De-caffeinated Lent

I was listening to NPR earlier this week and I heard a story about energy drinks.  There's lot to say about the topic in general (e.g. is it right to label energy drinks as food vs. health supplement?) but the thing that was on my mind as I heard the piece was "why is the energy drink market exploding?" (to the point where caffeinated fruit juices by Minute Maid are soon to be released).  After working through chapter 5 about community in the Tangible Kingdom with fellow sojourners in our missional community one answer stuck out to me.  As a society we've so thoroughly packed our lives full of stuff to do, responsibilities to fulfill, and entertainment to consume that we need energy drinks just to make it through the day.  We're hurried, unrestful, and individualized people.

With Lent approaching and those thoughts rattling around in my head I started thinking about myself and our community.  If I've ever had an energy drink it was only a handful of times.  However, I drink a lot of coffee.  I tell myself that it isn't about the caffeine, but that I really like the taste of it ;).  The reality is probably more a combination of the two.

For my Lenten disciplines I like to both "take off" (e.g. no desserts) and "put on" (e.g use a devotional daily) and when they fit together even better.  Even better than that, is when I have people sharing in the experience with me.  A couple years back me and a friend both gave up alcohol for Lent.  Being able to share in that experience (and celebrate the end of it at Easter) made the season even more meaningful.

That brings me to an idea...  For Lent, I won't drink coffee unless I drink it with a friend; unless I intentionally set aside time, go out of the way, and engage in community with another person.  Lets use caffeine to subvert the stampede of busyness and individualism!  Who's with me?!!

The fact that I love coffee hasn't changed so I'm depending on you to help me out.  Anytime you want a coffee feel free to drop by our house or invite me out. ;)

What would Jesus do?

Sometimes, I get to thinking about where Jesus would be if he lived in the world today. And in the last few months, I've decided that Jesus would definitely be a waitress!

Jesus lived off of the land-- gleaning from people's leftovers. Waitresses live off of people's leftover dollars and sometimes their pennies.

For all the public events recorded, Jesus spent most of his time being invisible. In many of the accounts, Jesus runs away from crowds, or quietly heals someone and then heads off on his way. He never seems to say, "Hey! Over here! Listen to me! I'm important!" On the contrary-- he just starts talking, and then people listen in-- and more and more until there's a big crowd. Then at the END, he says, "He who has ears, let him hear."

Waitresses are all about being invisible. People look at you funny if you act like a real person. You're supposed to be smooth-- never drop anything, never check on people too often. You are just the noone who serves the food and refills the waters. It's amazing how often people keep talking about deeply personal details when you're standing right there taking their plate.

Beer

Watch this for a beautiful expression of life, vocation, and a desire to connect meaningfully with other people.

Vision

I, along with others, am convinced that Christ the King cannot succeed without changing.  You've heard many of the reasons such as numerical attrition, shrinking financial resources, uncertain continued outside support, the Gywnne's leaving, and wider cultural changes.  People, increasingly are not seeking out a "church to go to."  It's not compelling to many that we have a good nursery, nice music, sound preaching, and warm and loving people to engage with over coffee and snacks after the service.  And while I believe that all of that's true, the challenges we face are not because the Gospel has ceased to be Good News and it's not because we as God's body are failing.  We are a microcosm of the wider changes around us.

Instead I believe that we are being called to *go* with God as our inspiration, protection, blessing, and Good News.  We are being called to engage with our community in new and different ways to listen to and love our neighbors (particularly those we've overlooked in the past) and to participate in the work that God is already doing in His Kingdom.  Consider Abram for minute:

"1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation, 

 and I will bless you;

I will make your name great, 

 and you will be a blessing.[a] 

3 I will bless those who bless you, 

 and whoever curses you I will curse; 

and all peoples on earth 

 will be blessed through you.”[b]

4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring[c] I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.

9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe."

When I read, I see a prototype of the journey we will embark on.

