Thoughts from the Weekend

I have a lot of thoughts running through my mind today. It has been an eventful weekend, with a funeral and a wedding shower yesterday and an amazing church experience today. In between, my 14-year-old daughter lost her mind and tried to flood the house. And the Super Bowl commercials are about to kick off in a couple of hours. Quite the weekend.

I would love to give you the lowdown on all of these events, but my goals are ONE blog per week, not FOUR. The flooding would be the easiest story to tell, but that doesn't mean it's the best one to tell. The shower story is complicated by a backstory that needs to be told at a later time, if at all. And I'm still processing the funeral of the late, great Roberta Carman. But something that happened at that funeral leads me into my story today.

We all thought Roberta was going to die over five years ago. So much so that we devoted an entire Sunday morning 8:15 classic service to remembering her. Her family was mostly in town, so we asked them what songs she might want sung and we paid tribute to Roberta -- prematurely, as it turned out. I was reminded of that at the funeral, when the worship team began with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." We also sang that one at her first memorial, five years ago.

So today in our church, we reflected on that particular song. In case you are not familiar with this particular hymn, here are the words:

Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored
He has loosed the fateful lightning
Of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Our God is marching on

He has sounded form the trumpet
That shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul
To answer him be jubilant, my feet
Our God is marching on

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Our God is marching on

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom
That transfigures you and me
As he died to make men holy
Let us live to make men free
While God is marching on

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Our God is marching on

We talked about the pictures of Jesus that we find in the Scriptures. We're walking (slowly) through Luke, trying to understand his picture of Jesus. We talked about how we can see Jesus as a warrior king (like He is portrayed in this hymn) and still get him completely wrong. We read a story from the book of 2 Maccabees about a mother and her seven sons who were cruelly tortured and killed by Antiochus IV and what we might be able to learn from that. We cried at several points in the discussion. We said some profound things; we said some inane things. We laughed. We prayed. We asked a lot of questions and came up with a few answers (that's our modus operandi). We wrestled with who this Jesus is and what He is asking us to be.

We're an interesting group, this church I attend. We meet in a home. We say words that aren't really church-appropriate. We don't believe any one of us has all the answers -- especially not the "pastor." We walk out with more questions than we came in to church with. And yet it is sacred space. Holy ground. Kingdom.

I am always grateful for the community.

Today, I was grateful for the experience.

I wish you could have been there.

An almost perfect "church" day

Wow, it's been a while since I last blogged.  For those of you following us on this journey, I apologize for the radio silence.  I have hopes and new resolve to be more consistent in my posts.

A small group of us have been on this "church" journey for almost a year now.  It seems unbelievable that it has been that long, but it indeed has.  I feel like we've finally begun to turn a little bit of a corner. We decided a little while ago that it was time for us to expand our vision and begin to invite new people into our faith community.  We've been very hesitant to do so, primarily due to the fact that we really didn't know where we were going, so why would we invite others into our uncertainty?

Yesterday was the first morning of our "growth."  We had three "new-to-us" families that showed up at our house for a morning of worship, teaching, communion and prayer.  I listened as our children on the "front row" sang at the top of their lungs that "Our God's not dead; he's surely alive." We shared about our wrestlings with grace and forgiveness and service.  We prayed prayers of thanks for the blessings in our lives.  Whereas for most of my church-going life, I was always concerned about what time it was so that we didn't offend anyone by gathering for too long, I had no idea what time it was, nor how long we had been there.  It is a glorious feeling!

We parted ways and then made plans to get back together in the evening for a family game night.  After an afternoon of football, we gathered back together at a friend's house for pizza, dominoes, Monopoly, more football, laughter, and community.  Our "senior member" schooled us in dominoes.  We told stories of mission trips past.  We laughed at the Pintrest acumen of one of our male friends.  Our kids watched movies together.  It was a beautiful night.

I'm not sure we're much closer to understanding our "mission" and "strategy" than we were a year ago. But we've started to spread our wings and try some new things.  We've begun to believe that a vital element of the spiritual life is that it is lived together, in community and on mission.  And I couldn't be more grateful that God has brought together this little group that we call the 8th Day Collective. At least for one Sunday, it felt like everything was just perfect.

