Things you might see if you wander around Detroit

One thing about Detroit is that it has unique features you might not find in other cities.  Other places don't necessarily have so many interesting sites. And this is all in an afternoon.

Where else can you move into an abandoned building today just by calling a number.

Where else can you find a church named after the pastor?

I grew up driving by crosses on the side of the road at most sharp turns.  Thismemorial takes it to a whole new level.  It is in memory of a girl who died two months ago when she crashed into this tree.  Apparently they brought out all her belongings and stapled them to this tree. 

When opportunity knocks...

2 Thessalonians 3:1 "Pray that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you."

"There is great opportunity right now for the church to spread the word of God in the world and to bring those who are in darkness into light."

I am convinced that this statement is true, not just now, but always. We live in a broken world full of broken people...broken people who want to be made whole. I have been thinking a lot about this recently, and I think that if these people can't find the way to truth, the problem isn't them, it is the church. If we aren't connecting with people, we're not using the right words.

The Word of God is eternal--but the vast majority of what the church does to connect to the world isn't directly mandated in the Word. I am not aware of a directive that says this is what the church should look like--other than; it should be the temple of the Holy Spirit, the bride of Christ, the children of God in one body, united in worship. But the worldly part of us wants to be right, and wants to be in charge. We want everyone to look like us(whoever us may be). And so when the church reaches out to the world I think we try to transform the world into the image of our fathers rather than the image of our Father.

There are a lot of calls to lots of things in the Bible. But as far as I know there isn't anywhere in the Bible where it says that you have to sing a couple songs then pass the offering plate, then have a sermon then sing another song, and all stand up and sit down on cue. There also isn't any place in the Bible that I am aware of that it says that we should divide the church along racial and economic lines. I'm just sayin is all...

But back to my original point. There is a great task and opportunity to sow and reap. Now. But the church has to be willing to reach out to people who wouldn't be caught dead in most churches in this country. It has to be willing to reexamine what it means to worship. and ask the questions: Is the performance we put on every Sunday morning enough? Are we called to be a theater? Or is there something more we should be aiming for?

Don't get me wrong. The message can't change. The gospel is for all time. And the Word is eternal. But it just seems like sometimes we get the delivery all wrong.

Hey Jude

I'm just going to keep going. I don't know if It'll ever make it to publication. But let me preface this with "I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm just writing what I've been thinking about the last few days.

These men take the truth of God and twist it so that they can use it to heap abuse on others.

So here are some more things Jude says

6. They have taken the way of Cain:
I understand this to mean, holding the best of everything for myself, and offering God what is left over
7. they have rushed for profit into Baalam's error
That is using whatever spiritual gifts and authority I have to bring profit to myself.
8. They have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion
I think this means that they have grasped at spiritual authority that is not theirs, and attempted to speak for God what he has not spoken

Then there is a whole list of descriptions that I don't have the wisdom to decipher. shepherds that feed only themselves, clouds without rain blown along by the wind, autumn treas, without fruit and uprooted twice dead, wild waves of the sea, wandering stars

So as I look at the church leadership that I have witnessed, I see the public voice of the church particularly engaging in 7 and 8, leaders profiting off their positions and gifts and attempting to grasp at temporal power by claiming to speak for God. Consider two examples:

7. People who use the gift of music that God gave them to write worship songs and profit off them. If you want to sing most worship songs at a church service have to pay the person who wrote the song, and the company that collects the money, and the recording company. A similar thing can be said about books. If you write a book to help people grow spiritually, shouldn't you offer it free online?

8. People who "speak for God" and claim that they know what political party God is rooting for. Strangely pastors of large churches who get involved in politics seem to get invited to be the president's spiritual adviser, or to sit on committees or to pray at inaugural addresses or whatever.

When I read 6 I think of the face of Christianity in this country. The vast mass of wealth that walls itself off and does its best to keep the poor people out. That keeps 95 % of its wealth and almost all of its best time for itself. Who has time to go help poor people, or preach the Word in love-I've got a job to do.

I recognize the irony here. I am of course guilty of the very thing I railed against in my last post on the subject. I apologize. Let me be clear though--I think this is just as much an indictment of myself as anyone else.

On nationality

So Steven wrote some time ago about the experience of being an American in Russia (which would probably be a bit more tense now than it was just a few months ago).

He wrote "So then, I told her, what separates us? Legal fictions, Bokononian categories that hinder intimacy. We have said, and shall always say, that we who know Jesus have more in common with an Iraqi Christian than with an American non-Christian. We must come at others with these two categories in mind only, no supremacy, no victory. Just those IN CHRIST who will fellowship on that level."


