I wish I’d have thought to tell them, “Hey, I want to have the freedom to be a neighbor; the freedom to model the way of Christ to those who live around us.”

I could have done this. I could have cut back on programs and invited people from our congregation to go with me: joining the city softball league (as opposed to a church league), participating in a city organized fall festival rather than hosting our own, drinking coffee at Denny’s at the same time on a regular basis, attending city council, PTO and other civic meetings. There’s no reason we couldn’t have done all this...except that it was so foreign to the way we thought, it never crossed our minds.

I wish I could say that this was precisely what that professor was trying to help us imagine. But it wasn’t.

The community he encouraged us to develop was a collection of other ministers and mentors who could help us deal with the difficulties we’d face in ministry because our church could not be our community. The reason he gave was quite simple. “You are an employee that can be fired at will. You are an outsider, this is not your home.”

I remember a range of emotions during that lecture. I was indignant, angry, sad and very concerned. I wanted to say he was off his rocker. I was the youth minister at a church in Dallas at the time and had no intention of remaining on the outside. What upset me most was that I knew, from one perspective, he was right. This was how the church functioned and I had no idea what we could do to change it.

I wrote an essay a couple weeks later entitled, “Marrying Gomer” in which I compared the minister’s call to fully embrace a community that could break his or her heart to the prophet Hosea being called to marry the prostitute Gomer. I felt convicted then, and even more so now, that we cannot love and serve a community as God intended if we come from the posture of a hired gun. I had no idea what we could do to change the system, but I knew it wouldn’t change if we just gave up and gave in.

About six months later the church laid me off for budget reasons. It strikes me now that perhaps the timing was more than just ironic. For a moment or two I considered agreeing with that professor and developing a more detached approach for my own preservation. Instead, I felt a growing conviction that (to quote Brian McLaren) everything had to change. My professor was right in his appraisal of the system, but terribly wrong in accepting it - and teaching others to just accept it as well...

For months now I’ve been captivated the little reminder on Whataburger’s styrofoam cups: “When I am empty please dispose of me properly.”

It is fairly common to hear Christians refer to themselves and others as “cracked vessels,” and I’m afraid that we’ve taken that to mean that they (and everyone else) are marked with Whataburger’s not-so-subtle reminder. Whatever it means to refer to people as vessels, it certainly shouldn’t mean that they are disposable.

When a quarterback has taken too many hits, he is let go and replaced by a newer healthier athlete, regardless of what he’s done for the franchise. It isn’t personal, its a simple necessity.

When a business needs to keep shareholders happy, scores of employees may receive a little pink invitation to contribute one last thing to the company. I actually know of one company (and I think this is probably common) that paid enormous bonuses to the management for laying off a large number of people. Their actions helped the company’s stock rise and they were compensated. Its not that the managers are bad folks, they were just doing the job they were ordered to do...but if there was money for bonuses, wouldn’t it have been great to pay it instead to the fathers and mothers that were now wondering how they’d feed their children?

When a church wants to grow and hasn’t done so in a while, a new preacher seems like a good solution - so its, adios padre, be warmed and filled...we’ll miss you and may even throw you a “get out of here party.”

When a friend proves to be too much work, we just stop returning their calls. When someone on the street asks for help, we don’t even make eye contact as we say, “no.” Most of these folks will just use our money for beer anyway...and we don’t have time to sort through every story, do we?

When a church doesn’t sing the songs we like, doesn’t hire the preacher we wanted to replace the old guy, doesn’t have the same awesome youth ministry that the “other” church has...we just “vote with our feet.” None of this is personal.

And that’s the problem. If relationships with other people aren’t personal what is?

There isn’t much we can do about the punch-drunk quarterback - his job has a shelf life, he knew it when he was drafted and if he isn’t let go it could kill him. We can try to do something about companies focused on maximizing profits at all costs (and we should) but so long as unchecked capitalism rules the day, this will be an uphill battle.

But there’s no reason we can’t do something about how you and I function in day to day life. The issue is systemic and it is quite difficult to address all the areas in our lives where we’ve unconsciously viewed others like styrofoam cups, but its an addiction worth breaking.

If we continue to view life through the lens of the present empire, we may not even be able to see where change is possible. If we understand church as a business then staff will be hired and fired on the same principles that Wal-Mart uses and our continued employment with such a church will be dependent on their ability to compete in the marketplace of religious goods and services. Likewise, people’s membership in such a church will depend on the quality of the product they feel they’re receiving for the tithe.

However if we continually seek to view the world through the Kingdom of God, things get turned on their heads. People may be disposable “out there” but when Jesus proclaims that the Kingdom of God is at hand, both out there and in here become places where a new reality is possible - even demanded. In this reality we are concerned not only with our own interest but also with the interest of others.

In this reality we commit to others for reasons beyond our own benefit. We do so because such is the way of Christ. In our society, to urge others to think beyond themselves is typically seen as becoming a “socialist.” That makes perfect sense, capitalism and socialism have been the only two options for organizing people since the beginning of time, right?

It’s time to move beyond the talking heads on FOX and MSNBC; beyond the rhetoric and propaganda of the Republican and Democratic parties, both sides of the carpet are advocating for the same kingdom. It is time instead to heed the word of the prophets who reminded us that God is unconcerned about our worship when we are unconcerned with the welfare of others (Isaiah 58). It is time to heed the words of THE prophet, Jesus, who warned that without love for one another we cannot uphold the most sacred of commandments.

I’m not going to get into the argument that says this is nice for the church, but it won’t work as a way to organize society. Like my old professor, this logic is only true if we’ve conceded defeat to the present system. All I will say is that whether we think that operating in this way could ever be feasible for a government or not doesn’t matter so long as the Church and the individual disciples of Jesus aren’t willing to embrace it themselves.

The time has come. People are not resources to be used and discarded. Relationships are not transactions. Churches are not businesses. And if we respond by saying, “but they are, its just the way it is. We have to pay for the building and advertising and blah, blah, blah...” then we need to sell everything we have and give it to the poor. Today.

If the church has a building and paid staff and all these other things and is able to avoid behaving under the rules of the systems of this world, then great. But if any of these things; if any of our traditions, hierarchies, operating procedures, cultural expectations or anything else are keeping us from practicing the principles of the new kingdom then they need to go. In the end it is “Christ and him crucified” that matters. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus served, among other things, to step into the cycle of violence, power and oppression and stop it in its tracks. The church should not be responsible for helping the powers and principalities get keep that cycle on life support.

This isn’t a nomadic church planter’s rant against established churches and buildings. The same critique must be leveled at ourselves. Not having a building payment does not mean we are free from treating other people as disposable goods. We have all accumulated the trappings of the present system. Rather than focusing on the bottom line and seeing people as “contributing units,” our temptation may be to see someone as the next house church leader or “person of peace.”

Just like buildings and programs, this isn’t inherently bad at all - quite the contrary. The problem enters the equation (in either instance) we begin seeing the next house church leader instead of a person; the need to pay for the building instead of the need to proclaim hope. We begin viewing people in terms of how they can help us, benefit our agenda, boost our ego. It isn’t that the people no longer matter, its just that they take second place to what they have to offer.

Tone of voice is hard to decipher in written text. To be clear, my tone is resolved but not meant to be overly harsh. I am deeply convicted that we have a serious need to shake loose the bonds of our syncretism, but I hold this conviction with humility understanding that I myself am implicated. None of us are perfect. None of us can boast pure motives - myself least of all. We strive for perfection and Christlikeness not because we are deluded enough to think we’ll attain it (not on our own power anyway) but rather because there is no other goal worthy of setting our sights.

You and I may be cracked vessels, but its time we stopped resigning ourselves and others to being disposable cups.

A Few Thoughts on "Church" Leadership

For years, the idea of leadership in the church has been tied very closely to preaching and teaching. Over the past couple years, I’ve begun seriously questioning this assumption. In some contexts, leadership is tied to business and organizational decision makers...an assumption I began rejecting even sooner! My previous post raised the question of whether or not the increasing apathy about theology among some is actually a reaction to unhealthy leadership models within the church.

The challenge that has been in front of Christ Journey for a while now is to sort through what leadership actually is. What does it look like in decentralized, informal contexts such as our own? My suspicion is that the answer to this question for our context can also shed light on (though not answer) the leadership issue in more established congregations as well.

