Grace and Peace to You All,

Election 2008 has finally come to an end. For those of us who have been suffering from election fatigue these past few weeks, it’s a welcome relief, to tell you the truth.

But now, after months and months of being made aware of all the ways Americans seem to be divided, we will begin to hear (and quite rightly) that we must come together. In president-elect Obama’s victory speech last night he spoke directly to this when he quoted Abraham Lincoln, who also presided over a divided nation. “We are not enemies but friends,” Lincoln said after the Civil War, “though passion may have strained…it must not break our bonds of affection.” These are fine words. We can’t escape the sense of history in that they were spoken by an African-American who has been elected President of the United States in Lincoln’s home state, and in Chicago, the very city where Lincoln won the nomination for President. They are fine words, and historic. But the road to unity is going to be difficult, and there are many among us who are anxious and fearful of what lies ahead.

As the Church, the Body of Christ, we need to lead the way in the healing that must begin after such a long and contentious political season. How can we do this? We can first recognize that as the Church we are called to “unity in diversity,” through the power of the Spirit of Christ in us and all around us. The Body of Christ is diverse. There are people in our own church—the First Presbyterian Church of Eustis—who probably voted for different candidates. There are members and friends of our congregation who gather together each Sunday for worship, sing together in the choir and serve side by side in mission and ministry, who may not agree at all when it comes to politics. I know that today I am the pastor of a church where some of my flock are rejoicing over the victory of president-elect Barack Obama, and some are not.

But the Body of Christ is also unified. Paul referred to this in Galatians when he wrote, “There is no longer any Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, for all are made one in Christ.” In Philippians Paul exhorted the early church to be “One in spirit and in purpose.” The culture that Paul was speaking into was no different from our own in that it sought to divide people by race, background, political leanings, faith, gender, and so much more. But though the world will try to divide us, and cause us to strive against one another on the world’s terms, as Christians we are called to One-ness. I use the word “One-ness” because we are drawn together by the One who gave everything so that we might have life, and “life more abundantly.”

I have many Christian friends all over the country who are despondent today. Many of them have expressed their anxiety over an Obama presidency in fairly apocalyptic terms—end of the world kind of language. I have other Christian friends who are unbelievably excited and hopeful—triumphant, if you will—that a new day has dawned. I am quick to remind them all that four years ago, the tables were turned. Those who are rejoicing today were predicting the end of civilization then, and those who are despondent today were on top of the world. As Christians we need to understand that if our outlook of the future is determined by the outcome of an election, and not by the hope we say we have in Jesus Christ—-then our priorities need adjusting.

To that end—and this is the second way the Church can lead in healing division—we need to look to what unifies us as brothers and sisters in Christ, and live into that hope on a daily basis. What the world needs to see from the Church is not angry rhetoric or bitterness and fear. The world does not need to see a Church divided by politics, but united in the love of Christ and for the purpose of being salt and light. Jesus prayed that his disciples would live out this hope and that they would be a witness,
“My prayer is not for [my disciples] alone,” Jesus prayed in John 17. “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. In them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unit to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

And so, my beloved congregation…
If you are filled with joy at the outcome of the election, remember the very words that president-elect Obama used last night to frame his victory. He said that he saw the victory as a challenge to show the kind of “humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.” Your joy today should bring with it a measure of humility and grace, and a sense of duty to heal wounds, find common ground and point to Christ in all that you do.

If you are filled with anxiety and dread on this day, be at peace. We serve a risen Savior, who is at work in and among us in the world. We believe in a Sovereign God, who sets up kings and kingdoms and takes them down. We are heirs of a hope that is not found in politicians nor the outcome of elections. Live into that hope in a spirit of unity with your brothers and sisters in Christ who perhaps voted differently than you did yesterday, and above all show love and demonstrate the kind of grace that you yourselves have been given.

You are loved and prayed for daily.

After many responses of the usual sort (one page, two page, red page, blue page) fellow presby-geek (and World of Warcraft guru) Shawn Coons tweeted back : “instead of a statement of faith, how about a twitter of faith? Anyone else up to the challenge?”  And so it began…

Here’s the challenge:

1. If you’re not on twitter yet, click here to see what it’s all about and why you should be.
2. If you’re on twitter (or just joined), log in and tweet your personal statement of faith…in 140 characters or less.
3. Add the hashtag #TOF somewhere in your tweet. That will actually make it 136 characters, but it also makes it easy for us to find and compile all of these statements.
4. Encourage your friends to take the “Twitter of Faith” challenge, too - imagine how cool it would be if this meme spreads, proclaiming the gospel across the internets (well, at least across twitter).

UPDATE:  Adam, Mark, Chad, Wendy, Cobus, Matthew, Makeesha, Geoff, Adele, Drew, Cameron, Dan, Greg, John, Ryan, Angela, John, Greg, Molly, Matt,  Dave Zimmerman from InterVarsity Press, and our distinguished moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow, have all posted this to their blogs.  If you blog it, let us know in the comments so we can link to it here, and feel free to use the above image (designed by Adam) for your post.

UPDATE: There’s now a facebook page and corresponding event, too.  Even if you’re not on Twitter, you can click here to scroll through the many TOFs that have been filling up the web in the past few hours.

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First Presbyterian Church of Altadena (CA) is looking for a pastor who is:

• conversant in the missional church frameworks
• experienced in multicultural leadership
• committed to intergenerational faith life

We have an almost 100 year heritage as a Japanese American church and now Sunday mornings have 45% diversity. We are next to Pasadena, thus, enjoy the resources and challenges of this urban-edge location. More info at altadenapresbyterian.org.

The surgery to save my sight was very new in 1969, and only two doctors in the United States were doing it.  Funny.  It’s outpatient surgery now, but then it was pretty serious and fairly experimental. After all was said and done, I ended up legally blind in one eye—which is better than how things could have turned out, but not ideal.  Though I am legally blind in my right eye, I  can still see things like shadows, colors and shapes that I can sometimes identify.  It’s a whole lot better than nothing, I suppose.  Because of its blindness, my right eye tends to wander a bit, and wants to peer in all directions.  When I was young, the eye doctors told my parents it had to do with the muscles around my eye, and how they weren’t going to develop properly.  Consequently, I grew up dealing with a slightly crossed eye, a malady that resulted in some teasing, a few wonderful nick-names (Cross-Eyed Freak, is my fave) and more than one ruined school picture.

When I am tired, my wandering eye is especially noticeable.  I often find myself  looking in one direction with my left eye while my right eye is looking somewhere else.  I have grown so accustomed to my wandering eye that I don’t even think about it much any more.  But then something will happen that reminds me once again that I am not completely whole.  I’ll be conducting a meeting, for example, and will recognize someone to speak—only the person I recognize will think I am looking behind them and will look around in consternation.  At that point, I will usually close my wandering eye and point at them.  Admittedly, that’s kind of weird, too.  I imagine that I look sort of strange, winking and pointing at people in a meeting, but there you are.  I have no depth perception to speak of, either, and I have also discovered that I can’t read the greens on a golf course.  Oh, and 3-D movies…  can’t see them in 3-D.  I’ll put on the 3-D glasses like everyone else, and pretend to be startled by the magic of three dimensional film, but I am seeing it in 2-D and its kind of fuzzy.

And from time to time I run into poles and people when I am walking down the street.

If you met me, you might not notice right away that I am somehow different–that my right eye tends to gravitate a bit to the left or the right depending on which way my head is cocked.  I have learned to hide it.  Once after revealing my semi-blindness to a group of people who had known me for some time, I was approached by a lady who said, “I have never noticed that about you at all.”  It’s true.  For as many people who have noticed my eyes crossing a tad, there are as many or perhaps more folks in my life who have not.

