Practices

Sikh-ing Peace

A Necessary Conversation

The recent shooting in Wisconsin at a Sikh Temple has many wondering if religiously-rooted violence is about to erupt, or if this is one of the dying gasps of intolerance as our world continues to become a more hospitable place.

I would like to lean toward the latter, but realize we have a long ways to go.My own experience in interfaith conversations, as highlighted in my new book, Pub Theology, is that we need to work toward listening and learning, rather than antagonizing.

A few comments by young people of various faith traditions highlight as much (from an article in the Huffington Post):

Hannah Shirey, Christian, New York, USA

Through the pain, I have been reminded of the deep gratitude I feel for my time spent at a Sikh NGO this last year.

As we move forward, I am inspired by Sikh scripture that calls devotees to “recognize the human race as one” and by Jesus of Nazareth’s famous words, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” In our differences and our pain we are all interconnected and we all are capable of being peace-builders.

Nomi Teutsch, Jewish, Jerusalem, Israel

The injunction to “love the stranger, for we were strangers in the land of Egypt” is one of the most central teachings of my Jewish faith. To me, this speaks to the connection that all minorities have to one another. We must not only feel hurt and anguish, but rather remember to transform those feelings into standing up for other groups in their times of need.

I spent the last year working at UNITED SIKHS along with Hannah Shirey, and I became more and more connected to Sikhi’s message of equality and openness each day. I pray that Sunday’s devastating events remind us all to get to know the strangers in our midst so that we may love them.

Sana Rahim, Muslim, Chicago, USA

On Aug. 5, ignorance and hatred materialized into a tragedy that will be etched in my memory for years to come. Last night, I went to my local gurdwara and stood in solidarity with the Sikh community as an American Muslim. While the Quran stipulates that our differences exist so that we “may come to know one another,” it is only when our friendships compel us to action that we truly begin to challenge the status quo.

Eric Farr, Bahá’í, Toronto, Canada

As a Bahá’í, I commit myself to helping usher in a day when people of every race and religion will look at each other with an understanding and protective love akin to what we feel for the members of our own family. I offer my sincere condolences and prayers for my brothers and sisters of the Sikh Faith affected by the tragic events of this past Sunday.

Immy Kaur, Sikh, Birmingham, UK

The last few years have seen me move from skeptical to utterly convinced about the need for interfaith interaction, friendship and shared experience. During this painfully difficult time as a community, I have been touched by the global outpouring of love and support towards the Sikh community. The state of Chardi Kala by the American Sikh organizations leaves me yet again in awe of my brothers and sisters across the shores.

An excerpt from the introduction of Pub Theology calls for this needed conversation together:

My argument in this book is simple: good things happen when we sit down at the same table together and talk honestly about things that matter — and frankly, having a beer doesn’t hurt. We don’t need to agree on whatever it is that we discuss — that isn’t even the point. The point is that we are all stuck here together on this planet (for the unforeseeable future) — and we might as well get to know each other while we’re here. My sense is that more and more people are hungry for this. People of all backgrounds are opening up about the broadness and diversity of thought and belief around them. And I sense that there is a growing desire for this among my fellow Christians as well. People are ready. Ready to see openness happen in their own lives and communities. Ready to move beyond fear to understanding. Ready to take a brave step forward in learning to live out their own faith honestly and with integrity in the increasingly pluralistic and global world we find ourselves in.

Here’s the good news. It’s happening. In conversation. At the pub. Over beer. From London to New York to Ann Arbor, people are gathering to communicate, connect, and learn from one another over the topic of religion and theology, of all things.

In the past we’ve typically assumed that if you want to find God, going to church is the place to go. I wonder if this is still the case. It seems to me that God is breaking out of churches everywhere. In fact, some would say that’s not the best place to find him. Given the places Jesus frequented, that shouldn’t surprise us (hint: he never went to church!). It turns out that a pub creates a perfect setting in which to encounter people who are interested in spiritual topics, philosophy, life, and — yes — theology, and they are open to being honest about it. For some, it even becomes a place to encounter God himself.

Let me be up front that I write this as a Christian. But I write in the hope that readers of any perspective, religious or not, might garner something from these pages. Further, my hope is that as you read you will encounter a shift toward a more chastened, humble, and inviting Christianity — one that will have a seat at the table in the important conversations our world is having.  Unless we are willing to first listen and make space for the other, we won’t be invited. Here you will find real life stories, real people, real questions — many gleaned from conversations and encounters during actual Pub Theology gatherings. These recollections will attempt to give flesh and bones to this needed shift.

Where is God?

Who is God?

What do other religions say?

What do those who’ve given up on God say?

Turns out agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, humanists, Jews, Muslims, Wiccans and many others have wonderful traditions that have wrestled with these very questions for centuries. It’s time we start to listen. If you’re tired of pat answers that exclude wrestling and doubt while presuming certainty in the face of serious questions, welcome to the club. I wrestle with these issues in my own life. I wouldn’t be surprised if you do as well. I hope you’ll find encouragement and ideas here toward living out a more global faith.


How are you engaging those around you who have different ideas about God, faith, and life?  

Here’s to more good conversations.  We need them.

