"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.

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.

Consecration and Incarnation -- Salvation and Our Skin -- Christ and Community

Image via Wikipedia

Clearly I have no idea how to title this blog post.  Perhaps I have way too much going on here.  But my heart and head are still spinning with the events of yesterday at our consecration.  I'm still a little raw.  I'm still moved and touched by all the show of support we had.  I'm still thinking ahead to all the ways this building is going to be used once we're in a position to use it.

As stated, we had our Consecration of our new church yesterday.  I had looked at all sorts of stuff online to help me shape the service.  A pastor friend gave me his services he had used at a consecration nearly 20 years ago.  I had never had to plan one of these and felt great pressure.  After all, the Bishop was going to be here. 

The problem with so much of the stuff I was looking at was that it was so "high church" and formal.  "Process with Bible and Cross."  Tons of ritual.  Lots of formal language.  It looked great for the right setting.  Our church is a lot more informal than this.  None of this was going to feel particularly "Girdwoodian."

This is not to say we don't have important rituals in our church.  No, rituals are very important.  We have communion every week and go through the full liturgy.  We have the kids come down for children's time.  We do the creeds often.  It all just seems to have a more informal feel to it.  It seems "common."  It seems "colloquial." 

Granted, this reflects me, personally.  However, from a theological perspective, I don't pretend to have some religious "realm" or state of being and some "secular" realm.  I really don't have a style of language I use in church and one I use at home.  Or at least I try not to. Because I don't think these two things can truly ever be separated.  When Christ became incarnate he, as Petersons' The Message says, "moved into the neighborhood" (John 1).  He entered this real world with its real people and the salvation he offered was for the real world...with our own language and culture and problems.  Yes, we need to be in awe of God.  We should fear God.  We should offer God reverence.  But we can do so by offering who we are here and now.  We stand before God, with all of our quirks and baggage and problems, and are redeemed in the real world and we offer that salvation to those around us in the real world.


One of the illustrations I use frequently in church to talk about the very worldly salvation that Christ offers is the problem of slavery in the US in the 1700s to 1800s where slaveowners would tell their slaves that they had to keep being slaves but that Christ had set them free IN THEIR HEARTS.  It was a disembodied salvation.  It was gnostic.  It only "seemed" like salvation.  And it's wrong.

Likewise, a church that says it believes in a Christ that saves, but isn't trying to transform its community is practicing the same kind of gnostic salvation -- a salvation that doesn't really transform anything at all.

Just as our salvation is one that is intimately connected with our skin, so the salvation the church offers is intimately connected with the community and the culture.  Our faith is about changing how we live and how the world operates.  I remember a preacher at Duke Divinity School that "God not only wants to save us in the 'Sweet By and By' but in the 'Nasty Here and Now.'"  The only religion worth its salt is one that is tranformational--of the individual and the world.  (Remember our mission statement here at Girdwood Chapel:  "Love God.  Love others.  Change the world.")

That's the understanding of salvation and faith I've tried to live and to teach and is why, yesterday at our dedication, we tried to connect with where our people are and why we had a question and answer time to include the community members in asking how we can, together, work to transform our community for the better.  There is not a separate life for my faith, apart from how I live and experience the world.  There is not a separate world of the church, apart from the community in which it finds itself.

I found the following quote from Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio that gets at the theological underpinnings here:

Much of modern culture, with its Gnostic undertones, alienates us from creation and its givenness. Theologian Colin Gunton sees the affirmation of the Incarnation as essential to our enthusiastic participation in creation and therefore in cultural life. "A world that owes its origin to a God who makes it with direct reference to one who was to become incarnate -- part of the world -- is a world that is a proper place for human beings to use their senses, minds and imaginations, and to expect that they will not be wholly deceived in doing so."

Christians have the only account of human and natural origins that can give cultural life meaning. But even after 2,000 years of opportunity to reflect on the Incarnation, many contemporary Christians persist in believing in a Gnostic salvation, a salvation that has no cultural consequences. In such a dualistic understanding, our souls are saved, the essential immaterial aspect of our being is made right with God, but the actions of our bodies -- what we actually do in space and time -- are a matter of indifference if not futility. Salvation is an inward matter only. It affects our attitudes and some of our ideas. But insofar as our cultural activities have any Christian significance it is as mere marketing efforts -- things we do to attract others to our essentially Gnostic salvation.

