Words and Instrumentation

It is no secret I’m a music geek.  It is also no secret that I am in love with words.  When I was in high school a great deal of my life was determined by music.  My friend Scott Beimler and I would listen carefully to all kinds of music, mining the lyrics for kernels of truth that would “relate” to our present life.  We would spend hours picking through his expansive music collection, browsing sleeve inserts and reading through the printed materials that came along with some of his best boxed set collections.  We were fascinated with lyrics.  We would find words that possessed power, and those words were heightened by instrumentation and music that would resonate with the present state of our soul, whether we were soaring at our highest heights or had plummeted to our lowest of lows.  I have continued to have friends with whom a shared love of music has been important to the relationship, such as Scot Huber or Mike Hibit, and I have been thankful for the sharing of harmony, rhythm, truth, and beauty that music has the unique power to convey. 

Last week I had the opportunity to share the music of a community that has blessed me in recent years, and I took great joy from the conversations and shared passions which were born through those conversations.  I asked a handful of students whom I walked alongside last week which musicians they listened to, and I came home with a list of 15 to 20 bands or performers they found compelling.  I had work to do on iTunes.  I also shared some of my musical preferences, most notably the work of Mike Crawford and His Secret Siblings.  It was particularly exciting to share “Words to Build a Life On” and see the students incorporate that anthem into our camp worship experiences.

If you haven’t heard of Mike Crawford, check out his work at his MySpace page, and if you’re interested in learning how to play a couple of the songs that have been born out of the Jacob’s Well community, check out Mike’s YouTube Channel.  You can also check in with Mike Crawford’s website, which is under construction, but according to Mike’s comment I found on this blog post, it is forthcoming soon and will feature charts and tabs.  If you’re interested in picking up their two CD collection, you can click here or wait till mid-August, at which time you can purchase it through iTunes.  Both the music and the lyrical content are fantastic.

Mike’s music is stuff I would recommend.  I particularly love the way in which the words of Scripture are sung throughout the album, which, at this time in my life, are the very words upon which I feast.  Mike’s music also allows for the Word to be heard in fresh ways, and, in a sense, recaptures the narrative of Scripture in a manner that ignites the imagination and opens up new possibilities for how that Word may be born in us as followers of Jesus.

T.S. Eliot, in his poem “Ash Wednesday,” observed:

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

We live in a world where the Word is unheard and unspoken.  But Mike’s music points to the Word, the light which shone in the darkness, which stands silent and waits to be spoken, and, even when it is unspoken, still stands at the center.  Mike’s music is witness to truth and beauty that has a name, Jesus the Christ.

If you haven’t already picked up Mike Crawford’s work, do it, and let it bless you.

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Compassion International

Molly and I support Compassion International, and invite others to do so as well.  For $32 a month you can support a child’s education, well-being, and personal development in under-resourced areas around the globe.  Molly and I exchange letters with our Compassion child who is from Brazil, and are encouraged when we hear what he is learning, what he is interested in, and how he is doing.  Compassion is a Christian ministry, which will be clear from the statistics below.

Here are some significant stats from a recent Compassion update:

• In the last fiscal year, 154,122 children from our Child Sponsorship Program made commitments to Jesus Christ! And child sponsorships reached 902,172 globally — a 13 percent increase.
• Compassion’s Child Survival Program is now providing lifesaving assistance to 12,073 caregivers and babies.
• This year, nearly 200 students graduated from our Leadership Development Program.
• Compassion was honored in an  recognizing charities that have earned consecutive four-star ratings. Compassion is the only ministry of its kind in the nation to receive this honor seven consecutive years!

I’d encourage you to check it out, and sign up.

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On Relevance and Re-imagining

In recent years it has become increasingly popular to discuss “re-imagining” or “re-imaging” the life of faith, the form of the church, the gospel–the list could go on.  I’ve been an advocate of these conversations.  People are crying out that the church needs renewal, the gospel needs to be clearly preached, the name of Jesus needs to be named, and that his people need to recognize the costs that come with following him and take up their cross accordingly.  In North America, the waning of Christendom has left the church disoriented, yielding these cries, and we are unsure what to do.  Whatever we’ve tried, many of our efforts have focused on being relevant.