Pub Theology Topics, July 5 2012

The book, the beer, the sheet

On a busy night in Traverse City, fresh off the Fourth of July and on the eve of the Cherry Festival, a few of us found our way to a pub for some reasonable conversation.  It was good to be back at Pub Theology tonight after a couple week hiatus.  The Saugatuck IPA was a welcome addition to the menu, and we had a good evening of discussion.

The topics:

1.    If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one item, what would it be?

2.    Are all spiritual experiences legitimate?

3.    What is happiness?

4.    “The very meaningfulness of rational discourse depends on God, as everything depends on God.”

5.    If our world belongs to God, is the idea of private property a contradiction of this?

6.    Man exists in a state of distance from the world that he nonetheless remains in the midst of.
Can the distance be overcome?

7. What really matters?

We shared some experiences and perspectives, some sips and some tips.

Great stuff.

We also celebrated the arrival of Pub Theology, the book!  You can buy your copy locally at Brew, and soon at Horizon Books – both downtown.  You can join us at the Book Launch next week Thursday, July 12 at Brew, from 6-8pm, preceding our normal Pub Theology conversation.

In the meantime, share your thoughts on the above topics!

Wild Goose Recap!

So, the family loaded in the van last week and headed for the hills (literally!) of North Carolina to attend the Wild Goose Festival.

What is the Wild Goose Festival?  New friend Milton described it this way:

“The festival [titled after a metaphor for Celtic Christianity] is self-described as one of spirituality, justice, music, and art. People came and camped in the woods and sang and talked and ate and looked for ways to connect. To me it felt like a cross between Woodstock and church youth camp. When I looked out over the field of participants, in most any direction I saw people who didn’t look like “church folks” who were lost in wonder, love, and grace. For these four days, they got to feel understood. “Normal.” None of us was asked to do more than be ourselves and welcome one another.

And it was good.”

Someone else called it: “A Sacred and Safe Space.”  I agree.  We arrived in Shakori Hills with a loaded up van, drove down a dusty road under a home-made banner with a  painted bird figure and the lettering for ‘Wild Goose’.

The welcome booth was a wooden shack with scenes from Where the Wild Things Are painted on it.

We set up our tent right in the center of activity – between a smaller tent venue labeled ‘Return’, and the main stage for the festival.  The theme of the festival was “Exile and Return”, so speaking/music event venues were named accordingly:  Shadow, Exile, Return, and so on.

We didn’t know what to expect, other than that we loved the concept, and were excited about some of the speakers and musicians slated to be there.

Let me tell you, this was a festival!

From the first talk we attended on Thursday afternoon — Tom Sine on co-living, intentional communities, and sustainability: “It is essential that we help people reimagine new ways to live. We need to discover creative, celebrative, simple ways of life that are more imaginative than the American Dream and cost less money.  And we need to do it together, in community” — to the final song by Gungor, “God makes beautiful things, he makes beautiful things out of dust.  God makes beautiful things, he makes beautiful things out of us,” we had an incredible time.  It was a time to imagine again what God longs for us and our world.

We met people from Pittsburgh, San Francisco, New York, Texas, Atlanta, Illinois, DC, and all over the country who are hungry for a new form of faith.

We heard Phyllis Tickle review the history of the church from Constantine and the fateful Edict of Milan to today, and the impact of the birth control pill on the future of the faith.  She noted that it is time to “return to the tent” — in other words, the place of the family and the home, where the stories of faith are told, shared, and lived out before the children and the next generation.  We heard Jim Wallis remind us that in the Capital power is the means and power is the ends, but that God’s way is powerlessness.  We heard Brian McLaren encourage us to engage those of other faiths while holding to our own with integrity (Pub Theology, anyone?).  We heard Dave Andrews, a community organizer from Australia encourage us to seek centered-set communities rather than closed-set communities.  He noted: “When we don’t trust the Spirit’s presence and leading, we create [unwittingly] all kinds of programs and plans and so on that actually become manipulative and oppressive.”  He reminded us that wherever we are going to serve and work we have to remember that God is already there — in that people we meet already are imbued with the image of God, and the Spirit is there ahead of us.  He also reminded that it is not so much we who bring Jesus, but that in fact, as we serve, we find that we are serving Jesus himself.

We heard great music from local artists as well as Over the Rhine, David Crowder, Gungor, Vince Anderson — Joey and the boys danced and played as the music filtered over us.

We wandered around and got to chat with Pete Rollins, Mark Scandrette, Phyllis Tickle, Lisa Sharon-Harper from Sojourners.  Had coffee with Brian McLaren and we mused together about our new adventure in Washington DC.  It really was as Frank Schaeffer noted in his own recap, Wild Goose Our Answer to Hate, in the Huffington Post:

“The names of the speakers  added up to a “draw” along with the big name musical performers. But the heart of the festival wasn’t in the events but in the conversations.

For me the highlight of the festival was the fact that there was no wall of separation between us speakers and performers and everyone there. I spent 4 days talking with lots of people from all over America and other places too, about ideas but also about very personal subjects. I met Ramona who was the cook at the Indian food stand and found she is ill and has no health insurance and I was able to connect her with a friend who knew a friend at the WG fest locally to help her get the full checkup she needs. I could do that because the festival was full of the sort of people who help, love and care so for once there was someone to call.”