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.

That's a great quote.

What is Hospitality

Thanks to the KC Boiler Room, for a very beautiful definition of "hospitality" on their website.  

The KC Boiler Room is committed to being:

A hospitable community where strangers are welcomed, meals are shared and where friendships can flourish across boundaries of race and culture.

Hospitality is an ancient practice, a cultural attitude, which honors any guest as extraordinary, and within the church, this idea even extends into the belief that any stranger represents Christ Himself. In other words, there are no strangers. Secular Western culture postures itself strenuously against this idea, instead celebrating independence, encouraging self-sufficiency, guarding privacy and breeding an atmosphere of fear, where the stranger becomes somehow untrustworthy, likely a criminal, simply because they are unknown. Sadly, often times we have largely abandoned the practice and theology of hospitality, and churches are no longer homes were friends can be made, meals can be shared, rest is offered, defenses can drop and the door is always unlocked. If anything is obvious it is that the Kingdom of God contradicts the world, and in a culture that spends so much energy drawing boundaries between what is yours and mine, anyone who refuses to, is obviously a citizen of that contradictory kingdom. Under a tough veneer of cynicism and determined hedonism, our world is actually aching with loneliness and fear. Delivering the antidote is difficult, preaching and even the most impassioned evangelism has little effect, but to offer unfeigned welcome into the vulnerable heart of community or home and to extend love which does not judge, is to practice extreme, revolutionary hospitality. Christ Himself knocks, will our own fear and preoccupations bar Him, or will He find the latch open, and behind it, the soup already simmering, the laughter already loud and the welcome almost overwhelming?

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in it’s various forms.” 1 Peter 4:8-10

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"Flinging Cookies" -- April 24, 2010

I love cookies.  To be honest, I particularly enjoy eating them.  However, I also enjoy baking them.  And I really enjoy flinging them.  At Girdwood Chapel we fling cookies several times a year.  It started when we were doing a series based on OUTFLOW by Steve Sjogren.  Pastor Sjogren is a big advocate of “servant evangelism” and believes that “small acts done with great love can change the world.”  He has another website that's entirely devoted to the concept of Servant Evangelism.  In that book he talked of the parable of the sower from Luke 8:

¹After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, ²and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; ³Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

⁴While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: ⁵“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. ⁶Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. ⁸Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”

When he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
⁹His disciples asked him what this parable meant. ¹⁰He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,

” ‘though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand.’

¹¹“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. ¹²Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. ¹³Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. ¹⁴The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. ¹⁵But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

The point of this story, says Steve, is that we need be passionate about spreading God’s love wherever we can, knowing that some of it will fall on the rocks and some of it on the thorns, etc.  But some of it will fall on good soil and will bear fruit.   We need to be passionate.  We need to be indiscriminate.  And we need to share God’s love wherever and whenever we can.


So, at Girdwood Chapel, we're "Cookie Flingers"  We go around and hand out cookies to persons, pretty much indiscriminately.  Each little baggie has about 3 cookies in it and a note.  Today's note said the following:

Just a simple way to share some love.

These cookies may contain nuts, though. So, if you’re allergic, please share the love with someone else :)

www.girdwoodchapel.net

Malaria Awareness Weekend -- April 24-25
3rd Annual Chili CookOff --Sun. May 9th

If anyone asked why we were doing it, we just said, "Because God loves you."  Will large volumes of people be knocking on our church door tomorrow because of it? No.  But, for a brief moment did the random people we met feel the love of God and see a church putting God's love into action?  I hope so. 



Love God.  Love others.  Change the World

. 

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Sermon From 18 April 2010 "Change The World" -- Luke 24:1-49

(NOTE:  I'm a little nervous about posting sermons.  I'll right more about that later.  However, since this gets at my understanding of church and what's been swimming around in my head for a few years, I thought I'd post it here.)