Over a year ago Chris read a letter to Christ Journey which basically confessed his exhaustion with the roles and expectations of leadership that had developed.

We had talked about the need for new models of leadership and had read of similar quests in other places, but in reality, none of us were quite sure what that looked like. In part, I think the inability to conceive of a different approach to leadership influenced the reactions of many members of our community. Because we could only imagine one way to lead, when Chris said, “I can’t lead in this way any more,” people heard “I can’t lead anymore.”

I must confess that though Chris and I function as co-leaders, Christ Journey has always viewed me in a support role - to this day even. Not knowing exactly how I should function in the midst of our leadership dilemma, I probably let Chris shoulder too much of the public burden. For that, I’m sorry.

In fairness, neither Chris nor I knew what leadership was going to entail going forward, we just knew that we hoped it would be a shared leadership among the community. People wanted a clear description and we didn’t have one. What we hoped for was a community to help discern just what that entailed.

We’ve learned a lot in the midst of this struggle. The mass exodus of friends was a hard experience, but it too has taught us much.

Today, I think I’m beginning to appreciate the value and understand the reality (somewhat) of non-hierarchical leadership. One of the main differences is that I don’t see my role as a teacher and preacher as indicative of my leadership - it is merely one of the ways I use my gifts to bless my community. I think this still probably confuses some people who expect the person speaking on Sunday morning to use that occasion like a coach’s half-time speech. Instead I’ve tried to take the posture (often poorly) that I learned from as wise man to be simply one hungry beggar sharing bread with another.

Instead of coming from my role as a teacher, I’m learning that leadership is tied more directly to my own engagement in life with Christ in such a way that others can see and be encouraged to continue as well.

I used to struggle with Paul’s comment that what people have seen in him, they should put in practice. It seemed to be a bit arrogant. As I’ve reflected, it is much more humbling and difficult to understand leadership in terms of the old cliche, “practice what you preach,” rather than merely “preaching about practice.”

My ability to lead others then is directly related to and derived from my own willingness to submit to a continual process of spiritual formation; to engage in hospitality and the mission of God, and to be willing to do all these things alongside and in full view of others.

Without time spent considering the implications of my theological convictions, I doubt this realization would have become clear. If I hadn’t spent time wrestling with a theology of leadership that seemed consistent with the mission that God has called us into, I would most likely have continued to accept the roles I saw around me...and perhaps would have walked away from church leadership because of it.

My role as a teacher and preacher are no less important, but perhaps they are not best understood as primary functions of leadership in our church. I wonder, how would congregations be affected if the role of preaching and teaching were seen as another offering to the community and not as the embodiment of leadership?

Would those who do not feel gifted to speak publicly find more empowerment to lead others? Would communal understandings of evangelism move from the realm of information and persuasion toward cups of cold water and loving our neighbors? Would our concept of faith be rooted in discipleship rather than (primarily) agreeing on doctrinal statements and propositions? Would our understanding of corporate worship transition from an event meant to “feed us” spiritually to an opportunity to praise God for the acts of Divine love we’ve witnessed?

Our quest for more shared leadership in Christ Journey doesn’t let Chris and I off the hook as ones who have been called by God to lead in this place. (I think that last line is worth rereading for those of us in decentralized contexts.) It does help us realize that we are called to be leaders of leaders as well as followers among followers. John Perkins and Shane Claiborne in their book, Follow Me to Freedom, remind us that the response to bad leadership isn’t no leadership...its good leadership. Good leadership is best displayed and practiced by those who endeavor to be good followers of Christ.

I am blown away by the complex simplicity (or is it simple complexity?) of that realization. I would love to hear your response to the idea of leadership outside of the public speaker or program developer. Also, particularly if you are one who hasn’t seen theology as all that important, does it seem different if we’re talking about the community of faith considering the implications of our beliefs?

What is the role of leadership in the midst of and in response to such a conversation? (In case you’re wondering, these questions are not a rhetorical device, I’d really appreciate some dialog here!)

May God give me grace in the coming year to lead others with humility, compassion and willingness to be a public display of love for God and for others...and may God do the same with you.

Is Theology Even Important?

So I just finished posting the transcript of a podcast which describes a missional theology - or perhaps a part of one anyway. And the question that comes up in some conversations is, “Why does it matter?”

I’ve gone back and forth on how to begin a response to this question because I don’t want to sound like I’m going on a rampage against anyone...not today anyway. :)

So I’ll say this. I know many, well meaning people who love God and in whom I see the hand of God at work, who for several reasons find discussions or articulations of intentional theology to be a waste of time. My concern isn’t that they don’t have a theology, because everyone does. Theology is “God talk” - its what we believe about God and what God is up to in this place.

What worries me is that the opposite of intentional theology isn’t no theology, its unintentional theology. A recent conversation with an old friend reminded me of this point. He was describing how an acquaintance recently tweeted about God blessing his new business. My friend noted that this person was already very blessed materially and seems to be content with God continuing to bless him more without any concern for the difficult state of others. My friend made a comment to the effect of, “So why does God care about giving this guy more than he needs when other people have nothing?”

Of course, this is only a sound byte of the conversation. From the larger story, it doesn’t sound like the guy is a terribly greedy person who thinks he should have everyone else’s stuff. However, I do think that there are some consequences at play from unintentional theology. The guy, raised under the “personal relationship with Jesus” mantra seems to have no paradigm for how Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation has anything to do with the plight of others. Jesus came to earth so that I can be saved and salvation is about me going to heaven when I die.

I’ve written and talked about this topic before, so I won’t get on a soapbox. The point here isn’t that this theology is wrong so much as it is that, without thinking through the implications of our beliefs, our practice is effected without us even realizing it.

Here is why I believe it is important for the church - even decentralized, organic churches without the resources to pay “professional” theologians - to take theology seriously. If practicing the Way of Christ is our goal, then we need to be serious about considering the ways in which our beliefs about God and Christ lead to (or away from) practice.

I spend a good deal of time with folks who do not consider themselves Christians. It has happened, and I believe it will continue to happen, that these friends see something authentic in our commitment to God, to them and to one another and are drawn to our community.

I don’t think it is necessary for us to form a Christ Journey 101 class that lays out our written systematic theology. Most of these folks would head for the hills as soon as it was suggested. I do believe that, like the disciples of Jesus, we learn in process, as we go along. Learning doesn’t have to take place in a classroom or through a formal curriculum. That doesn’t mean that it should happen on accident or without thought.

Neil Cole, author of Organic Church, Church 3.0 and several others, is a proponent of rapid church multiplication. In his model, which is highly successful in what it sets out to do, new faith communities are started through an incredibly grassroots oriented movement and spread into new homes and coffee shops like wildfire. Leadership is very decentralized (even more so than in our context) and, in fact, he notes that it is common for churches to be born without any awareness of the church planter who “started” the movement...perhaps just a few months and few blocks away.

He has been asked about heresy in this movement, since there is little accountability outside of the small local group which may be comprised completely of new disciples. His response seems, to me anyway, to be very dismissive. He points out that heresy is more common in highly centralized structures because that is where someone who is seeking power can find it concentrated in one place. Decentralized movements are less prone, in his argument, because these power-seeking leaders don’t have a large group of people to influence. Thus, the leaders may take a small group off in a strange direction, but they don’t have a huge crowd to follow them and the heresy, in effect, dies out.

I see his point, and to a certain degree it makes sense. I’ve seen the way that certain kinds of unhealthy people seem to seek out positions of power to launch empire building schemes...and I don’t think they’d get much satisfaction attempting that with Christ Journey!

And yet, there are a couple major flaws in Cole’s assessment. His assumption seems to indicate that bad theology is the result of a dangerous person with an agenda. That isn’t always the case. Each of us have some levels of bad theology we’re working through and there are scores of well meaning people with unintentional theologies pulling them in directions that move them away from active participation in God’s mission. It is our connection to the larger community, including but also beyond the friends who gather in our living room from week to week, that allows to hold our beliefs AND actions up for discernment, consideration and continued formation.

If the assumption is that people are blank slates and a simple reading of the Bible, with no outside influence is going to lead to healthy discipleship...I think Cole has missed out on the warning of history.