In the great, grand scheme of things this is a pretty small cross to bear, but I often find myself focusing on the the times when my “other-ness” has been exposed.  Those moments when I am reminded of my perceived weakness are humbling and hurtful.  Try as I might to shut them out, I will hear the voices of schoolchildren, of girls I dated, of the bully who pinned me to the ground—all asking me, “Are you looking at me?  I can’t tell.  You’re eye is crossed.  What are you looking at? “  In those moments I am confronted with the thought that my “other-ness” is never going to go away, and I will always be reminded of it no matter how accustomed I feel I have become, or how much I want to forget.

In the end, however, my “other-ness” seems so petty and small in the grand scheme of things.  There are stories much more poignant than mine, to be sure and humankind is particularly adept at creating “others” through division and difference.  When I compare my own experience with the ways so many of my brothers and sisters in the world are marginalized I feel a bit ashamed for even feeling troubled at all by my wandering eye.  Still, my experience does give me a way to understand more fully what it means to be “other” in some small way—at least if I am willing to learn from it.  The trouble is, I am not often willing to learn, and all-too frequently I find myself standing in judgment over those who dare to differ from me.  I long for those “better angels,” as Abraham Lincoln called them, to step forward and carry me above the petty and stupid ways that I divide and separate, but despite my best intentions I find myself falling flat on my face more than I would like to admit.

The Christian community has been plagued with a lack of understanding when it comes to maintaining and promoting the peace, unity and purity of the Church.  Though God calls the Church to faithfulness when it comes to God’s redemptive and reconciling work among all people, and indeed all of Creation, the Church stumbles and falls more often than it runs.  Those of us who call ourselves disciples of Christ should be living sacraments of the God’s once and future kingdom, but instead we tend to choose far more pedestrian ideals.  We squabble and fight and divide ourselves over petty issues, to be sure.  Communities of faith engage in struggles over worship style,  battles over the color of carpet in the sanctuary, fights over who has the power over the church budget, and a whole host of other things like denominational and doctrinal differences, disputes over Biblical interpretation, etc., etc., etc.

And worse… It has been said that the most segregated hour in America is on Sunday morning.  Now this comment typically is made in relation to racial division, but could easily be applied to class, gender, sexuality, politics or age.  As the Church we are called to be a “city on a hill,” a “light” that should not and cannot be hidden.  But in our culture it’s become a negative, rather than a positive that those outside the church can step in and take a gander.  Most of them don’t like what they see at all.

I have been thinking about the Church and the Kingdom of God.  Admittedly, my thoughts have been directed thus because I am preparing a sermon on the topic, but still…

The text I was struggling with is Luke 13:22-30, a moment where Jesus responds to an extremely loaded question:  “Will only a few be saved?”  The question was asked of Jesus with an assumption behind it that God favored a small, privileged few, who were fortunate enough to be born in the right family, the correct tribe, the most favored nation.  It was a legitimate enough question, and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to suggest that the questioner meant any harm by asking it.

There were some assumptions that were behind the question, however–assumptions that were undoubtedly shared by more than a few of the people gathered around Jesus when it was asked.  Many of the Jews in Jesus’ day held to the belief that with the coming of the Messiah all things would be set to rights and justice would finally prevail.  Justice, in their minds, would be for the Gentiles (foreigners, people of other races, religions, backgrounds and creeds) to get their comeuppance and for the Jews (at least those Jews who faithfully adhered to the Mosaic Law)  to be lifted up at last.  One of the images that was often used to describe this messianic moment was a huge party where the privileged few were allowed access to the table.  It’s no wonder that Jesus used this very same image time and again to describe an alternate view of God’s imminent kingdom.  The party guests that were painted in Jesus’ portraits of the kingdom feast would have not been welcomed by the elite, Jewish, religious leaders of the day. Jesus’ party guests were often the outcasts, the sinners, the foreigners and sometimes even the enemies of the Hebrew people.  Jesus’ portrayal of the kingdom of God was not at all what the religious elite would have expected. nor appreciated, for that matter.

Still, the question is there:  “Will only a few be saved?”  I am sure that when it was asked, everyone stopped and listened intently to what Jesus would say.  After all, Jesus had made a name for himself as an out-of-the box rabbi, a teacher for the people, some might have said.  To hear his answer to one of the dominant questions of his culture would have definitely piqued the interest of more than a few of those in the crowd.

I love how Jesus responded to this question.  Instead of answering it directly he declares, “You need to make every effort to find your way to the narrow door.”  Instead of enumerating all of the people who would or wouldn’t find a seat at God’s table, Jesus essentially tells everyone who is listening, “Instead of being so concerned about who is in or out, you need to be concerned with your own relationship with God, on securing your own invitation to the feast.”

I like to imagine what would happen if existing congregations tossed out their long and wordy mission statements and simply adopted Jesus’ words as their vision.  Perhaps then we would be able to find the energy to deal with two of the most fierce objections that those outside of the Christian faith seem to have with Christians–objections that are essentially eschatological in nature.

First, there is no getting around the fact that in many ways Christianity is a particular faith, which is to say that there is an aspect of it that speaks of exclusion and inclusion.   The problem for a lot of people outside of the Christian sphere  doesn’t lie so much in the fact that Christianity is particular, but in the way that particularity has become a source of triumph for most Christians.  The huge popularity among evangelical Christians of the “Left Behind” books (not to mention the movies, countless spin-off books, etc.) by Tim LeHaye and Jerry Jenkins is a prime example of this very kind of Christian triumphalism—a triumphalism that lifts up the destruction of the “other” and the triumph of the elite few.  A great many Christians revel in the idea that one day they will be snatched away to glory while the ungodly and the sinners will be left to suffer.  The idea of a “rapture,” which is taken from an oft- disputed text from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, has been used, quite frankly, to inject terror into the Gospel narrative.  But the fear and dread of being “left behind” to experience all manner of apocalyptic judgment that is such a part of “popular” Christian eschatology stands in direct contrast to the blessed hope that should fill us at the thought of Jesus’ reign.

The second fierce objection that is often directed at the Existing Church is in the way it has become a place that fosters division and separation.  It’s sort of ironic that many congregations within the Existing Church will join together ideologically  in things like upholding a triumphalist Christian worldview, but won’t break bread with one another, worship together, recognize baptism from one another’s denominations, and a host of other wonderfully divisive things.   You can see why so many people outside the Christian faith are stymied by the dissension and infighting that they see within the Existing Church. For them, it appears that the qualifications for being one of the privileged few who will sit at the messianic feast are defined by the Christian community in ways that are both arbitrary and capricious.

In Luke 13, when Jesus exhorted his listeners to “make every effort” to find their own way to the “narrow door” of salvation, the Greek word that is used there is agonizethe.  It carries with it a sense of maximum effort and energy.  The fact that we derive the English word “agony” fromagonizethe should give us even more insight into what Jesus was trying to say.  He was telling those who had ears to hear that if they devoted all of their heart, soul, mind and strength to being a God-follower, they would find themselves far less concerned about who was “in” and who was “out.”  They would, in fact, not be concerned about it at all.  And further, they would find themselves surprised, Jesus seems to say, by the people who will be sitting next to them at the messianic table.

I named this essay in part after a book by Bruce Chilton, and in part to help me remain focused.  You see, if I say that I am “finding an emergent eschatology,” then maybe I will actually find myself moving toward it more deliberately than I would otherwise.  I’m a firm believer that the way we speak about things helps form and inform their meaning.  In other words, when we are finally able to develop different ways of thinking and talking about eschatology, we are one step closer to understanding the fullness of the kingdom of God as Christ did.

For example, Jesus talked about a kingdom that was imminent rather than immediate.   The dominant eschatology of the Existing Church  deals almost exclusively with immediacy, and the fear of being caught off guard.  An imminent kingdom is one that is near enough to be felt.  Jesus painted a picture of a kingdom that already existed in heaven, but had come so near to us that it could be imagined, felt, and experienced.