In his book Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance, Os Guinness observes that during a time in which the church has sought to become increasingly relevant, it has been relegated to irrelevance.  In the book he examines the pressures which our current understanding of clock-time has placed upon the church, and advocates a form of resistance thinking that “balances the pursuit of relevance on the one hand with a tenacious awareness of those elements of the Christian message that don’t fit in with any contemporary age on the other.”  As Christian people, Guinness claims that true faithfulness will lead to our being an untimely people. In this book, Guinness identifies the focus of his inquiry by saying:

By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world that are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance.  Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant.

These words are jarring, not so much to the church (though I might suspect this as well), but to me as a leader.  At one time or another I have contended that we don’t need to make the Bible, the church, Jesus, or the life of discipleship relevant–it already is.  I simply have to live in faithfulness to Jesus, invite others into that life, trust that God will draw others by his grace, and the relevance of the gospel will be made apparent.  At other times I’ve been frustrated with the church and with my own ministry because there are so many obvious things that we must do differently if we are to reach those in our world.  In these moments I’ve talked about the need to re-imagine, re-envision, and re-cast who we are to be as the people of God.  I’ve trumpeted our need for relevance over our need for God.

In light of ongoing conversations concerning how we can re-imagine church this book created a good deal of dis-ease.  Among others, this quote from Guinness provided me with a kick in the gut:

Is the church ours to reinvent, or is it God’s?  Does the head of the church have anything to say, or do the consultants have the last word?  Shouldn’t ‘doing church’ follow from what we believe is the church’s being?  Was the church first invented by a previous generation, so that it is our job to do it again, or is the church’s real need for the revival and reformation that can only come from God?

Guinness then encourages his readers to consider prayer, and the immense importance which this practice has held for all renewal and reform movements.

Though I think such efforts to re-imagine church are needed during our time, Guinness’ words have provided an immense challenge in how such efforts should be undertaken.  First, I am reminded to pray.  Second, I’m reminded how obsessed our culture is with the future–with the next thing–so much so that we cut ourselves off and forget to study and understand our past.  This doesn’t mean that we should cease the task of casting vision, but perhaps it means that we should become intensely focused on rooting ourselves in our past.  The pursuit of such knowledge, I think, would bolster our ability to discern where we now stand.  When church history reflects on our time period, we can only hope that it is said we “understood the times” as did the sons of Issachar (1 Chron. 12:32), who no doubt were perceptive thanks in part to the wisdom they’d gained from their ancestors.

For those out there in pursuit of relevance, who possess a deep desire to see the church live faithfully during our time, I pray that we would first seek God in prayer and invite the Holy Spirit to work through the conversations we have with friends, fellow disciples, and our congregations about being the church today.  I would also recommend a consideration of how we as Christians can become what Guinness describes as “untimely people,” possessing a sense of maladjustment like that of the prophets, who were seen as out of sync with their surrounding culture but clearly in tune with God, and thus able to point their world to renewed faithfulness.

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Expectations :: A Pause for Thought

Caedmon’s Call

Expectations :: From the 2007 release Overdressed

That boy had the highest of expectations
And he heard that Jesus would fill him up
Maybe something got lost in the language
If this was full, then why bother?

This was not the way it looked on the billboard
Smiling family beaming down on the interstate

You know that we all try to blame someone
But our dreams won’t rise up from their sleep
And the reaching of the steeple felt like one more
Expensive ad for something cheap

This was not the way it looked on the billboard
Smiling family beaming down on the interstate

Dressed up nice for the congregation
Scared somebody’s gonna find him out
Through the din and the clatter of the hallelujahs
A stained glass Jesus sings

This was not the way it looked on the billboard
Smiling family beaming down on the interstate

I normally have an aversion to Christian music (I listen to alternative rock, mainly), so my choice to listen to Caedmon’s Call this morning as I was brushing my teeth was a bit out of character.  As I was listening to their album Overdressed this song caught my ear.  I was reminded of similar impressions I had of church marketing while living in Dallas, Texas–something about the white, traditional family of four smiling at me as I drove north on 75 didn’t quite sit right with me.  Since that time I have thought that such icons only affirm that Stanley Hauerwas is right when he claims that we have turned the family in to an idol.

