Why The Internet is Communal, but Rarely a Community.

I am currently in the process of helping the professor with whom I work with his book that will be published in October of 2008. This quote on community really struck me...

Years ago, I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, “Life Together.” It influenced me deeply in my thoughts about what the Church can, and can’t, be.[i] Bonhoeffer points out that true Christian community is nothing like the fantasies and illusions we have of a wonderful, welcoming family. It is like that, sometimes, of course. But community is really more like a crucible. We have to live in close proximity with people that we really don’t like. Or, if we did like them in the beginning, we will discover many annoying qualities as well. The crucible of a community heats us up and holds us in so that we can’t get away. In the process, it refines us, bringing the impurities to the surface where they can be skimmed away.

Communities are necessary for spiritual purification. Even the desert fathers and mothers, many of whom lived as hermits in caves, settled in proximity to each other and created the first model for the communal life of monasteries. On our own we too easily avoid noticing where our sharp edges are. When we live in close proximity to others we are constantly bumping up against each other with those unfinished edges. It is much more difficult to hide. As the Proverbs remind us, “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”[ii] (Proverbs 27:17, TNIV ). Any who are serious about confronting their own signature sins, then, should seek to be part of a community where this kind of sharpening can take place.

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[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper, 1954).
[ii] Proverbs 27:17, TNIV

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).”

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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.


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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.

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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.

Mother Theresa

“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.”

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.

Vocare: To Call

Yesterday, I had the blessing of working together with one of my closest friends at Panera Bread. It is blessing enough in itself to have a friend with whom you can be fully yourself, and she can do the same. Everyone needs one or two of the type of friends who will sit with you in a coffee shop, lap top in tow, and work alongside you just because they like your company.

I felt especially blessed because we discussed our callings. I disclosed to my friend that in the past year, God has had several people whom I trust deeply each affirm a specific calling in my life, independently without knowledge of the others. It's one of those things as Christians you would think that we would shout from the rooftops. But I haven't, the number of people I've told include my husband, my mother, and one other friend.

"Why?" you may ask. Well, as my mom jokingly said, you can understand how it makes me feel a little like Pat Robertson claiming that the world is going to end on Wednesday. So, I whisper what I have been told only to those who I know will not doubt it. I hedge it with "Well, we'll see if that happens..." and "Oh, I don't know.." I worry that my whispering offends God. It's actually unusual for me to be secretive about anything. I've always marvelled at mysterious people who live their life internally, such as my brother or my husband. Those mysterious, internal people attract me like a bug to a light on a summer night.

And when I undertook this sort of confession, my friend confessed to me her own calling, its development, and the sources of her own doubt. To me, the calling she speaks of seems so clearly fitted to her. It's so much easier to see in others their gifts and God's work in their lives than it is to do so about ourselves, in our own foggy minds and sense of self.

I always have had difficulty hearing the small still voice of God. I most often learn about God through other people. That's why I so strongly believe in the value of the priesthood of believers as a community. Aside from the fact that it's scriptural and historical, I know it and I've experienced it.

It saddens me that my friend and I, two passionate, strong, loving women of faith, whisper our callings in small conversations with each other. While such interactions are important and powerful, why do we hesitate to announce this powerful work of God in our lives? In our cases, I think some of it has to do with gender. In our conservative evangelical tradition, we have each experienced the invalidation of our gifts and callings purely because of our gender at times, in ways that wound and hurt. But, I think we're struggling with more than that.

There come all the doubts, the fears, the Moses-like feelings of, "Who? me? God, I think I'm going to horribly disappoint you." There's also the sacrifices that I must make, having had parents who were involved prominently in our community, I know the struggles that come with parents that are watched. Some of my hesitation stems from the fact that it's hard to reclaim a dream that you have let go. When a dream is deferred, you mourn its loss, feel the grief, and have to let it go. Similar to how the followers of Jesus had to reconfigure and evaluate their entire existence when he rose from the dead, when a dream rises from the dead you have to tear down all the new ones that you've built in order to embrace the old one. The overwhelming joy is mixed with a sense confusion and disbelief. It's a gift for your birthday, 5 months and 14 days after the date...it makes no sense, but you're unbelievably grateful.


A Dream Deferred
~Langston Hughes~

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

A wise man once said...

...to me today, "God is telling me to say to you, Nicole, "I will never leave you."

God will never leave you.

Today, this moment, this second, all I must do is breathe.

With a knitted brow...

I'm trying to learn how to knit. Correction, I'm trying to teach myself to knit. And this isn't easy. If you haven't noticed, I am the type of gal who is low on patience. I'm driven crazy by details. However, I also have a need to create. To produce. And being in graduate school does not feel productive. Graduate school is focused on the big picture, the future, the whole painting. I have a need to scrutinize. This feels like a spiritual discipline, to stick with something that is difficult for me.

See, I've always kinda breezed through most things. If I didn't like it (like math, let's say) then I could do well enough. I could master the material to make the A on the test, but then fail to retain the material or actually master it. I can write well enough to write an impressive paper, without reading the book.

So, with a knitted brow, and only one curse word, I knitted for 3 hours today. I produced nothing. But, I'm not giving up. Nope. I'm going to attend to the details until I get it right. (But if someone wants to pipe up with his or her own story of how hard it was to learn to knit, I welcome it!)