January Newsletter
December 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
“Will you pray for us tonight Mark?” She asked the room.
Silence.
“Are you asking me to pray for us tonight?” I responded.
“Yes.”
“Ok. But before I start I want to say my name is Matt.”
This was the scene this past Monday as I prayed before the meal at the Lebanon Soup Kitchen. It hadn’t been long since I started serving every Monday and it is understandable that my name was lost in the shuffle that is Monday night. Normally I arrive at 4:15pm to the wonderful smell of food that has been cooking all day and begin to help by pouring the milk for the diners to grab after they get their food. After doing this we all stand around in clumsy circle and wait for Janet to pray for our meal, our service in community, and for those who will partake in the food the volunteers have prepared. Janet, the soup kitchen coordinator, wasn’t there this week so the praying instantly fell to the pastor in room. Except only one person knew I am a pastor and she was the one who asked. Normally I like to put thought into my prayers, but I was caught off guard so I led us out in a feeble short prayer, nothing like the one Janet offers.
Afterwards, we broke into our jobs, worked swiftly but efficiently for the next hour as people poured in from the cold rainy conditions, grabbed something to eat, and enjoyed the warmth within the church hall. This week a young man from church played Christmas hymns on the piano as people ate and I couldn’t help but sing along looking at the people whom we were serving, people who might know more intimately what a “Silent Night” feels like when there is no room in the inn. I couldn’t help but imagine what side of the table we might find Jesus on in this situation. Of course Jesus fed the poor so he would be helping right? But he also was without a home, an itinerant preacher, who seemed to wander with people like the ones I was serving. Would he be outside waiting to be invited in while I offered up a feeble prayer within the empty hall? And I remember the words of Matthew 25 in which the those gathered ask “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?” only to have the response be, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Lost in the wondering of what it all means, I can forget that answer. Christ is here amongst the poor and that even in feeble prayers before a short time of volunteering I have a chance to do something for the least of His brothers, and in that sense, I am doing it for him.
Forgiveness defined
October 4th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
One of the primary tasks I have taken up in pastoral ministry is helping people think through and understand a larger picture of the gospel. I think when I left seminary I felt as Karl Barth did in his first pastorate, albeit in a different way. When Barth came to his first pastorate he felt he lacked the tools to preach to the people because he was entrenched in the historical critical method and liberal theology. When I left seminary I don’t think I was entrenched in either of those things as much as I had become wise to know that the the church had very little idea of what the gospel actually is, and the one many people have been familiar with has been very harmful to some and too small for others.
However, the congregants wouldn’t let me off so easy. They were willing to accept that maybe there were other ways to talk about the gospel, but they actually wanted to know what they were. Feeling myself at a lack of words I have set on a path to discover how as an orthodox, postliberal, white middle-class (and aware of that), Anabaptist, (postmodern-ish) seminary-educated, post-evangelical male I might actually talk about the gospel instead of just critiquing others versions of it.
So, I began to reflect upon the words of Anabaptist missiologist Wilbert Shenk. Wilbert told us our last day of class, “What is the Gospel? That is the question you should always be asking.” And then before finishing with this point he stated, “Never write an article about it.” I think I have done my best to keep in mind those thoughts as I attempt to keep asking that question which is in front of me.
But this blog post began as a way to point towards an excellent article in this month’s Christianity Today (link forthcoming, it’s only in print right now) How Far Should Forgiveness Go? by Christine A. Scheller. As I rethink through the gospel one of the words that has been on my mind is forgiveness and how we conceive of it in a better way. This article is stirring, personal, and theological that has written exactly what I hope the church would come to say and struggle with as we talk about forgiveness. Here is the ending for you while I wait for the online edition to link too:
“Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever-deepening friendship with the triune God and with others. As such, a Christian account of forgiveness ought not to simple or even be focused on an absolution of guilt; rather it ought to be focused on the reconciliation of brokenness, the restoration of communion—with God, with one another, and with the whole creation. Indeed, because of the pervasiveness of sin and evil, Christian forgiveness must be at once an expression of commitment to a way of life, the cruciform life of holiness in which we seek to “unlearn” sin and learn the ways of God, and a means of seeking reconciliation in the midst of particular sin, specific instances of brokenness.” (From Embodying Forgiveness by L. Gregory Jones.)
