Idea 21

i love ideas. i’m not sure if i ever loved ideas before, but i really love them now. i married a man who’s as giddy as a schoolboy when we talk about ideas; he holds on to them like kite strings, enjoying them when they catch a breeze and fly higher, and then reeling them in again, thrilling at the tension of movement. he’s made me love ideas.

many years ago, i had an idea that i’d buy a big farmhouse just outside a city (yes, it was an idea, okay, so i have no idea if any farmhouses can really be that close to a metropolis). folks would walk up onto the wide front porch - all white, with swings and cafe tables - and into the main doors where they’d find a coffeeshop with windows facing both east and west, letting all possible hours of light pour onto the old, wood floors and rummage-sale chairs and tables. but there was more. just off the coffeeshop was my room of revolution. inside, the walls would be lined with newspaper articles announcing small triumphs of the revolutionaires who met in that room, those who advocated for the voiceless, the overlooked, the marginalized. there were articles, too, of needs within the city and all over the globe. there were 2 computers next to each other for research on any given topic, and books galore. there were prayers written on the walls, messages left for other revolutionaires to echo in their own conversations with God.

i had another idea that someday i’d be a mom who spent her days divided between providing academic counseling for college students and lobbying for change in public squares and capitol buildings.

i dream a lot. i often think of what could be. i’m rarely content with the status quo. my whole person feels naturally drawn to seek out what - in the here & now - is not right. i move towards conflict. i can pause to celebrate a victory only so long before i want to know where we’re going to go from there.

in my old job, i loved the opportunity to meet with people who were of the same mind, thinking about how they could DO something, how they could respond to a need, how they could make a difference where it mattered.

in rare cases did any of those folks profess to be christians. whatever their reason for doing something GOOD, they felt compelled to see it through. and i honor that. absolutely.

i would only assume that christians should be MORE compelled to do good. galatians 5 says “it is for freedom that christ has set us free … the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love … you, my brothers, were called to be free. but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. the entire law is summed up in a single command: love your neighbor as yourself.” and later in galatians 6, paul says this, “therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.”

all this freedom! all this love! how else can a christian respond but to love others?

but why is it that we can get so caught up in the “how”? we ask what opportunities our local church provides for us to love others. we check out what options there are for serving the neighborhood. we consider if any of them will fit our personalities and giftings. some of us join on, others of us fail to do anything, acting as if we still need more time to consider the details of the demands of the DOING.

is the act of loving so difficult? is it so limiting? are there only so many ways to love?

i fear the local church has been in the business of killing creativity for a while now. we’ve shown our dependence on staff, letting them make the creative decisions about how our local church will serve in love. my guess is that in any given church body, there are more than 40 people (or, let’s be honest, 10) who can think of some creative opportunity to love.

so you can imagine how happy i was to see in the book i’ve been reading that there was an entire chapter devoted to releasing the church to dream up ways to serve God. i’m going to insert a few bits here:

saying yes!
one of the surest ways to empower peole to serve is to champion their ideas. if any church member approaches you with an idea for ministry, the answer must always be yes! does this mean your church supports and sanctions every ministry idea a person wishes to attempt? no, it doesn’t. but it does mean that you champion each idea in a manner similar to the following:
1. you enthusiastically praise the person for coming up with such an original idea. no matter how dumb you may think the idea is, the fact that he or she has taken the risk to approach you with a creative idea is outstanding. how many more ideas do you think the person will bring to you if you criticize this one? when you can’t praise the idea, at least praise the person for being creative and courageous enough to think of it.
2. ask the person to find five other people who are willing to team with him or her to help build such a ministry …. when the team has been identified, the person with the idea should come back to you. [this] requires him or her to define and communicate the vision for ministry well enough to attract others to it. it allows the ministry idea to be confirmed, refined, or rejected by others in the church.
3. when you meet with the team, … encourage them to think through how the new ministry fits with your mission and direction as a church.
4. support the team with all the training they need but encourage them to find their own funding.
5. assure the team that the church will support them in every possible way.

 i am so excited about the potential of new ideas. in my last post, i think, i talked about this family meeting our church had a few weeks ago. though i enjoyed the talk, i was distracted by the people in the room, moved by what seemed to be like little fireworks dancing over a dozen or so heads. and i cried. i felt like god was doing something already in the lives of people in that room; that he was igniting passions, or urging action from dreams. what a beautiful thing that god is at work in the ideas of his people. how can we be a part of releasing the church to dream big and do good?

how beautiful, how beautiful.

i have a shelf of books in my office that all deal with the same subject. i’m sure that i could quite easily sum up all that these writers had to say in a brief, 5-page essay. but then, of course, the clever cover illustrators wouldn’t have made a dime, and the authors would have had oodles of free time (which they might have used to read the books they were essentially re-writing and marketing to the same audience).

