since honduras

… life has been a whirlwind. i can’t believe it’s august already. since getting back from perhaps the two most obviously significant weeks of my year, jon’s run a half marathon in the middle-of-nowhere, wisconsin, we got together with our small group after what seems like months, we traveled to chicago to see old friends and celebrate abby’s wedding. then we celebrated my birthday (my husband regularly likes to out-do himself and i am the happy recipient of his thoughtful & creative planning & gifts), welcomed back a good friend from south africa, prepared for jon’s sermon this past week, and hung out a bit with my family while my parents were in town.

but to the real topic at hand … i want challenge. i’ve been thinking about it, wrestling with the idea in my head in the middle of every conversation i’ve had recently. jon’s sermon on community yesterday had me thinking about it a lot – how intentional am i with my friends? how vulnerable am i with them? and how often do i seek out people who want to pursue god how i want to?

i LONG for a roundtable, i long for a community of people who get together to read the paper, pray over the issues of the world, and challenge each other to live lives of dignity, humility, and, well, people who want to live within the tension of being in the world but not of it.

i just don’t know how to pursue that. i don’t know how to get where i want to go, and i don’t know who will go with me. i told jon i just wanted to learn to pattern my life after someone, i want to be around someone who challenges me in little things and in big things. i’m hungry for that. i want to learn from someone who’s a world-changer. i love my friend laura for changing career paths and going back to school to study law. i love the bravery in that. i want that. but i’m not sure which of 85 different things i like i want to dive into that deeply. for crying out loud, i can’t even commit myself to getting dreads when i’m sure that’s how God intended my hair to sit atop my head.

but as i talked it out with jon, it was quite clear that what i really want is jesus. okay, not like in the “i want more of you, jesus” sing-songy kind of way, but in the, where are you NOW, jesus, can i actually follow you in real live person form, kind of way. if i had jesus to sit down next to here today at this fair trade coffee house (which, incidently, doesn’t serve fair trade coffee unless you request it), i would ask him a hundred things. or maybe i would just listen to him and better plan my life around him.

and so that’s why i’ve started reading luke. pretty much because i just need to hear jesus’ words. i’m praying that as i read them they become life-changing, life-giving to me. i’m especially ready for his words since the phrase “man does not live on bread alone but on every that comes from the mouth of God” has been rattling around in my head for the past week or so. so i’m open to change, God. i’m open to You bringing people into my life who want to move towards you to.

in jon’s words, i’m ready to receive help and help others to love god and love others more and more, praying that God uses us to change the world.

i’m ready.

the church is in desperate need of manly innovative couch potatoes

A while back, I sent a few friends a youtube video on which crazy ol’ mark driscoll talks about the “chick-i-fied church.” I recommend watching it before you read what my friend carolyn had to say about it below.

Oh…my…gosh. This email got buried in my inbox, and I just came across it. I think my jaw was on the floor the whole time!!! J

Are you kidding me??? “Be a man, homey?” Was that the song that’s playing in the background?

My favorite quotes.

· “60% of the church is chicks and the 40% who are dudes are still chicks.”

· “How come we’re not innovative? Because all the innovative dudes are home watching football.” (After all, is there anything more inspiring of innovation than men throwing things and running into each other at top speeds? In fact, I’m quite sure that’s how C.S. Lewis, Paul the apostle, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, and Michelangelo spent their Sunday afternoons.)

· “Guys like David are well-know for their ability to slaughter other men.” (I think Jesus was too, right? I mean that’s his whole message – go out and slaughter. Oh, and also be good dudes. Not chicks.)

And I will ask Mark to start being a dude and stop scampering around singing emotional love songs to Jesus. You’re right, that’s completely inappropriate. Instead, I will request that he grunt for Jesus and start killing some people.

P.S. (In a sing-song voice…) Mark Driscoll wears a necklace, Mark Driscoll wears a necklace. What a chick.

mark driscoll creeps me out a bit. but carolyn makes me oh-so-happy :)
 

bullets

as is my style lately, i’m updating in bullets. here’s what’s on my mind:

• josh ritter makes me smile. i had only heard his music a few times before jon got tickets to his show at the high noon last month. wow. maybe it was my lack of expectation, but the show kicked a$$. i can’t remember the last time i saw an artist peform so enthusiastically. it was contagious. watching him and his band fully give themselves to their performance and love every second of it, well, it was only natural that we loved every second of it. i highly recommend the two cds i now have of his: the historical conquests of josh ritter and the animal years. i wish that everyone could enjoy their work as much as it appears josh does. who knew such joy could come from idaho?  

