WHAT EVERYONE VALUES ABOUT CHURCH
Kirk Winslow gives us the result of an in-depth discussion about the reality of church: The results are about as unscientific as they come. No controls, small numbers, located almost entirely in southern California. But some common threads have emerged very clearly, threads that resound with our understanding of the mission of the church and our particular sense of call.
My Presbytery is trying to explore the whole 1,001 worshipping communities/church planting.
As we did we talked over exciting interest for starting a house church in the college area…
and we were discussing how to go about, different ideas and resources (i.e. Messy Church etc.)
and someone asked “Can someone tell me, how this is different from a Bible Study? I mean we do this, we get to better in different houses and worship and get together what is different about this?”
Well……I might have said a few things in response 🙂
1. Its not that different but we are reformed and always reforming because we need to find new ways to tell the gospel message. Clothing Exchanges are not that different from Rummage Sales (as one of my congregants pointed out). But they ARE different because they speak to a different generation in a different way!
2. We need to meet people where they are in a tree, by a well, even on the cross. If that is what Jesus is doing then that’s what we should do too.
3. Because we need to show our willingness to see, know, people in places that AREN’T the church. When people say they are Spiritual-but-not-religious they mean they want to reach God, but they don’t want to reach God in the same way we do, so we need to find ways that work for people. Ways in which they are comfortable. Thank God, the message is the same as what it was over 2000 years ago, even though the method changes
4. Aren’t we reformed and always reforming so we can grow and be nurtured closer to Christ? Don’t we hope that we keep looking at ways to become more able to see God?
5. Because its not exactly the same, it seems the same, but its really not. Because we are saying, come to our Game, Come to our Home Field, Come to our Turf and we’ll tell you about how we do the God thing. Its not simply sitting inside the church and throwing open the doors and wondering why no one is coming in…its going out to meeting them on their turf…its street ministry at its finest.
Its changes to a “you might not experience God the same way we do, so we’ll come to you and let you tell us what you want to try” thing…that’s what Spiritual-but-not-religious is, experiencing God in a new way!
Your right, its exactly like Bible Study…..Only Different!
Ultimately God is relational, and our experience of God is relational….that’s why we need to know
However, what is hard is some people haven’t ever had that burning bush experience…I haven’t been in that place before, but I know that some people haven’t experienced God.
What I do know is that when I talk to people about experiencing/knowing God that when they try to UNDERSTAND who God is, that is the wrong way to go about things.
I don’t know about you but I personally live with four other beings, none of whom I will fully understand (and its more than the fact that I’m a female living with four males), having a relationship with someone doesn’t mean that you fully understand them. Also, I know that relationships are different with different people….
Every time a read a parenting blog or article about the “right way” to raise every child I think how can this be? Different children raised by the same parents turn out differently, even I know I parent my three child in different ways. I relate to each of them differently. God similarly relates to each of us in a different way.
That is why we need a faith community, because none of us can have a full experience of God…well…if your like me, then not more than for an nanosecond. I love those moments of experiencing God. Madeline L’engle describes some of those moments as when you are looking at the stars (her parents used to wake her up to stargaze and its a big part of her writing).
You can envision Abraham having that moment….looking at the stars with God, filling the fullness of God’s will and purpose. Having it for a moment, and then continuing (since we can’t hold the fulness of God all the time) through a relationship.
What I do know, is that experiencing God is relational, not rational, that we cannot fully know God by ourselves, and that this is why we are relational with both God and each other. Thus we better know God through all of our relationships–with God and each other.
That is why we are in community, because we don’t all have the same experience of God. We are together, not to tell each other that the only way to experience and know God is the way that works for us! (Did you know that you shouldn’t like ALL of worship, ideally different people like different parts, because its not all for one person, its for a diverse group of people so different people can experience worship during different parts of the service)
The point of the variety is so that we can share, experience and relate to God differently and (in the best of times) simultaneously. I don’t know what to do if you haven’t experienced God, but I do know, that your best bet is a faith community…Because we can’t experience God alone, we can only believe in God…alone…..
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivitesand Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[d] the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.
16 “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. 17 And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’ –Exodus 3:7-17
Names are important, Before this moment, God was known as the God of Abraham (and Isaac, and Sarah!)
The God who promises the stars to Abraham….
But here is Moses, In Midian, encountering God. Having the Burning bush experience, starting his relationship with God. Where just seeing God’s magnificence isn’t enough, being the God
Most of us would LOVE this moment: this compelling, overwhelming, this is where it ALL begins. But Moses, dares to ask questions…why? I think its because he is a human. A human being who was made to name things, a human being who needs to know…
And Moses has an identity crises. A human-what-is-the-meaning-of-my-life-and-who-am-I-anyway Identity crises. Moses, who has been living in Midian, after being born a Hebrew slave and raised as an Egyptian Prince. No wonder he’s confused….he asks who Am I to do this?
So God replies….don’t worry your MY messenger, and I PROMISE I’ll be with you the whole way. Don’t Worry.
And here is where Moses is human, again, asking the next, logical question. Ok, then so who are you to come with me? Not, what’s your name…but “Who are you?”
(Just like Jacob asking how it is he could find God here?)
And God says “I Am, what I AM” This is at a time when most people, including the Egyptians, had different Gods for different things, but this God is claiming to be enough. Plus YWHW in Hebrew also has a future tone–I AM, WHAT I AM, and I WILL BE, what I WILL BE. Implying that God will be God, but in order to find out more, you need to sign up for….
