Contemplating Contemplation

Instead of fasting in some way during the Lenten season, I added a discipline. That discipline was attending liturgical services. I chose a local charismatic liturgical church that is part of the Anglican Mission in America. Over and over again, I was struck by the centeredness and closeness to God that I experienced, in large part due to the sensuousness of the services. The smell of the incense, the taste of real wine served as communion, the feel of oil on my head as I was being anointed and prayed for...

Having grown up in Evangelical traditions that largely focus on Scripture and less on history, tradition, and experience (to the point of being relatively suspicious of those aspects of faith), I was deeply impacted by the meaning in the rituals of liturgical worship. There is something about reciting creeds that were written and agreed upon by the Church centuries (and sometimes millenia) ago. I noticed that I had to draw more upon my theology training more often than I do in most other churches, engaging my mind to actually consider what it means to be part of "one holy, catholic Church." I had to think about God, "from whom no thing is hid." I thought more often about how I had sinned by "what we have done and what we have left undone."

I was moved by the focus on the Eucharist. This, a sacred ritual given to us by our Saviour, was savored and focused upon. It was especially moving to be served communion by one of my best friends. Recieving "the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation" from someone from whom I have experienced love, grace, and friendship the past 5 years often brought me to tears. I loved the slow and steady pace, the cadence of the liturgy, and frequent silences allowed me space to breathe, pray, and listen to God.

Then there was the experience of Palm Sunday, with an actual processional and palm leaves. Everything seemed so tangible and real, the feel of the palm as I waved it, the cold of the March air in my lungs as we stood outside, hearing the music as the cross passed us by. As we recited the liturgy and as a memeber of the congregation, I had to also say, "Crucify him," it gave me chills.

The 40 days culminated with a 4 hour (yes, 4 hour) Easter Vigil. A somber service led into a joyous celebration. Banners unfurled, reading Alleluia. Lilies, tulips, and other spring flowers were brought out on stage. The congregation rang bells, the pastor danced on stage in his robes, the people danced in the aisles with ribbons, as we all shook our bells in jingling unison, singing hymns of celebration. One of my favorites...

Open up the doors and let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring Your hope
Songs that bring Your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice

I sang until I was hoarse, hundreds of people gathered in the name of Jesus Christ, celebrating until past 11pm on a Saturday night, keeping vigil. Celebrating that while we are sinful, while we continue to hurt and exploit others, while we all act out of selfishness, while we all hurt and are blind to the hurt around us, Christ has conquered death to bring us hope and to deliever us from our failings and bring us to God. Alleleuia. May we live out our hope and peace more and more every day.

Why I Don't Miss It...

Tonight, perusing the Internet, I came across a relatively new collaborative blog focusing on issues "important to members of the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) and all Christians."

Then I proceeded to read a post about how "getting saved" means cutting your hair and no longer cursing, with a lot of implications that a man is somewhat holier for having shorter hair, and that dropping a few meaningful and powerful curses (Shit and Damn are in the Bible, so I guess God is guilty)is a big issue facing all of us Christians. The discussion degraded into someone calling another's theology 'defective.'

There was an implication that having your nose pierced is associated with a particular 'lifestyle' (it was clearly implied that this was not a 'good' lifestyle). Education was referred to with suspicion. One mother's response to her sons telling a 'dirty' joke was to make their father have a sex discussion with them. This response was described as "characteristic" of a woman.

I guess this is why a tattoo wearing female doctor with training in theology and whose research is all about sex sex sex just didn't feel at home in the SBC. When all of those pesky problems with the poor are solved, when wars are ended and peace reigns, and the Church no longer needs my services as a soul care giver, then I will be able to worry about the really big problems. Like how much someone does or does not 'cuss' and the length of someone's hair, or what holes they may have in their head.

Jesus was a Bleeding Heart Liberal Jew

Spending time in Europe with conservative Evangelical Christians is always a bit of a paradigm shift for me. For three years now, I've had the privilege to serve for a week some of the top academics in Europe who are also Christians. Part of the agreement of being a servant volunteer is that we absolutely cannot, without a doubt, discuss politics with these people. This policy, born out of the typical Europe/U.S. divide on political issues, is a great one. Those who volunteer are there to serve, not to be served, make their piece known, or to find some sort of camaraderie. However, it is so hard to remain quiet among my Christian siblings and not hug them, kiss their cheeks, and say..Yes! Yes, exactly!"