I think Steven, that you are correct. When I first began to travel, I found myself often trying to defend the actions of the United States. Now that I understand that I have more incommon with a Christian from any country than an American who isn't a Christian, I can say..."I don't agree with that." And I can claim my citizenship in the kingdom of heaven to say, "the false reality you call 'the United States' does not define what I think or do and is not a real pert of my identity in Christ."


Anyway...I've said enough

Independance Day

A couple years ago, the fourth of July fell close to a Sunday. Adrienne and I went to a church in Tucson we had been told was deficient in preaching and music, but had great fellowship (we went four times and no one even acknowledged our existence). The whole service was geared towards the celebration of the fourth of July. We sang God Bless America, and America the Beautiful...the sermon was about how God has blessed this great country...

At Willow Creek there is an American flag displayed outside the sanctuary. Willow Creek is notorious for, among other things, not allowing any crosses to be put up in the church for fear they might offend new visitors.

Over the last 30 years, the church in the United States has become identified with one particular political party, and has become increasingly vocal in its acts of patriotism. Many church leaders have even been known to advocate war to defend and advance the causes of this particular nation.

If you don't believe me, check this out www.bushfish.org (I don't know how to turn this into a link or I would.) (Also if you have a weak stomach don't go to the site)

In Rome, the state was held together, in part by the cult of the emperor and by faith in and loyalty to the state apparatus. When the new Christian faith began to spread its members were denounced as atheists, as disloyal, as unpatriotic. And they responded by saying, "We have a new emperor now, who demands our allegiance, and we are faithful to him." Paul said to the new believers "Our struggle is against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world," as well as "the spiritual forces for evil." John, exiled for his lack of faith in Domatian, wrote of Rome as the whore, Babylon, and called the church to be faithful unto death, to Christ.

Rome brought peace and prosperity to the lands it conquered (as well as, at least initially a lot of death and despair). It spread the rule of law across a wide swath of territory. Rome defended itself with its powerful army, and it fought preemptive wars to head off potential threats on the fringes of its empire. Rome was a place of great technological advance and innovation, of great buildings, and large cities. Rome was a place the gods had blessed...until it fell collapsed upon itself, crushed by its own weight, its carcass picked clean by barbarian invaders.

If you replaced "Rome" with "United States" in that paragraph it would still be true...well the last bit is still ahead of us. And I think that everything that the New Testament says about Rome is true of the United States. We are not called to be loyal to the government. We are not called to be loyal to a nation.

Don't get me wrong...I'm happy to live in the United States...most of the time. In a lot of ways it is a better place to live than, say, Haiti. In fact very few people would choose Haiti over the United States.

But I think that a lot of the time the church in the United States forgets that even if you live in the best, most comfortable Babylon on Earth...She's still a whoring seductress that we are called to struggle against, to stand up to, to not pledge our allegiance to.

My loyalty is to Christ and to the church. My hope and my faith are found in the redemptive power of the cross. Not the power of the US military. So when the United States decides to go to war, I don't have any responsibility to support that...on the contrary, I have a duty to stand with Christians in Iraq (or anywhere else our government sees fit to attack) and say stop.

When I was younger than I am now, I accepted the idea that war could accomplish good. I accepted the idea that I should be loyal to my country. That supporting one country over another was permissible. I gloried in the history of the United States military. I devoured the history books, watching for examples of American valor and heroism. I looked up and saw a government to be proud of. Now I see a tale of death and destruction. I see a government to be ignored and when necessary resisted. What happened?

So fireworks are fun. So are barbecues. I think I'll try to have both.

I suppose I should qualify my statements. I like the church we attend, I love the people there, I have great respect for the pastoral team. I did not mean my comments as a condemnation. I just want to register the feeling I had. They probably didn't intend the purposes I ascribed to them.

But that said, the way it came across to someone who sees modern sound and video equipment as less than desirable, was as crassly materialistic.

Of an interesting experience

Last Sunday I went to Sunday School (First time in a few years). It was an interesting experience. I went to a fairly conservative (theologically) church where my parents were married with my aunt and uncle in Ann Arbor. The class was about science and Christianity and taught by a professor at the University of Michigan.

I have been to many churches over the years, and most of them have dealt with the question of science in the same way: the earth was created in six days a few thousand years ago no matter what evidence science presents. In fact I held this view for a long time.