The list of great things we experienced is hard for me to completely recall, there were so many things:

» Watched the first public reading of Pete Rollins’ new play before it shows in New York.

Drinking beer and discussing theology » Wild Goose Beer Tent

» Met a guy named Michael Camp, who just wrote a book about how his own faith and life was shaped by conversations at the pub: Confessions of a Bible Thumper: My Homebrewed Quest for a Reasoned Faith.  He was interested to hear about my own book on Pub Theology.

» Talked with Milton, a local UCC pastor who is teaching people about the importance of meal and eating together, and how all breaking of bread in some way embodies and reflects the meal we gather around as sacrament.

» Celebrated with friend Phil Snider, fellow Wipf and Stock author, over the publishing of our new books.  By the way, check his out: Preaching After God: Derrida, Caputo, and the Language of Postmodern Homiletics.

» Reconnected with friends met at the Church Planters Academy in Minneapolis: Mike Stavlund, Steve Knight, Susan Phillips, Victoria from Solomon’s Porch, and Rich McCullen, among others.

Was it all perfect?  No.  It was hot!  There were ticks.  There were a couple of long nights getting the kids to bed.  Some sessions didn’t connect like I had hoped.  But in all, it did not disappoint.

Those concerns were minor as we heartily sang hymns while sipping pints of local microbrew during a “Beer and Hymns” session, voices rising with verve (out of tune) with the accompaniment of a tattooed keyboardist.

I met Sean, the owner of Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, NC, after a session entitled: “The Theology of Beer,” which noted the importance of creation, place and celebration in a community, and how a good brewery can be at the heart of community life.  I shared our own experiences at Right Brain and he thought that was pretty cool.

The kids attended sessions where they made play-doh, created crafts, played games, and learned fun new songs: “I’m being eaten by a boa constrictor—and I don’t like it very much!”

We fell asleep each night, with our tent a stone’s throw from the main stage, to late night concerts and the sounds of celebration and conversation, music and singing.

In all, it was a total blast, and we imagined—as we joined the parade the final day, singing with faces painted, “When the Saints Go Marching In”—that when the Kingdom comes in its fullness, we’ve already had a taste.

Saving Institutions 2

Recently Andrew Sullivan noted that “Christianity is in crisis” and encouraged readers to simply follow Jesus and leave church, institution, and organized religion behind.  Forget the church.  Follow Jesus.

Many sympathize with this impulse, as noted in my most recent post.

What, after all, do institutions have to offer us other than a slow process, outdated organization, and mired traditionalism?

Diana Butler Bass, despite her critiques of the institutional church, notes that perhaps things are not as dire as Sullivan imagines.

In a recent column, she noted:

Three deceptively simple questions are at the heart of a spiritually vibrant Christianity–questions of believing, behaving, and belonging.

Religion always entails the “3B’s” of believing, behaving, and belonging. Over the centuries, Christianity has engaged the 3B’s in different ways, with different interrogators and emphases. For the last 300 years or so, the questions were asked as follows:

1) What do I believe? (What does my church say I should think about God?)
2) How should I behave? (What are the rules my church asks me to follow?)
3) Who am I? (What does it mean to be a faithful church member?)

But the questions have changed. Contemporary people care less about what to believe than how they might believe; less about rules for behavior than in what they should do with their lives; and less about church membership than in whose company they find themselves. The questions have become:

1) How do I believe? (How do I understand faith that seems to conflict with science and pluralism?)
2) What should I do? (How do my actions make a difference in the world?)
3) Whose am I? (How do my relationships shape my self-understanding?)

The foci of religion have not changed–believing, behaving, and belonging still matter. But the ways in which people engage each area have undergone a revolution.

As Sullivan rightly points out, political partisanship has exacerbated the crisis of Christianity. But the crisis is much deeper than politics. Much of institutional Christianity is mired in the concerns of the past, still asking what, how, and who when a new set of issues of how, what, and whose are challenging conventional conceptions of faith. The old faith formulations were externally based, questions that could be answered by appealing to a book, authority, creed, or code. The new spiritual longings are internally derived, questions of engagement, authenticity, meaning, and relationship. The old questions required submission and obedience; the new questions require the transformation of our souls.

Far too many churches are answering questions that few people are asking. This has left millions adrift, seeking answers to questions that religious institutions have largely failed to grasp.

But this may be changing. Around the edges of organized religion, the exile Christians have heard the questions and are trying to reform, reimagine, and reformulate their churches and traditions. They are birthing a heart-centered Christianity that is both spiritual and religious. They meet in homes, at coffeehouses, in bars–even in some congregations. They are lay and clergy, wise elders and idealistic hipsters. Some teach in colleges and seminaries. They even hold denominational positions. Not a few have been elected as bishops. The questions are rising from the grassroots up–and, in some cases, the questions are reaching a transformational tipping point.

The crisis is real. Like Andrew Sullivan, I feel its sad and frustrating urgency. But I also know the hope of possibility, for every crisis bears the promise of something new. Endings are also beginnings. Indeed, without death, resurrection is impossible. Imaginative, passionate, faith-filled people are enacting a new-old faith with Jesus and are working to change wearied churches. It is the season of resurrection, and resurrections always surprise.