Jesus portrayed the kingdom of God as a celebration that included people of races, backgrounds, classes and ages.  Anyone who heard the invitation and responded would be welcomed.  This stands in sharp contrast with the dominant eschatology of the Existing Church, which (by its actions), seems to favor separation over unity.  Far too many faith communities qualify their requirements for “membership” in both spoken and unspoken ways based on what they will not tolerate or allow rather that what they value and embrace.  Some even go so far as to delineate who is “in” or “out” based on ethnicity, birthplace or language.

It seems clear in Scripture that the grace given to the “elect”—those who hear and respond to the kingdom invitation—does provide a certain sense of confidence and assurance, but absolutely  does not give those who are called any reason to boast.  The Apostle Paul once wrote, “If anyone feels like they need to boast, let him boast in Christ.”  The dominant eschatology of the Existing Church is one that fosters a sense of  over-confidence and superiority.  Faith communities who ascribe to this sort of eschatological understanding often find themselves giving voice to shrill messages of judgment.  They forget that the grace they have been given is undeserved at best.  At the very least they should be feeling broken and burdened over those who may not respond to the messianic invitation, rather than triumphant that the “others” will one day get their just desserts.

A more emergent eschatology will find its voice in the margins—safely within the “others” who have been excluded by the Existing Church.  It will find its place among the diverse multitudes who are sitting down at the messianic feast.  It will find its mission in the words of Jesus who exhorted his listeners to devote all of their being into their relationship with God.  It will find its heart in the spirits of those who hear the invitation to the kingdom celebration and are brought to their knees in gratitude that God in God’s great mercy invited even them.

Some time ago, Ryan and I Netflixed the documentary The World According to Sesame Street. When I opened the red and white envelope and saw the title, I assumed that my (then) soon-to-be-husband, knowing my love of all things Muppets, picked out some impossibly cute children’s programming that would surely take my mind off of impending finals and wedding planning.

Instead, what he got was a documentary following how Sesame Street translates into different countries and continents.

Unlike much of American television, which is syndicated, dubbed, and shipped overseas, Sesame Street reflects the culture in which it’s broadcast. The “fundamentals” are the same-muppets and human beings co-habitate peacefully in a neighborhood, reading, spelling, and celebrating numbers while teaching and learning lessons of mutual respect and understanding. Sesame Street is no urban utopia, but does offer a model of what can truly occur when community is a truth recognized.

For example, in Mexico, Sesame Street is called “Plaza Sesamo.” Instead of our familiar Big Bird, the 6-foot high yellow bird, the resident avian is a quetzal-a colorful bird featured prominently in Aztec folklore. Some segments from the American Sesame Street are translated into Spanish, but generally, the show produces its own unique content.

In South Africa, where the AIDS crisis is the blight of a generation, the show features a muppet who is HIV-positive. Our own American context, so sanitized that even our pencils contain anti-microbial material, may find such a character appalling and indeed, when news broke of this unique puppet, many Christian conservatives objected loudly. However, in a country where most children have been directly affected by HIV/AIDS, it is appropriate to feature a muppet who represents a societal norm.

Examples of the contextualizations of Sesame Street could fill several blog posts. Sesame Street is seen in over 140 countries around the world, ranging from Indonesia to Russia to France and everywhere in between.

I wonder, then, in a world where the North American church struggles to be “relevant” in today’s society, what it would look like if we were to take a cue from Sesame Street and focus on the contextualization of our worshipping communities?

What would happen if local churches quit trying to be “something they’re not” and instead, embraced their unique ideological worldview?

Among the numerous lessons taught by Big Bird and Co., Sesame Street has shown that it is possible to stay true to a set-format while adapting that format to fit the needs of a specific context. Although, in the past I have critiqued the Emerging Church, contextualization seems to be one area in which the movement excels.

So how shall we model ourselves after Sesame Street?

• Make worship understandable and accessible in a way that makes sense to its community.
• …but that doesn’t mean “dumbing down”-Sesame Street continues to teach letters and numbers, knowing that education is achieved through repetition
• Structure a worshiping community that is responsive to the needs of its immediate context. In other words, if your neighbors are shoeless, don’t give them bananas. Take care of the pressing needs first; worries about bananas later.
• Use a language that is easily comprehended. Explain words and concepts foreign to the local vernacular. Translate as necessary.
• View tradition through the lens of the present. While the content of Sesame Street has changed, the tradition-the basic format-has not.
• Celebrate personal cultural identity while celebrating the cultural identity of others.

…and you thought all Sesame Street taught was letters and numbers!

Dilworthtown Community Church
1385 Birmingham Road
West Chester, PA 19382
www.dilworthtowncc.com/shane_claiborne

PS - Go Phillies!

I completely get that. There are days when I feel like I need to hear the call every five minutes just to assure me that I am doing what I am supposed to do with my life. Even when people tell me things that should reassure me, I struggle to believe that God would actually want to use someone like me for such an important task. I once heard that the great reformer, Martin Luther, used to feel as though the earth was going to open up and swallow him whole each time he rose to say the Mass. That comforts me a bit, really. If Martin Luther felt himself to be unworthy of his call, then at least I am in good company. Martin Luther also swore like a sailor and loved beer, which is also pretty comforting.

For the past few years I have felt a longing in me that has been difficult to define and impossible to quench. You see, God, in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy, has seen fit for me to serve in the Presbyterian Church (USA)–a Christian denomination that has been (like most mainline Protestant denominations) in decline for decades. My more conservative colleagues from not-mainline denominations gleefully point this out at every available opportunity—God love ‘em. Once I had a fellow pastor from a conservative, evangelical church inform me over lunch that in his opinion the real moment when the PC(USA) fell into ruin was when it began ordaining women.

“That’s where it all started,” he told me in sage-like fashion. “And now look what’s happening… you’re ordaining them.” I asked what he meant by “them” and he replied, “You know…homosexuals.”

He hissed the word “homosexuals” like a snake, like it hurt him to say it. I started to explain the intricacies of Presbyterian polity, and that we didn’t in fact ordain lots of different people for lots of different reasons, but that didn’t mean that they were evil, bad, horrible, hellbound sorts. The thought of explaining all of this, however, made me tired. Instead I decided to take the high road and asked him if he had any pictures of himself in his Klan robes and hood, and how many people came to his last cross burning. Lunch sort of went downhill after that.

I shouldn’t let things like that bother me, but I realize that the reason it does is pretty simple: I worry that the critics of my [supposedly] dying, mainline denomination might be right. What if they were? Would it really change the way I feel about things? I have looked into the eyes of Legalism and Fundamentalism within the Christian community and know it to be something altogether apart from God. But here I am–a self-described emergent church leader—bursting with ideas and dreams of reforming and transforming the small corner of the Body of Christ to which I have been assigned to shepherd. Here I am in a mainline denomination, serving an historic, traditional church. It feels like I am the smallest, puniest most insignificant tugboat in the fleet trying to push the grandest and most gargantuan ocean liner away from the rocks.

I spent most of my day today in meetings talking about budgets, and extremely important things like who really should have a key to the closet in the church kitchen where the good silver is kept, and why it’s important to have a church sign that matches the outside decor of the church building. Today I felt about as emergent, innovative and transformative as an old shoe. It’s days like this that try my soul, and make me wonder if I am somehow being punished for all of the misdeeds of my youth…and there were many.

The thing is, I have had these other moments when I feel so called to be a pastor that it literally makes me ache. And even further, that God—for some reason unknown to me—seems to want me to take my place in the ocean among so many others who are paddling like mad, and trying desperately to turn this big ship we call the Church around.