But for many years this issue has troubled me. In fact it wa a (relatively minor) factor in my exodus from Christianity. The weight of scientific evidence comes down on the side of evolution (there are of course difficulties, but overall the evidence makes a young earth view seem silly) and so I was left by the dichotomy presented in the church to either abandon the infallibility of the Word of God, or to embrace the view that God deliberately deceived us (in terms of what we can see) as to the age of the earth. This was an untenable position for me.

Eventually as I began to return to the church I realized that God often speaks in parables and allegory. The Bible besides being the Wor of God is a literary work. And so I came gradually to see the first few chapters of Genesis as an allegory or fable or some such literary device to help us understand God's relationship with the world and with man (that doesn't mean I understand fully what it means).

So it was interesting to me to be in a class of relatively conservative (theologically) Christians and hear my own view espoused as the general consensus and as the view of the instructor. As I left I couldn't help thinking, "Only in Ann Arbor..."

A confession

In my previous writing I was guilty of projecting my own feelings onto my generation. It was ill-disguised in unnecessary hyperbole and the odd mixed metaphor, and framed with the self-righteous question, but in its essentials it was my cry out into the wilderness. I don't know how to answer the questions it raises, but I do know fom observation that there are a lot of people who think like me.

I left the church for a few years because I didn't know how to face these issues. I still don't. The contradictions, the void within, the sense of purposelessness, the inability to say confidently to myself, "I Know". These things still haunt me, and sometimes, like last night, they flare up into outright depression. I was afraid, and so I hid my personal feelings in a general diatribe.

I do think that these are pressing issues for the church, because I don't think that I am alone (or rather I do feel like I'm alone, but at least I'm not the only one) in this pattern of thinking. I think that it is a product of our time. I left the church because I found it was easier to avoid these questions than to seek their answers. I came back at least in part because I found that even when unsuccessful, the search for answers was more rewarding.

I don't know why the world is the way it is. I don't know where God is, or how to know if he is. I don't know where God wants me, or what he wants me to do. And so I struggle forward, or backward as the case may be, and seek God.

I really feel like the church needs to figure out how to reach individuals who feel this way. The church tends to project a very confident aura, but I think sometimes people need to hear that its okay to not know. They need to hear that I feel the same way, not that I have all the answers they seek.

I don't know. This post doesn't make any sense to me so you should probably just ignore it.

Who are we?

What happens when the weight of the world collapses on your shoulders? What happens when the hidden contradictions that sustain your sanity crash together? What happens when you know to much, and can't make sense of any of it?

This is the state of my generation--at least of those who face themselves. Mystery and certainty ebb and flow in the history of the church at different times in different places. Our culture has explored the limits of technological progress. We have seen how far knowledge and certainty can take us. And now as we look around we wonder--what's it all worth? How has "progress" helped us?

We feel guilt. Why was I born amidst plenty that I do not deserve, while others were born into penury they did not deserve? We are the generation of the social gospel.

We sense contradiction. We know more about the way the world works han any generation in history, but we still don't understand it. We see a certainty in many parts of the church which we long for, yet abhor. How do you know? How can I know? How can you presume to know?

We are stranded in a spiritual desert. Many of us have no knowledge of even the basic facts of the gospel; others are rooted in the sandy soil of dumbed down Christianity. We don't read the Bible because we don't read; we watch TV and blog about our existential despair. Where is the beauty of the gospel?

We have left the church or never belonged to it. Why? The contradictions are too great and weigh upon us. We belive in our parents without believing in God, and when the dust settles we are left with an unsettling question, Who is God really? A fable? An invention? A soothing balm? We don't want these things. We want reality, harsh and unforgiving. We want relationship. We want to revel in the void of our existence. In the end, Pascals wager is too great for us. We are the generation of the world.

We don't really believe in reason. Logic is a quaint notion. We seek emotional experiences, bright lights, voices from heaven. We have abandoned the life of the mind in favor of experiential learning. If you haven't felt it, is it real? If you have felt it, is it real? Reality and nonreality have become confused in our minds. Is there truth?

We feel empty, devoid of purpose. We have no desire to carry on the exploits of previous generations. Their value is questionable at best. And so we live with the void and accept that it is unfillable. We don't even want to fill it, so wrapped up is it in our identity. We are the empty generation.

We are the generation of Kierkegaard's leap. We just don't know it. We want to know without being able to know, to believe without understanding belief, to be saved without comprehending what we are saved from.