I would like to share her hope, and that is one of the reasons I continue to work within a denominational context – there are many voices encouraging us to live into this new era of faith and searching, to authentically understand, experience, and embody our faith.

Sullivan notes that Christianity is failing — and failing fast.

Sullivan wonders what–if anything–might come next. He identifies a saint–Francis–as a model for renewal based on “humility, service, and sanctity.” But he also likes a philosopher–Thomas Jefferson–as one who charted a reasonable and moral Christian path. Weaving together spirituality and reason, Sullivan holds out for a resurrected Christianity.

However, he does not know how this might happen: “I have no concrete idea how Christianity will wrestle free of its current crisis.” He intuits that a new Christianity must arise, “not from the head or the gut, but from the soul.” That faith will come through a “new questioning,” by addressing concerns that initiate “radical spiritual change.” But his questions remain somewhat vague, and his answers vaguer.

So is the church finished?  Will the new Christianity be free of institutional baggage?

Butler Bass isn’t so sure:

What Sullivan apparently does not know is that some Christians, from pews, pulpits, and classrooms are asking the right questions–and are working toward a spiritually renewed and intellectually credible Christianity. These new questioners make up what I call America’s “exile” faith communities–the creative but often ignored Christians found in liberal mainline churches, emergent evangelical gatherings, and progressive Catholic circles. With growing awareness over the last two decades, they have been engaging this crisis, listening to the grassroots questions of American religious life, and constructing new patterns and practices of faith.

That is my experience as well, particularly reinforced after a recent church planting conference at Solomon’s Porch where I encountered Lutherans, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, Episcopalians and many, many others living out their faith in new denominational communities.  New life is springing out of the old, yet much work remains.

I asked this question in my last post, and ask it again:  what about you?  What constitutes living, breathing, authentic spirituality?  What role does church or institution play in that?  Does it get in the way?  Is it irrelevant?  Does it have a place?

Saving Institutions

There was a lot of feedback on my latest post, Losing Our Religion.

One that I found of particular interest was from Randy Buist, a graduate of Calvin Seminary and someone who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church, but a decade ago or so, decided to leave.  He said much that I resonate with, and am reposting it here because his was one of the last comments made and it is worth reading to get a perspective on one person who felt that —for the sake of the kingdom— leaving the institution outweighed the benefits of staying.  Give it a read and let me know what you think.

Very well written. Kudos for thoughtfulness with integrity.

Until this article, I was not aware of John’s departure. I read him weekly growing up, and I loved his passion, amazing writing skills and love for the ways of the kingdom. I’m sad for the CRC. I breathe relief for John.

Nearly twenty years ago I finished my course work at Calvin Seminary. Eleven years ago I helped start a little non-CRC house church.

Today I still embrace Calvin College. A reformed world-view is an amazing perspective on life. I won’t give all of it up. Yet. Dordt is outdated and still adhered too. The Heidelberg still damns our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. Our right wing politics support pre-birthed life, but we fail to see our bipolar attitude toward the marginalized whether it be the poor, immigrant without a green card or the homosexual couple wanting to live a committed life together. In other words, the second commandment often is disregarded for Puritan values.

I am also saddened the CRC is losing such an amazing voice. His choice was not his own however. Here is why: First, Calvin Seminary still has predominately systematic theologians teaching in its faculty. Even though they know better, skin is not lost nor tenure potentially not granted for the sake of these issues. There simply isn’t institutional will to risk what could be lost for the sake of saving something greater. As I read the comments, even [certain professors] won’t call the denomination out for bad theological positions. The will to do so largely does not exist.

Secondly, for those of us who love Catholics and embrace gay monogamous partnerships, there is no space for us if we are to be honest with our theology being our guiding force in life.

Thirdly, for those of us called to be evangelists, the rules are often strict. The theological maze of rules become obstacles to living the reflections of the life of Jesus to a hurting and broken world. (Case in point: the new Calvin College president, although Presbyterian, is expected to join the CRC. For God’s sake.Really? For the sake of the Missio Dei, the mission of God, does it really matter?)

Ironically, it doesn’t matter. Yet, to the gatekeepers it does matter. No major voice will have the courage to say otherwise.

Finally, as someone having spent conception through Christian day school through Calvin College, Calvin Seminary, seven years of serving as a youth pastor, and being grateful for my first 34 years of being mentored by amazing CRC people, the past eleven years have challenged me to vistas of the kingdom I would not have seen from most of the CRC’s best peaks.

My connections, encounters and friendships during this decade of time have surpassed my greatest dreams. In the midst of these voices, the cries I hear to pursue justice and mercy as I learned growing up in the CRC have exponentially multiplied.

Today my kingdom theology is in the veins of Leslie Newbigin, NT Wright, George Hunsberger and Craig VanGelder. Most days I am not concerned about bad theology because I am not told that it still matters.

The ways of Jesus and the kingdom of God allow space for justice and mercy, goodness and kindness, thoughtful friendships with heretics and sinners in ways that I never imagined eleven years ago.