Each of us lives in the midst of particular sins and specific instances of brokenness. And each of us must choose how we will respond. Living a life of holiness and learning the ways of God sometimes means letting go of our need for justice and instead embracing a world that groans in anticipation of the day when it, and we, will be redeemed. It means accepting with humility that God alone is good.
September Newsletter
August 30th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Many of you asked for the Bonheoffer quote I used in my last sermon and I thought the best way to get that out would be in the church newsletter. The following is from the Cost of Discipleship and I think it is clear presentation of the difference between what we might call “cultural Christianity” and the call to discipleship. As we have gone through the gospel of Luke this year we have preached on several of the harder passages of Jesus and I think Bonheoffer nails how Christ is calling us to a much deeper faith through those passages. If you are interested I would encourage you to read The Cost of Discipleship, but also released this year was a massive, but readable, biography on Bonheoffer by Eric Metaxas. Through reading about him we can come to understand how this distinction between Cheap and Costly Grace was manifest in his life.
Hipster Christianity
August 13th, 2010 § 4 Comments
Today Kelli and I had fun figuring out which of the portraits of Hipster Christianity we are and we couldn’t decide between the two posted below. Brett McCracken has been working for what seems like a couple of years on his book Hipster Christianity and this month it has gotten a giant ramp-up with the release of the book. The characterizations are funny, but I often wonder what purpose they serve. I know he thinks he is breaking down what is “cool” versus “real” (according to his Wall Street Journal article) but I have a hard time seeing this kind of project as productive towards that because it bleeds cool. Read his blog, the webpage for the book, and even the marketing format they have chosen and you can see this book is meant to be another tack-on for the person who can now say “yeah that church is cool, but it isn’t real.” I haven’t read the book and to be honest, I am not sure I will (I’ll stick with the original hipster Karl Barth) but I would be more interested in hearing him talk about how someone might hear the Word of God proclaimed and respond in our churches today than see caricatures, nice webpage’s, and the call for something “real”. It’s all fun and games to come with these portraits, but I think if he really wants to tackle where the church is today he will find, like many of us have, that it won’t involve a book contract, a highly trafficked webpage, and manufactured images, but will rather involve the long silent unnoticed laboring of seeking to proclaim and live the gospel in the world. When he gets around to that I’ll buy that book.
June Newsletter
May 26th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Not sure why I am not writing as much lately but hopefully I will get back on track at some point. Anyways here is my June Newsletter about a youth ministry conference I attended in Seattle.
Advice from Hauerwas
March 9th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Never lie. Never Lie.
And you’ll discover that is hard work. And part of what it means not to lie is to preach truthfully and what it means to preach truthfully is to preach in manner that you expect God to show up because the Word has been proclaimed. As soon as you hear a minster say, “As my six year old was saying” you know its going to BS. Because its going to insight on the human condition that anyone could have at the Kiwanis club. What it means to preach truthfully and not to lie is to be willing to say when you don’t know what needs to be said…”But that we do see Jesus. We are not sure we know what needs to be said. If I said more than that I would be lying to you. But we do see Jesus.”
I also of course think it is very important to see Jesus in the body and blood of Christ… That won’t make us more faithful but at least God promised to kill us if we do it unworthily or at least make us sick. And I figure that that’s better than dying of boredom. If we return to Eucharistic celebration in a serious manner who knows what God would do with that. What it means to be a Christian is very simple. It means you worship Jesus. But it forces a extraordinary intellectual and moral challenge and we need to be people confident that God will help us speak and live appropriate to the speech we have been given. What I hope we do in the divinity school is give you confidence that you can use the language of the faith, Jesus is Lord without apology. Because if you do that God will show up and scare the hell out of you.