And so, how will you minister to us, who have grown up, aChristian, areligious, empty, experiential, questioning? How will you show us the gospel of Christ? How will you bring us into the church and show us what true relationship can be? How will you help us, the wanderlust generation, to put down roots in the soil of the gospel? How will you show the love of Christ to us, who are not concerned with rational arguments and theology, but with relationships, experience and emotion? We are different. How are you going to react?

Please like me, Please

In our culture today the church is often treated with contempt, particularly in intellectual and cultural circles. Why? Perhaps the church has lost respect because of its shameless pursuit of respect. In many ways the church has been reduced to groveling for approval at the feet of our culture. It has transformed itself in an effort to appeal o te culture with rock-band services and a new glitzy face. We try to appeal to people by becoming like them. Have we given up a piece of ourselves to the mob in the hopes that they would like us?

This is a rough idea, and needs polishing. But I think there is some truth in it. It may germinate for a while and pop up again.

misconceptions

Relationship is a two way street.

Lots of churches and Christian organizations have programs or mission statements that talk a lot about forming relationships. We are encouraged to form relationships with people who are new in the church or with "unchurched" people. It is a popular method of evangalization. This is great. In its formulation this model is a marvelous improvement on slick advertising campaigns and shout-it-from-the-corners. But is it practiced correctly? Do people understand what they mean when they say "I want to form a relationship with a non-Christian to bring them to Christ."?

Human nature requires us to act in our own self-interest. Altruism in its pure form is unattainable. Try doing something that brings no benefit to yourself. If you succeed you will have accomplished the goal of your quest and gained self-respect by having proven me wrong. Joking aside, we are incapable of forming a relationship with another person without the prospect of getting something in return. So, if I go out to form a relationship with someone in order to bring them into the church, "What's in it for me?" That depends, the danger here is that many people who participate in the relationship model don't understand this.

Why is this a danger? Can a constructive relationship form if the only thing one member is going to gain is a warm fuzzy feeling? Maybe, I know it happens, but in most cases, no. Especially in programs that have a target audience, like high school, the evangalist goes out and seeks a relationship with someone for the sole reason that they fit the profile. This is not the way to form lasting, valuable relationships. Why does the church have such a high attrition rate? I think the answer is twofold. The first, (which is not my subject today) is that many people are drawn in by flashy services with high advertising budgets, but little substance behind their facade. The second(which is), is that many people are drawn into the church by relationships which are transparent and single fibered. A member of the church goes out to form a relationship with a non-Christian, finds one, talks to them for a while and brings them to church, but there is little substance to the relationship because neither has much to offer the other.

Does this mean that the relationship model of church growth and evangalism is bunk? No! It is the most valuable and oldest method of evangalism. But in order to work it must be approached with eyes wide open. We should seek relationships with people, both within the church and outside of it. But instead of seeking relationship for relationship's sake because our pastor thinks its a good idea, we should be seeking relationships for what they offer. Relationships tend to be much more constructive if both parties enter asking not "what can I do for them?", but "what can they do for me?". True relationship is difficult business. It requires commitment, sacrifice, and dedication. How much are you willing to sacrifice for someone you don't understand or respect? Consider the ultimate human relaionship--marriage. Or the ultimate relationship--Christ and us. These are the models that we should look to in forming a relationship. I can't form a relationship with someone I don't understand or enjoy. You can't pick a friend out of an unknown crowd. When I become friends with someone, it is an organic process grown in mutual appreciation. I can fertilize it with conscious effort, but I cannot create the seed.

So what does a healthy church that emphasizes relationship look like? It is one in which the members understand what friendship is--an exchange in which both participants win. It is one in which the members seek to cultivate relationships both within and outside he church, not randomly, but consciously at every level. It is one in which the members spend their time wisely, cultivating relationships with people that God with whom God has connected them. Relationship is supposed to be fun. It is a duty and an obligation, but its rewards should be rich. It is a sacrifice, but the sacrifice is worth it. It is one in which members quickly work to strengthen new bonds to new people. When I bring a friend to church I hope that other members reach out to that person and weave them into the life of the church, welcoming them with open arms into the family.

A healthy church is a Gordian knot of interweaving tightly-bound relationships that is impossible to untie. I am friends with different people for different reasons, and the diversity of my own desires ensures that I am conneced to the church in many different places. In a healthy church this is true of every person so that the web of relationship is impossible to untangle.