I'm going to start off this sermon offering a little insight into my perspective of theology and church and faith.  Those who have checked out my blog might recognize some of the themes.

When I got to Girdwood, I started doing some of the things I thought I should do as the only pastor here at the time and being part of a community that didn't seem quite so sure it could trust a pastor...or a church for that matter.  I got involved.  I became intimately connected with the community.  I served.  I cleaned.  I planned.  I invited.  And I attended more meetings than perhaps I needed to.  I was not and am not the only one who does this.  I've always said I thought Girdwood was a community that took "community" seriously. I still believe that.

But that involvement wasn't just because I thought Girdwood was a neat place that I wanted to be involved or that I thought community was a good thing and that if I was going to make any inroads in the community that was the way to do it.  It was because I had AND HAVE an understanding of pastoring and the church that said the church does not exist for those in pews, but exists for the world--for those that hurt, for those that have need, for those that are lost, for those who need to know they are found.  Many of you have heard me take a phrase from Disciple Bible Study and say that Jesus and the church exist for "The Least, The Last, and the Lost." And as I was assigned to Girdwood Chapel I have tried to see this particular expression of the Body of Christ not so much as a place TO DO MINISTRY but as a place TO DO MINISTRY FROM.

I guess, theologically, I understand us to be missionaries for Christ and the church then becomes a place, not so much a place to invite people to be fed, but as a place where we give people the tools whereby they can go into the world to feed others--yes, around the world...but perhaps most importantly here in the community of which we are a part (which many of you will know is a phrase I use a whole lot).

Now, the building process has kind of put a damper on this.  It's been a long process.  Some of our most involved leaders and followers have been putting more time than they might have wanted to on this particular task.  It hasn't been so much a matter of "reaching the people out there."  It's been a matter of building this structure that we need to get out of the way first.  It's been a long process.  It's been seven years since we moved to our present location. It's been five years since we moved from one side of the property, right by the entrance, to where we are today.  In 2007 and 2008, in particular, it was wearing on me.  It felt like it was kind of getting in the way of the ministry that I thought we COULD be doing...in the way of the ministry that I thought we SHOULD be doing.

With some light at the end of the proverbial tunnel of our building process, my sermons over the past year or so have been trying to push us in ways to see ourselves as missionaries in this world--sent out as bearers of the Good News on the highways and the byways...to the coffee shops...and the Merc...at the Forest Fair Meeting to the Fire Department...on the chair lift and the classroom chair...on the bike path and in our own families.  We are bearers of the Good News.  More than a list of rules and regulations, this is what it means to be a follower of Christ....something I confess to doing more haltingly than should be the case for someone who is supposed to be setting some sort of religious example.

And so, whether you've seen this coming or not...even whether I've seen this coming or not...we have embodied a theology of mission.  We've had DAYS OF SERVICE, where we've gone out in the community to do service projects.  We've had a series, called "UNCHRISTIAN" that was essentially a guide for those in church to understand how some of those outside of the church may view us.  We had a series called, "OUTFLOW," to biblically construct a framework for you to see how God's love is intended to flow into your lives and then to your families, your friends, your community, and the whole world.  We changed our mission statement, which previously talked of being a "Christian Spiritual=life center," to one saying "Love God.  Love others.  Change the world."  Sending us out.  Telling the bigness of our God and changing our communities as others are brought into the story.

God may have called us to be here, this Sunday...any Sunday...but he calls us only to send us away as lightbearers for this world.

There is a BIGNESS to a church that is doing something like this.  A SMALL church exists for itself.  But it's big when it's changing lives of those that come...and changing lives of those who come in contact with them because of the grace and mercy and love others experience in them.  There is a bigness to the faith that recognizes it is swept up in big salvation story of our God.  There is a bigness to the action.  It is an understanding of faith and Christ that says it's too big to be contained and held and sheltered.  (It's like the children's song today "Hide it under a bushel?  NO!  I'm gonna' let it shine.")

Via that long introduction, we come to the Scripture lesson for today.  In this lesson there are three sections. 