George Herbert is this seventeenth-century poet that I admire a great deal. I have his picture on the wall of my office. It’s more of an engraving, really—or rather, a picture of an engraving that I printed off of the Internet and then put in a gilded frame to make it look respectable. At any rate, a rendering of George Herbert sits on my wall. Once I attended a talk by Eugene Peterson, the man who created The Message–a translation of the Bible into everyday language–and about a million other books about faith and life. He said that one day he just starting replacing all of his diplomas, accolades and awards that were hanging on his office wall with pictures of people he admired and who had influenced him. He cited George Herbert as one of his heroes, along with a bunch of dead, German theologians that I was ashamed to say I had never heard of before. I went home and did the same thing. My wall contains C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, George Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, Eugene Peterson and Bono. The picture of Bono is a good one. He’s got on shades and a cowboy hat. I got if off the Internet, too.

I’m sorry…this story really should have begun on the streets of San Diego, which is a pretty darn nice place for any story to begin considering the weather and all. Anyway, I found myself walking in downtown San Diego on a bright February afternoon in search of a bookstore. My mission was to buy a book of George Herbert’s poems. You see, it was in San Diego that I heard Eugene Peterson’s talk–the one where he mentioned his office and the picture of George Herbert that hung there. It had been the second time in a month that I had heard the name of George Herbert, and I decided that it was the type of sign that at the very least necessitated the purchase of a book of his poetry.

A few weeks earlier, I happened to be sitting at a worship service in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London England. Yes, I realize that I just wrote that I “happened” to be in England. Well, I was. I was on “holiday,” to coin an English colloquialism, with my wife. We were celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. We were attending a Sunday night worship service on the Third Sunday of Epiphany at one of the most famous cathedrals in the world. I’m not bragging or trying to sound pretentious (well, maybe a little), but you have to admit that’s pretty cool. But this is even better… We were there five years almost to the day when we first attended a worship service in that grand cathedral. And on that day, five years before, God had spoken to me in an audible voice and told me that I needed to become a pastor. I’d been fighting the the call, you see, and I guess that God decided enough was enough. The voice that God used that day was the voice of the Reverend Canon Patience Purchas, Associate Director of Ordinands, Diocese of St. Albans. I didn’t know what it meant either. I found out her job title in plain English was more like, “The Pastor in Charge of Everyone in Southern England Who is Trying to Become a Pastor.” Her sermon that evening was essentially about how to recognize God’s will for you life. I don’t remember much of it all, but I do remember that at one point she said something like, “I feel as though there is someone here, who is struggling with God’s call to pursue a life in ministry.”

Now, I’ve seen enough charlatan preachers in my church-going career to know that old trick. I’ve witnessed a number of these performers, who, at the critical moment in the sermon—usually around the time of the altar call—will stretch out their hand in dramatic fashion and say, “I sense that there’s someone out there…someone out there who is far from God…” or something to that effect. There’s nothing particularly spiritual about this 9 times out of 10. It’s called playing the odss, and people do it all the time in casinos, riverboats and smoky rooms above meat markets.

But at that moment, in that place, I knew that it wasn’t anything like that. God was working through this very proper Englishwoman in her rather stiff Anglican robes, who had no way of knowing that in that small crowd of visitors and downtown Londoners that there was indeed someone who was struggling with God’s call in his life. I began to weep uncontrollably, overwhelmed with the knowledge that God had found me 6,000 miles from home, where I had run like Jonah from a destiny I was afraid to embrace. Six months later, my wife and I were driving a huge truck filled with our earthly belongings from Florida to Chicago. We’d sold our house, a car, my lawn mower and deep fryer—nearly everything that wouldn’t fit in a downtown apartment, and headed for the midwest so I could attend seminary. That Third Sunday of Epiphany changed my life.

So there I sat, five years later in roughly the same spot where I had heard God speaking to me through the Rev. Canon Patience Purchas, and I was expecting more of the same. I know that lightning doesn’t strike twice and all of that happy horse-poo, but there I was. I wanted to hear God’s voice tell me what I was going to do next, what the next five years would bring. The truth was, I was kind of at a crossroads–at least in my own mind. I’d been feeling antsy, wondering when God might be ready to promote me to something bigger, better and hipper. I knew that I was ready to lead my own church, or to engage in a larger ministry than the one to which I had been called. I also knew that I wasn’t getting any younger, and that time was soon going to be working against me. If I wanted to be bright, young reformer I only had a few more years to make that happen. In the business world there is a window for upward mobility and when you get to a certain age, the window becomes more and more narrow until it finally closes. I just knew that God had something in mind for me, because that’s how it works, right? That’s the kind of thing that happens to preachers and other people who go chasing after God-dreams—they hear voices, they get visions, they have epiphanies while sitting in the middle of a centuries-old cathedral with the smell of incense and candles in the air. And then success finds them. By success I mean that they are granted entry into the most hallowed halls of Christendom—halls that are reserved for people with big book deals, television shows, and really big churches. I knew this was coming because the story of my life that was being written needed something dramatic to put in the introduction.

Then I looked at my worship bulletin.

“Prominence & Obscurity: The Poetry of George Herbert,” it read. I remembered reading Herbert in a Renaissance poetry class that I took in college. The only thing I could remember about him was that he’d written a poem about Easter that was in the shape of an angel. That was the extent of my Herbert knowledge. When I realized that the entire worship service was going to be one big Herbert love-fest, I was devastated. I had come to experience a life-changing worship service, and I was going to be treated instead to some sort of glorified poetry reading. Still, I was in St. Paul’s–in London. I was resigned that although it was the Third Sunday of Epiphany, there would be no epiphany for me that day. I decided to be content with just being there.
At one point in the service, one of the liturgists read from Herbert’s poem The Priesthood, which exemplifies in so many ways what Herbert was all about. He had tasted success and had tasted power and chose in the end to dedicate his life to serving God. I remember hearing these words being read:

Blest Order, which in power dost so excel/That with th’ one hand thou liftest to the sky/And with the other throwest down to hell…I am both foul and brittle; much unfit/To deal in holy Writ…Wherefore I dare not, I, put forth my hand/To hold the Ark, although it seem to shake/Through th’ old sins and new doctrines of our land/Only, since God doth often vessels make/Of lowly matter for high uses meet/I throw at his feet…

I realize to a lot of folks that last bit sounds pretty much like seventeenth-century poetry would sound: formal, stuffy, old… But to me, on that day as I sat there in that ageless place I felt like time had been stripped away and the words of Herbert found me sitting there and wrung out my heart. I thought of him, this poet, this would-be wealthy and powerful up-and-coming scholar and politician, who flung it all away to become the pastor of an obscure parish, and I was ashamed. As my wife and I walked out of the church that night and on to the busy London streets, it began to rain. I let it pelt me in the face. It felt like baptism. And the London rain soon mingled with the tears that began to fall because I am just like that–a big baby… at least when it comes to the important things in life. Nothing, in the end, is more important than doing what you are called by God to do.

I should return to the San Diego part of the story, which is where this all came together in a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook up way. I was attending the National Pastor’s convention (where Eugene Peterson was one of the keynote speakers). I was probably one of twelve Presbyterians who attended out of probably a few thousand or so other pastors, most of whom were Southern Baptists or “non-denominational,” which is the same thing as being a Southern Baptist—only more profitable and with a more casual dress code. I walked around the convention feeling more than a little out of place. Nearly all of the pastors I encountered were older, had higher hair and introduced themselves and their wives by saying, We pastor a church in [insert southern city here].” I have never really been fooled by that use of “we” to be perfectly honest. It’s patronizing, especially coming from people who often do not believe that women have the gifts for ordained ministry. If my wife wanted to, she would make an awesome pastor, and we happen to belong to a denomination, which (despite the fact that it is “dying”) would affirm that call. There are many things that don’t feel very emergent about my denomination (remember the silver closet?), but the fact that we believe Scripture upholds the fact that God calls whom God calls is about the foremost “emergent” quality we Presbyterians (the USA kind) possess.