New jobs and such

I began a new job this week.  As of yesterday, I am the Volunteer Coordinator for Accolade Hospice here in Lubbock.  This will be my first non-church career, so it's been quite an adjustment already.  Like any job in the medical field, most of this week will be training videos and reading, which makes for thrilling days.  But I love the organization that I am working for and get the sense that they believe that I'm the right person for the job, so I'm excited about where this may be going.  I really feel like I'm working with a great team of people.

In addition to watching the standard training videos this week, there is also a national volunteer conference for people in my position.  So, I have watched a couple of these conference webinars in an attempt to better understand what it is that I am supposed to be doing.  Yesterday I watched a seminar on how to approach faith communities about volunteering with a hospice organization.  While the webinar is going on, there is a chat window where people can interact and ask questions based on what the speaker was covering.

It was pretty astounding to watch what people's perceptions of churches are.  Comments like, "I approached one pastor who asked me why he would let me try to drum up volunteers for my organization when they won't even volunteer for children's ministry." Or "Pastors don't want anyone that can't help out their church."  Or "One pastor asked me how much money I wanted.  When I said I didn't want any, he told me that they couldn't help me."  Over and over again the comments painted a church that was only concerned about itself and what was needed to keep the machine of church running.

It really saddened me, because I think the vision that Jesus had (and has) for his church is so much larger.  You can argue with me if you would like (that's what the comment section below is for), but I believe that Jesus expects no less from his church than the redemption of the world.  Pretty major vision.  Or, as my Twitter friend Bob Goff says it, "God's plan for the world is as simple as it is inexplicable: It's us."  When all the world sees in us is that we only care for ourselves, our people, our programs, something has gone terribly wrong.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

Book Review, The Road to Missional, by Michael Frost

One of the things that I am having the hardest time balancing in the midst of this transition is finding time to read.  With the pressure of providing for a family in the midst of trying to find a more consistent job (t-shirts are great, but intermittent), the thing that gets pushed aside is the reading.  But I am realizing that, as we embark on this missional journey, the only way that I am going to get answers for our little community is by reading about what people much smarter than me are thinking and doing.  And since I suck at retaining information from the things that I read, I thought it would make sense for me to do a “book review” of what I am reading for this blog.  That way I can let you in on what I’m learning while, at the same time, helping my own retention.

This past weekend I did a wedding in the Dallas Metroplex, which means I got a chance to go and buy books at bookstores that I usually can’t frequent.  While at one of these, I found another copy of The Road to Missional: Journey to the Center of the Church by Michael Frost (co-author of The Forgotten Ways with Alan Hirsch).  This book was recently placed on a list of the top 40 books for a thorough understanding of the missional church conversation by a missional organization called Sentralized (check them out at www.sentralizedgathering.com).  Anyway, I bought this book a few weeks before I moved out of my office, so I have no idea where my original copy is.  But, since I saw this one, I bought it and began reading it on the flight home.  Here’s a brief, somewhat haphazard review of the book:

This book is one of the Shapevine Missional Series (www.shapevine.com) designed to further the conversation on missional church.  Frost begins by defending the continued use of the M-word (missional) to describe the wholesale changes that he deems are necessary for the church to thrive in these changing times.  His premise is that, while missional has become a buzzword for churches around the globe, very few understand just what this entails.  Missional isn’t a trend to attract more people to church; it is the wholesale reorientation of the church around mission.  As he says on page 21: “Missional leaders don’t see changing the church as central to their cause; they want to change the whole world.”  He then brings up six examples of what this looks like in the six chapters that make up the book.  I’ll look at them chapter by chapter with some relevant quotes interspersed.