There is a lot of truth in this song.  The first verse exposes the fact that Jesus isn’t a magic bullet, though we commonly package him that way.  The third verse addresses the common perception that religious, specifically Christian people, at times possess the fear that they must maintain an outward appearance of perfection when they are crumbling inside.

The chorus is what really grabbed me.  We market and present ourselves one way, and then reality hits.  What does our “marketing” say to people of diverse races and ethnic backgrounds?  What does it say to singles?  Senior Adults?  Teenagers who have families who have no interest in a faith community?

When Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” it scares the living bejesus out of us (Luke 14:26-27).  We like verse 27, but verse 26 is a challenge.  Jesus is redefining our kinship in a way that makes us uncomfortable.  It should make us uncomfortable, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us.  Nevertheless, we should remember that the family of God includes people of all ages, races, genders, political parties, nationalities, and on and on.

What do you think?

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A Brief Recommendation

Last week I completed N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  For those interested in Christian theology and the historical development of the doctrine of the resurrection, the first two-thirds will be of great interest.  The final third is dedicated to specific applications for how a re-understanding of the resurrection will impact the ministry of the church.

I recognize that a short summary of Wright’s primary argument glosses important details that are critical to his presentation.  Regardless of this fact, the content found within this work is so interesting that I feel compelled to at least provide a taste for you, the reader.

Wright is an eloquent writer, constantly employing helpful illustrations in making his point.  He is also quite witty, poking fun at his opponents in ways that are entertaining.  Up front, I’m telling you that Surprised by Hope is very accessible to the reader, and anything but boring. 

Wright wonders in this book what has happened to the resurrection.  Why, he asks, have Christians lost the significance of this central doctrine in their preaching, ecclessiology, and understanding of mission?  Wright chronicles how the absence of a solid understanding of the resurrection has affected Christians on both the theological left and right, and urges his audience to revisit and leverage a better understanding of this Christian truth for greater effectiveness in the world.

Wright begins his book by sketching the resurrection as it has been understood historically–a helpful and important treatment.  Christians today will find the historical picture much different from the current reality, where heaven is presented as a place you go after death, and an emphasis on the resurrection to come is notably absent.  He then moves into Part II, entitled “God’s Future Plan.”  He moves from an eschatological description of the new heavens and the new earth, to Jesus and what his message had to do with heaven and the new creation, to the return of Jesus as judge, to the redemption of our bodies, and finally to a discussion of purgatory, paradise, and hell.

I will emphasize four key elements in Wright’s presentation.  First, Wright explains the significance of Jesus and his resurrection.  Second, Wright explores the significance of the Kingdom and the New Creation as central to the beliefs of the early church.  Third, Wright explains how hope in the future “marriage” between heaven and earth as it is found in Revelation 21-22 and the resurrected life to come in that new heaven and new earth rests at the historical center of Christian hope.  Lastly, between death and the time or the resurrection, a paradise awaits the faithful who will remain there until the return of Jesus to judge and to bring about the final aspects of the “new creation” which was begun at Jesus’ resurrection.

Part II is the meat of the book.  Part III, entitled, “Hope in Practice: Resurrection and the Mission of the Church,” spells out implications for the ministry of the church as announcing the salvation of God and participation with (he uses the term, “building”) the Kingdom of God.  He places great stress on the full redemption of God’s good creation and how the church is a key player in bringing that about.

As someone who grew up understanding heaven as mostly a place you go after you die, this book was quite challenging and refreshing as well.  This prior formulation of heaven, coupled with belief in a bodily resurrection, left a number of holes in how I understood God’s future.  If I would be raised physically, would my body be removed from this earth to another sphere of reality to dwell?  And if so, what would become of the earth upon which I once lived?  Would it be left behind as a ruin of a former age?

In the past few years I have been challenged to think deeply about what God intends to do with this planet.  Wright has supplemented my thinking, pontificating on the meaning of Revelation 21-22 and the marriage of the new heaven and new earth.  Wright’s theology gives us reason to express care and concern for our planet and to steward it responsibly.  It also provides reason to work for justice in this age as an act of claiming the victory Jesus has won on the cross, recognizing that the good work of the Kingdom accomplished now will endure till the coming of the new heaven and the new earth.