Anyway, I decided to take a break from the convention so that I could take the trolley into downtown San Diego. I figured that I would wander around the Gaslamp district for a bit and hopefully find a bookstore that would miraculously contain a book of George Herbert’s poems. Besides, I just really wanted to get away from Christians for a while. I put on my Johnny Cash t-shirt, and put in all of my earrings (all three) because I feel safe enough to wear them when I am not anywhere near my own church. Figuring that I looked suitably un-pastor-like, I walked to the trolley stop and got on. After a brief interlude to eat at In-And-Out Burger—only the best burger place in the world–I boarded the Blue Line trolley into downtown San Diego.

I noticed that this guy got on at the same I did, and he was–shall we say–a little wobbly on his feet. He was barefooted, carrying his worldly belongings in a clear plastic trash bag and reeking of alcohol. I glanced at him when he wasn’t looking and noticed that he was dirty and wearing a battered, filthy baseball cap that was slightly askew on his head. He had on a pair of reflective, wrap-around shades. When the train lurched forward he almost fell. I saw him take a look at the young man standing next to him–a guy who was well-dressed, well-groomed and looking like he was on his way to a job interview. They couldn’t have been more un-alike. The dirty guy gave his neighbor the once-over.

“How’s it going, man?” he asked him.

“Cool, man. How about you?”

“Just chillin’ man, you know. Just chillin’,” the dirty guy responded.

“Outstanding,” his neighbor said. Then the dirty guy went to sit down. Every time he would do something differently he would announce his intentions. So when he went to sit down, he told everyone, “I’m going to sit down, okay?” then he did it.

I put on my own shades for no other reason than I wanted to watch him a bit longer, but didn’t want to make eye contact. I had learned from my three years living in Chicago that if you made eye contact with every dirty, drunken fellow on the train, you would spend every ride listening to their tales of woe, and would most assuredly end up getting solicited for money. This wasn’t always the case, but it was the case enough of the time for me to form a preconceived notion about making eye contact with dirty, drunken guys on the train. Still, I wanted to the see the complexities of the human drama unfold, so I put on my shades to stare.

The Guy, as I will call him henceforth, was trying to make conversation with everyone, who was seated next to him. “I’m trying to get downtown,” he proclaimed. No one responded. “Man, I need to find a liquor store,” he said. No one said anything, nor acted surprised, for that matter. All of a sudden he looked at me and got up from his seat. “I’m going over here,” he told everyone.
I immediately looked away, out the window, at my seat, but to no avail. He sat down in front of me and looked right in my face.

“Hey man, give this ticket to someone who wants to take a round trip back. I don’t need it.” He stuck out his blackened hand and handed me a crumpled round-trip trolley ticket. “Find someone who needs it,” he added. “I’m going to stand over here,” he told me, and stood up by the door of the trolley and peered at the route map that was above it. I didn’t know what to say.

“Cool, man. Thanks.” I put the ticket into the book I’d been reading.

“Hey man,” he said to me again. “Does this go downtown?”

“Yeah, it goes downtown, dude.”

“Oh yeah? Well which stops are for downtown?”

I looked at the map above the door. For a moment I thought to say that I didn’t live in San Diego and didn’t know anything about which stops were which, but that would have been a lie. I had taken the same trolley two days before, and knew where it was going. Besides, over time I have skillfully used public transportation in lots of major cities: New York, London, Paris, Rome, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Miami… yeah, that’s it. I figured that I could handle giving directions to a dirty, drunken, ex-hippie. On the map there was an area that was outlined in grey and labeled, “downtown loop” or something like that.

“Do you see that grey area?” I asked him.

“No,” he said.

“Well, that’s the downtown area. Pretty much every stop will put you downtown somewhere.”

“Cool man,” he said, after a long pause. We rode in silence for a bit. “Hey man, what do you play?” he asked me in a stage whisper.

“What?”

“What instrument do you play, man?”

“I don’t…play an instrument,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Dude, come on. I know you play an instrument. It’s cool.”

“No, I don’t.”

“What do you do then?” he asked.

“I’m a pastor,” I told him. “Like a pastor of a church… you know?” I finished lamely.

“What?”

“A pastor,” I said in a kind of stage whisper of my own.

The Guy sat there for a moment staring at the floor. Then all of a sudden he brightened.

“I get it! You’re going incognito. That’s cool, man.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about but, but cool,” I said at last.

The Guy grinned at me, and said, “I know that Bob’s in town, man. Yeah, Bob’s in town, man. House of Blues. You’ll be kicking it with the band, right?”

“Bob?”

“Yeah, right. I get you man. You’re concealing.”

Since I had no idea what he was talking about, and couldn’t convince him that I wasn’t a musician and did not know Bob, I figured he was making some sort of drug reference.

“No man, I’m not concealing,” I said hoarsely.

“Do you play bass, man?”

“No, I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”

“Cool.”

The trolley came to a stop and he asked if it was a downtown stop. I told him that it was.

“Dude, I have to find a liquor store?” he said.

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

He stumbled to his feet and tried to go out the door before it closed, and didn’t make it. The trolley door shut in his face. He cursed. I started to tell him that all he had to do was push the button by the door and it would open for him, but he sat down again.

“Guess I won’t be getting off here,” he muttered.

“Try the next one,” I told him. Luckily for both of us, the “next one” came almost immediately. He rose unsteadily to his feet and headed for the door.

“Later man,” he said to me. “I’ll see you up on the stage.” With that, he exited the trolley. I saw him immediately approach a black man with a shopping cart and begin asking directions. I gave a short laugh and looked around at the other passengers.

“I don’t think the liquor store would be a good idea.” I said. A few of them laughed. I noticed that they were all looking at me strangely. I began to wonder if maybe they actually believed the Guy, and thought I was the bassist in Bob’s band, whoever Bob was. I got up and prepared to exit the trolley, feeling their eyes on me. When the trolley stopped and the doors opened, I bolted out of the car as quickly as I could.

The street where I exited happened to be the very same street where the House of Blues was located. I looked up at the marquee. “Bob Weir & Ratdog - Feb. 9″ it read in big red letters. I looked around and saw that the entire street was flooded with disheveled, filthy young people. Most of them had dreadlocks. All of them were carrying backpacks or rucksacks of some kind. They were gathered in small groups around the House of Blues waiting to be let inside. It all came to me in a rush. Bob Weir had been in the Grateful Dead. “Bob Weir & Ratdog” was the band he had formed and was apparently touring with that month. Suddenly what the Guy had been saying to me made sense—sort of. These were modern day Deadheads–the people who used to follow the Grateful Dead around the country, attending all of their concerts and living in an endless haze of pot smoke and tie-dyed shirts.

I began to weave my way through the crowd of Deadheads that were waiting for the concert. More than a few of them had dogs that growled at me menacingly. The hippies themselves were not friendly. They stared at the rest of us as we passed through their gauntlet of body odor and pit bulls. I felt decidedly unauthentic as I went. Here I was, trying to be incognito, trying to be cool with my Johnny Cash t-shirt and my earrings. I had my iPod going by now and was listening to a “Gospel & Christian” playlist. The song that was playing was David Crowder’s “Rescue is Coming.” I turned it up so that I wouldn’t have to hear if the Deadheads were saying things about me, indicting me, calling me out, commenting on my fashionably ripped jeans and my hip Pony walking shoes. I felt as though they knew that despite my efforts to conceal who I was….they could spot my phoniness, my denial. And if they couldn’t then the pit bulls sure as hell could.