I know that I said I wouldn’t post aimless quotes here but at the tumblr instead but I broke that rule with this one. I think it’s because this quote seems anything but aimless.
Youth Ministry?
February 23rd, 2010 § 4 Comments
“Youth groups destroy children’s lives,” Fitch told me.
David Fitch is a pastor and writer who I respect, and I must admit I laughed out loud when I read that quote. First off I knew it was kind of an outrageous quote to begin with, so you can see in the comments that’s not exactly what he means. Second, I think David is right in the sense that segregating youth off to a different room, entertaining them and “challenging” them, then sending them to college with very little integration into adulthood (even though in most youth groups they are baptized full members of the church), is just giving kids a simplistic version of the faith does that can actually destroy their spiritual lives. During my time at MHGS it was hard to hear the consistent stories of what my friends where actually taught and expected to believe in
their youth groups.
Last week Christian Century raised a concern about youth groups with an article titled, Is Youth Ministry Killing the Church? Kate Murphy, who served as youth minster, wonders if we are just ministering youth right out of the church. By separating our youth from the church and entertaining them we may be doing little more than leading them anyway from the church. She writes:
Kenda Creasy Dean and others warn that when our children and youth ministries ghettoize young people, we run the risk of losing them after high school graduation….Over the years I’ve worked with young people as passionate and serious about their faith…I think I’ve done youth ministry with integrity. But I may have been unintentionally disconnecting kids from the larger body of Christ. The young people at my current congregation—a church that many families would never join because “it doesn’t have anything for youth”—are far more likely to
remain connected to the faith and become active church members as adults, because that’s what they already are and always have been.
But the more I think about youth ministry I think we really face the challenge that we are ministering them to the mega-church. If we minister to them to experience a complacent faith that is primarily about what they want when they do leave the church they will most likely be drawn to mega expressions of it that requires little from them. Most of the visions of the faith we are giving them is one that is primarily about them. However, I believe most youth will find this unconvincing in college and seek out something other than the Christian faith. Christianity Today has always written recently about the shape of youth ministry and I found this particular interview with Kara Powell helpful.
What other issues do teens face that make student ministry important?
There is a strong link between kids staying in church and their involvement in intergenerational relationships and worship. A couple of important things are going on during adolescence.
First, teens are in a quest to figure out their identity. They tend to try on different identities in different spheres, which leaves them feeling like they live somewhat fragmented lives—they’re one person on the soccer field, another person in school, another person on Facebook, and still another person at church and at home. Autonomy is a second major focus of an adolescent’s quest. "How do I make decisions apart from my parents?" The third is significance. So teens are asking, "Who am I? Where do I fit in? What difference does my life make?" In a sense, those issues are relevant to all ages, but the flame is turned up under those questions during adolescence.
Here I think we find a more complete picture of what is going on with youth, but I am just not sure intergenerational worship is the solve all, as this article proposes it is. If you think about some of Christianity’s relations to these questions in Youth ministry it’s not hard to see how we have failed in this regard. For some Christianity just becomes another personality that gives an identity that often has little to do with any other part of their lives. Although my favorite and what I consider perhaps the most insightful line to consider is this:
Tenth graders study Shakespeare. What are we offering them at church? Nothing comparable to Shakespeare.
It might be fair to say that most 10th graders aren’t all the interested in Shakespeare as they advance in education and deeper into culture, but they most certainly find something to appreciate that leads them to believe that much of what they learned at church isn’t as beautiful or as compelling. But the church, I believe, has one of the most beautiful compelling stories in the world and yet somehow for all ages we have found a way to make that and boring prosaic.