For some people the desire to stay and see institutional change may be a tremendous calling. For others of us such as Suk and me, life’s calling is elsewhere.

I can not speak nor write for John. For me, life is too short to spend time saving institutions. These too will pass. I have many friends who know the biblical text, believe Jesus was great, but they want nothing to do with a Saviour. Their views are the result of institutional failures in many cases.

As for me, I’m called to live the kingdom that is here now but not yet fully known. When human institutions get in the way of kingdom stuff, I have a serious problem. Today I find people in West Michigan more willing to converse about the kingdom when they know I am committed to the ways of Jesus but have no institutional ties. While this may be a sad commentary on the institutional church, including the CRC, it is also our current reality.

Will there be a theological call to reform following Suk’s departure? We can hope so, but the theologians are always good at creating spin. We shall hope for a groundswell that becomes a Tsunami, but let’s not hold our breath. Life is too short to hope for change we can not create apart from a groundswell of desire and passion.

Grace & Peace,
Randy

What do you think?  How do you weigh the benefits/costs of institution?  Is a tsunami of change coming?

Of Paths and Prairies, Gods and Tears

Video created by my new Minnesota friends Tory and Rachel.  Reading is an excerpt of Wendell Berry’s “A Native Hill.”

In his interesting book on the collapse of community and the rise of the service industry, The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits, John McKnight begins with a story of a different collapse.  The following is an excerpt:

The story begins as the European pioneers crossed the Alleghenies and started to settle the Midwest.  The land they found was covered with forests.  With great effort they pulled up the trees, pulled up the stumps, and planted their crops in the rich, loamy soil.

When they finally reached the western edge of the place we now call Indiana, the forest stopped and ahead lay a thousand miles of the great grass prairie.  The Europeans were puzzled by this new environment.  Some even called it the Great Desert.  It seemed untillable.

The settlers found that the prairie sod could not be cut with their cast-iron plows, and that the wet earth stuck to their plowshares.  Even a team of the best oxen bogged down after a few yards of tugging.  The iron plow was a useless tool to farm the prairie soil.  The pioneers were stymied for nearly two decades.  Their western march was halted and they filled in the eastern regions of the Midwest.

In 1837, a blacksmith in the town of Grand Detour, Illinois, invented a new tool.  His name was John Deere, and the tool was a plow made of steel.  It was sharp enough to cut through matted grasses and smooth enough to cast off the mud.  It was a simple tool, the “sodbuster,” that opened the great prairies to agricultural development.

Sauk County, Wisconsin is named after the Sauk Indians.  In 1673, Father Marquette was the first European to lay eyes upon their land.  He found a village laid out in regular patterns on a plain beside the Wisconsin River.  He called the place Prairie du Sac.  The village was surrounded by fields that had provided maize, beans, and squash for the Sauk people for generations reaching back into unrecorded time.

When the European settlers arrived at the Sauk Prairie in 1837, the government forced the native Sauk people west of the Mississippi River.  The settlers came with John Deere’s new invention and used the tool to open the area to a new kind of agriculture.  They ignored the traditional ways of the Sauk Indians and used their sodbusting tool for planting wheat.

Initially, the soil was generous and the farmers thrived.  However, each year the soil lost more of its nurturing power.  It was only thirty years after the Europeans arrived with their new technology that the land was depleted.  Wheat farming became uneconomical and tens of thousands of farmers left Wisconsin seeking new land with sod to bust.

It took the Europeans and their new technology just one generation to make their homeland into a desert.  The Sauk Indians, who knew how to sustain themselves on the Sauk Prairie, were banished to another kind of desert called a reservation.  And even they forgot about the techniques and tools that had sustained them on the prairie for generations.

And that is how it was that three deserts were created: Wisconsin, the reservation, and the memories of a people.

A century and a half later, the land of the Sauks is now populated by the children of a second wave of European farmers who learned to replenish the soil through the regenerative powers of dairying, ground-cover crops, and animal manures.  These third- and fourth-generation farmers and townspeople do not realize, however, that a new settler is coming soon with an invention as powerful as John Deere’s plow.

The new technology is called “bereavement counseling.”  It is a tool forged at the great state university, an innovative technique to meet the needs of those experiencing the death of a loved one, a tool that can “process” the grief of the people who now live on the Prairie of the Sauk.

As one can imagine the final days of the village of the Sauk Indians before the arrival of the settlers with John Deere’s plow, one can also imagine these final days before the arrival of the first bereavement counselor at Prairie du Sac.  In these final days, the farmers and the townspeople mourn the death of a mother, brother, son, or friend.  The bereaved are joined by neighbors and kin.  They meet grief together in lamentation, prayer, and song.  They call upon the words of the clergy and surround themselves with community.

It is in these ways that they grieve and then go on with life.  Through their mourning they are assured of the bonds between them and renewed in the knowledge that this death is a part of the past and the future of the people on the Prairie of the Sauk.  Their grief is common property, an anguish from which the community draws strength and which gives it the courage to move ahead.

Into this prairie community the bereavement counselor arrives with the new grief technology.  The counselor calls the intervention a service and assures the prairie folk of its effectiveness and superiority by invoking the name of the great university while displaying a diploma and license.

