Happy Reformation Day! -- In Legos

Happy Reformation Day

I'm sure you have your "Reformation Cards" and will open up all of your "Reformation Presents" today.  But, if not, here's a little Reformation Present for you.

Scripture for Sunday-Matthew 6:25-33 (The Message)

Image by Vicki's Nature via Flickr^25-26"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

 ^27-29"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

 ^30-33"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

"The Chief End of Preaching" -- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Image by wallyg via Flickr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Preaching & Preachers;

What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence…I can forgive a man for a bad sermon, I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me the sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and glory of God, the love of Christ my Savior, and the magnificence of the Gospel. If he does that I am his debtor, and I am profoundly grateful to him. Preaching is the most amazing, and the most thrilling activity that one can ever be engaged in, because of all that it holds out for all of us in the present, and because of the glorious endless possibilities in an eternal future.

(From over at DashHouse.com)

This is Just Sad -- Baby Killed for Interrupting Farmville

So this is what it's come to in our popular culture? Really?

Just sad.

Don't know how to respond except, "God help us."

See the whole story HERE

#pastors24 Twitter Results

Jeremy, who planned this Twitter Feed, has posted some results from the exercise to show what pastors do on a pretty random, non-Sunday day.

First, when all of the Tweets were made into a Wordle and this is what came out:

That's cool.

Also, the following is Jeremy's comments on this:

• Meetings are one of the top words pastors used. Whether it is meeting with a student, parent, committee, teacher, youth…we are meeting a lot.
• There’s a lot of “youth” mentions which is powerful. It may be a bit swayed since at least 2 of the participants are in children’s and youth ministry, but still neat.
• A lot of pastors do work on meetings, worship, bible studies the day-of. A large number of pastors were actively working on their evening programs the day it was to happen. This isn’t a criticism just something I noticed.
• Many pastors worked 12-13 hour days, even if the first/last hours were doing computer work.

Go Check Out More over on Jeremy's Blog, HackingChristianity.net.

This Pastor's Day -- Wednesday, October 27, 2010 Twitter Feed

Worked out to be about 8.5 - 9 hours of church-related work...plus the whole "community involvement" time spent in two different play practices. You can see the whole Twitter Feed from the #pastors24 experiment on Twitter. What this worked out to be is a time-tracking exercise via Twitter and I think it was good for me to see the various things I do throughout the day...but also to see just how many times I was interrupted as I was trying to get something done. Particularly with the building-related issues there are a lot of distractions. This is something I might do every once in a while to give an account of what my day looks like. I think Twitter is uniquely suited for this.

Privacy and the Internet -- A Helpful Venn Diagram

In case you had any questions.
From Make Use Of.

Clergy Trusted Less Than...(GULP!)...Politicians?

Image via Wikipedia

Here in Alaska we have a hotly contested battle for a Senate seat with three candidates in the race running just about even.  But each of them has their problems.

The Democrat, Scott McAdams suffers from...well...being a Democrat in a very Republican state...that and a lack of experience beyond being Mayor of a small town.

The Republican, Tea Party-Approved candidate, Joe Miller suffers from his connection to the Tea Party and questionable ethics (such as a dishonesty in his job as lawyer and then trying to cover it up).

Republican write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski suffers from her inability to abide by the results of the Republican primary, which she lost to Joe Miller.

There is a certain amount of nastiness between the two Republican camps and it's clear in our own town that supporters of these two candidates have had a field day taking down and/or vandalizing the campaign signs of the other.

It's a heated...yet very interesting race.  And, of course, we're bombarded by mailers and robocalls on a regular basis.  There are other races going on and there will be more to vote on when Tuesday comes.  However, these are the folks getting most of the attention.

As this is happening around us and as we struggle with what it means to try to choose between candidates when we're not sure how trustworthy they are, us clergy have received a bit of bad news and it came to me in the form of an article by Michael Jenkins, President and Professor of Theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary:

According to a survey conducted by “Scientific American,” “religious authorities” rank at the bottom of eight categories of persons trusted “to provide accurate information about important issues in society.” On a 1 (strongly distrust) to 5 (strongly trust) scale, clergy (at 1.55) ranked below “elected officials” (1.76), “companies” (1.78), “journalists” (2.57), and “citizen groups” (2.69).

I want to reiterate this point, just so we don’t miss it: ministers rank below politicians in believability and trustworthiness.

Maybe we have one piece of the puzzle why folks are not beating a path to the doors of the church...

Clearly, those of us who are in ministry have some fences to mend. Or, to reach back to the jargon of the sixties when the phrase was first coined, we have a “credibility gap” that needs to be bridged. The only way to gain trust is to earn it.

So, we are left to ponder why this is the case?   The media?  A couple bad apples spoiling the whole barrel?  A disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the behavior of those in the church?