We all have theological assumptions (good and bad), whether we were raised in a Christian church or not. People in the Bible belt may have heard the “personal relationship with Jesus” mantra. They may believe that God is merely a vending machine for all our wants and wishes. They didn’t put money in the machine before because they thought it was empty, but now that they’re starting to believe...its time to find that roll of quarters. I have several friends who haven’t attended a Christian worship gathering in years (and who only went before that because their parents carried them kicking and screaming) and others that have never “gone to church” who, when they do talk about faith, do so in these terms.

My friends who have been missionaries in Africa talk about the difficulty they had in getting African converts to stop worshiping their ancestors. Studies in the history of African missions (and early missions to North and South America) are full of warnings against colonial approaches that simply transplant Western Christian theology, dress and church polity over the old “pagan stuff.” It doesn’t work.

However, the answer can’t be to simply ignore both the old theologies and new ones and just hope something good comes about. We have to think carefully about our beliefs and their necessary actions; every context is cross-cultural and demands that we treat it with respect and careful consideration. We must ask, “What is the Gospel in this place?” That question will get us nowhere if it is a strategic marketing consideration. It is deeply theological. It gets to the very essence of “God-talk.” What is God’s message of reconciliation to these people? Where is the darkness that is pregnant with anticipation for the light? What are the ancient infected wounds that pump toxin into the system generation after generation? What strongholds of the old kingdom are cowering in a dark corner, praying that the Kingdom of Light doesn’t discover their presence?

These questions are not best answered in a lab, by the scholar’s pen or in a seminary classroom. They are answered by the community of light that is following Jesus into that darkness. And they are questions of theology.

My other concern with Cole’s laissez faire approach to theology and discipleship is that it seems to put rapid multiplication of churches ahead of people; ahead of reconciling the brokenness in the world. This seems odd, given that it is a highly relational context that emphasizes the ability of everyone to read the gospel and put it into practice. However, what if, instead of patiently walking with and instructing the struggling early church, Paul had decided, “Meh, they won’t affect that many people anyway.”

This mindset in effect says that if people are led into some unhealthy theology, its their own fault for listening to bad information...and there are a million other bodies to take their place. I’m not sure that this is significantly different from the modern church that sees each family as a “contributing unit.”

Is the mission of God to start new churches or to inaugurate a new kingdom and a new life? If it is the former, then theology isn’t that important. Just organize folks around the Bible, call them a church and who cares what happens next. However, if the point is new life with a whole new paradigm of what’s up and what’s down, then a more intentional process may be warranted. We are learning to think in new ways, spend money in new ways, interact with neighbors in new ways. If just putting a Bible in people’s hands and calling it victory was sufficient, the Gideons would have completed this task years ago. In case you’re wondering, that’s a gross oversimplification for emphasis, and I feel like I should acknowledge that there is a lot to commend in the work of Neil Cole. He is a leader in the movement to reclaim Christianity as a way of life which engages and embraces God's Kingdom breaking into this world...

I think there is still a great need for intentional theology that is processed and discerned in the midst of the community of faith. Perhaps what we’ve reacted to are propositions formed in “the ivory tower” that are passed down to be accepted blindly by the masses. Many of us have a strong reaction to rigid hierarchical leadership that, again disseminates the accepted beliefs everyone must uphold, though from the pulpit rather than a distant headquarter.

However, I think that what we’re struggling against here are forms of leadership rather than the need for theology. We who are attempting to follow Jesus into the dark places are more in need of clear theology than those who see their role as simply filling a pew. When people ask us why we put the grill in the front yard, our answer (whether they or we realize) is deeply theological. That answer says something significant to what we believe about God. We need intentional theology.

And we also need good healthy leadership. As much as we may think we want to, we can’t get away from either. So, on Monday, I’m going to post a few thoughts about leadership. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between theology and leadership. Specifically, I’ll be wrestling with the common assumption that our preachers, teachers and theologians are the primary leaders in our churches, precisely because of their role as teacher. Is that the best approach?

It may be that our resident theologians help guide discernment as participants in the conversation rather than as the authoritative leader. What if the role of preaching, teaching and theologizing was not where we understood the locus of leadership to reside? What say you?

a Missional Theology: part 3

I recently posted a podcast at our new site - www.MissionalMonks.com - titled "a missional theology," which addresses my understanding of who we are called to be as God's people. I decided to post the transcript of that podcast here. Its a little long, so it'll show up as a series of three posts (this is the final of the three).

Note that its entitled "a" missional theology...not "the" missional theology. What I attempted to describe are some basic understandings of functioning as God's community of ambassadors to all creation. There is plenty of room here for the different denominational distinctions and doctrines - I didn't even try to get in to all the finer points of systematic theology here. So, if you think that something I added is wrong, please feel free to open dialog. If you think I left something out...I did. Add it and serve faithfully.

If you aren't interested in reading 3500 words over three posts, you can listen to nearly the identical thing at missionalmonks.com - the "music" player is in the left hand column - its just under 30 mins including the intro (shorter than most of my sermons...). Whether you read or listen, I'd love your feedback.

Towards a Missional Theology

part 3

Broken or not, we are created in the image of God and I think one of the great examples of human pride is the false belief that there is anything we could have done (like the concept of original sin and total depravity) that could ever completely destroy what God placed in our very essence.

We are not God. We are broken and fall very much short of our ideal, but we still carry within us the image of the Divine Creator. Because of this, our identity is formed not only by our difference from God but also by what we’ve seen God at work doing, who we’ve seen God revealed to be.

Before the beginning God existed as a complete Community of Love. Unlike the claims of some religions that hold the beliefs that the gods need human worshippers to maintain their power, we worship the God who needed nothing. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit share in a fully contained and unified community of Love. The full understanding the Trinity is certainly beyond us. But this much is clear, one cannot love without an object to receive love. Unlike us, God needs no external object because the Father loves the Son and Spirit, The Son loves the Father and Spirit and the Spirit loves the Father and Son. And yet, the nature of love is to make room for others to experience loving community and so God created. And when God created, God made room at the table for creation. However, this is not a story of a wealthy landowner simply throwing occasional parties at his mansion. Time and time again we see that God is not only willing, but apparently anxious to be out in the midst of those God loves.

Communitas

I am grateful to Alan Hirsch for introducing me to the word communitas. It is a latin word that refers to community which develops and is cultivated among people who have a shared struggle, ordeal or mission. Like sports teams that endure long difficult seasons, or soldiers who share a foxhole, communitas refers to that bond that comes from being in a place where you have no choice but to depend on those around you. We see this in the very nature of the Triune God. Be it the act of creation or the redemption of creation through the cross, we find Father, Son and Spirit with a shared mission and apparently even a shared struggle. It doesn’t take away from God’s greatness to acknowledge struggle - because the struggle doesn’t come from God’s inability to overcome, but rather from God’s willingness to neither overwhelm creation nor abandon it.

If we are the people of God, created in God’s image, then communitas is going to be a vital component of our lives. When it isn’t, we know something is missing. This is part of why both gangs and fraternities are so popular - whether they are healthy or not, they are an experience of communitas. I also think this is why buddy movies, war movies, sports movies are so captivating - they tap into our desire to go through something significant with others.

Hospitality

Because God, the Community of Love, not only created us but made space for us within the Community, we see the importance and even centrality of hospitality. When we trace the story of Scripture we see over and again that God welcomes us into his presence. We see God clothing the naked and even the poorly clothed like Adam and Eve. We see God feeding the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. We see Jesus feeding the multitudes, washing the disciples’ feet and going to prepare a place for us in his father’s home. (Which by the way, is a reference to ancient marriage customs...where a betrothed male would actually build a room for he and his future wife onto his father’s house. He would continue working on the room until the father decided it was ready to be inhabited and then the father would send the son to get his bride). Throughout the old testament we find God instructing the Israelites that they were to be people of hospitality - welcoming the stranger into their homes, making sure that foreigners and the poor were taken care of, even ensuring that they’d have a place at the annual feasts. Hospitality is a central component to the revealed nature of God and is a vital piece of identity for the people of God.