David Crowder sang in my ear There’s nothing wrong with me/It’s just that I believe/Things could get better/And there’s nothing wrong with love/I think it’s just enough to believe… I wondered if it was just enough to believe. I believed once that I was called. I believed that God had a task in mind—thissemper reformanda kind of task. Semper Reformanda is that wondrous Reformation-era phrase that seems to be bandied about so much these days. Everyone seems to want the church to reform, but no one seems to understand how to do it, or where to even begin. As I walked the streets of San Diego feeling the accusing stares of the nuevo-Deadheads, I felt my shoulders slump and my heart grow weary. Who was I kidding? I didn’t even feel like a pastor, much less some sort of church leader, much less a part of the emerging church conversation—even less like a reformer.

After wandering around in the Gaslamp District for a while, I finally found a Borders bookstore and went inside. Moments later I was standing in front of the Poetry section staring at a copy of “George Herbert: The Complete English Poems.” It was the only Herbert book on the shelf. I opened it. There was a poem on the page called The Offering. The first two lines read, Come, bring thy gift. If blessings were as slow/As men’s returns, what would become of fools? My eyes filled with tears. Come, bring thy gift.

At the cash register, the young woman who rang up my sale commented on my purchase.

“I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone buy a book of Herbert’s poetry. Well done.”
I smiled a small smile, and wished that I could convey to her the journey that I had undertaken
to stand before here with my money in one hand and Herbert in the other.

“What do you do?” she asked me. “Are you a student, or an English teacher?”

I took my receipt and paused a moment before starting for the door.

“No,” I said. “I’m a pastor.” I pushed the door open and stepped out into the street. The trolley
went by across the street, turned a corner and headed away. A young man wearing a tie-dye shirt
and dirty pants passed me on his way toward the House of Blues. I nodded at him and smiled.

He smiled back.

I was asked by Ryan Bolger co-author of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, to write a theological reflection on the Presbyterian perspective of the oxymoron of “mainline emergence” for Fuller Seminary’s “Theology News and Notes.” I have to begin by prefacing that a similar phenomena is happening in other religions including Judaism as well as many other denominations including our ecclesiastical siblings the Disciple, the PCA, and the EPC. Perhaps discovering others in this Emergence will be more an opportunity for reconciliation and integration and less an opportunity for division amidst an already small tribe. This, at least, has been the fruit of my friendship with Emergent Village, a generative friendship of Missional leaders of all stripes, ideologies, and denominations.

I had the privilege to host a conversation with Emergent Village at Columbia Theological Seminary in January of 2007 about the topic of Mainline Emergence and we saw over 400 folks turn out to hear from Mainline Practitioners (Presbyterian, Episcopal, Luther, and Cooperative Baptists) as well as some of the usual suspects in the Emerging church. From that experience, my own encounter with many of my co-laborers at Presbymergent, and the various mainliners I’ve met through Emergent Village, I laid out a brief character sketch of the Presbyterian Emergents as I’ve seen them.

This is pretty liquid, and perhaps the list will give us/y’all at Presbymergent something to react with and build upon as we explore this new frontier. Emergents cultivate communities of hope:

• As Designers: adapting Order according to the in-breaking world of God, asking, “How does this space, polity, or liturgy function?”
• As Translators: integrating the good news arriving amidst both church culture and wider culture.
• As Joiners: Incarnationally involved in a context “already in progress” toward God’s reign.
• As Cultivators: tilling open space for alternatives to volunteer themselves.
• As Artisans: instead of chasing “fads,” deeply acquainted with contexts and media at hand and fashioning them into beautiful new visions.
• As Critics: humble about the socializing dangers of self-referential order.
• As Agitators: Mixing oil and water to reveal new gifts from the spirit as well as artificial preservatives or expired ingredients from yesterday’s faithful.

The Designer, Translator, Joiner, and Cultivator are explored in the Part One of this article in Fuller’s site. This online Part Two will explore the last three of these profiles: Artisan, Critic, and Agitator. I will then continue a discussion of the article and Bolger’s overall findings at my blog, Church as Art.

Artisans

Mainline Emergents are utilizing much more than simply their classic training to bring new possibilities to bear. Like artisans, they take the material context with utmost seriousness. The new reality, to which the church points, includes more than us, and more than our classic tradition. But pointing beyond ourselves is an awkward posture. Such pointing requires the nimbleness and flexibility to program with the goal of pouring our resources and imagination into God’s kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven. Yet all too often the traditional church (institutions of all sorts, mainline and evangelical) has reversed the worship and service goals of the church, attempting to pour God’s heavenly kingdom into the church. Clear examples of this are in the “target market” approaches to style in worship, fellowship, and educational programming. In these approaches worship leaders are charged to “tell” a message in a certain “style.” Artisans, on the other hand, rarely set out to “tell” something, or to copy a “style.” Day after day they pour their hope and discovery into the everyday mediums of acrylics or photo gels, and they allow the materials of wood or granite to speak to them.

In Emergence, “stylistic” differences are not new genres employed in an effort to become more relevant or progressive. After all, genres don’t come into existence to advance markets. Genres emerge naturally as artists build deeper relationships with their contexts. Romanticism gave way to Impressionism and Impressionism to Cubism and Cubism to Post-Impressionism because the changing context of these guilds required artisans to reach for authentic expression of the world’s story or their story. Without the Great Depression, the rise of the American tycoon, Marxism, and the Mexican revolutions- there would have been no Diego Rivera or Frida Kahlo. And the Art of Emerging Christian Community is similar: without the Jewish practices of Pentecost and the pluralistic Hellenization of the Greco-Roman Empire, the birthday of the church would not entail the culturally diverse cast that we readily associate with the Pentecost. Without the Athenian statue to Zeus reading, “In him we move and live and have our being” Paul may never have quoted this to teach the preeminence of our Lord Jesus. Emerging “styles” are as such, they emerge from a particular social context. Everything is in play.

The Way of Jesus is incarnation. Being the church has always involved the gospel en-fleshed in the context already in motion. Church is, by definition, contemporary with culture. Without the Gothenburg press, the emergence of the nation state, and the academic progress of the humanities, much of what we now call the Reformation would not be. These disciplines and shifts could not have emerged in a vacuum. Why is it, then, that we uncritically accept as authoritative so-called Presbyterian forms–be they parliamentary majority-rules processes, or per capita giving, or 16th century academic robes serving to model ‘minister as teaching elder?’ What if these very things are also meant for adaptation amidst an open-source, globalizing, conceptual age? Why can the intuitions of our various traditions not be recycled, put to use again, for today’s task of pointing to the new reality promised in Jesus the Christ? Emergence in the Mainline happens when churches give our resources and forms to the Spirit and receive them back as gifts for those ahead of us.

Critics

Artists are often their own worst critics. A finished work is open to scrutiny and is always something to be improved upon. And this will, perhaps, be the inevitable challenge that awaits Presbyterian Emergence. All too often I have watched seminary colleagues argue about their fixed commitments to forms or ideologies in utilitarian ways out of an unexamined commitment to a former precedent and to the exclusion of God’s future generosity to the World. Whether it be designated funding, membership, seminary support, or college ministries the conversation on the presbytery and General Assembly floor is waged using Tradition as the highest trump card. This polarizing self-referential practice will constrict our denominational institution until we suffocates.

Tangled in disagreement between the fixed meanings of Word and Sacrament, Presbyterians are becoming complicity committed to a fixed Order as our identity. In such cases we no longer consider ourselves as provisional, we no longer point beyond ourselves to a new reality in Christ. And so the Presbyterian Tradition has become the ultimate trump card, and whoever is holding it redefines it to her or his own advantage. We forget to learn from our words and the Word. And we forget that the very context and materials to which we appeal have changed. Just look at the difference between the sixteenth century Roman Catholic Church we reacted to during the Reformation and its practices, beliefs, and varied contexts today. Emergents are not arguing that Tradition is “old fashion,” “out of date,” or “irrelevant.” No, our argument concerns the way in which defensive appeals to Tradition functions.