And, regardless of the reasons behind it, we are left to try to figure out what to do about it.  My take is that we are left to slowly but surely work on real relationships with persons where our trustworthiness is shown and lived out.  I'm not sure anything else will be able to bridge this divide.

"A Gospel with Few Consequences" -- Quote from Ken Myers

Image via Wikipedia

“Believing in a gospel that has few earthly consequences is, ironically, just the sort of state our secularist neighbors would wish us to sustain. They, too, are dualists, believing that religion may be a fine thing for people, so long as they keep it private. Their secularism isn’t threatened by Christians as long as they aren’t too ‘Incarnational.’ As long as the cultural lives of Christians aren’t significantly different from those of materialists and pagans, secularism is safe. Christians may pray ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ but as long as they don’t actually do anything that demonstrates how such a petition should affect their political, economic, and cultural activities, the Enlightenment legacy is safe.”

Ken Myers

We're Building a Church. What Do We Mean When We Say "Church"?

This is a great little video from a church in Brussels.

The church isn't a "WHAT." It's a "WHO." It's a people.

Or...as we've stated...it's not a NOUN but a VERB. It's not just a bunch of poeple but a bunch of people engaged in and changing the world.

Or, as the kids' song says, "The church is not a building. The church is not a steeple. The church is not a resting place. The church is a people."

Or...well...take a look at the video...


When We Say Church from Doug Peterson on Vimeo.

"Should We Have Constructed This Church at All?" -- A Look at N.T. Wright

As readers of my blog will know, I've been pastor at Girdwood Chapel for 10 years so far and much of that time has been spent working towards constructing a new church facility.

This new building was a dream of the congregation's before I got here.  They'd been planning for a new building since even before their last pastor, their first full-time pastor, showed up in 1996.  After I got here they'd already pushed back plans to begin construction twice, each time having to turn away work teams from the lower-48 that were very eager to help with the construction.  The congregation had been planning to build with the good folk of the local Catholic congregation on some property together, but kept getting delayed as they worked on issues with the property.

Well, why was a congregation that averaged only about 35 people so eager to construct a building?  Was their ministry really, in a any way, intimately tied to a "brick and mortar" facility?  Couldn't most of their ministries take place outside of a church building?

These are good questions.  And I'm not really sure how to answer them for the time before I was here as a pastor.  My guess is that a lot of the construction talk was, perhaps, a little premature.  However, even though they only had about 35 in attendance, they shared the small 30-foot by 30-foot building with the local Catholic congregation, effectively doubling the size of the congregation that was worshipping in that very tiny (some call it "quaint") building.  Plus, I think we need to understand that the present focus on "house churches" wasn't quite as strong.

However, a couple of years after I got here, we started averaging above 50 in worship and we had to add a second service to accommodate the growth.  This is because, with an average of 50 in worship, we were having some Sundays at 60...which stressing our space.  That was a problem.  Also, we were having trouble meeting the educational needs of the congregation as we were beginning to have Sunday School in three different facilities:  children at the Chapel, youth off-site at a restaurant, and adults at a member's home.  We were finding that the ministries we wanted to be involved in were having trouble because of the lack of space.   Moreover, not having a restroom limited the number of user groups that wanted to use our small space.

We looked around at other options in the community--the school, rental property--but couldn't find anything.  The monthly rents seemed just too high for what we'd be getting out of the deal.  There was no "community center" (as there is now) and there was no "Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church" building (as there is now).  We didn't seem to have any options.  And so, we started planning for a new facility and, probably 8 years after that time, we're still trying to get into the new space.

I feel, in a way, that I have to make excuses for why we're building a new facility.  I know that the amount of time we've been taking on this construction has worn down, emotionally and energy-wise, our congregation.  And I know that we're going to be dealing with the debt to pay it off for some time.  And, furthermore, I know that a lot of new ministries and churches are finding that they really don't need "brick and mortar" buildings to engage in ministries and build relationships.  And, perhaps, if we'd been a brand-spanking new ministry, we would have found that we could have evolved on a more "house church" model.  But we were a church that had been around for 50 years...now 60...and already had identified with a church facility.  That facility was just too small for it.  And, after all, we knew that the building was not an end in and of itself but was a "tool" -- a tool to build and foster community and a place from which to send people out in ministry in the world.  I think we've been clear about that all along.

I recently received some help in my reflection on this on buildings and ministries through an interview with N.T. Wright in "Faith and Leadership" called "N.T. Wright: Working on a Building."

Although he was Bishop of Durham in the Church of England for seven years, N.T. Wright doesn’t think about the church in terms of institutions. He thinks in terms of community.

“The institution is like the scaffolding that you need to be working on the building,” Wright said. “The scaffolding isn’t the reality.”