It always blows my mind the things I hear in the conversations among the theologically conservative (often bordering on fundamentalist) Evangelical leaders. A dinner conversation where the U.S. is described as a bully, Bush with a foreign policy likened to Hitler's, and the desperate state of affairs in Iraq, is the type of conversation I'd like to be a part of. It's so compelling to encounter Christians who have not tied their partriotism to their faith.

One of my Hungarian friends even said, "Yeah, nationalism is good. We can all cheer "Go my country!", and it is good for morale. But, a Christian, a Christian must think beyond what country he lives in. Because I am not first a Hungarian, but a person, a person loved by God. He doesn't care what country I'm from, or that guy's from. So my country cannot come first. God must, so there is no keep out or you don't deserve this because you are not Hungarian or American or whatever...because as Christians we are all people, all the same." And I watched the jaws clench among the other volunteers from the States who were sitting nearby. I wonder why this is so upsetting to my fellow citizens. Why are so many American Christians threatened by such sentiments? I cannot imagine any other way to view ourselves that is Biblically sound or in keeping with the life of Christ.

Or why is it that the other volunteers all assume that we're not allowed to talk about politics only for the benefit of the the attendees? How do you think I learned of so many of these dinner conversations? Well, because of the complaints of my fellow volunteers, of course. One particular volunteer started to complain about the "horrible" conversation her husband had to sit through that negatively cast U.S.'s foreign policy. I mentioned that we don't talk about politics with anyone when serving because we cannot assume that we all agree on anything, regardless of our citizenship or theology, although this hint was evidently not strong enough because she continued to go on and on.

My thoughts, personally, were that if I were sitting at a table having dinner with some of Europe's top theologians, and they felt this way....then maybe I might have something to learn. I'm just sayin'...

Regardless, my point is that Christians who are U.S. citizens are in grave danger of confusing patriotism with faith. I know this because 9 times out of 10, when spending more than an hour with a group of Christians Stateside, something is said that infers that we all hold some universal Republican based political ideology that I happen to not hold. It's become so inferential and assumed that such sentiments creep in nearly continuously and without notice from most people. And these are sentiments held only by Christians in the U.S. I have yet to meet a Christian from another country who has such convoluted ideas about their faith and their country. It makes me sad, and it makes me want to move.

So, my fellow Americans, just remember that what may be best for you, for me, for the United States, may very likely not be what God wants you to do. And the rest of our Christian brothers and sisters seem to see that much more clearly than we, we could learn from them.

Important Skills to Learn Before Having Children

Can someone please explain children's shoe sizes to me? The hubs and I were buying shoes today for a thing at church, and we hemmed and hawed over shoe sizes, because between two college grads we couldn't figure much out. So we picked four pairs that "looked" like they would fit a kid in elementary school. Help me? Please?

It's busy up in here.

End of the semester means lots of things to do and little time for the Internets. ;) So, I thought you might enjoy some of my pastoral care paper on my vision of soul care.

The soul care giver is to enter into relationship with others in a deliberate way so as to nurture and love them while providing gentle correction for the broken ways of relating evident in their lives. The soul care giver, as explained by St. Gregory the Great (1978), engages in relationships where “discourse…should be adapted to the character of the hearers, so as to be suited to the individual in his respective needs, and yet never deviate from the art of general edification (p. 89).”

...

The role of the soul care giver is also to be the voice within the Church that speaks for the spiritual disciplines, prayer, silence, and simplicity. In today’s raucous society of efficiency and production, the soul care giver works to make space within the institution of the Church for instruction on spiritual practices, and is the constant reminder of the true purpose of humanity in creation. Richard Foster (2005) uses the term “passion to possess (p.3)” to describe contemporary society’s need to own and produce and its inevitable outcome of producing a fractured and fragmented way of life. As Lisa McMinn states in her book, The Contented Soul,

To see our selves as a soul that belongs is to accept an invitation to hold life, relationships, and possessions loosely, hands open, recognizing that nothing is really ours but that we belong to God and to all that is around us—our family, neighborhood, communities of work and worship, our country, our neighbors in the world, and the earth that sustains us all. A soul that belongs is a contented soul living in a place of quiet joy, and it invites, welcomes, and calms those who draw near (p.22).