• God just said "Go" and not even somewhere specific...  "to the land I will show you"
• God offers his protection and blessing
• Abram leaves even at an old age (i.e. this wasn't an ideal time to leave)
• Abram takes everything (i.e. he didn't leave a "lifeline"/exit strategy)
• Abram travels extensively through Canaan ("as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem") until God speaks.
• Abram continues to travel (he didn't just wait to receive what God had promised)
• Abram has to adapt...  Famine strikes so he has to go to Egypt

Now for a little personal history.  I grew up in the United Methodist Church and since I don't remember much of my childhood I don't really remember a time when I didn't go to church.  That's not to say that my parents were deeply religious when I was young.  They grew up much like me.  Mom grew up Methodist and Dad grew up Catholic.  It wasn't until I was a teenager that Dad began to take his relationship with God seriously.  During college Shiree and I participated in Intervarsity and through that found a PCA (Presbyterian Church of America) that fit the season of our lives; brain food, a spirituality that prized rationality.  When we moved to Seattle we continued to attend a PCA church, but it was different, largely because Seattle is different than Harrisonburg.  It was liturgical, we had communion every week, the music and other aesthetic elements were important to worship, and being in a city an impulse towards mission was inevitable (art nights, soup kitchens, neighbors who were literally 20 feet away, many people who had never even cracked the Bible and it didn't bother them).  Our PCA church in Seattle was also much the same; deeply intellectual/rational, and very little room for mystery.  We moved back to Harrisonburg in 2003 and picked up where we left off in the PCA church we attended during college.  Around that time God began stirring me and I wanted a faith in my heart as well as my head.  I wanted mystery and beauty and I wanted to be connected to something ancient.  So I started exploring in lots of different directions.  I started reading a bunch of books by Brian McLaren ("New Kind of Christian" series, "Generous Orthodoxy"), NT Wright ("Simply Christian", "Surprised by Hope", "Evil and the Justice of God"), William Young ("The Shack"), Shane Claiborne ("Irresistible Revolution") and other "emerging church" books.  Shiree and I also helped financially with a church plant called "The New Deal" that a pastor friend (whom we met in Seattle) in Indianapolis started.  In hindsight, and while we didn't have the vocabulary for it, it was very missional.

Almost by chance I came to the Ash Wednesday service of Christ the King in 2006.  It is a powerful service with beautiful touches (the cross and the flamable paper).  I knew immediately there was something at CtK that God was calling our family so we left the PCA and have been at CtK ever since.  Shortly after joining CtK, Geoff pitched a vision of ABF to me that I was excited about and so I took on being the outreach coordinator/emcee of ABF.  ABF was to be something more intimate than corporate worship but less intimate than a small group would be with a focus on doing mission in the community around us.  The Sunday times were to be fuel for us to "go" and through our going find people who heard the echoes of God's voice and wanted to connect with Him and His body here in Harrisonburg.  I coordinated projects with the Volunteer Farm, Skyline Literacy Coalition, United Way, and others.  We didn't know it at the time and still didn't have the vocabulary but we were wrestling with being "missional."  We did good in the community, but it was an uphill struggle to live into the vision and I believe this was because the Sunday morning time was bound to become "Sunday School", and the busyness of our lives made it hard to do kingdom work.

I've always loved the teaching part of ABF with amazing teachers like Aaron Cook and Bob Brown, but architecture was winning so I proposed a different idea to the leadership community called the "outreach incubator".  It was going to be something like a small group with people who felt a call towards connecting with and serving their community in unique ways.  Shiree and I started that up in 2007.  People from several small groups and other friends we knew began meeting our our house (much like a small group).  We kept an often very honest blog (this one....  which I've been re-reading and has inspired me with "old new ideas"), read lots of books and scripture (for a season we just read all of John together from the Message like a bed-time story), brain stormed ways to engage our community, and did projects together.  Again, we fell short of the vision and again I think that was at least in part because of the architecture.  We were shaped almost exactly like other CtK small groups and so we became a small group like others.

Most of the people in our "outreach incubator" moved away and my movement towards this thing which I didn't have a name for, "missional-ness" slowed.  Last year I brought the idea of Stop Hunger Now to the Leadership Community and Geoff pushed me to help that project take off.  Once again I was excited by a project that served justice in the world, that connected with God's Kingdom, and that helped other people align with God (even if they didn't know it).  Stop Hunger Now turned into HARTS and once again we got to connect meaningfully with people in our community whom we've never connected with before (in 2010, kids were allowed to participate in HARTS and Brody made friends with a lot of homeless people ;)  From there personally I kept seeking ways, with varying degrees of eagerness or success, to connect with our community.  I helped out with OCP in a few different ways one of which was simply to supervise the shower program at the Lucy Simms center.  Some of you may recall Khaleel from HARTS in 2010.  I met him through OCP and got to connect with him in a tiny way with the little bit of Arabic I've learned working at Rosetta Stone.  This spring and summer we've connected with even more people in our community through the Community Garden and in a couple of weeks we'll elbow up with our neighbors to once again do the work of feeding a hungry world.