First is the resurrection account.  I know we're a couple of weeks past Easter, but the resurrection butterflies are still hanging above the altar so I thought it was appropriate to recount that story.  This is the story that shapes us and gives meaning and understanding to the power we have from Christ to be the hands and feet of God in the world.

Next we have the famous Walk to Emmaus story where Jesus walks with some unsuspecting travelers and they tell him the horrible and astounding events of the previous days.  This gives Jesus the opportunity to announce to them that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and go to glory.  And, my favorite line in that account, verse 27, "Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the Scriptures." He laid it all out there for them, telling him how everything (from Genesis, and Isaiah, and the Psalms, and everything) had brought them to this place...the place where he's telling the story.  It's a call for them and for us to place ourselves in this long salvation story.

Only one of the travelers is named...Cleopas.  They were so enthralled by the teaching of the still-unrevealed Jesus that they invited him to spend the evening with them.  And, as we know, they don't recognize who it is that's among them until Jesus "took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them" (24:30).  We have communion here every week in the hopes that you, too, come to recognize who it is among us.

Here's how Eugene Peterson describes what happened next in "The Message" translation:

They didn't waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: "It's really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!"

Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.

Jesus leaves and the two men run back to Jerusalem to share the good news that Jesus Christ is really risen. THIS is the part of the Emmaus section of the story that I want to focus on right now.  Cleopas and "the other guy" are transformed by an encounter with the risen Christ and, all of a sudden, become missionaries.  They recognize that they have encountered a message that is too important not to share with the community.  It is hoped that their lives are not just changed for this sprint back to the city but for as long as they live.  They are part of the story.

We read the scriptures, not as history. We sing our songs, not as performance.  I preach, not because I like to hear myself talk (or not ONLY because I like to hear myself talk--and make people laugh.)  We do this so that we can see ourselves in the story and learn how to share this story with the folks we meet in our daily lives...no matter where we come into contact with them.  This is not about "preaching to the choir" in this place but preaching to the world when we go from this place.

Our church then becomes an outpost for the advancement of the Good News into the world.  And how effective we're being as a church is less dependent on the building or the rear ends in the pews but how our folks -- you -- are being Christians in the world -- how much you're putting into your walk of faith with Christ.

There is a third section of our Scripture passage from Luke.  Cleopas and his friend have high-tailed it to Jerusalem and, as they are recounting all that has happened, Jesus shows up...my guess is that he's not even winded.  He shows them his hands and feet.  It says, in verse 41, "while in their joy they were disbelieving, and still wondering."  You gotta' think it seemed too good to be true.  He told them that the Messiah was to suffer and die and that this was all part of the plan.  WHY????  This is why, according to Peterson's translation, The Message:

"a total life-change through the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in his name to all nations—starting from here, from Jerusalem! You're the first to hear and see it. You're the witnesses. What comes next is very important: I am sending what my Father promised to you, so stay here in the city until he arrives, until you're equipped with power from on high" (Luke 24:47-49).

This mission of the church as a powerful, life-giving, world-shaking, moving, holy entity springs from all that Christ was and is--and did and does.  Our mission is a response to Jesus' mission.  We are to reflect God's mission in and for and to the world in Jesus.  We may be called here, but we are sent out...and we are given the power of the Holy Spirit to be sent out and given message of Good News to take with us wherever we go.  WE ARE WITNESSES to this great story of the love of our God and invite others along for this ride.

I got an e-mail from your former pastor, Chuck Frost, this week.  He doesn't have an opportunity to preach in his current setting and wondered about the following.  Actually, what he said was, "I have a sermon idea that you are free to use.  You may think it stinks, but if you don't, it's yours."  I don't think it stinks.  Here it is...

I was at a friend’s recently playing guitar and singing Americana style songs.  When we came to a song about trains, I mentioned the fascination with trains in roots music and that even my children, who were born in the late 90’s were enamored with trains when you’d think that the modern child might move on to more advanced methods of transportation.

When we lived in Alaska, we would take the boys for a walk during the summer down to a local overpass (very tiny overpass as the town we lived in was much like the one in Northern Exposure) where the train would pass under.