(Here is a cute handy-dandy ref. chart to help us see the process of Call)
Robin McKinley: Adventures in Street Pastoring
“Whose idea was this frelling Street Pastors deal? Oh. Yeah. God’s. I guess I have to put up with it then.”
Philosophy, Science and Religion
Some of this article was hard for me to follow….but….
this part about faith reminded me of some faith and belief musings I’ve been praying about
“faith is a special gift from God, not part of our ordinary epistemic equipment. Faith is a source of belief, a source that goes beyond the faculties included in reason.”
Namely that Faith is a gift of God experience by a group of people, who hold diverse and intricate levels and kinds of beliefs…
although I don’t know if faith/doubt and belief are as black and white as this article portrays (but hey that’s philosophy)
I also appreciated:
“Christians, says Plantinga, can “take modern science to be a magnificent display of the image of God in us human beings.” Can naturalists say anything to match this, or must they regard it as an unexplained mystery?”
Its hard for me to believe we are “accidentally” alive!
A good definition of epic fantasy and why it doesn’t have to be sexist (I agree with the Kate Elliot note, who is my current favorite high fantasy)
“epic fantasy is also high fantasy and allows the author to write stories that operate at the mythic and legendary level of storytelling, in the same way as the epic sagas such as theIliad and Parsifal, for example;
also a good definition of Why I don’t like high fantasy most of the time: sexism with little character development is NOT my favorite, but as the article says, neither of these are necessary for epic fantasy to take place!!
Happy Birthday, want an adventure???
Jacob is a loveable trickster: a character we often identify with–the loveable thief, the passionate adulterer, the rogue hero.
One who gets his inheritance by tricking his dying father to giving his blessing (i.e. will) to him instead of Esau.
He is even named as a rogue–as heel grabber is the translation of Jacob
you know the whole pull yourself up by your bootstrap culture in America? Jacob did the opposite, he pulled himself up from someone else’s bootstrap (heel). This ability, no doubt like all talents is a gift and a curse (as Adrian Monk would say). Every piece blessing is a gift, and a curse. For example, I am an extrovert, most of the time it is great, except when it isn’t 🙂 If I don’t extrovert enough during the week, I am in sore danger of extrovertly exploding over people.
Gifts are meant to be used, when you write or sing or extrovert, its both a duty and a joy. You don’t do it for recognition, you do it because you have to. In that way it can be a blessing…and a curse.
Jacob has stolen Esau’s inheritance…last week our lectionary covered the Abrahamic Blessing the promise to father a nation and spread the blessing through it…when Jacob took this blessing he did not know that this blessing carried with it more than wealth. This is a blessing to be used…or its a curse.
Why do we love rogues anyway, what is it that makes them so fun? There is something about a rogue that means, just because they don’t follow the rules doesn’t mean they don’t have a heart. These are the human wish for redemption, our ongoing story for hope…
So, here is Jacob, on the run from his brother Esau who at best will be really, really mad for Jacob stealing his inheritance, and at worst is out for blood. He is out in another country, in the middle of the desert when he dreams…
He dreams of Angels. Angels who (we know) are not Precious moments cutesy babies, but are something scary to behold. They are going up and they are coming down, they are in-between, in short they are everywhere. This must have been scary enough.
Then God stands next to him (that must have been terrifying) and says I am the Lord of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac” remember, this is Jacob who just took all of his father’s blessing, so when God says he is Isaac’s God, it carries much weight! Then God promises that Jacob will father nations, that his descendants will own the land and that they will spread like dust North, South, East and West. God promises “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.””
What does Jacob take out of this conversation? That its too much? Does he see God’s promise as a threat (you WILL father nations) of responsibilities? Does he refuse to hear what it is that God is saying?
No
Jacob says…probably in a quiet voice of wonderment “I didn’t know God was here.” He didn’t know that God was with him. He didn’t know that God sought and found him, that God was his keeper. Jacob ought to be the last candidate for God to be with, tricking his way into inheritance, but yet, God was still within him. He didn’t know. He thought he had to be right, and brave and good for God to love him.
I didn’t know God was here…There are many places where we don’t know God is present.
1 in 10 people have mental illness, 1 in 10 struggles with addiction, 1 in 5 women have been sexually abused, and more than that have been victims of abuse. If we needed to be “whole” for God to be found, then about half of us would be statistically disqualified (actually that’s fuzzy math, but you get the idea)… For those who are Spiritual but not Religious, they might say I didn’t know God was here feeling that we make impossible requirements for answers and perfection.
….But we know our God is not a fixing God though. God does not simply take us apart and put us back together as new people. Our God is a creating and blessing God, working with what he made, as it exists in the world. God is present where we are, improving on what God has given us as gifts and blessings. Identifying who we are in one word, and blessing us with the next. God is like a “strengths-based counselor” building on who we are and what we do, so that we might become a better version of ourselves. Building off Jacob’s trickster nature and naming him as God’s own in order to make Jacob wonderful….
Church should be a place to do this, a place for broken rogues, tricksters and scoundrels, a place of hope. It should be a place where we all don’t know that God could be here. A place where we welcome people who know nothing, after all we know nothing too. God tends to show up in the ways we least expect it (in tricksters, in a women, in a stable, on the cross)…we could all know nothing together.
After All…
God could be found here too.
katyandtheword 