[i should confess here that i'm a huge ecclesiastes fan. this influences much of my opinion on anything marketed as "new." but i digress.]

my vocational position demands that i spend significant time thinking on hospitality, welcome and connection to the local church. before i even came on staff, i was asked to read a book called “first impressions.” initially, i thought it was a joke, testing to see if i actually agreed with the form that their welcome functions celebrated (a function of the church would be to make people feel welcome, and a form might be smiling and saying, “hi” at the front doors). the forms that were celebrated in the book DID make me say, “wow!” as the cover promised. unfortunately, however, my “wow” left a little vomit in the mouth. i just can’t get with the idea of having volunteer valet attendants at church.

so i shared my honest feedback after reading the book, and they laughed, and they agreed, and they hired me.

but over a year later, i’m still being offered titles for my … i don’t know, edification? i’ve gotten “beyond the first visit: the complete guide to connecting guests to your church,” “fusion: turning first-time guests into fully-engaged members of your church,” and “serving as a church usher/greeter,” just to name a few. maybe i’m doing a bad job. but i don’t really think that’s it. i think it may have something more to do with the fact that i’m an emergent personality working within a non-emergent church.

so, for the time being, i’m fighting an itch to withdrawal from vocational ministry and immerse myself in some sort of community organizing (damn that barack obama for offering such cool opportunities at such inopportune times!). instead, i’m praying that God would make me a good learner, willing to set aside my judgments and listen to what others are doing.

it’s in that vein that i grudgingly picked up “beyond the first visit” and found something i really enjoyed: an invitation to consider the emergent church, this 18-34 year-old segment of the population who is turned off by mechanical processing at the doors to the church. yay! i’ve decided that it might be the second book on welcome & hospitality worth reading (the first is actually one of my all-time favorite books - christine pohl’s “making room: recovering hospitality as a christian tradition“).

of course, one of my pet peeves with ALL welcome books has to do with the fact that there is so much emphasis placed on attracting folks to our church building. correct me if i’m wrong, but i don’t remember jesus setting up shop and waiting for folks to drop by, neither do i remember him commanding, “therefore, invite people to your building and figure out how to assimilate them into your church.” but perhaps my translation has misguided me …

i guess all i’m really saying is that i’m struggling with feeling this desire to move outside the walls of this building, to challenge our entire church to welcome as if they were receiving Jesus himself in all realms of their lives, to quit making our church so building- and staff-dependent and to raise up leaders who will be obedient to the work that God is doing in them and through them. i dream of belonging to the kind of church that champions the ideas of its people, that … actually, this is all for tomorrow’s post. i’ll get to it then. thanks for sticking with me till now :)

i found this today. i really like her, whoever she is.

a few months ago, my husband and i were taking a walk before dinner at the avenue bar on the city’s eastside. we strolled past the recently closed fyfe’s corner bistro, peeking inside the windows to catch a glimpse of the restaurant we’d heard so much about but would never get to enjoy. and that’s when i caught the reflection of the building for lease across the ave.

i wish i had a picture to upload now but it’s essentially a block and a half of old warehouse/office space (if you have adobe flash player, you can see the street view here). the mullins group purchased it 5-6 years ago, but it’s been sitting relatively empty since then, with just their business using it as needed.

okay, so there’s no beating around the bush. i want it.

i wasn’t around when my home church chose to purchase property on the city’s westside and build 120,000 square feet of classroom, large group, and worship space. the building affords us lots of opportunity to invite people into our building, hear great sermons, and connect with a pretty excellent community of spiritually-engaged folks. but it’s this other building on east wash that has captured my attention, and - if i dwell on it long enough - might take my heart as well.