At first, we can imagine that the local people will be puzzled by the bereavement counselor’s claims.  However, the counselor will tell a few of them that the new technique is merely to assist the bereaved’s community at the time of death.  To some other prairie folk who are isolated or forgotten, the counselor will offer help in grief processing.  These lonely souls will accept the intervention, mistaking the counselor for a friend.

For those who are penniless, the counselor will approach the County Board and advocate the “right to treatment” for these unfortunate souls.  This right will be guaranteed by the Board’s decision to reimburse those too poor to pay for counseling services.

There will be others, schooled to believe in the innovative new tools certified by universities and medical centers, who will seek out the bereavement counselor by force of habit.  And one of these people will tell a bereaved neighbor who is unschooled that unless his grief is processed by a counselor, he will probably have major psychological problems later in life.

Finally, one day the aged father of a local woman will die.  And the next-door neighbor will not drop by because he doesn’t want to interrupt the bereavement counselor.  The woman’s kin will stay home because they will have learned that only the bereavement counselor knows how to process grief in the proper way.  The local clergy will seek technical assistance from the bereavement counselor to learn the correct form of service to deal with guilt and grief.  And the grieving daughter will know that it is the bereavement counselor who really cares for her, because only the bereavement counselor appears when death visits this family on the Prairie of the Sauk.

It will be only one generation between the time the bereavement counselor arrives and the disappearance of the community of mourners.  The counselor’s new tool will cut through the social fabric, throwing aside kinship, care, neighborly obligations, and community ways of coming together and going on.  Like John Deere’s plow, the tools of bereavement counseling will create a desert where a community once flourished.

And finally, even the bereavement counselor will see the impossibility of restoring hope in clients once they are genuinely alone, with nothing but a service for a consolation.  In the inevitable failure of the service, the bereavement counselor will find the desert even in herself.

The professional co-optation of community efforts to invent appropriate techniques for citizens to care in the community has been pervasive.  We need to identify the characteristics of those social forms that are resistant to colonization by service technologies while enabling communities to cultivate care.  These authentic social forms are characterized by three basic dimensions:  They tend to be uncommodified, unmanaged, and uncurricularized.

The tools of the bereavement counselor have made grief into a commodity rather than an opportunity for community.  Service technologies convert conditions into commodities, and care into service.  [note: this is only one example of a professionalized service industry, and McKnight goes into others in more detail]

How will we learn again to cultivate community?  E. F. Schumacher concluded that “the guidance we need. . . can still be found in the traditional wisdom.”  Therefore we can return to those who understand how to allow the Sauk Prairie to bloom and sustain a people.

One of their leaders, a chief of the Sauk, was named Blackhawk.  After his people were exiled to the land west of the Mississippi and their resistance movement was broken at the Battle of Bad Axe, Blackhawk said of the prairie:

There, we always had plenty; our children never cried from hunger, neither were our people in want.  The rapids of our river furnished us with an abundance of excellent fish and the land, being very fertile, never failed to produce good crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and squash.  Here our village stood for more than a hundred years.  Our village was healthy and there was no place in the country possessing such advantages, nor hunting grounds better than ours.  If a prophet had come to our village in those days and told us that the things were to take place which have since come to pass, none of our people would have believed the prophecy.

But the settlers came with their new tools and the prophecy was fulfilled.  One of Blackhawk’s Wintu sisters described the result:

The white people never cared for land or deer or bear.  When we kill meat, we eat it all.  When we dig roots, we make little holes.  When we build houses, we make little holes.  When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don’t ruin things.  We shake down acorns and pinenuts.  We don’t chop down trees.  We only use dead weed.  But the whites plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything.
The tree says, “Don’t.  I am sore.  Don’t hurt me!”  But they chop it down and cut it up.
The spirit of the land hates them.  They blast out trees and stir it up to its depths.  They saw up the trees.  That hurts them. . .  They blast rocks and scatter them on the ground.  The rock says, “Don’t.  You are hurting me!”  But the while people pay no attention.  When [we] use rocks, we take only little round ones for cooking. . . .
How can the spirit of the earth like the white man?  Everywhere they have touched the earth, it is sore.

Blackhawk and his Wintu sister tell us that the land has a Spirit.  Their community on the prairie, their ecology, was a people guided by that Spirit.

When John Deere’s people came to the Sauk Prairie, they exorcised the Prairie Spirit in the name of a new god, Technology.  Because it was a god of their making, they believed they were gods.

And they made a desert.

There are incredible possibilities if we are willing to fail to be gods.

Church Planters Academy Highlights 2

Tonight’s portion was on failure in church planting — Rich McCullen (Missiongathering), Mike Stavlund (Common Table), and Mark Scandrette (ReImagine).

“We should write the eulogies for our churches every single day.”

“How do you make attractive that which is not? How do you sell emptiness, vulnerability, and nonsuccess? How do you talk descent when everything is about ascent? How can you possibly market letting-go in a capitalist culture? How do you present Jesus to a Promethean mind? How do you talk about dying to a church trying to appear perfect? This is not going to work  (admitting this might be my first step).”