Hospitality means so much more than just inviting our friends to our house for dinner. It literally means to welcome the stranger...and if we take Jesus seriously, it will also include loving and welcoming even our enemies. It means caring for the poor. It means remembering those who are overlooked and forgotten by society. It means that we are a community that practices the customs of the new Kingdom, the Kingdom of God that is here but still coming. It means that we should live in a way that seems radical and even foolish in our get ahead at all costs society.

Missional Living

But again, God doesn’t merely welcome us in, God comes to us and brings his peace with him. In addition to hospitality we see that God is the preeminent missionary. In other words, from the very beginning to the very end and everywhere in between, God is not content to sit in heaven and watch our lives from a distance. God draws near. God sets up his tent among us. In Exodus we read about the Tabernacle. It was basically a large tent that the Israelites carried around with them. The Tabernacle represented God’s presence with the Israelites.

Several years ago I realized that in the Gospel of John when it is says that Jesus made his dwelling among us, the Greek word used is the word for tabernacle. In other words, like God with the Israelites, Jesus set up his tent in our midst...as Eugene Peterson says it in the Message, Jesus moved into the neighborhood. The cool thing is that when you read Revelation 21 - the end our Scriptures. It says that when everything is finally brought to its culmination, the new Jerusalem will come DOWN out of heaven and God will dwell with his people. Again the word is tabernacle. The dwelling of God will be with his people. From the beginning, to Jesus’ life to the culmination of all things, God chooses to come down and tabernacle with us.

How can we choose anything different? If we are God’s people, formed in the image of God we must seek to cultivate communitas - which means that our life in God will not be carried out alone but in community. We must be a people of hospitality, welcoming the stranger. But we must also be a missional people - a community sent out by God to dwell among the people, among creation, in the dark places where the light needs to break in.

These six things: discipleship, spiritual formation and worship because we are not God and communitas, hospitality and missional living because we are created in the image of God, are not meant to be the final formula to fix the churches problems. However, I contend that if we, as a church, can live into these principles we will find that we are in a place where we are more likely to witness God at work, praise God for what we see and answer the call to go and do likewise.

a Missional Theology: part 2

I recently posted a podcast at our new site - www.MissionalMonks.com - titled "a missional theology," which addresses my understanding of who we are called to be as God's people. I decided to post the transcript of that podcast here. Its a little long, so it'll show up as a series of three posts (this is part 2 of 3).

Note that its entitled "a" missional theology...not "the" missional theology. What I attempted to describe are some basic understandings of functioning as God's community of ambassadors to all creation. There is plenty of room here for the different denominational distinctions and doctrines - I didn't even try to get in to all the finer points of systematic theology here. So, if you think that something I added is wrong, please feel free to open dialog. If you think I left something out...I did. Add it and serve faithfully.

If you aren't interested in reading 3500 words over three posts, you can listen to nearly the identical thing at missionalmonks.com - the "music" player is in the left hand column - its just under 30 mins including the intro (shorter than most of my sermons...). Whether you read or listen, I'd love your feedback.

Towards a Missional Theology

part 2

Discipleship

And so, because we are not God and in too many ways we are not like God, we are called to discipleship in the way of Jesus - which teaches us, conforms us, transforms us not into gods...but more fully into our humanity, which was created in the image of God. Discipleship is more than just Christian education. Learning what the Bible says is a fundamental aspect of our life...but merely knowing Scripture does not make you a disciple any more than knowing the menu at a fancy restaurant makes you a chef.

This may sound obvious, but experience suggests that it might not be. I was raised in a culture that seemed to equate bible knowledge with being a good Christian. We seemed to think that if we could just raise the level of biblical literacy then all our problems would be solved. I began to suspect this wasn’t the case as I got to know some pretty nasty individuals who could quote whole books of the Bible.

Discipleship should certainly include a familiarity and love for Scripture, but it must go beyond that. Discipleship is about committing our lives - every aspect of our lives - to learning the way of the one we follow. Like an apprentice to a master we learn the way of our teacher not just so that we’ll know what they know, but so that we can do what they do.

Becoming a disciple carries a recognition that we are not a master, but what kind of apprentice would attach themselves to a master if they never had any intention of taking on the master’s trade? That isn’t a disciple. That’s a groupie.

So being a disciple will entail regular excursions into the realm where our master is at work. We’ll be uncomfortable at first, but we keep pressing on. Periodically we withdraw to process, rest and prepare for our next adventure. But these periods of rest should follow and precede engagement, they shouldn’t exist to simulate or worse, replace, them.

I love the TV show Scrubs...no apologies, I love that show. There is an episode that guest stars Dick Van Dyke as an extremely well-loved older doctor. There is a point in the show where it becomes apparent that he simply hasn’t kept up with the advancements in medicine through the years. His practice was stagnant and because of that it actually put a patient in danger.

There is a great need for practice. I don’t mean practice in the way that the Dallas Cowboys really need to practice more during the week. But practice in the way a doctor practices medicine. As Scrubs reminds us, we need ongoing practice in our practice, continuing ed credits as my teacher friends are familiar with.

In addition to our need for discipleship, we who are not God and are thus finite and imperfect, need a set of spiritual practices that keep us grounded in a rhythm of connection to God and the world. This spiritual formation goes hand in hand with discipleship.

Spiritual Formation

Spiritual formation has been very important to me for a long time. I absolutely love opportunities to help others learn and embrace practices that can have a lifelong impact on their spiritual health. BUT I’d be a big fat liar if I pretended that my deep interest in spiritual formation didn’t come, at least somewhat, from my own need for formation. I have a theory that for many of us, the things in faith that we are most drawn to often come not from a place of abundance but a place of poverty. I love prayer and meditating on scripture, but I am so prone to stumble through my life dealing with whatever is right in front of me. With all honesty I will admit that without serious intentionality - and usually unless I have friends helping me - I will go days, even weeks without any significant time spent in prayer or reading scripture outside of preparing to help someone else.

But I can say with a tremendous degree of confidence that you can trace many of my highs and lows spiritually by tracking how intentional I was about cultivating spiritual practices at that time.

Christians throughout the ages have referred to an intentional plan or rhythm of spiritual formation as a Rule of Life. Whether you call it that or not, if you are not God, a Rule of Life is an important aspect of faith that many of us are missing out on. I’ve only recently come to realize the value of developing a communal Rule in addition to a personal one. I can’t say that we’re models of this, but some of us in Christ Journey have experienced the benefit of ordering our life in connection with others; joining one another in a rhythm of prayer, scripture reading, service to others and shared meals. Not all of our spiritual formation looks that “spiritual” on the outside. I’ve found that committing myself to a place - such as my favorite booth at Denny’s - on a regular basis has opened up unbelievable doors for my own spiritual formation - in addition to placing me in the midst of God’s work in others’ lives.

Because we are not God. Because we’ve seen the master at work as we’ve engaged in discipleship. Because we’ve reflected on God’s greatness in the midst of our spiritual formation. Because we’ve opened our eyes, just a little, to see what God is doing all around us, the other natural response is worship.

Worship

Some say worship is where we go to get recharged as Christians. Sure that is sometimes the case. But worship is not about me getting my batteries charged - in fact, if we follow Jesus’ example, our batteries will be charged as we do God’s will...as we follow our master into his workshop and join him in his craft. Worship, properly understood, is where we respond the charging we’ve received. It is where we share stories of the master at work with one another, where we debrief by telling the tales of a God who is not like us, but has invited us into community nonetheless. Worship is where we shout with joy for the great things we’ve witnessed, weep together over the brokenness that has yet to be healed and approach God on behalf that brokenness.

This doesn’t only take place in a “worship gathering” - though I’ve come to appreciate those times so much more as I’ve slowly learned that they aren’t about the worship style, location or presentation.

Worship takes place anytime we are moved to respond to God - in praise, thanksgiving or lament.

It is important that we remember we are not God. It is important that we commit ourselves to discipleship, spiritual formation and worship BECAUSE we are not God. However, if we only recall how we are not like God, we miss out on the greatness of what we are created to be.

to be continued...

a Missional Theology: part 1

I recently posted a podcast at our new site - www.MissionalMonks.com - titled "a missional theology," which addresses my understanding of who we are called to be as God's people. I decided to post the transcript of that podcast here. Its a little long, so it'll show up as a series of three posts.