I recommend that you pick up this book and then return to this post.  I recognize that my account will be lacking. Leave your comments, questions, and points of contention you find in Wright’s presentation.  It is my hope that this book will serve as a helpful resource in the preaching ministry of the church, providing a basis from which the church might establish a more effective witness which entails a radical engagement with this world.

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Thinking Poetically

But must I needs want solidness, because

By metaphors I speak; was not God’s laws

His Gospel-laws in olden time held forth

By types, shadows and metaphors?  Yet loth

Will any sober man be to find fault

With them, lest he be found for to assault

The highest wisdom.  No, he rather stoops,

And seeks to find out what by pins and loops,

By calves, and sheep, by heifers, and by rams,

By birds and herbs, and by the blood of lambs

God speaketh to him: and happy is he

That finds the light, and grace that in them be.

John Bunyan begins his classic work The Pilgrim’s Progress  in verse.  He makes an apology of sorts for the form of this book, answering his critics up front.  He defends his allegorical method while extending an invitation to his reader to press on and join the journey.  A sample of his defense is above, as Bunyan defends his use of metaphor by pointing to Scripture.  He continues with these words:

Am I afraid to say that Holy Writ,

Which for its style and phrase puts down all wit,

Is everywhere so full of these things,

(Dark figures, allegories), yet there springs

From that same book that lustre and those rays

Of light that turns our darkest days into night.

Rediscovering the simplicity and brilliance with which Bunyan makes the case that for one to be a communicator of the gospel one must be a poet is quite refreshing.  As a child of the Enlightenment who stands at the crossroads of what some observers have deemed “post-modernity,” I am surprised by how easily Bunyan seems to step in to our time and speak in language that can be easily understood.  Through the telling of his story he employs rhyme and meter, he evokes beautiful imagery, and he excites the imagination.  We are invited to open our minds and think in the images reminiscent of the prophets, who described potential realities in poetic fashion.  He states plainly that:

This book will make a traveller of thee,

If by its counsel thou wilt ruled be;

It will direct thee to the Holy Land,

If thou wilt its directions understand:

Yea, it will make the slothful active be,

The blind also delightful things to see.

Bunyan’s final words in his opening apology are, “come hither, and lay my book, thy head and heart together.”  What a wonderful invitation.

For those that know me well, quoting Bunyan is a bit out of character for me.  This past weekend I was serving alongside three of my students at the Cross-Lines Thrift Store in Kansas City, Kansas.  The Thrift Store had a collection of books, and I ran my eyes across every spine.  Among their collection was The Pilgrim’s Progress.  Nearby was one of my students named Kayla.  I asked her if she had read it.  Her mom was nearby.  Both were not familiar with the work, so I gave them a slight overview of the story contained therein.  Inside the cover we find a man who we soon come to know as Christian, and follow him as he journeys through life.  Along the way Christian encounters a host of various other characters, “The Worldly Wiseman,” Mr. Money Love,” ”Hopeful,” and others.  Upon leaving the store, Kayla took home the copy.  I saw that she brought it along with her to FirstLight this past Sunday.

As my dog and I enjoyed the weather today (around 70 degrees and sunny) I took along my copy of this book and read aloud the opening verse, and was blessed.  I hope you too have friends like John Bunyan who are able to bless you with poetry and prose.

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Dan Kimball :: They Like Jesus But Not the Church

Last week I picked up Dan Kimball’s They Like Jesus But Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations.  You can find Dan Kimball’s blog here.  Dan Kimball is a pastor in Santa Cruz, California at Vintage Faith Church, and has published The Emerging Church and Emerging Worship.  He is also one of the contributors to Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches.  Another contributor to Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches is Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Seattle.   Driscoll mentioned this book in a talk I was listening to on-line, and among the many things he said when talking about Kimball was that he is “a Christian.”  In context it was funny.  Anyway, I felt compelled to provide you with these links to Kimball’s corpus partly because I did not buy the book–I picked it up at the public library and read it in a couple days.  Sorry Dan.  Perhaps one of my readers will help you out and purchase a copy.  In my opinion, any church leader would be wise to pick up this book and listen to what Dan Kimball has to say.