In the previous half of this article I suggested that the work of architects and city planners known as adaptive reuse serve as a metaphor for our own work of faithfully ordering the nexus of word and sacrament. Lets return to the line of questioning from adaptive reuse, what does arguing from the precedence of tradition “do”? Such practices socialize us for something other than “faithfulness and usefulness… to God’s activity in the world” (G 3.0401c). Our arguments about precedent are generating a sub-culture, a people of a certain text–one that is past-tensed and that is self-preoccupied. Alternatively, Emergence attempts to draw upon the intuitions of our traditions to help us meet a coming culture by living in future tensed and others-focused ways.

The balance struck by this future tensed and other’s focused posture, is described in our Directory of Worship as simultaneously “consistent with God’s Word and open to the newness of God’s future” (W-3.1002). We aren’t going to bring back the balance between God’s word and God’s future as it was struck 50 or 300 year ago. We can only negotiate our calling “to a new openness” today, while being critical of “the possibilities and perils of [our] institutional forms” as it comes to us, as potentially perilous inventions are handed off from generation to generation, context to context. There is no pre-determined, auto-pilot, outsourced way “to ensure the faithfulness and usefulness of these forms to God’s activity in the world” (G 3.0401c). It is our daily task.

This is also my caution to those who would like the Emergent movement to serve as yet another special interest group lobbying for a certain Presbyterian future. The very existence of Emerging Mainline communities and the alternative forms that preceded us serve as witnesses to the deconstructive character of the gospel introduced by Christ into culture. But, if perceived as renewal movement, Mainline Emergence will find itself dependent upon the very structure it must hold loosely.

Agitator

Often, Mainline Emergents are agitators, in the best sense. Like the chef who mixes vintage vinegars and with heirloom oils to get just the right dressing, Mainline Emergents find themselves mixing two very different things to get the desired hybrid.

I mentioned earlier that new possibilities can be cultivated by making open spaces. While this may be the case, elements such as blank space, silence, and altering the expected can be risky business when good church-goers attend with the usual expectations. Agitation is not always a welcomed leadership characteristic.

During a year as designated pastor with a 45-year-old congregation exploring transformation, we drastically reshaped our worship space and our worship gathering. We set up all of our chairs to circle around a communion table, leadership was shared, and the week’s leaders sat with the congregation, we stretched into prayer postures we had learned through Chi Gong, we handed out sketch pads, and we provided times for discussion. The introduction of these practices and shapes to the worship gathering functioned by putting worship attendees in play in ways they had not been before. While these practices and shapes were deeply theological, they were also open and decentralized, and often very disorienting. One eighty-year-old sports buff–who confessed to me once that he was addicted to sports because “they were the one thing in the world that could completely change overnight”–said, after one such adapted worship gathering, “I’ve never sat in silence like that before… this gives me a lot to think about.” The mixture of the expected with the openness was an informative and yet disorienting agitation in the settled space of predictable worship forms.

I joined this congregation hoping that emergence and congregational revitalization could happen simultaneously. I was right, in part. They did happen simultaneously. But what I and the congregation’s leaders underestimated was the difference in leadership required to walk a congregation through taking up their crosses and at the same time encouraging them to discover new gifts. Every existing congregation is called to conversion, to daily take up their cross. And so the leadership of existing congregations must courageously stair death in the face, and resolve to give themselves away to God’s World, before any sort of transformation can be truly realized. If a congregation cannot admit their imminent death, they will be paralyzed by fear, like Harold Crick in the middle of the movie. Agitators intuitively push this limit and end up in new situations with blank canvases because of it.

Living into our provisional shape is risky business; it disappoints many who need mainline denominationalism to operate as stable and fixed. One example of this is a couple who wanted to celebrate their marriage during the Lord’s Day worship gathering. I met on several occasions with the couple as well as the worship committee to order the ceremony and the entire worship gathering for that day. The event, however, was intentionally decentralized. The “function” of the marriage ceremony was to join this couple in their promises before God and to enact the future of a promised humanity joined with God in Christ’s Way of fidelity and love. While the couple did not want me to sign the marriage license as an authority of the state, I did announce them as husband and wife after their shared vows, prayer, and the whole church community laid hands on them. However, a question arose shortly thereafter as to the marriage’s legitimacy, for I did not “pronounce” them man and wife using the phrase “by the authority vested in me by….”. This seemingly insignificant omission was disorienting for those who found comfort in an expected form, the posture of authoritative pronouncements. And yet our order is not to function as comfort but as openness to the Spirit’s guidance and God’s future.

A third example comes from the committee I mentioned in part one who have partnered with three emerging fellowships in the greater Atlanta area. In a desire to remain open to the possibilities of new ways of belonging to the denomination, the committee chose to use the language of midwifery and surrogate motherhood to describe our oversight. Our committee is reintroducing to “connectional Presbyterianism” the practices of conversation and co-learning. While the precedents of our Reformed intuitions are being lifted up we are also being forced by real ministry situations to address expired ingredients and artificial preservatives introduced to these precedents over the centuries. Old settled categories of membership, evangelism, and liturgy are being brought back into play. Agitation exposes these possibilities and, as such, they are the source of many growing pains.

For the sake of the world

The Presbyterian Emergents that I continue to work with and learn from have not ended up where they are as a career move. Instead, they have stepped into the imminent death that is the church’s and continued through to ways of seeking the Way of Jesus and translating the intuitions of Presbyterianism into the here-and-now. Our protagonist, Harold Crick, had to learn the same thing. He had to give up. After negotiating with his narrator, after reading the manuscript, he recognized and was inspired by the beauty of that future for which he was designed. He had the courage to step into his end and to live with courage and generosity.

For better or worse I speak in a Reformed tongue. I can’t help it, it is in my blood as far back as my Dutch ancestors. And after seminary and years of ministry in the PC(USA) I still imagine possible Presbyterian ways for emerging communities to intentionally order their contexts with practices as followers of Jesus. And I continue to find more folks who are doing the same. They are as varied as designers, translators, joiners, cultivators, artisans, critics, and agitators. I think that these are the Mainline Emergents: those hearing the Narrator tell us that our days are numbered, that our end is imminent, and yet adapting all we’ve been given to make a life in relationship with tradition and context out of love for God’s wider world.

——————–

Troy Bronsink makes a life with his wife and daughter in Capitol View, an inner-city neighborhood of Atlanta where he is a worship consultant, community organizer, singer-songwriter, and pastor. He speaks, writes, and consults with churches from churchasart: a mashup of emerging missionallity, spiritual formation, and the arts.

Troy is a contributing author to Baker Books’ Manifesto of Hope, a coordinating group member of Emergent Village and Presbymergent.org, a leader in the Emerging Church Committee of Greater Atlanta Presbytery, and organizer of conferences including Columbia Theological Seminary’s “Mainline Emergent/s” and Emergent Village’s “Brueggemann and the Bible.” Troy is a PC(USA) minister and has been an active part of this expression of Presbyterianism for ten years.

For the first part of this article visit Fuller Theology News and Notes. To read an interview with Troy Bronsink and Ryan Bloger about this and other Mainline Emergents visit Troy’s blog: www.churchasart.com.

An experience I had recently with one of our community members has me thinking about how we name ministries or programs or events in the life of the church.  We participate in a men’s retreat with several other churches from the Northeast.  The weekend is simply called, “The Northeast Men’s Retreat.”  I was speaking with a guy who was very reluctant to sign-up and join our group to go.  The reason he was hesitant was because he had no idea what a ”retreat” was and what you do on it.  This friend did not grow up in the church.  The word “retreat” was not part of his vocabulary and because he didn’t understand the concept at the outset, convincing him to go would be an uphill battle.