Note that its entitled "a" missional theology...not "the" missional theology. What I attempted to describe are some basic understandings of functioning as God's community of ambassadors to all creation. There is plenty of room here for the different denominational distinctions and doctrines - I didn't even try to get in to all the finer points of systematic theology here. So, if you think that something I added is wrong, please feel free to open dialog. If you think I left something out...I did. Add it and serve faithfully.

If you aren't interested in reading 3500 words over three posts, you can listen to nearly the identical thing at missionalmonks.com - the "music" player is in the left hand column - its just under 30 mins including the intro (shorter than most of my sermons...). Whether you read or listen, I'd love your feedback.

Toward a Missional Theology

Over the last couple years I’ve been working on a degree in evangelism and missional leadership from SMU. It has been an awesome experience and I’ve really enjoyed the diversity of folks I’ve been blessed to study with. I’m usually the youngest in the class, usually one of the only (if not THE only) white males and so far I’ve been the only one who would be described as a “missional church planter.”

So I’ve had anything but the experience of sitting in a room with people just like me, telling each other what we want to hear to feel better about who we are and what we do.

I’ve learned a lot by listening to the struggles and questions of folks in contexts that appear so very different from my own. When they ask me to describe my context, it isn’t usually very easy to do. Partially this is because “my context” changes pretty regularly. At one point I would have basically described us as a typical non-denominational suburban store front church that was trying very hard to keep our focus outside of ourselves, but not succeeding very well. At some points I’d have described us as a small group of shell shocked survivors huddling in a living room. Sometimes we’re a vibrant community of families serving our neighbors. Sometimes, we’re a haphazard collection of individuals wanting to experience an authentic connection with others, but unsure how to escape the individualism we’ve all been raised in.

At our best, I think we are a community of disciples in process who sense that church as usual just isn’t cutting it. But rather than defining ourselves over against traditional church, we’re seeking to emulate Jesus by living more fully into our lives. We’re committed to living the gospel in the midst of the suburban disconnect. Proclaiming gospel isn’t about getting someone to join our club. Its about getting our club to join God in the ministry of reconciling the brokenness we see all around us.

In some ways our context is hard to describe because we are exploring territory that hasn’t had many visitors recently. Yet, we aren’t really trying to be novel. We’re trying to faithful to God and the mission that God has entrusted to us, the ambassadors and image-bearers of the Triune God.

So, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, reading, praying and discussing what it means to be church. I’ve gained a lot of understanding from reading Exodus, the prophets and the Gospels - even though I was trained (implicitly if not explicitly in church growing up and in seminary as well) to look to Paul as the primary source of insight for church organization.

Authors such as Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost, who wrote The Forgotten Ways...and numerous other books - Hugh Halter and Matt Smay have also been very helpful. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and the new monastics have helped me think more specifically about the role of community in our development of whole life faith.

Really where these authors have been the most help is in painting a picture and providing language to describe what we see in the text when we stop reading through the lens of the empire.

In many ways and for many years, I believe that our reading of scripture has been heavily influenced by Christianity’s way to comfortable relationship and even identification with the dominant culture. I think this is problematic. It is very hard to take to heart Scriptures admonition against the powerful and God’s overwhelming consistency of siding with the oppressed when we’re associated with the powerful oppressors.

Take the Scriptural concept of “The Day of the Lord.” For those who have been oppressed, the day of the Lord is an event to be looked forward to with great anticipation because it is the day of deliverance and justice. For those who have been guilty of oppressing others, it is a day to fear greatly for the same reason. But we don’t ever like to assume that we are the ones being prophesied against...we never associate ourselves with the Pharisees. And so the Day of the Lord becomes about judgement to those outside of our group. We can oppress, neglect or ignore people all we want, so long as we show up for church, don’t cheat on our spouse and sign off on the doctrinal statements that our group feels are most important. God sides with the weak, the overlooked and forgotten. If we want to find ourselves on God’s side, sitting in a comfortable worship assembly completely oblivious to the darkness all around us may not be the best strategy.

As I’ve thought about what it means to be God’s people - the church - I find myself returning to passages like Genesis 1-2 quite often. Those of you who know me are probably used to hearing me comment on the paradoxical descriptions of God in these two chapters.

In chapter 1 of Genesis we read of a God who is anything but like one of us. In fact there are very few things in this chapter that seem to describe God in even remotely human concepts. The Spirit of God hovers over the waters, which gives us the impression that God IS somewhere and isn’t just a concept. God speaks, implying a voice and the ability to make sounds...which we can do. Beyond that, this Being, whatever he, she, they, it is...it isn’t one of us.

And yet, in Chapter 2 God is described in a very different way. Still great. Still mighty. Still in charge. But also familiar. Intimate. Like a father - the good kind of father, not the abusive absentee ones that some people have experienced.

This God walks in the Garden, kneels in the dirt, forms a body and breathes life into its nostrils. This God walks with his children, talks to them and empowers them with productive tasks to accomplish.

This may be the most simplistic and obvious statement I could make, but it strikes me that in some ways we are like this God...but we are not this God. I think, however, that it is very important for us to remember to keep both of these truths in front of us. If we forget that we are not God all kinds of things go wrong - Scripture, human history and personal experience will all attest to that!

to be continued...

The Banquet

There was once a group of friends who lived an exciting life. Everyday was filled with adventure and risk. Each morning as they awoke the possibilities of the new day would flood their minds and they could hardly get through their morning routines fast enough before heading off to see what they would see.

This group of friends had been brought together by the most extraordinary leader. A principled yet compassionate visionary, he never seemed to need sleep and yet always found time to rest and relax with the friends. He never grew hungry, and shared all he had, yet seemed to enjoy meals more than anyone.

He was confident and competent and yet quick to empower others. No one ever had any doubt that this leader would be fine without them but neither did they fear he would ever choose to leave them.

Each day, their adventures revolved around the magnificent tasks that the leader was busy completing. It seemed that no matter how early they got started, they always found him there - wherever “there” happened to be - before they arrived.

Sometimes the tasks seemed menial, mundane and extremely normal. Sometimes the friends found themselves in the midst of monumental revolutions. Always, no matter how small or grand the task, they walked away knowing that the world was now a little better place.

Most agreed however, that the most amazing thing was the food. People everywhere were hungry. Food was scarce and often only obtained through incredible effort.

You would think that all this time spent working on the leader's tasks would leave the friends little time to grow, buy or scavenge for sustenance. But no, somehow this leader threw extravagant feasts and provided the friends with more food than they could eat. The food was not only delicious, but it nourished their bodies better than any other food they had access to. They were strong and healthy, full of energy and passion.

Over time they began to realize that something should be done with all this food, it wasn’t right to keep it to themselves. And so they decided to host a banquet in the leader’s honor each week...seriously, there was a lot of food.

They would come together and share a meal from what they’d gathered during the previous week. They would invite other friends, neighbors, the poor people they passed on the street, anyone they happened to encounter - why should anyone go hungry when so much was available?

And they would raise their glasses in a toast to their benefactor and would share their stories of adventure. They began to realize that the more they gave away - both food and stories - the more they seemed to possess. Others began to inquire if they too could join this group of friends in their journey.

This pleased the leader tremendously. In fact, it had been the plan all along. He had seen the way other leaders, kings, presidents and dictators had used power and coercion to establish nations. He had noticed that a philosophy of scarcity seemed to keep people in their place. But this baffled him and so he set about quietly transforming the lives of a few people...knowing full well that when others heard about a life of plenty; an abundant life rich with meaning, a new society would be inevitable.

Over time this small group of friends did in fact grow to become a large society, but a sad thing began to happen.

Some people began to realize that they could stay in their beds, remain in their houses and skip the adventures entirely. When the end of week came around they could just listen to stories of other people’s adventures and share in the abundance of food that was provided. In fact, if they were careful and rationed wisely, they could gather enough food during the banquet to last them all week!

And so they would raise their glasses and toast the wise leader. Their eyes would tear up as they heard stories that warmed their hearts. They would shake their heads in bewilderment that there were still those who had not cast their lot with this group of friends. And then they would go home with pockets full of food.