1. The Missio Dei - Seeing Mission as Bigger than Evangelism

This is rightly the best place to start.  In my conversations with people about what in the world I am doing, this becomes a sticking point almost immediately.  Those of us steeped in Christendom have a hard time understanding what the big difference is between mission and evangelism.  While I can’t do it justice in these few words, I’ll hit some high points about what this means.  Frost quotes NT Wright extensively in this book, and quotes David Bosch extensively in this chapter.  A few of their quotes may help me communicate the thoughts of this chapter.  First, Wright: “Despite what people think, within the Christian family and outside it, the point of Christianity isn’t ‘to go to heaven when you die’”(p. 23).  This has probably been the hardest thing that I have had to learn, that our efforts to “save souls” are in vain if we are not “transforming people.”  Bosch writes, “[Mission] is alerting people to the universal reign of God through Christ” (p.24).  This changes how we do things when we make the transfer from being primarily concerned about “there and then” and set our focus on “here and now.”  As Wright says elsewhere, it’s about life AFTER life after death – what things look like on a redeemed and restored new heavens and new earth.  The primary image that Frost plays off of in this chapter is the idea of a movie trailer.  Our lives as Christ-followers are to serve the role that a movie trailer plays.  We are to portray enough of what is to go on in the redeemed creation that people become drawn to it and “want to see the movie” themselves.  Frost also plays on an image that Wright uses in Simply Christian, where he talks about the Celtic concept of “thin places” – places where the veil between heaven and earth become so thin that the light of heaven shines clearly through into this world.  I love that image and will blog later in the week about a “thin place” that I saw this past weekend at a wedding.

2.  Slow Evangelism – Moving Beyond the Four Spiritual Laws

On the heels of his discussion that the purpose of the church is so much bigger than evangelism as it has been traditionally interpreted, Frost talks about what evangelism should look like in a missional community.  Unlike many of the postmodern church thinkers who deny the importance of the proclamation of Biblical truth, Frost acknowledges that the announcement of good news is an important aspect of mission.  As he points out, the St. Francis quote that many love to quote about preaching the gospel at all times DOES include the important point that, when necessary, USE WORDS!  He does contend with Hauerwas and Willimon that “The only way for the world to know it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people” (p. 56).  But there has to be a balance between announcement and demonstration.  His missional indicators for the church on pp. 62-63 are worth looking over to get a better handle on what this chapter means for the church.

3.  A Market-Shaped Church – How Membership Has Trumped Mission

This is one of the concepts that I absolutely believe with everything that is in me – that the church has become so infected with a consumer virus that we don’t even realize that we have it.  I would guess that over half of the institutional church leaders across the country would agree as well.  The problem becomes, how do we change it?  This is where so much of my mindspace goes these days.  How do we change a church culture when that culture is so intertwined with capitalism and “American values” that we can’t untangle them?  As Frost says on p. 76, “What we require today is a radical rethink about the degree to which our churches have unwittingly embraced what Bryan Stone calls the logic of production, and an uncoupling from that paradigm, setting churches free to embrace the alternative paradigm presented by Jesus, a paradigm of truthfulness, love, and incarnation.”  This might be the biggest challenge for the church moving forward.  While Frost identifies the problem well, I am not sure that he provides great and clear solutions about where we go from here.

4.  Triumphant Humiliation – The Cross as a Missional Paradigm for Holiness

In this chapter, Frost points out that the cross needs to be “not only the means by which our sins are forgiven, but also the template for all subsequent Christian living” (p. 87).  He advocates a cruciform model of discipleship, including a mentor who is willing to give his life for an apprentice.  I loved how he put it on page 85 – “Discerning what Jesus would do in any given situation, especially when we live our lives among the poor and the marginalized, is actually hard work.”  We have often reduced discipleship to a set of rules and regulations and in so doing have robbed the cross of its power.  Frost spends most of the chapter contrasting piety and discipleship.  Piety (rule-following) is easy and leads to an offensive self-righteousness; discipleship (Spirit-following) is difficult and leads to attractive humility.

5.  Breathing Shalom – Bringing Reconciliation, Justice, and Beauty to a Broken World

One of the hallmarks of the missional movement is the emphasis on Shalom, the Hebrew word that is usually translated “peace.”  Shalom is a much richer concept than our view of peace, which we usually use to communicate a personal calm or a lack of conflict.  Shalom might be better translated “wholeness,” that idea of things being “as they should be.”  Our task as Christ-followers is to recognize shalom when we see it and to do everything in our power to foster shalom in our world.  The three primary areas that Frost points to are restored relationship, reestablished justice, and recognition of beauty.  As Wright says, “We are called to be part of God’s new creation, called to be agents of that new creation here and now.  We are called to model and display that new creation in symphonies and family life, in restorative justice and poetry, in holiness and service to the poor, in politics and painting” (p. 115).  This chapter created many life-giving thoughts and dreams for what our new missional community should look like.