The General Synod, the Church of England’s legislative body, for example, is basically like plumbing, Wright said: “When you go into a friend’s house, you don’t expect to see the plumbing, but you need to know that it’s working, because if it’s not, fairly soon there’ll be a bad smell in the house.”

That is, the church’s institutions have to work well, or things can go wrong. People can get hurt, Wright said. Church leaders may sometimes feel like they’re working on scaffolding all day rather than living in the house, but “somebody has got to do that stuff so that the mission of the church can go forward.”

What we are building is part of the institution.  We're building a structure, a part of the institutional church. And it's a beautiful part of it.  Thanks be to God, we're going to have a beautiful facility--the walls, the roof-line, the office space, and, (thank you, Jesus!) the bathrooms.  But that structure is there merely to shape the underlying reality which is a church body that is growing closer to God and each other in community.

That building we're building, that debt we're taking on, all of the energy that we're putting forward...well...it's all so the mission of the church can go forward.  We're not building a building, even though it may look that way.  We're supporting and expanding a ministry.  We're not constructing walls.  We're building a place to construct disciples.  And while I do hope, unlike Wright's metaphor for the institutional church, that people "see" our plumbing and the heavy timbers in the sanctuary and our beautiful front entrance, I hope what they come here for is the life of community that springs up from this place.

So, should we have constructed a church building at all?  Yes.  For this ministry.   For this town.

"Recovering Christians Outnumber Practicing Christians in the World Today"

Recovering Christians outnumber practicing Christians in the world today.  

— Matthew Fox, “A Postdenominational Priest in a Postdenominational Era” The Emerging Christian Way, 114

(A quote found over at HackingChristianity.net)

"Pastor Appreciation Month"-- Pastor's 24 Tweetup

Pastor Appreciation Month is coming to a close this week.  While the consecration of our facility made me feel appreciated, nothing formal was done at Girdwood Chapel (although I did drop some hints that lattes are always appreciated).  And, the important thing, regardless or any "month" is to recognize that us clergy-folk are most likely engaged in a whole lot more activity than the one hour a week that may be assumed...or, in my case, three hours per week (2 in worship and 1 in Sunday School).

One of the reasons clergy work is misunderstood is because much of our job can happen at odd hours...like my Bible studying last night from about 10:30 PM to 12 Midnight...or my financial work for the church from then until 12:45 AM.  So, I can spend some quality time with my kids and family or go on Bike Rides or hikes during the sunny hours of the day...if there is any sun.

I know there are some who joke about the amount of time I spend writing blog post or updating Facebook statuses.  But, in my defense, I'll say that I have found these activities spiritually and socially rewarding and a tool for connecting people that I'm still learning to use.  And while I seem, as of late, to spend a great deal of time in play practices, for the Alyeska Resort's "Halloween Train Murder Mystery" and for the Girdwood Community Theater production of "Once Upon A Mattress," these are ways for me to be involved in the community, something I preach repeatedly to my congregation.

And, yet, maybe among some persons, the assumption remains...pastors do very little work.

Well, we'll show them!!!!!

Jeremy, over at Hacking Christianity has an idea which he took from the Manchester (UK) Police who tweeted their activity over a 24 hour period just to show that police work was more than eating donuts.  What if pastors tweeted their activity so their congregations could see what they're involved in?

Here's how it's proposed...

• Pastors or people in ministry work would have twitter accounts that they would update with every single ministry-related thing they do in a 24 hour period, from the big to the mundane.
• Obviously, details would be kept to a minimum. If a meeting is over a sensitive topic, the tweet might just be “met with parishioner” or “finance meeting”
• Try to post as close as possible to the time it completed, either by the twitter web interface or a cell phone (you can setup tweeting by text message here).
• Do this for 24 hours so the world has a better idea of the (1) complexity of pastoral issues and (2) the diversity of our ministry contexts!
• Use the hashtag (say what?) of #pastors24 at the end of the update so we can follow everyone’s work.

You can sign up at Jeremy's site.

I'll do it.

I know I'll have a meeting, a Bible Study to prep for, and two play practices.   We'll see what else will be done.

Ministering in Community: Loving When You're Not Loved Back

Image via WikipediaThis is my 11th year in Girdwood.  We've loved it here.  The church has been challenging and fun.  The construction project has been long and a valuable learning experience.  I think I've grown a lot here…as a person and a pastor.  We know this is the place that our kids (at least the three older ones) have grown up.  I often say that, as persons grow older, I think there's always some place that they think of as "home" to themselves…even if they may have lived in several different towns or states.  I may have been born in Massachusetts, I may have graduated high school in Indiana, I may have gone to seminary in North Carolina, and I may have lived in Alaska for the last 13 years, but I'm always clear that I "grew up in New York."  That's where I had my formative childhood years, from age 5-15,  Well, my kids will, maybe forever, say they grew up in Girdwood, Alaska.  How awesome is that?