~ Richard Rohr, “The Inherent Unmarketability of Authentic Christianity”

Here’s a taste:

   
exchangeWinc RT @Skypilot917: Be a student of the place you are serving. #cpa2012 -9:45 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
viqui_dill RT @relyalma RT @happyemm: Instead of building, think of gardening. What can grow here? What’s already flowering even w/o tending? #cpa2012 -9:42 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
rockinrev RT @RevAndrewWong: “Only those who have been wounded by power learn to wield it responsibly.” #cpa2012 -9:18 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
mmartella RT @trans4m: “I think there’s a way for us to do great and beautiful things as human beings, not as production units.” –@MToy #cpa2012 -8:58 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
Skypilot917 Be a student of the place you are serving. #cpa2012 -8:56 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
ireverant RT @kansasprarierev: Unless a grain falls to the ground and dies, it bears no fruit… #cpa2012 -8:56 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
happyemm Continuing the gardening metaphor: let the field lie fallow, and see what still grows. #cpa2012 -8:52 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon #cpa2012 church starting should be a rolling release of beta versions #geekspeakcontinues -8:52 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer We thought in terms of two month chunks of experimentation. @markscandrette #cpa2012 -8:50 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
The_B_C Key question for church planting: what grows here?#cpa2012 -8:49 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
carlgregg Instead of “building” w/ hammer and nails, maybe gardening metaphor better: “What grows here?” #ParableOfSower#CPA2012 -8:49 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
scottrsimmons RT @abbykk: how is failure reframed by experience of resurrection? #cpa2012 -8:47 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon The only thing untweetable at #cpa2012: how much $$$ was spent on mailers -8:45 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
MHMorgan Instead of building something big…we instead find what will grow here. #CPA2012 -8:49 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
annawoof Thanks to @markscandrette for his honesty and words on identity. #cpa2012 http://t.co/5ObEA3YV -8:47 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
revsusan RT @nanettesawyer: “God was probably more interested in what I was becoming rather than what I was doing.” MarkScandrette #cpa2012 -8:43 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
megsande If you’re not doing what God has called you to do…you’re going to fail. #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
brc_live “So many people need to know that they are loved by God . . . and that’s why we do what we do.” – Rich McCullen #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
ireverant it just got real #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
The_B_C RT @RevAndrewWong: Don’t try to build your church on cool, hip people. They suck.” #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
megsande People need to know that they are loved by God.#cpa2012 -8:20 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer RT @seattlerev: “Maybe we should base the success of our churches, not on longevity, but on impact.” —@MikeStavlund #cpa2012 -8:07 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
scottrsimmons #cpa2012 What would it look like if we spoke of the church not in terms of success/failure but faithfulness/unfaithfulness… -8:07 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
RevAndrewWong Starting a church with a chip on your shoulder…not a good idea. #cpa2012 -8:06 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
shawnabowman RT @MHMorgan: If something is not working let it die. #CPA2012 -8:05 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
abbykk Write the eulogy of our churches’ everyday. –@MikeStavlund All churches. Not just church plants. #CPA2012 -7:57 PM May 3rd, 2012

There was so much more!  That’s just a taste.  Terrific, raw, honest stuff from those three fellas.

And this was day one of the conference!

For more go to:  http://tweetchat.com/room/CPA2012#

Highlights from Funding the Missional Church

Attending a conference in Minneapolis entitled, “Funding the Missional Church”.  It’s been inspiring, challenging and very fun.  Great to meet so many people who are seeking to create unique, engaging communities of Christ followers.

Here’s a few highlights:

   
shawnabowman authority is not the issue, but how you use it. Keel#funding2012 -10:25 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
shawnabowman what if [meeting consumer needs] is not why we gather? Keel #funding2012 -10:21 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
rawlingswright “It’s not so much what we are doing, it’s how are we resourcing people to think differently about their lives” – Tim Keel#funding2012 -10:20 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
rawlingswright “the people who give the most are the least demanding” (generally). a lot of nodding in the room. interesting#funding2012 -10:13 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer “the progressive surrender of everything we know of ourselves to everything we know of God.” Tim Keel #funding2012 -10:08 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
brie_marie Sad. “excommunication” because of loving people.#funding2012 -9:31 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
rawlingswright hearing about someone possibly losing her ordination for being loving and welcoming of all God’s children is heartbreaking. #funding2012 -9:27 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
seattlerev What are innovative stories of sustainable missional communities that we can share w/ each other? #funding2012 -7:22 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
ireverant @seattlerev I served a missional church that survived b/c of its thrift shop min. Now I’m working on a coffee house-funded min #funding2012 -1:03 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
trans4m “If u don’t have a history of getting people to do crazy stuff, then u probably shouldn’t b starting a church”@SarcasticLuther #funding2012 -4:57 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg #Skunkworks: high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy. #funding2012 -4:53 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg #Skunkworks: small, loosely structured group who develop a project for sake of radical innovation. #funding2012 -4:53 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
shawnabowman Heads up #chipres this is what we need for church plants: skunkworks money: http://t.co/RCgUSfVl #funding2012 -4:53 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer “skunkworks” money. Need to look that up.#funding2012 -4:52 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
bryberg @SarcasticLuther – Nadia Bolz-Weber: “I don’t care shit about what you’re imagining – I care about what you’re actually doing.” #Funding2012 -4:51 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
brie_marie @ChrisAgne some of us just ignore the rules…#funding2012 -4:46 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
ChrisAgne To be missional in a denomination, you have to renegotiate the rules. #funding2012 -4:44 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
FBCPaloAlto RT @nanettesawyer: “willing to go thru death and resurrection a lot” at House for All Sinners and Saints.#funding2012 -4:44 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
knightopia @scottrsimmons The big shift is God’s mission is bigger than the Church. The Church is j/privileged to participate.#missional #funding2012 -4:38 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
brie_marie Electronic bill pay only works if your audience has computers and the internet. Must know your audience.#funding2012 -3:06 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg @P3T3RK3Y5 I got idea from St. Gregory of Nyssa in SF: “Dialogue completes the sermon.” #SermonTalkback #funding2012-3:06 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg @P3T3RK3Y5 Every Sunday, we have ~15 minute sermon, 2 minutes silence, then 15 minute open dialogue. #funding2012 -3:02 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
jonestony RT @carlgregg: Don’t believe people who tell you they don’t need to be thankful. Seriously: THANK THEM. #funding2012 -2:50 PM May 2nd, 2012

