What the Hell am I Doing
I realize that my last post was a bit random and I thought it may be helpful to describe what it is that I'm trying to do with this site!
In my very first blog post, I talked about how I put off writing a blog because I couldn't think of any good reason for people to want to read or hear what I had to say....and concluded that, thanks to what I like to call a "divine bitch slap", this isn't my story at all, it's God's story. All of us have our stories to tell and those stories are all just small pieces of a larger story being written every day.
I created this blog over two years ago at the request of a friend. I had just started seminary and was slowly becoming an active voice of leadership in my church. As time went on, I found myself in a pastoral intern role, putting seminary on hold, while still working a full-time job and raising two kids as a single and recently divorced parent. Now, during a time of more transition, continuing this blog seems like a good idea.
So what the hell am I doing with it?! My goal is to share and process through some pressing issues that have come to the surface over the last couple of years, discuss the spiritual impact of these experiences, and to look ahead at what's next. Most of these thoughts relate to the church, where it's gone wrong and where it has the opportunity to redeem itself, and how these opportunities are crucial to the larger story of our culture, political environment, and spiritual vitality.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Drunk Church
When I was in college, as a religion and philosophy student, I studied a lot of postmodernism. In a class on using contemporary music in religious teaching, I presented postmodernism by using the metaphor of a hangover. For application, I played Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down." Postmodernism takes what we've always known to be true, deconstructs that perspective, and allows us to start from scratch, with experience and intellect to guide the way. I've had my share of crazy nights and I found this to be much like a hangover...we go through the night feeling like we know everything, confident in our worldview....and then we wake up.
I see the modern North American Evangelical church acting as the role of the drunk frat guy on Saturday night, everything is amazing and heading in the right direction, he loves everyone, and everyone loves him. The sub-movement I see happening is the hangover on Sunday morning, a mysterious awareness of something missing, something that can only be seen when all of the hype has been stripped away.
The Biblical church set a rather revolutionary example of ministry that seems to have been forgotten by the modern church. Leaders did not stay in one place with one group of people. They were spread all over to preach the gospel and maintain communication among the "churches". Churches were no more than a gathering of people in a home but mostly they functioned as the earliest form of a community organization, feeding the hungry, giving to the poor, caring for the widows and orphans.
Today's church has reached a point where community outreach and giving are simply selling points for the church and are still only done once all of the internal needs are met, sound systems, decor, salaries, technology. Are all of these things important? Of course. Without them, the church would have very little to attract those who want to have a fulfilling experience. So, the problem seems to be two-fold: a transformed view of what people expect of the church, and how corporate the church has become. It's a vicious cycle and a "chicken or the egg" dilemma, but the problem remains the same. Churches have become pep rallies for the gospel or, in some cases, for the church itself, and in doing so, have left behind the raw focus of the gospel itself.
So, what's the point of my rant? My assertion is that so many of the tragic trends we see in our culture are a direct result of the drunk church. From the divisive nature of our political world to how we relate to each other and those who are different from us...that's why this is important and that's why I'm encouraged to see a lesser visible emerging trend from the faithful who are aware of this....mostly among those who have been an active part of the church for long enough to see what's going on and who are caught in the predicament of either a complete abandonment of the church or seeking out a solution.
In an attempt to give myself some credibility with regards to writing about such things, I'll give a brief background of my own involvement in the church.
I was raised in a conservative evangelical church, where my father was the pastor. For years, I battled with the horrible things I saw in the church and what I knew to be true about the gospel and how it can transform lives. My dad never fit in. He was more comfortable in a room full of skeptics than a room full of Sunday School teachers, members who could care less what went on outside the church, and elders who wanted him to clock his hours so that he wasn't spending too much time engaging in real pastoral care. I had the unpleasant experience of knowing what happens backstage. Years of rebellion and life experience later (including the sudden death of my father before he had a chance to escape), I found my way back to Christianity, with a shitload of baggage under my arm. However, as it turns out, I seemed to have some of the gifts my dad did and found myself in seminary and in leadership at a church who truly allowed me to be me. The differences between my childhood church and my current church are significant. Does my church exhibit some of the issues I've been discussing? Yes, no one is perfect. However, at least here I have trust and respect for a leadership that is scrappy, willing to admit fault, and always listening. That's hard to come by.