Plus, Girdwood is just strikingly beautiful.  The mountains creep right in on you.  You can ski and watch the tide roll in.  And while we get a lot of rain, being that we're in the most northern temperate rain forest in the world, the beautiful days make up for it.  I still remember the first visit my parents made to Girdwood after our three years in Kenai.  I stood with my dad on the porch of our new home we were renting and he said, "You know, Jim, don't take this for granted.  You may never live in a more beautiful place than this."  And he's right.  There are a lot of beautiful places in the world and I've seen several of them.  But, I may never live in a more beautiful place than this.

I know that faith up in Alaska, in the realm of "rugged individualism," can be a difficult thing.  Persons here tend not to be "joiners" and many of them have been burned by churches in the Lower-48 where they used to live and are really hoping to stay as far away from church as they can.  Therefore, I have worked very hard to carry myself in such a way that I'd be seen as non-threatening in the community.  I've participated in the life of the community.  I've served on boards and attended meetings.  I've raised my kids, fully engaging the activities of the community for them.  And our congregation has worked very hard at being seen as a source of good in the community…we've painted and cleaned and shoveled and given and helped etc.  We want to be seen as a place that emanates the love of God, but in a way that works alongside those not in the church to bring about change for the common good.  The difference, we hope, between us and the non-Christians, is that we do it all out of a response to the justification by faith offered by Christ.  We live out out faith by being a people working on behalf of others in the community.  And it's made a difference.  It is easier to be me…a pastor…today than it was ten years ago.  I've been around long enough that persons, I don't think, feel like they have to be on their guard when they see me.

However…

I've been surprised, along the way, by the level of animosity expressed by some (not all) members of the community.  And sometimes I have to catch myself, recognizing that it's not about me but about the church.  And it's really probably not about Jesus, but about the experiences some have had of the church.

My first, sort of, tangible expression of the "us/them" mentality was early on as our congregation's event flyers were taken down from the post office.  Girdwood is a community that communicates through posted notices at the Post Office.  If you want to find out what band is playing where, who has skis for sale, who's hiring, and what meeting is coming up, that's the place to look.  It's also the place you'd look to find out what the times of Christmas worship services are.  However, more frequently in my early years here, it was the Girdwood Chapel posters that kept getting taken down.  I'd put up a flyer.  The next day it was gone.  I'd keep extra flyers in my car just so I could keep replacing the ones that had been removed.  At one point I had congregational members with flyers so they could put them up as well…just to keep up with those who were removing the flyers.

Another expression of this animosity really hit me on on a spiritual level.  One day as I showed up to our new construction, probably in 2007 and opened up the construction door only to find feces…yes, poop…on the handle.  Someone had deliberately put poop on the door so that a person going in would grab on to it.  There was also garbage and beer bottles left at the front door that day as well.  I remember, looking back, the feelings of anger…I'll go so far to say "righteous anger"…welling up inside of me.  I felt violated.  I felt that the Holy Ground of our church had been violated, that there was a spiritual offense launched against it.  I didn't know what to do and I ran off to the home of one of our members to pray.  I needed someone to pray for me.   I wanted to pray for the community…perhaps for "the horrible sinners who did this"...even if the prayer ended up being mostly for me.

There have been others. But the latest comes just a couple of weeks ago as we're getting ready for our big Building Consecration.   Every week we have about 70-100 persons come to the church to pick up boxes of organic vegetables.  We've been doing this for a few years, providing space and leaving the church unlocked for 2.5 days a week.  Plus, we're left to work around the vegetables every once in a while and donate unclaimed boxes after a couple days.  This has been a service to the community…just because we love the community and believe that, even if we don't agree on many spiritual issues, we can agree that eating organic, more locally-produced, food is a good thing for the world and for the world's peoples.  I wanted to make sure that all these good folks who picked up vegetable boxes knew about our Consecration and I wanted to let them know that, as we've been helping them for a couple years with the vegetable pick-up, it would be helpful to our church if they came to our Consecration.  It would help us celebrate and would help the conversation we were planning to have about ways our new building could be used in the future.  It might be a little crass to call it a "quid pro quo" arrangement, but I was hoping that the gift of presence and space that we had been offering could come back to us a gift of their presence at our Consecration.   That was my hope.  So, to encourage this, I put what I thought was a very non-threatening and non-religious note on the vegetable boxes, inviting those who picked them up to attend our Consecration.