That’s just a taste!  Great stuff.  We are wrapping up today and then on to the Church Planters Academy at Solomon’s Porch.

Master and Apprentice

“Always two there are, master and apprentice.” ~ Yoda

On Sunday at Watershed we looked at John 5:19-20 and saw it as a ‘parable of apprenticeship.’  (Wes Howard-Brook)

Jesus watching the Father to see how he acts, and to act likewise in the world.

watching, learning, doing

We noted that throughout history, fathers have taught their sons a particular trade.

NT Wright notes:

“This is becoming more rare today in the Western world, but there are still plenty of places where it is the normal and expected thing for sons to follow fathers into the family business.  And, particularly where the business involves working at a skilled trade with one’s hands, apprenticeship means literally being side by side, with the son watching every move that the father makes and learning to do it in exactly the same way.  That is how many traditional skills are handed down from generation to generation, sometimes over hundreds of years.”

Listen to John 5:19-20 in light of this:

Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.  For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”

NT Wright notes that Jesus is explaining more fully how it is that Israel’s God is working in a new way, and how he, Jesus is watching carefully to see how it’s being done, so as to do it alongside the father and in keeping with his style and plan.

This is exactly what Jesus has said earlier in v.17:  “My father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working.”

In my reading this morning at the home of my new Minnesota couchsurfing friends (though I guess I’m the one who’s couchsurfing!), I came across Mark Scandrette’s Practicing the Way of Jesus.  (Apparently he’ll be at the conference later this week).

An appropriate book in light of what we studied together on Sunday.  Here’s a taste from the first chapter:

“In a holistically-oriented culture, skeptical people are less convinced by purely rational arguments about why Christianity is true, and more curious to see whether Christian belief and practice actually make a positive difference in the character of a person’s life.  Knowing the transformational promise of the gospel, it is fair to ask whether a person who claims to have a relationship with Jesus exhibits more peace and less stress, handles crisis with more grace, experiences less fear and anxiety, manifests more joy, is overcoming anger and their addictions or compulsions, enjoys more fulfilling relationships, exercises more compassion, lives more consciously or loves more boldly.  In any culture, but especially in one that yearns for holistic integration, the most compelling argument for the validity of the Christian faith is a community that practices the way of Jesus by seeking a life together in the kingdom of love (John 13:35).

And yet, a tremendous gap exists in our society between the way of radical love embodied and taught by Jesus and the reputation and experience of the average Christian.  We simply aren’t experiencing the kind of whole-person transformation that we instinctively long for (and that a watching world expects to see).

This suggests the need for a renewed understanding of the gospel and more effective approaches to discipleship.  Though our understanding of the gospel is becoming more holistic, our most prevalent formation practices don’t fully account for this.  We can be frustrated by this gap and become critics, or be inspired by a  larger vision of the kingdom and get creative.

I believe what is needed,   in this transitional era, are communities of experimentation — creative spaces where we have permission to ask questions and take risks together to practice the Way.”

If you haven’t read Scandrette’s book – pick up a copy, or borrow a friend’s.  Hoping to get a copy for the Watershed library!

Love to hear thoughts/reactions on what it means for us to be apprentices, disciples, to be those who live in the way of Jesus, and don’t just talk about it.

STATION: Lectio

Sacred Reading

History

Lectio Divina is the Latin for ‘Holy Reading’ and was a form and approach to praying with Scripture that was common among medieval religious orders. The value of Lectio Divina was rediscovered in the twentieth century.

Essentially Lectio Divina involves taking a short passage of Scripture and pondering it. This can be done alone or in a group, and normally involves prolonged periods of silence.

 

Instructions

 

Choose a reader.  The reader will read the text through four times, slowly, with a time of silence between each reading.  Allow the words to wash over you.  Be present.  What is God saying to you right here and now?  Open yourself to His Words.

From the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John:

 

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.  Where can you get this living water?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water. . .”

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