There are three important emphases threaded throughout this book.  First, Kimball encourages his reader to be present in spaces where they can meet non-church people–to be in a position outside the church office where they can befriend non-Christians, develop relationships with them, and know what is going on in their lives so that they can be prayed for.  For example, Kimball has found ways to escape the “Christian bubble” by spending a couple of days during the week preparing his sermons at a local coffee shop.  Over time he has befriended other regulars and the employees there.  He doesn’t see these new friends as evangelistic targets, but human beings who need the ministry of the church.  Through developing relationships with people outside the church, he has found that emerging generations are extremely open to talking about Jesus and what Christians believe.  Most people Kimball spoke to dislike the church based on  their perceptions gained from news media presentations, street preachers, and televangelists.  Their impressions are from afar.  Kimball is challenging church leaders to present a compelling alternative within local contexts–many of the people Kimball spoke with couldn’t name Christian people they knew personally.

Second, Kimball identifies the following perceptions which emerging generations have of the church:

• The church is an organized religion with a political agenda.
• The church is judgmental and negative.
• The church is dominated by males and oppresses females.
• The church is homophobic.
• The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong.
• The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

Kimball is talking about perceptions that non-Christian people have of the church.  He is listening.  Kimball carefully explains the reasons why people outside the church have these perceptions.  In regard to homosexuality and women in pastoral leadership, Kimball challenges his readers (both liberal and conservative) to know the reasons behind their theological positions.  This portion of his work is incredibly helpful for Christian people who are trying to better understand the cultural landscape and engage as an effective witness for Jesus and his Kingdom.  This is an invaluable dialogue that could be recreated in any city.  Which brings me to Kimball’s final important contribution in this book.

In what could be a revolutionary idea, Kimball challenges us to listen to people in our city and respond in how we be the church.  Sounds like common sense.  He doesn’t recommend that we compromise our integrity as the people of God in responding to what we hear.  For example, one critique of the church that Kimball had heard is that it can become personality-driven–centered more on the pastor than on Jesus.  As a response, Kimball’s church has made the cross the centerpiece of their worship space, with the worship leaders and the pastor addressing the audience from a lower stage slightly off to the side of the cross.  Kimball challenges leaders to give a carefully thought out, biblical response to what is heard from those outside the church.

Kimball has reasons for hope in the future of the church.  I tend to agree with him.  He sees the emerging generation’s interest in Jesus as a great opportunity for Christian people to engage, share the gospel about Jesus, and invite people into a life of discipleship.  I think this is on point.

Pick up this book.  Read it.  Write in the margins (unless you pick it up from a library).  Agree.  Disagree.  This book will sharpen your thinking, broaden your understanding of the world we live in today, and challenge you to invite other people to follow Jesus.  It is a valuable contribution to the church that I pray more people will come to not only like, but love.

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On Prayer

Prayer is a discipline.

My experiences with prayer have varied.  When I was a young child I was instructed how to pray, both in form and posture.  Folding my hands, closing my eyes, bowing my head, I addressed God as Father, or spoke to Jesus, and acknowledged the goodness which I had experienced in my life.  I may have addressed the Holy Spirit, but that aspect of Trinitarian language was not central.  I would thank God for my family, my friends, the blue sky, the green grass.  I’ll never forget how my brother used to thank God for apple juice at the dinner table.  I would ask God to heal those I knew were sick, or be with those people whom I loved.  Prayer was described as a conversation with God, part listening, part speaking.  Along with Bible study and church attendance, prayer completed the tri-fecta of disciplines which made up the Christian life during my earliest years.

As I have grown older the number of disciplines with which I am familiar has expanded.  This is largely in part to Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines.  Even with this expanded set of practices, I cannot help but recognize the primacy of prayer.  This is largely because in a significant way I find it difficult to do–that is, to pray.  There are times when I just can’t find words to pray.  So I don’t.  Or I sit, and I listen.

Prayer has always been easier for me in community.  Why this is so I cannot say, but when I pray alongside other Christian people I am able to experience the presence of God.  I am also able to invoke the words of Scripture and words from song and liturgy, weaving together wonderful speech which I have been taught.  Thank God for both the words of Scripture and the words of poets, song writers, and liturgists who have provided truthful speech which I can employ in prayer.