• i spent last week during jon’s absence getting together with a number of girlfriends i haven’t caught up with in a long time: erin, jen, mary, paula, marcy, kort, and melissa. so wonderful. each conversation took on its own unique identity, discussions ranging from wedding planning and authentic worship to spiritual leadership and sex. i thank god that women are so complex, so multi-layered, and so eager to move towards honesty.

• i’ve been reading a book by tom wright (n.t. wright for you smarties out there) on the letter to the ephesians and am surprised by how profoundly it affected me yesterday. he was commenting on the way christians talk about inviting jesus into your heart (for a great message on this, check out donald miller’s message on brightness) and shared that the paul apostle paul more often wrote about being IN Christ than Christ being in our hearts. i was moved to think about how all too easy it is too believe that christ is like a little doll i drag around in my heart. instead, i spent most of the day in joyful wonder that the God i love would let me live in Him, be a part of His kingdom work and a part of his church body. i love how beautiful He is.

• i’m incredibly bummed to be missing our church’s july 13th service on following christ with our worship. ARGH!

• however, i’ll be in honduras with an incredible group of middle school students and 5 fabulous adults parterning with local hondurans to put on 2 weeks of english-speaking camps for middle and highschool age students there. you can stay up-to-date with our travels by visiting www.honduras-08.blogspot.com. i can’t believe that’s only 4 days away!

• speaking of the trip, we visited the doctor yesterday (yes, late, i know) to update shots and get vaccinations. i discovered two things: 1) i’m way tougher than i thought. hep a and tetnus shots have nothing on me and 2) jon keeps incredibly poor records of his medical history (“no, i had my shots recently enough … no, i don’t need them cause i got everything in 2001 … no, i’m sure it’s there … no, you don’t see my hep a booster in there? or my tetnus? wait, why are bringing out a needle? for real? i didn’t have them?”)

• along those same lines, i can’t imagine how much life changes for moms and dads when they’re suddenly responsible for helping keep track of shots and vaccinations and what not. seriously, i called my mom two days ago to ask her if i’d ever had any kind of hep b shots and she responded with a detailed email of every shot i’d ever had “for my records.” wow, i can’t believe she loves me that much. i wonder if i will ever love my kids that much.

• my birthday is a mere 34 days away! holy smokes! that means i’m only 2 years and 24 days away from being 30. i can’t wait. 30 seems so glorious to me (with a few exceptions – if my 30th year is anything like my sister’s, i don’t know if i’ll be able to handle it with as much grace. seriously, a little skin cancer, a ruptured appendix and a baby. that’s crazy). but i want to kick off my 30th in a big way, so i’ve been looking around a bit and found a couple of ideas, but this is the one i like the best. what a beautiful thing. maybe i’ll do 28 random acts of kindness for my 28th birthday. hmm, maybe i could start to blog them as soon as a i get back … hmmm …

• i need to read a fiction book. i need an escapist read. it’s time.
• i love rice and beans. that is one heck of an excellent meal.
• i miss our friends james and paula. wherever they are now i hope they are having lots of fun galavanting around the U.S. i miss my friend janelle in San Fran. i miss my friend allison in Phenomenal Menomonie.
• okay, time to go make more real lists of the things that have to get done in a matter of days (and once again, make sure you check out josh ritter. for real, you’ll be happy you did).

sunday evenings

i love sunday evenings. sunday mornings i endure, but sunday evenings i cherish. i love the peacefulness and the informality; i love the consistency of the crowd and the lack of stress. yep, by sunday evening, people are really winding down. it seems to me they’re not looking for any drama (they know the week ahead will hold enough), but they’re looking for sanity, seeking out one another because they finally have time.

i love sunday evenings.

i met a guy tonight who now works at our building; turns out he’s the brother of a friend of ours from college. i was excited to see his resemblance to his sister, and just pleased that the world can feel so small when you least expect it.

my friends tom and mary were working with me this evening, and i always love it when they’re there because they “get” perspective. details don’t freak them out and hard questions don’t make them squirm. they like people, so they’re more interested in making people feel seen and heard than looking like they know it all. i love that.

today, i made plans for the week with a bunch of girlfriends, had a couple of quality conversations with people i adore, and got to catch up with a few of my 7th graders from youth group. this afternoon, i worked out for 40 minutes, sat out in the sun afterwards and finished reading through this month’s issue of GOOD, pulled out my new book on the lord’s prayer, and ate a mug’s worth of ice cream.

last week’s stress is behind me. my little sister got married on a beautiful friday afternoon (perfectly positioned between two severely thunderous days of downpours), her luncheon was lovely and worth the to-do, and jon & i managed to survive four days of completely packed activity.