Perhaps my note wasn't non-threatening enough.  A couple days later I got a call from the distributor of the boxes saying that they had receive a call from on of the recipients who was extremely upset at the note from the church and I received a verbal hand-slap for trying to mix anything remotely churchy with the boxes.  My emotions were already running high because of the build up to the dedication.  Here I was trying to do something that would further our participation in the life of the community and I had someone from the community who was "extremely upset" with the church.  I don't do well when I have people extremely upset we me.

My emotions welled up inside of me again and what I wanted to say to the person on the phone is that…OK, I wouldn't put anything on the boxes anymore but they need to realize the gift that I/We have been giving their company over these past years and put that into perspective.  And I wanted to get the name of the person who complained and tell him or her that they can certainly make arrangements to pick up their box in Anchorage at one of the non-church sites.

I didn't do either of these.

I kept my mouth shut.

And I realized that this was just one person in the grand scheme of things and the majority of the community around us, I think, appreciates how we try to love them…whether or not they appreciate that we try to love them with the love of God.

It can be hard to love when you're not loved back.  That's just the way it is.  I think the animosity has subsided some over the last several years as we've tried to embrace our role as a Good Samaritan in the community.  But the answer when faced with this is never to withhold your love, to lessen your grace, to stop doing good works…no matter how little love you are shown in return.

All you can do is keep on loving with the love of Jesus.

After all, that's what Jesus did.

And it got far worse for him.

Be Careful What You Worship -- Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote

Image via Wikipedia

“A person will worship something – have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts – but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping, we are becoming.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Found over at A Prodigal's Blog.  This is a blog by Will Humes, a United Methodist Pastor in Pottstown, PA.

My Sunday Haircut--And Tattoo

How Many People View the Church

Another good one from AbsoJesus.  Even just today we were talking about how many persons have viewed the church negatively...even if they have a history with a positive history with some individual churches and Christians.

"The Gospel" -- A quote from Michael Horton

Image by maistora via Flickr

“The Gospel is not just a series of facts to which we yield our assent, but a dramatic narrative that re-plots our identity.” 

Michael Horton

Isaiah 53:1-5 (NIV, One of the Scripture Passages for Sunday)

Image via Wikipedia ¹ Who has believed our message
       and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

 ² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
       and like a root out of dry ground.
       He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
       nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

 ³ He was despised and rejected by men,
       a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
       Like one from whom men hide their faces
       he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 ⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities
       and carried our sorrows,
       yet we considered him stricken by God,
       smitten by him, and afflicted.

 ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
       he was crushed for our iniquities;
       the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
       and by his wounds we are healed.

Luke 13:10-17 (NIV, One of this Week's Scripture Readings)

¹⁰On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, ¹¹and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. ¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." ¹³Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.  ¹⁴Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."
 ¹⁵The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? ¹⁶Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"
 ¹⁷When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

How Rich or Blessed or Fortunate Do You Feel?

Anti-Bullying Post 5: Loving Everybody...Including Bullies

Image by Armando Maynez via Flickr

Jamie Heredia is a missionary in Costa Rica and publishes a wonderful blog called:  "Jamie The Very Worst Missionary: Innappropriate remarks, embarrassing antics, and generally lame observations about living life as a Christian Missionary in Costa Rica."  And, it's everything the subheading makes it out to be.  It's awesome.

Just a couple of days ago Jamie published her own bullying account, talking about the time her 16 year old hipster son was called a "faggot" at Disney's Epcot Center.  She runs through all of the emotions that go through a parent's head when something like this happens to a kid of yours.  You want to go beat their head in...not your kids' but the bully's.  She talks of how we need to be a church for the underdog and the unlovable people of the world and that includes the bullies...which might be the hardest thing. 

Here's what this "very worst missionary" has to say.  It's awesome.

The point is that if we are going to call ourselves “the Church”, if we are going to offer Love, and be Peacemakers and bearers of Hope, then we better be damn ready to offer community to the “faggots” and the “fattys”. We better stand behind the “whores” and the “skanks” and the “pizzafaces”, and get on our feet for “losers”, “freaks”, “noobs”, “wankers”, and every last one of the “dorks that annoy the crap out of everybody”. We have to give up our desire to choose who we will love, instead loving everyone and welcoming all without regard for their style, size, sensibility, sexuality, color, creed, and history….

…aaaand that means loving bullies, too.

Whoa. That IS NOT where I thought this was going.

But it’s true. Right? Being the Church means being open to the bullies, and the convicts, and the addicts, and abusers, and all the other people who scare us and intimidate us, maybe even people who've hurt us – BUT – loving them within the security of the community, so that as we are protecting the weak, we are also showing those who would prey on them a better way.

How bout that last sentence there? 

Loving [the bullies, and the convicts, and the addicts, and abusers] within the security of the community, so that as we are protecting the weak, we are also showing those who would prey on them a better way.

Whoa!

That's tough stuff.

That's good stuff.

That's grace.