That being said, I still feel the need to create a place where getting back to the basics of what the church is supposed to be is the focus.
This blog post is an attempt to unleash some bottled up thoughts and set the stage for further thought...and also to reintroduce me to the world of blogging!
There is a quiet, steady, Sunday morning voice creeping up that doesn't fit the mold of hype and extremism (more on that in an upcoming post). Because of this, I see what's going on in a hopeless world and I'm not hopeless.
Link to Johnny Cash's Sunday Morning Coming Down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBWFJ85n_w0
When I was in college, as a religion and philosophy student, I studied a lot of postmodernism. In a class on using contemporary music in religious teaching, I presented postmodernism by using the metaphor of a hangover. For application, I played Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down." Postmodernism takes what we've always known to be true, deconstructs that perspective, and allows us to start from scratch, with experience and intellect to guide the way. I've had my share of crazy nights and I found this to be much like a hangover...we go through the night feeling like we know everything, confident in our worldview....and then we wake up.
I see the modern North American Evangelical church acting as the role of the drunk frat guy on Saturday night, everything is amazing and heading in the right direction, he loves everyone, and everyone loves him. The sub-movement I see happening is the hangover on Sunday morning, a mysterious awareness of something missing, something that can only be seen when all of the hype has been stripped away.
The Biblical church set a rather revolutionary example of ministry that seems to have been forgotten by the modern church. Leaders did not stay in one place with one group of people. They were spread all over to preach the gospel and maintain communication among the "churches". Churches were no more than a gathering of people in a home but mostly they functioned as the earliest form of a community organization, feeding the hungry, giving to the poor, caring for the widows and orphans.
Today's church has reached a point where community outreach and giving are simply selling points for the church and are still only done once all of the internal needs are met, sound systems, decor, salaries, technology. Are all of these things important? Of course. Without them, the church would have very little to attract those who want to have a fulfilling experience. So, the problem seems to be two-fold: a transformed view of what people expect of the church, and how corporate the church has become. It's a vicious cycle and a "chicken or the egg" dilemma, but the problem remains the same. Churches have become pep rallies for the gospel or, in some cases, for the church itself, and in doing so, have left behind the raw focus of the gospel itself.
So, what's the point of my rant? My assertion is that so many of the tragic trends we see in our culture are a direct result of the drunk church. From the divisive nature of our political world to how we relate to each other and those who are different from us...that's why this is important and that's why I'm encouraged to see a lesser visible emerging trend from the faithful who are aware of this....mostly among those who have been an active part of the church for long enough to see what's going on and who are caught in the predicament of either a complete abandonment of the church or seeking out a solution.
In an attempt to give myself some credibility with regards to writing about such things, I'll give a brief background of my own involvement in the church.
I was raised in a conservative evangelical church, where my father was the pastor. For years, I battled with the horrible things I saw in the church and what I knew to be true about the gospel and how it can transform lives. My dad never fit in. He was more comfortable in a room full of skeptics than a room full of Sunday School teachers, members who could care less what went on outside the church, and elders who wanted him to clock his hours so that he wasn't spending too much time engaging in real pastoral care. I had the unpleasant experience of knowing what happens backstage. Years of rebellion and life experience later (including the sudden death of my father before he had a chance to escape), I found my way back to Christianity, with a shitload of baggage under my arm. However, as it turns out, I seemed to have some of the gifts my dad did and found myself in seminary and in leadership at a church who truly allowed me to be me. The differences between my childhood church and my current church are significant. Does my church exhibit some of the issues I've been discussing? Yes, no one is perfect. However, at least here I have trust and respect for a leadership that is scrappy, willing to admit fault, and always listening. That's hard to come by.