it’s in the perfect spot. not quite a mile and a half from the capitol, it sits along a very busy street in an area that seems ripe with possibility. it doesn’t hurt that my favorite city restaurant is a mere 4 blocks away either.

the description given by the mullins group reads “Exceptional 200,000 SF flex-space facility. Fully updated. Adaptable to large scale office and manufacturing uses. On-site parking. Highly visible, easy access to airport and interstate. Convenient for public transportation or biking. Close to shops and dining on Williamson Street.”

can you even imagine what you could do with 200,000 square feet of space? i can. but only because lawndale community church shaped a lot of how i envision the church reaching out to the “least of these.”

you can read more about the history of the church on their website, but don’t miss reading about their ministry affiliates (including Lawndale Christian Health Center, a community-based nonprofit organization, providing quality primary care services without regard for a patient’s ability to pay and serves as a community resource for eliminating health disparities, and the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation, bringing holistic revitalization to the lives and environments of Lawndale residents through economic empowerment, housing improvements, educational enrichments and community advocacy) or their Hope House, or the Firehouse Community Arts Center.

i resonate with that vision. just to think of all the things that are possible when you pray for god to show you how to love your community … wow.

so, while i’m dreaming, here’s what i’d welcome into the space at 1255-1345 east washington:

a worship space
a free medical facility, including dental services
a community kitchen (see SAME cafe or One World Cafe)
retail space for orgs like hope united
affordable community living space
and a pub/concert/gathering space.

now, if i just had $9,000,000 to purchase the building …

and maybe it won’t be this building, but why not pray for big things? maybe god wants to turn this city block dreaming into a city block reality.

i know it’s been out for awhile, but it’s only just caught my eye now.

imagine if you could create the church you wanted, any way you wanted. wow! think of all the possibilties:
hire and fire staff
deal with idiots, naive volunteers, and denominational egos
earn points with god by winning souls for christ.
write a mission statement
choose a logo
hire a professional musician.

PLUS, you can deal with real-life scenarious, including:
elderly donor who wants to buy a new organ
troublesome board members
the city starts construction in front of your building

but perhaps the best selling point is the last line:
“do it all without a degree, license or even the Bible! Just like Joel Osteen.”

thanks to church marketing sucks for another winner.

this morning, i tuned into my first-ever webinar featuring rick mckinley, the pastor at imago dei. the topic was the externally-focused church: breaking into the kingdom. i’m so grateful i took part in it.

two colleagues joined me, and between the three of us, we cried and laughed and threw out some “amens,” though not one of the other 240 online attendees could hear. it’s incredible to me that we were so engaged that even with a mute button pushed on the speaker phone, we’d be provoked to respond with such fervor.

essentially, the focus of the talk was the missional church - what it is and how we become a part of it. early on, the moderator shared that we (the church) can’t measure effectiveness merely by weekend attendance, but by the transformational effect we have on our communities. he took a look at the relationship between attraction and mission, citing matthew 22:2-5 and luke 14:18-20, before inviting rick mckinley to share a few of the paradigm shifts he considers essential to becoming a missional church:

1. from how-to to want-to
2. from coming to going
3. from protection to proclamation
4. from relevance to influence

i won’t write up the entire talk here because i’d really rather have you watch it and then dialogue in person with you about it over a drink. i’ll put out the link to it when it’s finally up online.

essentially, it lights my fire. i don’t know if i’ll get a chance to participate in the envisioning process at my own church, but at the very least, i feel so grateful to be soaking all of this up. i dream of what this place could look like, what madison would be like if we confessed our lack of desire to love our community, to love our neighbors, and declared our willingness to be interrupted in our routines, to radically alter everything we’ve set up so nicely to accommodate our lives.

last tuesday at our church family meeting, my heart broke (in a good way) to look around the room and wonder who god was prompting to serve him creatively, who in the room was ready & willing to allow the spirit of god to employ them in proclamation, in creative missional works that no one has ever dreamed about. that’s powerful.

i am so excited. and whether or not i get to go to the externally-focused church conference in may (though i admit i would be psyched out of my mind to attend), i am part of the missional church. and i am thankful to be serving a god who keeps coming around, who doesn’t give up on us, and who keeps prompting us to respond to his love for us and for the whole world.