Anti-Bullying Post 4: Most Americans Beleive Churches Contribute to Gay Suicide

Image via Wikipedia

(The image to the right is Dan Savage, gay rights campaigner.)

This is from CNN's Belief Blog:

Two out of three Americans believe gay people commit suicide at  least partly because of messages coming out of churches and other places of  worship, a survey released Thursday found.

More than four out of 10 Americans say the message coming out of churches  about gay people is negative, and about the same number say those messages  contribute "a lot" to negative perceptions of gay and lesbian people.

Catholics were the most critical of their own churches' messages on  homosexuality, while white evangelical Christians gave their churches the  highest grades, the survey found.

The Public Religion Research Institute asked 1,017 Americans their views  on religion and homosexuality between October 14 and 17, in the wake of a highly publicized rash of suicides by gay people.

Gay rights campaigner Dan Savage said the idea that churches send out an  anti-gay message "totally jibes with my experience and that of millions of  other gay and lesbian people."

He cited Joel Burns, a Forth Worth, Texas, city councilman whose  emotional tale of being bullied as a young gay man went viral on the internet.

"He remembers being told to go home and commit suicide and that he was  going to hell," Savage said, adding that the source of such attitudes "wasn't  in algebra."

Leaders of the Christian right "have redefined Christianity so that it is  about being anti-gay," he said.

And he cited other poll findings that suggest more Americans than ever  before define themselves as having no religion.

Have we "redefined Christianity so that it is about being anti-gay?"  I think we have at some point.  In fact, I know that I'm sometimes really careful of the crowd I'm with and couch my words carefully so that I'm not dismissed as "being anti-gay" without someone getting to know me and getting to see how Scripture, and reason, and tradition, and experience shape by understanding of this issue and a Christian response.  I hope that I'm not that easily classified and not that easily dismissed.  I hope that, as we deal with issues of bullying homosexuals I will be found on the side of compassion and love and that nothing I have said or done would have contributed to that bullying.

I'm not sure I can say that same for some of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Anti-Bullying Post 3: My Experience as a Bully and Being Bullied

Image via WikipediaIn fairness to myself, I was never really a bully in my formative years. I was a good kid. I hung out with "the computer geeks" even though only one of us had a computer as I recall. My understanding of bullying is that it involves some amount of power on the part of the bully -- physical strength, intelligence, etc. In other words, it's not the activity of the powerless. I never really had much "power" or social cred in my school or groups.

However, a la Howard Gray, I could go along with a crowd. I remember who it was I never stood up for. It was a girl named Cindy. I had known Cindy for many years before we got to Jr. High. We had been in the same grade and so we knew each other. Cindy was obese. All through the years I knew her, she was obese. And I'm saying this as someone who was a big kid in school and remains big today.

But, Cindy was bigger. And, whereas, I could cover up my bigness with a big personality and some ability to play sports, Cindy, I don't think, had any of it. And she was the butt of many a joke. She was the punch line. She was the person people were laughing at. I still remember a couple of those jokes at this time, even though I have tried very hard to get them out of my head.  Even as I've been thinking about this today, it made me sad that I still remember how to join in and laugh along.  I feel shame because of that.

Cindy took a lot of abuse. Now, I don't know if it's really true but a friend of mine said he saw a talk show in the early 90s and Cindy was on it. She had lost a bunch of weight and had said that the incessant teasing she had received in elementary and Jr. High School left her with a lot of emotional issues that she would be fighting for years.  It is true that somehow Cindy was gone as we approached 9th grade.  She wasn't my friend and he absence was hardly noted by me or anyone that I was close to.

But, part of the damage that was done to her was mine. I laughed along. And I could have helped it stop.  But, maybe peer pressure...my own lack of self-worth...or really just the desire to have someone lower on the social totem pole than myself kept me from speaking up.

I find my participation in the wounding of Cindy rather disturbing because I was one who knew what it was like to be bullied. From 2nd grade to 5th I had a nemesis in Adam and by the time I was in Jr. High, my friends and I were the ones who would have their playground equipment taken by older kids. In 9th grade, I was picked on in a Graphic Arts class and thrown against a machine...basically because I was an easy target.  I was pretty strong, though and had more of an attitude than I let on in public.

So, I'm left to wonder... If I had known the pain of being picked on because I was a "geek", why in the world would could I have let the bullying of Cindy or others go. One would think I would be first in line to stop the bullying from happening.

But I didn't.

Maybe I can be first in line now.

Anti-Bullying Post 2: "Howard Gray"

I remember this song form a concert in seminary.  It informs how it is that we should treat each other and what happens when we go along with the crowd and let the bullying continue.