A house divided will not stand

The church is the body of Christ. If this is true, can we segregate it into distinct units and hope to achieve growth? It seems that the answer should be no, so why do we do it? If you don't believe we do look around. Step into many churches and ask yourself if the youth are connected to the body. Do highschool and college ministries give the same message that the rest hear? Are they connected to the rest of the church? How many only attend youth programs and eschew the general gathering? How many organizations are there dedicted to a particular age group? Are they connecting the youth of the church into the body through the bond of relationship?

A phenomenon has swept the church in the past few decades. Around the age of twenty a suprisingly large number of people stop going to church. Why? Why does the church seem powerless to hold them? What pulls them away? Is it a lack of training? Are we not bringing up our children in the way they should go? How are we failing the youth of the church? We have sought to dam the breach with programs designed to appeal to youth. And yet the hole tears itself wider. Why?

I was a part of a church for several years that for some reason didn't lose its youth to this phenomenon. They continued to play a vibrant role in the church through highschool, college, and beyond. Contrary to popular reason there were no youth programs to speak of. The high school had its own Sunday school, and occasionally met on Saturday nights, but that was it. In fact, young people were drawn into this church. Many of their families did not attend any church. Why? What was the source of its success? Where is a large part of the church failing?

A Hypothesis

What is the purpose of the church? Why don't the followers of Christ each have a solitary direct line to God? What function does the church serve? Community. The church is to be an example of what God intended for human beings--to show what true relationship in community can look like. It provides a support system for Christians that allows them to face reality--we live in a broken world. We live with an emptiness that cannot be completely fulfilled in this life. We sin and yet are declared holy in the eyes of God. These are tough issues to grapple withand it is only through community that we can do so. The church also helps us to grow spiritually as others speak into our lives.

So what happens when we segregate the church into distinct age groups? This denies the reality of the fullness of the community of God and cuts out a large part of the community. This denies the unescapeable reality that relationships formed accross age lines are not only possible, but essential to the vibrancy of the church. This denies that Older Christians carry a treasure trove of wisdom and experience that can and should be mined by the youth in the church and segregates the two so they don't interact.

Can relationships form across age lines? Yes. We pander to popular culture when we deny this. The church has a responsibility to encourage relationship. This is the tie that binds us to the church, gives us strength when we falter, and makes it possible for us to live as God's children in a fallen world. God has given us the church as a means of butressing our faith, how can we deny this?

The model of the church I spoke of was that of a family. About a third of the church was from one large extended family. But the astonishing thing about this church was its openness. They had taken the kind of relationship you expect in a family and extended it to everyone who walked in the church. Church was not an event, but a way of life. They ate together, spent time with each other, and they extended to bond of family to everyone who came. The youth continued to take an interest in the church because they had the bond of relationship with everyone in the church. It was their life, their support system and the place they came to speak and to listen.

Boethius said

"Anxiety is a necessary condition of human happiness since happiness is never completely acheived and never permenantly kept."

What he meant was that in order to be truly happy you must not be dependant on the whim of Fortune--the vision that appeared to him.

Its truth can be seen around us. I've had a number of conversations lately about the consumer culture we live in. If you hang around a church long enough you will hear it condemned. But technology has made our lives safer, longer and more comfortable. We actually have free time.

So is our consumerism wrong, or right? Is the evil in technology itself? Or does our unease come from equating happiness to material wealth?

Somewhere in the shift from sustinence to extravagance our definition of the good life changed. What is it now?

The Kingdom of God

I live in the world. I move through i on a daily basis. And I am called to be a part of the Kingdom of God. What does that mean? God has called me and set me apart, but for what?
How should the Kingdom look? What is the alternative that I am supposed to display? Where is grace? Where are rules? What should I expect? Where do I fail? Where do I fit in? Where does the Kingdom of God fit into the world?
A lonely, isolated, secure, comfortable life has been replaced. I am called into community for the Kingdom cannot be an archipelago. I have a specific purpose within it...A purpose that requires interaction with other members of the Kingdom of God. But what is that purpose? What does the Kingdom of God look like? What is a community of believers supposed to look like? How is it to interact with the world-at-large? How am I, as a member of the City of God AND the City of Man supposed to act? If my first loyalty belongs to the City of God, to the community of believers, what does that mean? What am I striving for? Where am I going? What is the goal? What is the end that I seek? What does God want from me? Even if I knew what God wanted, how do I get there? What means does God want me to use? Christians in History have used every conceivable means to reach every conceivable end. Everyone manages to justify their own actions. How do I know that where I'm going and how to get there? What does God say about it? What do I say about it?