Earlier this year Geoff read some books and started talking to us about "missional-ness".  I think it named what I'd put energy into over nearly the last decade.  The leadership community has wrestled with what "missional-ness" is, how, and whether to embrace it.  I find it beautiful and exciting and I think God has plans for us....

It is within this context that me and my family are deeply excited about a Saturday expression of missional-ness and worship.  I'm, hopefully, not naive about the prospects for success.  I know that we may "go" and it may not work.  I do however believe that change opens new doors and if we do walk through them I think God will do wonderful things.  Here are some things that I hope we embrace in a Saturday format:

1. Continued use of and aprecitation for the Episcopal liturgy
2. The Episcopal Eucharist.
3. A pattern of "Kingdom exploration", "Worship", and "Fellowship": Do stuff in and with and for our community before worship, seamlessly transition into worship and then continue on into the evening at our leisure.  We may not do all of those parts every weekend, but I'm hopeful that we can follow that pattern often.  Acts 2:42-47 seems impossible in modern American life but maybe we can come close one day a week, and maybe it overflows into other day?  "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
4. I hope we eat together often...  Nothing fancy or expensive.  Maybe it's just BYOD, sandwiches, etc.
5. I hope that we get in the pattern of having fun together.  Music, movies, games, coffee shop, etc.  We should be friends.
6. I hope that we bring other people into our midst often and that they get caught in the flow...  A response to the "echoes of a voice," a need to eat and have fun like everyone else.
7. I hope we retain a "mobility" of place and format.  When we "go" we should be prepared and open to God's leading to "go" somewhere else, to try different things, etc.

I think Saturday is great for this format.  You can fit the entire flow in one chunk (Kingdom exploration, Worship, and Fellowship).  The night is unrushed (there isn't architecture to forcing anxiety about finishing work, packing lunches, etc.) and I think the difference opens doors to people we haven't had a chance to engage with in the past.

I believe that God is doing something and that when we "go" he is going to lead us.

Resuscitation

I ran back into this blog recently as CtK is in the midst of redefining itself similar to how many of the thoughts here from 4 years ago foreshadowed.  It's an exciting (and challenging) time for CtK and it remains to be seen what will happen but I'm hopeful.

Anyhow, the stuff here has inspired me again to post...  So we'll see about bring some life back into this old vessel.

Taking Stock

Our small group has been meeting for 90/90 time for nearly a year and a half. A lot has happened in that time-- some of our group has dropped into the background, others have had major shifts in faith or job or circumstances.

We've read and discussed several books together-- starting with _The Irresistable Revolution_, which brought us together in the first place, then going through _The Shack_ and the book of John (aloud).

We have not yet made the time commitments to be together or the service commitments; however, several of us have explored new avenues of service in an effort to figure out what we as a group feel called to. Andy and his boys have spent time helping with childcare for the ESL programs and church projects, along with building a 'shack' where they can host friends. Caleb and Eric have spent time at HARTS. Shiree continues with her Faith Sharing Group and many other projects. Don excels at hospitality, and was able to house a friend who needed a room last year. Aiden, Riley, and Brody helped put together boxes for Samaritan's Purse at Christmas time. (This kind of feels like a holiday card, actually... )

Maybe it's not a lot, what we've done. But every community starts somewhere. We've built some strong friendships and experimented more with sharing our gifts than we would have without each other. And I still hope to see many of Andy's and Don's ideas come together as we continue in our journey together.

Specifically, I would like to welcome more people into our circle of friends, particularly those who are looking for friends in the area-- people with different cultural backgrounds from ourselves.

Also, I'd love to have Andy or someone else read a passage from a book or a poem that has been meaningful to them this week-- whether while we eat or afterwards. And sometime in the future, living in community would be awesome.

I think I'm a heretic!

This is not perfectly well thought out, and I know that the logic is at least a little flawed at the end. But it's my stream-of-consciousness attempt to deal with the theology of eternal damnation that I have grown up to believe was orthodox Christianity. Help me out here, friends!

I think I'm a heretic! I don't believe in hell anymore-- at least not the protestant interpretation. Either Calvinist or Arminian-- both make no sense.
Calvinist--

You were totally depraved from birth.
Hence, you had no choice but to sin.
Yet God is going to damn you for that very sin which you had no choice but to do.
??
My conclusion: This is not justice.