The soul care giver strives to be a person that lives a life of simplicity and authenticity that draws people to the calming contemplative way.

The soul care giver carefully holds all of these important goals, and is only able to do so with even tenuous success if she is a person who practices and strives for holiness through spiritual disciplines. The soul care giver ultimately is one who seeks out intimacy with God, and who conducts a ministry that supports, loves, and cares for others in ways that encourage them to engage more intimately with God. The soul care giver makes no promises that the spiritual way is easy, but only that she will walk with and care for parishioners no matter where their journey leads, even through such horrible afflictions as the Dark Night of the Soul. As Evelyn Underhill states in her book The Spiritual Life:

The spiritual life then is not a peculiar or extreme form of piety. It is, on the contrary, that full and real life for which man is made; a life that is organic and social, essentially free, yet with its own necessities and laws. Just as physical life means, and depends on, constant correspondence with our physical environment, the atmosphere that surrounds and penetrates us, the energies of heat and light, whether we happen to notice it or not; so does spiritual life mean constant correspondence with our spiritual environment, whether we notice it or not (p. 41-42).

The soul care giver practices the spiritual life and draws attention to and makes intentional for others the spiritual environment so that we might benefit more from it, and so that awareness of God and his whisperings will be more acute.


...

Soul care ministry focuses on ways to deepen believers’ knowledge and openness to God and His work. Soul care is also the part of the Church that deepens an understanding of one’s self and others in order to grow toward conformity of character and inner life in the image of Christ. Doing so, besides being a command of Christ, ultimately benefits the global Church and the local congregation.

The benefit comes in that a body of believers who are listening to God and seeking God’s direction become less concerned with programs, logistics, and the “doing” of church. A congregation that has a pervasive and appropriately integrated soul care ministry supports and develops Christ followers who long after God and God’s work in their lives. They serve joyfully where God has instructed. They express love to the community around them. For it is only through soul care and its call to the contemplative traditions that can produce a faith community where God dispenses his grace through us, and changes the world through us. Soul care has to offer the church the dream of a body who loves so well, people are drawn closer to God through Jesus Christ.

...

In his book, Letters to a Young Evangelical, Tony Campolo (2006) calls for a reclaiming of the contemplative (predominantly Catholic) traditions that were removed from Evangelicalism at the reformation.

After the Reformation, we Protestants left behind much that was troubling about the Roman Catholicism of the fifteenth century. I am convinced that we left too much behind. The methods of praying employed by the likes of Ignatius have become precious to me. With the help of some Catholic saints, my prayer life has deepened. Ignatius and other Catholic mystics such as Teresa of Avila have been of incredible help to me in developing a kind of praying in which God becomes a real and felt presence (p. 31).

Although I have now become a member of a very nontypical Christian church, it remains the same Evangelical tradition. Although there exists a growing appreciation for the spiritual and contemplative, there remains little structure, instruction, or support for pastoral care. The church incorporates more psychological ministries, including support and recovery. However, there remains a vast emptiness concerning pastoral care.
I hope to follow the example set by the atypical Evangelical leader Tony Campolo in his personal ministry and writings, for a pastoral care ministry that incorporates an acute sense of social justice and the Church Universal in addition to having an intimate relationship with Christ. Campolo (2006) suggests the practices of centering prayer, contemplative Bible study, and an accountability group that helps you maintain spiritual disciplines for consistent Christian living.

Dunked....

Last weekend, our church did an impromptu baptismal service. Without all the usual baptism classes and standard education, they offered to baptize whomever felt led to do so that night, New Testament style. Communion was being served and whoever felt led was to go to the back of the auditorioum.

As I sat there in the service, I felt an anxiety that I know could only be the Holy Spirit. God was telling me to be baptized. Immediately, I started to resist. I told myself all sorts of things... "But I'll look so foolish, I've been a Christian for over a decade." "Theologically, this just is not what is right." With every excuse came that feeling of being sick. I actually told myself, "Just hang on through the next fifteen minutes, this will all be over, and you can pursue baptism some other time."