so i feel good. the only thing that would make this moment better would be the chance to cuddle with my husband tonight. but while he’s away – and in honor of paula’s marriage – i put up a new desktop background with a beautiful photo from our wedding day nearly one year ago. and i look at him kissing me there, just outside the church in front of fields of farmland and an open sky, and i’m grateful that i can add that memory to the many wonderful ones i’m thinking on today.

i am a lucky – and thankful – girl.

acting.

in elementary school, my teachers noted that i had good stage presence. i agreed. i was comfortable in front of an audience and considered myself a promising actress. in third grade, i had the role of the magic lamp in the aptly titled musical, “the magic lamp.” but while i had the biggest role, i was also off-stage the entire time speaking into a microphone while the other actors picked “me” up and talked to “me.” still, behind the curtain there, i was fully engaged, going about as though i were “on” and everyone could see me. all of me was present. i remember that. i remember my eyes widening with surprise and gesturing with my arms when i wanted to get across a point; i guarantee i wasn’t just any ordinary lamp.

when i’m engaged, i’m fully engaged. i’m into it, heart, soul & mind.

and that’s why i wouldn’t make a good actress. i’d have a hard time concealing my true self underneath the character i’d be taking on. my character wouldn’t be believable unless i felt the same way she did completely. and if i couldn’t do that, people would see right through me.

sometimes i forget that my emotions are so evident. when i’m feeling something i don’t want or know how to share, i start acting, concealing, pretending. it’s such a joke. my friends, my co-workers, they all see right through it.

it happened today at work. an afternoon meeting went horribly awry. and as the tension in the room increased, i grew timid and afraid to speak up. when i gained the courage to speak, i had to hold back tears.

yes, i got teary-eyed. and i felt anxious. and sad. and hurt. but i didn’t cry, so i figured i had concealed it well.

until 4 of the 6 people from the meeting came in later to check in on me. clearly, i’m a poor actress. i couldn’t fool a fly.

i feel embarrassed by this quality, and yet, i feel simultaneously grateful for this quality. because it’s the thing today that brought my friend paul into the room to check in on me. and i cried a lot with him. explained how i felt attacked, and hurt, and unsure of myself and my ideas. and he apologized. and i apologized. and we talked through it and past it. and then he cried. and shared what had been going on in his head.

my husband said later when i explained our interaction that i can make anyone cry.

it’s never my intention, you know. i just think i wear my heart on my sleeve and can’t cover it well. i can’t pretend. so it’s not easy for other people to pretend. my poor acting skills, when God uses them, make room for vulnerability and honesty. sometimes that leads to healing, sometimes it leads to hurt. sometimes it leads to confusion, and sometimes it leads to clarity.

today, it led to healing. and a little clarity. it helped me to see paul differently, it bent my heart towards him.

my prayer now is for protection as we build up each other and care for one another as peers and friends. our interaction makes me want to live out the philippians verse i love so much:
do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

i want to live it out not only because it’s commanded, but because i want to do it. i felt reminded of how much God loves Paul, of how God is using Paul. I have the opportunity to partner with God by serving Paul, by encouraging him, by respecting his creative gifts and engaging his passion for the arts.

i admit i’m not quick learner. but God is good enough to use a bad meeting to demonstrate how much he loves his church.

i think God tries to act sometimes, to come into our lives discreetly, like we might not even see him. but it’s not in his nature to disguise his own presence or to stay behind the curtain. i think sometimes he tries to whisper lines to people on the stage, to help them move towards the plot, towards resolution. but sometimes he just has to get involved in bigger ways.

today, i think he came in through a bad meeting, disguised himself in the tension, and then whispered that we just ought to be honest. and when we got there, he revealed himself through tears and forgiving words.

i love that about him. i love that he’s not just sitting in the audience watching us, or cursing when we forget our lines or telling us to get off the stage because we’re not doing it right. i like that he gets involved because he cares about the story – and not only because the story itself is so good but because he likes the characters so much.

yeah, i love that about him.

supera

one of the challenges that presents itself when you’re working at a church is that it’s really difficult to let your flaws be seen by other people. regular old office people expect that you’re flawed and embrace it — which i’m not necessarily saying is good, but it’s sometimes much easier.

for example, at my old job, i worked with a guy who was real sweet but sometimes incredibly insistent that all things be done his way (or no way). when i’d see his name pop up on my caller ID, i’d mutter his last name under my breath. so his name (let’s call him  “supera”) became more or less the swear word of choice around our office for anything that seemed to be a kill-joy.