Thinking with Lindbeck
January 9th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Looking back at seminary it would be hard to name the thinker who had the most influence on me, but someone who must be named in the conversation is George Lindbeck. For instance, his thoughts came up this morning while I was reading this article in the New York Times. One of the most remarkable lines from the article reminds me of one of the more prominent discussions that kept coming up at MHGS. Ethan Watters writes:
Behind the promotion of Western ideas of mental health and healing lie a variety of cultural assumptions about human nature. Westerners share, for instance, evolving beliefs about what type of life event is likely to make one psychologically traumatized, and we agree that venting emotions by talking is more healthy than stoic silence. We’ve come to agree that the human mind is rather fragile and that it is best to consider many emotional experiences and mental states as illnesses that require professional intervention. (The National Institute of Mental Health reports that a quarter of Americans have diagnosable mental illnesses each year.) The ideas we export often have at their heart a particularly American brand of hyperintrospection — a penchant for “psychologizing” daily existence. These ideas remain deeply influenced by the Cartesian split between the mind and the body, the Freudian duality between the conscious and unconscious, as well as the many self-help philosophies and schools of therapy that have encouraged Americans to separate the health of the individual from the health of the group. These Western ideas of the mind are proving as seductive to the rest of the world as fast food and rap music, and we are spreading them with speed and vigor.
What Mr. Watters so clearly shows in this article is that mental health and psychology are products of their environments and the goals (ie what is seen as healthy) clearly stem from very western mind sets about the notion of the self and “health.” While most of the people I went to seminary would agree with his general premise, that it is wrong to export this stuff to different cultures because of the colonizing nature of such an enterprise, thinking with Lindbeck gives rise to a different set of questions. What Mr. Watters sees as marks of different cultures (notions of the self, dualities, health of individuals over the group) is exactly what Lindbeck thinks we should be taking away from our religions (which he conceives of in cultural-linguistic terms). Christianity (or fill in the blank religion) clearly has different answers to many of the question we must answer before we begin on the road of mental health and while Christianity has largely not made this clear the rise of Christian counselors as a class (and in some places even a vocation) seems to further continue this colonization of the mind rather than combat it. But Lindbeck would be clear that buying into the Western answers from the get go lead us away from finding how our religion might encompass our world and teach us different patterns of existence that might not rely on earlier cultural constructions.
Mr. Watters ends his articles with thoughts that point to what Lindbeck is referring to and the questions that must be asked if Christianity and world’s religions are capable of sustaining meaning in the face of such a totalizing narrative.
Some philosophers and psychiatrists have suggested that we are investing our great wealth in researching and treating mental illness — medicalizing ever larger swaths of human experience — because we have rather suddenly lost older belief systems that once gave meaning and context to mental suffering. If our rising need for mental-health services does indeed spring from a breakdown of meaning, our insistence that the rest of the world think like us may be all the more problematic. Offering the latest Western mental-health theories, treatments and categories in an attempt to ameliorate the psychological stress sparked by modernization and globalization is not a solution; it may be part of the problem. When we undermine local conceptions of the self and modes of healing, we may be speeding along the disorienting changes that are at the very heart of much of the world’s mental distress.
That thing
January 6th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
One of the things the church has found so much time to talk about, with so little to say, is human sexuality. I don’t care if we are talking to about liberal, mainline, or evangelical, Christians talk so much about sex, but seldom is anything of interest shared. One prominent blogger laments:
I’m currently on year two in my current position as Minister for Youth & Young Adults, and while we talked about sex for one month during Sunday School, that’s still only four times in over a year and a half. Four times. I wonder if they are getting information about sex from other sources throughout their weeks? I’d guess that they hear TONS of wrong/bad/unhelpful/unsafe information about sex at school – a lot more than four times a day…
I haven’t quite found it necessary to keep track how often a church talks about sex, but by talking about it too much can reduce Jesus to just that? Can we get so wrapped up in exploring sexuality that we lose the importance of Christ?