But, I got up some courage and whispered to my husband, "I think I'm supposed to be baptized."

Thank God for him, because he responded, "Then go. Do you want me to come and support you?"

I said, "Of course!"

So, the theologically savvy among you are wondering how this Baptist girl was getting baptized when she's been a Christ follower some 13 odd years. Well....

I grew up in a church that was generally pretty supportive, though not without flaws. I never felt pressure to make a committment to Christ, and that wasn't quite on my radar yet at the age of 11. I loved Jesus, but the idea of becoming a Christian wasn't one that I fully comprehended, or even partially comprehended.

Enter old school interim pastor (OSIP).OSIP decided he needed to have a Sunday to teach Sunday School for the children, and that all the classes should be taught together. Being a small church, I was the youngest among that late childhood and adolescent crowd. He gave a very evangelistic message in Sunday School and then asked whoever wasn't a Christian to raise their hand. That was....um, me. OSIP came over, put his arm around me, got in my face and asked, "Do you love Jesus? Will you do that today?" Being 11, with an old man asking me to do something, I wasn't going to say, "No."

I said yes. And I made my parents take me home halfway through the church service, crying. I didn't understand what I was doing, but whatever it was, it felt confusing and so wrong. My parents convinced me to go out for lunch, even though I didn't want to because I knew that OSIP would probably be there. My parents assured me OSIP wouldn't bother me.

But he did. I got ambushed in the salad bar line. Confronted by a 70+ year old man about why didn't I come forward. There he went with the hugging and being in my face again. There I went with the crying and feeling violated again. After several other poorly executed attempts by OSIP, my father told him if he ever bothered me again...well, I don't know what he said, but it worked. OSIP left me alone and we got a new pastor.

Six months later, our new pastor told a rousing sermon, and our church experienced a huge revival. This was miraculous for the unemotional straight laced church that raised me. Nearly the whole church went forward to be recommitted, to join the church, or make professions of faith. I saw my opportunity, I could go forward, get baptized and everyone would leave me alone for good. So I did. And it meant nothing to me.

Two years later, at the age of 13, I truly did become a Christian. I didn't tell anyone. Why? Because they all thought I already was one. Talk about embarrassing. So, for 13 years I've wondered about whether to get baptized again or not. I've been counseled by people of all different Christian belief systems about whether to get baptized or not, and been told a a myriad of answers. But, for the past 3 years, I know that it's been something God has wanted me to do, regardless of what I thought I knew about theology.

Every time that I started to get baptized, or mention it, or seek someone out, I would feel too ashamed, too judged, too prideful. But I did it, finally! Making the experience all the more meaningful, my husband was the one who was able to baptize me. When I imagined my true baptism, I never imagined it'd be a loaned pair of men's swim trunks from the church and a tshirt that everyone who is baptized at our church receives. But, I can't imagine a better time or place in my life for making my baptism more meaningful or symbolic of my new life in Christ, for only in these last 4 years have I felt truly remade, refined, and grown by God.

So..now I'm telling everybody.

The weekend that we were in Knoxville for the launch of Crossings, our church here in Chicagoland did this video. I miss the one Sunday where they take one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists on one of the most important topics. Geez, good thing I feel so great about having been at crossings. Check it out.

Beloved

This weekend, my husband and I were back in Tennessee for the launch service of Crossings, a faith community. I have talked before about how we came to be involved in this church.

Worshipping was an amazing experience, mainly because I had a keen awareness of being a part of something God is doing. The absurdity that in the entire Chicagoland area we would find our current church, and then that that church would deviate from their typical church planting philosophy to entertain the idea of a church in Knoxville, and that we would be here during that time. Well, I said it, it's ABSURD! However, if I have learned anything, it's that God delights in the absurdly creative. His ways are not my own.

I have spent a fair amount of time these last 5 years feeling angry and disaffected from the Church, confused and disturbingly grieved about many failures of Christianity, Christians, the Church, and several local congregations. Not to mention the wrestling that I was doing with God. He and I had quite a few tussles. There is not enough space on the Internets or paper and ink in the world to record the lessons that God has taught me about God and about myself in the past few years. I have tried God in every way that I know how, and God has proven faithful and real. I have experienced God, tasted God, and known God through Jesus Christ...Just like Mark spoke about in his sermon on Sunday.