Years went by and the number of people who found this loophole not only grew, but it came to be expected that only a chosen few would join in the leader's adventures. A few more were selected to run the banquets. Afterall, the number of people participating had grown so much that it was only right to bring some order to the relational chaos that had developed. Elaborate banquet halls were constructed. Rules were established for proper dispersal and handling of food, with fewer and fewer people having access to the store rooms.

Most people found themselves quite content with just attending the banquets anyway. They didn’t have the same adventures as others, but then again, perhaps not everyone was cut out for such a life of risk. Besides, they rationalized, this way they could spend their time doing other worthwhile tasks around their house.

For the most part, the lives of the friends once again became dull and mundane. Mornings grew to be dreaded because they knew that today would be just like yesterday - boring and filled with a growing hunger.

Eventually, there were enclaves all over that were filled with friends whose bodies were no longer strong and healthy. In fact, without the sustenance they gathered at the weekly banquet, they could barely survive. They no longer understood the banquet's primary purpose to be sharing an abundance of food, but rather the place where they procured enough for their continued existence. It was actually rare to find a banquet where the participants had even seen the leader during the previous week, let alone joined him in any adventures.

To make matters worse, as the number of people working with the leader decreased, so did the amount of food that was available. It wasn’t that the visionary leader had less to distribute, it was just that no one had gone to collect it. Most of the friends seemed completely unaware that everyday the leader was still out working on his amazing tasks...

And so, many people began to stop attending the feasts all together. They were angry with the leader for his apparent unfulfilled promises. Some began moving from banquet hall to banquet hall in search of one that would feed them sufficiently. Some gave up completely and went out in search of other food. It may not be as wonderful as the meals they’d heard about in the stories...but they hadn’t experienced those very often anyway.

Where the banquets were lacking in food, they were rich in ritual. Food became a metaphor today with the promise of real food in the future, once the leader finally and completely replaced the old societies with his new society; the toasts became perfunctory requirements; stories were memorized, analyzed, stylized, digitized and programitized... A competition began to arise between different groups of friends as to who could host the most beautiful banquet with or without food.

Other friends rejected the value of a "beautiful" banquet and focused instead on putting together properly orchestrated banquets. Without anything of immediate value to share with others, it became rare for anyone to invite a neighbor to the feast...afterall, there wasn’t much feasting taking place anyway. While a few people saw it as their calling to proclaim a feast in the future for those who would have the faith to wait for it today, most people didn’t feel they had the persuasive ability to convince friends to come and sit in anticipation of something they couldn’t prove.

And everyone sent fervent messages to the leader to send more food.

And a question began to form in the minds of people everywhere: Is there still any adventure or abundance in the world?

They say that if you listen carefully you can hear the leader whisper in response, “Come and see.”

Some say its just a story, as if any truly great story could ever be “just” a story...

Wells Family Church Planting Update - November 2010

that little guy is new cousin Griffin...

thanks to Joey being sick, I don't have a picture of the wellsbrothers with NEWEST cousin Kallie yet

We want to thank you for sharing this journey with us over the last few years - it has never been easy and doesn’t seem to be moving in that direction any time soon, but your friendship, encouragement and prayers have played an enormous role in keeping us moving forward.

Since my last update in August we’ve been getting into the groove of the new school year. Conner is doing great in 1st grade. He continues to amaze us with his brilliant little mind and unbelievably sweet heart. Recently we had a conference with his teacher who shared that he is not only one of the brightest kids she’s ever taught, he also displays a rare and much appreciated combination of leadership and compassion. She told us that Conner often reads books to the class when she needs to step out for a moment, he is one of the first to help other students. What brought me the most pride was when she noted that while he is quick to share what he knows with others, he never appears condescending or prideful...just sincerely happy to help someone else. Awesome.

Joey and Micah are both doing well in preschool and I think that Rachel has really enjoyed teaching there - if for no other reason than she gets glimpses into their day. However, as you can imagine, Rachel has been a tremendous blessing to the kids in her class and their parents...even if she won’t admit it! The schedule has been a pretty big adjustment - especially with me still making occasional trips to OKC - but I think its definitely been worth the added hassle.

Speaking of OKC...that beast just refuses to be slain! I’ve pretty much finished everything, but little frustrations have kept me going back up for a couple days most weeks. This little experiment didn’t turn out as we’d hoped, but there were some good things that came out of it. In the midst of our conversations with different churches regarding their roofs, we met a minister at a Lutheran church who turned out to be quite interested in the concept of missional church planting.

Teresa has become a good friend. I had the opportunity to spend one Saturday with a group of folks from her church talking about living a missional life: what that means and what it might look like even in a very structured church context.

As you might have heard, I’ve been preparing to start my major doctoral project (the DMin version of a dissertation) which officially begins in February, following my FINAL class! The project (called “Communitas” - a word referring to community that is developed through a shared struggle, ordeal or mission) is developing a process for missional leadership training and spiritual formation. I’ve decided to focus not so much on seminary students or people preparing to plant churches (though this process would still be appropriate for them) but rather on groups of “normal” church folks. Our pilot program is doubling as a leadership development process within Christ Journey.

I’m already in conversation with several groups about participating in Communitas once I’ve completed the “beta” phase and made revisions. My hope and prayer is that this, in conjunction with teaching in the Academy for Missional Wisdom at SMU, will provide an opportunity to equip others to engage in whole life faith and missional leadership in the midst of their community...without having to leave the own congregation to do so. Along with that, we are praying that this will provide long term financial sustainability for our ministry in this area, without me having to work so many hours in other job settings.

We’re currently launching a web platform at www.missionalmonks.com that will serve as the “classroom” for instruction - which will depend heavily on processing together through dialog and then immediately implementing what we’re learning into our neighborhoods or other local contexts. Hopefully, the website will also serve as a place for ongoing dialog about whole-life faith and discipleship, some guest articles and devotionals and also as a central location to host the “Missional Monks Podcast” that Chris and I have been doing since this summer (you can also find the podcasts by searching missional monks on iTunes.)

These podcasts consist primarily of interviews with thinkers, church planters and authors from all over North America - folks who are engaged in some amazing ministries. The conversations have been very helpful for us - and the comments we’ve received from all over the country suggest that they’ve been so for others as well.

As you can see, we have been very busy lately! There are several new families who have become integral parts of the Christ Journey community and we continue to find opportunities to serve and connect with new friends in the Burleson area.

As I prepare for 2011, I’m realizing that it is going to be very difficult to dedicate the necessary time and energy to Communitas and Christ Journey while also working 50 hours a week in roofing. I am arranging some conversations with churches and groups of ministers and leaders to discuss supporting us for one year as we get Communitas off the ground - and also consider having a group of folks go through the Communitas program when it is ready to go in 2012. We have a pretty great plan for how to effectively take an entire congregation - even a large one - through this process without folks simply becoming anonymous spectators.

If you have been supporting us financially, Rachel and I want to once again thank you. It has meant so much to us that God has used a group of friends - many who are in tight financial situations themselves - to keep the door open for us to share the life of Christ with those who previously only thought of church in negative terms. There are people today who have come to or come back to faith in God because you chose to partner in the gospel with us.

If you think your church or another group might be willing to help us financially as we launch Communitas and continue planting the gospel in this area, please pass this along or help me get in contact with them. Likewise, if you know of a group that may be interested in hearing more about how Communitas can help them more fully live into the gospel in their neighborhoods and community, I’d love to talk with them.

Again, you can check out and join the (active, but still under construction) web platform for Missional Monks and the Communitas Experience at www.missionalmonks.com.

Grace and Peace,

Bret, Rachel and the Wellsbrothers.

Having Coffee With God

I've had the opportunity to do some work at Denny's this week - something I haven't done much of since starting the roofing job. I've been reminded of the numerous friendships developed and great interactions that took place in that booth by electrical outlet. This is a paper I wrote for my first class at SMU a couple summers ago...

It wasn’t God that let me down.

I’ve had to say those words to myself at various times over the past few years, which was a gradual and disturbing development. Faith has always been such a large part of my life; such an important part of my childhood home. I never blamed God for the difficult times we experienced when I was a child. It never even occurred to me.

In college I went through a difficult period with my mom; I was confused and hurt, but I didn’t blame God. Then my dad got cancer and struggled more, but blaming God still didn’t seem like the appropriate response.