This is what the kingdom of God looks like.
Christians blaze through this dark world and set it on fire with their love.
It is contagious and spreads like wildfire.
We are people who shine, who burn up the darkness of this old world with the light that dwells within us. And perhaps the world will ask
what in the world passed through here …
We are not just called to be candles.
Candles make for nice Christmas services and for a nice peace vigil. They can remind us taht God’s light dwells within us and that we are to shine that light in this dark world.
But we are not just called to be candles. We are called to be fire.
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution

with the server still down, and the extent of what i can accomplish today sans email quite limited, i’ve resorted to list-making. enjoy today’s highlights.

1. my friend erin forwarded me a 20-minute video called the story of stuff, which discusses the relationships between extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of, duh, stuff. it’s an excellent short with a hearty list of resources on how to go green, consume less, and work together to create a more sustainable and just world. check it out.

2. an alum of the school where i used to work was recently featured in an award-winning documentary called facing sudan. a young college student, alice worked with mtvu to get disposable cameras in the hands of sundanese refugee children living in chad so we could all see pictures of refugee life from their eyes. you can check out the 5 minute youtube clip here. it thrills me to witness her care for and commitment to her global neighbors.

3. my husband forwarded me this link last week and we laughed all weekend about how spot-on it is. you can check out the full list of stuff white people like here where you’ll see that it includes, but is not limited to: outdoor performance clothes, hating corporations, threatening to move to canada, kitchen gadgets, public radio, david sedaris, microbreweries, and barack obama. it seems even “barack obama” himself has visited the site, commenting there that “white people love all the vacuous things i say.” because my husband and i own too many north face-esque jackets, i enjoyed the entry on that one:

The main reason why white people like these clothes is that it allows them to believe that at any moment they could find themselves with a Thule rack on top of their car headed to a national park. It could be 4:00 p.m. on a Saturday when they might get a call “hey man, you know what we need to do? Kayak then camping, right now. I’m on my way to get you, there is no time to change clothes.”

Though it is unlikely that they will receive this call, White people hate the idea of missing an opportunity to enjoy outdoor activities because they weren’t wearing the right clothes.

HI-larious. I love it.

4. speaking of barack obama, did anyone happen to catch saturday night live this past weekend? tracy morgan’s guest appearance on weekend update was memorable. every time i see hilary on the news now, all i can think is “bitch may be the new black, but black is the new president, bitch.” check it out here.

i guess that’s all i’ve got for now. happy surfing.

so i guess that’s why i’m writing. not that i wasn’t looking for an excuse to detach from work today. i’m feeling pretty exhausted from a full day yesterday - early morning corporate prayer, work, and a baby shower. i ended the night with a thick slice of banana bread, several scoops of chocolate almond ice cream and a sizable glass of red wine.

okay, so maybe i am pms-ing.

this morning, jon & i met up with anne and her daughter, dena, who were in town for spring break on their way up to the dells for a waterpark vacation. we met at lazy jane’s, because there’s really no better restaurant “fit” for anne than this one. lazy jane’s has a hippie, old-school (as in, antique-y old school), laid back (duh, it is LAZY jane’s), come-as-you-are vibe. minus the old-school descriptor, the place kind of describes anne. you’d never guess to meet her that she grew up in the chicago ‘burbs and now works for a prominent, shi-shi private day school.

it had been nearly 2 years since we’d seen each other, and even dena had to ask her mom before we got there what i looked like (i suppose 2nd grade does seem like eons ago to a 4th grader). i loved having breakfast with them, but i’d have loved to sit and talk with anne all day about her life. she’s one of the more thoughtful & welcoming people i’ve ever met. i miss her again already.

actually, i’ve been missing regular people a lot lately. in my pms-y mindset last night, i wondered aloud to jon if church - as in, the sunday celebration worship time definition of church - is really supposed to be a glimpse of heaven. because just one day of it makes me really tired. i want to hole up by myself for a long time afterwards, glass of wine in one hand, the bottle in the other.

wow, that sounds more dramatic than even i intended. sorry.