I make no apologies for the squall of grief, anger, and despair that I long denied, eventually experienced and finally embraced. In an equally confounding manner, I have watched the clouds of anger dissipate. Only by leading me through such a cloud of despair, allowing my wounds to occur and then binding and healing them, could I come to this moment where my story has become restored to one of wholeness and authenticity that seeks to know God and his creativity through my calling to the care of souls.

When I see the community of faith that is blossoming in Knoxville, I get all excited about the impact God is going to have on the lives of those who live there. I also get excited about the undeniably personal manner in which God is letting me be a part of it. Instead of feeling stuck, or torn between two places (Chicago and Knoxville), I experience the absurdity of God's perfect timing, His calculated writing of my story as a part of His story, and a true knowing that I belong to God, and all that I have belongs to God.

Not too long ago, on his blog, Mark asked people to share their "reel to reel" moments of faith. And I think I just remembered my most important one. Reading the The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen for a class, I recognized myself in both the prodigal and in the resentful older brother. I desperately needed to be keenly aware of God's grace, to know and to believe that I am God's beloved. I also recognized my own scowl, similar to the older brother's, as a sign of my resentment of those who experience God's grace, but who haven't been doing the "hard work" that I have for most of my life. My lack of acceptance of grace stunted my ability to extend grace to others.

For the first time, I sensed a growing awareness and acceptance of God's grace. God kept placing in my life people who reflected to me just how much I am God's beloved. Beloved. Beloved. Over time, I began to believe it. In pieces, in parts, not fully. And being assured of being God's beloved provided to me an expansive and expanding grace toward others. I felt a freedom to love, to shephard, to hold those who dish out daily doses of vitirol, disease, and toxicity. However, my assurance doubts, it wavers, I act as if I am not God's beloved. I forget the loving way in which He created me, the exorbiant price He paid for soul. As evidence of my lack of faith, and my need for continual remembrance, I had that very word..."beloved" tattooed on my body. Not as proof to anyone, not as art, not as anything but a constant reminder that God has declared me His. Even in my darkest moments of doubt, the reality of that ink on my lower back declares to me that in the face of my unbelief, I am God's beloved.

I'm beloved. You're beloved. He is here. He is real.

Prayers Accepted!

I've been letting you down, Internets. I've been busy investing my time in clients, professors, supervisors, husbands, friends, and kitties. And the husband and the kitties are just so darn furry and cute!

On Sunday, I am presenting during Sunday School to the parents and community members of a local church. This is the first of a two part series that I am doing on Adolescents and Sexuality. This week I find to be the hardest topic, an honest assessment of the culture and sexual behavior of adolescents. When the key point of your presentation is that people tend not to believe what you're presenting on...well, it makes for interesting interaction. However, I have feelings of mixed anticipation about getting to say the words "Oral Sex" in Sunday School. That should be interesting.

I'll let you know how it goes. Here's a statistic for you....84% of parents report that their teenager is NOT having sex. However, 47 percent of teens between the ages of 15-17 report being sexually active. Someone is wrong.

3 pages or less...holy smokes!

Below is my first paper of the semester. I'm afraid it's not very good. But, what a doozie of a paper! Write in 3 double spaced pages the story of salvation history and development of the church from creation to today. Good Grief! If I'd had just one more page, this might could have been something. Whew! It's not due until Wednesday, so if you have any feedback, I'll take it. By the way, I know that I have fragments. Let me know if you think they're okay stylistically, or if they become distracting.

The text of the Bible is a story, a love story. Of how there is a God who is, who always has been, and who always will be. A God whose very nature is Love and who creates in order to multiply God’s love. Therefore, God creates existence as we know it: heavens and the earth, day and night, light and dark, plants and beasts. God declares all of this good. Then, God creates humanity. And these creatures are special, for they are made in God’s image, with qualities like those of God. God creates males. But God sees that man is alone, and this is not God’s intention. For God is not alone, and neither should this creation be alone. So, God creates females, that the two can be helpers and companions for one another. These creatures, made in the image of God, have both a spiritual soul and a physical body. Man and Woman, together stewards and cultivators of God’s new creation in community with God, their creator.