okay, yes, i’m a bad person. i’ve repented for saying his name with dread. but back to the story …

the point is: you can’t say anyone’s name under your breath when you’re a christian. because 1) before you’ve said it, you’re sure that people have wanted to say your name under their breath too, 2) someone knows them and loves them just as they are and 3) it may not be clear that you’re kind of just joking.

so you’re just stuck in the moment, repenting of your malicious intent to even mutter a name, and praying that you can love that person.

i’m sorry to admit this, but it feels deeply unsatisfying.

so then i feel like a jerk face and try to smile instead and go back to being likable. but the thing is, I’M not actually a very likable person. i’m actually a really bad person who’s super f*ed up and is desperately trying to relinquish my life to jesus who i am well aware can lead it better than i can. so even though i’m trying, i fail most of the time. but i think i’m perceived as nice and that’s when i’m screwed. because it’s easier to be a sucky person who surprises others with genuine kindness than it is to be a friendly, likeable type who scares others when their flaws are revealed.

i’m in a quandry. ugh.

catch up

it’s 4:40 on saturday afternoon* and i’m sitting outside milwaukee’s alterra on the lake, my favorite alterra in this city. i’m waiting for my friends erin and katherine who will be showing up eventually once they make it through chicago’s nasty i-94 traffic. i’d like to call my friend laura to come hang out with me, but my phone charge is nearly dead and i’m reserving the last bit of energy for an “in case of emergency” phone home to my husband.

so this post is more or less a catch up so i can get on to other things. here’s the latest in the past month, as i can recall it:

• jon & i went up the boundary waters with friends lief and emily and liz and john. it was my first trip up to the minnesota-canadian border and i was surprised at my positive attitude while there. okay, no i wasn’t. i actually prayed quite a bit and invited countless others to join me. it’s so easy for me to become afraid of what could go wrong that i can rarely enjoy the moment (i blame it on my genes). so i actively pushed away thoughts about how i’d accidently come upon a bear cub and have no time to respond when Mama Bear suddenly appeared on the scene and ate me. or ate jon. or just destroyed us well enough to make living independently a dream (obviously i’ve tucked those thoughts far, far away). anyhow, i made it AND enjoyed it. so i’m happy. and i’m hopeful jon will take me again. i’ll post pictures soon.
• my friend janelle moved away. at home, whenever i mention how much i like janelle, jon always expresses some sort of bemused confusion: “i just wouldn’t have thought you guys would be friends.” it’s true. janelle is tall. and as a general rule, i don’t quickly befriend tall people. janelle also belongs on the cover of trendy fashion magazines for city folks. i mean really, she wears tight skinny jeans and turquoise high heels and layered t-shirts that somehow make sense when only SHE wears them. i, on the other hand, feel i couldn’t successfully sport more than 2 colors on my person at one time. clearly, it was all the external stuff that initially helped me judge that janelle and i could not, would not, and should not be friends. but then i started talking to janelle. and i really liked her. i love how she thinks, how she willingly moves towards honesty in all things, and how she loves traveling and people and God. san francisco is very lucky to have her. i’m grateful to have started a friendship with her that will last for many years to come.
• i went to an externally-focused conference in the beginning of may with 7 or so others from our staff. as is usual with me, i began to lose interest in the topic when it became popular. but i was thankful for the opportunity to go – if even just for the opportunity to speak into our church’s vision process a bit. mostly, though, i loved listening to jack jezreel. he’s a catholic theologian and community developer of sorts from kentucky. i recommend visiting his website: www.justfaith.org and learning about not just getting more involved in issues of mercy and justice, but developing your heart for mercy and justice as well.
• jon preached again the sunday before we left for our vacation in the boundary waters. he did a great job. but, boy, is that a lot of work. it’s no wonder a senior pastor spends most of his/her time in sermon prep. being responsible for a middle school ministry AND preparing a sermon for 4000 people is no small task. i’m grateful we are where we are because he gets to be part of such a cool teaching team. i’m proud of him and wowed by his giftedness in sharing God’s word with others. he’s so cool.
• i love my friends erin and kat. spending saturday night in milwaukee with them was good to my soul. erin is one of the most focused, dedicated and sassy people i know. i admire her in numerous ways. just her desire to be the person god wants her to be challenges me to examine my own dedication to following god. and i love that she loves people with her whole being. there’s nothing “hokey-pokey” about her – she puts her whole self in. and kat? whenever i’m with her, i feel like there’s so much in store for her, like i’m getting a front row seat to what god is doing in her life. as i watch her wrestle with life and god and relationships, i feel lucky to ever have gotten to be a part of her day-in and day-out. i miss them immensely.
• and my friend laura? how much do you love a woman you can call up in the middle of a day, tell her the exact street corner you’re at in downtown milwaukee, and she can recommend an incredibly great cuban restaurant half a block away? seriously, i love how smart she is. and on a side note, i can’t wait till she starts school here this fall so we can hang out. college seems so long ago, and i’m secretly hopeful that i’ll get to have at least a few nights sitting at a coffeeshop with her studying … or just hanging out and talking :)
• i have so many friends i feel thankful for today. i wish i could list them all, but i think it was seeing erin and kat on saturday night that left me praising god for the way he’s made me. i mean, when i was in college, i developed relationships with people that blew my mind. i never imagined i’d grow so close to anyone. what’s incredible to me is that since then, i’ve had the opportunity to deepen even more friendships. sometimes i feel like my heart is going to burst with all the love i have for my friends. and when i think i have no more love to give, that my heart is already full, god stretches my heart to love even more. i don’t understand how He does it. but i’m thankful more than words can say.