That being said, I still feel the need to create a place where getting back to the basics of what the church is supposed to be is the focus.
This blog post is an attempt to unleash some bottled up thoughts and set the stage for further thought...and also to reintroduce me to the world of blogging!
There is a quiet, steady, Sunday morning voice creeping up that doesn't fit the mold of hype and extremism (more on that in an upcoming post). Because of this, I see what's going on in a hopeless world and I'm not hopeless.
Link to Johnny Cash's Sunday Morning Coming Down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBWFJ85n_w0
Friday, May 16, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Working in the legal field does have its occasional bits of entertainment:
For those of you who had not figured out yet the people in Florida suffer from too much sun, the Florida Governor has signed into law the Preservation and Protection of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Motor Vehicles Act of 2008, which allows employees to take their guns to work, provided they keep them locked in their cars. As one of the proponents actually said, an enraged employee who leaves work to get his gun will be provided enough "cooling off" time by having to walk (or run) to his car and then wait to unlock it.
Really.
For those of you who had not figured out yet the people in Florida suffer from too much sun, the Florida Governor has signed into law the Preservation and Protection of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Motor Vehicles Act of 2008, which allows employees to take their guns to work, provided they keep them locked in their cars. As one of the proponents actually said, an enraged employee who leaves work to get his gun will be provided enough "cooling off" time by having to walk (or run) to his car and then wait to unlock it.
Really.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Yesterday was a pretty bad day. I was feeling disappointed with myself, disappointed with people close to me, disappointed with God. The disappointment came when I became consumed with my own ideas of what these relationships should be in growth and bearing fruit. My love for people turned into an overwhelming burden of responsibility for people. I felt very alone and God wasn't much help...well, wasn't much help because I didn't want him to be. I wallowed in this self-pity for a large portion of the day, giving into my weakness to allow my self-judgment to take control of my thoughts and behaviors.
A few weeks ago I asked a trusted source if "bitch slapping" is an appropriate method of pastoral care, and they assured me it is. I'm further convinced that it is because God does it. On my way to pick up the kids after work, J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 came on the radio. I loved this when I was young and I haven't heard it in years. I used to spend hours in my room conducting its performance by the "Vienna Philharmonic." I felt like I was 11 again, except that I didn't have to stretch too far to feel that way.
I have a friend who has repeatedly needed to remind me not to take myself too seriously...finding myself conducting an imaginary orchestra in my car, and having that feel like a perfectly normal thing to do because I did it when I was 11, reminded me yet again not to take myself too seriously. No matter the life calling, disappointing relationships, responsibilities, I'm still just a girl with high hopes and little confidence who God needs to bitch-slap every once in a while...and though the disappointment I was feeling was real, I needed that reminder so that I could let go of some of the burden and let God work with the disappointment.
Friday, April 18, 2008
I know it's been a while. Life has gotten in the way of my attempts at this thing. Though I have a few posts in the works, I wanted to throw this on here while it was fresh on my mind. Since my divorce has been filed, and I've thought seriously about the idea of love in all of it's forms, this little poem keeps coming back to me...it was in the cover of a cassette tape I owned of Margaret Becker years ago (I don't know if she's even still around):
There is a moment in time when the knowledge of love and the experience of love precariously meet to form one brilliant point of rest for the soul. From this place, every direction is the same—backwards…forwards…all indelibly marked with the peace that comes when it is finally understood that nothing can shake you from the firm grip of love’s hand.
There is a moment in time when the knowledge of love and the experience of love precariously meet to form one brilliant point of rest for the soul. From this place, every direction is the same—backwards…forwards…all indelibly marked with the peace that comes when it is finally understood that nothing can shake you from the firm grip of love’s hand.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Sunday afternoon: Gavin intently watching a football game trying to figure out exactly what it takes to be the best football player in history, and how he could use his jedi powers to help achieve that goal....Troy standing on the couch in nothing but shrek underwear and a cape made out of some blanket material playing a guitar that looks a lot like a spatula...to the Rolling Stones album Let it Bleed...beautiful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)