There is no shame between man and woman, nor man and God, nor woman and God. However, both man and woman doubt that God was as good as God seems or claims to be. They yearn for the only thing forbidden to them, the fruit of the tree that discloses the knowledge of good and evil. The woman, thirsting for the power of the fruit is seduced by a serpent. She eats of the fruit. Man, following the woman instead of God, eats of the fruit. Thus, all of creation becomes estranged from God, and what was meant to live forever becomes subject to decay and death. Something called “sin” becomes a pervasive influence on man, woman, and all of their children, as well as all of creation.

In fact, as time goes on, God’s creation becomes so wicked that there are few who even remember God who created them. So, God wipes out the earth with a great flood, saving only a man named Noah, his family, and the animals that they take with them on a huge boat called an Ark. After the flood, Noah and his family begin to repopulate the Earth.

God chooses a man to be the one through whom he will build a people to show God’s Love to all of creation, and to provide a way for human souls to be with God after their earthly body dies. That man, called Abram, is renamed Abraham. From Abraham and his descendants God builds a chosen people, the Hebrews of Israel. God performs great miracles and is faithful to the chosen people. God gives the people laws by which to live, a way to make restitution for sin by sacrifice of animals. God leads them to a Promised Land, sends forth Judges to correct the people when they strayed from faithfulness to God, and God performs miracles. God selects the most unlikely of people to be a part of his work to show Love to the people of his creation: murderers, liars, thieves, and sinners of all types. God chooses those of low status to make into kings and queens. God uses those who suffer to accomplish miracles to make evident God’s Love to the people of creation.

Along the way, God leaves hints, called prophesies, of a new thing God is going to do. God tells the chosen people that he is going to send a Messiah, God’s own son, a person who will redeem the sins of men and women.. Even though humanity chose to be apart from God by eating of the fruit, God loves his creation so much that he wants to provide a way for humanity to find its way back to relationship with God, even to the point of sacrificing God’s own son.

When the messiah comes, it happens among the peasants in a town called Bethlehem. A young woman named Mary, a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, is visited by angels, and told that she is pregnant with the Messiah. She is to call her son Jesus. Jesus is born in a stable, the lowliest of places. God performs miraculous signs, bringing lowly shepherds to the birth. Scholars from the Far East trek to see this baby, led by a miraculous bright star. Kings hear that a Messiah has been born, and they feel threatened, one even tries to have the baby killed. But, Jesus is protected and his family warned of the danger, and they escape, eventually to their home of Nazareth.

A time of great prophecy takes place, foretelling the upcoming ministry of Jesus.
John the Baptist, a cousin of Jesus, preaches in the desert of Judea about the birth of the Messiah, God’s Son, sent to save humanity from sin. Jesus is baptized at the age of 30, by John the Baptist, and at this event the people hear a voice, presumably God’s, saying, “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Jesus then begins a ministry that flies in the face of everything that everyone has known about religion, about God, about creation, both spiritual and physical. Jesus is fully God, but also fully man. He says outrageous claims, that he has come to save humanity, that he can forgive sins, that he will show humanity how to live, that by following Jesus, people can have eternal life. Jesus claims that faith in him is necessary to avoid eternal punishment in Hell after one’s earthly death.

Jesus performs miracles, healing the sick. He hangs out with prostitutes, the poor, women, and lepers. Jesus and a group of 12 men whom he has selected go forth preaching and teaching Jesus’s radical message of others before self, love and sacrifice, and eternal life. Jesus is sent to show humanity how to love. The leaders of government and the church are outraged. Jesus is a threat, so they bribe one of his 12 followers, and he is arrested and hung on a cross to die. His followers are bereft, for this man who fit every prophecy in the Old Testament has been put to death. They think it was all a dream or some horrible lie. However, on the third day, after his crucifixion, Jesus is not found at the tomb. He appears to some of his women followers who have come to prepare his body. Jesus is spiritually and physically fully resurrected from the dead! For 40 days, he appears to a vast number of people before he ascends into heaven. Before his death, Jesus speaks of a Holy Spirit, “God with us” that shall be God’s presence in all followers of Christ.