Anti-Bullying Post 1: "Christians Who are Silent are Complicit"

Image by trix0r via FlickrIt's been month now since Rutgers student Tyler Clementi commited suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.  It's a horrible account.  Tyler's roommate supposedly took a video of Tyler engaging in some homosexual act and posted it on the internet.  Now, I'm not sure if this has been proven, but the information is out there.
The following is found on AOL News.

The Rutgers University students charged with streaming a classmate's gay sexual encounter on the Internet prior to his suicide appear to be in hiding, refusing to defend themselves publicly even as criminal charges pile up and anger builds on their college campus and around the world.

Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, both 18, were charged earlier this week with two counts each of invasion of privacy for allegedly using a camera to view and transmit a live image of fellow 18-year-old Tyler Clementi "making out with a dude," according to Ravi's Twitter postings. Clementi was Ravi's roommate, and he killed himself on Sept. 22 by jumping off New York's George Washington Bridge after finding out about the Web video.

This has led to various responses of support for those in the LGBT community and a call to stop this kind of cyberbullying for all persons.

And, as Christians, we should care.  We should care because we have a Savior who loves us and loves those who are being bullied (and, indeed, the bully-ers).  And, frankly, if we don't stand up against the bullying that takes place in our midst then we are complicit in it.  It's our sin, then.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this since the Tyler Clementi incident.  But I've always been big on combating bullying and people picking on others or stripping them of their power or humiliating them.   Just this past year I participated in the Special Olympics' "Spread the Word to End the Word" -- The campaign to stop the use of the word, "retard."

So, the church needs to stand up for those who are victims and love them with the love of Jesus.  Otherwise, we have a sin of omission on our hands.

Another Reason to Get an iPad -- So I Can Get The President's Autograph

Here's the image:

Here's the video:

"Who Delivered Up Jesus To Die?" -- Quote by Octavius Winslow

Image via WikipediaWho delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; but the Father, for love! —Octavius Winslow

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. NO. -- New Monasticism and Me

Image via Wikipedia

I can't help but wonder if my life would have been different if I had really been exposed to the "New Monasticism" at an earlier age--when I was young and carefree, when I didn't have kids.

It seems like my life, over the past few years, but really in the last 6 months, has been been bombarded by images of these new monastics in the world.  Well, I'm sure I haven't been bombarded, but that's kind of the way it feels.

In seminary, back in the early 90s I had a friend who, with his wife, purposely chose to live in a more dangerous, poorer section of the Durham area than a lot of us other students.  I don't think you'd say it was a slum, but it was clearly living in a rougher part of town.  And, even if I wasn't sure I had the guts (faithfulness) to do that myself, I admired this.  This, I thought, was really taking the call of Jesus seriously.

Then, of course, we had Shane Claiborne come to Girdwood Chapel this summer and I could sit and listen to him for days and never grow tired of it.  Here is someone who, living in community in Philadelphia is really initiating change in the roughest section of that city.  I was taken aback when Shane even offered for me and the whole family to come and live in community with them.

Recently, I've been sitting on a news story by the Religion News Service of an account of persons making a difference in Gresham, Oregon.  There is a "romantic" and "adventurous" feel to this account.  It all seems so simple, yet so very challenging.  The story is by Steven Beaven and includes the following:

In the two years since David Knepprath and Josh Guisinger moved into the rough-and-tumble Barberry Village complex, roughly a dozen young Christian men and women have made Barberry Village their home.

Their goal: Create a sense of community in a chaotic neighborhood overrun with drugs, prostitution and gangs.

Their work mirrors, in some ways, the "new monasticism" movement, in which Christians move into urban or rural areas to work with the poor.

It's not an easy way to live. Some neighbors have been suspicious. Safety is an ongoing concern. And some of these urban missionaries have burned out on a project that can be a 24-hour-a-day burden.

Yet they've been so successful that other complex owners have asked them to replicate their efforts. Congregations have volunteered their services. A woman from Virginia is moving to the Portland area so she can do similar work in another neighborhood.

With guidance from a nonprofit called Compassion Connect, they moved with friends into an apartment, putting two sets of bunk beds in one room and using the other two bedrooms as an office and a closet.

Still, they remained outsiders who could live in almost any neighborhood they chose. They had to strike a delicate balance; they didn't want to come on too strong and alienate their neighbors.

So while they were open about their Christianity, they didn't plunge into conversations about their faith. Nor did they move in acting as if they could solve the social ills at Barberry Village.

"We were very conscious of that," said Knepprath, who has since moved out but remains active in the ministry. "Our perspective from the start was that we're not here with all the solutions, or even thinking we know all the problems."
So they walked door to door, handing out chocolate-chip cookies. A letter explained their purpose and faith. They invited residents to the first community meal.