I have engaged myself in much theological conversation, much reading, much Bible study, and much Christian service.  These are the things that keep us busy.  I confess that I have not been engaged enough in the practice of prayer.  Such a practice is important for many reasons.  Prayer is the place where we connect with God, are provided with vision, and deepen the nature of our understanding.  We are able to reflect on God as Trinity, on the church, and the state of our own souls.  We are able to engage in intercession, praying for others’ well-being, and that the conditions here would be “on earth as it is in heaven.”  Through prayer, it is hoped that we might also widen our ability to love in a manner consistent with the person of Jesus Christ.

This week I read Karl Barth’s Prayer.  Following Barth’s treatment of the Lord’s Prayer, the book includes a small sampling of pastoral prayers written by this great theologian.  Barth prays:

O Sovereign God, through Jesus Christ your Son you have humbled yourself in order to exalt us.  You became poor to make us rich.  You suffered and died, and in so doing gave us freedom and life.  And this eternal mercy and good news displays your might and majesty as our Creator and Lord, the glory in which we praise you and in the light of which we may live all the days you give us.  For this we thank you.

And in thanking you, we can come to you aright.  We are able to spread out before you all that to our understanding seems hard and perplexing and in need of your care.  In your mercy remember us all and be merciful to us, now and forever, for without you we can do nothing.

Have mercy on our church on earth in its division and dispersion, its weakness and its error.

Have mercy on the old and the young, on unbelievers far and near, on the godless and idolators who have not, or have not yet, heard your name in truth.  Have mercy on the governments and the peoples of this earth, on their perplexity as they search for peace and righteousness, and also on the confusion in our human endeavors in science, nurture, and education, and on all the difficulties in so many marriages and families.

Have mercy on the countless persons who today suffer starvation, the many who are persecuted and homeless, the sick in body and soul here and in other places, the lonely, prisoners, and all those who suffer punishment at the hands of others.

Have mercy on us all in the hour of trial and the hour of death.  Lord, because we believe with certainty that you have overcome, and that with you we too have already overcome, we call upon you now.  Show us but the first step of the road to freedom, won at such cost.  Amen. (69-70)

What great words.  Reading such words remind me that the work of the theologian must be immersed in prayer.  Because it is not only the scholar but also the laity and the clergy who are engaged in the practice of theology, Barth serves as a great example.  From the greatest to the least of us, we are all called to pray.  And through prayer we might come to think God-honoring thoughts and express them in ways that are truthful to God’s story.  Prayer also makes us aware of God’s reality as revealed through Jesus Christ and the practices of the church, as “Prayer takes place in liturgical time and thereby challenges the presumption that there exists no other time but the time of historical succession.  To pray means that there is another time known through liturgical repetition that is made possible and necessary by the reality of the Kingdom of God”(Hauerwas, The State of the University, 183).

It is my hope that Christians of all stripes, from laity, to pastors, to theologians, would engage regularly in the practice of prayer.  By doing so our witness is strengthened, the church is built up, and our vision is clarified.  Instead of declaring that the future of the church is bleak, remember that prayer is one of the many abundant resources which God has provided for us across time to nourish, equip, and strengthen us as the people of God who only need enough space in the world to witness to the fact that God so loved the world he gave his Son for it.

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Myers ::: Organic Community

The Spirit of organic community is grace, not law; “edit-ability,” not accountability…This is how a good author-editor relationship works: The author submits a rough draft.  The editor makes suggestions, even disagrees at times with the author.  The author considers the editor’s suggestions, and will often make adjustments.  The author and editor continue to go back and forth until the project is complete.  The entire process is one of give and take collaboration.When presented with the option, most people prefer an author-editor relationship…We want someone to confide in, pray with, and listen to us.  We do not hope for someone to keep a record and reconcile us to the rules.  We hope our friends will help us to be reconciled to life, to community, to ourselves, and to God.

-Joseph Myers, Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect, 138-140.