6.  Moving into the Neighborhood – Living Out Incarnational Mission

I love that even recognized authors such as Michael Frost have to put up with stupid/smart people.  He tells the story of his argument with a seminary student about his “misuse” of the Incarnation as the model for mission, since clearly the Incarnation of Christ was a once-in-a-history kind of event.  Yet, we are called to live the life of Christ among the people we are called to live near.  I loved Frost’s example of how many church people live in one neighborhood yet church in another.  (Yes, I just turned “church” into a verb.  Deal with it.)  The examples of this chapter stretched me and challenged me to rethink what it means to live in a neighborhood.  It caused me to rethink what my calling is in the midst of that neighborhood.  I especially loved the parting quote from Alan Roxburgh – “And until we build transformed communities, there is no hope for a broken world” (p. 140).

I know that I have not done an adequate job of conveying Michael Frost’s great work in this book.  As I re-read this “book review,” I have completely missed the overarching role that Jesus plays in this whole matter.  Frost does a much better job keeping us focused on Jesus.  What I greatly appreciated about this book was the variety of authors quoted.  He quotes Wright and Bosch and Newbigin extensively, but also spends some time quoting Piper and Keller and McLaren.  He even introduced me to some new people, like Kristin Jack and Marilynne Robinson.  I am going to pass my two copies of this book (once I find my other one) around to my little community to read.  I would recommend that you read it if you’re wanting a clearer picture of where the missional conversation came from and why it’s not done yet.

All quotes are from The Road to Missional by Michael Frost, ©2011 by Michael Frost, published by Baker Books (www.bakerbooks.com).

A Place at the Table, feast day 5/an ending

It's going to be hard to sum up yesterday in one blog post.  I'll either ramble on for paragraph after paragraph or I'll cut things too short and leave way too much out.  But it was an important day, and as such I feel like I ought to devote a whole blog post to it.  So here we go . . .

Yesterday marked the end of an ebb-and-flow 10-year ministry with Raintree Christian Church here in Lubbock.  I have officially been on staff since January 1, 2003, but I began leading worship on a consistent basis almost the moment that I stepped out of the moving van from Martha's Vineyard, MA.  I've seen some unbelievable things in my 10 years here -- both ministerially and personally.  We as a church have absolutely been through the highs and lows of life together.  I have connected with some of the most amazing people I have ever met.  I have grown from a punk 27-year-old youth minister into a punk 37-year-old associate minister.  I have started two new and distinctly different services -- the River and raintree pm -- and led countless others.  I have preached sermons, taught lessons, sung songs, written articles, made CDs and DVDs, made copies, moved offices (I ended up having 5 different offices in that building).  I spent years as the youth minister, the college minister, the worship minister, and even a few days as the children's minister (not our brightest idea).  I have seen marriages stay together that I thought were doomed, and I've seen marriages that had no reason to end head that way.  I've run sound for funerals and weddings and even performed a wedding or two.  I have welcomed two beautiful girls into the world (Gracie was born in MV), and I have placed a precious son in the ground.  It has been quite a ride!

Often in the midst of the busyness of ministry, people get lost.  We become about running around doing programs and lose sight of the fact that ministry is, first and foremost, about people and connecting people to Jesus and one another.  In my worst days, that has been me.  I was reminded of the fact that I almost alienated one of my best friends, Dusty Milner, before our friendship ever got started because of my flaw of putting programs over people.  I've had my moments of greatness and many more moments of humanness.

For our last Sunday, the leadership of Raintree encouraged the people to write out for us their memories of our family.  The responses were varied, but I saw one theme emerging as what people remembered about me.  More than anything else, people appreciated how real I was.  Not how well I sang; not how well I preached; not how well I ministered; not how well I . . .  And what was amazing to me was that many of the notes referenced what were the lowlights of my 10 years.  Those of us who follow Christ spend so much time worrying about how this will appear or what people will think of that action.  All that people want is for us to be real in our relationship with Jesus -- good, bad, and ugly.  Especially the ugly.

I want to share something from an unnamed friend that challenged me to continue to be very intentional about living out the Jesus way in the midst of the stuff of life.  I share this, not because I want to puff myself up, but because I want to challenge you to live out the life of Christ in your own context.  I think this person has some rose-colored glasses when it comes to my failings, but it challenges me to live like Jesus did.

"I can count on one hand the people who I have truly seen God in, and you are one of those people.  You are an example of Christ's love and He shines through you.  You will be missed and loved always.  Go shine."