This fascinates me and I feel a calling to something like this, but I'm just not sure I'm up to it to this extent.  I'm not sure I'm that faithful yet.  In particular, I'm not sure I'm that faithful on behalf of my children.  What would moving into a setting like do for them.  I'm sure it's many positive things.  But when I try to reconcile the lack of neighborhood amenities or the safety of the area or the ability to be with my "usual" friends.

So I say, yes, yes, yes, and finally a no to monastic living.

But, all is not lost here.  I think I'm left with the challenge of trying to interpret this new monastic living with the church structure I'm already in.  I might not be living among the poorest of the poor in our area, but how can the church do that?  How can it give up some of its status and make a home among the poor and forgotten.

Also, on of the things I really like here is the assumption that this all takes some time.  Evangelism, at heart, is about building relationships over time and working, systematically, to alleviate the problems of a neighborhood or community.  Whether that's the family in apartment next to a new monastic order or if it's a community half-way around the world, the church can still reach out in concern and service to those around it.

I don't think I'll ever find myself in a "new monastic" community.  But I can still learn from them and try to be a monastic in my own community...even here up in Alaska.

"We Forgot God"

Image via Wikipedia
Those were the words uttered by one of my younger twins the other night as we put them down for bed.  What she meant is that we forgot to say "The Lord's Prayer."

But, then again, how often do we forget God with our kids?

More than I'd care to admit.

What Kind of Geek Are You? -- Infographic

This is from over at Flowtown and is awesome for any of us self-described geeks and nerds.  In school I was the "Academic Geek."  Now I'm more of a "Tech Geek" and "Music Geek" I think.


What about you?

A Lesson Learned from The Dog Food

Image via WikipediaYou know how it is with casseroles, particularly with kids?  You spend a great deal of time throwing together the Shepherd's Pie or the Tuna Casserole or, in our family, the Chicken Lindsey.  You follow the directions to a "T" and you put it in the oven for the prescribed time and it's served piping hot to the family.  And what do the kids do, they pick and choose the items they want to eat, leaving a pile of the things they don't enjoy.  Don't the realize that the peas are to be eaten with the chicken to get the right casserole flavor?  How bad could they taste when they are mixed in with all the other flavors and cream of mushroom soup that give the casserole its flavor?  And while we're at it, can't we ask how they find the patience to pull out every small piece of mushroom from the dish, declaring each piece of chicken "clear" before putting it in their mouths?

OK, so maybe it's not always that bad, but I'm usually quite amazed at the ability of my own kids to pick and choose the items they want to eat out of what we get them for dinner. Don't they realize it's all meant to be savored together?

It's the same, I think, with the new dog food we have for our dog, Hurley. (Yes, for any Duke Basketball fans out there, he was named after Bobby Hurley, the great point guard for Duke in the early 90s back when I was at the school. Hurley, the Welsh Terrier dog, high energy and scrappy, was named after Hurley, the man, a high energy and scrappy point guard.) Well, Hurley's food -- one of the COSTCO specials -- got a little more special as of note and, along with the small, crunchy nuggets of lamb and rice goodness has added some softer, almost meat-looking bits. And, while I don't know the makeup of these newer bits, my dog knew right away that this was his favorite part of the dog food. From the first bowl we gave him, he jumps right and devours the food -- but only the softer pieces. I don't know how careful he is with the whole process, but it doesn't take him long to walk away, leaving a mess of crunchy, hard pieces on the floor all around his bowl. It's not unlike the piles of peace or carrots of mushrooms that one of my kids might leave.

But, that's not all, Hurley has the nerve to go back to his bowl, with no soft pieces of goodness left, and look at me, trying to get me to pour more out for him...just so he could eat the soft pieces again and leave the rest. We have a new rule when it comes to feeding the dog: he doesn't get any more food unless he eats ALL of the food...including the pieces he clearly thinks aren't quite as yummy as the meaty chunks he so much enjoys.

I think there actually is a life lesson to be learned here: we really don't get to pick and choose much in this life.

For Christians, we don't have the liberty of choosing who it is that will be beneficiaries of our love. We gotta' love everyone, even those who would be deemed "unloveable."

In our jobs as pastors, we don't get to pick and choose whether we'll do the administrative portions of our job or the educational or the worship. They all have to be done.

We can't just focus all of our energies on the good parts of life, the mountaintops. Life is full of valleys.

Is this all a stretch? Perhaps.

But I have to think of something positive as I sweep more crunchy dog food off of the floor and put it back in the bowl. After all, if I could pick and choose, I'd choose to do something other than this.

"It Should Hurt When We Cease to Give" -- Quote from Ian Barclay

Image via Wikipedia

Nearly half the parables Jesus told have the use of money as their main subject. It is sometimes said that we should give until it hurts. But Jesus teaches that it should hurt when we cease to give! —Ian Barclay

(Found over at Challies.com)