But a real Calvinist does not believe you are being punished for sin; they believe you are being punished for not being chosen. You had no control over this.

My conclusion: Being punished for mere existance is so abhorrent to me that I think I would kill myself before believing this. Particularly since we have no choice over our existance.

Plus, this would be a contradiction, since we know that life is inherently good. Everyone believes this, even people who are suicidal-- and it all stems from God. God is the author of life, the one who breathed life into Adam. Yes, life on Earth is fallen, but to say that life on Earth is more fallen than it is good is to forget that the goodness came before and is more powerful than the evil.

Arminian--
You always had a choice to do what was right, but in certain moments of your life, you chose what was wrong. Therefore, you will be eternally damned for the comparatively small number of choices made in finite time.

My conclusion: Even if you murdered every person in the world by hand with a pick-axe, finite sin does not match with infinite punishment.

With Calvinism, in order to hold up justice, either one must conclude that man is not totally powerless in his salvation, thus going against the very core of Calvinism, or one must conclude that God does not punish the unrighteous since it is not their fault, thus going against scripture.

With Arminianism, one must conclude that bad choices have infinite consequences in the eternal spiritual realm and thus merit infinite punishment, or one must conclude that hell is finite and limited.

Thinking too much... But I refuse to believe in the unfair and unloving God of Protestantism. There must be another way.

Pope Benedict XVI

I think I happen to really appreciate everything in this article, especially the way in which the Pope does not skirt around issues, takes responsibility for the inactions of the Roman Church's hierarchy when it came to the sex-abuse scandals, and the way in which he encourages his flock.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1731631,00.html

What thinkest thou?

What is the Kingdom of Heaven...

...and how does that relate to Ecclesiastes? Aaron asked our ABF group to write a paragraph essay considering Ecclesiates as a Christian. Here's a braindump in the few minutes I have before church on Sunday ;).

In the past few years the phrase "Kindom of Heaven" (or "Kingdom of God") has been floating around in my thoughts. At first I started by dismissing the idea of "kingdom" entirely as something relevant only to the first century hearers of the Gospel; their destinies it seemed were bound to the "Kingdom of Caesar" and they longed for a messiah. When Jesus spoke of kingdom they had powerful images in their mind (sometimes misled). But what does kingdom mean to "modern" people? It felt weird to think of America as a kingdom or the president as our king. N.T. Wright's book Simply Chistian opened the language of kingdom to me. God is in Jesus is re-establishing his kingdom and putting the world to rights. Wright's way of thinking about God was epic and inspiring and ever since reading some of his stuff I've been thinking about the kingdom.

Recently, I've been considering exactly what the kingdom is. Is it a place? Is a period of time? Are we part of it now? God is clearly not done yet (at least that's our hope), but how will it be different when He is? Part of me needs the kingdom to be real now; not finished but real. Our lives need to have meaning now. Creation needs to be seen as good. I don't want to live like my life is about getting into heaven and liberating my soul from this evil place. There are many things about this world that are good and it seems like we can, with God's help, create more good in the world. So thinking about the kingdom as real now, considering ourselves to be servant of the King, and doing His work now is motivating to me... now.

I remembered an ABF group that Aaron led last fall. We spent some time talking about kingdom and he said something like "a kingdom is where the will of the king is done." So the kingdom can be now; when we do the will of the king. And the kingdom was in Eden before the fall when Adam did the will of God. So what did Adam do? He walked with God (perhaps actually) and had a perfect relationship with Him and Adam tended creation naming creatures and taking care of the garden. That was the kingdom for Adam. Now, with the work of Jesus to free us from death and restore us to God perhaps that is the kingdom for us too; walk with God and take care of the garden (though now there's weeds).

So how does this relate to Ecclesiastes? How about 5:19:

Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God.

Life and our ability to enjoy it (possessions, wealth, or work) are a gift from God. We're encouraged implicitly to be in a relationship with God and we have work to do.

Perhaps more generally, you can read Ecclesiastes as a guide for how to work the garden and relate with God. Like I said above there's lots of weeds in the garden; it's not a "safe" place and Ecclesiastes reminds us of that. But it also a place where God grants enjoyment and happiness and in that there is "safety". I like the real-ness of Ecclesiastes.

Crocktown

If you haven't read the Crocktown blog, check it out sometime. Be sure to read "Area Pastor Quietly Replaces Scripture with Constitution." :)