The story Christians tell of God exposes the unwelcome fact that I am a sinner.  For without such a narrative the fact and nature of my sin cannot help but remain hidden in self-deception.  Only a narrative that helps me place myself as a creature of a gracious God can provide the skills to help me locate my sin as fundamentally infidelity and rebellion.  As a creature I have been created for loyalty–loyalty to the truth, to the love that moves the sun and the stars and yet is found on a cross–but I find myself serving any powers but the true one in the hopes of being my own lord…Christian tradition has at various times and places characterized this fundamental sin in quite different ways…I doubt, however, whether there is any one term sufficient to suggest the complex nature of our sin.  This is exactly why we see we need the set of stories we find in Scripture and displayed by the church to recognize our sin.  As narrative-determined creatures we must learn to locate our lives in God’s life if we are to have the means to face, as well as do something about, our infidelity and rebellion against our true creator.

Just to the extent I refuse to be faithful to God’s way, to live as part of God’s life, my life assumes the character of rebellion.  Our sin is not merely an error in overestimating our capacities.  Rather it is the active and willful attempt to overreach our powers.  It is the attempt to live sui generis, to live as if we are or can be the authors of our own stories.  Our sin is, thus, a challenge to God’s authorship and a denial that we are characters in the drama of the kingdom.

-Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics, 31

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Where are the Young People? Leadership Development and Going Forth

Over a month ago I happened upon an article concerning “young clergy” and the dire need to increase the percentage of young leaders within the United Methodist denomination.  You can read the article I happened upon here.

Since reading this article I have continued to reflect on this topic.  Upon following the link you’ll find an article titled, “Leaders Share Best Practices to Attract Young Clergy.”  The word that kicked my grey matter into action was “attract.”  It didn’t sit right.  In fact, my stomach churned.

The question, “where are the young people?” is not an uncommon one.  Jean Twenge, in her book Generation Me, has provided ample data to show that members of my generation are dropping out of the church in droves.  Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone chronicles the decline in civic involvement which has eventually led to my generation’s increased disengagement not only in church, but in all spheres of public life.  Many of our large churches are asking how to engage my demographic, formulating strategic plans, launching evangelism initiatives, and deriving innovative ways of doing and being church.  Perhaps the loss of the young’uns has hit the mainline denominations hardest, as existing beaurocracies perpetuate status quo approaches to doing ministry, expecting my generation to conform to traditional expressions of faithfulness mediated through too narrow a variety of communication techniques.  It isn’t that my generation doesn’t want to plug into something that is very old and very true, it is just that in many ways the truth of the gospel is being communicated in ways that we have not been trained to understand.

Which brings me back to the word, “attract.”  Would you rather be attracted to a special event, such as a Dave Matthews Band concert through saavy marketing, or personally invited by a friend to share in a common experience?  Leadership in the United Methodist Church and other denominations would be wise to implement invitational language in how they approach leadership recruitment and development.  Such an invitation also requires a compelling vision which a young person would like to come and be part of.  Planting churches, leading congregations, discipling people to follow Jesus, seeing lives transformed–such things are compelling enough, I believe.  Communicating this vision to ”young people” will require living in community with these people.  Where are the young people in our communities who have shown gifts for leadership and ministry?  Do you know any?  Have you developed any?  If not, how can you reach out into your community, find such gifted students, love them, encourage them, and develop them as leaders?  These people don’t appear from thin air, and there is no “bat signal” which will bring them to your doorstep.  You have to have your eyes open. 

Such invitations should also be accompanied by prayer.  What would happen if the Council of Bishops called on every prayer group meeting in every United Methodist Church to dedicate a portion of their meetings to specifically petitioning God to raise up leaders for the United Methodist Church in this generation?

I’ve been talking about the recruitment of young people for pastoral leadership, but such thinking also applies to including a younger contingency in local congregations as part of the laity.  This does require a change in worship format, as I indicated above–people in my generation need the gospel communicated to them in ways that are understandable.  More importantly, however, where do the 20 and 30 somethings in your community live?  Do you have people in your congegration who befriend and love them?  Is there a small contingency of young people who want to reach out to their friends and neighbors, co-workers and social networks and share the gospel?  Do they understand the reason why Christians convictions call us to talk to others about Jesus, and do they have a passion to communicate that message to others?

As much as language of “attracting” new leaders and young people to us might make sense, it won’t work.  The church will have to go, recognizing our unique vocation as a sent people to enter into the world as Jesus’ disciples, proclaiming his gospel and inviting others to walk with us on the journey.

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