anyway, i wonder why people come on sundays so often. maybe i’m the only person who wouldn’t come to church every week if it weren’t mandated by her job. i mean, i know there are some people who LOVE sundays. just yesterday afternoon before the 4:30 service, one 4th grader whose family i know well, was talking about palm sunday with me.

leah: “i know [palm sunday] is supposed to be a sad day, but i don’t think i can feel sad today.”
me: “what do you mean?”
leah: “well, like, in the morning, everything is good because jesus is on his way to jerusalem, but then at the end of the day, things get really sad when he arrives. and i just don’t feel like i can be sad, because i always feel happy when we go to church.”

ugh. i am turning into a glass-half-empty person. gross. i mean, i just deleted an amnesty international email with the subject heading, “stop possible execution of an innocent man.” seriously, do i even have a heart??

(okay, so as soon as i deleted it, i actually removed it from my trash and signed the petition, which you, too, can do here.)

i guess i’m tired of celebration. because what are we even celebrating? okay, christ died for our sins. but the weekly celebration feels so self-indulgent, like we come because we like singing, we like hearing a good speaker, we like seeing our friends. but where’s the storytelling? where are the people who weekly are out sharing the good news, bringing justice to wicked places, moving towards reconciliation where there is only hurt and anger, caring for the widow and the orphan?

i’m tired of the do-nothing. in fact, i think it may come to quitting our small group. i don’t really want a weekly activity where we hang out for dinner before reviewing the highs and lows of the past sunday’s sermon.

lo and behold! it’s no joke that this quote from erwin mcmanus on why churches are in decline just popped up on my screen:

“My primary assessment would be because American Christians tend to be incredibly self-indulgent so they see the church as a place there for them to meet their needs and to express faith in a way that is meaningful for them … I think the bottom line really is our own spiritual narcissism. There are methods and you can talk about style, structure and music, but in the end it really comes down to your heart and what you care about.”

boo-yah. spiritual narcissism. so what would the church really look like then? would we celebrate weekly? probably. but what would our celebration look like? are we taught how to celebrate? i mean, when we’re kids, we learn how to celebrate a birthday. but are we taught how to celebrate christ’s death & resurrection? do we know how to focus on Him when we gather together?

imagine being invited to a surprise birthday party held in your honor and then no one brings presents or hugs you or offers a birthday cake or sings to you? instead, they all gather with you in the same room and talk amongst each other, every now and then nodding in your direction, talking about you, but never to you.

is that what our worship services look like from god’s perspective? are we so self-indulgent?

this morning at breakfast, anne and dena told us all about celebrating purim at their synagogue (a venue they share with their good friends, the presbyterians). purim, for those of you who don’t know, is the jewish celebration of the liberation of the jews from near execution by the persians; it was through the bravery of queen esther that the jewish people were saved.

so anyway, it’s traditional for jewish children to dress up as characters from the book of esther, but, nowadays, many families choose to celebrate purim as a jewish alternative to halloween. so anne and dena, along with the rest of the community, donned all sorts of outfits - including a family who arrived at the synagogue dressed as a mexican mariachi band, singing jewish songs in spanish. later, during the service, all were asked to shake their cans of dry foods (which they were asked to bring to donate to a local food agency) and cry out, “Boo Haman!” whenever the evil Haman appeared on the scene.

the community foundation for jewish educationwrites that, ultimately, purim has a distinctly religious purpose - “to celebrate the unseen presence of God who saved the Jewish community in Persia thousands of years ago.”

weekly, as christians, we gather to celebrate god’s victory over sin & death. but is this the celebration god intended? could we learn something from our jewish friends? can we celebrate, too? or are we stuck in our self-indulgent ways, committed to our own ideas of heaven?

i just wonder if the church is missing out.

Jesus, I want to be with You. Working for church is maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I feel like I’m failing all the time, like I’m not good enough or welcoming enough. Like I goof up every conversation and overstep my boundaries. For every step forward, I feel like I’m taking three gigantic ones backwards. God, how in the world am I supposed to keep doing this? 

But I confess this to You because I know it’s not all about me. If You can use me in the slightest way, please use me to Your pleasure. I know You are good above all things. And like Lisa and I talked about this morning, we need to look for where You’re moving, and – by the power of Your Spirit living inside of us – join in Your kingdom work.