Now I assume emergents are pretty cautious when it comes to naming things.  We choose our words carefully.  We use ”initiative” over ”program,” “spiritual formation” over “discipleship,” “learning community” over “bible study,” ”teams” over ”committees,” and “missional” over “missions.”  Even in our word-choices, however, I wonder how accessible our new nomenclature really is.  For the post-Christian in our community, there is an irrelevance around new descriptors because they are in reaction or in relationship to something in the past that is not part of their vocabulary or experience.  For example, the word “missional” may mean very little to this one because the word “mission” or “seeker” means very little.  Even for the experienced church-goer or follower of Jesus who has experienced what has come before, there tends to be an inaccessability when it comes to the language emplored by the emerging or missional or whatchamacallit church. 

An overarching question for me (one I am tackling in my doctoral project) is how do you make a conversation and its lexicon, something which has been dominated by academic theologians, author-pastors, and high level church leaders, how do you make it accessible to everyday folk?  This is a larger question which I would love to hear your reflections on.   Other questions I have are: In a brand-driven culture like ours is it possible to be post-nomenclature?  Do you or your communities get hung up on what to call things and when you do name something, what that something really means? How do you navigate the bridge between the name and its meaning in a post-literate and post-Christendom context? I would love to hear your reflections!

That little essay was born out of the struggle that I was going through at the time as I began to identify more with Emergent or Missional theology and ecclesiology and sought to lead the church to which I was called accordingly. At the time, the church I was serving could be defined as containing both “emerging” and “existing” traits. On Sunday mornings the existing aspect of my church met for worship, and on Sunday evenings there was an emergent worship gathering/community that regularly met in the same space. These communities could not have been any different, but they both formed and informed one another in interesting and exciting ways. It was good to reflect on my struggle as an emerging leader in an existing church, though. Because of that time of reflection I came to understand that in many ways I was embodying the very struggle in which my church had become engaged. My efforts to put my feelings into words was a part of that struggle—an effort to write a story that was far from complete. But there was something unsatisfying in that effort, to be honest. It felt like I (and to some extent my church as well) had come to the end of a chapter, but didn’t know how to finish the last sentence in a way that felt good and right. We had both come a long way, but not far enough.

In the end, neither one of us could put a period at the end of that sentence.

When I wrote that first essay, I knew that my time at my emerging/existing church was going to be cut short. The senior pastor of the church accepted another call, and I became the interim pastor/acting head of staff for over a year. All the while, I was also exploring other opportunities and trying to discern where God might be calling me to serve. I imagined and dreamed about the possibilities of serving a community of faith that was already part of the “emerging conversation,” a place where the word “missional” did not have to be unpacked. I dreamed of a place of diversity–in worship, in mission, in ministry and constituency. These dreams carried me through some fairly tough times of doubt and uncertainty, but they were my dreams, and no one else’s.

God’s dreams for the community of faith I was destined to serve were quite different from mine, as it turned out. I was called to serve an historic, traditional, established, corporate, existing congregation in a small town in Central Florida. I was called, and I knew deep in my heart that I would go as soon as I heard the invitation. When I realized that God’s dreams for me did not include any of the things I thought I wanted for myself, I grieved a little, to be honest. Further, shortly after I accepted the call to serve my historic, traditional, established church, I was contacted by three different churches who were extremely interested in calling me as their pastor. They had been the three churches who were at the top of my wish list when I was dreaming of the kind of community of faith I [selfishly] longed to serve.

As I pondered all of this and grieved a bit more over what might have been, a friend of mine told me a story from her own life. She said that her father, a Presbyterian minister, once visited the “perfect” church to determine if he was being called to serve there. Her mother loved it, she remembered. The manse was large, the church was in a beautiful mountain community in North Carolina, there were no financial worries, it was well staffed and the congregation was happy and motivated. But her father declined the church’s offer. My friend remembered him saying, “I don’t want to go somewhere that doesn’t need me, and they don’t need me.”

Then I realized that the period had just been placed at the end of that troublesome sentence.

The first pastor of my church was called 125 years ago. His name was [seriously] The Rev. Dr. James Hair Potter. You can’t make this stuff up. There is a huge Tiffany-style stained glass window in the sanctuary–a sanctuary that was dedicated in 1914. Dr. Potter’s picture is in a glass case in the parlor [complete with huge wingback chairs, coffee tables and large oil paintings depicting deer, landscapes, etc.]. He was an austere-looking fellow with a beard that reached all the way down to his waist. Potter served my church for 20 years. I think about him sometimes when I stand by myself in the sanctuary preparing for my sermon. You can’t help but think about him, really. The stained glass in his honor is huge, beautiful and stately. I like looking at it.

A friend of mine who was part of the emergent worship gathering I used to lead visited a worship service at my new church recently. As I greeted her before the service she looked at me all decked out in my robe and colorful stole, peered at the pipe organ and all of the old wooden pews, the Potter stained glass, and said to me, “I cannot picture you in a church like this.” I considered what she said as I made my way up to the somewhat high chancel [six feet above all controversy] to begin the service. She was right. I would have never pictured myself in a church “like this” either, but God did, and I am glad that God has a more active imagination than I do.

I happen to love my new church…a lot. I understand a bit more about what God has called me to do here. You see, I’ve spent a lot of time talking and thinking about what it means to be an emergent church leader. I’ve led what people have come to call “emergent” worship services [which is really a misnomer, if you ask me], and I have had long, passionate discussions and debates with colleagues on what the Church needs to do to become more missional. And God in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy has seen fit to make me put my money where my mouth is.

This thing that has come to be known as the Emergent Church has moved from idea to reality in so many ways, but still is hard for most of us, who care about these things, to define, and even more difficult to put our arms around. I recently read that some of the pioneers of the emergent movement have broken from it because it was too all-encompassing, too ecumenical, too open and affirming of different beliefs, Biblical interpretations, blah, blah, blah [indicates my impatience and frustration]. But I see things a bit differently. I feel so strongly that in order for the Church to be shaken from her sleep she must be missional and relational, embodying what it means to be the Bride of Christ and evidence of the kingdom of God on earth.

But the Church has become fearful and anxious in recent years—fueled in large part by huge declines in membership, conflicts over theology and the interpretation of Scripture and yes, even by the emergence of new ways of understanding what it means to be the Church. Fear and anxiety [as we have seen in our own country over the past 7 years] can result in irrational behavior, acts of radical self-preservation and perhaps even destruction. Edwin Friedman prophetically wrote of these kinds of things in his book, “A Failure of Nerve.” Friedman stated that when good leaders dare to rise up and take a stand for what is right and healthy, our sick and anxious society does everything that it can to sabotage them. In order to be an effective leader, according to Friedman, one must become a non-anxious, reflective presence–a voice that speaks the truth, and works to help the community, culture, society become healthy enough to fight off the diseases that plague it. A leader like this requires the kind of nerve to remain steadfast where they are called, even though it would be easier to retreat, easier to find a corner of the world where everyone tends to agree, speaks the same language… understands what it means to be missional.

Theologian Wesley Carr once wrote that the Church needs to be formed and informed by the Spirit of God that is calling to it not only from the past, but the future. For me helping my congregation truly see this is an epistemological task. I know beyond any doubt that I have been called to my historic, traditional, historic church to journey with them as they emerge from their past and move toward a new and uncertain future. I desire so fervently that my church will begin to see itself differently, will understand what it means to be the Church, the very hands and feet of Christ in the world. I pray that this desire, this call, will not be weakened by my own fear and anxiety. I pray that I will have the strength to stand and to speak the truth in love. I pray that this emerging leader will be able to carefully guide this existing church. I pray that I will be a good and loving pastor. I pray.