When Rachel and I had a miscarriage, I was devastated. But outside of a few emotional moments, I didn’t really blame God.

When I lost my job and church and friends one Tuesday I began to wonder if perhaps God had something to do with it after all.

After nine solid months of looking for a new ministry position; after being the runner-up in five different search processes; after using my master’s degree to alphabetize books at Barnes & Noble; after what little bit of my ego that remained was destroyed, the seeds of doubt moved in and started rearranging furniture. God was certainly beginning to appear culpable...

Then we took the leap of faith and moved to New Orleans only to have trouble after trouble and heartache on top of heartache, and I started to wonder if the whole “God” thing was a cosmic joke. I was starting to fear that, like a grown up version of Santa Claus, at any moment someone was going to sit me down and say, “Look, don’t be upset, but...” In the times when I wasn’t doubting God’s existence, it is safe to say that I was beginning to blame God.

Then one day I had coffee with God...

I’ve never said it that way before, but over the past few weeks I’ve begun to realize that was precisely what happened. A woman who had been hurt by church people started a conversation with me at IHOP one evening. We talked for over an hour before she asked anything about me. Kay was very surprised when I told her I was a preacher. I’m not sure how she expected me to respond, but she told me that she doesn’t trust Christians and she was perhaps even more surprised when I replied, “I know what you mean.”

I had not put it together before right now, but that was the moment that my healing truly began; perhaps God sent Kay Moody to minister to me. In my mind I’ve always thought that God sent me to IHOP to minister to Kay and later to her whole family, which did happen, but I think in some ways, she was the missionary and I was the one who needed to experience the reconciling ministry of community available in God. This lady, who hadn’t been to church in decades, served priestly, pastoral and prophetic roles in my life.

That process of healing continued over the next couple years right up to a recent event at Denny’s when once again, God showed up to have coffee in an unexpected form.

Sitting in Denny’s has certain similarities to what I imagine it would have been like to sit in the middle of the Athenian Areopagus. In Acts 17 we read of Paul walking around this area where people “spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (Acts 17:21). A few people come to Denny’s to eat, most are there to talk.

Perhaps when I walk in to Denny’s I’m showing up for an appointment to have coffee with God in the place where people like to share ideas. The struggle is that I never have any idea what God is going to look like this time.

On this particular day, God could have easily been found working in any number of people. It was busy when I arrived and as I looked around the room I can specifically remember thinking, “I may not get much work done today.” Anita greeted me from the smoking section, I smiled, said hello and walked past her to my booth.

On this particular day there were several young African Americans laughing and talking about any number of things; there were three hispanic construction workers conversing in Spanish, I picked up a few words here and there; cerveza (beer) was a popular topic. Mike, an older man who always wants to talk about my MacBook was on the other side of the room. Keith was his server but Mike kept yelling at Anita, who was still in the smoking section. Keith was getting ready for his trip to Las Vegas, which has been a major topic of conversation in the past.

However, on this day, God met me for coffee in the form of a young woman with shoulder length hair and the weight of the world on her shoulders. Our conversation started with something safe for both of us: I asked about her children and showed her pictures of my own.

As I continued asking questions and she continued revealing more of her story, each time letting her guard down a little more, I began to grow anxious. Her story was so similar to Kay’s. And both of their stories are so similar to my mother’s.

I did not fully recognize it at the time, but my primary task at that moment was maintain control of my identity. Like the moment when your car begins to hydroplane, my internal response at that moment would decide whether this event would become an adrenaline rush or a devastating crash.

The temptation was to cease operating as a distinct person and begin to take on Brandy’s concerns, fears, doubts and anger. She made the statement, “I trusted in God and things were crap, so I decided to do things on my own and now things are fine.” I understood that feeling, or at least, there’d be times when I asked myself if this would be the case. But these trials were not mine, they were Brandy’s and taking them away from her would only do harm to both of us.

As we continued to talk, her defenses continued to come down and I can now see that with the revelation of each new layer, God - standing there by my booth, looking exactly like a girl named Brandy - was giving me a chance to experience a moment of sacred connection with the God who had at one point had seemed to nearly vanish from existence.

I can neither remove, make up for nor dismiss Brandy’s past experiences, and I believe that it was my not trying to do so that encouraged her to trust me. It also wouldn’t have served much purpose to get into a church bashing session with Brandy. I simply acknowledged the painful reality, adding a brief comment or two about my own history of disappointments.

I can see that, though I was struggling to not become anxious about “helping” Brandy, I was not anxious about whether or not God was to blame for her situation. Or mine. She isn’t ready to hear it yet, but it wasn’t God that let Brandy down. The opportunity to see that in Brandy, just as I saw it in Kay, becomes a mirror where I begin to see it in my own story. But it isn’t a great mirror. Its more like the mirror that Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 13:12 “Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror” (Contemporary English Version).

I don’t get the full picture at once, I get bits and pieces here and there, so will Brandy and so does everybody else.

Or maybe it isn’t like a cloudy mirror, maybe its like a series of small windows. I look out one and I can only see green leaves. Another reveals a break in the leaves and behind them is blue sky. Yet another frames no leaves at all, but rather a fence and on the other side a large pasture and rolling hills. No one picture is the complete picture, but they are all important clues to where I am.

In many ways I believe that the setting of our conversations are at least as important as the content. Brandy asked, “Why don’t you have an office?” There are several answers to that question, but one of them is that I spent several years in ministry behind the doors of an office with little or no interaction with other people, except when I worked at a church with multiple staff. I remember complaining that no job could possibly be less conducive to evangelism than ministry - I spent my time either isolated in our castle or swamped with the concerns of Christians. By moving my office to public space I began to encounter people.

I’m not in a situation where I need to go to Denny’s to find those encounter’s anymore. There are plenty of opportunities to connect with non-Christians in my context - at Shenendoah, even on Sunday mornings. But there is something different about the coffee shop. Perhaps each time I enter Denny’s I’m hoping that this will be a day that I look up over the rim of my coffee cup and find God sitting at the booth again.

The Athenians, in a place where people came to discuss stuff, confronted Paul with the statement, “You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean” (vs 20). When Paul responded, he spoke to them of the “unknown God” honored by one of their altars and he quoted their own philosophers in doing so. Like the Areopagus, Denny’s is a place where people share ideas with each other. It is a place to discuss “strange things” in community. And I’m not the minister there.

Sure, I’m a minister everywhere I go, and because I loathe inauthenticity I’m careful to make sure people know that part of my story. But nobody hired me to be the minister of the Denny’s Church (even though that’s what a few people have come to call it). I can have coffee with God and not feel obligated to always be the one representing God in the conversation.

This isn’t the same as being in an anonymous setting where no one knows I’m a minister. These people know, and they expect me to respond as more than just a person who believes in God, but one who takes it very seriously. But, at least at a certain level, Brandy doesn’t care if I’m a minister, because she doesn’t even consider herself a Christian. So she doesn’t have any problem telling me that she thinks the Mayan prediction of doom in 2012 is probably accurate. I can offer my opinion on the matter without having to wonder if she’s going to just adopt my perspective because I’m her pastor.

I had a conversation with an angry teenager in my youth group once (...more than once) who challenged my motives in showing concern for his destructive behavior: “You only care because you’re paid to.” That wasn’t true, and later I realized that he knew it, but it was still painful.

When I’m at Denny’s I don’t worry about people questioning my motives. Early on this was a slight concern because people could view my presence as a gimmick or a possible bait-and-switch trap. But over time through the ministry of presence and relationship, people at Denny’s have come to trust me and have accepted me as part of the herd. When issues are being discussed my opinion is sought - not because I’m the authority but because I’m part of the community and will likely have an interesting perspective.

The authority I have in this setting is solely relational authority, it has been granted to me because the community has recognized my voice as worth listening to. I often describe my ministry in this setting as acknowledging people’s humanity - making eye contact, greeting people by name, not treating them as just another transactional relationship. However, given these realizations, perhaps it is they who are affirming my humanity.