Friends, whether in this church or that, in this place or that, in this way or that, let's go shine.  That's when kingdom breaks out among us, within us, and around us.

A Place at the Table, catching up

The discipline of daily blogging has been very beneficial for me.  Having to spend 30-45 minutes each day to reflect and process the day is a discipline that would probably benefit all of us.  So it has been an unhealthy digression for me personally to have gone this long without blogging.

But I have found in my "blogging vacation" that the community of those following these thoughts is more vast than I imagined.  In the last two days I have had conversations with people that I barely know and people that I know well yet live far away who have continued following this communal journey.  So to those of you who are following this blog, thank you for your kind words and for the accountability that you offer me simply by reading this.

Our little group gathered together as a community on Sunday night for the first time in two weeks.  We spent a lot of time complaining about this dang fast.  Where I thought this diet would get easier as the 40 days went along, it looks like the farther into this we get, the more difficult it becomes.  Now, that would make a lot more sense if it were a true no-eating fast.  But I didn't quite understand why it has turned more difficult on the fast we're on.  It's not like we're hungry; for the most part, we're just bored with eating the same thing every meal.  But it has become more difficult for all of us.

But one of our friends nailed it in our conversation.  Because we had gone a Sunday without meeting, we hadn't had our weekly opportunity to "gripe" (not the word he used).  And we have come to rely on this gathering to feel legitimate community.  We need to know that people understand what it is that we are going through.  We need to know that we are not alone in this struggle.

And that's one of the primary things that the church has lost.  We went so long trying to work out a theology of "personal salvation" that we forgot the importance of community.  And then when we rediscovered community, we thought that we could program it.  We tried small groups and ministry teams and support groups and the list goes on and on.  But community happens when we do life together, not when we try to make it happen.  Accountability happens when we truly care for one another, not when we plan a 6am coffee every other week.  Vulnerability is what happens when deep trust is established over time, not when the church tells us we should trust somebody because other people have trusted them.

Community is hard.  And time-consuming.  And painful.  And unlike anything else this world offers.  And those who have experienced it will never settle for the programmatic version.

A Place at the Table, day 19

Aside from the less-than-desirable food limitations, this trip to Illinois has been a blast.  We have reconnected with family and friends, some of whom I haven't seen in years.  It has been great.

Yesterday we connected with Brian and Tina, my best friends from my first ministry in LeRoy, IL.  Brian and Tina were my best resource in that youth ministry, as they live out in the country and have all kinds of animals.  We were reminiscing about the time we used their indoor riding area as the boundary for a ghetto laser tag game where we Velcroed alka-seltzer tablets to our chests and went wild with water guns.  We also hid like 100 pennies in the dirt of the stable and gave the kids kitty litter scoops to try and find the pennies.  Tina reminded me that most of the kids chose to use their hands instead, not really thinking through what the dirt in a riding stable might contain.  We also turned their pasture into a 9-hole putt-putt course, which was a hoot as well.

Even though I hadn't seen Brian and Tina since Grace was 1-1/2 years old (meaning that none of my other girls had met them), we picked up right where we left off, laughing and joking and telling stories.  The girls got to ride a horse (which was awesome), pet a cancerous donkey named Abraham (there's a story there, too), and ride a four-wheeler (through the mud, which splattered a little bit).  It made me smile to hear their cheer as they arrived back at the house from the four-wheeler excursion.  "Auntie Teen-Teen!  Auntie Teen-Teen!"  What a memorable day!

But what struck me was the conversation that the adults had while the kids were in the basement making a mess.  We talked about some of our common frustrations with how the church is.  We filled them in on some of our plans and dreams.  We heard about what God has been doing in their lives.  It seems that a couple of trips to Uganda have changed how they view the world.  Their hope is that they will move to Uganda on a more permanent basis to run a clinic for the people there.  They are questioning their own legacy and realizing that maybe, just maybe, God is calling them to something really risky and life-changing.  Something that might really represent kingdom breaking out among us.

And I am amazed at the changes that God is orchestrating among us.  It seems that everyone that I come into contact with on this jaunt is being led in a direction that involves more risk, less stability, and real world change.  It makes me smile to see what God is up to.  Maybe He really is up to something that is immeasurably more than we could ever have imagined.  I can't wait.