From that day, Jesus’s disciples and followers go forth, sacrificing their lives, enduring torture, and even death, to build the Church. The Church, the community of believers is God’s continuing legacy of God’s love on earth. That by the love of Christ’s followers others shall be drawn to and hear and have faith in Christ. As the societies of earth grow increasingly wicked, and pass away, perpetuate evil, and deny the truth of Christ, those who believe in Christ have the presence of God in the Holy Spirit, leading us to show love and preach this Gospel to others. While we know that one day, Jesus will return to resurrect the spiritual and physical creation to its intended state, and those who refuse to accept the grace of God shall pass away, God continues to write a story of Love. God sacrificed God’s son even to death, so that we might know how to live, and be able to receive forgiveness and grace for our sin through that sacrifice. The Church is to be God’s expression of that Love to others in the interim.

Watch it! Watch it!

So, I know that Extreme Makeover Home Edition probably isn't high quality television. However, tonight the family who is receiving a home is one the families that our church helps via this ministry. There are quite a few members of our church community helping with the building and whatnot. So, watch it!

What's right with your church?

I have an entire post planned to complement my previous "What's wrong with your church?" post. But, I've been busy. I was probably wanting to rescue people from thinking bad thoughts a little earlier than I should, anyway. But, I had to share this. This video is part of what is right with the church I attend (but didn't this weekend..see previous post).

What's wrong with your church?

Since coming to graduate school, I find myself asking this question more often. I've been more than just a little disillusioned with the fact that some very basic theological concepts, the corpus of church history, and other important aspects of the Christian faith were never introduced to me, though I grew up in the Church, with dedicated and faithful Christian parents. I wonder what exactly the goal of our churches, congregations, and church based ministry is if it's not to teach about theology, church history, and how to encounter God in ways that challenge people toward growth.

I sometimes wonder if I'll ever again sit in a church service without a somewhat critical eye. I'm that annoying person behind you who won't sing the lines of the song that have poor theological implications. I'm one of those who leaves angry when we have an entire service on the dark night of the soul, silence, and despair without a single time of silence in the actual service. I am the one that is just a little bit suspicious when the pastor is ALWAYS happy EVERY Sunday. It's the same suspicion I have in life or in the therapy room when someone always has it all together. That's just not reality. How authentic is that?

However, I don't feel cynical. I love the church that we attend these days. I am hopeful for the Church, and I don't want to be estranged from the body in that way ever again. I've encountered a preponderance of Christians who are uncomfortable with questioning, doubt, and turning a critical eye to our human manifestations of church, religion, and faith here on Earth. It's as if questioning who we are and contemplating the flaws of our attempts at being the Church are questioning God, questioning God's perfection or holiness. That's just not the case. In fact, failing to acknowledge and embrace our weaknesses and shortcomings leads to an unhealthy neurotic and narcissistic idealism that leaves us leaning on our own understanding and strength rather that our imperfection leading us to seek God more.

I'm convinced that we all do need to ask "What's wrong with my church?" It's not about criticism. It's not about tearing others down. It's about discernment. It's about an open forum so that disappointments do not turn into seething anger and contempt for the Church or a church. And the response we need to give when we're on the receiving end of suggestion, is not defensiveness. Nor is constructive criticism to turn into merely criticism or our only way of relating to others. There are always naysayers. If you're always the nay sayer, well, then it's a problem.

So, I am asking, what's wrong with your church? Not, "What do you not like?" But what is wrong theologially? What have you or another been hurt by? What's the institutional sin of your church?

Lately, what's been on my mind about the church we attend (and other worship gatherings I've been to lately) is the music. The music which we sing lately has taken on an unbalanced slant toward almost gnostic understandings of spirituality. Gnosticism devalues the physical and earthly world in favor of honoring the spiritual world as better than the physical one. The specific things that seemed especially problematic today were "Cause nothing on this earth is as beautiful as you" and, this one I can't remember exactly, but it was along the lines of "Jesus is like no one else on earth." I thought that the entire point is that Jesus was 100% "like" us, while also being 100% God. But, it's clear that both of these songs have a bit of bad theology going on. Hey, and it's just not contemporary praise songs, but classic hymns as well. Away In a Manger is one of the worst, with its devaluing of the human nature of Jesus.

So, is this a phase? Will my apophatic nature wane when graduate school is over? How do we deal with such frustrations and disappointments and still maintain relationship and love? I'd love to hear your thoughts.