This was a daily highlight…to see the train.

I can clearly remember the high-pitched toddler voices that yelled “TRAIN TRAIN” when they saw it coming around the bend

When I was younger, I am told that I loved to sing Elizabeth Cotton’s “Freight Train” and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” (“I hear the train a comin’”).

Of course, for children the fascination extends beyond trains.  They are simply fascinated with big objects that move…airplanes, RV’s, Semi’s, motorcycles, and bulldozers.

When my oldest was almost two, we were on a plane taking off from the Mobile, Alabama airport to return home to Alaska.  We put his seat at the window and watched his eyes get bigger with childlike wonder at the enormous planes nearby as we waited to depart.  He started softly, “ehh-plane.”  Then he said it again:  “ehhhh-plane”.  And again:   “ehhhhhhhh-plane.”  Each time stretching the first syllable and increasing in volume until he was saying over and over again as loud as a toddler could get “EHHHHHHHHHHHHH-PLANE!”  The people around us were not annoyed, but amused as they were giggling along with my wife and me.

The childlike fascination with big, moving vehicles is a joy to see, but it’s the one thing that we rarely lose as we get older.   I still look up when I hear a plane or watch a train go by.  I especially take note of motorcycles since I am a rider myself.

There is something elemental about this love of big, moving things.  We are drawn to moving things that are much bigger than we are.  Whether they are physical, communal or spiritual.

We are all drawn to something that’s big and goes somewhere.

Through the death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, we are hooked onto a story that is far bigger than ourselves.  It's big.  It's going somewhere.  We're along for the ride.
And, as a church, we go out into the community, to our community, helping others get along for the ride.  THAT is how we change the community.

And so we have "A Change the World Weekend" along with many United Methodist Churches this weekend.  We'll have an overnight to raise awareness about the world's malaria problem.   And so we hand out cookies indiscriminately (or as we call it, "Cookie Flinging") with the sole purpose of saying "we love you" to folks we share this town with.  And so we have "Bible and Brew" -- our Bible Study in a bar.   And so we have Bible and Brew.  And so we plan Vacation Bible School.  And so we'll build.  And so I preach.  And so, I hope, you listen.

How will you invite others to hop on board, latching onto the big story of our God's love for us?  For that is how we change the community.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Posted via email from The Prodigal Blog

The Only Hermeneutic -- A Congregation that Beleives

I have been pondering this small post over at J.R. Woodward's "Dream Awakener" for the last couple of days since I found it.  The post has a great quote from Lesslie Newbigin.  The whole post is as follows:

This next paragraph by Lesslie Newbigin, though short and concise is deep, rich and worth considerable reflection – especially for those of us who live in the West.   It first appeared in an article, "Evangelism in the City," written in 1987 for the Reformed Review.  I am taking this from Lesslie Newbigin – Missionary Theologian.

"How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel:  a congregation which believes it."  – Lesslie Newbigin

A congregation that is growing in grace and is learning to embody the ministry of reconciliation, walk with God, follow the way of Jesus,  become peacemakers, fight for justice, immerse themselves in God’s story, who find healing and wholeness in community and are shaped the the sacred text is the kind of community that believes!

A HERMENEUTIC is an interpretation...usually referring to the Gospel or to the Bible.  So, here, Newbigin is saying that the best, or rather, "only" interpretation of the gospel is a congregation that believes it.   This floors me.  It's like Shane Claibornes' understanding that we are to "fascinate the world with grace."  We are to have congregations, people, faithful Christians who actually believe all this stuff we talk about and actually live it.

As pastor I know I suffer from a Messiah complex of sorts.  "Oh, if people could only be as faithful as me" I'm sure I secretly think to myself as I, too, let my little faith get in the way of my hopes and dreams for my church...our church...THE CHURCH.  Perhaps on this journey we all need to really believe what it is that we say we do.  How that's going to work out...I don't know.  But I'm willing, with God's help, of course, to try.

(Picture above http://www.flickr.com/photos/denise-ann-wells/ / CC BY-ND 2.0)