Help me to reflect Your perfect love. 

I know that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 

Help me to look for You. Help me to celebrate who You are and what You’re doing. All else is meaningless. 

I long for what Eugene Peterson wrote in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: “from deep in our lungs – our lives! – we sing and play to the glory of God.”

For Your glory, God, be all things forever & ever.

Let me just get all the thoughts I’ve been thinking out of my head for a bit:

1.    It’s snowed like crazy this year! It’s brilliantly white outside right now with the sun peeking out of the clouds, reflecting the light off of every possible inch of snow-covered street and sidewalk, rooftop and car, blinding me, and little snowflakes flying around in the gusty winds, no hurry to be or go anywhere. Church was cancelled yesterday because the streets were coated with 2/10ths of an inch of ice. Jon shoveled the 8” of heavy, wet snow off the ice yesterday afternoon after I gave up, frustrated with my little muscles and bad attitude. It was still beautiful yesterday, but I’ve really had enough of shoveling this winter. What a welcome to home ownership, right?

2.    I miss hanging out with people who aren’t Christians. It makes me miss my old job if only for that. It makes me second-guess my reasons for being here at BH. I like messed up people. In some sense, it reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew, when the Pharisees ask his disciples why Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners. His reply? “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Sometimes I fear BH is too attractive for Christians, and then they just want to fully immerse themselves in this thing, without fully understanding that they should be MORE focused on spreading the good news about Jesus’ work on the cross and his resurrection. We make it a popular club. Ugh. I just don’t like that. And I’m guilty of it. But I don’t it. Again, God, I wish you would help me understand how to be faithful to you, and to what you’ve called me to …

3.    I just got an email from a co-worker about our Wednesday lunchtime showings of “The Office.” He wants us to sign off on acknowledging that some things that the character Michael says or does can make people uncomfortable; he doesn’t want to be responsible for the corruption of the staff team. I wonder where this email came from – it makes me wonder who made a stink about it that we’d all have to say, yes, this TV show makes fun of people and I’m okay with it. Seriously … it’s like how I wanted to put magazines in Volunteer Central, but then Paste & Rolling Stone were turned down by some in the office who felt their content might offend. For real? Dear Jesus, maybe you’d like to recommend a happy little bubble we can all live in somewhere? Far from the world that sinners inhabit? Could we be exiled somewhere that’s safe for the whole family?

4.    Gag.

5.    My favorite things about working at church are what I’m learning in classes and through books and resources I never would have picked up otherwise. I love the theology class. It makes me want to start offering classes for other people. A new kind of DTS, like Mad City once upon a time did. I’d love to be a part of something like that. I’m going through the Judges commentary for the NIV and I love it! It’s so interesting to read that stuff. It makes Gideon, for example, seem real in a way I never got from just reading it plainly. To learn some of the Hebrew and follow the rhetorical devices of the author is awesome!

6.    I missed celebrating ALL 4 of the birthdays I wanted to celebrate last week: Hans, Alison, Erin, and Anne Hobbs. I stink. I also haven’t hung out with or talked to Erin K, Kat H or Shelly in ages. I know they’re Christians; they’re just not BH Christians and I miss that.

7.    I want to try something new. I want to create something on a smaller scale. I don’t want to be part of such a large, massive staff structure. I miss my old department of 8 people. We were left alone. We didn’t plan events every week. I miss Alumni Week, and all the work I got do on the bulletin board. Although, I AM excited about having a new bulletin board up in Volunteer Central. Even if it is cheesy and kind of dumb, it makes me feel crafty; it seems like a pretty small church way to love our Sunday teams.

8.    I’m sad I have little else to talk about except church. I need to take a class. I need to do something NOT church related. I need to get outside of this place. Maybe I should take a class at MATC or join a volunteer network through UW hospitals.

9.    I saw this incredible short video last night. It may be the best thing I’ve seen in a long time. Enjoy: http://youtube.com/watch?v=th6Njr-qkq0.

10.    I think that’s all I’ve got to say. I’ve got a lot of reading to do for my class tomorrow. And Sarah, Chris, and Jack should all be arriving shortly. I want to give my full attention to them ☺