*it’s sunday afternoon as i finish this blog. and jon will be out of his meeting any minute now, so i’ll wrap up. it’s a good practice to confess in blurbs; my head feels less cluttered and more ready to really dwell on particular things. i’m hoping to write more coherently and more specifically in a few days, thanks for hanging in there. 

carpe diem.

shauna niequist was evidently at our home church this past weekend for a mini-arts conference. shauna is the author of cold tangerines, a book about embracing today (and yes, for as much as my bite-size description has oprah’s book club written all over it, i’ve heard the whole thing is actually quite good, or at least better than the chapter i read — which, in my pessimistic sunday night judgment, seems like an extended verse of whitney houston’s 1980s hit “one moment in time.” but i digress …).

the point, really, is that shauna is an author and i am not. and she came to town yesterday to share her ideas on how we might unleash the creativity inside our souls. again, i did not. i don’t get invitations to speak because i haven’t proven myself. i haven’t really done anything of significance. i pretty much lived in chicago as a “good person,” kept quiet about my faith, and sought the approval of everyone with whom i worked. i kept a blog which was very dramatic because my life in chicago was very dramatic. i wrote stories about my boyfriends who weren’t boyfriends, but who i let spend money taking me out and buying me gifts. i visited exotic places on the school’s dime, sneaking away from my chaperoning responsibilities late in the evenings to blog about the joys and frustrations of traveling with a pack of hormonal teenagers. and i lived in chicago, a city notorious for its densely population of work hard, party hard 20-somethings, which clearly gives plenty of fodder for storytelling.

here, now, after moving, marrying, and buying a house, i’m finally settling into a place that allows me an opportunity to reflect. not that i plan on writing a book anytime soon. and i surely won’t write a book on seizing the moment, since i have absolutely no authority whatsoever to speak on such a topic. in fact, i’d say i’m probably the last person to be found encouraging anyone to inject a little “carpe diem” into their lives. tonight, the whole idea seems exhausting.

seize the day. maybe if it were rephrased i could get on with it alright, like “live at peace with the day” or “pray during the day.” it’s just that “seize” seems to require a can of chilled red bull or an 8 oz package of chocolate-covered coffee beans, both of which are not on my budgeted grocery list. so i’d live at peace with the day, and have a banana while i’m praying. that seems much simpler.

no, if i were going to write a book, i’d write about my failures, since those seem to be the places i always see God most clearly. i’d include stories about learning to cross-country ski, about my first real break-up, about my psycho hose-beast moment outside jon’s house when we were dating. i’d include the things i said that made conversation awkward (i’m sorry, but someone should have explained to me what “sloppy seconds” actually meant before i used it off-handedly in an interview with a potential boss). and i’d include stories like the one i have from last week, when i spoke in front of my fellow staff friends about my learnings from a recent conference and felt i might die from embarrassment and shame in how poorly i spoke when put on the spot.

with all their drabness and lackluster, those are always the places i see God. those are the places i hear Him and smell Him and taste Him. and what more could i ask for? what more is there to say?

i suppose if failure is the way God speaks to me, then perhaps He’s teaching me how ridiculously bold and proud i am. sure, sometimes i don’t know what He’s teaching me, except that He’s suddenly there in a nearly tangible way, and i need Him. shauna must be wired quite differently than i am. God must be teaching things to her through her humility, encouraging her to build confidence in the gifts and talents He’s given her. perhaps that’s why she wrote what she did – because He’s teaching her to seize every moment, to live in the now and give it all she’s got. and maybe for me, well, maybe He’s showing me that i need to let Him be the teacher, that He’ll seize the day and i should just follow closely.

dreaming & ideas

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.

vocational welcome.

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 :)