I owe Brandy a debt of gratitude. Her willingness to engage me in conversation was an act of compassion and ministry. A large part of the mission of the Church, as I understand it, is to reflect the image of God by functioning as a story of the Community of Love in action. And perhaps that is another aspect that attracts me to this event. Both Brandy and I ended up modeling the image of God to the other.

I do believe that this is in fact where I come to have coffee with God and sometimes God looks like a girl named Brandy.

*PS - this was written in the summer of 2009. Since then Brandy has become a valued and valuable part of the Christ Journey community. She recently moved to Fort Worth and started going to school...while still working to support herself and her daughter. She doesn't have many opportunities to gather with us on weekends and whatnot right now - but we're still family and we appreciate any opportunities we get to share life.

Yep, I got a tattoo...

I’ve been wanting a tattoo for a long time, but refused to permanently engrave something that didn’t have deep significance to me. Unfortunately the two most obvious choices, a cross and the Celtic Tree of Life have been extremely overplayed recently...

A while back I decided that a prayer labyrinth would be an appropriate tattoo. For those who aren’t aware, labyrinths have been used by Christians throughout the centuries as a tool for prayer and reflection. The center of the labyrinth represents the presence of God.

They are not mazes, there are no dead-ends or false trails. There are however many switchbacks in the path. Early on (in this particular labyrinth) the person walking is very close to the center and then later finds themselves moving further away. However, if we are moving forward we are drawing nearer to God, even when it may at first glance appear otherwise. The long paths around the outside of the circle can seem never-ending, but they are a necessary part of our journey...and after pressing through, the center is that much more appreciated.

The significance of prayer in my own life has increased greatly over the past five years. We have found ourselves on a journey through the wilderness that has at times seemed to contain a inescapable darkness and struggle. We have learned that prayer - both personal and communal - is more than just a requirement or chance to apologize for the ways we’ve “blown it” with God. Sometimes prayer is the only tangible reminder of brighter days. Honestly, sometimes prayer is a desperate cry when we aren’t sure the light even exists.

I’ve had the opportunity to walk prayer labyrinths on several occasions...and this simple act has had tremendous impact in my life. Whether it was a path of tiles in a small enclave at SMU, a bunch of rocks piled on the shores of Lake Texoma, a well worn path at a small monastery in south Dallas, or even a temporary set-up at a youth minister’s convention - this journey of prayer has tapped into moments of deep reflection in my life of faith.

This tattoo is placed on my forearm (which was actually my brother’s idea) so that I will see it regularly and be called to pray continually. When needed I can actually “walk” this labyrinth by tracing it with my finger (once my skin stops hurting!)

However there is another significance in carrying this labyrinth with me everywhere I go...

A LIVING LABYRINTH

As a disciple of Jesus, I am called and equipped to be, in a sense, a living labyrinth. Wherever I go, I carry with me the story of The Journey. This story, which began before creation and has a culmination that transcends time itself, also includes the small and seemingly insignificant story of me. People who spend time walking with me SHOULD have the opportunity to encounter moments of reflection and prayer. If I am committed to the calling I’ve received, then I will serve as a living labyrinth to those around me.

I’d be lying if I tried to pretend this is an accurate description of me...but I want it to be.

My life is meant to be more than a proclamation of morality. I am a disciple of the true Revolutionary; the One who is in the process of remaking and restoring all creation. My life is a participation in that reconciliation...The labyrinth will be a useful tool until God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. When that day arrives fully I will finally reside fully in the center of the labyrinth...which will then serve as a reminder of the path that I never walked alone.

Camping...Sorta

My boys love the idea of camping. Occasionally we’ll set up the tent behind our house -one of the benefits of living where we do is that the woods and the creek behind our house feel like being in the middle of nowhere to someone under the age of 7. Usually we’ll get a small campfire going with great plans to make smores, roast hotdogs and have untold adventures.

Typically by the time a couple marshmallows are toasted the boys have lost interest in the fire. They are in a rush to get in the tent, where I’ll tell them a couple stories...and then they lose interest in the tent.

Then we end up going back in the house to sleep in our own beds...

I had high hopes of going camping with the boys several times this summer: Conner and I have camped at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose before and I thought Micah could join us. I like to hike the trails at Cleburne State Park, that could be another option. My parents live on a large ranch outside of College Station - I’ve camped out there MANY times and thought it was time to take the boys out. Camping in the summer can be miserable if you aren’t geared up for it, but with no school to worry about, we wouldn’t have to cram these trips into our short weekends.

Unfortunately I spent the entire summer in Oklahoma City (kinda like camping, only instead of a tent I was in an apartment...not as nice as my tent, but slightly fewer bugs.)

I am not happy that I missed so much this summer, but it was really hot and chances are good that our trips to the woods would have been cut short by sweaty little boys missing the AC.

Now school has started, the heat is finally dipping below the hundred degree mark (it was 94 today) AND Conner has started Cub Scouts. This has greatly increased Conner and Micah’s love of the idea of camping. So, this weekend was going to be different. We decided to camp out at Rachel’s parents’ house - they live out in the country as well. Tents, smores, hotdogs, headlamps, glowsticks, campfire...and two little boys who quickly decided that the ground wasn’t comfortable and they wanted to sleep inside. In Conner’s words, “Dad, I’m not comfortable, it feels like I’m laying down on grass.”

Yep.

So now its eleven o’clock and I’m in my in-laws’ living room writing a blog post. The tent is still set up outside with no one to keep it company - I like camping and all, but its a back yard...I’m not passing up a bed in this situation - and I can’t help but think about how my boys’ camping experience is similar to many people’s church experience.

I am often reminded of the truth in Bonhoeffer’s statement that most people like the idea of community more than the thing itself. Like Conner’s realization in the tent, it seems cool, and there is an undeniable appeal, but it isn’t always the most comfortable place to lay down.

I could have insisted that Conner and Micah stick it out in the tent (I never even considered that Josiah would make it all night). I could have used this as an opportunity to teach them that we follow through with the things we decide to do...but I had to ask myself, “Do I want them camping or do I want them to love camping with me?”

If the goal is simply for them to spend the night in a tent, then I should go wake them up and take them back out there. But that isn’t really my goal. Certainly I want them to go camping with me, and I often think about the possibilities ahead for the four of us guys. But I want them to love it as I do. I want their memories of times spent outdoors to be good ones so that after hurricane puberty hits maybe they’ll still want to do this stuff with their old man.

I have a couple friends right now who are ministers in established churches and really seem to be frustrated with this type of start and stop commitment to community, shared life and missional engagement in their churches. People say they want to be a part of something meaningful and transformative; they want to join God in the amazing work of transforming lives and all of creation...but it isn’t comfortable so they start asking to go back inside.

To those friends - and to anyone else who finds themselves in such a place - I urge you to remember that our goal is not just to get people to participate in a certain way. The goal is for our friends and fellow disciples to get a taste of the amazing life that God has prepared for those who will join in the journey of reconciling all things. Our goal is not just to reach out to our community, but to realize that joining God in this ministry helps us to tap into the essence of what it means to be truly human.

To help people on this path, sometimes we may have to be willing to let them go back inside for a while, knowing that we’ll try it again soon. Allow the memories of the campfire, the marshmallows and the stories told to sink in and call them back. Trust that this experience is captivating and doesn’t need coercion in order to take root.

I know that this is true when it comes to walking with our non-Christian friends and I suspect that it is equally true for our overly-churched friends as well.

Perhaps there comes a time when a stronger approach is needed. If the boys and I end up camping on the side of Mt. Elbert and one of them decides they’d rather be back home, packing up and leaving wouldn’t seem like a profitable decision...of course I don’t plan to be on a mountain in Colorado with a 1st grader and two preschoolers. So maybe the question regarding your church is, “Are we dealing with preschoolers, teenagers or adults?” This question runs the risk of condescension and arrogance, so beware, but it can also shed some light on how to proceed. Maybe the question becomes not only about how to get your church engaged in God’s mission, but how to help the church move out of a pre-adolescent faith.

To those who have been called to serve within established churches, serve faithfully. The grass isn’t greener on this side of the fence. Well, maybe in some ways it is, but there are snakes in the grass, so its a tradeoff! Remember, if life with God can happen anywhere, it can happen here. Even if “here” is a living room one hundred feet from the empty campsite where everyone was so excited to spend the evening.